For my cathartic final piece, I wrote a short horror story called: The Foxes Always Scream at Night, and presented it in the zine format. The story is a work of horror targeted towards mature audiences – due to the references to mental health and gory imagery – that was intended to leave readers unsettled and disturbed but aware of the effects something like insomnia and depression can have on an individual.
The research presented in my pitch proposal for the project and various evaluations of writers’ work – such as Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath – aided the development of my story in a number of ways. As mentioned in the pitch, I looked to short story collections by Stephen King and Emily Carroll to obtain a better understanding of how to work with the format and how to effectively execute a horror story in general.
A large part of my research was, of course, centered around works by Poe and Plath. Poe, like King and Carroll, heavily influenced my approach to horror in this story as I found myself incorporating elements of the gothic genre into my writing. The Black Cat was particularly inspirational due to its slow burn style and incorporation of fables, like the myths surrounding black cats. Plath’s work was also integral to the development of my final piece. Her confessional style and focus on mental health was something I wanted to capture in my story, inspiring me to create a subtext focused on insomnia and anxiety.
I chose these conditions specifically as they are something I personally struggle with, tying my story into the cathartic project. Pouring myself into this story and mixing it with horror elements made for a writing experience that was sometimes uncomfortable and difficult to keep tight as I found myself occasionally spiraling into tangents. Despite this, I – overall – still enjoyed creating this story and felt that the emphasis on the cathartic process helped my voice appear more clearly within my writing, while also delivering a product that is – hopefully – scary to read.
Language techniques, such as metaphors and personification, were something I relied on heavily while writing this story so that I could get my message across without having to plainly write it out. I worry, however, that this approach to my writing may have made it appear pretentious and convoluted rather than subtle and engaging; ultimately distracting readers from the horror.
The characters I included are another worry of mine. With the majority of the story being made up of narration and little dialogue, I feel that my characters don’t possess enough depth, even if the focus is intentionally placed on the narrator’s inner monologues. In future character development is an area that I will attempt to improve on by including more dialogue and fleshing out the personalities and motivations of my characters.
My dissatisfaction with the character development, might have been a result of the short story format – or at least, one as short as this – as I did find myself wanting to expand on the ideas I had laid out by the time I concluded the story. If I ever create a continuation of this piece I think I would adapt it to a longer structure or a different media entirely. The latter of which is something I have already attempted in another part of my course, as I have included this story in my horror anthology audiobook project.
Witchers and Witches 