Each week we sit down with a horror writer and This week we are joined by MASIMBA MUSODZA.
If you had to describe the best thing about the horror genre in three words, what would they be?
Powerful, poignant stories.
Imagine you had infinite resources to create any sort of fiction, comic, show or screenplay based in the horror genre. What would your ultimate project look like? How do your current goals as a writer align with that project?
A series of novels, set in different places and times and on the surface unrelated, but intricately linked. As a writer, I live a life that is a journey and each of those novels would mark a point in that journey. One of my current projects, Cursed Shall Be Thy Kine spans nearly two centuries and three continents. It is linked to Herbert Wants To Come Home, itself a post-colonial retelling of Dracula. I would say I have already started on my ultimate project without waiting for infinite resources to fall on my lap!
What writers have influenced your work the most? What part of their writing (character development, plot, descriptions) has had the most impact in the way you write?
I could not name them all, being such a voracious reader, but Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker come to mind first. These are some of the authors I grew up with, who fired my imagination. Stoker and King’s multi-layered plots have influenced my own plot development, which make my stories open to several different interpretations.
The saying goes, “art imitates life.” In what ways has your writing imitated your life? Do you draw mainly from experience or imagination?
A bit of both. Herbert Wants To Come Home was inspired by the events of 2010 onwards, when many Zimbabweans living in the UK began to return to Zimbabwe, only to find that they could not fit in. I made the decision to stay on, but I wondered what it would be like to return and explored what terrified me about returning.
In what ways is the horror genre the same as it was 10 years ago? How do you think it will change (if at all) 10 years from now?
It still remains a vehicle of voicing the fears of a whole generation, but there has been a shift that has been building towards exploring the monster as a more substantial character than just the evil to be battled. That is where we shall see change. And, a reconciliation with science-fiction, ties to which I’d say were severed with Shelley’s Frankenstein. The zombie stories, for example, have transformed a creature of folk beliefs in to a creation of Man’s development of bio-technology.
Name the best piece of advice you were given as an aspiring horror writer.
“Tell a good story. Gore, freaks, spooks etc will create a good scare, but they will not save the day; people will still want a good story with that good scare.”
Now, tell us what piece of advice you absolutely would NEVER give if you were mentoring a young writer?
Give £2000 to the P.O.D publisher who sent you a cold call e-mail offering their services and next year this time, you will be swapping investment portfolio notes with JK Rowling….
About Masimba Musodza :
Masimba Musodza was born in Zimbabwe in 1976. He has been published in his native land, the UK, the US, South Africa and online. His MunaHacha Maive Nei? (2011) is the first ever science-fiction novel in ChiShona and the first work in that southern African language to appear in digital format first before going to print. His vampire novel, Herbert Wants To Come Home, which blends the European vampire lore with Zimbabwean beliefs about the right of the spirit of the deceased to be invited in to the home, has been serialised on Jukepop Serials, and will be published by Belontos Books. Musodza lives in Middlesbrough, North-East England.
www.masimbamusodza.co.uk