The best horror often drapes across your shoulders like a piece of fine lace or slams into you like a brick wall at high speed. “Jumper” does a little of both. From the slow build of the Rampart Hotel to the brutal final moments, this story never fails to satisfy. Tell us something about the inspiration that brought the story to the page.

I’m very glad you think “Jumper” walks the trapeze between the two. I’m a big fan of both the suggestive horror story and the balls-to-the-wall horror story and wanted to incorporate elements of both into this story. I was particularly struck by the image of people getting comfortable in a hotel lobby while they wait to do horrible things to themselves. It’s the sort of mismatch that lends itself to a slow coiling of suspense and I think the horror in “Jumper” stems from the fact that nothing is forced; the characters elect for the horror, they volunteer for it. Even Penrick is obsessive in his quest to hurt himself. I think that’s where the story doubles down. I wanted to create a situation where readers might be hoping for the main character to have a change of heart, to realise the horrific absurdity he’s placed himself in. If Penrick wavers, however, it’s only in his adherence that everything must be done by the book. There’s no respite; we watch the horror play out through the perspective of someone who very much wants it to continue.

There are a few inspirations lurking behind the story: one is my fondness for hotel stories. Hotels pop up everywhere in horror fiction; in King’s bibliography, Barker’s Books of Blood, and the work of Laird Barron, to name a few. I think the liminality of the setting lends itself to the genre—hotels are stopovers from reality, full of people waiting for something to happen. The other key inspiration came from a totally normal, well-socialised discussion with a friend about death cults, specifically the psychology of how otherwise ordinary people make up their ranks. I wanted to write a story about a death cult, but I wanted my death cult to be different, and I knew I wanted death itself to be a competitive aspect of the cult, a sport or an art. If anything, I think “Jumper” is a story about lonely people doing anything they can to be part of a community.

I was intrigued with the concept of Jumping as a sport. Rules, paperwork, guidelines, “never give up the sport to the police,” a clean-up crew. When you set out to tell this tale, did you think of similar sports? Are there other subversive challenges or competitions?

Despite not actually caring about sports outside of weightlifting, I’m a big fan of sports novels. Walter Tevis has a couple of amazing ones such as The Queen’s Gambit and The Hustler. Dostoevsky’s The Gambler is also a great novel about gambling. I think the common thread between these stories is a uniquely accessible window that fiction provides into the mind of the gamer or the sportsperson—we get to see what really makes them tick. I wanted to apply this to horror, because I wanted to see the ways in which morbid games might affect the psychologies of the people that play them. Real life extreme sports, like bungee jumping and sky diving, were at the forefront of my mind while writing the story, alongside many horror stories that involve games or sports gone awry. A few favourites are “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “In The Hills, The Cities” by Clive Barker; “Tiptoe” by Laird Barron, and “Quitters, Inc.” by Stephen King, among others.

Each character is identifiable, someone the reader might have known in the day-to-day. Otto’s near manic insanity, Brett’s duality of money versus horror, Abi and Jason’s second thoughts, Penrick’s nearly stoic need and obsession. Were the characters so clearly defined in the first draft or did they become more defined in the revisions?

I got into horror because of the attention it gives to characters. It’s a simple formula: for the horror story to work, the reader needs to care about the characters and what happens to them. It’s almost a literary-adjacent genre, in a way. I like to think that the best horror stories are situational character studies, stories in which interesting people react to the scenarios they find themselves in. One of the tricks to writing “Jumper” was to place a cast of characters in an absurd situation and see how they reacted. With the jumping aside, I think a lot of the story focusses on the mechanics of the character interactions and a lot of the revision process was an attempt to tease out these conflicts. Otto’s insanity and Penrick’s stoic obsession were there from the first draft, but I spent a lot of time revising the background characters to bring them a little closer to the forefront.

Horror pulls back the curtain on the forbidden, demands that you walk into the shadows with both eyes open, come what may, and stick the landing. What is it about horror that speaks to you as a writer? Does it also speak to you as a reader?

As a writer, I love the structure that horror provides. It’s like telling a joke. Horror stories require a general set up, a main conceit, and a final punchline. I like working in those confines, it feels like I’m working my way through a puzzle. I’m a pantser or a gardener; I don’t really plan anything, which keeps the writing entertaining and fresh and gives me ample opportunity to surprise myself, but it also means that I tend to overwrite and go off on wild tangents. The stricture of horror helps to keep me grounded. I think that’s one reason why the genre works so well in the short story format—it’s a self-contained joke, one that, hopefully, you’ll remember for some time.

I fell in love with horror when I was far too young to be reading it. One of the first horror novels I ever read was The Shining. I immediately connected with its focus on characters. Anyone who thinks the horror in that novel stems from the supernatural needs to read the book again. It’s as intimate of a character study as I think the genre has ever managed, and the crux of the horror comes from the ways in which we watch these characters try and fail to make good on their promises. I’m a big fan of expansive, plot-driven fiction, too. But there’s something about the intimacy of horror fiction at its best that speaks to me: a couple of well-drawn characters find themselves in a situation. What happens next?

Have you ever stood on that ledge?

I think we all have, once or twice.

Do you have any other projects in the works? What can eager readers look forward to from James Tatam in 2023?

I always have a few irons in the fire. Nightmare marks my first professional publication, which is a huge milestone and one I’m very grateful for. I hope to have a few more short stories out in the next year. I have another story, “Bin Day,” out in Dark Matter Magazine in May. It’s a very different type of story, much more intimate than “Jumper.” Check it out. Other than that, I’m making very slow progress on a novel about a girl with the ability to translate pain. Think The Dead Zone by way of Clive Barker. I’ll post something on my Twitter once it’s done.