Hello, Readers! Clevenger here.

The question posed, is “What do you read when you don’t read fantasy?” Well, not as much as I would like. But when I get a chance, I tend to go back to my roots. Horror.

I grew up on Stephen King. From the ages of nine to thirteen, I read pretty much nothing else. What stuck out at me was the ideas and concepts that King laid down. I felt that Horror, when done well, takes a very “human condition” concept that we struggle with and manifests it into a named monster.

Novels like “The Dark Half,” and “IT” really resonated with me. The childhood fears and struggle with the flawed “adult” that they became spoke deeply to my fears of growing up without meeting the expectations that I set for myself. Not knowing that I was desperately trying to find that in myself, looking back I can see that those stories were trying to tell me that the only true way to win was to accept myself for who I was.

To this day, Horror seems to speak to that concept with me. I’m (like Graham) am fascinated with Vampires. What does the human condition become when the fear of death is removed? Vampires, Elves, and other races in Horror and Fantasy expose some of that. It’s not always pretty. I also saw this explored in Sci-Fi (“Timeless” and “Altered Carbon”) where the “monster” behind the fear becomes real.

Fantasy gave me monsters, Horror gives me manifestations of real monsters. Because of that, I always tend towards Horror.

Now, my second go-to is Mystery. Pulp detective stories are always fascinating to me. “Hounds of Baskerville” and “The Speckled Band” gave me a great love of puzzle solving. Years later, I stumbled upon the Sue Grafton “Alphabet Series.” While eventually, they became a bit formulaic, the idea of the set-up, the stumble, the red-herring, the “twist”, and the resolution were very satisfying to me.

Trying to predict who the culprit is, what their “true” motives are, and how they pulled it off has long been a love of mine. I watch crime-documentaries, I watch police procedurals, and I’m a sucker for a mystery plot. I won’t even touch on what my “day job” brings to the equation, but needless to say, I’m very aware of what is “real” in a mystery novel, and what is “dramatic.”

Like Graham, I connect to characters. But more than that, I’m much more involved in concepts. Watching movies, or shows, or reading novels, I love seeing the “origin” of an idea. Sometimes they play out the way I want, and others not so much. It’s those “not-so-much” moments that got me into writing. I want to give some of these left behind ideas another chance to shine.

Oh, well. That should be good enough for now. Still recovering from last week, but we’re getting back on pace.

Until then. Be Kind.

-Clevenger