As young man, my mentor used to say that all human expressions could be boiled down to two ideas: “I don’t want to die” and “Let’s fuck.” Whenever you talk to someone, all the words you are saying are some variation of one of these two ideas. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some examples. In essence, all human emotion can be boiled down to either fear or love.

Now, this mentor wasn’t a writer but a male gigolo who was showing me how to earn some money whoring myself on the streets of Phoenix. But a few years later when I transitioned to being a writer, I never forgot this idea.

We’ve talked a lot about “Let’s fuck” on this blog so today, keeping in the spirit of the season, let’s focus on “I don’t want to die.” Many of you watching probably have no interest in becoming a horror writer, but there’s a lot of lessons we can take from horror stories that translate well to other genres. And I’m not talking about lessons like not making weird tweets about Epstein island.

You see, fear is the lifeblood of conflict and conflict is what makes fiction work. What is The Great Gatsby about if not the fear that somebody might be richer than you? What is East of Eden about if not that your brother is going to make a stupid business decision? Now those obviously aren’t horror novels, but that’s my point. That fear is relatable, especially if you have a brother you started a company that made high-powered ceiling fans because normal ceiling fans don’t go fast enough.

We’ll tear open a corpse so we can truly examine the human condition on this edition of Stories’ Matter.

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Tip 1: Write What Scares You

Writing requires an author to be honest with themselves. Even in fiction, readers crave the authentic you. Do what I do and save the dishonesty for your Ashley Madison profile; let your writing be an exploration of your psyche.

As we’ve talked about before on the channel, thinking of story ideas can be hard. So start with a fear. Let’s go with a common one: The fear of dying alone. If you’re watching this tiny channel on YouTube, this almost certainly applies to you.

And there are a lot of ways you could take this. Maybe you could write a rom com about a down-on-her-luck magazine editor who can’t keep a man because her horrible IBS means she shits her pants in her sleep like at least twice a week.

Or how about a dystopian science fiction story about a man who was the lone survivor of a nuclear bomb and now travels the country with a portable freezer of his semen, in case he has ED by the time he finds another woman to repopulate the Earth with. These are scenarios that everyone can relate to.

No matter the genre, I’d suggest writing a list of the things that scare you most. Here’s what I came up with.

Tip 2: Make Your Reader Empathize With Your Character

Horror is all about empathy. If a person wanted to see bad things happen to people they hated, they could simply travel to Oklahoma and go to a public execution. And if that didn’t work, they could also simply hang around Oklahoma for a while.

Getting a reader onboard in horror is crucial because so much of the rest of the book relies on supernatural elements that require suspension of disbelief, so that emotional connection is the thing keeping them invested.

For example, I’m sure everyone who’s watched The Shining (and who’s not paying attention to the minotaurs or Kubrick’s cryptic confession that he faked the moon landing) is really invested in whether or not this normal family can be happy and whole again. We don’t mind the furry blowjobs because we are mainly rooting for Danny and Wendy to survive.

Tip 3: Make Things Worse and Worse For Your Character

Stories need to show some sort of progression and horror writers are often the best at this because the final scare needs to be the scariest. In Faulkner’s short story “A Rose For Emily,” we don’t realize that the protagonist is sleeping with her husband’s corpse until the very end of the story. If we knew that at the beginning, it would’ve been a very different story.

And this works in any genre. In my comedy, The Altar Boy, things get worse and worse for the clergy where the story is set. At the start, the building is run down and all of the priests attempts to fund-raise fall short. Then, a bout of clap infects all the priests. Finally, it culminates with an investigation into the church for abuse and sex crimes. It works just like a horror that builds to a final showdown between the protagonist and monster, but because of the tone I set in the book, this story of molestation leaves the reader with a deep belly laugh instead.