Milwaukee Horror Writer Brings Chills with New Internet Series

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Photo via Nick Botic

Nick Botic is a Milwaukee author and publisher. Following his success as one of the top contributors with the Reddit horror community, r/NoSleep, he amassed fame with his growing collection of terrifying works that include over 100 short stories, publications in 14 books, and a number of secured adaptation deals. Currently, he is working on several projects, including a novel, a comic book and a recent YouTube podcast series dedicated to interviewing other writers that dwell in the world of “Internet Horror Fiction.” With COVID-19 still hovering over us, Off the Cuff caught up with Botic through a virtual correspondence, a type of interview that’s less exciting than a coffee and bagel meet-up, but more clear-cut and illuminating than your regular search up on horror writers. He was as excited to discuss his works as I was to hear about them.

How would you best describe your works?

Simply put: horror. In some way or another, all of my stories fall within some subheading of the horror genre, whether it’s psychological, paranormal, religious or any number of other facets of the genre.

What got you into writing short stories, specifically in the horror genre?

Back in 2015, I had gone to rehab after a year’s long addiction of heroin and unchecked mental illness. The counselor leading my outpatient program said that one of the most necessary things for someone in recovery to do is have a hobby, something to keep the mind busy so it doesn’t go to where you don’t want it to go. I tried a few different things, but nothing really stuck until I was bumbling around the internet and came across the Reddit community r/nosleep.

r/NoSleep is a place expressly for short horror stories. When I first discovered it, I read for hours, days. Eventually, I just kind of thought “I bet I can write something just as scary as these have been.” I posted my first story in late 2015, which didn’t do too well, but my second did remarkably well considering I was still essentially brand new to the community. The feeling of people reading my words and being scared by them was incredibly gratifying, and it solidified my feeling that that was what I wanted to do.

What specific themes within the genre do you generally like to explore? Do you ever see yourself writing in another genre besides horror?

My most common theme is probably the wearing down of the human mind. Whether it’s from a ghost or spirit or demon’s constant antagonization that drives a person to their breaking point, I like pushing my character’s to their limits without being gratuitous. Closely related is mental health. Whether it’s readily apparent or not, a good deal of thoughts on mental illness go into most of my stories, as it’s a topic very near and dear to me. My favorite subgenre of horror is by far cults, a topic that goes hand in hand with the aforementioned themes, as does the vast concept of the unknown.

Absolutely! One of my goals in writing is to create a sprawling fictional universe, something with the scope of George R.R. Martin’s ​A Song of Ice and Fire​ and the imagination of Tolkein’s ​Lord of the Rings.

Describe your writing process to me—what is it like? What type of research do you do before beginning a story? When writing new material, do you draw inspiration from other works or events?

I’m what the writing world refers to as a “pantser,” in that I “write by the seat of my pants”, as opposed to a planner, who meticulously outlines and plans every plot point and character beat.

I’ve never written an outline in my life, though not for lack of trying. I find I do my best work when I just sit down, put a horror movie or show on in the background, and start typing. As far as research, it largely depends on the topic on which I’m writing. When I have a monster that finds its roots in the ancient lore of some foreign culture, I’ll do a whole lot of research to make sure I’m portraying it correctly. But if I’m writing a story more grounded in reality, most of my research consists of checking distances between locations and finding landmarks in whatever city or town I’ve set the story in. My stories generally begin with one certain image, sort of a still frame of a scene I envision in my head that creeps me out. I then build the rest of the story around that one thing, and my goal in every story I write is to scare myself. If it scares someone else, then it’s all the better for it. Any time that that isn’t the case, the idea invariably comes from my longtime partner Kimmy, from whom I get an innumerable amount of ideas and inspiration, and from whom I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t mention her in this interview.

Oh, 100%. I personally don’t feel that any work can be entirely original anymore. Everything is inspired by something else, whether the writer is conscious of it or not. I lean into it. I pay homage to many other authors and stories/books in my own work, from Stephen King to H.P. Lovecraft to Mark Z. Danielewski to, probably most often, other NoSleep writers.

Delving straight into your most recent project, what inspired you to start this YouTube channel?

Since the beginning of my tenure on NoSleep, I’ve worked with a number of incredibly talented voice actors who bring NoSleep stories to life. For a long time, I’ve wanted to try my hand at it, and I finally bit the bullet, got some recording equipment, and have been learning as I go.

To that end, I’ve also been endlessly fascinated with the internet horror genre, which has grown exponentially in the last five years. Because of my standing in the community, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to talk to some of the legends in the genre, authors of the most recognizable stories that have originated on the internet going back decades. I’ve used those connections to create what is effectively the flagship show of my channel, “100% True: The History of Creepypasta and Internet Horror.”

Has shifting media from posting internet stories to publishing physical material to creating a YouTube series brought about any changes in your writing process?

Most definitely, in that it’s much different writing prose than it is writing an analytical look at something. But in terms of stories that I will eventually go on to narrate, I haven’t changed my process at all. The story comes first—anything that follows has to work around my original vision for the story I was trying to tell.

How has the visual and audio aspect of your videos added to the telling of your stories?

My first work-related love in this life has been filmmaking, and it’s my ultimate goal. I absolutely love doing video and audio work, simply because it is an avenue to enhancing the already-present effects of any given work. As far as my stories in particular, it’s subtle, but in addition to simply reading them, I can add different elements, such as instead of telling the reader a voice echoed down a long, empty hallway, I can manipulate the audio to reflect that.

Similarly with video, there are no limits to the options available for creating atmospheric visuals. All of it adds up to a much more immersive experience for the reader/consumer.

I believe authors narrating their own work brings about a very interesting take on how their stories are told. In relation to your recent “Narrations” series, which out of your stories was the most thrilling to narrate? When did you decide narrating your own work was something you wanted to do?

I think “The Stretching Party” was my favorite, because it was the first time I felt comfortable adding the aforementioned different elements to it. The echoing voices, the footsteps, etc. It’s also a story that I’m especially proud of, so it was just fun to do it.

And as I mentioned, I’ve worked with some of the most talented voice actors YouTube has to offer over the last five years, and I’ve always just thought that it sounded like fun. I don’t trust myself nearly enough yet to do other peoples’ stories, so I’ve been doing my own, and it’s been a great learning experience.

Your “100% True: The History of Creepypasta and Internet Horror” series, in particular, is quite informative. Which one of your videos from that series did you enjoy creating the most?

That one would have to go to my very first episode, which featured an interview with Ted Hegemann, better known to the online horror community as “Ted the Cave.” The story, also titled “Ted the Caver,” is the one that launched the entire online horror industry. It came out in 2000, and was the first horror story told from a first person perspective that purported itself to be true that really gained a lot of recognition. It’s a story that even today has people debating its authenticity.

To talk to the man who wrote the story that facilitated the career I have today was an honor.

Do you usually create each story to stand on its own, or do you try to build connections between each story?

Both, in a way. Each story or series I’ve written can and does stand on their own, but oftentimes there will be little hints or easter eggs or nods to previous stories, suggesting that they do take place in the same world. It’s never anything so major that a reader would need to read a prior story in order to understand plot elements, but rather little treats for longtime readers of my work.

Where did you get the idea for the viral, award-winning hit that is “Daughter’s Drawings?”

“Daughter’s Drawings” was largely inspired by one of the most popular NoSleep stories of all time—Dathan Auerbach’s (1000Vultures’) “Penpal.” Anyone who has read both stories could immediately see the parallels. Dathan Auerbach continues to be a source of inspiration for me, as I’ve read the novelized version of “Penpal” four times now, and it’s kept me motivated in the development and production of my own debut novel—the expansion of “Daughter’s Drawings.”

Your dreams about developing your work onto the screen is an exciting prospect, and I see that several of your stories are already in various stages of production. Tell me about that—which one of your stories do you think would do well as a major motion-picture, or say, perhaps, a television series?

I think my most popular story, “Daughter’s Drawings,” would be the best choice for adaptation, and luckily it is. I believe it would work best as a limited series, maybe six episodes, to really build the world and allow people time to get invested in the characters and feel for their plight.

Besides that, I feel that the most recent series I’ve done, “The Impossible Ones,” would do well as an anthology series, with each episode detailing a different police case that baffles the investigators looking into it.

Tell me a little bit about your upcoming comic book.

Another of my lifelong dreams is to produce my own comic book. I’ve loved comics since I was a child and have always found the worlds and characters within them to just be so vibrant and complex and fascinating. So to be currently working on my comic, “The Visitor,” is a literal dream come true. Though my true comic love lies with superheroes, I chose to go with the genre in which I’m most experienced on my first outing—horror.

It actually began when I wrote a short story much like I would any other, but something about it just lent itself to the comic book medium perfectly, so I amended the format to a comic script and altered whatever points necessary to come up with the final product. I’m working with an unbelievably talented artist named Taylor Tate to bring it to life, and there’s only two more pages that need to be finished before we move on to the next step of actually printing it and getting it out to the world.

Thus far I’ve mapped out four issues that take the relatively claustrophobic first issue out of the cabin and into the larger world. Ideally, it’s a story I would take much farther if we’re fortunate enough to get sales and the funding necessary to do so, as I have a lot of ideas for where it could go.

What other content do you plan to release on your YouTube channel?

I have a lot of interest in mysteries, so I do want to start releasing videos that delve into some of the more obscure mysteries that still lack answers, in particular ones that originate on the internet. Beyond that, I do want to start producing my own short films, some original and others based on previous works of mine.