Foreword

I've been with the Fear Mythos and- well- chaotic fiction in general for a little over a year. Now I'm a part of four mythoi and I loved the possibilities and the sheer flexible diversity this new world of horror fiction had to offer. I began writing. My first couple works- The Last Wish and The Major Arcana- were down-right terrible and focused more on action and traditional Hammer Films-type horror rather than the cosmic horror and unnerving more contemporary ideas towards horror. In fact, I only lasted about five posts in my first blog before the main character, Jackson Holmes, became an agent of SMSC named Nature Boy and went off to kill Fears without repercussion. The Major Arcana's protagonist took only three posts, and was also able to kill Fears. And use magic.

Of course, I've written some other works. Follow the Yellow Brick Road, The Clock Strikes Twelve, A Personal Inferno and Salt Upon The Wounds to name the stories that use the "vanilla" Fears. I've also partially written Apartment Silently Echoes for the now-dormant Venter Mythos, and The Branches Take for the Willow Mythos.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road and The Clock Strikes Twelve were given slightly-above-average ratings from slendyslayer, but I myself had little to no faith in any of my stories. In fact, one of my stories, The Serpent Strikes The Heel, I hated so much I deleted all the posts. Now there's only a one-post rewrite attempt on the blog and I have no more ideas for any of them. I've been keeping myself from writing, shutting off my brain and refusing to acknowledge the existence of emotions. And among all of those, I began to hate myself. I hated my work, I hated my thoughts and feelings, and I hated the very fact that I was alive and being a stain on the Earth.

Thankfully my depression has subsided, but the writer's block stayed. I can write, but none of my works have been seen as anything other than action sequences and filler to me. So I've pleaded to the Fear Mythos community for help on writing. Specifically writing horror, because- well- that's the genre I've always wanted to write in, and I've always stepped in sometimes in my other works, but for the most part haven't even delved into.

So there has been a lot of advice. The advice included:
These are tips I've recieved for writing in general.

• Read a lot. You will get ideas, your writing will be inspired by other authors and you will improve the more you read.
• Experiment always. This applies to plots that have been used a lot or monsters that have been used. Think about different ways to look at things and show us different methods and means.
• Show your writing to others. You are your most destructive or constructive critic. If you show your work to others, you'll find that an idea you thought of as terrible is good or an idea you thought of as good is not as good as you thought. Grammatical, spelling, or wording errors can be found out..
• If you are stuck with writer's block, move to a different part of the story or another story entirely.
• If there's a genre you're not good at, then you don't have to write in that genre. Practice with other genres or arts or styles until you've gotten enough experience to accomplish what you want.
• Three act story structures are not only restrictive, but usually the cause of a terrible story.
• Don't overreact to reader reactions, even if it's "I don't like the way this character acts."
• Take time in your work. Research, and savor each passing minute as it helps make the end story that much better. (This was said by Jordan Dooling, who put months upon months of work and researching even the walking distance between two locations to add to his work, OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING, which I think of as a cornerstone of the Mythos.)

These are tips I've recieved for horror stories, but also applies to every genre if you change the words a little..

• Write what you know. Write what scares you or adapt a traumatic event that happened to you. It's both a therapeutic tool and a writing tool.
• Having a monster in a story doesn't make it horror. The Slender Man is only scary if he is attributed or does something that gives him the scare factor.
• Empathy and sympathy are great tools. If your reader feels for your character, your reader will feel for your character. And if they've experienced events like it before it adds to the horror.
• Write what makes sense for the plot.
• The unnatural is a great horror tool to use.

So I took their advice. I looked back through the works I liked. I immediately took a look at works I was currenly reading, including House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia, and The King in Yellow by Ambrose Bierce. You can also see inspiration from the Silent Hill franchise.

So, this story is my first really serious, planned out attempt at a horror story. I'm not bound to the "quasi-realistic blog" format or the three act story structure, and I'm writing it in a chapter-by-chapter third person narrative. And I love it so far. The chapters are long and there are some military action sequences, but for the most part I try playing up on as many kinds of horror. This is the work where I try finding my niche, be it cosmic horror, surreal horror, body horror, or psychological horror.

So, without further ado, Back to the Same Avenue. I hope you enjoy it.