MASTERS OF HORROR: CASSANDRA O'SULLIVAN SACHAR

1. What first drew you to horror—and was it something you experienced, feared, or imagined?

I grew up with parents who read tons of books and watched lots of movies, but neither of them enjoyed horror. However, my mom loved Halloween, and that's where horror dug its hooks into me. It may have started innocently enough with some dancing skeletons and hissing black cats, but I soon made my way to Freddy Kreuger and Stephen King. Once I discovered horror, I never turned back. I'm an anxious person in general and always imagine worst case scenarios—my brain works like a "Final Destination" script. As a genre, horror is comforting to me since I know it's fiction.

2. How do you tap into real fear when writing—do you draw from your own nightmares, or do you create new ones?

I've fictionalized many real-life scenarios, nightmares, and fears in my work. All of my novels and most of my short stories include something true. I've survived a number of scary situations, from almost drowning to nearly getting pulverized by a falling tree branch, so of course I've built stories around these horrors. I'm also a vivid dreamer, and I don't really mind having nightmares as long as they bring forth some unique ideas. Finally, many of my own fears—both rational and not—have also reared their ugly heads, bringing some truth to my writing since I've felt what the character experiences.

3. Have you ever written something that disturbed even you—a moment where the story took a darker turn than expected?

Absolutely! When I finished the rough draft of my story "Crawl Space" from my collection KEEPER OF CORPSES AND OTHER DARK TALES, I had to close my laptop and walk away. I knew all along that my main character, Jared, would kill his neighbor and bury her in his crawl space, but I didn't anticipate that he'd chat with her corpse every night. I hadn't realized the depth of his depravity until I wrote it.

4. If your stories had the power to summon something into the real world... what do you think you've already unleashed?

Why? Why would you put that idea into my head? It's probably a demon that's hiding in one of my mirrors somewhere in the house. I know exactly which mirror, too. In fact, it's probably watching me right now as I type this next to my ring of inspirational skulls and candles ...

5. How do you keep horror feeling fresh and terrifying when so many tropes are well-trodden?

I've written extensively about tropes and love discussing them! First of all, no one needs to avoid horror tropes—similar to the ancient Greek archetypes, they've been around for ages. One can argue that everything has been done before, but there's still plenty we can do to add our own special touch. Write a zombie story, but don't make it JUST about zombies. That's been done over and over to varying degrees of success. Instead, take that rotting flesh and Febreze the hell out of it by layering elements of craft in a way that makes YOUR story different.