Those were the stories I was drawn to read. It naturally became what I wanted to create…
Meg Hafdahl infuses a love of writing with a love of horror approaching it from the literary side with imperfect characters who go through difficult times. A fan of Poe, she loves how he creates scary tableaus and atmospheres. Yet, she strives for the subtlety of Shirley Jackson’s horror and believes horror can be fun.
Lyndi: How did you come to experiment with, and write about, females in sink or swim situations in your female driven suspense and horror?
Meg: I suppose I approached it as a reader first. Those were the stories I was drawn to read. It naturally became what I wanted to create after I was inspired in college by stories like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, and Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. I couldn’t help but find empathy with women who were thrown into these awful, horrific situations and had to fight their way out. Whether physically or mentally. Being a woman is fraught with societal expectations that can be scary so layering on horror feels oddly appropriate. As a writer I like to see what my characters are made of, and wonder if I’d be tough or weak when faced with same literal monster.
Lyndi: Do you prefer writing your novel length horror stories or your short fiction, or are both fun to write for different reasons?
Meg: I really do love both. Novels require a lot more cohesion and planning which I can sometimes be averse to! And that’s why I like to skip over to short stories when I want to experiment. I feel like the short story allows for a bit more flexibility, where you can focus on unlikable characters or leave a hazy ending. For my novels, I think you owe the reader a bit for sticking with you for eighty-thousand words and they deserve less ambiguity and of course a protagonist they really can root for. And that’s my favorite part of novel writing, the deeper connection to the characters. Oh, and the world-building! So I love them both for different reasons.
Lyndi: What goes into the creation of the monsters in your stories and why are their roles significant?
Meg: I love a good monster! As a horror movie fan I have a lot of great inspiration from film, as well as books, so of course I combine elements. And now that I’ve been writing non-fiction I’m often inspired by real creatures in the wild! Not all of my stories have actual monsters in them, but the ones that do, I feel that it fits in with what the protagonist is already dealing with. For example, in my novel series that starts with Her Dark Inheritance, the main character Daphne is suffering from anxiety after she accidentally caused the death of a child when she was just a child herself. This has changed who she is, tearing apart her life. So when she has to face an actual, drooling, clawing monster who hides in the shadows, Daphne has to work to defeat not just this physical horror but the horror trapped within herself. It’s what makes horror so damn great to me, this vanquishing of monsters both literal and not.
Lyndi: How did you go about conducting research for your fiction and The Science Of Series?
Meg: When I wrote my novel Daughters of Darkness, I had quite a big part of it take place in the 1960s and I remember calling my parents up a lot and asking questions like “what kind of cigarette would a rich person smoke in 1961?” So reaching out to real people is always good. I’ve carried that on with our non-fiction books as we love to interview experts, as well as people who lived in a certain era. I absolutely loved doing literary research in college, so poking around a library is my happy place. We’re also spoiled with the internet (which can be good and bad) so the availability of articles that once were only buried in a basement or on microfiche makes our job a lot easier!
Lyndi: While writing The Science of Serial Killers, did you learn any fascinating facts that keep you up at night?
Meg: Ha! Yeah, it’s funny because I have grown up absolutely addicted to true crime. I watched all the made-for-TV movies and documentaries. But after steeping myself in it for months while writing The Science of Serial Killers it probably took me a solid year to get back to watching true crime. My brain needed a break! I think what really stuck out to me was interviewing a retired FBI agent who has seen the worst of humanity. He spoke about how if a complete stranger kills you rather than someone you know it is close to impossible to hunt them down. That’s sobering.
Lyndi: With five books in The Science Of Series, do you have plans for any more? Or do you see yourself going in a new direction?
Meg: So our fifth book The Science of Witchcraft just came out, and we are currently working on The Science of Agatha Christie. We like how this particular science angle can be used to explore such different areas of media. But yes, we are always cooking up plans so there are many things in the works both fiction and non-fiction! We have horror TV scripts as well as a travel book we’re working on…
Lyndi: Have you found any particular method of marketing effective in selling your books.
Meg: Like most writers, this isn’t my expertise. I’ve found that being myself, which maybe sounds kind of cheesy, is really the key. I post on social media about the books I love to read, the horror t-shirts I had to buy, the hilarious things my kids and pets do. I think when you focus solely on posting about your books you lose out on connections with readers and fellow writers.
Horror and suspense author Meg Hafdahl is the creator of numerous stories and books. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Eve’s Requiem: Tales of Women, Mystery and Horror and Eclectically Criminal. Her work has been produced for audio by The Wicked Library and The Lift, and she is the author of two popular short story collections including Twisted Reveries: Thirteen Tales of the Macabre. Meg is also the author of the two novels; Daughters of Darkness and Her Dark Inheritance called “an intricate tale of betrayal, murder, and small town intrigue” by Horror Addicts and “every bit as page turning as any King novel” by RW Magazine. Meg, also the co-host of the podcast Horror Rewind and co-author of The Science of Monsters, The Science of Women in Horror, The Science of Stephen King and upcoming The Science of Serial Killers, lives in the snowy bluffs of Minnesota.
Link to author page on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Meg-Hafdahl/e/B01B0W4PHA/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1
