Welcome, welcome! ESHurricane here, chatting with the talented Jyvur_Entropy, author of Combustion and other works here on Wattpad and beyond.
Emily: Hi, Jyvur! Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing journey.
Jyvur: Sure, so I always loved writing. I majored in Creative Writing for my undergrad and then went on to an M.A in English lit. I started out writing horror exclusively, then I branched out into fantasy, romance, and contemporary.
Emily: That's awesome! :) Combustion definitely falls into the horror category. It's an interesting blend because it's from the point of view of a young girl but the story definitely hits adult beats. Where did you get the idea to embark on such a tale?
Jyvur: It's way too autobiographical and I'll never write anything that autobiographical again. A big part of the book came from me wanting to encapsulate in a book the feelings of dread and terror that dominated my childhood.
I grew up in an incredibly abusive home and was eventually removed from my mother's home in my teenage years. The original version of Combustion had a great deal of the physical abuse that happened in my house, but I ended up chopping all of that out. It was too hard to write about it and I actually think it made the book worse. It was this very whiny standard misery lit.
By focusing instead on the emotional gap between the mother and daughter characters and the presence of Wicca and ghost-hunting activities (all stuff that happened in my house) it makes the book a lot more unique and less whiny...I hope.
I didn't live with my mom until I was six. When I did move in with her, we never really connected like I think we should have, and all of her Wiccan stuff and carrying on about ghosts scared the crap out of me. I became this very nervous kid fixated on death and insects and other weird shit. It sounds so lame talking it out, but Combustion really was a way for me to try and work through my own issues with my mother.
It's highly fictionalized, but at the heart, I feel like it captures so much of how I felt back then. And my family just ignores all of the serious issues, even stuff like physical and sexual abuse nobody ever talks about. That's why the book has the big twist at the end, and I feel like for anybody from a normal house, they might be like, "How could that happen? How could that have happened between Helene and Papa and everybody carries on like usual?" to which I'd say, that part is...way too close to real life. Nobody related to me has ever seen the book because of how close to the truth that twist is and nobody ever talks about it. So much messed up stuff happened in my family and nobody acknowledges any of it. We're a truly Irish-Catholic family.
To be honest, I actually feel guilty sometimes when people like Rachel as a character, because it is so autobiographical. When people are like, "Rachel is a creepy, whiny brat," I'm actually a lot more comfortable hearing that lol. I don't like feeling like I'm getting second-hand compliments because I wrote a book based so much on my real life.
And then I also just really love gothic lit. I wanted to set a gothic story in an unusual location and I really liked the idea of a gothic horror set in the suburbs in the 90s.
Emily: It must be really strange getting feedback on Rachel from people because she's so close to you. It's definitely not lame though to work through issues through fiction. I think a lot of writers do that, even in subliminal ways. It's brave to touch on difficult themes like this but even more so when it's coming from inside of the writer.
In any case, you've definitely captured an intense story and bending gothic lit into 90s suburbia is fresh! We're there any particular authors that inspired the feel of Combustion?
Jyvur: Oh absolutely! Paul Tremblay is forever exactly the author I want to be. I've actually chatted with him on Goodreads a few times and I lose my mind every time he responds to me! I swear that guy must live in perpetual fear I'm gonna Misery him! "I'm your biggest fan!" is something I legit unironically said to him once and then later cringed over.
He's just such an incredible storyteller. He also wrote a modern gothic from the perspective of a female child. He was the one that made me go "I CAN write a book for adults with a child protagonist and I can make it scary as hell." He is SOOO freaking good. And another author that inspired me at the time is Emma Donoghue and her book Room. That's another book for adults with a child protagonist and tough themes.
Emily: That's so cool you got to talk to him! It's amazing to converse with people you idolize. Did you find there were any specific difficulties in writing such a young protagonist while being an adult?
Jyvur: The voice was a big part of it. Rachel was younger when I first started writing and I fluctuated between her sounding far too babyish and far too adult. I eventually settled on making her ten years old, because that was the youngest voice I could pull off believably. I had to do a lot of thinking about how my brain used to work back at that age. It's a completely different mindset. I had to cut out some of the larger words that I might use as an adult, but a kid probably wouldn't use.
Emily: That must have been challenging! But you definitely pulled it off. Do you have any tips for aspiring writers wanting to craft psychological horror?
Jyvur: Let's see...I'm bad at giving advice lol.
I think that capturing that psychological realism is key. But you have to try and do it in an interesting way. I do that by being really gross lol. The motif I used in Combustion is centipedes. I attached a lot of the emotions to centipedes. I also tried to create a lot of disturbing imagery with fire. I like similes. I think one I used is: her melted fat would congeal like grease on a baking sheet. I guess attaching images to emotions is a way to convey them in a way that's interesting.
One thing I struggled a lot with is sounding whiny and "oh poor me" because I did make the book so personal. That's why I've pivoted so much in my writing philosophy and now I'd never write anything so autobiographical again. If you use your own experiences as fodder, your own emotions get wrapped up in there, and sometimes that can be really "wah, poor me!" and that's just not interesting. So, I'd say if you use your own experiences, make sure the writing isn't too whiny.
I'm way better at talking about the gothic genre to be honest, and for anyone that wants to write a gothic; it needs to have a somewhat innocent or naive main character, a decrepit setting that is falling apart or filthy, and a secret to be revealed. Gothic is different than other kinds of horror, because it's a slow-burn, where the building of the dread is the main point of the book. The dread should be built up in this way that's almost pleasing. It's dark and gritty, but almost enjoyable in a perverse way. I think gothic books were less psychological in their origins. They used to be very over-the-top and unrealistic. But I like them much better when there's psychological realism.
Emily: That's awesome advice! So to wrap up, can you share a Wattpad recommendation or two for adult readers? It's something we're all hungry for around here!
Jyvur: Sure! The Mystery of Novak Manor by eacomiskey is pretty good. Also Deprivation: The Feast and the Famine by JesseSprague. Dark_Writes has some fun stories. His book Dirty Rotten Demigods has real Good Omens vibes. Very funny. PixieStormcrow is one of my favorite erotica writers. ericdabbs writes awesome adventure stories. There are so many more I could add. Wattpad is full of amazing writers!
Emily: Excellent and true!
And let's do a few rapid fire fun questions: Do you have any pets? If you won a million dollars what would you do? What's your favourite movie to rewatch over and over?
Jyvur: I have two cats, Leo and Lizzy. If I had a million dollars, maybe I'd start a publishing house. I'd publish the books that I think are great, and while diversity is good, I wouldn't be picking books based off of writers' skin color or gender (something literary agents are absolutely doing now if you take a look at mswishlist.com). I'd love to have my own publishing house that was more about diversity of thought than identity politics. I'd be more interested in putting out many different worldviews and perspectives than making sure I have a specific quota of writers who check a certain identity box.
I have a few movies that I love to rewatch.I've watched Melancholia, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and The Little Mermaid more times than I can count :)
Emily: Awesome! Well thank you so much for interviewing with me!
If you'd like to check out Combustion and more of Jyvur's work, check out her profile Jyvur_Entropy and you won't be disappointed! There's also a shiny new review of Combustion in our Book of the Month!