katecavanaugh
patreon
The Story of the Horror Short Story ("In Front of Your House")
🕑 Added 2021-09-23 14:41:48 +0000 UTCHAPPY FALL, Y'ALL! 🍁
As the "Beta Reader Feedback Experiment" video is set to go live today, I wanted to give y'all some additional background info about this process, my story, and the anthology!
Warning: spoilers ahead.
When Cam first approached me with the idea of writing a horror short story for his anthology collection (with lots of other booktubers and authortubers and horrortubers!), I immediately said yes. Having never written a horror short story before didn't stop me - although maybe it should have bahaha - because I was excited about the chance to explore a new genre, experience the pressure of a deadline set by someone else, and raise money for charity. (All the proceeds are going to Books In Homes!)
So he messaged me in May and then sent out the concept to all of us participating in June. The premise is horror focused around travel, vacation, or anything ~away from home~. (Thus the title WE'RE NOT HOME.)
It took me a couple weeks to come up with the idea for my story. As someone who often has a lot of ideas - too many ideas - my brain was surprisingly blank. It wasn't until I was on a walk and my phone buzzed and I got an alert from our doorbell cam that someone was spotted in front of our house that I was like AHA.
It should be noted that I have a love/hate relationship with our doorbell camera. And not just our doorbell camera, but all doorbell cameras. (My parents' in particular struggles during certain times of the year because of the shadows cast by the plants all around their house. They move with the wind and set it off which was terrifying the first couple times I housesat after they got it installed and NO ONE WAS OUTSIDE bahaha. Eventually I realized the shadows, but not after freaking out for an hour.)
Anyways. Once I had the concept, the characters and setting flowed pretty quickly after that. And though the timeline changed (even substantially, even in later drafts), I think the heart of the story was there from the very beginning.
I can't show y'all the final draft, but I wanted to share the drafting process and links in case anyone wanted to read what my betas had to work with bahaha. Basically it went:
- Nonsense Draft (66 words),
- Zero Draft (3,622 words),
- and then First Draft (5,592 words).
- After that, I received beta reader feedback from some of y'all (MY HEROES) and moved on to...
- the Second Draft (6,098 words),
- and received more beta reader feedback (MORE HEROES, Y'ALL ARE AWESOME)
- where I then attempted MULTIPLE "Third Drafts," as you can see from the photo below:
Here's the First Draft that I sent to betas and then the Second Draft after having one round of beta reader feedback. As mentioned in the video, the Final Draft did change A LOT in some places and very little in others. Without that beta reader feedback, this story wouldn't be the one I really love today. I can't thank y'all enough for your support and for those of you who beta read, you helped me SO MUCH not just in the drafts you read, but also with my writing as a whole.
I sent Cam my final version in August and last I heard, the book is expected to come out in November (maaaaybe December now?) but I'll be sure to let y'all know either way!
I still have some individual thank you letters to send out, so if you beta read for me, I'll also be in your inbox either today or tomorrow!
Thank you all again, so, so much, and happy writing! ☀️
Comments
Kate Cavanaugh Writes
Bahahaha, I'm so glad it helps!! I so often wish I could see other people's zero/first/second/etc. drafts and realize that I should share mine!
Taz
Seeing the process and the changes helps me be a better writer, so thank you for sharing so much with us! Edit: this story is going to live rent free in my head every time I see one of those doorbells now.
