Horror stories have been around for centuries, causing sleepless nights for readers. The best writers know how to instill fear and suspense into their stories. There’s an art to writing horror, and veteran horror writer Will Ludwigsen will share his secrets when he presents, “Getting Personal with Horror,” at the FWA Ponte Vedra Writers meeting.

Ludwigsen, who writes horror fiction for magazines like Weird Tales, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, believes that a common error befalling beginning horror writers is to go for what they think is the universal. “In horror, he said, “the specific IS the universal, and in my workshop we'll examine some of the ways to create that tightening sense of forces aiming straight for us.”

Among the specific techniques participants will learn are:

• How to develop characters who are uniquely attuned to your story’s terrors
• How to depict those characters efficiently on the page
• How to describe the terrors they encounter in deeply personal terms