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Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: The Essex Whaleship: the True Story Behind Moby Dick

Welcome to Weird Wednesday! Today we’re headed to the middle of the Pacific Ocean in the year 1820, where we’re about to meet the real-life Moby Dick.

Moby Dick is an 1851 novel by Herman Melville, a sailor-turned-author. The story of Captain Ahab battling a giant white whale who sinks a ship might seem unlikely—but surprisingly, Melville based his story on real events. Let’s set the scene:

Whalers in the 1800s sought out sperm whales partly because the whales’ heads contain mass quantities of oil (which resembles semen, hence the name) that was used as a pricey lamp fuel. However, the supply of sperm whales close to shore was soon exhausted, so whalers had to start taking years-long journeys to the middle of the Pacific to ply their trade. Sperm whaling was a cruel, bloody process in which men with harpoons were pitted against creatures with massive teeth (sperm whales are toothed whales, like orcas) and bodies nearly as big as a whaling ship itself. And the men didn’t even hunt whales from that ship, but small, open whaleboats.

At the close of Nov 20, 1820, those little boats were all the sailors of the Essex had left. A giant sperm whale—estimated at 85 feet—repeatedly rammed the ship Essex, opening a large gash in the bow while its sailors were pursuing other whales. No one knows why—the Essex wasn’t the only whaling ship sunk seemingly on purpose by a whale, but such occurrences were rare. It’s possible the whale acted in defense of its pod, which is only fair.

But imagine being in a tiny boat and turning around to see your ship mortally wounded, while between you and the nearest land is hundreds of miles of ocean, storms, sharks, and starvation. 

Fortunately, we know exactly how the Essex crew felt at that moment, because some of her sailors survived. 

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as:

Lost at sea. Ships sometimes vanish without a trace, even in this digital age. Chillingly, we don’t know how many sinking ships put out lifeboats of survivors, if those boats are never found. You could write a horror story about all the ghosts in doomed lifeboats that must sail the open ocean. Maybe a psychic can speak to them, or a necromancer raise them to tell the fate of their lost ships. Or you could have a sci-fi story about lost lifeboats ending up on another plane of existence. What would the sailors of different eras say to each other?

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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 On this day in 1912, eight people were murdered with an axe in their home in Villisca, Iowa. Josiah Moore (shown above), and his wife Sarah, along with their four children and two neighbor children, were killed in their beds by a person who has never been identified. And I mean never—the internet doesn’t even have a favorite suspect.

I used to live in Iowa, and I have actually been to the “Villisca Axe Murder House,” now a museum and historical site, and a frequent host to ghost tours. Visitors are free to leave their mark on the rafters in the barn, writing messages which range from the usual names and dates to oddly creepy warnings like “Don’t stand on your head in the kids’ room.” On my visit I was struck by how little has changed, though Iowa has traveled more than a century into the future: at the end of our tour, we were discussing suspects and expressing sympathy for the victims, exactly as people have been doing outside that house for over 100 years.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some creepy writing prompts, such as:

Midwestern serial. My personal favorite Villisca suspect is a serial killer riding the rails, as posited in the book The Man From the Train by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James. This is because there were a lot of similar axe murders at the time, all over the country, and even internationally. You could write a story about several killers with the same M.O., or one really prolific murderer who likes to travel. On the paranormal side, you could have someone killing in a pattern to cast a spell or harness a demon. You could even have a ghost train that carries your phantom killer on a never-ending mission.

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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On this day in 1948, songwriter Stan Jones released Ghost Riders in the Sky, which tells a version of the Wild Hunt legend.

As the riders loped on by him

He heard one call his name

‘If you wanna save your soul

From hell a-riding on our range

Then, cowboy, change your ways today

Or with us you will ride

Trying to catch the devil’s herd

Across these endless skies

A mighty hunter and a pack of dogs, horses, or other beasts racing across the horizon, making a terrible noise as they rush above you! What could it mean? Well, that depends on who you are.

Let’s say you might be an average citizen in a time of political upheaval and great anxiety about the future (seems rather timely). For you, the appearance of the Wild Hunt may not be so helpful. In some traditions, the Wild Hunt is a bad omen— not just for those who see it, but for the entire society they represent. That’s right, those huntsmen chasing howling wolves across the sky means you’re going to have a war! Except! If the guy leading the hunt happens to be King Arthur or some other long-dead hero. Then you may be relieved, as the day is about to be saved, supernatural-superhero-style.

Check out my Weird Wednesday blog post on the Wild Hunt for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as:

King Arthur returns. This is some Angels of Mons type stuff, where visions in the heavens presage victory for one side or the other. But what if your character finds they recognize Wild Hunt Arthur as somebody they know? A grandparent, neighbor, or lover? Maybe someone could get abducted into the Wild Hunt only to realize they themselves are the supernatural hero.

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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Resources for Evaluating Small Publishers

Small publishers continue to be a thriving part of today’s writing world, delivering dreams for writers and readers alike. But not all small publishers are equally praiseworthy—or even legit. Check out the links below to learn to sniff out the clunkers and scammers.

SMALL PRESSES from SFWA and Writer Beware. A well-updated list of issues to consider when sorting through small publishers, steps for evaluating them, and warnings. Check out Writer Beware for more resources on all things publishing.

How to Evaluate Small Publishers—Plus Digital-Only Presses and Hybrids from Jane Friedman. Trust Jane to keep this article current with answers to questions you didn’t even know to ask.

Tips For Evaluating a Traditional Publishing House from Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. An old article with timeless info.

Publishing Scam Alerts from The Authors Guild. An updated list of outright publishing scams.

Protect yourself and your words by learning to tell the good from the bad. No publisher, large or small, is perfect. But don’t waste time sending your writing to folks who will never give you what you’re looking for.

Thanks for reading! And good luck out there.

Learn how to find scammers among agents, publishers, and self-publishing services

This article was first published on my writing blog

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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 Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

–TS. Eliot, The Waste Landwritten about Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 third man experience.

On this day in 1916 Ernest Shackleton reached a whaling station in Stromness in the South Atlantic, completing an epic 26 day journey to reach help after losing his ship. While crossing the mountains, starving and without climbing gear, Shackleton famously saw a fourth person in his group of three desperate sailors.

And he’s not the only one. The “third man,” named for the poem above, is the phenomenon where people in life-threatening or highly stressful situations sense another person (of whatever gender) with them. The solo hiker has a companion, or the group of four becomes five, of which most or all report seeing the extra person.

Read all about the Third Man Phenomenon and get writing prompts on my blog, such as:

The Evil Leaper. History is written by the victors, and survival stories by the survivors. If there’s a benevolent voice which tells freezing mountaineers to get up and keep walking toward safety, might there also be a malevolent voice telling people to lie down and give up? We’d never know, because those who die don’t report back. Your plot could have various degrees of an evil third man here: a comforting voice telling people to let go and pass on, an evil voice giving bad advice, or a malicious presence causing all kinds of mischief. Who might experiencers see as the third man here? The devil or an attacker? Or still an angel or loved one?

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: Old Green Eyes: the U.S. Civil War’s Strangest Ghost

Welcome on this Weird Wednesday! Today we’re off to Chickamauga, Georgia, to look for something weird in the woods.

In 1863, Union and Confederate soldiers met on a battlefield near Chickamauga, Georgia. The two-day battle had nearly 35,000 casualties—the second-highest in the US Civil War, second only to Gettysburg. The Confederacy won the battle, but ultimately lost the war. Today the site is part of Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.

If ghosts are created by trauma and tragedy, then battlefields would make for heavy hauntings. Civil War battlefields are no exception—Chickamauga’s got the usual phantom sounds of canons and fighting, ghostly lanterns of grieving family members come to find their dead soldiers, and even a White Lady searching for her lover. But then there’s one guy that just doesn’t fit.

Old Green Eyes is pretty much just that—green eyes, floating in the woods. Sometimes he’s got a body, and sometimes that body is human-like, but most of the time, he’s just a pair of glowing eyes. And nobody seems to know what the guy is doing there. What on earth does he have to do with the Battle of Chickamauga? Or anything else?

Naturally, Old Green Eyes is a fan favorite among ghost hunters and Civil War buffs. He’s even got his own festival. So let’s take a look at some theories about this unique ghost and scare up some glowing writing prompts.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as:

Creature feature. Some accounts of Old Green Eyes do give him a body—just not a human one. Supposedly, he’s appeared as a cougar, while others say the green eyes belong to a horse with a ghostly rider. The second one is easier to explain on a Civil War Battlefield—horses and soldiers both died there. But the big cat is just weird. There could conceivably be a present-day, live cougar in the Georgia woods, either migrating from a population in Florida or escaped from a zoo. Or maybe there was a cougar present during the battle and it was killed and became a very unexpected ghost. Explanations aside, what effect would a large ghost cat have at the site? Is it scarier than a human ghost or more cuddly? Does it have a reason for still hanging around the woods? Does it still get hungry?

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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Four Reasons Your Really Great Story was Rejected

It takes a lot of courage to send a story to a publication, and it takes a lot of faith in yourself to deal with hearing no. Obviously, you want to submit stories that are well-written and carefully edited, but there are many reasons a story can get rejected, and sometimes, it’s not about how “good” the story is.

Let’s take the case of a magazine editor trying to decide between 20 great stories for only 10 spots.

Two things you can’t change

  • Your story doesn’t fit with the others chosen for the publication. Let’s say this month the editor received a couple of great cozy mysteries. Editors often want to publish magazine issues with cohesive content, and unfortunately, your awesome tale of Mothman’s wild weekend in New York is not going to fit. Some editors will ask to hang onto your story for a future issue (especially if they’ve got other great cryptid tales), and some will reject it.
  • Your story fits too well with the others chosen for the publication. On the other hand, if the editor gets a couple of great cozy mysteries that are too alike to publish side-by-side, she’s got to pick one. And which one she chooses is probably going to be down to her subjective personal preference.

Sometimes story rejections are just luck: you need to have the right story in front of the right editor at the right time. Which is frustrating, but don’t let it shake your faith in a story you think has potential.

Two things you can change

  • Your story is not what the readers are looking for. The editor might honestly love your sword-and-sandals epic with zebras on Jupiter. And maybe most of her readership would even like it. But that’s not what they expect to find in a magazine of haunted house horror. 

Note this is only advice for stories that blatantly don’t fit. If you’ve got a story about a haunted bus, for example, you probably do want to send that to the haunted house magazine. If you’re familiar with the publication and honestly think your story might fit, don’t self-reject. Send it.

  • You didn’t follow the submission guidelines. You know those stupid rules about font, and attaching a story to an email rather than pasting it in, and having a story between 2000-5000 words? Yeah. You actually want to follow those.

Submission guidelines are not arbitrary. The magazine’s readers do not want 500-word flash, and the editor who asked for an attachment does not want to have to paste your story into a document and/or change the font to something legible.

In speaking with editors, I’ve learned a surprising amount of people actually don’t follow submission guidelines. And their stories were usually rejected, not least because an editor doesn’t really want to work with someone who starts off by ignoring the rules.

Here’s how to understand and follow submission guidelines

The most important thing about rejection letters is what happens after you get one. It’s normal to be sad and it’s good to take time to grieve. But then send your story back out. That’s the only way to eventually get that yes.

This article was first published on my writing blog

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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It’s almost spooky-blue-flames day in Dracula! So here’s some info about ghost lights.

In the novel Dracula, poor Jonathan Harker endures a perilous nighttime carriage ride, during which the creepy coachman repeatedly stops to make piles of stones in places where blue flames are blazing. Apparently, Jonathan has managed to arrive in the area on the eve of St. George’s Day (given as May 4 in the book), a night when evil freely walks the land. It’s also the one night a year when buried treasure can be located by blue flames. Anyone brave enough to go out on that night can mark the treasures’ locations and dig them up later, which probably explains why Dracula’s got piles of gold coins lying around his castle.

But guess what—unlike some of the other paranormal topics discussed on this blog, ghost lights are actually real. So what the heck are they? Let’s look at some theories!

Read the whole story on my blog and get writing prompts, such as:

Just a little filthy lucre buys a lot of things. So Dracula probably didn’t give a flying mirror (haha) about the supernatural provenance of the gold he dug up, but the rest of us might want to take more care. Because what are the odds that treasure marked by blue flame on the most evil night of the year is not cursed? A story could get into different aspects of this idea: where does the gold come from, anyway? (In Dracula, it’s wealth hidden during times of war.) Who buried it? Are they planning to come back and get it? Why would a treasure cause a blue flame once a year? And if you did manage to get your hands on the treasure, is there a way to un-curse it? Perhaps if you give most of it to good causes, or have it blessed by a priest—unless of course it’s so unalterably cursed that the priest dies and the good causes have a horrible spell of bad luck…

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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 Hey, y'all Friday was Arbor Day! You can celebrate by planting a tree, and if you’re in the mood to write a story later, you can check out some superstitions about trees and get writing prompts on my blog.

For example:

Divination

Telling the future via trees is known as dendromancy, and it includes all sorts of fun stuff. A fruit tree blossoming out of season (flowers with mature fruit) is a bad omen, but a heavy crop of apples or nuts means a good year for twins! If you put an even ash leaf (meaning it has the same number of leaflets on each side) in your pocket, you are sure to meet your future lover that day. I grew up with the tradition of twisting an apple stem while reciting the alphabet: whichever letter was spoken as the stem broke would be the initial of your future spouse.

A couple of farsighted prompts:

He loves me, he loves me not. The Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions lists a few ash-leaf lover rhymes: Even ash-leaf in my glove, the first I meet shall be my love (recorded 1831), Even ash or four-leaf clover, you’ll see your true love before the day’s over (1846), The even-ash is in my hand, the first I meet will be my man (1978). This, and/or the apple stem bit, could easily work for a soulmates-trope romance.

Something is off. On the other side of things, the apple blossoms and ripe fruit together thing is actually quite creepy, the sort of just-slightly-wrong eeriness that sets the tone of a horror story. What evil could be so powerful that the trees themselves give warning?

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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 On this day in 1865, President Lincoln’s funeral train arrived in New York City. 14 years later, the Rockland County Journal (New York) published the following account of Lincoln’s train making a ghostly reappearance:

“It is said that on that night, every year, all the train men that are on the road at a certain hour…hear and see and feel the spectre train rush by them. It sounds hollow and awful. Its lights are yellow, pale and funeral. Its train hands and passengers are sepulchral figures. … It even carries with it a whirl of wind as fast as trains do, but it is a cold, clammy, grave-like atmosphere, all its own. As it passes another train the shriek of its whistle and clang of its bell strike terror to the hearts of those that hear them.”

Check out my Weird Wednesday blog post for the whole story and some on-track writing prompts, such as:

Memento Mori. Hauntings that replay tragedies are called residual hauntings. They’re like an old movie, where none of the actors are actually present in your living room, but you can watch them over and over. Grieving characters might be drawn to the scene of a train crash on its anniversary for a last glimpse of a loved one who died on the train. Or they might hear rumors of vanishing-hitchhiker passengers and hope they might recognize one. A character could even contact a necromancer (a person with the magical skill to summon the dead) to try to keep the hitchhiker from vanishing.

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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Want to write about a haunting? Take inspiration from history

Find six haunted places on my Weird Wednesday blog, with writing prompts:

The Amityville Horror: Infamous American Haunted House

The Mystery of the Moving Coffins: A Locked-Tomb Whodunit

50 Berkeley Square: the Scariest House in London

Borley Rectory: Haunting or Hoax?

Why the Nederlander Theater is Haunted: Chicago’s Little-Known 1903 Disaster

The Haunted Rail: Ghost Trains

A prompt for 50 Berkeley Square

  • Hold my beer. It’s funny how when you say things like “Nobody can spend a night in this house,” you get a long line of brave idiots volunteering to do exactly that. (There is a related trope, where they absolutely do not volunteer, such as in the story The Vampire and St. Michael, which I found when researching my post on vampires being compelled to count objects.) There are various possible motivations for a character willing to spend the night in a haunted house. It could be money or treasure (as in the movie House on Haunted Hill), bragging rights, an attempt to “cleanse” the house, overconfidence, or curiosity. The idea that someone can experience something life-altering in a very short amount of time is desperately fascinating. Some people are willing to risk death to find out what it is.

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: Benjamin Bathurst: How to Become an Enduring Mystery in Just 10 Seconds

Welcome to Weird Wednesday! Today we’re going to follow a guy around a corner and see him vanish forever. Sound fun? Let’s get started.

In 1809, Europe was in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. 25-year-old Benjamin Bathurst was a British diplomat sent to Austria to do diplomat things against the French that did not end well, and thus he needed to hurry home. It was thought the safest route from Vienna to London would pass through Prussia. Unfortunately for Bathurst, the route turned out to be terminally unsafe.

So why is the death of a random diplomat in dangerous territory still so famous? Because Bathurst didn’t simply die. He vanished. And according to legend (popularized by writer Charles Fort), he did it in a rather spectacular way.

Let’s join in on the night of Nov 25, 1809: Bathurst and his personal secretary, whose name is Krause, are traveling in Prussia under assumed names. Pretty wise in wartime. They stop at a post house in the town of Perleberg to get fresh horses for their carriage. They dine at the nearby White Swan Inn, and afterward Bathurst goes into a private room and writes a bunch of letters. 

The new horses are ready at 9 p.m. Bathurst comes out of the inn to get into the carriage, and then Krause comes out of the inn to get into the carriage, only Bathurst is not in the carriage. Bathurst is, in fact, nowhere.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as: 

History’s mystery. What if the problem is not that you don’t see a missing man, but that you see him too much? A residual haunting is like a recording that plays over and over on the site of an emotional event. So say you’re a traveler stopping for fresh horses at a small inn, and while hanging out in the courtyard, you see a man in an expensive coat that’s a decade out of style. He walks around your carriage and then vanishes. When you run shrieking to the inn, the staff says, Oh, yeah, that’s Bathurst. His ghost shows up once in a while to disappear and we still don’t know what the hell happened to him. How maddening would it be to watch the vanishing over and over, and still not have a clue about where he went?

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers 


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 Editors and publishers are just like everybody else: they’ve got jobs and a finite amount of time to do them. That’s why editors are partial to stories that won’t give them a lot of extra work. So here’s how to make your story easier to accept:

Proofread

Grammar can be confusing (looking at you, its and it’s). Even if you’re a writer, it’s not a moral failing if you can’t wrestle commas into the right places. But before you send in your story, find somebody who knows their there from their they’re and have them proofread for you. Because if you don’t, an editor will have to do it themselves, and that is extra work.

Remember, even if your story is fantastic, which it probably is, it’s not the only fantastic story that editor is going to get. If yours is well proofread, that’s a leg up for you.

Follow the submission guidelines

In another article I’ve said following the editor’s guidelines makes a priceless first impression. But there’s another angle to this: the guidelines are there for a reason, and that reason is the editor wants to do less work.

An editor isn’t arbitrarily picking a font for submissions: they’re asking for something easy on their eyes. They want file types that work with their computer and specific email subject lines so they can stay organized.

If an editor needs to change formatting on your story, they want to use a quick document setting. They don’t want to discover you manually hit “tab” every time you started a new paragraph, and “enter” to double space your story, because that is all work the editor has to undo, line by line. Do they want to do that? No.

(Here’s how to understand and follow submission guidelines)

Hit your deadlines

Your story was accepted! Congrats! Now you’ve got some more work. Depending on the publication, you may have to do edits, approve layouts, and/or participate in advertising. The press will usually ask you to get back to them in a week or two. So do that.

Yeah, it’s that simple. The last thing an editor wants is to have to chase down a writer who is delaying the project by not answering emails. If you’ve got a real-world reason for running late, that’s fine, it happens. But let your editor know, and do your best to work something out. 

Remember, short story publication is not necessarily a one-time thing. If an editor knows you’re not a lot of work, they’re much more likely to buy from you again, or even invite you onto a future project. We all want to work with people who make our lives easier. So when you send in your story, be that person.

This article was first published on my writing blog

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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 A public domain photo of Borley Rectory in 1892, showing a large stone house with a shaded front deck and a wide yard with several people standing in it. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BorleyRectory1892.jpg
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Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: Borley Rectory: Haunting or Hoax?

Welcome to Weird Wednesday! Today we’re headed to another World’s Most Haunted House (sure are a lot of those), this time in Essex, England. Borley Rectory’s claim to fame is a years-long investigation by professional parapsychologists. So what did they find out about this spookiest of houses? Let’s step inside and see…

Okay, so first of all, we can’t actually step inside, because Borley Rectory no longer exists. The house was torn down in 1944, after being largely destroyed by a fire in 1939. But before that, the rectory led a full life.

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as: 

Pious fraud. Pious fraud is when a believer in a paranormal phenomenon is engaged in faking that phenomenon. The classic example is that of a church with a weeping statue of a saint: a certain congregant truly believes the statue miraculously weeps, but when observers come to test it, the statue remains dry. The believer is thus tempted to fake the crying, just this once, if it’s necessary to make others believe. So in a haunted house, this would be someone who believes there is a ghost, but fakes the haunting when the researchers are around, in order to prove what they think is the truth. As author, you get to decide: is there a ghost or not? If there is, why does the ghost not perform for the researchers? If not, what (or who) convinced your pious fraudster so completely?

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers 

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Yo if you want to know how to kill your characters with (realistic) fire check out my article in the Specific Knowledge series via From Beyond Press <3


CW: detailed discussion of deadly fires

The movie Backdraft has gorgeous scenes in rooms full of flames. In real life, unfortunately, everyone in those scenes would die in about five different horrible ways. So here’s how to kill your characters with more realistic fire.

Other articles in the series:

Viktor Athelstan on Medieval Magic

Jessica Peter on Social Work

Cassandra Daucus on Manuscripts

John Evans on Guns

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers


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 Writing is a highly emotional process, and publishing perhaps even more so. Whether writers are looking to self-publish or sell to a press, it’s not surprising we get taken in by scammers promising to help us achieve our dreams. Scammers may try to sell marketing or other services that supposedly get an author noticed by big names in the business, or just impersonate a real press or agent.

But we can fight back by educating ourselves. Here are a few places to check before logging into your Paypal.

Writer Beware

The best authority on writing scams. From their website: Writer Beware’s® resources include the Writer Beware® website, which provides warnings about literary schemes and scams, along with information on how writers can recognize and avoid them; the Writer Beware® blog, which covers schemes and scams in real time, as well as publishing industry news and other items of writerly interest; the Writer Beware® Facebook page, which links to writing-related articles, blog posts, and news items, and provides a forum for discussion; and the X (formerly Twitter) feed of Writer Beware® co-founder Victoria Strauss. 

Writers Weekly

A List of Publishers That ALL Authors Should AVOID AT ALL COSTS! Good advice and a constantly updated list by Angela Hoy. Recommended by Writer Beware.

Alliance of Independent Authors

Self-Publishing Services Rated A searchable list with ratings and concerns noted. Recommended by Writer Beware. 

Authors Guild

Publishing Scam Alerts Another well-updated list.

Reddit

r/writers You can check for posts on scams or ask a question of your own.

Scammers are very good at what they do. As writers, we owe it to ourselves and our work to be suspicious (especially of unsolicited emails) and to do our research before sending anyone money for anything.

This article was first published on my writing blog

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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 A black & white photo of two people in winter clothing looking out at broken and snow-covered tents. From the source:   "A view of the tent as the rescuers found it on Feb. 26, 1959. The tent had been cut open from inside, and most of the skiers had fled in socks or barefoot. Photo taken by soviet authorities at the camp of the Dyatlov Pass incident and annexed to the legal inquest that investigated the deaths." https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dyatlov_Pass_incident_02.jpg
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On this day in 1959 searchers discovered the abandoned tents of a group of friends near what would become known as Dyatlov Pass.

On Feb 1, 1959, nine young Soviet hikers died on Kholat Syakhl in the Ural Mountains. They were a group of experienced skiers led by 23-year-old student Igor Dyatlov. The group missed a planned check-in by telegram on Feb 12, and on Feb 26, searchers found the hikers’ camp in a very unexpected condition.

*The tent was partly covered in snow, and had been cut open from the inside

*The group’s shoes had been left in the tent

*Footprints led down to a nearby wood, where there were the remains of a fire and two bodies dressed only in underclothes.

*A nearby tree had broken branches, suggesting it had been climbed.

*Three other bodies were found nearby.

*The last four bodies were found in the spring, lying in a stream. Some of these were wearing clothes belonging to bodies that had been found undressed. 

*Some of the bodies had severe blunt-force trauma that likely killed them, and others apparently died from hypothermia

*There were no footprints from anyone outside the group

*One of the bodies had traces of radiation

*One witness at a funeral described the victims’ skin as being tanned

*Much later, witnesses reported that they saw mysterious lights in the sky on the night of the incident

In 2021, a study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment which showed that a slab avalanche was a probable explanation.

Check out my Weird Wednesday blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts based on the event, such as:

A link in the chain. There are at least two similar events to Dyatlov Pass. The Chivruay Pass incident took place in 1973 in the Lovozero Massif mountain range and involved the deaths of ten hikers from hypothermia. The Hamar-Daban pass incident refers to the death of six of seven members of a hiking team from hypothermia in the Hamar-Daban mountain range in 1993. Your story could involve some sort of curse or other paranormal bad luck. Maybe an old legend warns of hikers staying on mountains on a certain night, or perhaps a ghost wanders the area, and those who see it are doomed to be lost.

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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You Can’t Tell Them They’re Dead, That’s Rule #1, a sci-fi/horror story in Just Keep Up magazine. A story told in emails, text messages, reports, and a knitting pattern.


The Train Ticket, [audio] a Weird West/horror story on the Tales to Terrify podcast. A man finds himself holding a train ticket to Hell after accidentally attempting to rob a ghost train.
 
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 A photograph by Matt Hardy on Pexels of an ocean wave breaking above the camera. https://www.pexels.com/photo/water-waves-under-cloudy-sky-1615679/
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Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: Rogue Waves: Oceanic Monsters

Rogue waves are single waves or small series of waves which tower over the surrounding sea. Also called freak waves, they’re not tsunamis, which are quite small at sea and grow large only when they hit shallow water. They’re just monstrous, unexpected waves, up to three times the height of the waves around them. Sometimes they’re generated by a storm, and sometimes by an ocean that’s otherwise as calm as can be.

Early study of rogue waves ran into a problem: according to wave models of the time, a wave so much higher than its neighboring waves was physcially impossible. So despite sailors’ eyewitness stories and ships with damage high above the waterline, rogue waves were thought to be a myth.

Another reason for the disbelief was probably because the best evidence was no evidence at all. The thing about seeing something terribly dangerous on the open ocean is that unfortunately, you may not live to tell about it, and that seems to be the case with a lot of suspected rogue waves. Waves big enough to sink ships did, in fact, sink ships, leaving no one to tell the tale.

And then came the Draupner Wave

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as: 

The Sinking Dutchman. A whole ship’s worth of people dying suddenly via rogue wave on an otherwise uneventful day would be a good recipe for a ghost story. The ship might reappear on the anniversary of its sinking, (like the Palatine Light), or your story could have a modern ship that picks up a few hundred vintage ghosts every time it passes through certain waters. Might they try to warn the captain or passengers if another rogue wave threatens?

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers 

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You can now read my dark fantasy story “Branwen and the Three Ravens” for free in Penumbric Speculative Fiction magazine!

A retelling of Grimm’s “The 7 Ravens.” The creepy adventures of a woman attempting to free her brothers from a curse.

Branwen was a lonely child, and no one told her why until she was a child no longer. At eighteen, the town ceased to hold its breath and revealed to her the terrible truth: that Branwen had been raised in the shadow of three missing sons.

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

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