Today’s post comes to us from Christina. She discusses reading true crime novels and her own terrifying experiences that could inspire a few horror-filled scenes. Whether you’re writing true crime or fiction of the horror persuasion, don’t forget to register for your Kbuuk account today.

True Crime

The first true crime book I ever read was The Perfect Victim. This was before the wonders of eBooks, and I found it in a Barnes and Noble while out on a cheap date night with my then fiancé, now husband. It’s about a couple who kidnapped a girl back in the seventies and kept her in a box for seven years. A box. For seven years. No joke, my heart is racing a bit faster as I type. That book is scary. I’ve never read stories as frightening as true crime novels. I was actually so freaked out by the last one I read that I’ve had to take a break from them for a while so that I can walk my dog in peace each morning without fear of being kidnapped by every elderly lady watering her lawn.

If you’ve got a scary incident tucked away in your past, you may have the beginning scenes of a great horror read, be it true crime or fiction. For me it was the night my cousin broke into his own house (in which I was foolishly spending the night) wearing a ski mask and carrying a chainsaw. He then chased me up the stairs until I fell into the bathtub screaming in horror. I’d say I could fit that into a story somewhere or another. Now, if you’ve been kept in a box for seven years, you’ve got a book plus a made-for-TV movie deal on your hands. But for the rest of us, with ho-hum lives with a few terror-filled nights sprinkled in, now may be a good month to consider fleshing those nights out into something horrific the rest of us can read.