Decided to watch a Mr. Nightmare for the first time in a long time. It sat there in a stew of other inputs that represented the backbone of my creative stew for the day. I love how Nightmare’s voice helps ease the story into reality and, for me, it helps me to get a sense of the creepy and decide from that creepy what worked for me and what didn’t in order to bring into life some creepy of my own. I am not very good at straight horror, but suspense and terror are important elements of the kind of writing I do. So, I like to be up on what works and try to get better at it.
True terror comes from situations that are entirely recognizable and devolve in a way that feels all too real but at the same time would be horrible if they every happened. In other words, fiction. The joy of fiction for me is bringing people to a place where they can identify with the characters and what is going on with those characters and, in the end, to be able to think about what choices they would make and what choices they did make in life. That is the power of fiction.