I was such a wuss as a kid, and hated horror movies. But one of the most disturbing was not horror movie at all: *batteries not included. It’s a family film with Jessica Tandy, for chrissakes. The decrepit building, the palpably unstable slumlord, the erratically flying aliens with glowing eyes made a very unsettling ride for little Jenny.
As for books, there are two that stand out: The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright and The Secret Bedroom by R.L. Stine. I still read them, that’s how much impact they had on me. The idea that dolls move about when you’re not looking and recreate scenes of an unsolved murder was unnerving enough. But Stine’s tale of a girl with a secret bedroom (an introvert’s dream!) inhabited by a spirit that can not only invade your mind, but contort reality until you’re just a shell to possess, was enough to keep me up nights.
What was your biggest fear as a child?
For some reason, fire. I was never in one, I was never burned, but I’d get anxious even going near a building in the aftermath, much less look at one on TV. I found the blackness and destruction terrifying, the gaping windows and shredded wood and plaster hanging beyond the frames monstrous.
In *batteries not included, there’s a scene in which some characters take a blissful walk home after a fun night out, only to find their apartment building ablaze. I think that’s what is so upsetting: fire is such a simple, vital element, yet it can destroy your home, kill your loved ones, erase every memento from your past.
Do you like scary movies? Which one is your favourite?
Now I do. I met (and eventually married) a horror movie geek (his descriptor) and I think he was secretly disappointed that I avoided the genre altogether. But little by little he introduced me to older movies like The Seventh Victim (1943), Brides of Dracula (1960) and Masque of the Red Death (1964), and now I seek them out. I begged him to take me to The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2017).
Ghosts are guaranteed to creep me out. Have you ever had a paranormal experience in real life?
No, and I’m sure if I did I would freak right out and move. But I’d like to think we’d be pals, Casper-style. As long as he’s not the chatty type.
Has a book ever really scared you?
In adulthood, no. I’ve gotten the shivers, I’ve been creeped out, but mostly, I applaud the writer for eliciting a visceral response. Ha! Perhaps writing has ruined me for raw terror!
Can you share with us an example of fear in one of your own novels?
Certainly. My protagonist in my novel, Edge of Sundown, is an author too, and much of his motivation comes from fear. The fear he’ll be forgotten, the fear that his creative well has run dry. Turns out it’s much worse: the world moved on and didn’t leave a forwarding address, and his reality is more fiction than his book.
In real life what is your biggest fear? Do you use that when you write?
I have the same fear as my poor protagonist: that one day I’ll be out of ideas and I’ll lose my ability to write.
But also bugs. Even helpful ones, like centipedes and common spiders and crickets. There’s regular ol’ roaches, but also hissing, flying frickin’ roaches. There is no God. Yet I’m writing a picture book about a girl who’s airlifted by a horde of butterflies, or as I call them, Satan’s biplanes. Go figure.
Thanks so much for sharing – am totally with you on the cockroach front – they are pure evil. Also I really want to read some RL Stine books now, I seem to have missed those when I was growing up!
If you want to know more about Jennifer, check out her links below!
Well its Lockdown…..again….hope you had a safe and quiet – preferably cheese and prosecco fueled New Year! Im back again with some scary stuff this time joined by P.J. Mordant, author of supernatural thriller ‘When Angels Fear.’ So she knows a thing or two about what is scary – lets find out what scares her!
What movie/book scared you as a child? I’m going to choose an advertisement, seeing its the first thing that came to mind: an advert for Deep Heat, a stupid rubbing ointment. A really deep voice boomed DEEEEP HEEEET from the telly. It got so bad that I would leave the room when ANY adverts came on.
What was your biggest fear as a child? I was and still am, terrified of thunder storms. Its the combination of noise and lightening. I think it started after my dad tried to fix our old valve telly. He took a screwdriver to it and it blew up with a flash and bang! Lucky escape for all of us, but left a lasting legacy.
Do you like scary movies? Which one is your favourite? Medium scary films. I prefer supernatural rather than full-on horror movies. Very fond of ‘The Changeling’ with George C. Scott. Scary premise, musical boxes, wheelchairs, bouncing balls … a well. Great tropes.
The paranormal usually freaks me out the most when I’m reading a book. Have you ever had a paranormal experience in real life? Nah.
Has a book ever really scared you? The Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson – anything by F. Paul Wilson, actually. There was one character – I think it was a young boy – who couldn’t die and Jack thought he’d put him out of his misery. YEARS later he pondered whether he had actually died so he returned to the burial site and dug the boy up.Turned out he’d been absolutely right: the boy was skeletal but with all his faculties and completely alive. Can’t remember names and whys and wherefores but … well, the idea’s stuck with me all these years.
Can you share with us an example of fear in one of your own novels? The fear a woman has when the love of her life turns out to be an abuser. In ‘When Angels Fear’, my first chapter is filled with dry-mouthed dread that he might discover her escape.
In real life what is your biggest fear these days? Do you use that when you write? I fear for the planet. It’s the theme of my sequel to ‘Angels’
Huge thanks to PJ for visiting! You can learn more about her and her books below!
Hopefully you are on the other side of a wonderful Christmas day – safe and happy wherever you are and however you spent Christmas. Its Boxing Day – a day of leftovers and a turkey and stuffing breakfast that lasts all day, punctuated with the occasional chocolate. As always I’m ready to head back into the scarier side of things and continue my quest to search peoples brains for what they find scary. Today I am very glad to have author Charlie Tyler to visit – she’s a huge fan of The Cure like me so she can stay as long as she likes – she’s also the author of super creepy novel ‘The Cry of the Lake’ – a gruesome tale of murder and madness- so lets face it she fits right in here at Creepy Central. Welcome Charlie, tell us about what scares you….
I hated The Twits by Roald Dahl. Even though they were really horrible, the way they died at the end really, really upset and bothered me. I used to have terrible nightmares involving beheading. This was down to the fact my parents had the brochure for Madame Tussauds out on their coffee table, and I looked through it and saw a picture of someone being guillotined. That marked the beginning of my night terrors and sleepless nights (for both me and my parents). I still have to go to sleep with a story playing – I’d sleep with a nightlight on if my husband would let me. In the right mood I love a scary movie, but I’m not as bothered by horror as I am ghosts. I know it got a bad press, but The Blair Witch Project frightened me, especially the ending. However, The Woman in Black, all versions including the theatre production, absolutely terrifies me. Susan Hill is a genius.
I’ve never had a paranormal experience, but in my late teens I lived in an old vicarage and there were gravestones lining the cellar and it was a really noisy house at night, with lots of clunking and rattling window panes. I was relieved when my parents moved. Someone bought me The Collected Ghost Stories by MR James but I never got beyond ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book’ – it was just too scary to read before bed. Maybe, next year (fingers crossed), I’ll take it on holiday to read on a sun lounger by a pool. In ‘The Cry of the Lake’, one of the main characters, a teenage girl called Lily, suffers from night terrors because of something she witnessed as a child but then buried in her thoughts. She experiences nightmares, where she sees the same thing; a ghastly skeletal mermaid looking up at her from the bottom of a lake. The dread of falling asleep I had as a child is something I’ve definitely drawn upon in this novel. I’m on my own a lot and my biggest fear is being woken in the dead of night by a noise and realising there is someone or something in the house. I’ve got quite an overactive imagination and would naturally jump to the conclusion that whatever caused the sound was out to get me. I think it only fair to bestow this gift of paranoia to at least one of my main characters!
Huge thanks for visiting Charlie – you had me at skeletal mermaid….
If you’re desperate to find out what happened at the Lake, check out Charlie’s links below.
This week on my hunt for horrors, I am joined by author Penny Hampson whose novel The Unquiet Spirit is a Cornwall based feast of spooks and suspense. I’m very happy that she has taken time to be my guest – take it away Penny!
Thank you for inviting me onto your blog, Anne-Marie. It’s great to talk with you about scary things!
As a child, the scariest programme I watched was Dr Who, usually from behind the sofa! I didn’t like the Daleks, but because at that time they couldn’t climb stairs I always thought they weren’t much of a threat.
The Cybermen however were something completely different – humanoid but expressionless, they terrified me. They still do, if I’m honest!
The scariest stories for me are those that are rooted in reality, when something innocuous suddenly becomes a real threat. I remember reading Jaws (before the movie was made) and being terrified. It really put me off swimming in the sea for quite some time, even though I knew how unlikely it would be for a great white shark to turn up in UK waters.
As for scary films, my favourite has to be The Shining. Those scenes where Danny, the little boy, cycles along the hotel corridors and you just know he’s going to see something around the next corner, have me cowering behind a cushion every time. Stanley Kubrick the director, certainly knew how to rack up the tension.
As to paranormal experiences, I couldn’t say for sure, but I’ve certainly experienced events that creeped me out. Some years ago, when I was pregnant, my husband, two year old son and I rented a very old cottage in the Lakes for a few weeks, while my husband was working in the area. At the same time every night our son, who slept in the next room to us, woke up screaming, but could never say what was wrong. If that wasn’t unnerving enough, one particular night, my husband went in to comfort our son and I was left in our bedroom alone. Suddenly the doors of the large walk-in cupboard at my side of the bed burst open. Well, it wasn’t just my son who was screaming!
Not long after that, I decided I couldn’t stay there any longer and my son and I returned home. Strangely enough, my parents rented the same cottage for a week (and I hadn’t told them about my experience). They too came home early, my mother complaining about strange noises she kept hearing in the middle of the night.
In my book, The Unquiet Spirit, my heroine, Kate has lots of fears, she’s nervous around dogs and doesn’t go in elevators. She also has several unnerving experiences in her new home.
Here’s an extract where Sal, the neighbour’s dog seems to sense something spooky going on:
An eerie howl cut through the house, making the hairs on the back of Kate’s neck leap to attention again. Tom pushed his chair back with a squeal on the flagstone floor and charged out of the kitchen towards the noise. Kate stumbled after him, nerves on edge and heart pounding. Her mind somehow registered that the sound was being made by Sal. Nothing supernatural, but that did not make it any the less unnerving. Kate halted at the door to the dining room and took in the sight of Sal crouched at the bottom of the separate staircase leading up to the east wing, ears flattened against her head, and a low rumbling coming from her throat.
“What’s the matter, girl? There’s nothing there, you daft dog,” Tom got a grip on Sal’s collar and pulled her away. “Never known her do that before. Is there someone else in the house?” He tugged the now quiet Sal back into the kitchen, brusquely brushing past Kate.
“No.” Not as far as I know. Kate bit her lip, and followed them back into the kitchen. She propped herself against the counter top, certain that she would slide on to the floor without support, her legs were shaking so much.
Tom must have noticed her ashen face.
“Would you like me to check? Can’t understand why Sal carried on like that.” His voice had lost its brusqueness.
“No, it’s OK. I’m sure it’s nothing… Probably a mouse or something,” Yes, that’s all it was, she told herself, not quite believing it. Tom’s expression told her she hadn’t convinced him either. She glanced at Sal, now curled up in the corner as if nothing had happened. Well, she wasn’t bothered. It can’t have been anything.
I too, like Kate, am nervous around dogs and because I don’t like enclosed spaces I rarely use lifts. It was therefore easy for me to conjure up her feelings when she was faced with both these ordeals.
My biggest fear though is of the dark. As a child I always had to have a light on at night. I’m not that bad now, but I hate it when I’m somewhere that’s totally dark, I find it suffocating. A couple of years ago I was going round a museum in Italy and there was a powercut. My husband and I were in a room with no natural light and when the lights went out it was absolutely pitch black. Fortunately, the power didn’t stay off for long, but for me it seemed like a lifetime. If you read The Unquiet Spirit, you’ll discover exactly how I felt!
Thanks so much Penny, I’m totally with you on The Shining – for me the scariest movie Ive ever seen. And also – how scary were the first Cybermen??Check out Penny’s links below to get involved her conjuring’s of fear….
While the world continues to throw its scares at us I continue to search for fear in other places. Mainly the brains of my fellow authors. This week I’m joined by Karen E Stokes, bestselling author of paranormal thriller The Healing.
What movie/book scared you as a child?
Just can’t think -I didn’t watch many movies as a child – I’ll give this one some thought…
What was your biggest fear as a child?
The dark
Do you like scary movies? Which one is your favourite?
I love them – I have two favourites – The Keeping Hours and The Haunting in Connecticut
When I’m reading a book, storylines involving ghosts usually scare me the most. Have you ever had a paranormal experience in real life?
Yes, when I went with friends to a haunted house in Pontefract – East Drive, when a cupboard door opened by itself!
80 East Drive, Pontefract.
Has a book ever really scared you?
Can’t say that it has.
Can you share with us an example of fear in one of your own novels?
In The Healing there is a scene where the main character meets with the ghost boy. By some kind of thought transference, experiences the boy’s despair and for a few fleeting moments, feels as if she too is dead.
In real life what is your biggest fear? Do you use that when you write?
I still don’t like the dark and looking into mirrors at night time. I used a mirror scene in The Healing but because of this fear, approached it differently, though it was still ghostly! I l believe that less is more in films too – firing the imagination is far scarier than monsters!
A big thank you to Karen for dropping in, massively impressed that you got to go to one of the most haunted houses in England! I want to hear more!The Haunting in Connecticut is a great movie, a fascinating true case. I think I watched the feature documentary about the case a few too many times!
If you want to know more about Karen, check out her links below.
Following on from my chat with Rumer Haven last week, who cited this lady as being very capable of scaring her, this week I am honored to welcome Shani Struthers, author of the bestselling Psychic Survey’s series and This Haunted World series. Her latest book ‘Cades Home Farm’ has just been released and looks pretty damn scary. I just love finding out what scares people, especially those who like to scare others….
What movie/book scared you as a child?
I don’t remember being scared by a book or a movie as a child, not to the point of being disturbed by it. Rather I enjoyed the creepy goodness of an author called Ruth Manning Sanders, who is now (sadly) out of print. She wrote twisted fairy tales, and they could get very dark indeed. As a teenager, I moved onto Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Clive Barker. Of them all, Clive Barker’s books truly scared me, as did those Hellraiser films of his! I remember watching the first one in the franchise and not being able to sleep a wink for fear of those cenobites coming to get me, especially the one with the chattering teeth!
What was your biggest fear as a child?
Spiders! And it still is. I’ve had so much therapy for it, but the fear is too deep-seated. The therapists have all given up on me!
Do you like scary movies? Which one is your favourite?
I love scary movies; they’re my favourite. An all-time favourite is the black and white version of The Haunting with Claire Bloom, based on Shirley Jackson’s absolutely brilliant The Haunting of Hill House. It’s a real ‘less is more’ type of movie, it leaves so much to interpretation, which, in my opinion, makes it far, far scarier!
I am usually most afraid of ghosts when I’m reading a book. Have you ever had a paranormal experience in real life?
Yes, I have and that is perhaps the reason I write about the paranormal now. To be honest, my experiences were mainly as a child, including one that took place on a beach in North Cornwall, when I was five. I’d wandered off from my mother and was playing happily in a cove. There are six of us kids and sometimes we could be hard to keep an eye on! Anyway, next thing I know, I’ve looked up from the sandcastle I’m building, and the tide has come rushing in, effectively cutting me off. I’m the only one in this cove and I can’t swim! I climb onto some rocks, climbing higher and higher as the sea rises. I remember looking out and seeing nothing but sea and being very scared. Suddenly, I turn around to see a couple more people on the rocks, a man and a woman. I remember the woman in particular, she was wearing a tweed jacket and matching tweed skirt, not exactly beach attire! They started talking to me, calming me, telling me I was going to be okay, that whatever happened, it wouldn’t hurt. They assured me they’d stay with me, that they wouldn’t leave me. I did calm right down and remembered thinking that it was true, it was going to be all right, whatever the outcome. A few minutes later, a lifeboat came tearing round the corner with my mum in it, pointing at me and screeching. I was rescued. Only me. When I asked my mum – and this was years later – why the man and woman hadn’t been rescued too, she said ‘what man and woman? There was only you there.’
Has a book ever really scared you?
The only book I’ve never been able to read at night (and I’m pretty hardcore when it comes to horror novels) is Sarah England’s Father of Lies, it kept giving me nightmares!
Can you share with us an example of fear in one of your own novels?
Fear is a common theme in all my novels, either imagined or real. Actually, it’s the imagined fear that fascinates me, how it can completely paralyse us.
This extract is from Blakemort, a book about a very haunted house indeed. Five-year old Corinna and her brother, Ethan, have gone to explore the dark confines of the attic, but her brother – as brothers do – has left her in there, closing the door behind him…
He stepped over me – literally stepped over me – made his way to the door and banged it shut behind him. No longer open, or even ajar, it confined me within – imprisoned me. What was overhead immediately started fluttering again and in dark corners I could sense writhing. Who was it that had whispered? A boy – the same age as Ethan or thereabouts and even worse than him, if such a thing were possible. My arms were on the floor behind me, supporting my weight but I sat up straight and drew them inwards, trying to curl into a ball instead, to make myself tiny, tinier still, invisible. I had to get up, get out of there, but I couldn’t move. I swallowed, my eyes darting to the left and to the right. Who are you? Who’s here?
Something swooped – the bat, the owl, whatever creature it was, black feathers in my face and a smell so bitter it blinded me further. I screamed but worse than that I wet myself, my arms flailing in an attempt to keep the damned thing away. Even in my terror I felt shame that I couldn’t control my bladder – that urine was pouring from me – all over the photos, staining them, destroying them. I wanted them destroyed!
“Get away! Get away! Get away!”
Surely my screaming would alert Ethan and he’d come rushing back.
“Get away!”
I pushed myself upwards. If no one would save me, I had to save myself.
The thing that was beating about my head retreated – vanished, as if it had never been. Gone. Just like that. Somehow that was even more frightening – its sudden disappearance. Looking back, I’m not even sure it was real. In fact, right now, at this moment, sitting here writing, I’d bet money it wasn’t. It was simply an illusion, some kind of magic trick. Certainly, it never appeared again. But alone as I was, or more accurately not alone, I didn’t have time to contemplate it. My chest rising and falling, sobs starting to engulf me, snot pouring from my nose, my legs hot and sticky, I could only contemplate escape – but damn my feet, they wouldn’t work!
In real life what is your biggest fear? Do you use that when you write?
Nothing terrorises me more than the sight of an eight-legged beastie! I don’t mind the small ones but the big ones, I literally quake with terror. One of my characters in my Psychic Surveys series, Theo, is also scared of spiders. She may battle with dark entities on a regular basis, but it’s an arachnid that can be the undoing of her! In Eve (A Psychic Surveys Prequel), the entity she’s dealing with is turning her own fears back on herself and yep, she’s seeing spiders everywhere, as big as dinner plates. She really has to try and come to terms with her fear, face it head on, but as we know, it’s never that easy…
Thank you so much for answering my questions Shani, I’m definitely with you on The Haunting, I love that movie, suggestion is always more terrifying. And also spiders are a big NOPE for me too, my house is full of them and I’m tempted to buy a flame thrower to deal with them.I’d never heard of Ruth Manning-Sanders but now I’ve seen her books I want them all!
Shani has an amazing back catalogue of terrifying novels, if you haven’t had the pleasure, and you like a good spooking, get yourself onto her website for more info!
Born and bred in Brighton, UK, Shani Struthers is the author of nineteen supernatural thrillers (so far), some set in various locations in England, others in more far-flung destinations such as Venice and America. Having been brought up with an understanding of the Occult and alternative views on religion, she threads this knowledge throughout her books, often drawing on real-life experiences of her own, from people she has known and from well-known Occult figures too. Please Note: her books tend to revolve more around PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR. You won’t find gore, vampires, werewolves, zombies or the like in her fiction. Her various paranormal series have proved very popular indeed, including the Psychic Surveys Series, This Haunted World, Reach for the Dead and Jessamine. She has also written a set of Psychic Surveys Companion Novels and two Christmas Ghost stories: Eve and Carfax House. All have topped the Amazon genre charts in both the UK and the US. For more information on new releases, competitions and general news, sign up to her newsletter via her website.
“Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI Part One
So very happy to welcome Jennifer Wilson to my blog during the festive season! As you may know Jennifer loves writing about spooks as much as I do, only hers are a tad more regal than mine. Author of the Kindred Spirits series, Jennifer has raised the dead monarchy so many times she deserves a spot on Most Haunted. I think her stories are awesome so I’m very excited to have her here to talk about fear…..
Hi Anne-Marie, thanks for inviting me to your blog today. It’s fair to say I’m a naturally jumpy and easily-frightened individual, so I’m confident that of all your guests, my responses are at the coward’s end of the fear scale…
What movie/book scared you as a child?
I have really vivid memories of reading a book from the ‘upstairs’ library, for the upper juniors in primary school, which really freaked me out. I can see the cover, with two boys running, and I’m sure it was called ‘The Runaways’ or something similar. In one scene, a wall fell over, almost crushing either one or both of them. That image stuck with me for a long, long time, and gave me nightmares about being crushed. Horrific. I should have stayed in the ‘downstairs’ library, where I belonged, but I’d finished all the books it had to offer!
What was your biggest fear as a child?
Well, apart from walls… I’ve always had the most random fear of dust-bin lorries. That, and dinosaurs. Both stem from films. I watched the Turtles live-action film, where Shredder is, well, shredded, in a dust-bin lorry, and from that day, I’ve hated them. We used to have to walk up a really narrow wynd to get up to college, and on dust-bin day, I’d be petrified of accidentally slipping into the back of it. As for dinosaurs, that’s the fault of Jurassic Park. I had this terrible fear that if I opened my curtains at night, I’d see the eye of a t-rex, just staring back at me…
Do you like scary movies? Which one is your favourite?
As you can probably guess from the above, no, I do not like scary movies… I’m not really a film person anyway, but the most I can tolerate is a bit of a ‘jump scare’ which at least is over quickly!
I am usually scared the most by ghosts when I’m reading a book. Have you ever had a paranormal experience in real life?
Yes, and the most recent was in Greyfriars Kirkyard, in Edinburgh. As it’s the setting for part of my own book, Kindred Spirits: Royal Mile, and it was a lovely, quiet morning (I was early for an exhibition), I decided to pop in and get some nice photos of the blossom. There was one guy sitting having a coffee on a bench as I walked in, but that was it. Around the front of the church there was a lovely view down the graveyard of blossom, which I snapped, but as I went to put my phone away, I felt somebody touch my handbag. I panicked slightly, and put my own hand down to the zipper / strap, whilst turning to my left to confront them. Out the corner of my eye, I saw a tall gentleman in a dark suit and a white shirt, with dark hair. Later, I thought he had also been wearing a hat, but I cannot swear to that, and may have added it in my imagination afterwards. But the man himself was clear as day. Heart racing now, I turned fully around, only… Nothing. Nobody anywhere near me. Anyone who knows the site will know that if you’re in the middle of the paving in front of the church itself, there’s not enough time to get somewhere hide in the second it took me to turn around (Usain Bolt himself wouldn’t make it). The only other thing I felt was the strangest sensation of cold.
Greyfriars Kirkyard
I got out of there quicker than I’ve ever done anything in my life! Once out the gates, I did what every self-respecting thirty-something who has had a scare would do, and called my mum. She laughed initially when I told her, but then admitted she believed me, because she could hear the genuine fear in my voice. I was very glad to get away into the safety of the museum after that…
Has a book ever really scared you?
Other than the one I talked about above, not really, but that’s partly down to the fact that I can usually sense when something is about to get too much for me, and I skim / skip appropriately. It’s the same technique I use with overly-graphic crime novels!
Can you share with us an example of fear in one of your own novels?
Since the Kindred Spirits series follows the adventures of the ghostly communities inhabiting some of Britain’s most famous landmarks, fear definitely plays a part in my novels. For the most part, this is the ghosts instilling fear in the tourists who visit their homes, such as George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, rising from a barrel of malmsey in the Tower of London, or Katherine Howard haunting ‘her’ corridor at Hampton Court Palace. In one of the closes off Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, some students ready to play a trick on those taking part in one of the city’s famous ‘ghost tours’, the students themselves become the victims, terrified as Mary Queen of Scots enjoys herself in the occasional haunting. In these situations though, I think it’s fair to say that the living are almost-willing participants in the game. After all, you wouldn’t go on a ghost tour along a famously haunted street, at night, with somebody dressed as a ghoul, if you weren’t at least partially expecting to be scared witless, would you? So can the ghosts really be blamed, when they’re practically giving the tourists what they’re expecting?
In some instances though, I’ve wanted to explore things a little ‘bigger’ than just ghosts jumping out at unsuspecting visitors. I’ve talked about ghostly characters finding their ‘white light’ and moving on from their haunting, but this is by choice – if the white light appears, then a ghost can choose to move on, or stay. But I also wanted to give the ghosts something to genuinely fear, otherwise, they seemed a bit too invincible. I had this idea that if a ghost was injured too many times, they would gradually fade away to nothing. That would stop characters fighting each other – there had to be a consequence of their actions.
In Kindred Spirits: York, I pushed things a little further, and actually introduced a ‘bad guy’ into things, rather than just an unpopular character. Here, the ghosts didn’t quite know what was going on, which, for characters who can slip through walls and overhear almost any conversation without being observed, was something unknown, and for a lot of people, isn’t that one of the most frightening things?
In real life what is your biggest fear? Do you use that when you write?
If you take away dust-bin lorries and dinosaurs, then being very serious for a moment, I’m always scared of letting people down, or disappointing them. Perhaps this isn’t quite as relevant in the Kindred Spirits series, but in The Raided Heart, Meg has a strong sense of wanting to do the right thing, and not let her family down, and in the WIP I’m currently working on, loyalty and needing to work together are strong motivations for the key characters, as they try to do their best in difficult situations.
Thank you so much for joining my study of fear Jennifer. I too fell foul of Jurassic Park, had several T Rex nightmares after seeing that at the cinema! And your Greyfriars experience deserves a blog post of its own! How creepy was that? Feel free to stop by with ghost stories again please!
All of Jennifer’s books are currently in the big DarkStroke Halloween sale over on Amazon, you can get all titles for 99p/99c this weekend! Go go go!
About Jennifer C. Wilson
Jennifer C. Wilson stalks dead people (usually monarchs, mostly Mary Queen of Scots and Richard III). Inspired by childhood visits to as many castles and historical sites her parents could find, and losing herself in their stories (not to mention quite often the castles themselves!), at least now her daydreams make it onto the page.
After returning to the north-east of England for work, she joined a creative writing class, and has been filling notebooks ever since. Jennifer won North Tyneside Libraries’ Story Tyne short story competition in 2014, and in 2015, her debut novel, Kindred Spirits: Tower of London was published by Crooked Cat Books. The full series was re-released by Darkstroke in January 2020.
Jennifer is a founder and host of the award-winning North Tyneside Writers’ Circle, and has been running writing workshops in North Tyneside since 2015. She also publishes historical fiction novels with Ocelot Press. She lives in Whitley Bay, and is very proud of her two-inch view of the North Sea.
When I was fortunate enough to chat with author Jennifer Wilson about her books recently, I felt I just wanted to keep talking about what appears to be a common subject between us – ghosts!
My book is all about being dead, and her books feature some pretty famous ghosts from UK history, so I could just talk to her all day about it all! So I asked her to appear on a one off special interview on my blog about why she writes about them and how she actually feels about the afterlife.
Hi Anne-Marie, thanks for inviting me along today, to chat about a mutual topic of ours – ghosts!
You have included ghosts in several of your novels – where did your interest in ghosts come from?
It’s really odd, to be honest – I’m really not a ghost person… I’m terrified of the notion, and have even gone out of my way to avoid places known to be haunted. But when I was thinking about a ‘way in’ to write about Richard III a few years ago, I came across a competition for a poem about ghosts, and when it struck me that the ghosts of Anne Boleyn and Richard III could potentially have a fair bit in common, it seemed the perfect solution.
I suppose as well, it may not be ghosts per se, but I’ve always been interested in the spirit (pun intended!) of a place, and that connection with the people who once lived, worked or died there. I think that comes across very strongly in some buildings and sites, and so the notion of writing about ghosts came very naturally.
I’ve always been fascinated with real life ghost stories, one of my favourites is the haunting of Borley Rectory in Essex. (read about Borley here!) What’s your favourite real life ghost story?
It’s one I came across quite recently actually, set in Dunstaffnage Castle, near Oban. Apparently, the ‘Ell-maid of Dunstaffnage’ wanders the ramparts, wearing green, and is supposedly linked to key events in the lives of the Campbell family, the hereditary owners of the castle. Her mood determines luck – smiling means good, crying, well, not. A related tale is that as part of their hold on the castle, the Hereditary Captain of the castle must spend three nights a year in the castle, and some have experienced ghostly goings-on during this sleepover. There’s certainly a feel to the place; for such a stunning castle, in a beautiful setting, it has a darkness about it.
Have you spent a lot of time in your book locations? Which is your favourite?
I think it has to be Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. I’ve loved Edinburgh since I was a child, and since moving back to the north-east, it’s become a bit of a bolt-hole for me, visiting pretty regularly to see friends, or even just wander around the place. When it came to another destination for a Kindred Spirits book, and the thought of Westminster Abbey terrified me, Edinburgh was the obvious choice. It also gave me the chance to write about Mary, Queen of Scots, my second favourite monarch, in Kindred Spirits: Royal Mile, having finally included Richard III in Kindred Spirits: Tower of London.
Have you ever had any paranormal experiences?
Once, I think. My parents were gardening, whilst I was pottering about inside. After a while, I went outside to ask my dad something, and saw him at the top of the back garden. When I started speaking to him however, he completely ignored me, and the next thing I knew, I heard his voice behind me, as he came around from the front garden. Looking back at the man I’d started talking to, there was nobody there. Apparently our estate is built on the site of an old market garden, so I can only assume that first man was the ghost of a former gardener…
I loved writing about the afterlife in my own book, what so you like about writing about dead people?
For me, it’s getting an idea of what people were like, how they lived, and what they thought about things. I also love having that little bit of wiggle-room, given that my ghosts, although of historical characters, are also modern people, to the extent that they are living ‘now’, as well as throughout every moment since their birth. It’s quite nice being able to write Anne Boleyn rolling her eyes and saying ‘whatever’, because actually, I think she was always quite a ‘modern’ character, and now she can be even more so.
What do you think the afterlife is like?
I would like to think it is a combination of how we both envisage it in our writing. I suppose my ghosts are in a purgatory of sorts, but some have chosen to stay there, not taking their chance to pass onto what I’ve always assumed is heaven, but never actually gone into any great length. There’s a mix of good and bad characters there, and a sense of having to work things out in this bit of the afterlife before you get the chance to move on.
Would you ever go ghost-hunting?
I just couldn’t… I’ve become a stronger believer about the afterlife in the last few years, and the only ghosts that ghost-hunters seem to encounter are those that are less than friendly! If I could just go and natter with some (nice) dead monarchs, or lords and ladies from the various historical sites I visit, then fine, but plague victims, criminals and tortured souls would be a bit too much for me.
If you could ask any dead person about the afterlife who would you choose?
Well, if we work on the assumption that they are able to visit the realm of the living, like both of our sets of characters can, then I think I’d have to go a fair way back, just because that way, the person I ask will have seen and heard a heck of a lot over the years. So, following that logic, and my own personal preferences, I’ll have to go for Richard III. It was never really going to be anyone else…
For my final author interview of the year, I had a chat with Jennifer Wilson, author of the Kindred Spirits series; paranormal fiction set in the Royal Court of the 1400’s – so clearly my love of all things spooky mean I had to have a chat with the lady herself!
Her most recent book is slightly different but again returns to the era of Richard III. Ive always been fascinated by this period of history and Jennifer really knows her stuff so this interview has been a real pleasure.
Tell us the basic premise of your novel?
The Last Plantagenet? is a timeslip historical romance, following history-lover Kate as she gets transported back in time from 2011 to the travelling court of Richard III in 1485. That would be difficult enough to acclimatise to, but then she also catches the eye of the King of England himself – how will she cope?
As the book is historical fiction – did you have to do a lot of research for accuracy?
I was really keen that even though it’s a bit of a fantasy, with the timeslip element, that the facts were still correct. So yes, I did do my research, in particular to make sure that the court was in the right place at the right time, and that people who shouldn’t have been there weren’t there. I had a really good book which went into a lot of detail about the last 100 days of Richard’s reign, and that was a great resource, to track each day’s activity. Happily, having one of the main characters as an entirely fictional individual, there was a little leeway in where I could go with her.
As it was also my first go at self-publishing, I was keen that it was in good shape, and didn’t accidentally detract from my Kindred Spirits series, so I checked everything at least twice!
Where do you go to get inspiration for your locations and storylines?
For TLP, it was all desk-based, although I have been to the site of Nottingham Castle, where the book is mostly set. Most of the time, I do need to go somewhere to really write how I want to about it. For example, for the third Kindred Spirits novel, I had written a whole scene about Anne of Cleves’ tomb, only to discover that you couldn’t physically see what I had my characters seeing from a particular spot, and I had to rewrite the whole thing.
I found especially with places like Westminster Abbey or the Tower of London, they do have a very specific atmosphere, and I like to capture that. Plus, I love visiting historical sites anyway, so it’s not that much of a hardship.
Do you have a favourite author?
I’m always torn here between three, but I think Philippa Gregory is still the author I look forward to a new release from. It was reading The Other Boleyn Girl on the insistence of a colleague that introduced me to the Tudor world, and inspired me to get back into writing historical fiction again, so I feel I owe that book a lot.
I also love the writing of Elizabeth Chadwick and Anne O’Brien, who both manage to capture strong central female characters, without falling into that trap of having their heroines too modern in their attitudes and thoughts.
What/who inspires you most as a writer?
For me, it’s places. There’s nothing better for me than visiting historical sites or buildings, and just mooching about, getting a feel for the place, and who might have spent time there in the past. That’s where my inspiration comes from. I’ve been wanting to set a story in an abbey (other than Westminster!) for years, but couldn’t get a good enough grasp on it until this summer, wandering around Glenluce Abbey, when the whole thing magically fell into place. By the end of the day, I had the whole synopsis, ready to go.
Which historical figures would you most like to sit down to dinner with?
Well, I hate to be obvious, but I would, of course, enjoy sitting down and sharing a cup of wine with Richard III. He was king for such a short time, but involved in so many events and situations important to British history. Also, who wouldn’t want to hear his side of the story regarding the Princes in the Tower? Although, I think I would leave that until the end of the meal, in case he refused to speak to me again after that…
What are you working on next?
I’m thrilled to bits that the third Kindred Spirits novel, set in Westminster Abbey, will be released by Crooked Cat in summer 2018, so I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the editing process for that in the new year. I find self-editing so hard, but love receiving critique and feedback from others, so that’s part of the publishing process I really enjoy.
As for new writing, I have a couple of ideas for other timeslip, like the abbey tale I mentioned above, and one with a more local flavour, inspired by a reservoir we used to visit when I was little.
About Jennifer
Jennifer is a marine biologist by training, who spent much of her childhood stalking Mary, Queen of Scots (initially accidentally, but then with intention). She completed her BSc and MSc at the University of Hull, and has worked as a marine environmental consulting since graduating. Enrolling on an adult education workshop on her return to the north-east reignited Jennifer’s pastime of creative writing, and she has been filling notebooks ever since. In 2014, Jennifer won the Story Tyne short story competition, and also continues to develop her poetic voice, reading at a number of events, and with several pieces available online. She is also part of The Next Page, running workshops and other literary events in North Tyneside, including the prize-winning North Tyneside Writers’ Circle.
The close proximity of Halloween along with watching Mark Gatiss ‘History of Horror’ on BBC 3 has got me thinking about the great scary movies that we should all be watching this Halloween weekend.
The first scary movie I saw stayed with me for the rest of my life, one scene in particular presenting itself in nightmares. ‘The Evil Dead’ was and is my favourite Zombie movie; to be fair I don’t actually like zombie movies, all that eating of brains and insides just makes me feel ill, but ‘The Evil Dead’ has a great sense of humour about it and Bruce Campbell makes it totally watchable.
Beyond that I saw a variety of the late 70’s early 80’s horrors, one of which I have never heard mentioned when discussing movies, perhaps because it was so awful? ‘Christina’ i think it was called and seemed to be about a Frankenstein type experiment putting the vengeful mind of a introverted, bullied and facially disfigured girl into the body of a sexy beautiful woman. Needless to say, madness and murder ensues.
Hammer Horror never appealed to me, the pinkish orange of the blood never sat right with me, I preferred black and white thrillers such as ‘Psycho’ and comedy thrillers like Bob Hope’s ‘The Cat and the Canary.’
It wasn’t until I was 18 that I saw the movie I consider the scariest film ever. ‘The Shining’ and other paranormal horrors that followed seem to bother me more than any vampire, serial killer or zombie ever has. The desolation of the hotel, the endless long corridors of empty rooms stretching away in the cold hotel would probably send any one mad even without the help of murderous spirits. The simplicity of a children’s ball rolling down an empty hallway towards the young boy is enough to raise hairs. These simple scenes, though creepy, are like warnings of the more graphic and grotesque scenes that follow Particularly, the scene in the hallway where Danny sees the two girl ghosts inviting him to play with them ‘forever’ with a spliced frame of their bloody murder……I still have to look away at that moment.
If I have learnt anything about what scares me when it comes to movies, it’s that you throw a haunting from a dead child in the mix and I am going to have trouble going to the bathroom during the night. Japanese horrors used that imagery and back story to great affect in The Ring, The Grudge and Dark Water and while not as good in its entirety; A Tale of Two Sisters has a few alarming scenes thrown in. The American remakes of these movies don’t quite have the same feel to them as the originals, however the sight of Samara crawling out of the TV in ‘The Ring’ or the vengeful blood soaked ghost of ‘The Grudge’ crawling down the stairs translates fairly well. Another spooky children offering worth watching is Spanish movie The Orphanage, with its unexpectedly disturbing faceless child ghost.
More mainstream movies that delivered in that area were the TV movie of ‘The Woman in Black’ (soon to be remade by Jane Goldman) featuring a ghost child who likes to throw balls and leave toy soldiers in peoples beds, and the 1980 George C Scott movie ‘The Changeling.’ Scott plays a recently widowed concert pianist who moves to an old house in the desolate Pacific Northwest only to find that something in the house is trying to get his attention. The use again of desolate wintry locations and the children’s toys add an effortlessly creepy tone to the movie.
Another parapsychological horror that slipped under the radar for many was ‘The Machinist’ director Brad Anderson’s early movie ‘Session 9’, about a group of men clearing asbestos from a derelict insane asylum. English actor Peter Mullan does a fabulous turn as the foreman bothered by the asylums lingering inmates.
I deliberately haven’t mentioned some of the more run-of-the-mill horrors that everyone knows and loves; while ‘Halloween’ is still one of my favourite movies of its genre, I cant say it ever kept me awake at night. If you want more ideas for Halloween viewing, get onto the BBC iPlayer and watch the 3 part series ‘A History of Horror’, its a damn good look at the genre from the early black and white’s to the American slasher movies of the 70’s. Plenty of viewing material there to give you a Halloween scream.
I figure the scariest it can get for me is if someone made a movie about an insane asylum haunted by the ghost of a small child. Still waiting.
Anne-Marie Ormsby 