At the Creative Writing of Madness
Have you ever read a beautifully chaotic book? Well if you have you know it's a rollercoaster of emotion and thought, but have you ever thought about what it would be like to write like that?
Today ZILLO Young Reporter Kaiden introduces us to ‘Cosmic Horror.’ A genre of horror fiction and how it has inspired some new creative passion in his life.
A little while back I came across a genre of novel that I had never heard of before. I had stumbled upon the genre of 'Cosmic Horror'. And it would be this genre of novel that would be the biggest thing to changed my perspective on writing to this day.
Cosmic Horror, sometimes referred to as Lovecraftian Horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than the mere traditional shock. You may have already heard of some of the most famous elements that make cosmic horror as they are deeply woven into many other pop culture genres such as TV, Film and gaming and the genre has helped to inspire the creation of characters such as Hellboy and their creators like, Liverpool born Clive Barker and director Guillermo del Toro.
Some of the most famous works of the genre are: The Call of Cthulu, At the Mountains of Madness and The Colour out of Space.
I recently decided to start reading the works of authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, and it has been really fascinating! The concept of incomprehensible beings and ideologies that no mere mind could understand has been captivating to me.
Reading these stories has inspired me to try my own hand at writing small bits of Cosmic Horror fiction. This first it started with me writing a short paragraph:
"These words are so foreign, you need not understand them.
As I awoke, I arose in the shadows of monolithic structures that lay piercing the putrid soil beneath me, stalking me at every corner of this vile landscape. I turned my head to an incomprehensible mound in the centre of this pit. What is that formidable mass? Pulsating like the heart of this land."
Then I decided to try adding some rhyme to my stories;
"Oh, for what forbidden language shall my ears forsake as I lay doubtful in that deep lake unable to move spellbound to the spot I hear the roars of something… but I dare to question what?"
That added some poetry to the mix, it felt fun challenging my mind to try and answer the unsolvable, and the best part is you can never run out of questions because you can never answer the first one. Reading and writing my own cosmic horror inspired fiction as helped me gain a wider vocabulary and confidence in writing. It was hard at first but the challenging part is half the fun!
So If you're ever bored at home or have nothing to do, why not try coming up with your own Cosmic Horror stories!