As a fiction writer, there are times when I can simply wave away the stories I write as silly fantasies, much in the way my readers do. However, if you are an author yourself, or you know someone who is, you are probably familiar with the idea that all fiction comes from some form of truth.

Whether it’s a memory, a person, or a place, authors write what they know. So how can we write such disturbing and grotesque stories? Have all horror writers seen some terrible things?

For some of us, yes, we have experienced or witnessed traumatic events. But for those of us who have what appear to be normal, horror-free lives, we draw on something even more personal: our fears.

The truth is that horror writers experience quite a few phobias and anxieties in our daily lives, and with our powerful imagination, we can conjure terrible situations many people wouldn’t dream of.

But if horror writers are so scared all the time, how do we cope?

Many writers go to therapy or take medication like anyone else. But the writing we do is equally, or even more so, therapeutic for us. We step in and take control of the story, of crafting the terror, like being the tamer of these wild beasts and monsters.

We don’t write scary stories with unhappy endings because we want the world to be like that, but because the world really is like that sometimes. Sometimes the sound of footsteps behind you really are a stalker, and sometimes people aren’t who you thought they were. People die, terrible things happen, and as writers our stories help us to face these truths much in the same way they help our readers face their own fears as they read.

At the end of the day, we put the story down, confront our feelings, and accept that we were brave enough to face our fears, while also acknowledging that at the end of the day, it’s not our story.

It’s just fiction…