Conor Metz BIO Conor Metz grew up in Kent, Washington. From a young age, he was drawn to genre stories. His parents exposed him to a variety of outlandish films and as he grew older those interests led him to many novels and comics books of a similar nature. These stories have shaped him into a writer who loves composing compelling narratives that contain interesting characters and catchy dialogue. WEBSITE LINKS https://www.amazon.com/Conor-Metz/e/B08KJ18XDN?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000 https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17998183.Conor_Metz Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself? I’m currently 36 and have been writing for most of my adult life. Since I was a kid I’ve always loved movies, but more specifically genre stories, which extends into my love of books and comic books. I’ve always had the biggest soft-spot for horror and science fiction, which probably explains why two of my favorite films are Alien and Aliens. Which one of your characters would you least like to meet in real life? Well, if we’re talking about my latest book, The Edgewood Nightmare, it would certainly be the character of the witch. I won’t spoil who this is, but since I was a young boy, I’ve always had a deep-seeded fear of witches. This was likely due to the film version of Roald Dahl’s brilliant novel The Witches. Angelica Huston was one of the first actresses to scare the crap out of me with not only that, but her villainous turn in the Michael Jackson Disney short Captain EO. That was the first and only time I can remember hiding behind a chair in the theater to try and avoid being stabbed by her 3D claws. Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing? As I said earlier science fiction played a big role, but fantasy too. I was an 80s/90s kid, meaning most of what I grew up watching were things created by Spielberg or Lucas like Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, or Willow. Even more adult stuff I loved like Predator, Aliens, and films of John Carpenter like The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China were on perpetual repeat in my house growing up (those last two in part due to my mother’s obsession with Kurt Russell). When I actually got into reading in junior high, I was big into crime novels like the works of Elmore Leonard and in college took a deep dive into 50s pulp detective novels. I was definitely late on the Stephen King train despite my brother’s obsession with him since high school. I eventually started reading his works in college and have been a huge fan since. So I guess my big two writing inspirations are Leonard and King. The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations. What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions? I think horror carries a negative connotation for most people, but I personally have no issue with the term. I think my problem is that most people seem to view horror as the lowest form of entertainment, picturing slasher films with lots of gore and no redeeming qualities. I feel like often times horror films are rebranded as thrillers to have a more widespread appeal. You see that with stuff like Silence of the Lambs, clearly a horror novel and movie, but people will often refer to anything with a more real world topic like serial killers as thrillers. Frankly I feel like all forms of labels are dangerous in that they bring with it a person’s own baggage associated with that label and often mean they might not give something a chance they could love because of something else they hated that might have also been dubbed horror. The horror genre is so diverse just like any genre and that’s what I love about it. You can have very serious psychological horror to the other end of the spectrum where you have very silly and self-aware horror. I honestly just love having a good time, which is why I typically prefer more fun horror, or as I like to say something akin to going into a haunted house, getting scared, but not being traumatized by it. For me that pay-off of any great horror story is getting invested in characters, watching them go through hell, and emerging out the other side better for it in some way. A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years? I honestly don’t know. I try not to bring politics into my own writing, and I’m not sure I usually see it extending into horror as much as science fiction (I was noticing a lot more dystopian future stories in the past decade, which had to be the biggest boom of that since the 60s). However, I believe all movements are cyclical. Almost every trend extending through every facet of our lives seems to come back around every 20-30 years. It’s most likely due to people bringing back the stuff they grew up with and spreading that love to a new generation. I recently watched the Fear Street Trilogy on Netflix and loved it because that took me back to watching Scream in 6th grade and what a huge impact that had on me. I remember at that time, Scream ushered in a whole new wave of slasher pictures. I think when any great horror property can tap into what made something popular in the first place, you’re bound to see a resurgence in that. Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it? I think people like an escape, simple as that. Like action or thrillers, people want that rollercoaster ride of emotions. Latching onto characters you love and being frightened for them is a thrill, but a safe one. Like I mentioned earlier with my haunted house analogy, people like to be scared when they know they’re not really in danger. It’s triggering that rush of adrenaline and it’s a little addicting, provided it doesn’t scar you psychologically. There are definitely times where things go too far for me. I never liked all that torture porn stuff you saw prevalent in the wake of Saw and even prior to that, there’s always been that potential for exploitation in horror. What, if anything, is currently missing from the horror genre? I don’t think anything has ever been missing from the genre. I think sometimes certain things take a bit of break, either due to audience fatigue or a string of bad stories concerning certain elements. But everything always comes back around. What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice off? I can admit I’ve never really had my finger on the pulse of anything, I will discover stuff from time to time before others, but I can’t say right now I know of anyone to watch out for. Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you? Sadly, I’m still starting out so hunting for reviews is part of the game right now, but the ones I’ve read have been great in pointing out things I may not have been aware of at the time of writing. It’s all subjective, but it’s a learning experience as well and I appreciate any feedback I can get on my work. What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult? Well the answer to this question has definitely changed over the years for me. I used to work from outlines, so I never experienced any form or writer’s block, but as of the novel I wrote before my latest, I have started to not use outlines. Making up the story as you go can definitely be more challenging, but I’ve found it far more rewarding. So yeah, I think the biggest challenge in that regard can be knowing where to take the story next, but an opportunity will eventually present itself that just feels so perfect you can’t believe it didn’t come to you right away. Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? Well at this point, I’m trying not to write out of the lines of what I know. When I was younger I’d write about anything and a lot of that came off as phony. Over time, I’ve learned to stick to things I’m comfortable talking about. If I use past experiences or people I’ve met as inspirations for stories or characters, the things I create become that much richer. Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? I kind of touched upon this in an earlier question, but I recently started to avoid outlines. When I started writing in high school, I would really struggle to figure out where to take a story, so I’d write up a detailed list of plot points and it would be like laying the track for a train so as I’m writing, I never go off course. It’s a great way to learn, but it leaves little room for surprises along the way. Yet, I still was too scared to break from this for another decade. Which brings me to where I am now. Not using outlines makes the writing process much more enticing for me. I find that my writing is slower, but that’s good because it allows me to stop and think about why a character is doing what they are doing and whether the place I think they might go is really where they would go. Feeling more like I’m along for the ride with these characters not only makes it more exciting for me as a writer, but hopefully for the reader as well. What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing? Hmm, this is hard, because I can’t put my finger on any one piece of advice that stood out. I’ve taken plenty of advice over the years, but it’s been absorbed into my process and I’m not sure I can remember any specific ones now. Which of your characters is your favourite? I think my favorite character so far is the young police officer from The Edgewood Nightmare, Ramona Wesley. I liked her so much, I ended up making her the lead in my next book. Part of that was I wanted a kind of classic lead in an older world-weary police chief in a small town, and thought Ramona is a great character in this book, why not bring her into the next one? Edgewood being set in 1993 helped out because she was young enough that I could set the next one over a decade later and she wouldn’t be too old to be caught in the insanity I had brewing for the story. I just thought it would be fun to see how the character was doing rather than creating a whole new one. Which of your books best represents you? Well, I haven’t written too many at this point, but I put a bit of myself in all of my main characters. I have to admit somewhat shamefully though that my last book, The Thing in the Lake, definitely had the most of me in its lead character Billy McGregor. I think with The Edgewood Nightmare, Maddie Durant is more the kid I wished I was. In that she has struggles she overcomes over the course of the book, and I think this was more me rewriting history in how I wish I overcame more of the struggles I faced as a child. I was unfortunately one of those kids who gave up on things too easily when they got hard. Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us? I think anything that Jamie says in The Edgewood Nightmare is classic. She was my one character who just didn’t care what anyone thought of her. I love characters like that. Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next? So I’ve mentioned my latest book, The Edgewood Nightmare, a few times, but to dive into more details specific to this question, this book was my attempt to dive into all the things I was dealing with as a child. All the fears I had, or horrible people I had to deal with in the neighborhood I lived in, they’re all represented in some form through this novel. To get into more specifics, The Edgewood Nightmare is about a girl who just wants to be an artist, but her whole world is thrown upside down with four other girls when they’re kidnapped and forced into a nightmare world they have seemingly no way to escape from. As for what I am working on next. I mentioned briefly in another question it’s about a small town, but more specifically it’s my attempt at a classic ghost story. I am a huge fan of horror stories where small towns are under siege by some monstrous threat, so I thought, what if that threat were ghosts? Sure, you have stuff like The Fog that did this, but I was always disappointed that turned into more of a ghost slasher film. I thought with my next book, Castillo Cove, I could take a kind of kitchen sink approach, throwing in all my favorite elements of ghost related horror. I should be releasing that next year, but I think readers will have a lot of fun with it. I wanted to fashion something akin to a rollercoaster with a slow build in the first half and then just madness for the second half. It’s definitely my most ambitious project to date, with a lot of great characters that will keep readers guessing who will live or die throughout. If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice? Well, I’m happy to say a lot of the worst clichés have been erased over time. I think when any horror staple becomes tired, somebody inevitably comes along to toss it out the window. The biggest offender to me was stuff like the final girl being a virgin, that whole slasher concept that sex=death was always kind of stupid. But I think there’s always ways to mix up a formula. I especially love misdirects about who the audience thinks the main character is. What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you? This question is funny for me because both were Stephen King books. I’ve slowed down my reading in past couple years for a variety of reasons, but always try to pick up new King books. I found The Institute to be one of his best ever, feeling like he was back in his prime with that. Then I read his recent novel Later and couldn’t even finish it. It just felt like a recycling of elements from his earlier books and not done nearly as well. I got bored halfway through and the book isn’t even that long. What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do? And what would be the answer? I wish I got asked more about why I love horror or better yet what got me into horror. Surprisingly not many people ask that. The Edgewood Nightmare |
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