Inspiration and notes for Von Herling

Work is progressing on gathering the ideas for “Von Herling Returns”.

Writing notes & story ideas for Von Herling

When I want to do a story, the first order of business is to get an idea.  Once I have an idea, I’ll actually write things down.  I keep notebooks where I jot down ideas like my concept for “Von Herling Returns”.   

The basic idea for the Von Herling anthology is three stories with a framing device to tie the three stories together.  I write the basic idea as well as the plot and conflict that has to be resolved.  At this stage, I don’t worry about clever statements the characters say or inside jokes; I just want to get the gist of the story down.

I have an entire post on my other blog about getting ideas so I won’t repeat it here.  In addition to the methods on there, one has to remember that Von Herling is what we’d call Gothic horror.  It also deals with vampires and those who hunt them.  While I will talk more about the background and development of Von Herling in the future, I’ll share with you two good sources of inspiration.

The book on the left is Ravenloft (ISBN 9781588460752; Cermak, Andrew, John W. Mangrum, and Andrew Wyatt. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2002. Print).  This is a game book & setting for the 3rd edition of the famed tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons.  While this book is meant for games, it is very handy for idea as well as a discussion of horror, the Gothic, supernatural and even clues in on some good media for horror inspiration.

The books on the right are from the comics series Hellboy from Dark Horse Comics.  Created by the spectacular and talented Mike Mignola, this horror series is pure genius.  I have four of the trade paperbacks.  Besides excellent art, the writing is first-rate.  In fact, what Mignola does is research legends, mythology and folklore of all kinds.  Then he uses them for story material.  This has been inspirational to me as I’m doing this with Von Herling.

But alas, I’ll have to go into that another day as we are out of time for this blog post.