I have a new story out! Mr. Buttons, a horror flash piece, is out in the October issue of Flash Fiction Online. It’s alongside many other wonderful stories so please read them all!
I never thought I would write horror. I’m not really a horror writer. When I was younger I used to associate horror with Steven King and HP Lovecraft, neither of which really spoke to me.
But looking back, I realize I grew up with Japanese ghost stories, which laid down the foundations of dark fantasy for me. And I’m often drawn to dark psychological horror. I recently read and loved Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales, for example, and I love Gothic stories.
To be honest, every time I sit down to write these days my stories tend to move towards horror because that seems to only appropriate response to the horrors happening in the world right now.
Mr. Buttons emerged first as a dream. In it, I was the protagonist (the little boy) and I woke up with terror wrapped around my throat and chest. I immediately wrote down the story. (I highly recommend this, by the way. Keep a notebook by your bed and write down stuff as soon as you wake up.)
Then I wrote a draft of it and sent it to my critique group. Based on their notes, I revised it and sent it to Flash Fiction Online, where Suzanne Vincent gave me excellent notes about the protagonist. Since it had emerged from a dream, I think I hadn’t really had a chance to nail down the details of the main character from the perspective of a writer. I’d inhabited the little boy’s body, so I was merging myself with him, and the result was rather amorphous. Suzanne’s notes helped me distance myself from the character and rewrite the story with a specific little boy in mind, rather than a vessel for my dream-self. Thanks to her it’s a much stronger story. It’s a wonderful, supremely valuable experience working with a good editor.
Anyway, happy October and I hope you enjoy the story!