Nightmare Fuel Review (Creative Writing Course)
During my break last month, I mentioned I was taking a creative writing course. The class is called “Nightmare Fuel” and it comes from the online editing software company AutoCrit. This is a six week virtual horror writing course taught in video, text, message boards, and Zoom meetings.
I haven’t taken a creative writing course since I was in college over a decade ago. I was fortunate to study with professors that were okay with me submitting Gothic/weird fiction stories for assignments. The worst that would happen would be a hot take about how I needed to spend more time studying Kafka to bring out the absurdity of the genre. Not the worst advice in the world, but not the direction I was going. I had better luck with the Jane Austen scholar that told me to embrace the referential nature of the Gothic novel to set up crueler twists in my writing.
I digress. My experience with creative writing courses and critique groups has been a mixed bag. I love critiquing other people’s work and having a discussion based on their intentions with a story. I’ve…rarely received the same in return.
“Nightmare Fuel” was a little treat for me. I knew that I’d get something out of the course, even if it was just some new planning templates. AutoCrit was also going to provide some extensive critiques of horror scenes/stories/novels as part of the course. I’m a sucker for deep literary analysis, especially structural analysis, so that’s prime entertainment for me. I read literary criticism like some people binge watch a new show on Netflix.
From the first lesson, the course blew me away. “Nightmare Fuel” is designed to be a course in writing horror. There are going to be elements of technique, form, style, etc. that apply to all creative writing. Everything taught in the course is set in the framework of horror. Exercises I’ve seen variants of before were set up to build a better monster or hide environmental horror elements in plain sight. There were also exercises and approaches to writing horror I’ve never seen before, which was a great surprise. I’m not sure I’ll be continuing with any of the writing I did for these exercises, but I have a new arsenal of tools that I’m already applying to projects I had planned to write. The course tells you from the start you’ll only get out what you put in, and that’s probably the best description for it. I found the course worthwhile because I went along with the exercises and course materials as best as I could.
The material in the course is available in three ways. First, you can download a PDF of each lesson to read and analyze on your own. Second, there is an audio version of the text available to analyze. Third, there is a video for each section of the lesson, allowing you to watch and take notes. For me, the full text of the course was the most useful. The quality of the audio is good, but I retain information better by watching or reading, not listening. The videos are well made, but the text of the videos matches the PDF at the start of each lesson.
“Nightmare Fuel” is a fast paced course. Each lesson has a lot of information to go through and various exercises to cover, plus a Zoom call or two, discussions on each lesson, and the message board community. The lessons are unlocked about five days apart. Odd number weeks release on Monday and Friday; even number weeks release on Wednesday. I fell behind just because of my work schedule on top of all my writing here and digital media work. I did make it a point to do some of the coursework every day and it was a good way to rebuild a fiction writing routine into my schedule. You do have access to the course material after the end date, so the only downside to falling behind is not hitting all the lesson-specific discussions at the same time as everyone else.
It’s hard to pick out a single highlight of the course, but the instructors are worth the cost. Gareth and Beth from Autocrit created “Nightmare Fuel” together. Beth is the face of the videos, but Gareth takes the lead on the Zoom calls. Gareth is a fellow genre media critic and writer and he knows his stuff. The way he presents and explains concepts shows a mastery of the genre and craft that, for me, breathed some new life into horror writing. I would love to have been able to attend the sessions live, but they did all overlap with my teaching schedule. The video replays were quickly uploaded and still served their purpose. Both Beth and Gareth made the course feel like an open and welcoming environment to create and explore in.
I decided at the start of the course not to share the exercises I was working on. From my years of experience, I know the easiest way to shut myself down is to share work I’m not totally confident in yet. I did check in on the discussions about other people’s submissions, and everything felt supportive. The people taking this course are there to learn and it shows.
“Nightmare Fuel” is a great course for people who write or want to write horror. I will say that, for me, I treated this as a luxury purchase. The course costs $149. You can split that into two separate payments, which is what I did. For where I am in my writing career and what I want to move towards in the near future, I could justify the expense. If the course interests you and it fits your budget, I recommend trying it out. “Nightmare Fuel” seems to run about every month or so, though it’s still early days for the AutoCrit Academy and any kind of scheduling could change.
“Nightmare Fuel” is available on the AutoCrit website.
