Benjamin Knox, Bloody Parchment 2012 finalist

Benjamin Knox is another visitor to my blog who needs very little by way of introduction. Plainly put, he writes some of the creepiest stories I've yet had ooze their way into my inbox. The tale that appears in this issue of Bloody Parchment: The Root Cellar and Other Stories taps into two of my greatest fears: relentless aliens who like to snack on humans... and spiders. Trust me, if you don't have an arachnoleptic fit the next time you walk into a spider web, you'll be reminded of this story.

What planted the seed for your story?

The opening scene just popped into my head when I was thinking about fear. What scares me? What would just be an awful situation to find oneself in? It seemed a natural combination of personal experiences fused together to create a nightmarish scenario I'm quite proud of.

What are some of the themes you treated in your tale?

Fear, of course, this is a horror story. Over and above that however there is a little in there about hopelessness and the sense of being overwhelmed by the world around you. Something I think we all suffer from, from time to time. But mostly I just wanted to tell a ripping good yarn.

What are the hallmarks of a great horror/dark fantasy author and story?

Eye of the Beholder and all that. Personally though, I think a story or an idea that lingers with you long after you've turned the last page and put down the book is a good sign. A concept that sits in your mind, nagging and worrying at you. Like evil mimes standing around your bed while you sleep.

How do you approach your creative process?

I divine my ideas from bird signs and animal entrails...

Not quite.

I could write reams about this, as I'm sure could many authors. Basically I behave like Pooh and have a good long ponder, ruminate on multiple concepts, play with ideas and scenes. It's a little like shifting. Eventually I fix on one or two ideas that I not only like but feel I want to write.

As far as the writing itself goes, I have a good idea where it's going before I begin, key scenes in my head. Then I begin chronologically, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, but there is plenty of room to play and let my imagination have a little fun. I know where I've got to get to, just not how I'm going to get there.

That's the fun part.

What are you working on now?

So. Many. Things.

I have the odd habit of pushing multiple project at differing stages at the same time.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a few mini-collections of short stories, each bound by a theme and collected under the general title of Penny Dreadfuls after the 19th Century forerunner of the pulp magazine.

The first two collections Bizarre Pulp and Creeping Madness should be released soon. If you like my story Strands in the latest Bloody Parchment anthology you'll love these.

Body Horror Triptych will appear a little later as well. With more in the works.

Other than that, Toby Bennet - whose story The Root Cellar is the title story of this year's Bloody Parchment anthology - and I are working together on a super secret Zombie project together. It's my first time collaborating and so far we're off to a raring start. Let's Just say it'll be totally unlike any zombie story you've read before.


If you like being creeped the hell out, badass babes, blood and guts, and some truly grotesque imagery, then stay tuned.

For further strangeness visit Benjamin at his website:
www.benjaminknox.net
Amazon Author Page
or on Facebook: Benjamin Knox, Author

Benjamin Knox and Bloody Parchment

Benjamin Knox is a repeat offender, and that's why we love him so much. He has a story in the 2012 Bloody Parchment anthology, and this year he's done it again, appearing in The Root Cellar and Other Stories. So, Ben, tell us a little about yourself.

(Ah my favourite subject)

Let’s see: I don’t sleep well and drink too much coffee (these two things are not related and you will be disintegrated if you suggest otherwise). I couldn’t stop telling stories if I tried. Studied art and film (separately). Used to do stand-up The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, as well as Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace are pure genius. I even do my own comic strips, when I have the time.
comedy. Like horror and sci-fi movies before they had CGI in them. I think that

I like to write horror with my own dream-like and sinister twist to it, but I also write pulpy fiction to balance out all the seriousness. Short fun stories were I can just let my imagination and silliness run riot. It helps me to take a step back and not take things too seriously. If I’m stuck with a particular tale--banging my head against the keyboard--then I often take a break from it for a day or two to write something deliciously silly. Then when I turn my attention back to the serious story again, I get a fresh perspective and I’m amazed I got stuck in the first place.

Tell us a little about the background of your story which appears in the 2012 anthology.

We follow our narrator as they waste away from some unknown degeneration in their remote and isolated home, trapped in their own mind reality unravels around them. There is a sense that someone or something is approaching, but is it real or is it some waking nightmare spawned by a delirious mind?

Are there any interesting anecdotes relating to its creation?

I got sick and my girlfriend and I were joking about “man-flu” and how it always seems like the world is ending when a man is ill. That got me thinking about more serious degenerative illnesses.
Stylistically I wanted to capture that eerie feeling you get in some dreams or nightmares when you know, just know, that something sinister lurks nearby. The sort of dream were nothing overtly scary happens yet you’re transfixed with utter dread.

I combined this spooky dream like quality with an aspect of the Body Horror theme I was working on at the time. Wither is one of three stories I wrote in quick succession, unconnected but with a similar feel, though it is in my opinion the best of the three.

What do you like about horror as a genre?

(I could write reams about this)

Horror can take itself seriously but it can also take the piss out of itself. I find the fact that I can write a seriously ultra-creepy story one day and then go and do something completely out-there and pulpy (like a good ol’ fashioned B-movie) the next day, and have them still sit side-by-side in the same genre very liberating.

What scares you?

The news.

Seriously, I read a lot of quite grisly horror and shrug it off because it’s fantasy, made-up, cathartic. But some of the things you find on the news or stumble across during research are just terrifying.
I actually had to stop myself during a research session once because some of the things real people do...*shudders*...

Where can people find you online?

At my website: www.benjaminknox.net

But I also have a tumblr blog where I share my work and repost things that relate to the work I do or inspire me. http://benjaminknox.tumblr.com/

I’m also on facebook. Benjamin Knox, author

Guest blog: Benjamin Knox

Good Things Come in Small Packages

by Benjamin Knox

Short stories are where most authors begin. The starting point in the craft of weaving a tale. For the early author it is a standard goal.

However they have been heavily marginalised by publishing trends, which I find weird, as there are thousands of magazines out there (both print and online) that publish short fiction. But such magazines are out of the public eye. Gone are the days of Weird Tales and the such pulp magazines, where Asimov, Clark and even Lovecraft cut their teeth.

Many established and famous authors talk openly about their love of short fiction. Stephen King in his foreword to his collection Just After Dark talks about the massive amount of time that went by without writing a short and how much he loved doing them once he started up again.

Similarly the late great Richard Laymon wrote many short stories (such as the fantastically creepy Dreadful Tales) and also professed to love write short fiction, yet still acknowledging the lack of a medium for them.

I think people like short stories just fine. It is publishers, back in the day, that didn’t see the potential. Even with big names like Clive Barker making a career for himself with his eight volumes of short fiction Books of Blood.

Reading habits are changing and changing quickly. I don’t just mean with the advent and popularity of ereaders, I mean in what and how we choose to read. We are quite lucky in the fact that we have such a wide selection of work available to us, and the internet and ebooks are making that easier every day.

We’re spoiled for choice.

Be it vampire-erotica to the surreal and often disturbing depths of Bizarro, chances are that no matter what you’re into, someone is writing it and it’s available. Even filth-master extraordinaire Edward Lee has a respectable publisher and a cult fan base.

It seems, to me at least, that people are reading more frequently yet in shorter bursts. In London where I live, people read whilst commuting or on a lunch break. Fewer and fewer people are settling down at night for a good couple of hours to really sink their teeth into a story.

Hence shorter, faster paced work is on the rise.

I feel it might even lead to a rise in short story reading (something that has always supposedly had a relatively minor audience). There are anthologies and collections from authors people know and trust, but it is becoming more acceptable and common place to read a single short story. A bite sized piece of easily digestible fiction.

Joe R Lansdale is re-releasing his benchmark short stories individually online. The very stories that catapulted his career into action.

There is a wonderful challenge in this for writers as well. Short stories are often harder to write than longer work. Less time to develop characters, theme and plot. Therein lies the skill; creating something shorter that still has a lingering impact. After all, that is what an author wants, to have you thinking about a story or an idea long after you’ve finished.

A peculiar form of haunting.

The same seems to be happening with novels as well. Which always struck me as odd in the first place as there are many classics that are quite short. Look at Hemmingway, Hunter S Thompson, Roald Dahl and Joe R Lansdale, as well as the truly awesome Jack Ketchum (who often included a novella or long short to make up pages). In the 1970s and 1980s there were many popular series of novels (like the McBain’s 87th Presinct police procedurals) that clocked in around the lower limit of what is considered a novel: 45 000 words, sometimes less.

This doesn’t mean that the standard length of the novel is going anywhere. Not at all. As an avid reader and author I like to get a book I can really chew on. But I also like ideas, and some ideas are just fun to share, quickly and in a manner that does them justice. Not all stories lend themselves to novel length.

I also predict a rise in novellas as well.

I certainly hope so too, as at the moment those are primarily what I write. They are a length I find very comfortable (25 to 50k words) to work with. Big enough to have substance and complex ideas, yet small enough to keep things succinct.

Such stories are like candy for me. I love them. I love reading them and I love writing them. Sure I have my longer work, purebred beasts of novels, but I prefer the fun-size package that is short fiction.

If you need any proof, just look at flash fiction! It’s taken off like crazy and the good ones stick with you, leave you thinking. You’ll be just about to fall asleep or on your way to meet friends and suddenly it’ll pop in your head.

Short doesn’t mean bad, or less adept. It just means short.

Ideas are like fairies captured in a jar, to be carefully examined and then released. Each marvellous in its own way.

What is really important, the MOST important thing in fact, is that the story, indeed that the writing, is good.

After that, size does not matter.

Just make sure your content is smoking hot.

I believe this trend in reading habits will lead to a mutation of the television style format. You’ll get a serialised tale, short stories coming out regularly that are in the same setting or have the same characters. Much like TV you’ll be able to jump in and enjoy the story on its own, but you’ll have much deeper insight if you’ve read the previous entries.

A series of episodic adventures that lead on from one another; like watching House MD: A new case each week with the slow push of the season’s main plot.

After all even Charles Dickens’s work was originally released in serial format.

Anyway, that’s what I think. Whether it happens or not, only time will tell. I’m interested in it enough to throw my own hat into the ring. Until then you can read my other short stories (such as A Keeper of Secrets which is already available), read my web-comics, pick my brain etc at my website or blog.

Thanks for reading.

(Finally, to quote Tigger)

Ta-ta for now

B

A Keeper of Secrets: a short story

by Benjamin Knox

she’s waiting for you...

Amidst the clutter and gloom of the attic little Anna has the strange feeling that she is not alone...

A Dark Fairy-tale for grown-ups.

* * * *

Benjamin Knox wanted to be a super-villain when he was little. Instead he grew up to warp minds with his creepy fiction.

For further strangeness visit www.benjaminknox.net or his blog benjaminknox.tumblr.com