The Writers Studio

Online Writing Literary Horror is a six-week class open to fiction writers and poets, including new and returning Writers Studio students. No experience in horror writing is necessary although an interest in the genre is recommended.

Long before Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus after dreaming of a pallid figure stirring on a slab, tales and poems that terrify have gripped our imagination and excited our admiration. Joyce Carol Oates, an award-winning weaver of macabre stories, said, “Gothic fiction is the freedom of the imagination, the triumph of the unconscious.” The best writers in this tradition endure because they employ literary craft techniques and carefully honed narrative voices or persona narrators to bring their dark material to life. There’s no single formula for literary horror, which can traffic in the supernatural or remain grounded in gritty real-world terrors. Horror may arise from an external force (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) or from within the human psyche (Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

Students will receive weekly exercises that highlight selections by established writers in this tradition such as Shirley Jackon, Stephen King, Christina Sng, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ray Bradbury. Analysis will be provided on techniques these writers employ including unreliable persona narrators, physical description to evoke ominous mood, and matter-of-fact style used to lead readers to a disturbing truth. Students can choose to respond with either poetry or prose as they produce a two-page exercise based on the week’s model, trying out the suggested techniques on their own unique material.

During a two-hour, Google Meet session, students will present their work and receive feedback from their fellow classmates and from the teacher. The last fifteen minutes of the class will be spent reading and discussing the following week’s exercise, using the Writers Studio method of analyzing persona and narrative technique.

The Google Meet sessions are not recorded, so attending class is required to present your assignment and receive feedback.