What Makes a Horror Writer?

Psychologists says we (humans) like to be scared (in controlled environments, like horror movies) because it gives us some power over our fears, which we don't really have. Ok, I can see that. So that's why people read horror, but why write it? And what makes a good writer?

Well, I for one, can say I've learned from experience. Literally. Back before cutting on yourself was cool it used to be a red flag to doctors of abuse. I used to slice open the inside of my legs and under my arms so no one would notice what a freak I was. It was some way of trying to get the hurt inside to come to the outside. It never worked, not really. But it was all I had. Then there was piercing and tattooing, which was more attractive and socially more acceptable, but, still, only mildly effective. Somehow writing, becoming someone else and yet laying it all out there at the same time, was like vomiting up my past in some way I didn't have to swallow it down again. Of course, it didn't go away forever. It never does. But when my fingers hit the kets it's someone else's life, for a little while, and that is freedom. And when I read it, it's art, and that's pride. Neither of which I get much of otherwise.

Does that make me a good writer? That's up to you, the readers. I do think the best horror writers (Poe being among the finest in my book) are those who understand horror the best and one only understands horror by having met it, face to face.

Or by spending the entire afternoon with my dad, either way, they're interchangeable...

On the Origin of the Species

Homo sanguineous

Hundreds of generations before the forefathers of the human species first stood upright, there developed a carnivorous ape (that modern humans now believe extinct)

This carnivorous ape had to compete with the likes of the Saber-tooth Tiger for its dinner, and so its survival was against the odds. So is the crap shoot called evolution. But somewhere within that grouping of carnivorous ape, one, or perhaps dozens or hundreds, realized that its survival depended upon the most drastic forms of adaption and so it began to feed on its own (that is to say on other apes) from which humans would eventually descend.

Branches off of branches of the apes evolutionary tree, some fragment of the descending chain from that carnivorous ape saw the clumsy, upright walking ancestors of the human race as easy prey. Being apes themselves, these creatures evolved to blend in with their cousins, so to make hunting easier. When the ancestors of the humans took to the water, these apes followed, losing their fur and gaining a scant amount of fat as insulation.

As the ancestors of the humans ate shellfish, and so developed larger brains, these apes ate them so their intelligence grew at even greater speeds. But as humans evolved to use their brains over their muscles, and so grew weaker as they transformed, the hunters of humans remained strong, always besting their prey.

And so, as evolution demands, the strongest of the strongest and the smartest of the smart were those that were most likely to breed, and so pass on those traits and enhance them.

As human evolution made them smarter and more cautious, so the hunters became clever, adapting to lure in their prey with the camouflage of appearance. When that failed them, or when prey was scarce, they compensated by feeding from corpses, on not only the rotting flesh but the precious marrow buried deep within the bones. The hunter's teeth adapted to compensate, forming strong and extended fangs that could puncture the bone and suck out the concentrated marrow within.

Overtime one line of hunters grew to drink only the marrow, and then the blood that the marrow produced. This line mimicked the humans, becoming their perfect image, to be able to walk, unnoticed, among them and so easily gather their prey.

It was from this line that the sanguineous descend, perfectly adapting to hunt Homo sapiens, and only Homo sapiens, upon whom they depend entirely for life....

Review from Fresh Fiction

http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=29963

The Pet
Kris Fox

Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
Posted June 21, 2011

Romance Paranormal

Confronting one's own mortality comes in many forms. For some, it is seeing the first wrinkle. For others, it is when friends and loved ones face illness and death. For Sunshine, a symbol of her mortality is a single white hair. Some women would shoo dark thoughts aside or rush out for some chemical help from dear Miss Clairol. For Sunshine, however, ruminations of mortality run fast and furious. Although she sees --or has been trained to see-- herself as another of the faceless masses whose members live unremarkable lives, her youthful dreams have a fragile and brittle quality; her hopes are like shards of ice that tremble when touched with breath. Her intuitive/empathic nature allows her to see the profundity, the sublime, and the degradation of humanity, and sometimes that knowledge is more than one person can bear.

Sunshine never asked to be anyone's salvation, nor did she emerge one morning from her isolation choosing to become someone's victim, but events have a way of happening despite one's best intentions. She was hunted, cornered--- then a hunter more fearsome than her potential assaulters could ever have dreamed stepped in to rescue her. Caleb can be termed a vampire, but the term does not encompass the reality of his existence; he is no B-horror movie villain in a cape or a reanimated corpse. Caleb has his own agenda, and it never included entwining his fate with that of a woman named Sunshine. However, his cyclic existence of hunting the hunters while the hunters hunt him has been skewed: He is compelled to keep Sunshine safe despite this disruption to both of their lives and personalities. Meanwhile, his analysis of his own motivations leave him confused; he has feelings for Sunshine that he doesn't understand, feeling they are more than that of a hyper- evolved being towards a pet, an idea demonstrated by Adam, a hunter's, perspective about and actions toward his own pet. In addition, Sunshine has to reconcile her self- perceptions with the reality of the savior-murderer in whose company she is thrust.

This multi-perspective and multi-historic narrative winds through themes of victimization, duty versus emotional needs, the apparent truths at the core of mythological fears, a person or creature's "nature," familial ties, and the dangers of closeness, either with another being or within one's own mind. This is dark, but many parts of it are beautiful. The reader must be aware that this narrative, or-more accurately- these narratives, demonstrate an uncommon prose form that rejects the slickness, the bluntness, of many modern works. Instead, readers must be prepared for a work that may resonate with fans of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, or the intricacy of Montaigne's speculations.

Correction on ISBN

Ok, so I'm going to use being new to all this as my excuse but the initial ISBN was for the ebook which actually has a different ISBN than the book itself (like that's intuitive) so the ISBN for the book (as in print) is ISBN: 9781849915083

Yeah - so that's like clear as mud...

The Pet is now available in Print!

The Pet is now available in print through Amazon or Barnes & Noble bookstores!

ISBN # 978-1-84991-282-2

http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Kris-Fox/dp/1849915083/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306694661&sr=8-1

The Pet is now available on Kindle!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pet/dp/B004APA4IO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&quid=1300786344&sr=8-1

Print copies should hit the bookstores in May!

The Pet is to be published!

It would seem I am to be one of the fortunate new authors to be published in 2011. The Pet will be available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and several other bookstore chains worldwide in May. Keep checking this site for updates on locations and release dates. You can also get more information from the publishers website -

http://chipmunkapublishing.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1713

Where the text is currently available as a PDF download only.