Horror Writing Course:
Origins and Backing Philosophy

As you may have already heard, I've been working on a horror writing course for writers who want to dive into the world of horror story writing. This was, at the beginning, as much for me as it was for other writers. I had been looking online for a horror writing course that matched my needs, but couldn't find one that quite fit the bill. For example, some were too light (one was only a few webinars) and often too vague - and all too many were much too costly. 

 I had to do a lot of my own research and trial-and-error and learning in order to improve my horror writing skills, often looking in places that had nothing to do with horror writing, but which were relevant to helping me hone the techniques and skills required. 

To do this yourself is not impossible, but it is extremely time-consuming, and often yields results that are far too little in comparison with the sheer amount of time and effort that goes into doing the research online. I didn't want others to go through that same difficulty, and I felt that a solution was something worth exploring. That's why my horror writing course was born.

Goals Based on Writers' Needs

When I first began working on this course, I had a few different goals based on the perceived needs of learners - in this case, writers - and a range of ideas for how I could accomplish them:

1. I wanted to create a robust, content-rich course with everything writers might need to know to kick-start their horror writing experience.
   
   > This means creating a syllabus that touched upon the foundations and essentials of horror writing, the horror fiction genre, and specific techniques that are used to create specific effects in a horror story. Moreover, it means ensuring that the course content is not catered to one particular audience group, but to a cross-cultural, international learner base with various backgrounds and experiences.
   
2. I wanted the course to provide practical lessons and techniques that writers could turn around and apply immediately in their own writing, instead of the kind of vague advice we're all too familiar with finding online.
   
   > This means including a range of hands-on activities where writers are able to apply the lessons they are learning, and a range of examples which allow them to see those lessons in action.
   
3. I didn't want the course to cost an arm and a leg; I wanted it to have a plethora of amazing information which would give students immediate results, but at a highly affordable cost, to lower the barrier of entry to students.
   
   > This means lowering the financial barrier to entry for writers around the globe, both amateur and seasoned, so that they can benefit from the knowledge found within the course.
   
4. I wanted the course to be a serious, university-level course for writers, so that they left feeling that their time, effort, and hard-earned money was well-spent, and that they learned much more from this course than they could have learned surfing the web on their own, or from any other course currently available online.
   
   > This means ensuring that all lesson objectives/aims, all lesson content, all assignments, and all resources are carefully designed and relevant. It means holding my course to university-level standards, utilizing a mixture of instructional strategies, and identifying constraints within the online distance education format and attempting to bridge the gap.
   

In short, I wanted to create a learning experience which gave writers their biggest bang for their buck (more than just financially speaking), and which completely removed all the shortcomings I found in other courses I had been looking into. I wanted an experience for writers where they could finish a lesson and turn around and apply what they'd learned directly to their writing without feeling that there was a disconnect between theory and practice. 

I think this is a pretty big issue in general when it comes to the teaching and learning of fiction writing; too many blog posts and articles which seek to provide advice and lessons only give the learner a small, vague idea of what kind of a result they should be aiming for, but don't give them the tools in order to get to that result. Thus, a lot of writers end up staring at a blank page, wondering how to apply writing tips and advice. 

Moreover, since every writer will have their own unique style and approach to writing horror fiction, it's important that the course is flexible enough yet robust enough to be used by horror-fiction writers of all kinds, whether they're writing scripts, novels, short stories, or even video games. 

All of this and more was considered in the creation of this course. While nothing can be perfect - especially not the first time around - I have taken great care to provide a learning experience which offers writers the ability to significantly improve their horror-writing skills, and which will satisfy learners, providing them with a springboard from which they can explore their own horror writing style and approach with more depth and creativity.