TIH 213: Paul Tremblay on The Cabin at the End of the World, Home Invasion Movies, and Anxiety in Horror

Michael David Wilson 0:11
Welcome to This is horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson, joining me today, as always, is my co host. Bob pastorella, how are you today? Bob,

Bob Pastorella 0:27
I am doing great. Michael, how are you doing?

Michael David Wilson 0:30
I am fantastic. Thank you. And today's conversation is the third conversation that we have hosted with Paul Tremblay, and what a time to do it, because very recently, his latest book, The cabin at the end of the world, was published, and I've got to say right now it is a contender for My favorite read of 2018 so it comes highly recommended. And if you haven't pick up a copy right now, but don't read it until you've listened to the conversation. Obviously,

Bob Pastorella 1:13
yeah, we did our best not to spoil anything that was tough, but it right now, the book holds, holds a spot for me as my, my best book of the year that I've read, and in a really exceptionally good year for fiction for horror, fiction for suspense, it's, you know, there's, there's A lot of good work out there. And this one that man, it stay. It stays with you. It is it is nightmarish. It is horrific. And it's just basically, and I think I mentioned this in the podcast, if you get through that first chapter and you put the book down thinking you don't like it, there's something wrong with you, because you're gonna keep reading, you're gonna be compelled to finish it.

Michael David Wilson 2:04
Oh yeah. And not only is it nightmarish and horrific, but, I mean, there's a lot of emotional resonance, and the characters, as you would expect with Paul's work, are just painted masterfully. And indeed, it's a small cast of characters, and you'll get to know each of them intimately. They're all distinct and recognizable. And this is not only a great story, but really a master class in how to write a novel.

Bob Pastorella 2:38
Oh, I would agree. I would definitely agree. There's so many things that you can learn from reading this book. You'll probably learn them in the second time that you read it, because first time you're just going to be caught in the whirlwind of it.

Michael David Wilson 2:51
No, yeah. And if ever we were to do one of our story unboxed episodes on a novel, this would be a contender for it right here?

Bob Pastorella 3:00
No, definitely.

Michael David Wilson 3:02
Well before we get into the conversation, let's have a quick word from our sponsors, unnerving

Bob Pastorella 3:09
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Michael David Wilson 4:07
all right, and we're back, and I believe Bob that you have Paul's bio. Yes to do.

Bob Pastorella 4:13
Paul Tremblay is the author of disappearance of Devil's rock and the World Fantasy, nominated the Bram stork award winning a head full of ghosts. Most recently, he has published cabin at the end of the world, and he's also the author of the short story collection. In the meantime, he is on the board of directors of Charlie Jackson awards. Comes from Boston and has a strange master's degree in mathematics, and that is Paul Tremblay,

Michael David Wilson 4:38
and certainly is, and I think on that note, let's not delay. Let's get Paul Tremblay on. This is horror.

Bob Pastorella 4:46
Let's do it,

Michael David Wilson 4:56
Paul, welcome back to the this is horror podcast.

Paul Tremblay 4:59
Thank you, Michael and Bob. It's great to be here number three, right? So I think well, well behind Larry Barron, I'm sure. But aren't we all

Michael David Wilson 5:10
well? In fact, Laird Baron has only been on twice, but I think what happened there was a lot of people assumed that he'd been on in the early days of the podcast. So loads of people used to say to me, Oh, let led, Baron is one of my favorite authors, but I assume you've already interviewed him, and it's like, well, assumption incorrect up until this year, but I think, I think maybe Steven Graham Jones and Richard Thomas are their guests that we've had on the most but now that this is the completion of your hat trick, you might be tying them

Paul Tremblay 5:52
all right, yeah, I'm kind of a competitive bastard when it comes to to games, yeah? So now being on a podcast is now a game to me. I'm happy to tie Stephen and Richard. Very wonderful people. Oh,

Michael David Wilson 6:07
yeah, definitely. Well, it has, in fact, been two years since you were last done. So I wonder, what do you think have been the most significant events for you, both personally and professionally, in the last two years,

Paul Tremblay 6:26
oh, boy, geez. Personally, I'm not sure how much I can get into it. You know that we had a sort of a minor crisis within our family, not like not like Lisa and Cole and Emma, but you know people in the family that are close to us, I don't necessarily want to talk about that publicly, but, but things are working out well for those guys. That was a really sort of took over our summer last year, professionally. Geez, I guess it was just getting this, getting back on book deal with William Morrow, because after head full of ghost and disappearance of Devil's rock was done. That was a two book deal. So in the interim, in those two years, I had to pitch William Morrow the cab at the end of the world, which its working title was the four when I pitched it. And also I pitched them a short story collection. And so then writing it. And, geez, I guess I'm missing the big, the biggest elephant, obnoxious elephant in the room, was what's happened politically in the United States in the last few years has certainly been a big deal, both personally and professionally. It was funny. I was at a there was a conference for independent booksellers in New England, N, E, iba. And you know, they hosted, you know, they meet every so often to talk about what's going on in the book selling world. But, you know, they invited 10 authors, and I was one of them to come speak. And I have to say, like half the people, half the writers who were there that spoke, it talked about, you know, writing their books during the 2016 election, and and how the aftermath of the election sort of either changed their work or informed it. And I'm certainly in that camp as well.

Michael David Wilson 8:06
What were some of the changes to your work? And I guess I mean that both in terms of your writing and perhaps some of the impact, whether that's financially or in terms of the way in which you do business, I

Paul Tremblay 8:23
think it was more just like a general when I started the cabinet at the end of the world, you know, I did sort of, even in the early stages of it. I envisioned it as being sort of a socio political allegory for, you know, what was happening, you know, in the West and in the United States in particular, you know, hopefully without being too didactic, um, tactic, and I mentioned I had to, I think I mentioned that I had to. I sent my editor 50 pages in a summary. I didn't really want to write a summary for that novel. It kind of felt to me that novel needed to, to be like a make it up as you go, kind of book, and that head full of ghosts was, sort of was that way. I did not write a summary. Disappearance of Devil's rock had more of a mystery sort of structure. And I did have to write a summary for that, because I can't, I'm not good enough to make up the mystery part. So anyway, when I wrote the summary, I was pretty cheeky about the ending of of the book, like I wrote to my editor, like, is this going to happen, or is this going to happen? I don't know. I have to write it to find out, you know, and since summary had most of the rest of the book, they were fine with it. But in my head, I did have an ending in mind. But after Trump got elected, the ending changed. And I don't want to necessarily get too far into why it changed, because I don't want to give spoilers, but it definitely changed for the better. So that's small potatoes, or small consolation that my book has a better ending because Trump got elected. You know, as far as, like, personal i It's, I really haven't been personally financially affected at all. But I think it's, I think it's more just white, you know, middle aged, male, you know, I can't imagine the. Stresses and the anxieties of people who aren't cisgender, straight white males, you know, given with what's going on politically in the country, I know it's, you know, I've had stomach issues for the past, since December, ongoing and and really haven't figured out what the source is. I mean, there's nothing terrible going on. You know, obviously terrible going on. I've had every test under the sun, but I think it's just just been the stress and anxiety of it all. Yeah, I think I answered your question.

Michael David Wilson 10:30
Yeah. I think so. Is there anything that you're doing to try and combat or to alleviate that stress? And I guess when I'm asking that. I'm thinking there could be two ways in which you could go about that, I suppose one of them is to be, you know, politically active, and to look at making the changes that you want to see. And then on the other side, it could be looking at things like meditation and mindfulness, and getting yourself in a place that you know means that you're less susceptible to, I guess, being so affected. Yeah,

Paul Tremblay 11:14
I mean, I've definitely, I've tried to become a little bit more politically active. I've certainly done some more financially, like, I make sure that, you know, I support a couple of newspapers I think, do actual, real journalism. You know, I, I subscribe to them digitally. But I also, I send a monthly donations to the ACLU, to a environmental protection League, you know, in a few other places in, you know, this is all stuff I did after November 2016 you know, just to sort of combat that feeling of of helplessness and hopelessness. Yeah, otherwise, I don't know. I just try to, I definitely feel better if I'm exercising more. I tried meditation, but I don't think I did it very well or out because I was like, I'm not breathing correctly, and I was concentrating on the breathing. I'm a little neurotic man. I'm not like, a total mess. I think it's just the big thing has been, like, this weird stomach thing, which, you know, all other they haven't been able to find any sort of reason why it's happening or why continues to happen. So I'm kind of assuming at this point it must be stress or anxiety related.

Michael David Wilson 12:25
Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, that is one of the four things that I tend to find can cause health problems. It seems that it's either to do with stress, it's to do with sleep, it's to do with diet, or it's to do with exercise,

Paul Tremblay 12:41
right, right? You know, I've had, like, a few back things, so it's harder to get the exercise or to do the exercise that I used to like to do, like I used to, geez, I think after a head full of ghosts, I bought myself a mountain bike, not such, too crazy, but it was like a gift to myself. And I spent a year and a half, and it was a lot of fun, but I had a couple of bad crashes and, you know, and when I graduated high school, I had a spinal fusion because I had bad scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. Did I mention this in previous podcasts? I can't remember if I did or not, but, you know, I when I had the surgery, I was actually six feet tall, and at post surgery, I was six foot three. That's how, that's how curved the upper part of my spine was. So the part of like, the unintended consequences of that surgery, though, is because 2/3 of my vertebrae fused together, which means that, you know, part of the the role of your back discs are to act as, act as shock absorbers, you know. So my lower back and even my neck take more of a pounding, you know. So now it's like 20 some odd years later since I've had the surgery, you know, the years of me stupidly continuing to play basketball and do things like going out and biking and crashing sort of caught up to me a little bit, and I've got a couple of stenosis in my spine. It's not pain, but I get, like, numbness, and, you know, I've spinning bias. I should probably stop doing anything that involves, you know, contacts, like basketball or or even mountain biking. So that's kind of a bummer, because I enjoy doing both of those things. So I think that that's part of it too, that I don't get the big cardio that I used to get. You know, I just take long walks with my dog. Mainly, geez, I'm just turning it into a bummer Podcast. I'm really okay. Otherwise, yeah, other than socio political disaster, life is good, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 14:37
other than the spine the socio political disaster, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:44
that's brilliant.

Bob Pastorella 14:46
It's all connected. Just don't take up any uh, Jiu Jitsu or anything like that. Yeah? No,

Paul Tremblay 14:51
no that, yeah, definitely not. Can do that. Actually, one of the biggest, one of the biggest, personal new additions is sitting on my lap right now. We. Adopted a dog. Her name is Holly. We adopted her just about two years ago. She's might have been right around when I talked to you guys last might have had her for maybe a week or two or something, but she's been great. She's been a lot of fun, and she is the reason why I exercise, because I have to take her out. So,

Michael David Wilson 15:18
oh yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of truth in that cliche about dog being man's best friend, and I think obviously they're good in terms of exercise, but just having that companionship, particularly if you are spending a lot of time writing, and I know that you've got a day job and you're teaching, but of course, there are going to be great extended periods of time where you are just presumably writing in a room alone. And to have that companionship, and to have Holly, I imagine, must be a big boon.

Paul Tremblay 15:58
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, she's funny. It's funny. Um, I've never had like a small dog before. You know, when I was a kid growing up, we had a Irish setter, retriever mix, you know, so, you know, it's probably like 40 pounds. And the dog I had previously rascal, we had for 13 years from like 2000 to 2013 you know, he was a Mick, a mutt, but, you know, 4045, pounds. So Holly's little. She's only like, 15 pounds. She's not full rat. I say that with all the love in my heart, she's still, like, pretty athletic. I think, you know, she's a mutt. But Lisa actually sent away and did like, a DNA test, and she's like, mostly mini pincher. But I gotta say, it's a lot of fun to go for a walk or not being and not be taken out for a drag. Yeah, yeah. I talk rascal. It's even to his final days, but just ah, he would not stop pulling on the leash. So I I'm enjoying the small dog experience a lot more than I thought. It's actually been wonderful. Yeah?

Michael David Wilson 17:00
Well, we've got a lot of questions from our Patreon, which I imagine are gonna then lead to a lot of other questions that myself and Bob have. So let's kick off with a question from Jake Marley. So Jake says just curious about Paul's drafting process for the cabin at the end of the world, how many and how he felt about them

Paul Tremblay 17:31
first. Hi, Jake. So I tend to and for all my books, I do a lot of editing or drafting as I go, so to speak. So when I finished like, a first draft, it's, it's, I want to say it's done, but it's, I never have finished, like, when I actually finished a draft, I never like, oh, I have to rewrite this entire thing. So I, I'm one of those writers who just edits almost relentlessly as I go. So most chapters I've read over, you know, 10s and 10s of times or edited before I move on to the next chapter. Kind of thing. That's not to say I don't edit afterwards I do. So I really can't put, like, a number on the number of drafts that I had. I did have a number of drafts for the I mentioned writing the summary earlier, actually, before I wrote the first 50 pages, and I took like, a month or two break because, you know, I was waiting to see if way more actually wanted the book. I had to write some short stories. And in the meantime, like, you know, I knew what that beginning piece was going to be. I actually wrote, I think, three different versions of the summary, and what had changed a lot, and sort of that process was the, I would say, the last third of the book, just some of the timing, and even just some of the action. And obviously I mentioned how the end changed too. So that, to me, that's where the biggest changes took place. Once I finished, like the actual draft, really the only major change from my point of view that I did was I had written one chapter in a second person point of view, but after, after sending it to some of my first readers and looking at I didn't change the chapter. I just changed it to third person for that section, for for various reasons, but not all that exciting, especially if you haven't read the book yet,

Michael David Wilson 19:25
right? I was going to ask you about them, but yeah, it may not make sense if, you know, without the context of having read it, yeah,

Bob Pastorella 19:34
it's I find it fascinating to talking to people about their editing process because, you know, years ago, I read this book by Dean Koontz about writing which you can get online if you want to spend a couple 100 bucks inside of rent. But he said that he wrote 30 drafts beginning to end. Well, I. Of every of every book. And at the time, I mean, even then, I was like, okay, look, he has a book out every year, and the first words that after once I did, you know, kind of like the little mental logistics that I'm like, he's lying. You're still, you're calling bullshit on that, yeah, and he's on a typewriter, you know. So he's on the Smith Corona, you know, hey, I need more paper

Paul Tremblay 20:25
a lot. Yeah, you know, that is interesting, though. I mean, because that is, that's a type of writing I know experience with, like, I know some writers, and John Lang, and our good friend, is one of them. He actually writes out his stories long hand, and there's no way I can do that. And a typewriter, a typewriter, for me, would be a nightmare, because I make, you know, as I write, I just almost like, subconsciously deleting words and moving parts around and, you know, and that's one of the big stumbling blocks for me, trying to write things out longhand. I just can't do it, because there's just so many like, scribbles and it becomes unreadable almost instantly. Yeah, so maybe, I mean, in this early days, that could possibly be true if he's, you know, 30 sounds like a lot, but yeah, if you're in a typewriter, there's not a whole lot of cutting and copying and pasting that you can do.

Bob Pastorella 21:14
No, they just, I was just amazed by that. I was like, you know, and so I'm thinking, Well, he did it. Maybe I have to do it too. And back then, I used to, you know, I would, I would write stories long hand. I can't do that now, but I'd write out stories long hand and then type them, and then I typed them again, and it's like, the third time I type it. And this is no kidding. This is on like, a 10 page short story. I'm like, typing the same thing. I'm like, What the hell am I doing? I don't understand what this what this retyping does. What does it do? You know, like, I'm just typing everything again, and I was doing an old word processor. So I'm more like, you read, like Joe Lansdale, edit as you go along. Yeah, you know, it's, it's in Joe. Joe says he does it because he always has something to do, you know? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I should

Paul Tremblay 22:10
say it's a good way to sort of warm up and get back into the flow. I will say one thing I tried for the first time, and, and some of this, I don't know, for me, editing. Sometimes it's almost like playing games with yourself, to make it seem like new and exciting. Because I don't know. This is the seventh novel of, you know, I mentioned I'm like a competitive bastard, and I like games, so I don't know, sometimes I like making up things just to motivate myself. So one thing I tried for the first time, because, you know, this book, there's seven characters, and that's it. You know, they're basically inside this cabin. I wanted to make sure that their voices were distinct, particularly like when they were speaking. So after I printed out the full draft, I went through and I underlined the dialog of each character in a different pen or a different color, you know, with the idea was that I was going to read through the draft like seven times. But just like focusing on one character at a time, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I mean, in all honesty, I think I only read through. I definitely did all the underlining, which I thought was actually helpful, because I did sort of cease, like rhythms or things that appear that I wasn't aware of. But I think I only made made it for reading, like two of the characters that way, then I got bored. But yeah, I don't know anything. Whatever you can do to make it sort of seem new and different is helpful. I think, oh yeah, I

Michael David Wilson 23:33
agree. And I think, because there are only seven characters and a limited location, this probably more than any of your other stories could really lend itself to the play format if that was a route that you or someone else chose to go down. Yeah, no, absolutely,

Paul Tremblay 23:53
I definitely, you know, tried to think I'm by no means a playwright, nor an expert in in plays, or even, you know, having seen written plays, but I mean, the mentality of that, like that sort of, you know, intimate or intimacy, was certainly something I was going for and aware of when I was writing the book,

Michael David Wilson 24:12
yeah, and I think it's interesting, because a head full of ghosts, I envisioned it as Something that you could have as a television series. Perhaps Devil's rock was more like a feature length film, and this is a play. I don't know why. If I read a Paul Tremblay book, I start thinking about other mediums that it could work in, but you know, that's the way that my brain works, all right. Well, maybe

Paul Tremblay 24:38
the next one will be like a street

Bob Pastorella 24:45
performance routine, yeah, yeah.

Michael David Wilson 24:49
Well, we've got more questions to do with the writing process. So Darryl Foster says, I pre ordered your new. Book on december 24 the expected delivery is the week of july 6. I'm going to interrupt the question. When I read that, I thought, like, this sounds like it's going to turn into some sort of weird like Amazon review, where they're like, and it hasn't turned up. Yeah, what the fat po

Bob Pastorella 25:23
i can't find where I could complain about a book that isn't published yet, so I'm complaining here. Yeah, that's all that too. I was like, What?

Michael David Wilson 25:32
No, no. Darryl always asked very interesting questions. Yeah, she does. I can't begin to tell you how hooked I was when the pre order launched, so excited to have this book in my hand soon, I have to ask you about your writing process. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you write on the run, a little here, a little there. How do you cope with not losing sight of the story flow or motivation when your time for writing is broken up, and will any future book tour include Canada, specifically Toronto?

Paul Tremblay 26:13
Yeah. I mean, hopefully it's got to at some point, I finally do have a passport, which is good. That was one of the big hurdles. I got a passport for the first time, not so coincidentally, a month or a week or two after Trump got elected. So as far as, Geez, it's like some of it's just come from years of practice where I just know it's a time management thing. You know, it's funny that you know, as a teacher, it's almost like an old saw amongst educators that you know, the more busy the kids are, they actually tend to be a little bit more productive. And a lot of students have their troubles when they've got too much free time. Because when you've got so much free time, it's easier to procrastinate and put something off and that it doesn't get done. So, like, as an example, like when parents are worried about their son, and, you know, in my math class or something, they start talking about, we were thinking of having him not play a sport or not do an activity. And I tell them, almost universally, I think that's a bad idea, because usually, if you take something away from them, like that, they enjoy, you know, it's not going to help. They're not going to use the time, but, you know, they're doing that activity. It tends to force people into into doing their assignments when, you know when they need to. It forces them into time management. So I don't know, I've kind of adopted that to my writing life. I guess you know where I first started, I used to be, I think, a lot more adept at writing on the run. When I was first, you know, getting into writing, I would be writing while kids were taking a test, or if there was a half hour here, you know, now, especially now that I'm sort of that worked more for me with short stories. Now that I'm pretty much in, like, novel mode, I do find, like, I need a solid hour. I mean, sometimes I'll still do like, a 45 minute chunk, if that's all there. If that's all there is. But, yeah, I mean, it's it, the stuff doesn't get done if I don't take advantage of the little pieces of time here and there. You know, that's not to say that I don't procrastinate, or I don't spend too much time messing around online, because I certainly do, you know, but at some point you just gotta, just gotta do it, or it doesn't get done. So to me, that's where, like, the laptop comes in. I wish I could write long hand, but I can't. But, yeah, I mean, people have seen me at like, my son's baseball clinic with headphones in. You know he's gonna be there for two hours. You know that means I have two hours where I should be writing. Yeah? So as far as, how do I do it? I don't know. I've become pretty good at blocking out stuff that's going on around me. You know, listening to instrumental music helps. I listen to a lot of, like, movie soundtracks or or being like, lost more, you know, if I'm trying to block out what the heck's going on around me,

Michael David Wilson 28:55
oh yeah, I'd certainly second lust more. They're a great band. I think them and son and City's last broadcast, who we mentioned when we were chatting with Mike Griffin, all very good for just putting on, blocking things out and getting the work done.

Paul Tremblay 29:14
Yeah, it's funny. I'm a little bummed because I just my my Mac is so old, my desktop Mac. It's sort of messing with my iTunes. So some of the things I burnt, or, you know, took off of CDs are no longer on my iTunes. I'm gonna have and I can't update the iTunes on my old Mac until I update the operating system. But I'm afraid to do that, because I think it would blow up the machine. But anyway, one of the soundtracks that was, had been a go to for years and years, and I'm gonna have to find a way to get it back onto my phone. Is the soundtrack to the movie ravenous. You know, I wrote a head full of ghosts to that soundtrack. Essentially, it's such like a weird, eclectic soundtrack with different kind of sounds. But, you know, I'd written so much to it. It's almost like, you know, train. A dog, like, I hear that music, I'm like, Oh, the soundtracks. Just a shade over an hour. Soundtrack goes on, you know, I can write until there's no more music, and that's a good solid hour. More recently, I've been using the witch soundtrack, oh, yeah, and occasionally that it follows soundtrack. I've

Bob Pastorella 30:19
been trying to find a ravenous soundtrack. And I've had not just streaming, you know, I know I can probably find it online, you know, but just to stream it, you know. And it's like, yeah, really, I

Paul Tremblay 30:31
know. Well, that's part of the problem. It's like, it's not even, like, only, like a song or two or on like, Spotify of it. I happen to find just a UCD of it in a random like you CD store, years and years ago. I wasn't, you know, looking for it. I was like, Oh, wow. This is, I love that movie. You know, it was like, two bucks, so I bought it, and then, yeah, it was finally, when my kids were really young, we would play in the car, and they would be like, hey, what's telling us? It's a soundtrack to movie. Well, what kind of movie? I couldn't tell him it was cannibalism. They were too young, so like, Oh, this is, these are there's a dragon in the woods or something. So sometimes the kids would be like, Hey, Daddy, play the dragon music. My son is standing like, 10 feet away from me. He's appalled. He's like, that was a cannibal movie. The

Unknown Speaker 31:22
the truth shall set

Paul Tremblay 31:23
free. The truth finally comes out. Eventually, yes,

Michael David Wilson 31:27
I certainly enjoy both the witch and it follows soundtrack, although I would say with it follows that at times it's so dramatic and jumps from piece of the piece that it can occasionally throw me out at a writing so I tend that's more something I'd put on if I'm doing some admin work or a very light edit. But if I'm writing, then, you know, I get too engrossed in the music for that one, right? Yeah,

Paul Tremblay 31:57
no, it can't be trying. So I definitely, I found myself going to the witch a lot more in a band called Mogwai. Oh,

Michael David Wilson 32:06
yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, but it's interesting, what you say about busier students being more productive. And I do tend to find, I mean, obviously there's an upper limit to that if you can't fit anything in. But I mean, I guess recently, I've gone from being self employed, doing the things that I do with this is horror, doing some teaching and writing editing, to being able to pick and choose what it is I'm working on to now having a daughter who's just coming up to two months old, which means, obviously time is so much more of a premium. But I mean, probably I'm not getting as much done, but it does mean that when you have that opportunity to get work done, you have to do the work that counts. So the time that I do have is used much more effectively, and it really does when you eliminate time, it teaches you what is and is not important, and really helps you in terms of prioritization.

Paul Tremblay 33:24
No, absolutely. And she's belated congrats on your the birth of your daughter. Yeah, I definitely saw that online. But two months is she sleeping well or sort of Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 33:36
it's going reasonably well. And a lot of people have said to my wife and I that they think that she's very well behaved and that we're doing a good job. But I mean, I would say the first two weeks were definitely a quite literal wake up call, and she wasn't sleeping so well, but now we've got her into a kind of routine. I mean, she'll go to bed somewhere between 10 and 1130 and then, if we're lucky, she might even sleep through until five, but quite often there will be at least one wake up call in the middle. But generally, we're doing pretty well. So I don't know, yeah, if it means that she's sleeping better, or if it means that we have just accepted our new norm and a new way of life. But hell yeah, yeah, I think so, and the coffee manufacturers will be happy anyway, because that's gone up. So this question from Kendra temples, I think, is a really interesting one. So Kendra says you mentioned in an interview that you generally don't like home invasion stories, but wanted to write one that you'd personally enjoy. What aspects of the home invasion genre do you like? Andrew inspiration from without flipping them on their heads,

Paul Tremblay 35:23
right? Yeah. I mean, that can sound kind of obnoxious. I guess me saying that I don't like, but, I mean, some of it is just the nature of the story is, you know, it's really kind of disturbing and icky, you know, I think that's a fear everyone has, like, if you're home alone, or home, or home, anytime that you know, the idea of, you know, bad people breaking into your house to do terrible things. I mean, it's that's super frightening. Some of my favorites of that genre would be wait until dark. I mean, that's a really old one, obviously, but it's funny. I remember she's back in the mid 80s. For whatever reason, my town was one of the first to get cable TV. I don't know if we won some sort of lottery or something, you know. So I grew up essentially watching HBO in the early days of HBO, man, they had some weird stuff on there. And one of those things was, it wasn't the movie wait until dark that someone had filmed a Broadway adaptation of it. So, yeah, it was just this tight, you know, tightly staged. And it was one stage, you know, version of that movie. And as a kid, that movie terrified, I should say the movie, the play, terrified me, but also it was, you know, extremely fascinating and so well done. So, you know, that's a favorite. I enjoyed the French movie questions. I enjoyed. I liked, yeah, because, again, it's kind of, you know, they're really sort of icky stories, eels or them. You guys seen that movie?

Michael David Wilson 36:50
I'm not sure if I have no Yeah,

Paul Tremblay 36:53
I guess. I don't know if this is a Parker full or not, but I had heard that the strangers, essentially, was an unofficial remake of eels. So which is part of the reason why I didn't watch the strangers. That's the horror hipster that that is in me sometimes, like I'm not going to watch the strangers because they're just ripping off eels. So I mean, that's incredibly tense and well done. And I guess most recently, I did enjoy Mike Flynn's Hush, which is on Netflix. I thought that was clever, and actually, in a way, echoes wait until dark, so I don't know. So in general, though, like, I find, you know, particularly, I guess, the bigger studio, Hollywood, home invasion kind of stories to me, like it almost feels like it's an easy scare, like, you know, to put, like, almost like a stereotypical family, into a situation where, you know people are going to either torture them or do violent things to them. I don't know. It just sort of rubs me the wrong way. I kind of feel like the characters are too thin, you know. And the violence, you know, can be sadistic, you know. And I'm not going to be hypocrite, you know. As a horror fan, you know, I'm not anti violence my entertainment. I mean, some of my favorite movies are evil, dead, two Reanimator, you know, the thing which obviously has a ton of violence and gore, but home invasion story, it's that that violence seems so intimate, so personal. So when I had the idea for the story, I wanted, you know, there were definitely going to be twists in the story, but you know, there is violence. But you know, I wanted the violence to have sort of realistic aftermaths. So I guess when I say a realistic aftermath, that just means that you know when the transgression of violence happens, you know the victim, whether or not the victim survives, or you know, in the survivor, in the witnesses and even the perpetrators, everybody is fundamentally changed by a violent act. I mean, they're not going to be the same ever again. Never mind like five minutes or 10 minutes or an hour after the fact. Now. So those are things I was thinking about when I was writing that story that I wanted to try to work with. So in terms of, like, you know, I don't want to spoil, like, some of the twists, because there are some of the conventions I feel like I sort of twist them around or or turn on their heads. But me, as far as the main ones, you know, here's a family, you know, you know, two married men and their adopted daughter, and a cabin by themselves and sort of purposely isolated, where there's no cell phones and no Wi Fi, and, you know, four strangers show up, and three of them are carrying these weird, like, homemade weapons. And I don't know that, I that's sort of like a, I don't say a standard icky premise of a home invasion story, but I think that's sort of like a recognizable start to one before things start getting, I guess, weirder.

Michael David Wilson 39:44
Yeah, and when I come into a story, I try to know as little about it as possible. The same with a film. And so, right, I won't say too much about the cabin at the. Into the world, and indeed, I didn't even know when I started reading it, that it was a home invasion story. So good for you that that was really interesting, because I'm thinking, Okay, what, what is this guy gonna be? This is very, very uncomfortable, this conversation he's having with the girl. I'm not sure what direction we're gonna go in, but Right. Without spoiling anything, I would say one thing that I particularly liked about the story was the motivation of the people invading the home, and that it was very different to anything that I've seen or read, and I would say as well that I liked I don't think this is too much of a spoiler, but just how how restrained they were by comparison to other home invasion films and stories, right?

Paul Tremblay 41:00
Well, thanks. I mean, this is, this is definitely not the only way you can do a horror story, obviously. But for me, what works for me as a writer is to approach almost all the characters, you know, even the ones that are doing distasteful things, from a place of empathy, you know, not sympathy. I certainly don't want readers sympathizing with the invaders. But you know, empathy is the one to understand. You know, you want to understand why they're there, why they're doing what they're doing. You know, how did they become the people that they became? And sort of understand their own, you know, motivations, but even just more like their own, sort of inner struggles, too. And you know, I'd say three of the four, definitely two of the four invaders. You know, I spent a lot of time in the book, you know, sort of delving into their characters that way. No, no, I to me that made it, that made both sides of the story scary for me. Obviously, it's terrifying, you know, from the point of view of the family that's there. I mean, it's to me, it's one of the ultimate things that you can, you know, ultimate fears is having your family potentially, you know, destroyed by these random invaders. But you know, on the other side of it, without getting too spoiled, spoilery, you know what's going on with the invaders is, you know, a fear of mine as well, the idea that they think that they don't have a choice in what they're doing. Again without trying to get too spoilery. You know, I found that worth exploring because, I mean, that's a that's a scary concept to me. It's scary because of how intoxicating it can be, the idea that if you just decide to give in your human responsibilities, like if you, if you act as though you have no choice doing anything. You're abdicating responsibility. And I think there's an allure to that. And I think a lot of people, sort of, you know, obviously see that in cults and even extreme forms of religion, the idea that you can just give yourself away to something else, then you don't have to make any decisions. You know that that's a break in the compact, though, where you cease to be, I think, you know, humane. I'm really sort of like struggling to not give spoilers. But So those are sort of the things that I was thinking about when I was thinking about the invaders in particular,

Bob Pastorella 43:19
I would think that that's probably, you know, there's so many of these kind of stories. The only way that one of the, I guess, the best way to make anything stand out is the reasons for it. And I think that that, I mean, you hit upon something there. I went into it not knowing anything. And, and I hit, after I hit that first chapter, I was like, well, I'll be done with this book in a day, you know. And I, you know, even my my co worker, who famously was taking pictures of a head full of ghosts and bringing them out onto the to the sales floor and reading the book on her phone, you know? I told her about it in a I didn't want to really tell her, you know. I didn't want to spoil anything for it, you know, so, and I told her, I said, chills, well, what's it about? I said, you know, it's a home invasion store. It's kind of wrinkled her nose like, you know? And I'm like, and at that point right there. I was like, give me your phone. Yeah. And he was like, why? I'm like, because just give me your phone. So I did what I needed to do. And I said, Here, you need to read it. She was like, just, oh, I don't even have to take pictures of it. I'm like, No, you just read it. Read that first chapter. Oh, she's, like, almost done now, yeah, and it took her while, this is, like, a couple weeks ago. She, you know, she, she, she's got kids, she's got work, she's got all kinds of stuff going on. And I told her, said, you can get past that first chapter. If you can't, if you put it down, there's something wrong with you. And so. And she, she says, she, I asked her about the other day, and I think she's probably about, she was probably two thirds of the way through, and she and I said, so, so I like home invasion, huh? And she was like, she was just like, it's the ultimate home invasion story. Oh my god. Oh my God. Just like, I guess that you like it. She goes, Oh, I love it. Oh, it's so good.

Paul Tremblay 45:25
Well, thanks. That's so cool. It's funny. I mean, I have had, in this very early going, that sort of response from, you know, quite a few people. Why I've talked about the book is, you know, when they hear home invasion, you know, people, a lot of people do shut off, you know. And I, obviously, I'd mentioned that, like, part of the my, part of my interest in writing, this was, you know, to try to write one that I would want to, you know, read. So, I mean, I can, I can see why, because I think there have been a lot of, like, poorly made home invasion stories, not that every one of them has been, you know. And it can be a tough story to read, you know that sub genre, obviously. So, yeah, I mean, that's, I'm nervously excited about the book, because we'll figure out, you know, if the book strikes a chord with people, or if it doesn't, who knows? I mean, that's beyond my control, you know, I I'm happy with the book. I'm proud of it's, you know, hopefully people

Bob Pastorella 46:18
like it. Well, it's, it's definitely, it's definitely different. I mean, it's, and it's interesting finding out that that the strangers is actually based off of something else. Because now you said it was a movie called them, yeah, kind of like a Yeah, homage to that. I meant to check that out.

Paul Tremblay 46:36
Yeah, I'm not sure. Like, it's a, I can't remember, because I didn't really dive too deeply into it. But I remember when it came out, there was quite a bit of online discussion. Like, I don't know if it's like a unofficial remake or just the kind of because there were people who were pissed off at like, hey, they just totally ripped off this, this French movie. So I haven't seen it, but, you know, the strangers obviously did so well. It's kind of hard to avoid it. I'm familiar with, you know, read about it. I've seen, obviously, tons of stills from the movie, like, that's obviously the, probably the most recent biggest hit or biggest home invasion sort of story that we've had in a while. You know, I know what don't breathe that came out recently, that did really well

Bob Pastorella 47:16
too, right? I was about to mention, it's kind of a different one. Yeah,

Paul Tremblay 47:20
I didn't see it again, part of my own just like, didn't look like something I wanted to sit through. And I don't know, for some movies, like, because I am on some levels, I'm horror whipped, I will admit to it when it comes to like, you know, people on people violence. So for that movie, I definitely read a lot about it to see if it was something that I would actually watch. Actually watch. It sounded pretty cool. The only thing I didn't like was when I found out about what the blind guy had in his basement. That sounded really like something like because I don't want to spoil the movie for people who have haven't seen it, but when I read about like, sort of his secret in the basement, that's what sort of sad. You know what? I'm not gonna watch that movie, but, um, anyway,

Bob Pastorella 48:05
yeah, I didn't know about it. I watched it, and that was probably, that's probably the one part of the the film that it was like, oh, you know, it's kind of like, you're watching. It was like, Oh, there's another twist. And at the back of my mouth, it's like, that's completely unnecessary, you know, right? It's like you could have just left it with this as as, you know, hey, you broke up my house. I'm gonna kick your ass, and you would had even better movie. But no, now you got to give a reason for this. So,

Michael David Wilson 48:35
yeah, I'm gonna say now that I haven't seen don't breathe. So please don't I

Bob Pastorella 48:44
can remember if he had seen or not. That's why I was kind of like going

Michael David Wilson 48:50
now I've seen Hush, which I thought was okay, but I didn't really seem to, you know, enjoy it as much as a lot of other people did. I mean, the way people were talking about it was as if it was one of the best horror films of the year, which I mean, for me, I think that more goes to get out and even to split. And it was very bizarre, but I enjoyed the killing of a sacred deer as well. Oh, yeah,

Paul Tremblay 49:23
I just saw that recently. Yeah, I have lots of thoughts about that movie, but yeah, definitely, that was a cool movie, yeah, and

Michael David Wilson 49:32
I'd seen lobster prior to it. I think, I think having seen lobster, it helped prepare me for the kind of acting and directing style that we were going to get if I hadn't then, I don't know, yeah, well,

Paul Tremblay 49:50
it's fine. I'm going to go backwards because I have, it's funny, I own lobster. I just haven't got around to watching it. The whole like, how much time do you have to do in your life to. Do stuff, kind of thing. So I've actually owned it, like, a year, but just haven't watched it. And, you know, because I heard people freaking out about the killing of a secret deer, like, all right, I'm gonna watch that first and then go back to lobster, which I definitely will, because I enjoyed the deer.

Michael David Wilson 50:15
Yeah, I think neither movie will have mainstream appeal as such, but I would think the lobster might be the more palatable of the two. I think it's slightly quicker in terms of the pacing, and whilst it is incredibly awkward, it's perhaps that little bit less awkward and that little bit easier to digest than the killing of a sacred deer. But I would think if you'd enjoyed the killing of a sacred deer, you'll enjoy lobster as well. Yeah, and certainly got the same acting style as I said.

Bob Pastorella 50:54
I haven't seen either one of them, but I want to, and just time,

Michael David Wilson 51:00
right? Well, I want to see this French film them, and I'm, I'm almost disappointed in myself having not seen it. And I've, I've seen, yeah, I've seen strangers. And I did think that strangers, whilst not exceptional, has to be up there with some of the better home invasion stories that have been released recently. But yeah, I could understand anger or frustration if it was effectively a rip off of a film which I wasn't even familiar with. So it'll be interesting to see how I find it watching them in the other order, but yeah,

Paul Tremblay 51:41
definitely, you'll have to let me know what you think after you watch it to see if, if, if there is a lot of similarity.

Michael David Wilson 51:48
Yeah, and there's been a lot of great French horror movies, and French language horror movies, particularly raw. And I enjoyed martyrs as well, definitely not for everyone. But I don't what it did. It did very well.

Paul Tremblay 52:05
I hadn't seen martyrs or raw. I would like to see raw. I don't think I could do martyrs.

Bob Pastorella 52:13
I really think you'd like raw. I mean, it's it's good, it's a good,

Michael David Wilson 52:16
yeah, yeah. It was one of their stories that we unboxed on our story, unboxed patrons only podcast martyrs. I saw when I was I guess I just out of university, and that I was looking for the most extreme horror I could get my hands on. And it served its purpose, but it's probably, I'm not sure if I was watching it today, if it would have the impact that it did, then I'm looking for a different type of horror these days. Yeah. Well, DW barren would like to know, can you talk a bit about how you develop your plot and story from the basic seed of an idea. Do you outline in detail? Start writing and just wing it, or something in between. So I know we have touched on some of this. Yeah,

Paul Tremblay 53:15
I'd say it depends on the story, or it depends on the novel. For me, really, I'd say. But probably the majority of the time I have done an outline of some sort. And when I do an outline, it's like almost writing, like a 10 to 13 page summary of, you know, just this is what I think is going to happen, kind of thing. And for things that have, like a plot that has like twisted, you know, that I found that to be helpful, because I feel like it's hard for me to make up sort of those twists. You know, it's not like it takes me a while to come up with those, you know, summaries. I usually spend a few weeks, if not a month, but, you know, something like a head full of ghosts. Actually, I did not write a summary for I feel like I kind of got lucky with that story that I sort of knew the beginning. In the end, I knew that there was going to be this frame, with the with the with a writer interviewing Mary. But at the same time, I also keep like, I've got all these like, little notebooks around the house, and I should probably do a better job of keeping track of them, although that's kind of fun too, because it's like, I lose notebook, and then months later I'm like, oh, there's that notebook. And I flipped through it, and it's like, Oh, I forgot I wrote something like that down. It's like, rediscovering old ideas at times. Yeah? So as far as, like, the Yeah, I'm just not sure, like, how detailed like, the summary is. I mean, I guess it for me, it hits sort of like the big beats of the plot. Things still definitely change, even if I have a summary. That's sort of the fun part is things change sometimes, you know, when I'm actually writing it and I give myself permission to do that, which is, you know, which I think is important. You know, just because you have a summary doesn't mean. You have to stick to it like a clue. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 55:01
I think sometimes the creation and indeed, the characters can inform the story, and you might even want it to go in a certain direction, but if they're trying to pull in another direction, then there's nothing you can really do. Yeah,

Paul Tremblay 55:17
no, definitely. You know, sometimes just about just, I will say I would, even if you're going to write a summary, you know, try to keep it broad strokes. You don't have to worry necessarily about, like, the super details, you know, because, as you said, the characters sometimes drive that, or sometimes you even, like, subconsciously add something to the story that becomes like a big deal later. So in a head full of ghosts, for example, you know, even though I didn't write an outline or a summary first, I, you know, I kept a notebook. So I would like, sort of like, write down little ideas of what was going to sort what I thought would be coming next, kind of thing. So in that book, you know, the beginning of the story, I just happened to mention that, you know, Mary doesn't like spaghetti sauce. And when I was now, it was really, you know, in the beginning of the book, and when I wrote that at the time, to me, it was just an odd, like, fun character quirk, because my son didn't like spaghetti sauce when he was a kid. So it's just sort of, like a little touch of realism. But then, like, when I got to the end of the book, that became, like a big idea, like, or a big thing, almost a vector for the plot at the end. You know, I did not know that that was going to happen at the end of the book, even though I knew at the end of the book there was going to be this sort of event. So that was just kind of cool that, like, oh, this almost like random character edition of spaghetti, not liking spaghetti sauce became to be like an important thing, you know, and that's that can be scary as a writer, like not knowing where it's going to go, but, you know, something that just comes from trusting, trusting yourself, trusting the feel of what's going on. That to me, that's the fun part. I mean, I obviously like knowing the beginning and ending of something, but those moments of discovery, of like, Oh man, that fits perfectly is, you know, because rest of the time writing is is hard and grueling and and I was going to try to add another adjective to it, but I'm, I'm out of adjectives for how hard, right? It could be sometimes.

Michael David Wilson 57:21
Are you still writing 500 webs a day

Paul Tremblay 57:27
right now? I wish it's been a little busy with the end of school and, you know, with the book coming out, I've been answering tons of, like, interview kind of questions. So that's sort of been taking up my writing time, yeah, which is, I'm happy to do that, sort of in my head, sort of been pre scheduled, and I knew that these weeks before the book come out, would be busy that way. But, yeah, I mean, that's my goal. When I'm going, when things are going well, like, if I'm in the middle of a novel, you know, I try to keep to a schedule, you know, I give myself permission to miss or to, you know, every once in a while. So, like, I have, like, adjusted larger goals too, you know, 500 words a day would be great, you know, it'd be nice if I could get, like, you know, 2500 to 3000 words a week, you know. So that almost builds in. Like, you know, you missed some you missed a day or two here for whatever reason, or you spent a day just editing, which happens sometimes, you know, so and then maybe, I think on terms of, I would be great if I could get, like, anywhere from like, 12 to 15,000 words a month, you know. And things just start adding up that way. It's funny, even though, you know, this is my seventh novel, when you're in it, it's like, it's hard to imagine the day that it's going to be done. And then, like, one day it is, it's finished, it's, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a strange and cool experience though, to go through that,

Michael David Wilson 58:49
yeah. I mean, it really is the cumulative effect. And goes to show that you take these small steps and they're gonna add up to a big hole. And that's why, yeah, for those looking at starting writing, just start now, or at least wait for the episode to end and then start.

Paul Tremblay 59:10
That's right, wait for the episode to end. Yeah, absolutely. I can tell you some more medical problems that'll keep you riveted to the episode. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 59:17
And then in between medical problems, you will intersperse it with occasional bits of writing advice, so you have to keep listening. You never know when that's coming. I've lost my train of thought now, so I think I'll jump in with another Patreon question, sure, and this one is from Scott Kemper. He says, I think it was Steve rasnick tem that said horror isn't a genre about fear, it's a genre about anxiety. I probably butchered the quote, but it made me think of your novels a lot when you go to. Write a book. Is it your goal to make the readers feel anxious and fill them with dread? How do you go about accomplishing that? Both head full of ghosts and disappearance at Devil's rock filled me full of anxiety. PS, I live next to Brockton, and you nailed that setting in Devil's rock.

Paul Tremblay 1:00:24
Oh, well, thank you very kind, you know, especially happy to hear a local thought that I got that part right, which is cool. Yeah, I definitely think, I think that's a great quote from from Steve. And he's, you know, an amazing one of my favorite writers, so it's not surprising he would say something really smart like that. Yeah, I think I definitely a more for anxiety or dread or, you know, I have no idea what's scary or not. I mean, for what scares you, I think is so subjective, just like what, what makes you laugh? I mean, I think you can intellectualize, oh yeah, that's funny or that's scary, but in terms of what really makes you laugh out loud or what really scares you? To me, I think that's just so subjective, and it's almost, I don't know, not impossible to go for, obviously, but that's not something that I aim to do. I mean, if people are scared, that's great. I'm super happy when people tell me, like a book scared them or something like that. Just, I feel like I can't control that. What I can control, I think, is hopefully, you know, ratcheting up tension or or dread or anxiety, and I don't know, I try to really focus on the characters to make sure, you know, if, if I do a good enough job making those characters empathetic and realistic, you know. And if those characters are in a situation where, you know, they're gonna be feeling those, you know, anxieties. And then I say, hopefully, you know, the reader will too, yeah, if I, I don't know if I might have told the story in one of the old podcasts, but, you know, when I finished a head full of ghosts, and, you know, I had no idea if it was scary or not, like, I was pretty happy with it, so I sent it to my agents, like one of the first editors, he sent it to, like, the next day, called them at like, 1130 at night, you know, in middle of the night, and she didn't even say her name. He just picked up the phone and she said, I just read the tongue scene, and I had to call somebody to hear their voice. Then she hung up, and I was like, yeah, so it's obviously cool to hear people have those kind of reactions, but you just can't bank on it. And sort of on the flip side, I get frustrated when people discuss horror online, when horror fans discuss it like, oh, that movie wasn't scary, so it's not horror like that really frustrates me to have such like, a limited or limiting definition of what is horror. So I'm much more in line with, I guess, with the quote that that rasnake temp said that, you know, horror, you know, it's, it's, it's more than the scare, because it's hard to because sometimes I think the scare takes a little while to like it. It takes a while to like to sort of warm inside and take root, if it's the kind of thing you find yourself thinking about a few days later, and sort of just shudder or are disturbed by it. Yeah, that got to you. I mean, that's just a different kind of scare, I guess.

Michael David Wilson 1:03:14
Yeah. And I think we've said before that with this is horror. We're trying to open that definition of horror to widen it. So I mean, if people are saying it wasn't scary, so it wasn't horror, that is incredibly limited. And I think there are many different flavors of horror, and it can be a mood, it can be an emotion, it can be a feeling, it can be an atmosphere, so wasn't scary, so it wasn't horror. I mean, so does that mean, by their limited definition, that if something is scary, then it is horror. I mean, lots of things in life are scary, right? Going for an interview, could be scary. Having your first child, as I've just had, could be scary, but I think my wife and family might question it if I define my daughter, thanks dad, or they aware she would when she can speak, probably a surprise that too much. I

Bob Pastorella 1:04:29
love how you equate it to the characters, because as I've gone on in this long and illustrious life I've had, I've discovered that it's, you know, this is something that I've discovered, probably within the last couple years with dealing with with horror, is that it's not the monster that's scary, it's your ability to empathize and relate to your characters, to create a compelling character that you're. Interested in that you care about and you know, and not confusing that with somebody that you like or somebody you will be friends with, but somebody that you generally, you know, give a damn about what happens to them is a direct influencer or on how scary or how much fear you're gonna have when the bad things start to happen to them, you know, there's, there's a direct correlation there that I think a lot of people, you know, especially you know, new, new writers may, may miss that, you know, because it's like, Oh, I gotta make it scary. How do I make it scary? Oh, I throw in a monster, and then the monster does this, and this, and this. A lot of that stuff is just really, just cool stuff, but it's not necessarily scary. It's what you know that then what Steve Rasc Tim says perfect, you know, because it is genre about anxiety. It's building this anticipation, you know. And you tie that you know into the fact that, you know, horror doesn't happen till one of those characters makes a bad decision. Then, you know, it, it all makes it all comes into a hole. And then with your writing, you you, you've got this disability to to make you care about people that you should never care about. And then that's, you know, that's, that's a skill that, you know, golly, I'd, I'd love to bottle it and sell it, but, you know, it's, you have that ability, and it's, it's, it's definitely something worth what I tell people, it's worth looking into, it's worth studying. It's worth figuring out the way that you do, you know, not you specifically, they would do it, yeah, yeah.

Paul Tremblay 1:06:45
Well, thanks. No. I mean, the endlessly fascinating part of horror to me is that there are so many different ways to tell a horror story. And, you know, different kinds of stories, and you know, so I've talked about, like, treating all the characters with empathy. But in the movie, like, get out where, obviously, you know, the white people that have aren't stealing black people's minds and bodies. You know, there is no empathy for them. And the movie would fail if there was, you know, but it works because, you know, those people aren't people. They're representing, you know, a systemic aspect of our society. You know, there's no redeeming quality to any of those white people you know, at the party or at the house. But it works because of it works because of the story. It works because of, I forget the character's name. You know what he goes through? You know when his girlfriend takes him there? You know, it's just an utterly intense and terrifying story. And that's, you know, in the approach, the approach is totally different than you know what I've done, or what, you know what another writer would do. So, you know, I don't want to, when I'm talking about, like, I'm writing sort of my stories. I certainly don't want to make it sound prescriptive, like, you know, the only way a horror story works is to do it this way. I mean, to me, that's sort of like the fun, infinite part of horror is that you know there are so many different ways you can do it.

Bob Pastorella 1:08:07
No Exactly.

Michael David Wilson 1:08:14
Thank you so much for listening to our conversation with Paul Tremblay. Join us again next time for the final part, of course, you know the deal by now. If you want to get that ahead of the crowd, join us over on Patreon, www.patreon.com forward slash. This is horror for early bird. Access to each and every episode and a lot, lot more before I wrap up, let's have a quick word from our sponsors.

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Bob Pastorella 1:09:14
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Michael David Wilson 1:09:42
and you may notice that we have a new sponsor, and in fact, they only joined us last episode, and that is unnerving magazine. And not only are they a fantastic fiction magazine, but as per the advert, in fact. They have a fantastic new line of novellas, including work by the likes of Michael Bailey, who you heard a little bit about today, and Philip frocca, who you heard about last time. So these are limited editions, so really, I think they're going to sell out, and I think they're going to sell out pretty quick. So if you want one, pick it up now. Do not delay. So that is unnerving. Magazine for work by Michael Bailey, by Philip rocassy, and a lot, lot more. All right, as always, I would like to end with a quote. Today's quote is from the legendary photo realist Chuck Close, who, despite his paralyzing 1988 spinal artery collapse, remains one of the most prolific, disciplined and sought after artists working today. And this comes from a fantastic article over on brainpickings.org and I certainly recommend that you check that out. But here is the little teaser on working through that creative block, writer's block or artist block, depending on what it is that you're doing. So this is Chuck Close. Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work, and a belief that things will grow out of the activity itself, and that you will through work, bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great art idea. And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating, and that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every day, today, you know what you'll do. You could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow, you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time, you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere, and that is close. Head over to brainpickings.org check out the rest of the article is fantastic. All right, I'll see you in the next episode, but until then, take care of yourself. Be good to one another. Read horror and have a great, great day. You.

And you might notice that one of the sponsors is relatively new, only debuted last episode, in fact, and that is on. I'm gonna have to try that again. And you might notice that one, some of this might be an,

okay, you want to be on the podcast. Do you want this to be your debut? Let's try again. Maybe she's just agreeing. Maybe she thinks unnerving Magazine.