This novel is not just a tale; it’s an exploration of deep themes – love and hate, life and death, angels and demons, hope and despair. It’s about facing one’s demons, both literal and metaphorical, and the power of resilience.
For those who have read the book, this is an opportunity to revisit the story and experience it anew. For newcomers, prepare to embark on a journey that’s both haunting and beautiful, filled with moments that will stay with you long after you’ve finished listening.
The audiobook is perfect for those long commutes, quiet evenings, or whenever you wish to lose yourself in a different world. Grab your headphones, settle in, and let “Soul Sister” transport you to a place where the shadows hold secrets, and the fight for one’s soul is the greatest battle of all.
Any good horror story knows how to get under readers’ skin. And one of the most important elements for unsettling your audience is the setting.
The right atmosphere can ratchet up dread before anything frightening even happens. Familiar settings suddenly become sinister. Everyday objects cast shadows that put us on edge. The environment seems watchful and alive.
So how can you craft effective scene-setting that elicits delicious chills down your readers’ spines? Here are some key tips:
Choose Descriptive Words Carefully
Be selective with descriptive language. The words you choose set the mood. Consider: murky, bleak, oppressive, unnerving. Use concise but vivid details. Long paragraphs slow the pacing, so keep sentences short and punchy.
Tap Into All Five Senses
Describe what the protagonist sees, hears, smells, feels, and even tastes. Make settings tangible through sensory details. Maybe she hears a distant howl or sees a figure dart behind a tree. Engage readers’ imaginations.
Use Weather and Nature
Fog, thunderstorms, and moonlight are classic horror weather. Nature can enhance the creepy factor through twisted trees, dead leaves, and cawing crows. Beware of clichés though.
Establish an Unsettling Tone
Word choice directly impacts tone. Pick unsettling descriptors like sinister, lurking, haunted. Avoid adverbs like “spookily” which distance readers. Show, don’t tell.
Make the Ordinary Ominous
Horror often corrupts ordinary settings like schools, small towns, and suburbs. Allow familiarity to breed unease. An empty playground is scarier than a graveyard because it subverts expectations.
Vary the Pacing
Faster pacing evokes panic while a slower pace builds tension. Draw out small actions like your character walking down a dark hallway. But use sharp sentences to punctuate intensity.
Set the Scene from Page One
Immerse readers quickly. Stephen King’s The Shining opens with: “Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.” The tone and conflict are immediately clear.
With deliberate descriptions and smart pacing, you can craft effective settings to unsettle your readers. The environment should enhance, not distract. Use these tips to make your commonplace locations distinctly creepy.
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of my new YouTube channel – Wait Til Dark! Dedicated to chilling tales, creepy mysteries, and things that go bump in the night, this channel will deliver bite-sized doses of atmospheric horror entertainment.
To set the sinister mood, I’m kicking things off with an original short story, “The Curse of Elysia Noctura.” Upcoming videos will offer more original short horror stories.
I’m excited to announce that my zombie apocalypse serial, Our Final Days, is coming to Patreon! Starting today, I’ll be posting a new episode daily (on weekdays) until all 11 of the first episodes are available.
After that, new episodes will release first on Patreon 2 weeks before they become available to read on Vella. This means Patreon members get exclusive early access to new chapters of Our Final Days before anyone else!
If you want to dive deeper into the story and stay ahead of each new terrifying chapter, now is the time to pledge!
Anyway, here’s the official week 2 accountability post!
WRITING
The Goal: Write Every Day. Hit 2 million words for the year. Write a book a week.
Actual: I wrote 4 out of 7 days. Week Total: 14,421. Daily Average: 2,060. Words per Hour: 2,653. Books Written This Week: 1. O.ne rough draft completed.
January Totals: 31,085 words; Daily Average: 2,391; Words Per Hour: 2,646; Books Written: 3; Books Published: 0
I am still well below averaging high enough for 2 million words for the year, but fortunately, just a little behind for hitting one million. I am still cautiously optimistic for both. As far as writing every day? On those three days, I wasn’t home. As soon as I got off work with the post office, I left again. I did manage to finish something, though.
Spilling Blood episode 14 is complete. I hope to have episode 13 revised this week, and hopefully published by the weekend.
The biggest distractions to writing this week were working for the post office and grinding xp for my Rock Band Crew in the mornings before going to work. I know, I know. I’m playing a game. 😛
I am going to continue and put off adding any other goals until my writing is more stable. This remains the focus.
This week I will write something new, I haven’t decided yet.
I will complete editing on Spilling Blood 13, get it to my proofreading crew, and get it published.
I will up my minimal writing from a minimum of 30 minutes a day to a full hour.
MUSIC
I didn’t get a chance to even touch my guitar last week. I think I will launch my music goal in February. Why because there’s a site called fawm.org. That’s February Album Writing Month. Hell, why not?
OTHER
As far as putting off my other goals, I think I will add back in one. Social Media, and specifically, Instagram. I will post at least one photo a day this week, and more as I can. Please follow me. 🙂
What do you do when pirates kidnap you for a ransom and a mad scientist injects you with a powerful and inevitably fatal concoction of aether?
You get revenge.
Matilda Katrine Myra is no one special, but her pirate abductors don’t know that. When they boldly kidnap her from an airship and sweep her away into the deadly wasteland of mutants and poisonous radiation, her life becomes a day to day battle to evade death.
And she’s much closer to death than ever. A mad scientist has injected her with toxic condensed aether, the air of the gods, and now she’ll need frequent doses just to survive each day. With a dwindling supply, she’ll have to battle mutants, mad scientists, pirates, and the spirits of the dead.
The tool of her fate, a gauntlet feeding the condensed aether into her veins, is also a potent weapon. It can focus the aether into a death ray. She can also see the dead, women who suffered the fate Matilda is fighting to avoid.
Along with a wasteland traveler and his clockwork dragon as her only allies, and despite the powers gifted to her by the aether, the one thing she doesn’t have is time.
With passion and intrigue, adventure and swashbuckling in an apocalyptic world, Apocalypse Witch is a dystopian steampunk adventure of non-stop excitement. This novel collects the three books of the Apocalypse Witch Trilogy, Apocalypse Witch, Memento Mori, and Shadow Falls.
With the start of Season III of Spilling Blood, this is a great opportunity to discover or catch up on the complete series of Season I and II.
Right now, you can grab BOTH of the first two seasons on your kindle ereading device for less than a movie ticket, and in return you will receive countless HOURS of entertainment!
This sale is NOT on the episodes, but on the collections. Yes, that’s TWO COMPLETE NOVELS FOR $0.99 EACH!
WHY AM I SHOUTING? I DON’T KNOW!!!!
Better hurry though, this is a limited time sale (until Jan 27, 16). What are you waiting for? Escape reality into a world of the supernatural.
In Season III, the Game Changes
Taken to the very brink of death, Emily rises again. With new abilities. New alliances. And deadly new enemies.
Emily Steel will be tested to her limits as evil rises to consume her city.
Being a vampire just got deadly.
Vampires…
They’ve walked among us for centuries…
Lurking in the shadows…
Thirsting…
In Spilling Blood Season III, Emily’s struggle to survive as one of the undead continues. The events from last season have left her damaged. Can she trust the Dragon’s promise to help her learn her full potential?
Or does he only seek to possess her?
Season III is here, with all new threats and thrills, twisted horror, and dark lust.
It all begins with Episode 11. Season III is four episodes, with each book 50% longer than previous seasons.
Spilling Blood is a serial, with each part like a television episode, and the episodes collected in seasons.
Have you read the first ten episodes to Spilling Blood? This book is Episode 11, and starts Season III.
G.S. Wright 