Welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where I’m joined by David Niall Wilson – author of the upcoming novella When You Leave I Disappear (coming in August 2024 from Shortwave Publishing). Described as “a literary horror novella in which a bestselling author’s imposter syndrome draws her into a darker and darker world from which she may never escape”, When You Leave I Disappear sounds intriguing, and I was delighted when David agreed to write this guest post exploring the strength of horror fiction as a medium for exploring stories which blur the lines between fiction and reality. Without further ado then, over to David.
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David Niall Wilson: A recent book project got me thinking about how much more frightening fiction is when it doesn’t feel like fiction at all. There are moments when I’m reading something I know full well is made up, but find it so conceivable and well-grounded in reality that an entirely different sort of unease takes over. Some subjects that can do this to me are cyber threats, technical horror, and Internet stalking, because IT and security have been my day-job for so many years. The author doesn’t always cause the sensation; sometimes they just trigger something in my mind that takes off on its own, a real concern, or a possibility that doesn’t require, for me, suspension of disbelief.
In the novella When You Leave I Disappear I had the very intriguing opportunity to write about characters who were experiencing this. Stories within a story that seemed too real, and too possible, and caused ripples of fear among imaginary readers that I believe could leak out into the world. Because as crazy as the things in that story are, too many of them feel real. Too many of them tie back from the darkness of the fictional world into the one that surrounds us, and most of them (not all, of course) but most of them are very possible.
If you think about the separations in our lives, the way a hundred people can interact, communicate, and share a basic understanding of their surroundings, while living absolutely different lives with disparate inputs, influences, beliefs and secrets, it can make you crazy. These, to me, are the things that bring the deepest horror. The serial killer down the street. The father with a hard drive full of kiddie porn in his garage who volunteers every weekend for Habitat for Humanity.
I had a friend who worked in a grocery store. He kept a diary of the entirely crazy and gross people and things he encountered there, all happening and existing as people wandered in and around and bought food for their families. Including the deli. That became a Thanksgiving story “For These Things I Am Truly Thankful,” and in that story I found myself following things like a drop of water, from the rarely sanitized tap, to the filthy pipes and drains, the hands of those who put those pipes together, the long journey from the processing plant where people and germs and who knows what were everywhere, pushing water through ancient pipes that I drank without question. Through writing that story, I gained a new appreciation for purified water.
We’re surrounded by every type of human being, every type of secret and crime, and we live our lives as if there is a bubble of safety protecting us. Use your words to take away that bubble. Pop it with as much violence as possible or slice it carefully and let things seep through that won’t leave the thoughts of those who read your stories. Invade people’s dreams with fear that has nothing to do with your characters, or your story, and everything to do with their realization that what you wrote is something that might be happening, and they don’t know where.
I wrote a screenplay, Killer Green, and it’s going to be a novel soon, out in the world under a different title. The story was inspired by an article I read while keeping up to date on my day job in cybersecurity. Those robot dogs and others you see that the military deploys. They have one, and this is not new tech, designed to take biodegradable matter from a battlefield and convert that to fuel so they can continue their missions under remote conditions. Think about that. If this is not the closest thing so far to “Soylent Green is people”, what is?
Try to find those lines, and when you find them, cross straight over. Zombies are fun. Vampires might be dark and sexy, but if you really want to scare someone, make them wonder what their neighbors are really doing on weekends. Think about what might happen if your entire Internet life was hacked, turned into an NFT and sold at auction. (I have, and that story is also forthcoming). Realize this is a scary-assed world, and most of what we see and believe, and trust is a thin veneer over a lot of much darker things we may or may not have to deal with.
As writers, and artists, this is part of the job. Help people be prepared. Sand off the veneer and open the veins. If possible, and I mean this with every fiber of my being, write what hurts. What hurts you, what scares you, and that will become what you know will scare others. Make it real and make it dark.
In the words of Depeche Mode, though they were talking about something completely different…
“To put it in words, to write it down, that is walking on hallowed ground… but it’s my duty. I’m a missionary…”
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David Niall Wilson is a USA Today bestselling, multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of more than forty novels and collections. He is a former president of the Horror Writers Association and CEO and founder of Crossroad Press Publishing. His novels include This is My Blood, Deep Blue, and Many More. His most recent published works are the collection The Devil’s in the Flaws: And Other Dark Truths, and the historical fantasy novel Jurassic Ark – a retelling of the Noah’s Ark story… with dinosaurs. David lives in way-out-yonder NC with his wife Patricia, 13 cats, and a chinchilla named Pook-Daddy.
Find out more at David’s website.
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Thanks so much to David for taking the time to write this article! If that’s whetted your appetite for When You Leave I Disappear – which I have to say sounds fascinating to me – you can pre-order your copy using the links* below ahead of its publication on the 20th August, via Shortwave Publishing.
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