“The Appalachian Gothic Starter Pack: What I Wish I Knew Before Writing Twisted Minds, Twisted Fates”

When I first sat down to write this book, I didn’t know I was starting a novel. I thought I was chasing a vibe—a mood, a whisper, maybe a ghost. I knew I wanted folklore, trauma, and something weird. But I didn’t know it would take four and a half years of unraveling memory, myth, and madness to get it right.

I didn’t know the land would become a character. I didn’t know grief would demand its own plotline. And I definitely didn’t know that “Appalachian Gothic” was the genre I’d been living in all along.

This post is a love letter to the lessons—the ones I learned too late, the ones that saved me, and the ones I want to pass along before you dive in and find yourself surrounded by fog, asking, “What even is this story?”

Things I Got Wrong (and Had to Learn the Hard Way)

I underestimated the research. Turns out, writing haunted mountain stories with body horror requires more than vibes. You need to know the texture of decay. The chemical timeline of decomposition. The folklore behind whispered superstitions. The medical realities of trauma if you’re describing wounds—and the spiritual consequences if those wounds never heal. I ended up with tabs open about Appalachian burial customs, trauma responses, fungal infections, and antique embalming techniques. Not exactly light reading.

I thought I could "just write the weird parts." Gothic horror isn’t just fog and freak-outs. It’s emotional infrastructure. You can’t write a possessed character unless you understand what they’ve lost. You can’t describe a body mutating unless you know what it used to be—physically, culturally, emotionally. I learned that every grotesque moment had to be earned through character history, landscape logic, and spiritual rules. Otherwise, it was just gore, not story.

I didn’t track the mythology until it was too late. Writing Appalachian Gothic means threading local lore with your own invented legends. I started letting strange things happen—birds dying, trees bleeding, a girl disappearing in a tunnel—and halfway through realized I hadn’t built a coherent mythos. Cue an entire ritualistic revision where I tracked symbols, made spiritual timelines, and created lore that felt alive, contradictory, and deeply rooted.

I ignored my body while writing body horror. This genre demands embodiment. You can’t describe flesh unraveling if you’re disconnected from your own. The most intense scenes came after long walks, baths, scream-singing sessions—when I was physically present and emotionally raw. Writing horror from a numb place just made it feel...flat. I had to feel first. Then write.

I didn’t trust quiet horror. In the beginning, I thought horror had to scream. Blood. Shocks. Teeth. But Appalachian Gothic taught me that sometimes horror just sits in a rocking chair. It watches. It waits. The most chilling scenes had no violence—just a voice saying something too gentle, or a child humming a tune no one taught her. I almost cut those parts during edits. Thank god I didn’t.

I Didn’t Know I’d Become a 1950s Historian

When I started writing, I thought I was building a fictional world. Turns out, I was also reconstructing a real one. The 1950s weren’t just a backdrop—they were a living, breathing character. And they were demanding.

I had to learn what existed and what didn’t. What treatments were available. What slang was used. If paper cups existed in the 50's. I researched:

Medical treatments: From the rise of antibiotics like penicillin and Terramycin to the early use of tranquilizers and the controversial popularity of lobotomies. I had to know what a doctor might prescribe, what a nurse might fear, and what a patient might never recover from.

Mental health care: Underfunded, overcrowded institutions. Electroconvulsive therapy. The tragic normalization of neglect. Writing body horror meant understanding how the body was already being mistreated by the system.

Cultural context: Post-war trauma, Cold War paranoia, and the rise of suburban ideals that didn’t reach Appalachia. I had to filter national optimism through regional isolation.

Language and technology: No cell phones. No modern slang. No casual Google searches. Every letter, every radio broadcast, every whispered rumor had to feel era appropriate.

I didn’t expect to spend hours reading about embalming fluid formulas or the timeline of polio vaccine distribution. I didn’t expect to cross-reference Appalachian burial customs with 1950s funeral practices. But the horror only works if the history holds.

Research Rabbit Holes I Couldn’t Escape

“What do flowers say when no one’s listening?” Turns out blooms have their own secret language—some whisper grief, others scream devotion. I found myself chasing the meanings behind funeral lilies, wilted roses, and night-blooming jasmine. One petal might symbolize everlasting love: another, a soul crossing over. When my characters gifted flowers, they weren’t just being romantic—they were casting spells.

“What does blood do after it’s spilled?” It’s sticky, then tacky, then crusted with rust. I charted its decay like a timeline of violence, mapping how memory stains skin and tile. You can write a scene that smells like iron if you know exactly when the blood flaked. That research haunts me—and so does the metaphor.

“How does trauma echo in the body?” It clenches. It hides. It reshapes breath. I studied the mechanics of grief, how flashbacks land in the spine, and how sorrow can stagger a walk. I didn’t want my horror to shout—I wanted it to tremble through fingertips and posture.

The Brutal Devotion of Writing, and the Chaos of Editing

The Paper Stage You’re scribbling like a Victorian medium mid-trance. It’s messy, it’s raw, your fingers ache and half the notes are in haunted shorthand only future-you understands. But this is sacred ground—the place where the ideas first come crawling out.

The Typing Stage Now it’s real. You watch every word appear like it’s being etched into permanence. And yet… somehow, they all look wrong in Times New Roman? You’re not even sure where “then” and “than” went. Suddenly contractions feel like betrayal.

The Editing Stage (aka: Purgatory)

• You realize “just” shows up 58 times. So does “that.” So does “her breath caught.”

• You spend an hour fixing passive voice, only to undo all of it because it felt wrong emotionally.

• You Google “adverb sins,” then ignore the rules because the rhythm slaps.

• You question if semicolons are elitist, and if EM Dashes should be removed because it's a "sign of AI". Spoiler: I kept some of them because I love a good EM dash.

• You rearrange one sentence seven times, drink water, cry, and put it back the way it was.

It’s chaos, yes. But this is the part where you become not just the writer, but the priestess, the scalpel-holder, the necromancer of your own narrative voice. You’re building meaning word by word, and that kind of alchemy is slow—on purpose.

What I Learned While Writing Twisted Minds, Twisted Fates

I learned that storytelling isn’t just creation—it’s confrontation. Writing forced me to sit with discomfort, unravel old instincts, and examine every word like it held a secret. The paper pages taught me trust. The keyboard taught me courage. And the edits? They taught me to choose clarity without losing magic.

I learned that grammar rules are flexible when voice is strong. That rhythm matters more than perfection. That some sentences need to breathe, and some need to bleed.

I learned that what feels slow isn’t failure—it’s devotion. Every night spent reworking a paragraph. Every rabbit hole of research. Every moment where doubt knocked louder than the plot. It all adds weight to the final story.

And most of all, I learned that this work—this sacred, chaotic, beautiful work—is going to find its people. The ones who see the symbols in the flowers, hear the ghosts in the dialogue, and feel seen in the shadows. The ones who whisper back, “I needed this.”

That’s why it’s worth it.

Signed, your favorite emotionally unstable folklore cryptid <3