Daisy Stephens, author of 'The Island of the Lost' - Horror writer discusses making sentences chilling, editing to add more words, and creating a good query letter
Writer's RoutineShow Notes
Daisy Stephens is a journalist who has written stories forever. When she was young she filled notebooks with them, now living in a house-share with 3 friends and a grumpy cat, she fills notebooks with ideas and plots. During lockdown, she tried to turn one into a novell. It didn't go well. After 100,000 words she fell out of love and put it away. Then, for her job, she interviewed an author who did what she hadn't. An author who carried on. That writer turned her lockdown project into a published novel... why couldn't Daisy?
Then, whilst querying one finally finished novel, she had the idea for another. An idea about a twin that goes searching for her sister on a desolate, abandoned island. That novel became 'The Island of the Lost', which you can find on horror shelves in bookshops right now.
We talk about why horror is hard to classify into genre, and why most scary stories are actually so much more. You can hear how Daisy manage to make her sentences chilling, and why she litters description through the plot to keep things claustrophobic. Daisy discusses why she still overthinks sentences, how to keep true to your characters even when the ending is in mind, and how to write a good query letter.
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