Tara Maya's Tales

Buy Writing Scary Scenes A guest post by Rayne Hall Have you written a horror story, or are you working on a frightening scene? Here's a professional technique for making it even scarier. Solitary adventures are more dangerous than group adventures. In nature, an animal which becomes separated from the herd is vulnerable to predators. To make your scene scary, let your heroine face the danger alone. The more you isolate your protagonist, the more frightening the scene becomes. Think of as many ways as possible to make her even more cut off from rescue and moral support. I'm using “she” in this article, but of course everything also applies to male characters. SEND THE ALLIES AWAY Give your protagonist a reason why she faces this danger on her own. Perhaps she has no choice: the little girl is alone in the house because her parents have gone to the theatre. The hero's guide and friends have been killed leaving him as the only survivor. The explorer's...

A guest post by Rayne Hall. Here are some techniques for creating powerful, exciting, realistic battle scenes. The biggest challenge in writing a battle scene is the point of view. To make the experience exciting and moving, it's best to stick to the perspective of a single fighter. However, the individual soldier can't see what goes on a few feet from him, let alone what's happening at the other end of the battlefield or how the sun dyes the horizon bloody red. Here's a possible solution: Show the terrain before the fight begins, and have the general give a pep talk explaining the overall strategy. Once the fighting is over, show the battlefield and have your point of view character talk with his comrades about the implications. Do you want to involve the reader's emotions? Stack the odds against your heroes. The readers' natural sympathies lie with the smaller army. The greater you can make the numerical difference, the better. The evil overlord...

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3 (mild horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the Ten Tales series of multi-author short story anthologies: Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic and more.   Her short online classes for writers intense with plenty of personal feedback. Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing about Magic and...

Rayne Hall  has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include  Storm Dancer  (dark epic fantasy novel),  Six Historical Tales Vol 1, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2 and 3  (mild horror stories),  Six Historical Tales  (short stories),  Six Quirky Tales  (humorous fantasy stories),  Writing Fight Scenes  and  Writing Scary Scenes  (instructions for authors). She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the  Ten Tales  series of multi-author short story anthologies:  Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic  and more.   Her short  onlineclasses for writers  inte...