Writing In The Dark by Tim Waggoner

Guide Dog Books, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1947879195

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition  ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

To properly review this book, I believe a writer needs to be at the helm. New writing manuals crop up so often, it’s tough to decipher which are worthy additions to your collection.  I challenge any aspiring or accomplished writer to walk away from this book unaffected and without substantial improvement in how they view the world and their own writing. For those unfamiliar with prolific novelist Tim Waggoner, who seems to come out with a new book every few months, either in his own worlds or in the franchises of Supernatural, Alien, or Grimm, he is also well-known as a professor.

Waggoner tackles his topic in a hybrid manner. First, he rolls through all the requisite topics, providing a history of the tropes and story elements and explaining how they are utilized in classic and popular fiction. Second, he poses the same two questions to a bevy of writers, some new, some iconic. Their responses, sprinkled in at  every chapter, punctuate what he has covered. The exercises at the end are pragmatic and work to specifically improve the reader/writer’s own work. That Waggoner is is a teacher is evident here, but the book is not stuffy or academic. After just a few pages, it’s clear that most writers would love his approach. I felt as if I were sitting in a dive bar, discussing secrets of the universe with my feet up. Waggoner can take the toughest topic– from theme, to voice, to motivation and conflict– and talk someone through it as if reviewing his favorite new movie.

Each chapter is broken down into specifics. My favorites include: “Why Horror Matters”, “The Physiology of Fear” (the connection between psychology and biology through the rush of reading horror is fascinating), and “The Horror Hero’s Journey”, a take-off of Joseph Campbell’s famous work.

After each topic, Waggoner gives the writer a specific exercise that stretches the imagination, followed by the pair of questions tackled by writers from all levels and areas of the genre: 1. What makes good horror/dark fantasy/suspense? 2. What’s the best advice you can give to a beginning writer of horror/dark fantasy/suspense?

It continues the conversation and keeps the book from being a lecture.

The most useful part of this book for me were the appendices. The psychological makeup and “pain” makeup questionnaires for your characters can help dive deeper, as well as allow readers to analyze favorite novels. It’s a brutal exercise, but yields great results.

I was in the final edits of a novel that I believed to be solid. Waggoner’s advice suggested I dig deeper. I did and now the story feels so much more alive and relevant than I had believed it to be. I was also completing the final chapters of a middle-grade novel, and felt the same way.

This is a fine workbook for writers of all stripes, levels, genres, and interests.

Let the professor work his magic on you.

Highly recommended, right up there with King’s  On Writing.

Reviewed by David Simms