Most students at CSArts leave class with homework, but in creative writing, students leave with nightmares. Horror Fiction students, taught by Mr. Meden, spend their time reading and writing frightening short stories, and discuss and analyze the works from the great horror writers at the beginning of each class.
The Horror Fiction class is currently working on a character-focused short piece. Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, Jason, and Leatherface are prime examples of character-pieces with troubling and demented pasts.
Oftentimes the best horror stories have a main character that is uniquely vulnerable or uniquely suited to the spooky situation they’re in,”
Mr. Meden said.
So I’m challenging students to try and write a story where their main character is the best possible character for their story.”
Many students are taking the piece head on, excited for the opportunity to let their nightmares get creative.
I’m writing a story about a human-sized spider, from the spider’s point of view,”
said Ethan Marvil (CW ‘23). Students are also excited for the upcoming content in the class as Halloween creeps closer.
People are more in the mood to write spooky stuff! And I think it’d be fun if we did something for Halloween, like watch a spooky movie,”
Griffin Stenzel (CW ‘24) said. Though the class isn’t diving into horror movies just yet, they have started reading bloody (literally) Halloween-themed short stories.
So far, The October Game, by Ray Bradbury, is a class favorite. The short story follows partiers at a Halloween get-together playing a game of hot potato. The disturbing game does not reveal what’s inside the foil. We’ll just leave it to your imagination.
But the class is not just about fun and fright. Mr. Meden uses these frightening stories as a way to introduce new skills to students.
I hope it was instructive to students on prepping a reveal in a narrative twist and how to get into the head of a really dark and horrifying character,”
Mr. Meden said.
Mr. Meden and students plan on digging deeper into the history of horror, during the second half of the semester, as well as detach from the Western Horror Canon to explore more diverse fiction, like as Indigenous and East Asian Horror.
CSArts Arson Investigation