Inspiration for my second novel ‘Touches’

After typing yesterday's post, I got thinking about the inspiration for my other stories and thought it would be nice to share one or two.   My second book 'Touches' (available from Amazon - one click ordering in the sidebar on the right) centers around a haunted house in St. Joseph, Missouri.    I first got the idea for this book when my wife and I went there to look at an old Victorian with the thought of possibly fixing it up and turning it into a B&B.   If you've read the book then you know this is pretty much the premise for the main characters.    The house we went to look at was the Nunning House.   If you've never been to St. Joe then it's hard to get an appreciation for the wealth that once resided there.    This house, as well as dozens of others, went well beyond what I was used to seeing in mansions.    The craftsmanship, detail and quality of materials was easy to see everywhere I looked.    But the thing that dropped my jaw, was the tunnel beneath this great house.     I wasn't allowed to go into it during that initial visit, but was lucky enough to see it during a book signing event a year or so later.    Now remember this is plumb in the heart of the city in a residential neighborhood.     The tunnel is a brick lined, barrel vaulted variety that's tall and wide enough for a horse drawn wagon.   The ceiling of the tunnel is 16 feet below the floor of the basement!   

Mr. Nunning, who built the house in the 1880s, also owned a brewery at the time.    The tunnel connected his house to the brewery which was roughly a block away.    I believe the brewery burnt down in the early 1900s and somewhere around that same time the tunnel was blocked off about 100 feet into it - going away from the Nunning House.    How cool is that!     What writer could resist?    You have an old, somewhat dilapidated Victorian with a half-collapsed immense tunnel under it.    If that doesn't set the stage for a haunted house story then I don't know what does!

That house inspired me to create a fictitious mansion comprised of several details from it along with a few of the other mansions we looked at in the area. 

I also like to try to expand myself as a writer with each book, approach it in a way that will help me grow and improve my skills.   So when I sat down to draft the outline for 'Touches', I did so with two challenges in mind.    1) I wanted the protagonist to be a woman - I wanted to see how well I could write from a women's point of view and if it would be convincing.   2) I wanted to write the story in the first person, past tense.    The challenge in this is that if the main character is telling the story - then you know that she lives.    How scary and tense can a story be if you know that going in?   Well based on the reactions and reviews I got from my readers - I guess I was able to do it. 

If you like good old-fashioned ghost stories then I'd highly recommend that you give 'Touches' a try.    Take care.  J/W

Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’ coming out at the theaters

Just saw a preview for 'The Mist' and I have to say that I'm excited.    I'm a Stephen King junkie and love to see the movie adaptations of his novels and screen plays (my favorite is 'The Storm of the Century'.    I read the short story the movie is based on probably 20 years ago when it was first published in 'Skeleton Crew' - which by the way had a lot of great short stories.    I see now that King has expanded on the novella and published an extended version to coincide with the release of the movie (well a month or so earlier than the movie I think).    I going to have to pick it up and give it a read before I see the flick.But back to the short story.    Now as I said it's been a few years since I read it - so I could be mistaken, but as I remember it, one of the aspects of the story that really stuck with me is that you never really know what's in the mist.    The only description that I can remember is at the end of the story when they're driving through the mist they see what is described as the leg of a dinosaur (or something similar from a by-gone era).     What fascinated me so much about this is that even though he never went into a detailed description, I was still scared by the experience.    This was my first real experience in building tension and fear, not through description of the antagonist, but through the reactions of the protagonists to what "they" saw or sensed.    I thought it worked wonderfully.    And in fact this had a great influence on my story 'Eleven Till Midnight'.    In my story the reader is never given a description of what the characters shriek in horror to.    I use detailed description of what the "creatures" can do and how that impacts us in the physical world to build tension and suspense.    Again I'm biased in my work, but I think it works.

In a day when special effects leaves little to the imagination, it's nice to let the reader "see" what his mind chooses to see given a framework of ancillary descriptions.    As far as the movie goes, I hope they keep the creatures from the mist in the "dark" and let our minds picture the horror that these isolated characters see.    But in any case - you gotta love King.   J/W

Read the 1st chapters of my upcoming novels

Be sure and check out my website (link in the sidebar).    You can read the first chapter from of my upcoming novels 'Last Days of the Dinosaur' and 'Eleven Till Midnight'.    Simply go to the Books tab on my website and scroll down until you see the titles.    Give'em a read and then let me know what you think.   Both stories deal with the apocalypse.    If you want to know what the end of the world will really be like then 'Last Days of the Dinosaur' is for you.     'Eleven Till Midnight' was inspired by the great work of Nikola Tesla - one of the greatest minds of all time.    I took his work along with that of some of the other great scientist and put a horrific spin on it.    Where 'Last Days' spans several years, the entire story of 'Eleven Till Midnight' takes place in less than 18 hours.    It's a thrill ride like you've never seen.But hey - I'm biased.    You give them a read for yourself and then let me know.   Take care! J/W 

Hello world!

Hi everyone.    Tried to set up a blog on my web page 'jonathonwise.com' but what can I say - I'm no programmer.    So here you go.    This (at least for the time being) will be my blog.    In case you don't know me I'm a horror/thriller writer.    I have two books in print right now 'Touches' and 'I Am Maker', with several more to follow.  

With that out of the way I thought I'd let you know my thoughts on a pretty good horror movie I just saw '30 Days of Night'.    This is a damn good dark horror movie.    If you haven't already seen it then you ought to fork out a few bucks and check it out.     This movie is almost exactly how I'd write it.    Without giving anything away - there's only a few changes I would have made.  

1) The timing of when our hero makes his move (or sacrifice) to save the woman he loves.    I think it would have had a greater impact if he'd done it with more than just a few hours of darkness left.   If he'd done it with say 10 or 11 days of darkness left under the assumption that the only way ANY of them were going to make it is if he were to take such a drastic action - would have been better.  

2) I thought that if I were one of the vampires, and knowing that 90-95% of the people were dead within the first night - that I'd probably move on to another small town where the fresh meat would be easy pick'ins again.    The vampires expended a lot of energy over the next 25+ days for just a few fresh bodies.  3) And this one goes for all vampire movies - if I were to write a vampire story, the folks who were "changed" wouldn't have the fangs, intolerance to sunlight, superhuman strength... right after being changed.    Instead they'd have an insatiable appetite for blood and be ruthless killers, but it would take years for them to change into the vampires that turned them (fangs, sunlight...).

But as I said, I thought this movie was a pretty damn good one.    Keep in mind it is dark, but on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being a great movie) I'd give '30 Days of Night' a solid 4.    If you're in to vampire movies then this is one you can't afford to miss.

If you've seen the movie or have any thoughts on my comments, then please give me a post.   

I'm going to post updates on my writing, movies/books that I've read (or are upcoming) and just general observations that I pick up and think are worth sharing.

Hope to talk to you soon, J/W