Returning back to horror

When someone recently read an early draft of a chapter of my horror, they told me they were surprised. They knew me as a romance writer, and so when I submitted work to be critiqued, they expected romance, and not a gothic horror. When I did my first event for my cosy Christmas romance novel, an audience member asked: ‘if you didn’t write romance, what would you write?’ Without hesitation I said horror, and they looked surprised.

I can’t blame them, really. I’m a published romance writer, and in April, I’ll be a published dystopian dark academia novelist. The dark academia may lean closer to horror, but it isn’t categorised as such. My third novel, in June, is a romcom.

We’re so focussed on ‘building a brand’ and we’re told to focus on our ‘personal brand’, but I’ve always struggled with that. Mainly because I want to write many things. As an Aquarius, I don’t like to be confined, either. But still, my ‘brand’ right now is romance writer, which I’m absolutely fine with.

Horror, though, has always been a part of me.

How it started

I was born in 1995, and in 1996 a horror film called Scream released. I was probably 3, 4, or 5, having a ‘sleepover’ in my teenage sisters room. She would say: ‘turn around and don’t watch this’, as she pressed play on the Scream VHS she owned.

But of course, being a kid, I did the exact opposite. I snuck glances, and even when I didn’t, I could hear what was going on. In hindsight, my sister realises she probably shouldn’t have been watching horror films when I was around.

But it became a sort of secret of ours. Sleepovers and horror films. I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend - these are films I remember from my childhood.

I’ve been hooked on Scream, and horror, ever since.

We’d also play Tomb Raider, and I remember my sister being a goth a lot longer than she claims. When playing the classic Tomb Raider games, we’d be listening to all sorts of screaming, heavy metal music.

It wasn’t all blood, gore, and death. I was a sucker for Scooby Doo. I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. My sister introduced me to Point Horror books way before I was a teenager. And yet, despite this exposure to horror, I’d still hide from the video trailer for Goosebumps.

The first thing I wrote seriously

When I was around 17, I started to write ‘seriously’ - that is, with a view to get published. Writing under the pen name J S Strange - a name that has been resurrected this year with my book, The Boyfriend Academy - I wrote a zombie horror novel. I probably got hundreds of rejections on it, and instead of actually listening, I paid to get it ‘edited’ and self-published it. Then I wrote a sequel, and self-published that.

I look back on it now, with its corny cover, bad writing and bad editing, and I cringe. I wish self-publishing wasn’t so easily accessible to me at that time. I wasn’t ready, at all. But I was young and naive and thought I’d written the next great horror masterpiece.

This zombie horror was supposed to be a trilogy, but a review for book two got in my head and I froze. I never did finish that trilogy. Instead, I wrote cosy crime, and got closer to publication with short listings and full manuscript requests, but even then, I was still rejected. I self-published two of those, too. Better than the horrors, at least in writing, but still, not quite ready for publication.

And so, I gave up. Gave up on writing. Gave up on thinking I should write horror.

But horror didn’t give up on me.

Throughout it all, I returned to horror in some form. Horror books, horror films. I was a ghost hunter, I practiced witchcraft. The occult interests me. I even starred in an indie horror film as Youth 2. I had no lines, but I slayed. Halloween is my favourite time of the year. October, my favourite month. Autumn my favourite season. These ‘darker’ things are things I’ve always been interested in.

Yet death terrifies me.

Horror, for me, has felt like an escape. It’s a reflection of the times. It’s full of queer undertones. It gets your heart racing, your nerves on edge. It’s clever and at times, not so clever. It’s unserious and yet serious all at once. I appreciate the craft of horror, the art of horror. From the independent horror filmmakers, to the history of horror, to the studio produced and traditionally published. I love, and have always loved, horror.

So, now what?

I’m returning to my love of horror. Since the publishing of my debut, my relationship and expectation of writing has changed. Along the way, I lost the true reason on why I write. It’s been a joyful, yet weird experience. My publishing experience hasn’t been a horrible one, but it has made me disillusioned with it all.

I decided I need to try my hand at something completely different. With no books contracted after 2026, and most of my edits done on my upcoming works, I thought I’d use a different part of my brain and return to where it all started for me.

My current project is a gothic horror. I know what I want to say. The difficult part is how to say it. It’s a mess of a first draft, but it’s finished, and I’m going to work on it and make it darker. Twist the prose and bleed it dry. It’s freeing to not be contracted on this. I’m trying to ignore the gnawing anxiety of no contract inked.

I’m going to try and get it published, and put myself through the horror of that again.

Hopefully I’ll be a final girl at the end of it.

xoxo Jack

P.S: I want to star in more indie horrors. There, I said it. Casting directors, hit me up.