In the application letter for the New England Literature Program, I was asked to write about a book that was in some way meaningful to me. One in particular immediately came to mind - I had read (nay, devoured) American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis that previous summer. It was Ellis's ingenius way of detailing the psychological aspects of sociopathy that snared my interest in particular, and consequently I fell back in love with my childhood penchant for horror and crime fiction. From Goosebumps to The Girl With The Dragon Tatto; as a kid, I consumed it all. The few opportunities I had to read something by Stephen King were always a special treat because I had to  ask permission before borrowing one of his harrowing tales from my parents.

 

Coincidentally, when the premise of the repurposing project was presented to us in class, I had recently finished writing a book review of King's It for the magazine that I blog for. It seemed only appropriate that I base my project on that review as well in order to successfully convey the extent of my girlish fandom, not only for King, but also for the genre.

 

These two pieces are what led me to decide to embark my own attempt at a horror fiction novella, although due to the time restraints of the class schedule, I could only write two chapters. Besides a few brief elementary school experiments, I normally stay away from fiction writing. But I did my best and genuinely enjoyed pretending like I knew what I was doing. Following the tabs at the bottom will take you through the process that resulted in the final version of this project.

 

Presented as though posted on the horror-fiction publishing website, DarkFuse, below is my finalized repurposing project. This is my tribute to my horror-writing idols.

 

This is Malice.