Fear is a strange and powerful force.
It permeates so many areas of life, both for good and for bad. Fear of failure, for example, can lead an athlete to push themselves in practice, so they make the game-winning plays. Fear of change can keep a person clinging to the same dead-end job for years because they’re afraid disrupting their routine and rolling the dice on a new job elsewhere might make things worse.
One reason the horror genre is so popular is because it explores universal fears. Monsters, demons, ghosts, witches, and other supernatural entities are an allegory of what scares us in real life. Here at Macabre Monday, we’re all about exploring those fears through prose and poetry.
Please enlighten us – your favorite crypt keepers of all things terrifying and haunting – on the fears that drive you and influence you.
What makes you feel afraid?
If you’re an author, how do your fears influence the stories you write?
If you’re a reader, how do your fears influence the stories you read?
Share your answers with us in the comments or in our weekly chat thread.
The Weekly Digest
A selection of last week’s Macabre Monday posts from our team.
Gather around our campfire as we highlight memorable stories, poems, articles, and notes from last week’s Macabre Monday offerings:
- shared the two latest chapters of Restless Spirits, her latest serial. This riveting supernatural thriller follows a paranormal investigator who becomes the subject of her own investigation after a routine ghost hunt turns bad.
“Buyer Beware” takes on a new sinister meaning in
’s flash fiction tale Voodoo Doll Rental. (I recommend going to her Macabre Curiosities newsletter and also checking out the accompanying art for the story in another post).
I enjoyed reading The Wind in the Willows back when I was in middle school. If you also enjoyed it, you will love
’s latest tale, A Monster on Mole’s Hill. This story draws inspiration from a water monster of American folklore called Amhuluk and combines climate fiction with horror in a story set in the world of The Wind in the Willows.
Finally, be careful about creating an AI to save the world. Their solution might be horrifying … for you. That’s the cautionary tale
shares in We Are Going to Save the World.
Fear of things lurking beneath the surface of reality, fear that my ‘known’ is only the tip of a sinister iceberg. 😮
my fears are of dark water. there is something underneath.
darkness in strange places... the fear that when you turn on the light, there will be something suddenly revealed that was creeping up.
bathroom cabinets. just do I need to say any more about those?
landing in aeroplanes... it is always going to crash.