{"id":189,"date":"2012-12-24T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/2012\/12\/24\/guest-post-danger-in-the-dark\/"},"modified":"2012-12-24T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-24T15:00:00","slug":"guest-post-danger-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2012\/12\/24\/guest-post-danger-in-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Danger in the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Rayne Hall<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Storm Dancer\u00a0<\/i>(dark epic fantasy novel),<\/span>\u00a0Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>(mild horror stories),<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Six Historical Tales<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>(short stories),<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Six Quirky Tales<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>(humorous fantasy stories),<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Writing Fight Scenes<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Writing Scary Scenes<\/i>\u00a0<\/span>(instructions for authors).<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the\u00a0Ten Tales<\/i>\u00a0series of multi-author short story anthologies:\u00a0Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic\u00a0<\/i>and more.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Her short\u00a0online classes for writers<\/a>\u00a0intense with plenty of personal feedback. Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing about Magic and Magicians, The Word Loss Diet and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
For more information about Rayne Hall go to her\u00a0website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Does your story have a scene of danger or horror? Is it scary enough? Do you want your readers to fear for your main character’s safety? Here’s a simple technique on how to make a scene seriously frightening:<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Turn the lights off.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Darkness makes people nervous, and everything is much more frightening in the dark. Can you change the time or location of your scene so it happens in darkness? The darker, the better. Absolute darkness is the scariest, when the protagonist sees nothing at all and has to grope their way. However, partial darkness can be spooky, too, especially with flickering lights and shadows. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n
Some ideas:\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

A windowless room<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Night time<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Drawn curtains<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

A power-cut<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Fuel shortage<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Energy conservation<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Candles burn out<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Wind blows candle<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Lantern falls into abyss<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Bullet shatters light-bulb<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Canopy of trees blocks out the sun<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

New moon<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Clouds veil the moon<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Solar eclipse<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Thick smoke<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Sandstorm<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Lights turned off for love-making<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Deep cave<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Hiding in a dark closet<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Flash-light battery dies<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
If the storyline permits, let the darkness increase gradually:<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Dusk gives way to night<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

The camp-fire burns down<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Clouds thicken<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
In the dark, humans are deprived of the sense on which they rely most: seeing. Other senses sharpen, especially hearing. Your point-of-view character suddenly hears a lot more noises. These sounds add to the scary effect. In the next lesson, we’ll explore how to make the most of sounds.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
If the darkness is absolute, the point-of-view character relies on her sense of touch as she gropes her way around. Describe how the walls, the furniture, the trees feel to her fingers, and how the ground feels underfoot. Smells also become more noticeable in the dark, and you can give the reader an intense experience by mentioning a smell or two.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Darkness often brings low temperatures. Chills can increase the scare factor, so mention the cool breeze brushing your heroine’s arms, the cellar’s icy stone walls, the cold water dripping from the ceiling of the cave, the chill creeping through the thin soles of her shoes.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
This technique suits almost any story, whether you want to send mild shivers across the skin of the paranormal romance reader,\u00a0 chill the thriller reader’s bones, or make the horror fan’s heart thump. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Does your work-in-progress contain a frightening scene? Could you make it scarier by darkening the setting?\u00a0 If you want feedback for an idea or have questions, leave a comment and I’ll reply. I’ll be around for a week and I enjoy answering questions.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rayne Hall\u00a0has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include\u00a0Storm Dancer\u00a0(dark epic fantasy novel),\u00a0Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3\u00a0(mild horror stories),\u00a0Six Historical Tales\u00a0(short stories),\u00a0Six Quirky Tales\u00a0(humorous fantasy stories),\u00a0Writing Fight Scenes\u00a0and\u00a0Writing Scary Scenes\u00a0(instructions for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,260,419,447,586,589],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improve-your-novel","category-inspiration","category-rayne-hall","category-scary-scenes","category-writing-scenes","category-writing-tips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}