What exactly is, Big Horror by JZ Murdock? Well, I'll tell you.

Big Horror, huh? What in the world is that, you might ask?

I've had a few catch phrases since I started marketing my horror writings.

• Big Horror
• Author of the Macabre
• Making my nightmares your reality
• Epic Horror on a Galactic Scale (This refers to my book, Death of Heaven)

Epic Horror means it's very large, in this case lasting through a great deal if time; Galactic scale is merely punctuating that and with Death of Heaven, it really couldn't be more correct.

As an Author of the Macabre - I grew up loving horror and the classics. Scary tales told in stories, books and films from the writings of Edgar Allen Poe, most especially. The original Twilight Zone show affected me as a very young child in the late 1950s, early 60s.

Macabre is defined generally as: disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury. Fear of whatever in a weird, unusual, or unexpected way. 

I like what feels fresh, what comes at you from odd angles. I've been told I do that very well and so I've earned the title.

In Making my nightmares your reality, I am obviously referring to taking horror stories from my imagination (and yes in some cases dreams and nightmares I've had) and putting them into a format that you can experience.

In my writings, which include screenplays, who knows what the future might bring. There is an interesting crossover between my screen and fiction writing. Sometimes you can see in writing a screenplay what you can't see in a prosaic story, and vice versa.

"Big Horror" simply put, means it's big.

Kind of self explanatory there, but I thought I'd explain my personal thought processes on this. Big, to me means either big in scope, or big in how it affects the character, and also hopefully, the reader.

Here's a few examples.

Cover by Marvin Hayes

In my short story, In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear (a standalone ebook, also in Anthology of Evil), a world renowned doctor tries to help his long time missing son's best friend from his childhood and college days. In that endeavor he ends up creating something that alters America and the world and not necessarily in a good way. It's a big concept that grows from a small thing involving a single individual or two.

It is big or epic in that it encompasses the world and also, at the end, is very personal and big to the reader and the character. Whether it serves its purpose in what I had intended, I leave that up to the reader. I've had responses from people to that story that go from yawns to people being very disturbed by it. In one case, a new acquaintance (sadly, unfamiliar with the world of horror fiction) read it and never talked to me again after that. Well, to each his (or her) own.

I believe the assumption was made that I thought how the main character though in the end of the story. A mistake people can make and one that actors especially go through in their careers when their acting skill makes a character so real to the public, that some start to think that actor and character are one in the same. It's the mark of a good or great actor (or a well played, very well written character) and I think, the sign of a very good, or great writer.

My book, Death of Heaven (video book trailer) is certainly epic in scope (and I will attempt to leave that to discovery through reading) because of what it encompasses in time, distance and story. It is the biggest thing I have ever written and possibly the biggest story (again regarding time and distance) that I may have ever read.

Because of that I have revised and re-released it this year (August 30th, 2014) after it's initial release in 2012. It is now a better read with the help of my editor (a new writing partnership at the time of starting the revision in 2013). It flows better now (a good editor is a great thing, you know), and it's even more intense. Some areas that needed "fleshing out" have now been fully realized.

That book is big or epic in scope but also because of the prequel that was written several decades ago. Andrew was a story that left my University Fiction Writing 101 class stunned and they all became fans that day. That was when I first started to realize I was onto something in my writing fiction and perhaps psychology (my major) was the wrong career direction.

That Professor in my first fiction writing class, sent me to the Theatre department for that next school quarter, to better my dialog skills in taking playwriting. That class led to my being asked to join a year long screenwriting class in a team environment of eight writers also carefully chosen from that playwriting class. An experience I enjoyed wholeheartedly and will simply never forget. And wouldn't mind repeating, albeit in a more compensated and professional fashion.

My editor and I are finally starting to revise that story that got the ball rolling, both on my writing career and on my book Death of Heaven. That short story has also grown into a novella over the years in tinkering with it. That is now dovetailed into the sequel to my screenplay Gray and Lover The Hearth Tales Incident (Semi-Finalist in the Circus Road Films Screenplay Contest, winner announced on December 1st), where both my book and the screenplay characters will meet up in a third, more tropical location.

If you want to read the original novella as it is now, it is the novella at the end of my collection of short stories, Anthology of Evil and is available as a standalone ebook. I am currently compiling a second collection of my short story (Anthology of Evil II, obviously), that I hope to put out perhaps next year. You can also see all my works available on my Amazon Author page.

Another story I see as Big or Epic is my "Poor Lord Ritchie" story (see Anthology of Evil; which I can now refer to as the Lord Ritchie stories as there is a new prequel version contained within an anthology I am included in along with other authors, called, Giant Tales - World of Pirates. It is a short story titled, Breaking On Cave Island.

I am also going to be showcased in another anthology soon called, Final Ships. It has my story, In The Shade. That is a story from Death of Heaven that is not included in that book. It is the story of a man in Florida who experiences what happens toward the end of Death of Heaven but has no idea what is going on. There are a few of those stories in the book, but I wrote the one especially for this anthology, after my book had been released. So you get a slightly different perspective on the events that unfold in my book.

I hope you will consider giving Death of Heaven, a try, as well as some of my other writings. I've read a lot of fiction in my life, and I've never seen anything myself, quite like it.

Also, please drop by to check out my writings on Wattpad. I have several finished on there and one now that I am writing and you can read as I write it, called, The Unwritten ("Life is what it seems. If you can just see where the seams are.").

This is a write and publish it now, kind of site. Then later I can go back over it and work on it some more. You can actually see how my mind thinks in writing a story; you can also see what I can do with a first draft (which I'm told is not bad and I'm from the school of NEVER show ANYONE  your first drafts). So this is a first. It has been unsettling to me, but also invigorating. And you can watch a book being written as it develops.

I got this idea from another author on Facebook, Louis Shalako. Drop by and check out his writings too. Who knows, maybe you'll pick up a few new good authors, and you can read there for free. Just download their app, read it on your phone from anywhere, and it will notify you when a new story part is published.

Cheers!