Hey everybody! I was lucky enough to snag an interview with one of Amazon's most popular horror writers, Michaelbrent Collings! Check out our awesome interview below!
RQOH: Please introduce yourself to those who unfortunately do not know who you are and what you do!
MC: Hi! My name is Michaelbrent Collings and I’m a writer.
MC: My inability to competently perform other tasks.
MC: Hmmmm… Whichever one I’ve finished is always my favorite. There’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and I give myself a day off which is nice. That being said, I kind of like This Darkness Light. There are some fun themes, and I love the characters. They were fun to inhabit for a while, and hard to say goodbye to – even (maybe especially?) the villains.
RQOH:
MC: It’s a zombie apocalypse series. But I didn’t want to do “just another zombie book,” so my series (it’s on book six now, with seven coming soon) has a few differences. First, fifty percent of THE ENTIRE WORLD is converted instantly. Ten minutes later, 99.9% of the world is either dead or changed. There’s no slow build, no spread of a disease. One minute the world is one way, the next it’s just… over. Also, you shoot these guys in the head and they just get angrier. The good guys STILL haven’t discovered a way to kill a single one of these bad boys yet. And finally: a lot of ZA books are populated by people who gradually become so awful you start to wonder if the zombies aren’t actually the nice guys. In mine, the good guys are actually good. People like my neighbors and friends, who I believe would actually help me out in a pinch.
MC: For hard-core horror fans, I usually recommend APPARITION, STRANGERS, or TWISTED, depending on if they like demons, serial killers, or ghosts, respectively. All of them are very scary, all of them take the “normal” out of normal life.
MC: I do write everyday – though not necessarily by typing. Some days my writing is in the form of thinking of a new book, other days it’s in the form of watching a movie to reboot my creative juices. Typing is a subset of writing, but it isn’t the whole of it. Remembering that keeps me fresh, and keeps me coming up with four to eight books a year.
MC: It depends on the books. Sometimes I have an idea for an ending or a beginning or a scene I really want to see. Other times I sit down and meticulously come up with an idea that I think will be very commercial by going through lists of items that will be fun and effective together. I often start with a logline – a single sentence that tells the gist of the story – and a movie poster in my mind.
MC: One thing that differentiates them is that they exist to highlight grace. By that I mean that some horror novels exist to show the fallen state of humanity – basically to explain why we are all awful, and to even celebrate that fact in a grim and grimy way. Mine are the opposite. I think the best horror exists to knock us into the abyss in order to show that we are capable of climbing back to the light. That doesn’t mean that all my endings are happy – far from it! – but it does mean they all exist within a framework where Good and Evil (caps intended) actually mean something, and actually matter. I think the world is a mostly-good place, and can certainly be made better. I also think that it serves little purpose to kick people into the gutter, then try to show them why it’s a fun place to stay.
MC: Gah! What a terrible question! I like The Shining, The Ring, Insidious, Night of the Living Dead, Nosferatu… my list is really endless, and encompasses movies from lots of different countries. It kinda depends on my mood.
MC: I have a seventh Colony book, like I said. Other than that, my current project is still in the “super-secret” stage, so mum’s the word. Mwa-hahaha!
MC: Easiest way to find me is by googling “Michaelbrent” Because I have a weird first name, I’m very easy to find on the interwebz. You can also look for me at michaelbrentcollings.com, or key in “Michaelbrent Collings” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, etc.
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