Horror Screenwriting: the nature of fear

Devin Watson’s ‘Horror Screenwriting: the nature of fear’is unequivocally the greatest book about writing horror which exists. I knew I was going to love this guy’s book when I read his disclosure about his own childhood illnesses in the first chapter of the Preface.

The shock of cruel reality and my own compromised introduction to the world is what made me go inward and start searching for stories, tales, consoling terrors that would resonate with what I discovered to be a somewhat less than hospitable planet.

Devin says a similar experience put him on the road to becoming a horror aficionado. Devin covers everything, the history of horror, the etiology of fear, horror genres, styles, etc and the basic tools of the screenwriting trade you need to write your own horror story.

From there he goes on to talk about pacing, avoiding talking heads, keeping the ‘stakes’ up (particularly valuable if you’re writing about vampires), how to get the most out of dialog in horror and all of the other basic ghouls (sorry) of the trade. What I like most about the book are his personal anecdotes and tips about how to get the most out of your horror idea and optimize its potential on the page. An example is ‘Horror As Catharsis’ where he discusses the utility and effectiveness of using horror to “safely explore our darker
nature as humans.”

My college degree is in psychology so I actually understand most of what he’s talking about here (glad that four years was good for something) and he says it beautifully. This is just a great book whether your genre is horror or not. It’s someone speaking – not preaching – from experience about how to write a truly dramatic, original, commercial screenplay which, last time I checked, screenwriting is supposed to be about.

Jeffrey M. Freedman
‘Vivaldi’ Screenwriter
‘Bad Numbers’ Screenwriter
http://www.jeffreymfreedman.com/vivaldi.htm

Communication over the Internet and World Wide Web has evolved into a robust form of technology. As technology advances, so do those who perfect it. Computers and servers alike share a common bond among experts that provide direction along the Information Super Highway. A server administrator is that bond which connects us all to our online virtual world!

A server admin always remain in the background and never appears until every component or software functions correctly. They hardly get a chance to surface and get a breathe of fresh air before additional things to fix appear out of nowhere. They will not quit on something they know which makes a difference, and that’s the principal of staying connected.

These clever, yet dedicated individuals create a harmonious bond with computer networks to make you eligible – online. Their eclectic style of sophisticated movements inside a server ensures data continually transfers in order to meet current IT demand. They contribute to the glistening of our virtual well being. It makes prefectly good sense why we are the occupants in their house.

Thank a server administrator today!

Spam Filter Mayhem - Know Your Boundaries

The problem with tricking the spam filters has been a growing problem since the beginning of spam blocking software. There are a few things you can do to bypass the filters, however, it all boils down to whether your domain is intercepted by a whitelist or blacklist. Most web hosts have spam filtering capabilities, which may dump your newsletters in the junk box to safeguard their system.

Of course, bounced emails are also the case why users can’t receive email, or the sender clogs up the queue with undeliverable email messages.

I’m going to give two examples; bounces and headlines. Writing email subject lines is just like writing a headline for any advertisement. But with email, it is different. Whereas the utilization of spam blocking, there’s wording that must be broken to avoid being blocked.

a) work at home = wo.rk at ho.me
b) work from home = wo.rk fro.m ho.me
c) free = f.r.e.e.
d) marketing = mar.keting

The email is scored from 1 – 5.0 and when checking for spam, the lower the number, the better chance of getting through spam filters. Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to identify spam also known as unsolicited commercial email.

Curse of the Hard Bounce

A bounced email is just an email which is generated if the mail box you’re trying to reach isn’t available. There are quite a few reasons why a mail box might be undeliverable:

a) Mail box is full – meaning over quota.

b) Server not found – might be from DNS problems.

c) Server under too much load at time of delivery attempt.

d) Server has black listed your server, usually because they think you are spamming them.

Reason #D would be possibly false, since you don’t tolerate spam, the majority of ISPs will black list a server from somebody reporting only one or two complaints.

This is completely typical, but unprofessional on their part, because their system doesn’t verify if you are sending legitimate email messages or not. If your email is bounced back because your servers are black listed, or black holed, then you may want to consider contacting these providers to explain your position.

The concept of email hosts must be explained in order to get off the black listing. It doesn’t matter what size mailbox you have, servers that place undeliverable email back in its mail queue will attempt an extended length of time to wait before trying to mail again. This eventually will send out the email, but email found to be compromised will be deleted after a certain time.