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In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.

H. P. Lovecraft

Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Choice Expression Feeling Group People Religious Sanity Strong Togetherness
All of my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Cosmos Emotion Fundamental
To me, there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form – and local human passions and conditions and standards – are depicted as native to other worlds and universes.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Human Passion Standard Universe World
All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beginning Goodness Guide Learning Literature
I couldn’t live a week without a private library – indeed, I’d part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I’d let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Furniture Library Live Possession Sleep
The end of a story must be stronger rather than weaker than the beginning, since it is the end which contains the denouement or culmination and which will leave the strongest impression upon the reader.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Beginning End Leaving Reading Story Strong
Orthodox Christianity, by playing upon the emotions of man, is able to accomplish wonders toward keeping him in order and relieving his mind. It can frighten or cajole him away from evil more effectively than could reason.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Accomplishment Emotional Mindset Play Relieve
The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilised cynic to do other than worship it.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Aesthetic Perfection Scarce Symbol Worship
Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Creation Deep Fear Illusion Nature Ourselves Strong
It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared – as it always should be.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Care Miss Preparation Story
My nervous system is a shattered wreck, and I am absolutely bored and listless save when I come upon something which peculiarly interests me.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Boredom Interest List Nervous Save System
I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Author Competition Illusion Serious Status
Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Haunt Horror Search Stage
Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

End Journey Sing
The monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect succession of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Hero Poem Rhyme Success
Write out the story – rapidly, fluently, and not too critically – following the second or narrative-order synopsis. Change incidents and plot whenever the developing process seems to suggest such change, never being bound by any previous design.
H. P. LOVECRAFT

Change Design Development Follow Story Writing

In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.

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In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.

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Popular Authors

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