What's The Worst That Could Happen? (with special guest Marcus Kliewer)

What’s the scariest thing that can happen to you when you’re alone? Marcus Kliewer, the New York Times bestselling author of We Used to Live Here and The Caretaker, has built a career on that question. His characters are cut off, in over their heads, and never quite sure who (or what) they can trust.

James and Marcus talk about the difference between being alone and being isolated, why fear is one of the few emotions people actually love to share, and why horror might be one of the healthiest ways we have to process the dark stuff. They also get into the childhood alien obsession Marcus never quite shook, what posting stories on Reddit taught him about writing with an audience, and the very unglamorous tricks he uses to protect his attention.

Plus: the friendship advice you didn’t know a horror writer had in him.

Show notes

In this episode:

• Why putting a character alone in a house instantly raises the stakes. There’s no cat or roommate to blame for the noise.
• Alone vs. isolated: one is relational (lonely in a crowded room), the other is physical (a research base in Antarctica).
• What makes a good friend: someone you can go to without judgment, who will still judge you when you’ve earned it.
• How shifting fears like nuclear war, AI, and the pandemic shape what kind of horror we crave.
• “The real monster was grief”: tired trope, or the whole point of the genre?
• Roswell, Lilo & Stitch, and a dad who was not a discerning film censor.
• Trust, overthinking, and the horror of finding out weeks later that you read the room correctly.
• Why the scariest scenario is having your kindness used against you.
• Fear as a shared experience, from cavemen laughing at a rabbit to a theatre audience reacting to a gnarly scene.
• Cognitohazards, Nuclear War: A Scenario, and the unspoken contract between horror writers and their readers.
• Horror and extreme metal as healthy outlets for dark feelings.
• Lessons from Reddit: hook readers on the first line, write good cliffhangers instead of cheap ones, and let even two waiting readers keep you accountable.
• What writers owe each other: name your influences openly, and stop killing ideas because they resemble something else. Originality is overrated.
• Protecting your attention: half-hour blocks, a phone lockbox, a locked-down writing tablet, chewing gum, and a Pomodoro tracker you can see.
• Short stories vs. novels, and why long form makes the bad stuff hit harder.

About Marcus
Marcus Kliewer is the New York Times bestselling author of We Used to Live Here and The Caretaker. He started out posting horror fiction online, where both books began as short stories. He’s now writing his third novel, the first one he’s conceived as a novel from the start.

Follow Marcus: Instagram link
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