Haunted {A MCR/Horror Fic}

Note: The Q and A is still OPEN!!! Go to the previous chapter and ask a question!

Mikeys_2nd_Unicorn asked:  What is your inspiration for writing?

my inspiration writing is just trying to find adventures.  I like doing fun things and unfortunately, my life isn't exactly full of adventures.  Writing is a way that I can jump into unique worlds of my creation and go on adventures with characters that I love as much as I hope my readers do. I write for the same reason I read: to escape.

But my readers are also a huge inspiration to me.  Without my readers, I would've given up on some of my stories a long time ago. But I've been On the other side of the spectrum when a writer leaves a book unfinished and I hate being left with no answer about what happens.  So I keep writing.  I write so my readers can continue on their adventure.  I feel like I owe it to them.

JollyThursday asked:  How did you decide on killing your characters?  Was it easier than keeping them alive?

Ooooh that's a good question.  The best way I can explain it is that I've been taking an AP Literature and Composition class.  We've been learning about what makes literature (not commercial, mind you) novels so unique.  One of the things my English teacher brought up is why you would kill your characters.  The answer?

Realism.  People don't always survive.  In commercial fiction you get so used to the cliche that the hero survives and saves the girl (or the friends in this case), you expect it.  I didn't want my story to be in anyway cliche.  I wanted it to be shocking and heartbreaking.  I wanted my readers to really feel the desperation that Gerard felt as he tried and failed to save his friends and the finality as he realized that he wasn't going to survive.  I feel like knowing there would be a happy ending takes away from that emotion.

The best example I can give is the frerard story A Splitting of the Mind (SPOILERS).  In the story, I was fully expecting there to be some sort of happy ending.  I expected Gerard to survive and Frank and him to live happily ever after because that's what always happens.  So when Gerard died, I was in complete shock.  Then I made the mistake of watching the official book trailer afterwards and I sobbed.  I was devastated.  But that ending made it all the more memorable.  No happy ending or rides off into the sunset.  The ending was reality.  Life doesn't always get a happily ever after.

As far as if it was easier..?  Well... no.  It's wasn't necessarily easier.  In fact, I'd say it was kind of difficult considering it was repeated deaths and I was trying to NOT be repetitive.  I had already planned to kill off Ray, Frank and Mikey (although Mikey's death did a complete 180 in the book compared to what I had planned), but I also changed the route of my story a few times in the process of writing, so the deaths also changed.  Gerard's death, however, is a different story.  I had actually planned for him to survive.  I was originally going to have a happy ending.  He'd survive and then it was going to turn out to just be a dream.  They'd all wake up outside the house or in the bus or something.  But as I got closer to the end, I realized both that finding a realistic way to make him survive was going to be impossible and completely change the vibe of the book.  All these deaths and then... they survive?  I didn't like that idea. So in Gerard's case: yes it was easier to kill him, and it was a lot more poetic.

@BodhiNewbill asked:  How did you come up with the idea for this story?

I was actually inspired by Gerard's tweets about haunted houses last year (2015). Someone replied saying that someone should write a fanfic and BOOM all these ideas popped in my head.  But that was only the initial inspiration.  I continued to get inspiration from horror movies and horror video games (my sister and I are horror nuts).  Some specific ones I remember that you can clearly see the inspirations for was the video game Neverending Nightmares and the movie Grave Encounters.  Never ending Nightmares 100% inspired the tall lanky creature that ended up being Mikey and the asylum setting in a few parts.  Grave Encounters helped with the solitary vibes that Gerard felt and specifically inspired a glimpse of the demonic doctor thing that chased Gee at one point.  I also used a few inspirations from Doctor Who.  There's an episode with Eleven where they're trapped in a hotel and each room holds someone's worst fear.  The hotel scene and the unique rooms of death were inspired from that.  I even quoted Ten at one point when I was talking about time.

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There you have it! If you have any more questions (even if you already asked one), ask away!

xoBri