Episode 134 - How Horror is the Genre of Hope with Michaelbrent Collings
May 17, 2022
This week on The Indy Author Podcast, Michaelbrent Collings talks about HOW HORROR IS THE GENRE OF HOPE. He discusses how horror externalizes right and wrong, using genre as a marketing tool, respecting audience expectations, pushing boundaries appropriately, the final effect of the story, and how art creates community.
Do any of those topics pique your interest? Check out 2 MINUTES OF INDY, where over the week following the airing of the episode, you'll find brief video clips from the interview on each of those topics. You can also catch up on some highlights of previous episodes there.
Do any of those topics pique your interest? Check out 2 MINUTES OF INDY, where over the week following the airing of the episode, you'll find brief video clips from the interview on each of those topics. You can also catch up on some highlights of previous episodes there.
While he is best known for horror and was recently voted one of the top 100 Greatest All-Time Horror Writers in a Ranker poll of over 15,000 readers, Michaelbrent Collings has also written internationally-bestselling thriller, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, humor, young adult, and middle grade works, and romance. In addition to being a bestselling novelist, Michaelbrent is the only person who has ever been a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award, a Dragon Award, and a RONE Award, and he and his work have been reviewed and/or featured on everything from Publishers Weekly to "Scream Magazine" to NPR.
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"We have that power as creators, not just to write books or draw or paint. The essence of art is the creation of community. And if you're the creator of the art, you get to choose what kind of community you will dedicate yourself to creating." —Michaelbrent Collings
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Links
Opening Segment
The Indy Author's Guide to Podcasting for Authors AI NARRATED AUDIO on PayHip
For ID3 tag correction and file renaming in bulk: https://dbpoweramp.com/
Michaelbrent's Links:
Get a free MbC book at bit.ly/mbcfree
facebook.com/michaelbrentcollings
twitter.com/mbcollings
Youtube.com/michaelbrentcollingsauthor
Website: WrittenInsomnia.com
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
The Indy Author's Guide to Podcasting for Authors AI NARRATED AUDIO on PayHip
For ID3 tag correction and file renaming in bulk: https://dbpoweramp.com/
Michaelbrent's Links:
Get a free MbC book at bit.ly/mbcfree
facebook.com/michaelbrentcollings
twitter.com/mbcollings
Youtube.com/michaelbrentcollingsauthor
Website: WrittenInsomnia.com
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Michaelbrent Collings! Hey, Michaelbrent, how are you doing?
[00:00:05] Michaelbrent: I'm doing well. How are you?
[00:00:07] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, while he is best known for horror and was recently voted one of the top 100 greatest all-time horror writers in the Ranker poll of over 15,000 readers, Michaelbrent Collings has also written internationally best-selling thriller, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, humor, young adult, and middle grade works and romance. In addition to being a bestselling novelist, Michaelbrent is the only person who has ever been a finalist for Bram Stoker Award, a Dragon Award, and a RONE Award.
[00:00:37] And he and his work have been reviewed and are featured on everything from "Publishers Weekly" to "Scream" magazine to NPR. And how many people can say that, that they've been in "Scream" and NPR?
[00:00:48] Michaelbrent: Just two.
[00:00:49] Matty: Really? Who's the other one?
[00:00:52] Michaelbrent: I'm just guessing, statistics.
[00:00:55] Matty: There must be somebody else. That'll be an assignment for the listeners, go find one in "Scream" and NPR.
[00:01:03] So I invited Michaelbrent Collings onto the podcast because I have been an interested listener when he has appeared on other podcasts, and one of the things that has been sort of a subtext of many of the things that I've seen or read is how horror has been sort of therapeutic for you.
[00:01:20] So I'm titling this episode, how horror is the genre of hope, which I lifted right out of a quote from Michaelbrent. And I wanted to start out asking you, since you write in so many genres, in what way is horror the genre of hope?
How is Horror the Genre of Hope?
[00:01:36] Michaelbrent: Well, that's a really good question. And it's great because it surprises so many people when I say that, especially because like I'm a church-going person, and so I'll be up, literally like I'll teach Sunday school, and someone will say, what does he do for a living, in a normal life? They're like, oh, he writes scary books, and it freaks people out. And then I explain that there's not really, the perceived dichotomy is just that it's a perceived one. They really fit really well together, because the main focus of horror is you're trying to scare people. You're trying to get out there and raise their blood pressure and freak them out some way or another. And the way that we do that is, we posit a universe where everything has gone wrong for the main characters and then by extension, for the reader or the watcher or the listener.
[00:02:17] And the underpinning of that, then the implicit agreement we have, is that there's a right way to do things. And so from its very start, horror to work, has to exist in a universe where there's a right way. There's a wrong way. There's a good and there's a bad. And so when you allow for that kind of a situation, then you allow for what horror does best, which is talking about stories where if you make the right decision, you can get through it. If you are not the idiot who runs into the basement when the ax murderer is following you, you might be able to survive or, the kind of 1980s aesthetic of, if you don't sleep with someone in the woods and smoke the pot, you might make it out all right, because you're making moral choices. And as much as we joke about that, it really is kind of a fundamental underpinning of horror, is that there is a right way to do things, and doing it right increases your chance of getting through it all.
[00:03:17] And so, vicariously, we take that into ourselves and it's really, it's a nice thing because in a world where so much is outside of our control and so much goes wrong every day, it's a comforting feeling, it's a hopeful feeling to look at a story and say, isn't that nice, that it's not just outside actions all hit me like a mountain. It's that I have a modicum of control about my fate, where if I make good decisions and push towards this right universe, whatever that is for you, I can get closer.
[00:03:48] And of course, there's lots of horror stories where the bad guys win, but again, even those, they only work because the filmmaker or the author says, look, here's the right way, and here's where it all went dreadfully wrong. So the author tells this story, and everyone dies, but the person who never dies doesn't matter what story it is, is the reader. And so the reader is left with the sense of, I survived. I made it through, I got through this horrific event and maybe today will be a little bit easier because of it.
How Horror Externalizes Right and Wrong
Matty: That is very interesting because I would've guessed that somewhere in that discussion, you would have mentioned the word catharsis, which I don't think you did, that there's this idea that we all have this sort of bubbling cauldron of horror within us, and by writing about it, you let it out. Is that intentionally not something that you experience or is it just something you don't bring up because everybody says it?
[00:04:43] Michaelbrent: Well, no, it's neither. It's just, it's a secondary effect for me. Catharsis, that's not horror-centric, you're going to get catharsis in any good story because the best stories, they're not just about the world of the story. They're about the world of the audience. It's like all of the stories that we create as storytellers are little houses. And when you walk past a house, you can't tell everything about it, but you can tell something about the designer, you can tell something about the neighborhood, and you certainly, if you look at yourself, can examine a little bit of your reasons for responding the way you do to that house.
[00:05:18] And so any story, any little house like that, is going to have the potential for catharsis. Like I'm going to be able to understand myself a little bit more deeply, and it doesn't matter if that's horror or if that's science fiction or romance or anything, it can provide those high stakes, those brushes with what matter, because for any story to work also has to have something matter, it has to have a value because otherwise, who cares? And so you can get catharsis like that anywhere. But horror has this really specific thing where we're going to take it as a base, fundamental concept that there is a right and a wrong, and sometimes that's like a big, cosmic right and wrong in the religious or theological sense, and sometimes it's just like, hey, most people worldwide agree it is not cool to chase after teens in a forest with an ax.
[00:06:09] And it sounds silly, but that's something that we lose because there's so many voices coming in at all times. There's so much noise, with social media, with the 24-hour news cycle, with entertainment at our fingers, that it's hard to remember rights and wrongs sometimes. Everybody's constantly telling us now what really matters is finding your truth, and what really matters is being yourself, and that's great if you live on a desert island, and you can't impact anyone. But we live in a society, most of us. And so we have to find ways to navigate that. We have to find ways to say, I think this is right to my best understanding, and I think this is wrong. And horror externalizes that, and it allows for some really interesting thought processes that way.
[00:06:53] Matty: I probably should have asked this question right off the bat, but
Genre as Marketing Tool
[00:06:55] Matty: What for you distinguishes horror from other genres, like say, thrillers?
[00:07:00] Michaelbrent: It's a good question, especially because you look at like Amazon's bestseller list and there doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason. And so I always ask people if they're talking about like horror, thriller, romance as a series of things that they expect to have in the story or as marketing. Because really, if you're talking about genre, for me, my most useful analysis of a genre is which virtual bookshelf will my books sell the best on? So I'm more interested in having my books on this spot on Amazon because I just sell more units than over there. And that's just a marketing question. And that's very fungible. It's kind of up to the author. In fact, if you look at the horror best-sellers on Amazon, like I would say 50% of them are not horror at all. They're erotic paranormal stuff that the authors have placed there because they'll sell more units that way. So there's that.
[00:07:55] If you're talking about like distinguishing characteristics of audience expectations, I think the biggest difference is, thriller, you go in with someone and there's always the threat that the main character, the every man or every woman, might not make it out. They've got to pit their wits against the monster. Horror starts off more usually with, somebody has already not made it out. We've established that this monster has killed in the past and will kill again, and so it's much more an elevated stakes situation.
[00:08:26] Other than that, they're very overlapping, which is why you get people like Dean Koontz, who has been slotted as a horror writer for much of his career. But if you really look at it, it's mostly just techno thriller stuff. Conspiracy techno thrillers are his bread and butter. And then beyond those kinds of base questions, does the monster, may it kill, or has it killed already? The big effect of horror is, was your audience scared? I'm always delighted when I get a one-star review on Amazon that says, it was too scary, I couldn't finish. I'm like, well, that sounds like a five-star review to me.
[00:09:01] Matty: Yeah, you're going to sell a lot of books to a certain audience based on that one-star review, for sure.
[00:09:05] Michaelbrent: Yeah, yeah. So there's, I guess the long answer shortened is, it depends on what you're talking about marketing, in which case it's wherever I can get away selling books. If it's talking about the tropes, then just thriller and horror have a lot in common, but horror tends to be deadlier, either physically or existentially. You're talking about, instead of running from a nuclear bomb, you're talking about damnation, which is a much bigger existential threat. And then the effect on the reader, which is a thriller, you're like oh, I'm so excited to watch Harrison Ford beat up on a bad terrorist or Brad Pitt beat up on a zombie. And in horror, you're watching like this because the monster is coming.
[00:09:47] Matty: The question about the marketing decision about genre versus the reader expectations about tropes of a particular genre is a very interesting one, that I think any listener outside of horror could benefit from. Have you always followed the tropes of horror for the books that you think of as horror? And did you immediately know you were going to go to the marketing shelf for horror on the marketing side?
[00:10:13] So I'll answer the second question first, which is, I write all sorts of stuff and I'm very lucky that I have an audience that will read most of what I write. And that's an unusual situation, I'm very thrilled to have that.
[00:10:26] Michaelbrent: That being said, yeah, I know if I tell people I'm writing a horror novel, there's going to be a level of excitement that I already have, versus, hey, I'm writing a YA adventure, and now I have to convince you to be excited. That's how my audience is boiled down and what excites them. And hopefully if I do my job, I can convince them to buy anything, and then show them with my words that it's still really fun, regardless of the genre. So I definitely, I always have a marketing idea in my head because that's part of staying in business.
Respecting Audience Expectation
[00:10:56] There's people who are like, I'm just an artist, and that is awesome if this is your hobby. But if you want this to be your profession, your vocation, your living, you have to have in mind what people expect and demand from you, and you have to cater to it to some extent, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just knowing your audience, which is literally like the first lesson they teach in any creative writing thing, you know? We take all these creative writing classes and it's, know your audience, know your audience, and then we're like, but now I'm an artist, so my audience can suck it. So it doesn't work that way. So you definitely have to have that.
[00:11:30] As far as like the things that I put in my books, yeah, if I'm marketing my book as horror, it's probably going to have a bit grittier of an edge, like you talked about, like "Strangers" is a really popular book I wrote, and it's a family that wakes up and they've been literally sealed into their home by this serial killer who just wants some alone time with them. And so there's some violence and there's fear and thrills, and then I take that same bad guy, and I put him in, "Stranger Still," which is the sequel. And it's much more of a thriller because now he's become kind of a Batman character who's out avenging wrongs and rights.
[00:12:05] Michaelbrent: And I market them both as horror, because again, that's a marketing decision, but I'm also very careful with the fact that like "Strangers Still" is not blood and guts and terror, and I don't want to tell my audience it is, because that's just, they're going to be pissed at me. Like you don't want to lie as an author, and I think that's an unfortunate thing that Amazon's, you can choose your own bookshelf that does encourage kind of gaming the system. And it's a very short-term goal because it's going to end up biting you in the butt with all of those people who are like, this isn't really a thriller, it's horror, or vice versa.
[00:12:38] So I think the big thing is just always having the audience in mind and respecting them, respecting what they're looking for, respecting that you've got to tell them the truth about what you're giving them, and if you're giving them something, they don't want, well, that's a decision you can make and there's a cost benefit to it. Sometimes it's worth it, but you should be upfront and say, this is something you weren't expecting. I hope you like it anyway.
[00:13:00] Matty: I can imagine some people, especially if they're writing sort of a horror-adjacent genre like thriller suspense or something like that, might be hearing this and saying, oh, if I can just move my content to align more closely with the reader expectations of horror, then I'll bill it as horror and this might be a new direction for me. But I think that the two genres that are very dependent on an author's willingness to go there, are horror and erotica.
[00:13:29] So if somebody told me that I could make 10 times as much as I'm making now if I wrote horror, I could give it a shot, but I don't think I would ever really be able to meet the expectations of true horror, hardcore horror fans. Is that sounding right to you, or does it seem weird to you? Or what is your response to that?
[00:13:50] Michaelbrent: I think there's some truth in it. And certainly, the horror, erotica, and humor are related and that they're the three genres that really, really expect a physiological reaction in their audience, a rush of blood to the heart or to the other places, depending on what you're talking about. And yeah, you do have to be willing to push the boundaries, but in a way you can find that in any genre. I mean, there are children's books out there that talk about the Holocaust. And there's nothing I can come up with as a horror writer that's more horrifying than those events. So I think you can push the boundaries and you can raise the stakes to incredible levels, and it doesn't matter what genre you're in. What matters is the way you talk about it and the vocabulary you use.
Pushing Boundaries Appropriately
[00:14:35] Michaelbrent: So, I was really impressed by this once, I got called by a school, they said everybody in our school has read The Colony Saga, which is a pretty violent series I wrote about. It's a zombie apocalypse series and it did really well, and they're like, we'd like you to fly out and talk to our student body. And so I was like, of course, I'd love to, and you're paying for it and that's spiffy keen. So I flew out and I'm excited and I've got this talk I'm going to give it to the high schoolers, and I walk out and it's a bunch of 12-year-old kids. It was a junior high that one of the teachers had to teach sentence diagramming, which is the worst thing ever, and so to make it more fun, she started pulling sentences from the zombie book she had read and the whole student body loved it.
[00:15:18] And if you had asked me before I walked off that plane to a bunch of grinning twelve-year-olds with my zombie book, if you had said, hey, do you think this is going to work for kids? I would have said no. But obviously, I was surprised, and I was very happy.
[00:15:31] And after that, I said, well, why does this work? And it was pretty simple. It's action-packed, it doesn't use big words. There's no explicit sex. Actually, even though it's a violent story that is, bad stuff happens, I don't typically spend 10 pages describing the arterial gush. And so a teacher could take it and even though it says horror, she hands it to the student says, this is really fun, it's an adventure action zombie story, and that's the student's frame of reference going in and the teacher can sell it like that.
[00:16:04] So whether you're pushing the boundaries, is a question, you're either talking about pushing the boundaries of things we can talk about, in which case, I think we can talk about anything, and we can talk about anything to anybody. You have to be careful about your effect on a little kid if you're going to talk about violence, but that's one of the first things we talk about with little kids, we're like stranger danger. We're sitting them down for a talk about some grown-up who could come along and kill them, you know, which is a pretty hefty thing. But we use very careful vocabulary and terminology that we reveal more and more as they get older. So I think that's the big distinction. It's not the stories that we tell. It's the way we tell them that determines who we can talk to appropriately.
[00:17:22] Matty: I want to loop back based on that to a comment you made earlier, and I don't think I'm going to get this exactly right, so I'll ask you to correct me. You had said that there's this aspect of horror that is the good versus bad, you had mentioned about like the 80s, it's in the woods with the pot, that there's an implied good and bad there, whether you agree with it or not.
[00:17:46] So when you're working on your horror stories, do you go into it knowing what those good bad choices are going to be? And how much do you have to agree with which is the good choice and which is the bad choice in order to write that story?
[00:17:59] Michaelbrent: That is a great question, and it's very pertinent to me. So recently I wrote a book called "Malignant," and it came out last year about four or five months ago. It did really well and is continuing to do quite well, I'm very happy with it. And I was really worried writing it because it deals with some very touchy subjects. It's about a prestigious elite high school that is taken over and children held hostage by armed gunmen who show from about page three, that they are willing to and will torture and kill staff and students.
[00:18:30] And so I'm talking as I'm starting to write the story, I'm aware this is about gun violence in schools. And then it goes farther, and it's talking about the effects of pornography on society and on our children. And these, as I was writing them, I was worried, because these are kind of hot button topics, and some people really have strong opinions on this side. And some people have strong opinions on this side, and I'm of course wanting to sell a book to everybody. My dream is, I wake up just covered in gold and everything. And so picking a topic like that was a bit daunting.
[00:19:03] I think you can get around a lot of it by making it clear with your writing that if you disagree with somebody, that doesn't mean they're your enemy. Like, I hope nobody reading one of my books comes away and says, well, Michaelbrent probably hates me as a human because obviously, he and I come from different places. That's certainly not my intent. I've tried to just in general, live my life in a way that says, we can disagree, and I can still think you're awesome.
[00:19:28] Michaelbrent: But yeah, if you're talking about a moral universe, if you're talking about general broad things that we have pretty much agreed on, ax murdering people is bad, molesting children is not a good thing. If you're just sticking with that, you don't really have to worry, because there are things we universally agree on. If you're going to weave it into a story that it turns into kind of this pedagogical thing where you're, it's all a thesis arguing, God exists or doesn't, that's a much dicier proposition and you're going to have to make a cost-benefit analysis, because you're going to lose some readers. And that's a valid choice sometimes. There are authors out there who are like, this is important to me.
[00:20:09] And that was the story with "Malignant." I said, hey, I'm willing to lose some readers. I think there's an important, even if I don't have the solutions, it's an important discussion. And I wanted the book to have that discussion in it for people to think about. And I got lucky, and it's done really well again, but you do have to keep that in mind. Horror, definitely, if you're just talking about a madman racing after people, you're safe. You can point at him and say, that's not nice and everybody's like, way to go, it isn't nice. But if you're going to get into real kind of morality or theology in a real serious way, you're always going to piss somebody off and it does not matter which side of the argument you pick, you are going to upset people.
[00:20:50] Matty: Do you have any sense of whether the few readers you might have put off by "Malignant" just stop reading that series or that book, or do you think you lost them entirely? Do you have a sense of that?
[00:21:05] Michaelbrent: I know I've lost a couple entirely. I mean, just because they disagreed with it so strongly. And I'd like to point out that's on their side, because again, at no point am I going, if you disagree with me, you're Hitler and Satan's baby. that's not how I perceive the universe. And I think one of the big tragedies of today's existence is this, I have this wall around me and if you don't agree with it, if you're not solidly inside my box with me, we're enemies. I think that that robs humanity of a lot of opportunities for growth.
[00:21:34] So yeah, of course I've lost people with every single thing. "Malignant," you know what, I did get a really upset email, was this lady emailed and said, basically, I can't believe you call these two people good in your book, even though they're explicitly gay. And at no point did Michaelbrent Collings step forward and say, author's note, I think being gay is terrible, or author's note, I think being gay is awesome. It was fiction and the characters had attitudes and she was putting them on me. And she was taking them herself, saying, I can't agree with any book that has these words in it. I think that's kind of a tragedy, but I also think I would have lost that reader sooner or later anyway. If they're that upset about certain things, I'm not going to keep them. And so I can't lose sleep over those outliers.
[00:22:24] Matty: Yes. How do you carry forward what I think it's a very grown-up attitude you have about that, that not everybody shares, how do you carry that forward in terms of your social media interactions with your fans or your anti-fans?
[00:22:37] Well, first of all, most of my fans, I mean, they're so awesome. I call them Michaelbrent's Minions and they think it's hilarious. And I love it because like, I do lots of giveaways, like I have my little free book link here and I'll do drawings for a Kindle or for a book. And it's really heartening on my Facebook page, people will get on and they didn't win, and they'll say, congratulations to the winner, and it's so delightful. And a couple of times I've even been like, screw it, I'm giving away another Kindle because everybody's being so nice. And I think that that relationship is a self-feeding cycle.
How Art Creates Community
[00:23:07] Michaelbrent: The more that you try and be nice and get other people to be nice, the easier it is.
[00:23:11] It's the same with anger. There’re people who've made great careers out of being angry. And I can't say that that's wrong. I mean, certainly, some of their bank accounts are much more solid than mine. But it's not how I choose to live, and I think most of my fans respect that. Of course, as soon as you're putting yourself up there and saying, praise me and give me money, which all authors are doing, I mean, that's part of the job, you're going to also invite people to yell and scream at you, and that is their prerogative.
[00:23:42] One of the ways that has helped me is, if I get a bad book review, it doesn't happen a lot, thankfully, but I do get them and I will typically write an email to that person and say, thank you for your time. Obviously, I would've been happier if you had loved it, because that's my job, but I really appreciate you taking your only non-refillable asset, which is time, and spending some of it on me. And I've had reviewers then reach back and say, send me everything you write from now on, because it's just so nice to have somebody not screaming at me.
[00:24:17] So the more you get into a habit of being nice, I think the easier it gets in some respects. And it certainly it's rewarding, not just monetarily, just, it's nice knowing that I have nice people around me and people who are genuinely concerned. I wrote an email to my email list saying, essentially, I have really bad mental health issues, and I wrote, sorry, I've missed some emails, I've been crazy. And I got hundreds of responses just saying, I hope you feel better. And that's such a nice space to be able to create. And we have that power as creators, not just to write books or draw or paint or anything like that. The essence of art is the creation of community. And if you're the creator of the art, you get to choose what kind of community you will dedicate yourself to creating.
[00:25:04] Matty: That was such a great line. I try not to say, well, thank you for that. They cut it out and put it toward the end because that was just lovely.
[00:25:14] You were saying that there's some people who make a profession of being angry basically, and how that isn't you. I'm wondering how the experience of writing horror is similar or different than my experience of reading horror in the sense that, sometimes I'll read something that stays with me for days, keeps me up for nights, you know, it sticks with me. And I'm wondering when you're the author of it, is it that way for you?
[00:25:41] Michaelbrent: Not as much. You know, I work at the sausage factory, so you're not going to see me eating as many hot dogs. Once you know how it's made, some of the shine is off to some extent. Occasionally, I write something that's affective, but it's typically because I had to put a mindset on that was hard. In that Colony Saga, the main characters, there's this little family that was really based heavily on my family. And I walked in after a day of writing and I was just distraught and upset, and my wife's like, are you okay? And I said, I killed my son today, because one of the characters in the book died and it was just the way, given that Outlander circumstance of zombies, I knew my kid would have done it heroically and saving people, but it was really hard to imagine that.
[00:26:20] Do I get scared and write something and go, oh, that was terrifying? Not very often. One time I was writing a ghost scene and it was when I was early in my marriage, and we had this little one bedroom apartment and I'm hunched over in the corner of our bedroom writing quietly in the dark. And my headphones are on and I'm like blasting techno music, writing this scary thing. And this ghost walks past, and I said so many different bad words. It was my wife going to the bathroom, but I was like in such that mindset, oh my gosh, it terrified me! But those are external things that, yeah, I rarely do I sit down in my book or someone else's and just get freaked out, because I just know too much about the process.
[00:26:59] Matty: Yeah. I have one scene in one of my books, this is the last book in the Lizzy Ballard Thriller Trilogy, and it's that one scene is like the grittiest and most violent scene I have ever written. And it's a scene that I would be uncomfortable reading, but I knew how it was going to end, and I knew what line I wasn't going to go over. And it was the same line as an author that I wouldn't go over as a reader. Do you have a line like that, that you think, you're writing along, and you have an idea, and you just think, no, I can't go there?
[00:27:33] Michaelbrent: Yeah, I've had numerous of those. And I think that goes down again, and please understand for anyone listening, if you don't have this opinion, I am not saying your way sucks or anything. This is just how I've come up with living in the universe. But for me, anything I put in a book, I am thinking about its effect on my intended audience.
[00:27:51] Now, if I write a horror novel, and it's obviously a horror novel, and it's sitting in the horror section for grownups and some parent hands their five-year-old kid the book, and is like, read this, I don't feel like I can be held responsible for that, because I labeled who this was for.
[00:28:08] But once I've decided on the audience, I'm always thinking, hey, is this going to be good or bad for them? I think artists, a lot of us say, I'm just going to follow my muse and I don't care about the audience. And I'm always amused and disheartened by that because any other job in the world, that's somebody we call a sociopath, and we ostracize them because they're clearly willing to do anything for their own personal enjoyment and comfort. And I never have understood why for some reason it's okay if I'm an artist to do that.
The Final Effect of the Story
[00:28:39] Michaelbrent: So I try and always think, is the final effect of this story, whether it ends happily or end sadly, is the final effect going to be a net benefit to the universe into which I am putting it? And that doesn't mean it has to be all glory and light or even particularly enlightening. Some stories are just fun and there's value in that. We all need to go to the movies and just eat popcorn and check our brains at the door and that's a valuable exercise. But there are definitely people, especially in horror, that they have a philosophy of, my job is to kick you into the gutter, hold your face down in the poop water, and then scream at you, this is all there is. And if you feel terrible at the end of the process, I've done my job.
[00:29:26] And I would rather be the guy who kicks you into the gutter, holds your face down, and screams, we've got problems, fix 'em! And then we can move on and hopefully improve things. So with that philosophy, definitely, if I write a scene in my head, and I go, could I tell this more effectively with less abuse? If I can, I'll do it. I have bad words in my books because they're about real people. That said, I use the minimum naughty language possible to get the point across, and then I stop.
[00:29:58] And people are big into like, oh, it has to be realistic and lifelike. And that's just bologna too, because if books were realistic and lifelike, they would mostly be about people going to the bathroom, complaining, combing their hair, and sleeping. That's a terrible book. So I do the minimum harm necessary to get a good effect across. And sometimes, the minimum harm is painful, you know? We get shots at the doctor. Nobody's like, yay, it's penicillin day, but we do it. And I think stories have that effect as well. Sometimes they can be painful, but I do think it behooves us to look at what's my point in hurting someone? If it's just to prove that I can hurt people, that doesn't have a lot of value in my book. And I'd rather hurt you in a way that you come out a little bit stronger or better or wiser.
[00:30:45] Matty: Well that is the second fabulous round-up statement. And I think I'm going to use that as the closure, because I think that is such a lovely and useful piece of information for the listeners and the viewers.
[00:31:02] So Michaelbrent, thank you so much. This has been so interesting, and please let the listeners and viewers know where they can go to find out more about you.
[00:31:08] My website is WrittenInsomnia.com, Written Insomnia, Stories that keep you up all night. But let's be honest. My first name is Michaelbrent, and it's all one word, and if you Google that you are going to get me because I am the only Michaelbrent in the world, so I'm very easy to find.bit.ly/MBCfree and you get a free Michaelbrent book, and you get put onto the Minions mailing list, so you get those drawing opportunities and stuff like that. Or just find me anywhere, just Google Michaelbrent, and reach out, and I'm easy to find.
[00:31:39] Matty: That's so great. Thank you so much.
[00:31:41] Michaelbrent: Thank you.
[00:00:05] Michaelbrent: I'm doing well. How are you?
[00:00:07] Matty: I'm doing great, thank you. To give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, while he is best known for horror and was recently voted one of the top 100 greatest all-time horror writers in the Ranker poll of over 15,000 readers, Michaelbrent Collings has also written internationally best-selling thriller, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, humor, young adult, and middle grade works and romance. In addition to being a bestselling novelist, Michaelbrent is the only person who has ever been a finalist for Bram Stoker Award, a Dragon Award, and a RONE Award.
[00:00:37] And he and his work have been reviewed and are featured on everything from "Publishers Weekly" to "Scream" magazine to NPR. And how many people can say that, that they've been in "Scream" and NPR?
[00:00:48] Michaelbrent: Just two.
[00:00:49] Matty: Really? Who's the other one?
[00:00:52] Michaelbrent: I'm just guessing, statistics.
[00:00:55] Matty: There must be somebody else. That'll be an assignment for the listeners, go find one in "Scream" and NPR.
[00:01:03] So I invited Michaelbrent Collings onto the podcast because I have been an interested listener when he has appeared on other podcasts, and one of the things that has been sort of a subtext of many of the things that I've seen or read is how horror has been sort of therapeutic for you.
[00:01:20] So I'm titling this episode, how horror is the genre of hope, which I lifted right out of a quote from Michaelbrent. And I wanted to start out asking you, since you write in so many genres, in what way is horror the genre of hope?
How is Horror the Genre of Hope?
[00:01:36] Michaelbrent: Well, that's a really good question. And it's great because it surprises so many people when I say that, especially because like I'm a church-going person, and so I'll be up, literally like I'll teach Sunday school, and someone will say, what does he do for a living, in a normal life? They're like, oh, he writes scary books, and it freaks people out. And then I explain that there's not really, the perceived dichotomy is just that it's a perceived one. They really fit really well together, because the main focus of horror is you're trying to scare people. You're trying to get out there and raise their blood pressure and freak them out some way or another. And the way that we do that is, we posit a universe where everything has gone wrong for the main characters and then by extension, for the reader or the watcher or the listener.
[00:02:17] And the underpinning of that, then the implicit agreement we have, is that there's a right way to do things. And so from its very start, horror to work, has to exist in a universe where there's a right way. There's a wrong way. There's a good and there's a bad. And so when you allow for that kind of a situation, then you allow for what horror does best, which is talking about stories where if you make the right decision, you can get through it. If you are not the idiot who runs into the basement when the ax murderer is following you, you might be able to survive or, the kind of 1980s aesthetic of, if you don't sleep with someone in the woods and smoke the pot, you might make it out all right, because you're making moral choices. And as much as we joke about that, it really is kind of a fundamental underpinning of horror, is that there is a right way to do things, and doing it right increases your chance of getting through it all.
[00:03:17] And so, vicariously, we take that into ourselves and it's really, it's a nice thing because in a world where so much is outside of our control and so much goes wrong every day, it's a comforting feeling, it's a hopeful feeling to look at a story and say, isn't that nice, that it's not just outside actions all hit me like a mountain. It's that I have a modicum of control about my fate, where if I make good decisions and push towards this right universe, whatever that is for you, I can get closer.
[00:03:48] And of course, there's lots of horror stories where the bad guys win, but again, even those, they only work because the filmmaker or the author says, look, here's the right way, and here's where it all went dreadfully wrong. So the author tells this story, and everyone dies, but the person who never dies doesn't matter what story it is, is the reader. And so the reader is left with the sense of, I survived. I made it through, I got through this horrific event and maybe today will be a little bit easier because of it.
How Horror Externalizes Right and Wrong
Matty: That is very interesting because I would've guessed that somewhere in that discussion, you would have mentioned the word catharsis, which I don't think you did, that there's this idea that we all have this sort of bubbling cauldron of horror within us, and by writing about it, you let it out. Is that intentionally not something that you experience or is it just something you don't bring up because everybody says it?
[00:04:43] Michaelbrent: Well, no, it's neither. It's just, it's a secondary effect for me. Catharsis, that's not horror-centric, you're going to get catharsis in any good story because the best stories, they're not just about the world of the story. They're about the world of the audience. It's like all of the stories that we create as storytellers are little houses. And when you walk past a house, you can't tell everything about it, but you can tell something about the designer, you can tell something about the neighborhood, and you certainly, if you look at yourself, can examine a little bit of your reasons for responding the way you do to that house.
[00:05:18] And so any story, any little house like that, is going to have the potential for catharsis. Like I'm going to be able to understand myself a little bit more deeply, and it doesn't matter if that's horror or if that's science fiction or romance or anything, it can provide those high stakes, those brushes with what matter, because for any story to work also has to have something matter, it has to have a value because otherwise, who cares? And so you can get catharsis like that anywhere. But horror has this really specific thing where we're going to take it as a base, fundamental concept that there is a right and a wrong, and sometimes that's like a big, cosmic right and wrong in the religious or theological sense, and sometimes it's just like, hey, most people worldwide agree it is not cool to chase after teens in a forest with an ax.
[00:06:09] And it sounds silly, but that's something that we lose because there's so many voices coming in at all times. There's so much noise, with social media, with the 24-hour news cycle, with entertainment at our fingers, that it's hard to remember rights and wrongs sometimes. Everybody's constantly telling us now what really matters is finding your truth, and what really matters is being yourself, and that's great if you live on a desert island, and you can't impact anyone. But we live in a society, most of us. And so we have to find ways to navigate that. We have to find ways to say, I think this is right to my best understanding, and I think this is wrong. And horror externalizes that, and it allows for some really interesting thought processes that way.
[00:06:53] Matty: I probably should have asked this question right off the bat, but
Genre as Marketing Tool
[00:06:55] Matty: What for you distinguishes horror from other genres, like say, thrillers?
[00:07:00] Michaelbrent: It's a good question, especially because you look at like Amazon's bestseller list and there doesn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason. And so I always ask people if they're talking about like horror, thriller, romance as a series of things that they expect to have in the story or as marketing. Because really, if you're talking about genre, for me, my most useful analysis of a genre is which virtual bookshelf will my books sell the best on? So I'm more interested in having my books on this spot on Amazon because I just sell more units than over there. And that's just a marketing question. And that's very fungible. It's kind of up to the author. In fact, if you look at the horror best-sellers on Amazon, like I would say 50% of them are not horror at all. They're erotic paranormal stuff that the authors have placed there because they'll sell more units that way. So there's that.
[00:07:55] If you're talking about like distinguishing characteristics of audience expectations, I think the biggest difference is, thriller, you go in with someone and there's always the threat that the main character, the every man or every woman, might not make it out. They've got to pit their wits against the monster. Horror starts off more usually with, somebody has already not made it out. We've established that this monster has killed in the past and will kill again, and so it's much more an elevated stakes situation.
[00:08:26] Other than that, they're very overlapping, which is why you get people like Dean Koontz, who has been slotted as a horror writer for much of his career. But if you really look at it, it's mostly just techno thriller stuff. Conspiracy techno thrillers are his bread and butter. And then beyond those kinds of base questions, does the monster, may it kill, or has it killed already? The big effect of horror is, was your audience scared? I'm always delighted when I get a one-star review on Amazon that says, it was too scary, I couldn't finish. I'm like, well, that sounds like a five-star review to me.
[00:09:01] Matty: Yeah, you're going to sell a lot of books to a certain audience based on that one-star review, for sure.
[00:09:05] Michaelbrent: Yeah, yeah. So there's, I guess the long answer shortened is, it depends on what you're talking about marketing, in which case it's wherever I can get away selling books. If it's talking about the tropes, then just thriller and horror have a lot in common, but horror tends to be deadlier, either physically or existentially. You're talking about, instead of running from a nuclear bomb, you're talking about damnation, which is a much bigger existential threat. And then the effect on the reader, which is a thriller, you're like oh, I'm so excited to watch Harrison Ford beat up on a bad terrorist or Brad Pitt beat up on a zombie. And in horror, you're watching like this because the monster is coming.
[00:09:47] Matty: The question about the marketing decision about genre versus the reader expectations about tropes of a particular genre is a very interesting one, that I think any listener outside of horror could benefit from. Have you always followed the tropes of horror for the books that you think of as horror? And did you immediately know you were going to go to the marketing shelf for horror on the marketing side?
[00:10:13] So I'll answer the second question first, which is, I write all sorts of stuff and I'm very lucky that I have an audience that will read most of what I write. And that's an unusual situation, I'm very thrilled to have that.
[00:10:26] Michaelbrent: That being said, yeah, I know if I tell people I'm writing a horror novel, there's going to be a level of excitement that I already have, versus, hey, I'm writing a YA adventure, and now I have to convince you to be excited. That's how my audience is boiled down and what excites them. And hopefully if I do my job, I can convince them to buy anything, and then show them with my words that it's still really fun, regardless of the genre. So I definitely, I always have a marketing idea in my head because that's part of staying in business.
Respecting Audience Expectation
[00:10:56] There's people who are like, I'm just an artist, and that is awesome if this is your hobby. But if you want this to be your profession, your vocation, your living, you have to have in mind what people expect and demand from you, and you have to cater to it to some extent, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just knowing your audience, which is literally like the first lesson they teach in any creative writing thing, you know? We take all these creative writing classes and it's, know your audience, know your audience, and then we're like, but now I'm an artist, so my audience can suck it. So it doesn't work that way. So you definitely have to have that.
[00:11:30] As far as like the things that I put in my books, yeah, if I'm marketing my book as horror, it's probably going to have a bit grittier of an edge, like you talked about, like "Strangers" is a really popular book I wrote, and it's a family that wakes up and they've been literally sealed into their home by this serial killer who just wants some alone time with them. And so there's some violence and there's fear and thrills, and then I take that same bad guy, and I put him in, "Stranger Still," which is the sequel. And it's much more of a thriller because now he's become kind of a Batman character who's out avenging wrongs and rights.
[00:12:05] Michaelbrent: And I market them both as horror, because again, that's a marketing decision, but I'm also very careful with the fact that like "Strangers Still" is not blood and guts and terror, and I don't want to tell my audience it is, because that's just, they're going to be pissed at me. Like you don't want to lie as an author, and I think that's an unfortunate thing that Amazon's, you can choose your own bookshelf that does encourage kind of gaming the system. And it's a very short-term goal because it's going to end up biting you in the butt with all of those people who are like, this isn't really a thriller, it's horror, or vice versa.
[00:12:38] So I think the big thing is just always having the audience in mind and respecting them, respecting what they're looking for, respecting that you've got to tell them the truth about what you're giving them, and if you're giving them something, they don't want, well, that's a decision you can make and there's a cost benefit to it. Sometimes it's worth it, but you should be upfront and say, this is something you weren't expecting. I hope you like it anyway.
[00:13:00] Matty: I can imagine some people, especially if they're writing sort of a horror-adjacent genre like thriller suspense or something like that, might be hearing this and saying, oh, if I can just move my content to align more closely with the reader expectations of horror, then I'll bill it as horror and this might be a new direction for me. But I think that the two genres that are very dependent on an author's willingness to go there, are horror and erotica.
[00:13:29] So if somebody told me that I could make 10 times as much as I'm making now if I wrote horror, I could give it a shot, but I don't think I would ever really be able to meet the expectations of true horror, hardcore horror fans. Is that sounding right to you, or does it seem weird to you? Or what is your response to that?
[00:13:50] Michaelbrent: I think there's some truth in it. And certainly, the horror, erotica, and humor are related and that they're the three genres that really, really expect a physiological reaction in their audience, a rush of blood to the heart or to the other places, depending on what you're talking about. And yeah, you do have to be willing to push the boundaries, but in a way you can find that in any genre. I mean, there are children's books out there that talk about the Holocaust. And there's nothing I can come up with as a horror writer that's more horrifying than those events. So I think you can push the boundaries and you can raise the stakes to incredible levels, and it doesn't matter what genre you're in. What matters is the way you talk about it and the vocabulary you use.
Pushing Boundaries Appropriately
[00:14:35] Michaelbrent: So, I was really impressed by this once, I got called by a school, they said everybody in our school has read The Colony Saga, which is a pretty violent series I wrote about. It's a zombie apocalypse series and it did really well, and they're like, we'd like you to fly out and talk to our student body. And so I was like, of course, I'd love to, and you're paying for it and that's spiffy keen. So I flew out and I'm excited and I've got this talk I'm going to give it to the high schoolers, and I walk out and it's a bunch of 12-year-old kids. It was a junior high that one of the teachers had to teach sentence diagramming, which is the worst thing ever, and so to make it more fun, she started pulling sentences from the zombie book she had read and the whole student body loved it.
[00:15:18] And if you had asked me before I walked off that plane to a bunch of grinning twelve-year-olds with my zombie book, if you had said, hey, do you think this is going to work for kids? I would have said no. But obviously, I was surprised, and I was very happy.
[00:15:31] And after that, I said, well, why does this work? And it was pretty simple. It's action-packed, it doesn't use big words. There's no explicit sex. Actually, even though it's a violent story that is, bad stuff happens, I don't typically spend 10 pages describing the arterial gush. And so a teacher could take it and even though it says horror, she hands it to the student says, this is really fun, it's an adventure action zombie story, and that's the student's frame of reference going in and the teacher can sell it like that.
[00:16:04] So whether you're pushing the boundaries, is a question, you're either talking about pushing the boundaries of things we can talk about, in which case, I think we can talk about anything, and we can talk about anything to anybody. You have to be careful about your effect on a little kid if you're going to talk about violence, but that's one of the first things we talk about with little kids, we're like stranger danger. We're sitting them down for a talk about some grown-up who could come along and kill them, you know, which is a pretty hefty thing. But we use very careful vocabulary and terminology that we reveal more and more as they get older. So I think that's the big distinction. It's not the stories that we tell. It's the way we tell them that determines who we can talk to appropriately.
[00:17:22] Matty: I want to loop back based on that to a comment you made earlier, and I don't think I'm going to get this exactly right, so I'll ask you to correct me. You had said that there's this aspect of horror that is the good versus bad, you had mentioned about like the 80s, it's in the woods with the pot, that there's an implied good and bad there, whether you agree with it or not.
[00:17:46] So when you're working on your horror stories, do you go into it knowing what those good bad choices are going to be? And how much do you have to agree with which is the good choice and which is the bad choice in order to write that story?
[00:17:59] Michaelbrent: That is a great question, and it's very pertinent to me. So recently I wrote a book called "Malignant," and it came out last year about four or five months ago. It did really well and is continuing to do quite well, I'm very happy with it. And I was really worried writing it because it deals with some very touchy subjects. It's about a prestigious elite high school that is taken over and children held hostage by armed gunmen who show from about page three, that they are willing to and will torture and kill staff and students.
[00:18:30] And so I'm talking as I'm starting to write the story, I'm aware this is about gun violence in schools. And then it goes farther, and it's talking about the effects of pornography on society and on our children. And these, as I was writing them, I was worried, because these are kind of hot button topics, and some people really have strong opinions on this side. And some people have strong opinions on this side, and I'm of course wanting to sell a book to everybody. My dream is, I wake up just covered in gold and everything. And so picking a topic like that was a bit daunting.
[00:19:03] I think you can get around a lot of it by making it clear with your writing that if you disagree with somebody, that doesn't mean they're your enemy. Like, I hope nobody reading one of my books comes away and says, well, Michaelbrent probably hates me as a human because obviously, he and I come from different places. That's certainly not my intent. I've tried to just in general, live my life in a way that says, we can disagree, and I can still think you're awesome.
[00:19:28] Michaelbrent: But yeah, if you're talking about a moral universe, if you're talking about general broad things that we have pretty much agreed on, ax murdering people is bad, molesting children is not a good thing. If you're just sticking with that, you don't really have to worry, because there are things we universally agree on. If you're going to weave it into a story that it turns into kind of this pedagogical thing where you're, it's all a thesis arguing, God exists or doesn't, that's a much dicier proposition and you're going to have to make a cost-benefit analysis, because you're going to lose some readers. And that's a valid choice sometimes. There are authors out there who are like, this is important to me.
[00:20:09] And that was the story with "Malignant." I said, hey, I'm willing to lose some readers. I think there's an important, even if I don't have the solutions, it's an important discussion. And I wanted the book to have that discussion in it for people to think about. And I got lucky, and it's done really well again, but you do have to keep that in mind. Horror, definitely, if you're just talking about a madman racing after people, you're safe. You can point at him and say, that's not nice and everybody's like, way to go, it isn't nice. But if you're going to get into real kind of morality or theology in a real serious way, you're always going to piss somebody off and it does not matter which side of the argument you pick, you are going to upset people.
[00:20:50] Matty: Do you have any sense of whether the few readers you might have put off by "Malignant" just stop reading that series or that book, or do you think you lost them entirely? Do you have a sense of that?
[00:21:05] Michaelbrent: I know I've lost a couple entirely. I mean, just because they disagreed with it so strongly. And I'd like to point out that's on their side, because again, at no point am I going, if you disagree with me, you're Hitler and Satan's baby. that's not how I perceive the universe. And I think one of the big tragedies of today's existence is this, I have this wall around me and if you don't agree with it, if you're not solidly inside my box with me, we're enemies. I think that that robs humanity of a lot of opportunities for growth.
[00:21:34] So yeah, of course I've lost people with every single thing. "Malignant," you know what, I did get a really upset email, was this lady emailed and said, basically, I can't believe you call these two people good in your book, even though they're explicitly gay. And at no point did Michaelbrent Collings step forward and say, author's note, I think being gay is terrible, or author's note, I think being gay is awesome. It was fiction and the characters had attitudes and she was putting them on me. And she was taking them herself, saying, I can't agree with any book that has these words in it. I think that's kind of a tragedy, but I also think I would have lost that reader sooner or later anyway. If they're that upset about certain things, I'm not going to keep them. And so I can't lose sleep over those outliers.
[00:22:24] Matty: Yes. How do you carry forward what I think it's a very grown-up attitude you have about that, that not everybody shares, how do you carry that forward in terms of your social media interactions with your fans or your anti-fans?
[00:22:37] Well, first of all, most of my fans, I mean, they're so awesome. I call them Michaelbrent's Minions and they think it's hilarious. And I love it because like, I do lots of giveaways, like I have my little free book link here and I'll do drawings for a Kindle or for a book. And it's really heartening on my Facebook page, people will get on and they didn't win, and they'll say, congratulations to the winner, and it's so delightful. And a couple of times I've even been like, screw it, I'm giving away another Kindle because everybody's being so nice. And I think that that relationship is a self-feeding cycle.
How Art Creates Community
[00:23:07] Michaelbrent: The more that you try and be nice and get other people to be nice, the easier it is.
[00:23:11] It's the same with anger. There’re people who've made great careers out of being angry. And I can't say that that's wrong. I mean, certainly, some of their bank accounts are much more solid than mine. But it's not how I choose to live, and I think most of my fans respect that. Of course, as soon as you're putting yourself up there and saying, praise me and give me money, which all authors are doing, I mean, that's part of the job, you're going to also invite people to yell and scream at you, and that is their prerogative.
[00:23:42] One of the ways that has helped me is, if I get a bad book review, it doesn't happen a lot, thankfully, but I do get them and I will typically write an email to that person and say, thank you for your time. Obviously, I would've been happier if you had loved it, because that's my job, but I really appreciate you taking your only non-refillable asset, which is time, and spending some of it on me. And I've had reviewers then reach back and say, send me everything you write from now on, because it's just so nice to have somebody not screaming at me.
[00:24:17] So the more you get into a habit of being nice, I think the easier it gets in some respects. And it certainly it's rewarding, not just monetarily, just, it's nice knowing that I have nice people around me and people who are genuinely concerned. I wrote an email to my email list saying, essentially, I have really bad mental health issues, and I wrote, sorry, I've missed some emails, I've been crazy. And I got hundreds of responses just saying, I hope you feel better. And that's such a nice space to be able to create. And we have that power as creators, not just to write books or draw or paint or anything like that. The essence of art is the creation of community. And if you're the creator of the art, you get to choose what kind of community you will dedicate yourself to creating.
[00:25:04] Matty: That was such a great line. I try not to say, well, thank you for that. They cut it out and put it toward the end because that was just lovely.
[00:25:14] You were saying that there's some people who make a profession of being angry basically, and how that isn't you. I'm wondering how the experience of writing horror is similar or different than my experience of reading horror in the sense that, sometimes I'll read something that stays with me for days, keeps me up for nights, you know, it sticks with me. And I'm wondering when you're the author of it, is it that way for you?
[00:25:41] Michaelbrent: Not as much. You know, I work at the sausage factory, so you're not going to see me eating as many hot dogs. Once you know how it's made, some of the shine is off to some extent. Occasionally, I write something that's affective, but it's typically because I had to put a mindset on that was hard. In that Colony Saga, the main characters, there's this little family that was really based heavily on my family. And I walked in after a day of writing and I was just distraught and upset, and my wife's like, are you okay? And I said, I killed my son today, because one of the characters in the book died and it was just the way, given that Outlander circumstance of zombies, I knew my kid would have done it heroically and saving people, but it was really hard to imagine that.
[00:26:20] Do I get scared and write something and go, oh, that was terrifying? Not very often. One time I was writing a ghost scene and it was when I was early in my marriage, and we had this little one bedroom apartment and I'm hunched over in the corner of our bedroom writing quietly in the dark. And my headphones are on and I'm like blasting techno music, writing this scary thing. And this ghost walks past, and I said so many different bad words. It was my wife going to the bathroom, but I was like in such that mindset, oh my gosh, it terrified me! But those are external things that, yeah, I rarely do I sit down in my book or someone else's and just get freaked out, because I just know too much about the process.
[00:26:59] Matty: Yeah. I have one scene in one of my books, this is the last book in the Lizzy Ballard Thriller Trilogy, and it's that one scene is like the grittiest and most violent scene I have ever written. And it's a scene that I would be uncomfortable reading, but I knew how it was going to end, and I knew what line I wasn't going to go over. And it was the same line as an author that I wouldn't go over as a reader. Do you have a line like that, that you think, you're writing along, and you have an idea, and you just think, no, I can't go there?
[00:27:33] Michaelbrent: Yeah, I've had numerous of those. And I think that goes down again, and please understand for anyone listening, if you don't have this opinion, I am not saying your way sucks or anything. This is just how I've come up with living in the universe. But for me, anything I put in a book, I am thinking about its effect on my intended audience.
[00:27:51] Now, if I write a horror novel, and it's obviously a horror novel, and it's sitting in the horror section for grownups and some parent hands their five-year-old kid the book, and is like, read this, I don't feel like I can be held responsible for that, because I labeled who this was for.
[00:28:08] But once I've decided on the audience, I'm always thinking, hey, is this going to be good or bad for them? I think artists, a lot of us say, I'm just going to follow my muse and I don't care about the audience. And I'm always amused and disheartened by that because any other job in the world, that's somebody we call a sociopath, and we ostracize them because they're clearly willing to do anything for their own personal enjoyment and comfort. And I never have understood why for some reason it's okay if I'm an artist to do that.
The Final Effect of the Story
[00:28:39] Michaelbrent: So I try and always think, is the final effect of this story, whether it ends happily or end sadly, is the final effect going to be a net benefit to the universe into which I am putting it? And that doesn't mean it has to be all glory and light or even particularly enlightening. Some stories are just fun and there's value in that. We all need to go to the movies and just eat popcorn and check our brains at the door and that's a valuable exercise. But there are definitely people, especially in horror, that they have a philosophy of, my job is to kick you into the gutter, hold your face down in the poop water, and then scream at you, this is all there is. And if you feel terrible at the end of the process, I've done my job.
[00:29:26] And I would rather be the guy who kicks you into the gutter, holds your face down, and screams, we've got problems, fix 'em! And then we can move on and hopefully improve things. So with that philosophy, definitely, if I write a scene in my head, and I go, could I tell this more effectively with less abuse? If I can, I'll do it. I have bad words in my books because they're about real people. That said, I use the minimum naughty language possible to get the point across, and then I stop.
[00:29:58] And people are big into like, oh, it has to be realistic and lifelike. And that's just bologna too, because if books were realistic and lifelike, they would mostly be about people going to the bathroom, complaining, combing their hair, and sleeping. That's a terrible book. So I do the minimum harm necessary to get a good effect across. And sometimes, the minimum harm is painful, you know? We get shots at the doctor. Nobody's like, yay, it's penicillin day, but we do it. And I think stories have that effect as well. Sometimes they can be painful, but I do think it behooves us to look at what's my point in hurting someone? If it's just to prove that I can hurt people, that doesn't have a lot of value in my book. And I'd rather hurt you in a way that you come out a little bit stronger or better or wiser.
[00:30:45] Matty: Well that is the second fabulous round-up statement. And I think I'm going to use that as the closure, because I think that is such a lovely and useful piece of information for the listeners and the viewers.
[00:31:02] So Michaelbrent, thank you so much. This has been so interesting, and please let the listeners and viewers know where they can go to find out more about you.
[00:31:08] My website is WrittenInsomnia.com, Written Insomnia, Stories that keep you up all night. But let's be honest. My first name is Michaelbrent, and it's all one word, and if you Google that you are going to get me because I am the only Michaelbrent in the world, so I'm very easy to find.bit.ly/MBCfree and you get a free Michaelbrent book, and you get put onto the Minions mailing list, so you get those drawing opportunities and stuff like that. Or just find me anywhere, just Google Michaelbrent, and reach out, and I'm easy to find.
[00:31:39] Matty: That's so great. Thank you so much.
[00:31:41] Michaelbrent: Thank you.
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