Moanaria’s Fright Club

For the past ten weeks, I’ve been participating in a critique group of sorts for members of the Horror Writer’s Association, of which I am a proud member. Created and lead by Moaner T. Lawrence, “Fright Club” members respond to weekly prompts, critique those of their peers, and meet once a week to discuss things relevant to horror, writing, and other things within that orbit. Upon completion of the ten weeks, members are inducted to a closed group to further their work and discussion, working together to build a community of dedicated writers. Having just completed my ten weeks, I now reflect on my time. 

First, the author of the program:

Moaner T. Lawrence is perhaps the most compassionate person about building and supporting a community of horror writers than I have ever met. The guy genuinely gives a shit, and that’s rare.

It’s genuinely rare to meet someone who cares as much as Moaner does, not only about the community, but about the individuals within that community. There’s been a number of times where I’ve said something quick, and he’s taken the time to put the brakes on and invite me to a personal Skype call to spend more than an hour listening, guiding, and helping me work through some very personal things for no reason other than he cares. I’ve said some things in an off-handed way, not thinking much about them, and the guy just seems to understand on a deeper level something about what I’ve said even more than I did at the time. He seems…freakishly in tune with the human condition. The world needs more people like Moaner.

As to the format of the program itself: you submit a story, but you don’t critique everyone else’s story. You only review a couple that week, and it rotates, so the following week you’re reviewing someone else’s work. I would have preferred more of a focus on the workshopping aspect. Not having sent my stuff out very widely, or participated in many critique sessions, I often feel a little lost, as if writing in the dark, wondering if what I’m doing is working or not.

We didn’t spend much time (almost none) discussing each other’s work on the weekly calls, either. Moaner believes if the groups were to do that, then the calls would drag on far too long. The idea has a lot of merit to it, certainly, but I think with some structure around it, something might have been possible to arrange. The other members of my group did not express a similar desire when describing how they would improve things during our final call, so I’m willing to accept my personal preference here is more singular.

There were a couple of prompts I hated. However, I was surprised to find that regardless, I enjoyed the process of working through them. I genuinely think I wrote some really good stuff, stories that have legs and that might have publishing merit. Admittedly, then, I have to say that the prompts worked. I don’t exactly know what the hell to do what what I wrote, but there’s more than a few things, I think, that deserve my attention—and what a good feeling that is. Here’s the opener to a story I wrote as part of this, and it’s one of my favorite things that I’ve written lately:

Had anyone ventured around the rear of the house, they might have seen the body of Steven Henry Gray clinging between the windows of the first and second floors, stuck there against the house like a wet leaf. The body had been there for three days, occasionally making progress along the faded blue siding of the New England colonial. His eyes, a hazy white the color of watered-down milk, were unblinking. They stared into nothing, seeing nothing. Occasionally a fly landed on his mottled cheeks, rubbing its legs together and tasting the rotting flesh before moving on. Though his lifeless skin was the color of the cold October sky, Steven Henry still bore the blue and yellow bruises in a round about his neck, a remainder from when the man had strangled him to death in the forest not far from his house.
The man—Richard Kinsey to the IRS, Ricky to his friends—had awoken to his daughter’s screams three nights in a row. By the time she managed to convince him to check outside for the face she’d seen in her window, the body of Steven Henry was gone. He’d loosened a section of soffit beneath the eaves, and from there wriggled his way into the attic.

You think what you want, reader, but to me, that fucking works.
So, what’s next for my writing, then? What can I expect? Hard to say. I’ll leave you with this, though:

If you’re serious about writing, the horror writing community, and your own place within it, give Fright Club a try.

There was one point where I almost dropped out (not related to anything Moaner or Fright Club did wrong, the reasons were personal), and I’m glad I didn’t. It’s not for everyone, certainly. I didn’t think I was going to like it after a couple of weeks in, but sticking with it was a wise decision.