Episode 38: Exploring the Depths of Dark Fiction with Daniel Willcocks

Angela Haas (00:17)
Welcome to episode 38. I'm Angela Haas and I'm here with my co-host Cassie Newell and this month we're doing deep dives into different genres with some of our favorite guests. Today we're talking with best-selling dark fiction author Daniel Willcocks Daniel Willcocks is an international best-selling author, award-winning podcaster, author, coach, and speaker.

Dan writes nonfiction for authors and creatives as well as dark fiction for the twisted reader spanning the genres of horror, post-apocalyptic and sci-fi. Welcome Dan. Should we do Dan or Daniel? What's better? Yeah, we do. I didn't want to be like.

Daniel Willcocks (00:59)
You can go for Dan, we know each other. Like, anyone listening, if you be... If anyone listening

meets me, call me Daniel, but you guys can call me Dan. ⁓

Angela Haas (01:08)
my god, we have this secret handshake. I love it. ⁓ So we're just gonna dive in and one of the first things I wanted to talk to you about was you recently celebrated your 10 year anniversary as an author. Wow, looking back on all those years, all those things you learned, if you could travel back in time.

Cassie Newell (01:08)
very good.

We

That's amazing.

Angela Haas (01:35)
and tell yourself something you wish you would have known when you first started. What would that be?

Daniel Willcocks (01:41)
Now this is very, very timely because I, so I celebrate my 10 year anniversary. I've already forgotten the date. It was around April, May time. And up on my website, I've put sort of a list of 10 things that I've learned from 10 years of authoring. And even since then, I think the answer I'm going to give you is going to be slightly different to the points that I put on that article. Cause one thing that I am tackling at the minute in terms of challenges myself and

in doing so and in trying to overcome those obstacles, looking back on my journey, it's just the energy you have when you begin. Like if I could go back to the first times I was writing, to the first times I was reading deliberately so that I could learn the craft of writing and I was devouring non-fiction books and I was reading everything I can get my hands on, there is in the naivety of, and I guess the...

There's almost like a hubris in going, I'm going to write a book because you have to come to the page and go, number one, I'm writing a book because at some point I'm going to enjoy this or I might enjoy this. And number two, I'm writing this for a future someone, a future, whether it's you, whether it's the readers that you're to be writing it from, you're writing it for someone. And there's a kind of like overconfidence in someone's going to enjoy this at some point. I'm writing something that someone is going to enjoy. And

I've been speaking a lot to Luke Condor, who is one of the co-founders of the Other Stories podcast, which is a podcast I founded with Luke and some others in 2016. And we've written a few books together and we were both saying that we loved that energy back in sort of 2015, back in 2016. It was just exciting and it was new. And something that I think both of you guys can attest to, how I'm sure you founded this podcast together, is that there's so much resource for new people. There's so much resource for...

Cassie Newell (03:26)
Right.

Daniel Willcocks (03:26)
how to write, how to be productive, how to do this, how to craft in this genre. And this isn't me complaining, like it's kind of like, I guess, a curse of being in the industry for a while. But you get to a point where five years down the line, 10 years down the line, and you've done enough of certain stuff that you're like, there's not as much resource now, there's not as much, there's still a way to go up. But the learning curve is so much shallower, I guess, like, when you're starting, there's all this stuff and you can just devour it. And the point I'm at the minute, it's like,

Angela Haas (03:44)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (03:45)
Right.

Angela Haas (03:50)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (03:51)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Willcocks (03:55)
I know I can write because people like my books and I'm getting good reviews. I know I can publish because my books look good. I know that I can podcast because I podcast and people listen. And the other stories has a really, really strong following. And so I'm now at a point where I'm like, where do I learn the specifics? Where do I narrow down and really, really niche into that craft? And it's really, really small marginal gains as opposed from the beginning. So if I can go back to the beginning, if I can speak to people who are very, very early on in that first journey, just enjoy the journey.

because you have an entire buffet of stuff at your fingertips and you can try and you can fail and you can try and you can succeed and it's just, it's a really exciting place to be and annoyingly it's in hindsight that you kind of go like, yeah, that was the easy bit.

Cassie Newell (04:26)
Yeah.

So our podcast, we were like, we wanted to put something together for the sophomore year, you know, thinking about that, because there is this part of really finding if you're in the right genre as well. I think both Angela and I have kind of gone through that process a little bit, as well as, yeah, but what's next? Right? Just like you said,

Daniel Willcocks (04:54)
Yes.

Cassie Newell (05:03)
And one of my questions for you is you've got quite the legacy. What do you want to be remembered for in terms of where you go in the future even? Is there a specific thing you're trying to accomplish at this point in your career? Or do you feel like, no, I've got the course and I'm staying through it?

Daniel Willcocks (05:15)
Hmm.

I'm going to use this as a therapy session for myself, OK? So I'm just going to speak. I'm going to speak and we'll see where this goes. Yeah, I don't know.

Cassie Newell (05:28)
Sure, that's what we're here for.

Angela Haas (05:29)
Yay! If you need to lie down and we can take notes and yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (05:37)
I've got a bed there. I've got my dog there as well so she can cuddle up to me. Yeah,

it's a big question. And often when I speak to authors, when I'm kind of like coaching authors or speaking to people bit earlier on in that journey, I always say the reason I started writing in the first place, one of the main reasons was I, well, my son was born and there's something, I've always been a reader and I always wanted to have a book on the shelf that had my name on. And I ended up playing around with like a

play that I wrote at uni, just throwing it through KDP, playing with formatting, just to put a book together. And I did that. And I had like a little tiny little book to myself, The Chicken and the Egg. And I was happy. And then I was like, right, I'm going to turn my hand to fiction and just try and get a book out and,

Angela Haas (06:20)
.

Daniel Willcocks (06:21)
and did that. kind of that, that's again, that starter energy of my son just being born and having that kind of, you begin to look more at the future. When you have kids, you're suddenly very aware of your own mortality and that you are.

Cassie Newell (06:30)
Sure.

Daniel Willcocks (06:32)
You

have to do the things you say you're going to do because someone's watching you. And so I kind of got to a point where I proved to him that you can create a living outside of the typical nine to five. You can just enjoy doing art and put that out like if you're doing the nine to five. There's no judgment on how anyone wants to their life. But I just wanted to prove to him and show him that with a bit of effort, you can do something you enjoy and kind of like make a nice shiny thing at the end of it. And then it was only like a couple of years ago that I

fell into coaching authors. I coached free running and stuff when I was at university, and I really enjoyed teaching people there. And with the activated author stuff and the next level author stuff, it was coaching, was learning, it was sharing. And that was really, really just rewarding because I'm one of these people that I like seeing people succeed. as much as I try and I think Cassie will probably know this the most from listening to the next level authors, but one of my constant inner battles is I

Angela Haas (07:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (07:20)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (07:28)
don't like recognizing my own help in other people. And I fully like to believe that even without me, people would have gotten to where they are. And while that may be true, I often forget the part that I actually play in accelerating where people get to by sharing knowledge. And that's something I've, especially the last couple of years, I've really been missing giving back to the community and sort of being more in that teaching role. Mostly because when I was doing it, I had a lot of life stuff going on, lot of personal stuff was blowing up.

was unable to get to the writing as much as I wanted to. And for me, first and foremost, I want to be a writer before I'm anything else. And I don't want to be a coach who doesn't also practice what he preaches. So maybe in the future, like maybe there's something at the minute about getting back into the coaching teaching thing. I don't have any fixed plans yet, but legacy wise, mostly it's just ⁓ I want to write books I'm proud of, books that only I can write and that speak of my experience.

Angela Haas (08:06)
you you ⁓

Daniel Willcocks (08:26)
And I have

a mix of stuff going on. like Jack just there is sort of the new series I'm launching with a co-writer. And that's a legacy in its own way because that's kind of like reaching the fun reader. And then I have other books on the side at the minute that are wearing away in the background that are much more very specifically me books written in how I want to, very independent of how they'll be received because I just, I'm just enjoying writing them. Yeah. And then just also getting to a point where I did give back like one of

Angela Haas (08:27)
Okay. you

Cassie Newell (08:50)
that.

Daniel Willcocks (08:55)
The most rewarding things I had recently was I went to StokerCon in Pittsburgh in 2023. that's for people that might not know, that's the horror writers conference. It's a big one where all the awards are, all your big horror people are. And I walked into the convention and someone called my name. And I turned around. And it happened to be a horror writer who was in mine and Luke's first cohort of a short course that we ran that was about how to write short horror stories that we did in, I think, 2018, 2019.

Angela Haas (09:00)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (09:24)
And she was there. because of that course, she's now written her first book. She's now networking with people. She's now in the horror scene. And it's one of those where it's like, OK, I can directly link the point there where I helped influence that and, you know, actually meeting these people. And so kind of moving on into the future, one thing I want to try and step away from a bit is the digital and is the meeting people in person and forming groups in person and kind of really getting much more into the live community of stuff.

Cassie Newell (09:29)
I love it.

Right.

Daniel Willcocks (09:54)
in a roundabout way, a lot of things. Like I'm a very ambitious individual. I believe that there's so much that people can do. And if you can share stuff that helps people, why don't you do that? Find a way to do that. But I also just love the art of writing. just leaving behind books that stamp my journey, what I've been up to and just the way that I see the world.

Angela Haas (10:02)
.

Cassie Newell (10:16)
I love that.

Angela Haas (10:17)
And I want to talk about the way you see that world because there's some pretty fascinating stuff coming out of your brain as a writer. But I think part of the, and thank you for sharing all that because my next question is, think part of being in that sophomore year is knowing when to draw the line or set boundaries for yourself as far as your time, your energy.

Daniel Willcocks (10:25)
You

Cassie Newell (10:26)
you

Daniel Willcocks (10:46)
Mmm.

Angela Haas (10:47)
I wish

I had done that differently when I was first getting into the lessons I was learning after my first book. But I'm sure you've had to draw lines as far as your time and energy giving back to others. Because even this podcast, it's really fulfilling for me, but it takes me away from my writing. And that's something I'm balancing.

Daniel Willcocks (11:09)
Yes. Yep.

Angela Haas (11:14)
But when did you know you had to draw that line and say, you know, I love giving to others, but it's burning me out. It's taking me away from the thing that I need to be doing more of. And then on the collaboration front, how do you balance boundaries and communication when you're collaborating with your co-authors? Because I would think that writing a book with someone, unless you are exactly the same kind of writer,

would be difficult. You know, so how do you set boundaries in both those areas? That's like a four hour answer. But I just for someone listening like I know I struggled with setting boundaries for myself, as far as giving up too much of my time or saying yes to things, thinking it was going to open the door for me and nothing happened or hitching my wagon to the wrong star.

Daniel Willcocks (11:59)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (12:05)
You know, those kind of things got me in trouble and I wasted a lot of time and money and burned myself up. Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (12:13)
I think we as writers are always going to fall into that trap because with ambition comes hunger and with hunger comes seeing, again, going back to that buffet, seeing all the things at the buffet and going, but I want to try it all. And as you say, the reality is we don't have infinite time. We don't have infinite energy. And in terms of helping others, I've got two ways that I balanced building those boundaries. And the first one was,

Angela Haas (12:21)
Mm-hmm. You

Daniel Willcocks (12:41)
I used to do a podcast. One of my first nonfiction podcast was with again, Luke Condor. His name comes up a lot in these interviews and it really annoys me, but people check him out. He's awesome. ⁓ me and Luke did a show

called the stories to you and we had about 50 episodes of that. And the reason that stopped was because I got offered to write with Michael Anderle in the Ethereum Gambit universe, which was his very, very successful sci-fi expansion thing. And at the time, my big goal that I'd gotten to was I want to go full time of writing. I want to get a really good income.

Lots of authors were doing wonderful things with Michael and me and Michael spoke, he invited me into the thing and I said to Luke, you know, I'm not going to have time to do this because I'm now having to go from writing, I don't know, 500 words a day to potentially two, 3000 words a day just to kind of keep up with the Michael schedule, which is kind of like the frontier of rapid release. And Luke was incredibly understanding. He had other stuff that he wanted to work on. So we had a good conversation and that was kind of me really going, right, here's an opportunity.

Angela Haas (13:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm Thank

Daniel Willcocks (13:38)
I need to be all in on this. Like it's not going to be forever. It'll be however many books it is, but I need to focus on this. And that was one way of boundary setting. The other way, which was in 2023 was I had a, and I don't know if I've shared this properly with anyone before, so exclusive to you guys. Around April, 2023, I had a mental collapse and ended up in hospital because of an intense anxiety attack from overworking. So that was me by myself strapped to machines, worried I was having a heart attack.

Angela Haas (13:47)
Move. Move.

Daniel Willcocks (14:07)
And that was kind of the impetus of me really reevaluating the coaching stuff on top of, because I'll be clear, it wasn't the coaching that caused that. As I say, there was like other factors

in personal life in the background. But that was really, as it should be, a moment to go, right, OK, I don't have infinite time. I don't have infinite energy. And stress is real. So, you know, two different ways. There's one where it was opportunity and there's one where it was kind of like it was forced upon me. So.

Cassie Newell (14:18)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (14:35)
Since then, there's a lot of re-evaluating. It was difficult shutting down activated authors because that was a group of people that I loved working with and they were all fantastic people. They are brilliant in the sense that the Discord group that I used to run, they've now created a side one called deactivated authors. And they still meet up and they still talk. And it's really, really cute to kind of like see them going along. But yeah, it's either you find ways to cope or

Angela Haas (14:52)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (15:05)
Life finds a way to tell you to cope and so, you know, it's kind of like juggling that and I see I see a lot of people really really overworking I still get close to every now and then although one of the Kind of harsh but beautiful things of that is I now have developed anxiety to the point that I know when stress is gonna hit me So if I'm getting to the point where I can no longer cope I now have like an inner alarm that stops me and pulls me back, which I didn't use to have before I just used to and and so Yeah, like I it's very very difficult to tell

people specifically what to look for. But I would advise people reading books like The One Thing. I cannot remember who wrote that one. I massively advise people talking to people or reading people like Cal Newport or listening to his podcast, because he has a lot of of minimal one thing, very what you call slow productivity. And I think one of the things I would call warning to and one of the things I think got me at one point that I very, very almost got into that system

Angela Haas (15:41)
you

Daniel Willcocks (16:03)
in teaching it myself is this culture of hustle, is this culture of just productivity, go, go, go, is this, must be doing three, four things at a time. Otherwise you're not that evil because even now the people that I see being the most successful are the people who are doubling down on one thing. And for me at the minute, that one thing is twisted tales with my co-author Rob, R.P. Howley. I'm doing sideline, like podcasting very slow. It's not.

Angela Haas (16:19)
Mm.

Cassie Newell (16:21)
Mmm.

Daniel Willcocks (16:31)
weekly schedule because that's just fun for me. I have a day job again now just because of like financial

stuff so my time in that is very very limited and so I have to be a bit more focused with what I work on. So that's kind of like the boundary side and then remind me what the second part of that question was.

Cassie Newell (16:44)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (16:48)
Well, that and thank you for sharing all that. I think it's so important for people to hear that, it happens to the best of us, But I think the second piece was when you're co-authoring or collaborating, that's another

Daniel Willcocks (16:59)
Yes.

Angela Haas (17:02)
opportunity where you have to set clear boundaries, especially when you're going in on a project where you're making money with someone, know, potentially. So how do you set those? Because I'm sure there's people wondering if they should co-author with their friend or is it better with someone who's not a friend? I don't know, those are those part of those questions I wonder about.

Daniel Willcocks (17:09)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I'll

start by saying co-authoring is still one of the best experiences I have. Like I've co-authored with Luke Condor, I've co-authored with Jay Thorne, I've co-authored with Michael Anderle, I'm co-authoring with Julie Hiner. There's a lot of, I just keep coming back to it. And the reason that I do is because projects are just so much more fun. Like I'm guessing there's a reason that you two are doing this podcast together because it would be a very, very different experience doing it.

Angela Haas (17:31)
Yeah. Yes.

Cassie Newell (17:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (17:50)
by yourself. It's just, it's, it's just nice to have someone in the ring with you. ⁓ of course you have. ⁓ Is this

Angela Haas (17:51)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (17:53)
And we've talked about writing a book. Yeah, of course we have.

Daniel Willcocks (18:01)
going to be the clincher now? Is, does that hang on what I say in this next part? Yeah. ⁓

Angela Haas (18:02)
Yes, we're just too busy

Cassie Newell (18:04)
We're too busy.

You never know

with us.

Angela Haas (18:08)
right now, but I think future, think a collaborative romance would be so much fun, but yeah.

Cassie Newell (18:11)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (18:13)
Yeah, no, amazing. Like it is one of the funnest experiences I've had. But then I have spoken to people. I wrote a book collaborating for authors, right? Interviewed a lot of different people on how to collaborate. And when putting that book together, there were a few sort of distinct sections along the way of what I wanted to put in. And what I found in writing it was the first section was basically what to do before you agree to write together. And that section ended up being about half the book.

Cassie Newell (18:14)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right?

Daniel Willcocks (18:40)
And what that taught me and what I hope that teaches people is that collaborating is fun, it's exciting, you throw ideas, people get very excited and they just rush into things. And for me, I am always absolutely honest with my time and my availability. I'm absolutely honest with what my goals are gonna be and what I'd like to get out of it. I'm totally honest with my strengths. I'm totally honest with my weaknesses. And the more honest you can be and the more you can kind of...

have good upfront conversations with your potential co-writer, the better it's going to be in the long run. you know, with Rob being a perfect example, me and Rob met a few years ago, we get on really, really well. I put together a, or me and Samantha Frost put together a anthology called Box of Fiction, which was sort of all flash fiction, and we got loads of people to submit into it and write stuff. know, Cassie, you were in that, weren't you? No? There's another C. Shane definitely was, yeah.

Cassie Newell (19:31)
No, no, I didn't submit. Shane was, yeah.

Angela Haas (19:32)
I think Shane was.

Wasn't she?

Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (19:36)
We

had a bunch of authors into that, but we were blind reading all the submissions and 17 of them that we said yes to were Rob stories. And I was like, this guy can write. he writes in a way that... So the series that we're working on at the minute is basically the pitches, it's Goosebumps for adults. So it's not heavy like Stephen King-esque horror. It's very fun. It's very light. It's very pulpy. And it's just fun to write.

Cassie Newell (19:39)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (20:04)
And my problem is I write very, very deep and very, purple and very, literary and kind of you know, bloat things potentially when I shouldn't. And Rob's really good at crossing all of that out, going shut up and then just like shrinking it back in into a point where we get the story. And he's very, very good at writing dialogue as well. So when I approached him about working on this series together, because I've had this series in my head for I think about two, three years now. And it got to a point where I tried a few times to write it myself. And I was just like, I just want someone else in this.

who is a bit more of the target audience I'm trying to go for. And so we spoke upfront. I told him what I wanted it to be. I told him what I was looking for. We spoke about who was the strongest with drafts or editing. We're on book four now. So, you know, with each book, we're moving that process. We're trying things. We're saying what works, what doesn't. And one of the big things that, for me, I think has worked really, really well is

Cassie Newell (20:35)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (21:00)
We have the individual stories, but then the series itself is the bigger picture. And we ended up going away for a weekend in Oxford earlier this year, just because it's halfway between us. But also, it's a literary capital, so it worked out very well. ⁓ it was gorgeous. I got to see where Tolkien and his little group used to meet. it was so good. Yes, yes. And yet we had a weekend where we just sat, and we were like, OK, what are we doing here?

Cassie Newell (21:06)
Yeah.

Sure, right? Fun.

Angela Haas (21:19)
my gosh, bucket list. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (21:21)
inspiring.

Daniel Willcocks (21:28)
What is success to us? What does that look like? And because it's a brand new series, you have to almost imagine that you're starting again. And it's different from the other stuff I've written, so I'm reaching new readers. And we ended up beginning with, what are our goals? Where do we want this to be in a year's time? Not in terms of the books, but for us. And number one for both of us is we want to write a sustainable fun series. So while we want it to make money, we want to make sure that we are

Angela Haas (21:33)
Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (21:55)
looking after ourselves, we are writing at a pace that we're happy with, we are

enjoying the process along the way and we're writing stuff that you know gives us joy and that we want to read and you know we've then got a north star that we can both point to so if a few months a year down the line we're suddenly pummeling out all these books and one of us is miserable we can take the foot off the brake and go hold on this is what we agreed can we reevaluate this can we re-talk and so much of it is just keeping an open line of communication I think a lot of people are scared to have those harder conversations but if you don't have them

Angela Haas (22:22)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Willcocks (22:24)
They get way worse down the line. I have collaborated before with Martha Carr and written an urban fantasy book with her, got halfway through that book and then said to her, I'm really sorry. Like, I'm not enjoying this at all. And she's turned around and said, awesome. Thank you for letting me know, because I'd rather you tell me now than to like get to the end of the book and be like, we're miserable here. This is all we're doing. So, you know, communications, expectation, and ultimately just finding people that like,

Cassie Newell (22:47)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (22:53)
your gut will tell you. It sounds woo woo, but your gut will tell you if you can trust this person, if it's going to be enjoyable. And you just have to kind of follow that and trial it out, give it a go. You can start with smaller projects. That's another good way to do it. Start with a short story, start with a small novel before you then go like, we're going to write an 18 book series. And then kind of figure it out along the way. Every collaboration is different. It's iterative. Some I have had that have been unsuccessful and we have parted ways.

Angela Haas (22:58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (23:09)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (23:21)
The ones obviously that people see are the ones that were successful. So yeah, it's just fun and it takes away some of the loneliness sometimes.

Angela Haas (23:28)
Yeah, I think new idea, let's have you and your collaborators on for a panel, just podcasts on the nitty gritty of how to successfully collaborate. Because there's a lot of other little tech questions like, how do you decide who manages money? And how does that go? But anyway, what we have to do talk about genre, because that's why we're here.

Cassie Newell (23:52)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (23:52)
Hold that book up again.

Daniel Willcocks (23:52)
I'm a talker.

Angela Haas (23:54)
Hold, no, I think I asked a, I asked a diverging question, but hold that book up again I'm really interested in this because I know for Cassie and I, dark fiction horror stories are like the opposite of what we'd ever written or read, but that sounds like something. Well, yeah, and that sounds like right up my alley because I can't do, I have too much of an

Cassie Newell (24:10)
But Dan got me reading some. Yeah.

Angela Haas (24:18)
overactive imagination that if I watch anything dark, I will have nightmares like severe nightmares for weeks. So, and I can't handle horror just because it just gets in my mind. But that sounds like something fun in a way like we all like to be scared in a way. we all jumped in the scene of the Sixth Sense where like the guy walks by the mirror, having those Goosebumps.

Cassie Newell (24:25)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (24:44)
was like all I want, a little ooh, that was scary, but it's not going to like affect my dreams. And that sounds like the perfect thing. So, but tell us like, okay, dark fiction, that is an overall genre that includes horror post-apocalyptic or like what specifically is dark fiction? Like what makes it?

Daniel Willcocks (24:50)
Mm-hmm.

So I've been asked this a

couple of times because I think dark fiction is a label. I won't say that I made it up because obviously someone else out there will have used it. But I encompass it in the stuff that I do because it tends to be no matter what I write, there tends to be an element of dark in it. So I started off writing post-apocalyptic. Well, my first novella was horror. I did a post-apocalyptic series with Luke and did a few post-apocalyptic books. I've written some sci-fi that's been

dark, like they're just, I just like to explore that kind of side of stuff. And, you know, I've written books that have romantic lines in them, but the kind of core atmosphere behind them is always something dark. It's always looking into death, or it's looking into evil, or it's looking into something that as a bubbly, nice person, I don't understand. So I'd like to explore it more. And I often say to people that, like,

Angela Haas (25:39)
Mm-hmm

Cassie Newell (26:02)
I know you're such

the opposite of what someone would expect,

Angela Haas (26:04)
I know, I don't understand. Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (26:06)
But you

know what? I primarily write horror and a lot of the people I surround myself with are horror authors and I went to the Horror Writers Conference. Some of the nicest people you will ever meet. And it is, I don't know, like there's just a central understanding that life can be awful and it can be dark. And we write it, but we don't have to live it. And for me, it's almost like a form of therapy. Like I work through things that scare me.

Cassie Newell (26:16)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (26:16)
yeah. Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (26:36)
and I face them head on on the page and just experiment and trial. I often end up hurting dogs in my books and I have a dog literally sat next to me. And people are like, well, you must hate dogs. And I'm like, no, no, I love dogs. That's why these scenes are like, I try and understand why people would do such things. And it's my fears, it's my hurts, it's my worries that come out on the page.

Cassie Newell (26:41)
I love that.

Angela Haas (26:46)
Watch her. Thank

Daniel Willcocks (27:04)
You know, now that I'm a father, I've been a father for like 10 years, but kids work their way a lot into my books. And while I don't, as a rule, I don't really do sort of like kids getting hurt on the page, the same way I don't do like sexual assault stuff on the page, because that just like is a whole different area. Like the actual bond between parents and kids and the impact of dark situations and the complications and the weight that comes from trying to look after a kid as well as yourself.

Angela Haas (27:16)
Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (27:31)
I think it's fun to explore. And you say that, you know, romance and horror are totally the opposite. And in many ways they are. But one thing I would argue is that romance and horror are the only genres that based around an actual, just specific feeling.

Cassie Newell (27:43)
Mmm.

Daniel Willcocks (27:43)
So you have sci-fi, which is about future tech, and you have lit RPG, which is video games, but romance is love and horror is fear. And as far back as story goes, and as far back as humans go, those are like the two core feelings that encompass everything we do. So it is light and dark, but the actual...

Angela Haas (27:44)
Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (28:01)
experience of reading a book is butterflies and it is the tightening of the stomach and it is you know Goosebumps in one way or the other it's still the same emotional or physical reaction from reading

two slightly different angles of the same thing.

Cassie Newell (28:15)
Yeah, I love that dark fiction often digs at unsettling parts of human nature. Whereas romance is the complete opposite of that. I totally agree. But how do you protect your you know, I'm a mindset girl, how do you protect your own mindset while you're writing in that space though? Does it ever surprise you what ends up on the page? Like, ⁓ Dan, I took a peek at Dream your book.

Angela Haas (28:22)
Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (28:29)
Yeah.

Okay, yep,

Cassie Newell (28:43)
Because

Daniel Willcocks (28:43)
yep.

Cassie Newell (28:44)
I love fairy tale twists. It's Alice. It's a twist. wish, yeah, how do you protect your, your mindset around writing?

Daniel Willcocks (28:53)
interested in know which parts you find dark in that. It's, that's a very difficult...

Angela Haas (28:56)
Wait, tell us about

Dream a little bit. Tell, I don't know, tell me a little bit. I'm now intrigued, yes.

Cassie Newell (28:58)
Yes, tell first talk about dream but then yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (29:04)
So Dream is a retelling of Ashes Adventures in Wonderland told in the style and the scope of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. it is rather than kind of getting high in caterpillars and stuff, ⁓ H.P. Lovecraft created a lot of monsters, a lot of existential cosmic monsters. And the way that he writes is very existentialist and heavy and dreary. And I absolutely love it. And I just...

Angela Haas (29:14)
⁓ my god. Wow.

Cassie Newell (29:15)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (29:33)
I felt like those two things crossed very, well. And I'm not the only person to do this. I did find when I was sort of researching, there are other people that have done their versions of it, but it was just fun to write. And for me, I really like trying to emulate people's styles as well. So I tried to write as much as I could in the style of Lovecraft, who was around in sort of the 1920s, 1930s. And yeah, it's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but dark and in tradition, you have to, yeah.

Cassie Newell (29:59)
creepy and

decision making, you know,

Angela Haas (30:03)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (30:04)
sometimes the decisions were obvious and others weren't. But I just like some of the other dark apocalyptic things you've written, though, don't you feel like that brings you down just a little bit? Or are you more excited because you're like, this twist is brilliant? Like, I'm just kind of wondering how you like work around that from your own mental health.

Daniel Willcocks (30:19)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, yeah, like I don't

I don't think I ever feel like this twist is brilliant I just I feel like this twist is right when I'm writing something like yeah, yeah and sometimes it kind of feels like every now and then you have that slight moment of haha I never see this coming. ⁓ but yeah mental health wise I Like I don't know if it's my own psychology. I don't know how it works because again, like I'm a very optimistic very kind of happy-go-lucky person like

Cassie Newell (30:32)
This twist is right, yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (30:50)
I will hug people in the street if you come up and say hi, like all that kind of stuff. I'm a hugger. But yeah, it's, I think I just, there's something about the realness of writing these things to me that I enjoy. Like I feel like often going to work, you're putting on a mask, you're wearing a costume.

Angela Haas (30:51)
Yay! Sorry. Me too.

Cassie Newell (30:51)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (31:11)
You're around people, you have to respond in a certain way, you have to be a certain way. You know, even being a father, you have to play a character in a way and go, you can't just always be your authentic self. And I think when I'm writing and when I'm having those moments, I really get a chance just to sit and just to exhale and just to go, okay, like, what do I really think about this? How would I react in this situation if, you know, and we all try and say that we're not writing people that we know, but like, you know,

Cassie Newell (31:12)
Sure.

Angela Haas (31:18)
.

Daniel Willcocks (31:40)
every character is inspired by someone we know, otherwise there'd be no characters on the page. So every now and then I'm like, maybe a person that I don't like, I'm just like, I'll throw them on, like, how would this feel? And what would happen in this situation? And, you know, I've written some really, really dark scenes, but I would say that if anything, it comes back to that therapy thing. It comes back to being a safe outlet in which I can exercise these demons. So I've got a story at the minute called The Nowhere Line.

Cassie Newell (31:41)
Something, yeah.

Angela Haas (31:47)
Okay. Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (32:07)
which when I was at that horror conference I pitched to some publishers and they were interested to get like a full read. Unfortunately they didn't pick up like the final thing but I had that like step of confidence to be like, like my pitch worked at least. And the story is, and I won't go into the details, but the story is a full bloodletting of just a horrible period of my life. It's sort of like six months, 12 months in which a lot of things happened that I wasn't very happy with. And writing

that and fantasizing and, you know, turning it into a story and trying to understand the rationale from the other side and how that might work. Like, I'm a very, I'm very interested in, as Cassie knows, like the mindset stuff. I'm very interested in psychology. And so for a good few months, it was just fun to write that on the page. And it was just me going, I can't physically do a lot in this situation to rectify what's happening. Like, it's just a process that's happening. But here,

Cassie Newell (33:01)
Hmm.

Right.

Daniel Willcocks (33:06)
I can, I have control and I can play and I can let out the things I want to say that I can't say in real life, but in the guise of a character and that kind of thing. the Nowhere Line whenever it eventually comes out, is going to be one of my kind of rawest books that I'm incredibly proud of and I'm so happy with it. But yeah, like I've never really hit a point where I've worried, if that makes sense, about my mental health. Like it's always been the case, like, yeah.

Cassie Newell (33:31)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (33:32)
Sure.

Daniel Willcocks (33:34)
I don't know, it's hard to explain. It's just, I think people worry that if you go into a dark place, you stay in a dark place. And, you know, for some people, that can be true, but, you know, they often say for

people suffering with depression, write have that sort of paper and pen specifically have that kind of hand signal of thought to hand to let you process and let out what you're feeling because so much of the day to day is an act that it's nice to kind of be true to something.

Angela Haas (34:03)
Yeah, I think that that is the key then it's you are exploring the fears, exploring and processing.

in some ways, probably any anxiety. And it's almost like a purge. It's a good purge. I think maybe that's the key is it's not repression, which I think that's, anytime you do repress anything, it comes out in one way or another. But you're actually actively exploring that stuff. And that's what makes it so interesting, And that's how you are guarding your mental health. So that's, that's a pretty interesting way to look at it. ⁓

Cassie Newell (34:36)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (34:38)
Yeah, well let me ask you a question as well

quickly like both of you. Do you guys watch true crime? Are you interested in true crime?

Angela Haas (34:40)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (34:44)
I don't watch it that much.

Angela Haas (34:46)
I wish I could start a whole other podcast based on True Crime because I'm obsessed with it. Specifically, and I want to talk about Unknown Number if you all have watched that, but we'd have to put a spoiler in. my gosh, the darkest part of psychology. But yes, go ahead, go ahead.

Daniel Willcocks (34:54)
So here's my argument.

So my question

back to you is why is that fine, but horror isn't?

Angela Haas (35:12)
it is horror. The things that people do to each other is horror.

Daniel Willcocks (35:15)
This is my point. The horror I write and

the horror I read is very, very fictional. Like I'm reading the book about werewolves and stuff at the minute. But so many people I know are like, ⁓ cannot read horror, cannot stand horror. true crime though. when Jeffrey Dahmer eats people, that freaks me out. And I'm like, that's real horror to me. I really, I...

Angela Haas (35:21)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ yeah. Right. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (35:32)
Yeah. You know what's wild for

me is I will watch certain types of scary movies. And I have to watch them during the day. And I have to watch something funny later, because otherwise I'll have those dreams. But reading a book that's more dark, because I have such a high imagination, I can make it so much worse for me. Just reading.

Daniel Willcocks (35:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Cassie Newell (35:59)
Because what I love also about books in general, especially authors who in turn respect their readers as intelligent readers, and that they don't hand feed you, those authors will kill me because I am imagining the worst of the worst. I'm like, ⁓ that's why I don't read a lot of it. But even in dark romance, I can't read super, super traumatic dark romance, even though

Daniel Willcocks (36:10)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Cassie Newell (36:29)
I've read quite a bit of it. A lot of it is trauma healing for a lot of people. But I think for me, it's all these emotional responses that I'm

Angela Haas (36:37)
Thank you.

Cassie Newell (36:39)
a high relator. So I take on all those emotions. And it's really hard for me to dump them out. So I stay away from true crime. I don't watch a lot, a lot of scary stuff, even though my husband just starts watching Alien Earth and I'm like sucked into the story.

Daniel Willcocks (36:48)
Hahaha

Hahaha

Cassie Newell (36:55)
But like

all the things, you know, it's just I have to really protect my little rom-com comedic bubble. So it's tough.

Daniel Willcocks (37:00)
Yeah. Yeah, I will. I will throw

Angela Haas (37:03)
I think the way.

Daniel Willcocks (37:03)
one

very, one very, very quick tip for horror writers. Any horror right listening right now exactly what you're saying, Cassie. If you want to scare people, try not to describe your monster. Describe what the monster does and what their effects are. Read, read Adam Neville's The Ritual because the monster doesn't appear in that. They show it in the film, which upset me, but they don't show it in the book and it is

Cassie Newell (37:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, just let me think what it is. It's the worst.

Angela Haas (37:17)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Willcocks (37:28)
So much scary because you don't see it. You just see what it does. Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (37:30)
Yeah, I think the books are worse when they're written really well.

Angela Haas (37:33)
Yeah, and that's the difference for me. So when I'm watching a true crime documentary, it's the way it's presented that is giving information. And I do like the ones that aren't as stylized or there's a reenactment. It's people being interviewed or you're watching interrogations, like police interrogations and it's the tape.

That's still for me grounded in reality. So as whereas like I couldn't watch Sinners there's like mental imagery that is like more stylized.

And that's where it feels different for me. When I'm watching an interrogation, even when someone is admitting to something horrific, it feels like I'm in the room and it's real and it's like not sensational imagery or music or something else that can deepen it for me. and that probably doesn't make sense, but when it gets stylized,

Daniel Willcocks (38:30)
It doesn't make any sense

to me. like, that's no judgment, but like every time I have this conversation with someone, it's the same.

Angela Haas (38:32)
Right. Yeah. No, no. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (38:36)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (38:38)
When it feels like a documentary, it still feels like I'm not losing reality. And that's like when I'm watching a movie, the music gets in my head, the stylistic colors and imagery gets in my head, and that spins around. I can almost separate. Now, some of it is still horrific. And that's where like, I don't appreciate how

Cassie Newell (38:52)
yeah, I'm totally in it.

Angela Haas (39:02)
Netflix portrayed the villain as the victim in the documentary Unknown Number. And if you haven't watched it, you need to watch it because it's becoming part of pop culture lexicon. But You never expect who this person is that's terrorizing these kids. That is that is horror.

Cassie Newell (39:23)
Hmm.

Angela Haas (39:24)
And that shook

me. That shook me because I couldn't imagine how that person made those decisions. But it was very wrong the way that Netflix portrayed them as a victim. But it's the way that they stylized it. Dateline almost removes you because there's like a commentator and a journalist who keeps separating you from like the things and explaining it

Cassie Newell (39:44)
Mm.

Angela Haas (39:45)
I mean, maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. We're like, we're watching a Dateline. I'm trying to figure this out too with you watching a Dateline and Keith Morrison keeps popping on to interview. And it's almost like taking you out a little bit where if you're watching a movie, you can almost lose yourself in all of it. Maybe that's it. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. You're like, that's not good enough, Angela.

Daniel Willcocks (39:48)
Ha

Cassie Newell (40:01)
Yeah, I lose myself.

So I have a question,

Daniel Willcocks (40:07)
If it works

for you.

Cassie Newell (40:08)
though. So since we're talking about dark fiction and how to craft it, I'm curious, what's your process for intentionally crafting those types of feelings, fear, dread, suspense, ⁓ on the page so that it lands with the reader? Because you're working that out as you're writing it. But do you intentionally craft it in such a way?

Daniel Willcocks (40:36)
There are certain things I think about when writing this story. I often will start with the monster just in my head. What kind of monster do I want to craft here? That could be an actual monster like Jack the Scarecrow. It could be a werewolf. It could be a wendigo as with Wendigo in it comes. Sometimes the monster could be just the world itself. In The R.U.T., which was the post-apocalyptic series, there's...

Angela Haas (40:57)
Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (41:01)
sort of zombies that are very similar to Last of Us, but the actual world itself is just dark and oppressive and living in that environment just gives you lot of opportunities to create engaging stories. But once I kind of know roughly of the monster of the myth of the direction that

I kind of want to send it, then it's about crafting characters that people care about. I think this is what lot of people miss early on in horror is people just want to get to the scares, they want to get to the gore.

And there is an entire section of horror that's sort of for the Splatterpunks and the Goreseekers and all that kind of like there's some messed up stuff out there, trust me. But for me, wanna write people and you know, as we've been speaking about this a lot today, like yeah, human experience and a lot of horror is stripping people down, taking away all the privileges, all the luxuries of today. Obviously, like a trait obviously very common is

Angela Haas (41:35)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (41:44)
the human experience.

Daniel Willcocks (41:57)
All the phones go down and suddenly we can't go on and check the news and we can't phone our next door neighbors and we can't, you know, check in with our loved ones. But by trying to create real people who are everyday people that the reader can connect with, the reader can understand, you then create an emotional connection so that when bad stuff happens later, it matters rather than kind of, yeah, rather than creating sort of a 2D wooden person that's just there as an object to be slaughtered or killed or whatever.

Cassie Newell (42:00)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (42:20)
.

Cassie Newell (42:20)
Mm-hmm, you care.

Daniel Willcocks (42:28)
So I focus a lot on the character arcs. And again, sort of going back to the Twisted Tale stuff, that's one of the things that me and Rob work well together on, because Rob's really good at writing the stories, but he has autism and so struggles a bit to

connect to the emotional path of the character journey. Whereas I'll come in and go, we need to make this stronger, we need to give them a reason to do this. I won't say too much, but in our latest story, I've changed a father to a stepfather because by having the father

Cassie Newell (42:49)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Willcocks (42:56)
die early on when the kid was younger. It adds more engagement and reason for some of the choices that he's making in the story that's already been put together. So it is, it comes back to when people are writing stories, I think a lot of people are scared to put themselves into the story or to write just the regular average joke. But there's something really powerful when having someone that you know, someone who you sit next to on the bus, someone that you sit next to in the office in a book that you can go like.

Angela Haas (43:03)
And.

Daniel Willcocks (43:23)
Oh God, imagine if that was Tina, imagine if that was Dave or whoever it is. And then really, as I say, give them a hook, give them the floor. mean, this kind of goes into general writing advice with most genres, but give them a floor, give them something they have to work on, something they need to overcome. Make sure that at the beginning of the story, whatever that weakness is, they overcome it or they find a way, whatever that looks like at the end so it matters and that you see growth and change.

Cassie Newell (43:28)
right.

Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (43:51)
And then, you know, at its most basic, I still plot everything against the Freytag pyramid of sort of the journey of getting people from the Insight into them, into all the different action, the climax, all the different points. Like every story still has that as its basis. And then it's just colouring in as I go along the way. So it starts with monster or situation or what the darkness is. It goes into who is the main character and what is their journey. And then I just have fun along the way with that.

Cassie Newell (44:19)
Yeah, I love that.

Angela Haas (44:22)
I guess it is similar to riding a roller coaster. Like, people get on the same roller coaster over and over again. for me, I'm like, what scares people so different What I find scary...

is not what someone else might find scary. And I think that's the same with like, okay, talk about that.

Daniel Willcocks (44:35)
that's where you leave the gaps. If you leave the gaps,

then you can start putting, so as I say, with Adam Neville's The Ritual, you describe the effects of what something would do, and then in your head, you might be thinking of something horrific. In Cassie's head, it'll be a totally different picture. There's a reason for me, in the Harry Potter films, that Voldemort was terrifying until he was revealed at the end of the fourth film, because from reading the book,

Angela Haas (44:53)
Right, true. .

Daniel Willcocks (45:03)
I had such

a vision of this horrendous snake-like face and all this kind of stuff. And then they show him in the film. I mean, obviously it's a PG anyway, so it was never going to be too dark. But once I saw it, the fear was gone because I knew what it was then. But in that kind of gap, in that ethereal, yes, 100%. And it was the same with for people who might have seen Bird Box. Well, I highly recommend reading the book. It's fantastic. But the whole premise of that is if you look at the monsters, you go crazy.

Cassie Newell (45:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, it gave it a face.

Daniel Willcocks (45:32)
So you never see the monsters in the book. You see the effects of the monsters, but you never see the monsters.

Cassie Newell (45:36)
Because they're

they hide their eyesight or they blind themselves, right? Yeah. ⁓

Daniel Willcocks (45:40)
Yeah, they blindfold themselves, they like colour in

Angela Haas (45:40)
Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (45:42)
the windows of their cars, the whole thing. But in the movie, there was a real decision about like there were designs where people had drawn what the monsters were going to look like. And thank God they didn't actually put it into the film, because again, I think it would have had that moment of like, they're not scary anymore. Like we've seen it, we've recognised it, like, because nothing is worse than you can think of in your head. that's for horror, that's where the power is.

Angela Haas (45:57)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (46:03)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (46:06)
Well, that's why the Blair Witch project was so genius because I did watch that and that's why I was like, I

Daniel Willcocks (46:09)
Yes. Yes. Such a good film.

Angela Haas (46:15)
the power of what I could make up was much worse because of the sounds. the tent scene where it's something that's clawing at the tent and it's the sound that's out there or you're just you don't even hear anything but you're getting their reaction of being out there you know same with like The Village Night Shyamalan that my gosh that's an oldie

Daniel Willcocks (46:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (46:37)
I love that movie. ⁓ it's such a

Daniel Willcocks (46:39)
haven't seen that one yet.

Cassie Newell (46:42)
goodie. There's some major twists that are so fun in that. Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (46:43)
Hahaha!

Angela Haas (46:44)
Yeah, I that was there is and ⁓

Daniel Willcocks (46:48)
Okay.

Angela Haas (46:50)
it is the threat of what you can't see outside, you know, in the tree line of the village. And this the threat of like the rules they have in place because no one should be out at night. So watch The Village That was one of his other good ones. But yeah, go.

Daniel Willcocks (46:55)
Mm-hmm.

this also.

This also plays into a very

specific decision about these books. on the front cover is Jack. That is your monster. And that is very contrary to what I've just been saying in terms of elevating horror. These books are Goosebumps for grownups. And one of the powers I found with Goosebumps was it always had the monster on the front. So for me, who is a bit more of a seasoned horror reader, horror writer, I will read terrifying things. I don't often want to see what's on the cover because I want to find out in the book.

Cassie Newell (47:18)
Mm.

Angela Haas (47:19)
Yeah.

you

Daniel Willcocks (47:35)
These books are specifically for people who want the lighter horror experience, who are maybe new to the genre. So for me, by showing you what's on the front, you can immediately go, I want to read that, or I don't want to read that because you know what

the monster is. The next book which comes out next. No, no.

Cassie Newell (47:50)
And it doesn't mean you won't jump, by the way, because I still

jump watching Wednesday Addams that I binged the last season on. And I get made fun of by my family when I jump, but there's still those moments where you jump. Yeah. Yeah.

Angela Haas (48:01)
Okay. Okay.

Daniel Willcocks (48:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, happens. And that's the thing. It's still seeded

in there. I've specifically, or we've specifically with these books, removed that initial fear for new readers, for people who just want to have a bit of a fun time by showing you what the monster is so that you can then try and enjoy the story without having to worry about that side of things. In some of the other stuff I've written, that's a very, different story.

Cassie Newell (48:14)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (48:29)
Right, wow. So I guess, I mean, we have a little bit of time left, but what are the top five, you going back to my story grid learning days, you know, obligatory scenes, tropes?

we know that like with romance, you have to have a happily ever after, right? That, mean, for the most part, if you're writing just contemporary romance, it's a happily ever after or the promise of one. What does every horror or dark fiction or, you know, what does it have to have to fulfill reader expectations?

Daniel Willcocks (49:04)
big question. It depends on ⁓ the sub-niche, guess. know, you've got your cosmic horror is very existential dread. Folk horror is very much based in old, ye olde kind of assumptions of old stories and old wives tales, that kind of thing. Generally, horror doesn't have happy endings. I quite often, this is one of the things

Angela Haas (49:06)
you

Right, So is it,

so is not having the happy ending? Is that something that is an expectation?

Daniel Willcocks (49:30)
I, yeah, it's really difficult to explain because people can survive and the monster can be defeated, but there will be heavy, scarring afterwards. It's not going to be sort of all sunshine and rainbows. Like the characters and the situations are kind of forever changed by whatever has just happened. It's one of the reasons that it's very, difficult to find series for horror. spent like a lot of years trying to work out how to do series. It's why we landed on this.

Angela Haas (49:53)
Mm.

Daniel Willcocks (49:58)
But yeah, like, you know, most people die.

As we alluded to earlier, you often have to isolate people, get rid of technology and stop people being able to connect with one another because that's kind of, I think, if we sat here and all of our lights went off and all of our phones stopped working, I think we'd all suddenly go, ah, crap.

And immediately your brain would light with all the worries and all the possibilities that could

Angela Haas (50:18)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Willcocks (50:19)
be happening.

Yeah, I think for me those are kind of the main bits. Obviously, as I say, you have those believable characters who often have a bit of a tragic backstory. And often that tragic backstory is magnified. Some ways you go through the tale and it plays a lot in their growth arc and just trying to help people connect. Because as exaggerated as some of the backstories are, most of us who read the books will have had some experience of something similar, whether that's like

an ill parent or ill kids or a pet or something as you know, again, the beauty in a horrible way of horror is that we've all felt it. We've all felt the fear. We've all felt the dark stuff in different

Cassie Newell (50:50)
Mm.

Angela Haas (51:01)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (51:03)
intensities. And so playing those those kind of bits into it. But I think for me, one of the things that I found that I've really enjoyed exploring and narrowing down on is just the sub genres of horror and trying to really understand where

I like telling stories, which at the minute tends to be more in cosmic and more in folk, just because cosmic is big ideas and depressing existentialism. And I did my uni dissertation in existentialism because I love that stuff. And as I say, like folk is kind of playing with roots and trees and the early branches of human story and existence. Yeah, yeah. I enjoyed it. it The Witch?

Cassie Newell (51:20)
Hmm.

Angela Haas (51:28)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yes, you've got it. You'll love that. ⁓

Cassie Newell (51:41)
You'll love the village.

Daniel Willcocks (51:47)
I much enjoyed the witch.

Cassie Newell (51:49)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (51:49)
⁓ is that the one?

Okay, I think there was one where they were on this farm and there's just this lady, I don't know. That kind of describes a lot of movies actually. Yeah, the goat. I just saw the preview, Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (51:57)
Yes, and there's a goat. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (52:01)
Yeah, I have to have a survivor. I have to have somebody who lives to tell the

tale. I can't have everybody dead and just the black screen that wears me out. ⁓ It doesn't always have to be the main character. I'm usually surprised when it's not, and I enjoy that. I really liked ⁓ Joe Hill's ⁓ Lock and Key version.

Angela Haas (52:13)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (52:26)
you

Cassie Newell (52:27)
I don't know if you've seen any of that on Netflix or anything, but he did the, he did the, I love graphic novels, graphic novels for them and they're really good. So I don't know, I have to have somebody who's there from the beginning to the end. And it doesn't have to be the main character, but I can't handle it otherwise.

Daniel Willcocks (52:29)
I haven't seen that one though.

Yes.

Angela Haas (52:46)
Yeah, well, even in Poulter, even

Daniel Willcocks (52:48)
Mmm.

Angela Haas (52:50)
in polter geist

poltergeist after all that stuff, they still leave, pack up, get in the car and drive away. Like I need that scene. Like, okay, okay, it's over. There's going to be a lot of therapy bills, but at least we can get in the car and drive away. Like I just need some of that in my horror just to feel like, okay, is this over? Because that's how I feel about roller coasters. Like when is this going to end? Because I just don't like being out of control like that. So.

Cassie Newell (52:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (53:04)
Hahaha

Yeah.

See, I think

this is where I'm different because I think I'm a very, like I'm a realist in many ways. And maybe sometimes that goes too far, but like that's one of the things that I find difficult with romance is because it's the relationships I've had have never been that kind of like plain soaring, like all that kind of stuff. And obviously, you know, there's there's a want for people to believe that is real. And that hope that goes around that being real is obviously, well, I say obviously, what I assume draws a lot of readers to the page of romance. You want to see that happily ever after. You want to know it's out there.

Cassie Newell (53:42)
Yeah.

Daniel Willcocks (53:46)
For me, I like to stay as grounded in the terrible and the horrible as I can. And not everyone survives in these kind of situations.

Cassie Newell (53:49)
As you can. Yeah. I think a lot of romance, though,

Angela Haas (53:54)
Okay. Thank

Cassie Newell (53:56)
is the passionate lust phase. It's never the speaking from somebody who's almost married 30 years. It's never the after the 10 year mark.

Angela Haas (54:06)
⁓

Cassie Newell (54:08)
what happens when you can't stand hearing the other person chew, or breathe, or what have you like, we went through those periods. And now we're back at that other side of it of this is my best friend, I talked to him every day. And like, you know, now where our kids are grown and flown, it's like the honeymoon stage again, like we can walk around naked if we want to, like all those things that you don't have when you have kids and all the, you know, passionate side of romance. But

Daniel Willcocks (54:08)
Hahaha!

Yeah.

Angela Haas (54:30)
my.

Daniel Willcocks (54:35)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (54:36)
I do like

I think romance tackles a lot of heavy topics though, in some ways. But I do like the, I am a fairy tale girl. I like the happily ever after. It's hopeful. That's why I need a survivor. ⁓

Daniel Willcocks (54:49)
Yeah, yeah, it works for people.

Angela Haas (54:50)
Yeah, and I think I

Daniel Willcocks (54:55)
I'll keep one just for you.

Angela Haas (54:56)
I put a lot of realism into my romance though because they I mean my mine isn't very like cutesy in a way that's like

there's people overcoming some real trauma and stress and they have to do that in order to find love. And it's getting to the other side. And that's why I love it because I love seeing people come out of that and find love. And yes, you have to put in like, the man has to be really hunky for me to like suspend my disbelief because some of there's some.

romance authors are a little too realism. As far as how they describe their male characters, one, he had a crooked nose and was slightly hunched over. And I'm like, well, that's my neighbor. That's not a fairy tale to me. That's a guy that I knew in high school. There is some where it's an escapism, where there's getting too real outside my window. And I just want to escape and imagine that people could be this way.

Cassie Newell (55:47)
Ha ha ha!

Daniel Willcocks (55:56)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (56:02)
You know, so that's part of it. It is still an escape. And for me, it's processing. I put something I need to process in and like the latest characters in my romance, No Mountain High Enough She is very terrified of being in the wilderness. And I grew up on the side of a mountain. And as a kid, it was a horror show. I did not like it. Everyone's like, ⁓ wilderness and trees and mountain views. No, it's awful.

It's a horribly lonely area as a kid. were no, well, there was like one other kid on my street. It's dirt roads, no lights, no garages, no one had a lawn. And you think like, well, who cares about that? But when you're just living out there in the wilderness with animals, and I mean, I really had to have a routine when I came home from high school where I had to get out of my car and listen and see if I could hear anything because I had a

Cassie Newell (56:59)
Because didn't you get chased

by bears? That's crazy to me.

Angela Haas (57:01)
Yes, I did. got chased by a bear

Daniel Willcocks (57:01)
you

Angela Haas (57:04)
because I could hear the footfalls like land on the road behind me out of it was crunching in the leaves first. And I was like, I either got to get in my car have to run. And because because they're like my parking area was like up and away from the house, like most of these houses, like you don't just pull into your neat garage or driveway and go into your door. You have to kind of trek because they're built along

mountains and on stilts and so I had to park across the street, across the road, walk through my driveway, down steps across a bridge to the front door. But that was all open to the wilderness. And so I heard something and I'm like, just run. And I was, I was a sprinter in my track and field. So I felt good about running, but I could hear it crunch out, fall onto the road.

Daniel Willcocks (57:46)
Wow.

Yeah

Angela Haas (57:59)
and it stopped once I looked back and there was a bear. And then one time I didn't see what it was and I thought it was a mountain lion. And being in the wilderness and being in the mountains creates a lot of anxiety. I'd rather live in the middle of the city with horns and people. I feel much safer. So I actually got to explore those feelings because people are like, are you nuts?

I don't want to live in the city, people I could prepare for, you don't know what animals are going to do, actually. You just don't. And so, yeah. Watch your cat. Watch your cat.

Daniel Willcocks (58:25)
Hmm.

Cassie Newell (58:29)
I've been hearing coyotes around me and I'm like, great. I know she's into it.

Daniel Willcocks (58:35)
Wow, I have crows.

Just not a four in the morning.

Cassie Newell (58:38)
Crows, yeah.

Angela Haas (58:39)
Crows can be interesting too. Yeah, so I think,

yeah, absolutely. Anyway, thank you. We could talk about this for another hour. It's so fascinating. know, what really drives our deepest fears? How do we explore that? And I appreciate you coming on because I've got a whole new appreciation for this genre, I think, because I just was not sure. But now I'm want to explore it a little. Definitely going to pick up your books. So

Where's the best place to find your books to find you, Dan?

Daniel Willcocks (59:07)
Yeah, I mean all

of my stuff is on my website which is danielwillcox.com and it's Willcox W-I-L-L-C-O-C-K-S and pretty much everything I do is on there so just head on over to there or find me on social media at Willcox Author.

Angela Haas (59:22)
Awesome. All right, one last thing. You know what it is. Table topics. All right, this doesn't fit our discussion, but that's okay. What adjectives do you hope describe you when you are 75? ⁓

Cassie Newell (59:26)
Table

Daniel Willcocks (59:26)
excited.

Hahaha!

Cassie Newell (59:36)
When I'm 75, that's not far from now.

Angela Haas (59:38)
Mm-hmm.

my gosh, give me a break. It's like 25 years.

Well, we're Gen X. I mean, I still feel like I'm 15. So like...

Cassie Newell (59:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Except that my my ankle, my heels, my hips don't fit my way anymore. Yeah. Yeah.

Angela Haas (59:55)
Yeah, no, it feels like we're 90. Yeah.

All right. Three adjectives you hope describe you when you're older.

Daniel Willcocks (1:00:09)
Who goes first? ⁓

Angela Haas (1:00:11)
Whenever,

whenever it comes to you, just work it out.

Daniel Willcocks (1:00:15)
think after Cassie's, supple. think I'd like to be supple. I mean, my knees crack when I go downstairs now, but supple would be nice.

Angela Haas (1:00:24)
Yes, yes.

Daniel Willcocks (1:00:28)
full.

Cassie Newell (1:00:31)
Nice.

Angela Haas (1:00:33)
I would say bright. I want people to be like, ⁓ I want to still be bright. I don't want to have anything wrong with my brain, like shrinking into oblivion. And I want people to say, ⁓ she aged well and has not had plastic surgery. That's what I was like, seriously. And fun and happy. Those are mine. Bright, fun and happy.

Daniel Willcocks (1:00:59)
I go adventurous.

Cassie Newell (1:00:59)
No botulism

in your face, I love it. I think for me...

still want to be adventurous at 75. My grandmother lived to be 93 years old. With all her faculties, the only thing that was failing her was her body. I want that for me. I want to be smart and going for it and still traveling and still doing things, whatever that looks like. So that and just...

Angela Haas (1:01:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (1:01:31)
Feeling youthful but wise still. I

still want to be learning things at 75. Yeah. ⁓ And youthful doesn't hurt. would love to still look. And people say that about me anyway. They don't realize my age until I tell them. So yeah, if I can keep that going on into my 80s and people are thinking I'm 70, fabulous. I'll keep it.

Angela Haas (1:01:35)
Yeah. I think those

Daniel Willcocks (1:01:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Angela Haas (1:01:59)
are good goals. Good goals for sure. Well,

thank you, Dan for

taking your time to be with us today. This was such a fun discussion. And thank you everyone else for joining us today. Don't forget to give us a review and rating wherever you listen to the podcast. It really helps us for visibility. Next week, we're talking with our friend Christine Daigle, who is a thriller author. Yay. Until then, keep writing, keep doing. We'll see ya.

Daniel Willcocks (1:02:28)
Bye.