Thoughts on Nate Kenyon’s “Sparrow Rock”
I just finished reading Nate Kenyon's latest novel, Sparrow Rock, a story of a group of high school kids who find themselves trapped in a bomb shelter by accident just as the end of the world arrives. Reads the official synopsis from Nate's site.
The novel has received excellent reviews at multiple sites, and I think the praise is well-deserved. Kenyon has produced a fast-paced, engaging tale of survival. This is the second book I've read by Kenyon. I read Bloodstone some months back as a sample of a first novel, but have yet to get to a post on it. I thought it an excellent tale as well, and I will keep his work at the top of my list from here on out.
Spoilers ahead! If you haven't read the book, you might want to read this later.
What I found most interesting about Sparrow Rock was Kenyon's choice of point of view. The tale is told in first person, and while it's not all that rare, I wondered immediately why Kenyon made that choice. And about half-way through, I reached an "ah-ha" moment.
Pete, the main and POV character, is trapped with his friends, but there's one friend he's particularly close to: Tessa. Pete killed his abuse father years earlier (yes, the guy deserved it) and Tessa helped him recover his sanity after the incident. Summing it up like that, I'm sure you can guess why Nate choose first-person. Tessa is a figment of Pete's imagination, and to have told the story any other way would have ruined her part in the tale.
I'm not a big fan of alternate personalities in stories. It think it can and has been done well--King's The Dark Half, where you know pretty much from the get-go. But I also think it's an over-used device across the board--movies, TV, books. But here, Kenyon pulls it off and in such a way that it adds value to the story without feeling trite or cliché. A big part of my turn-off to the alternate personality is that too often the reader is kept in the dark until the end, where the big reveal relies on reader surprise to "It was me all along!" The story hinges on the fact that the reader doesn't know until just the right moment, and if the reader knows too soon, the gig is up and the book gets put down or the TV gets turned off. Blech. Enough already.
However, Sparrow Rock doesn't hinge on this. Tessa is an intricate part of how Pete behaves, but she is not a key part of why he survives. And she definitely played no part in the events that lead up to the apocalypse. She's just an aspect of his character hewn from the trauma of killing his father. She's a part of what makes him interesting, a key to his internal conflict.
I recall the exact moment I realized she was imaginary. The kids all vacate the shelter's bedroom when they discover a huge mosquito that had been feeding on one of them (disgusting and awesome!). They run into the shelter's dining area and lock the door, and Pete realizes that Tessa is missing. He busts back into the bedroom, kills the mosquito, only to see Tessa standing behind the other kids in the dining area. In that moment, I realized that only Pete ever spoke to Tessa. None of the other characters ever acknowledged her presence, but they did respond to Pete at times as if he'd lost his mind, usually just after he had spoken to Tessa.
Pete acknowledges later in the narrative that she's imaginary, and part of his coming to grips with killing his father is to abandon her as a support system. She helps him survive, she's harmless to the others (in fact, early on Pete talks about how she helped change bandages on one of the other kids), and she helps the reader understand just how broken he is. I think, in the end, Pete's survival is all the more merited because he's not only fought the crazy, postapocalyptic bugs, but because he's had to work though an issue he had resigned to living with long before the story starts.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for postapocalyptic horror. I can't wait to read more of Kenyon's work. He's definitely earned my respect as a writer.
Thoughts on Bently Little’s “The Town”
Bently Little's The Town was published in 2000, and I think even 10 years later it holds up as a good story. I found Bently's take on small-town horror refreshing in many ways, even though the idea of horror in a small town isn't so unique by today's standards. The story involves a family of six who move back to the father's home town after winning the lottery to simplify their lives and exchange the dangers of LA for the assumed tranquility of McGuane, Arizona.
Once the family moves, a very serious and diverse set of circumstances occur. Several deaths take place, the town is slowly overrun by evil spirits, and some very bizarre possessions happen--one involving a Molokan church growing hair.
I really appreciate how Bently handled the characters. Winning the lottery is supposed to be a good thing--as is anything that brings a person into money--but in this case, Bently provides what feels like a more realistic take on the matter. The father, Gregory, finds himself at odds because he no longer has purpose. He doesn't have to work for money and is no longer tightly connected with the town. He finds some pet projects, one of which is to help an old high school friend redevelop his café into a small entertainment venue, all of which wind up backfiring. Everything Gregory experiences in the book, the supernatural as well as his well-intentioned actions, drive him slowly insane. I cared about this man, and the rest of the family, because even though they had money their lives were tough. I was reminded of the main characters in Ed Lee's The Golem--also rich--and the reason I didn't care much for them was that they had options. I felt they could have walked away at any time and that their hardship was self-inflicted. In the case of The Town, the money won from the lottery was paid annually (I think @ 80K), the family spent most of the first check on the new house, and there was no walking away. They were stuck in their situation for at least a year, until the next check arrived. To make it even worse, the house they bought had a sordid history--unknown by Gregory at the time of purchase--and there was little to no chance of them reselling it.
Bently also tied the events in the story up very well in the end. So many strange things occur, that mid-way through I found myself thinking there was no way everything related. But through an interesting convergence of Molokan and Native American mythologies, Bently came up with a satisfying explanation that unified the deaths, possessions, and general craziness of the town. And to have the solution to the hauntings require the cooperation of the two cultures--through ritual and force--really reinforced the explanation of the hauntings.
I was unfamiliar with the term Molokan before reading this book, and while I didn't read it for a cultural lesson I found myself reading up a little on the culture. They're a fascinating sect of Christianity from Russia, and I think Bently's use of Molokans instead of the more familiar Catholics gave the book an interesting take on christian spirituality and mythology.
If you like small-town horror and supernatural horror, this book should be on your list. I'll definitely pick up more of Bently's work down the road.
Why Character Matters
I just finished reading Edward Lee's The Golem. This is my first encounter with any of Edward Lee's work. I believe every author should have two chances, so Ed Lee has one left. To me, the book read like a first draft, but I'll get to that.
We don't see the golem used much in popular fiction. I can only recall one instance where I've seen it used--an old episode of the X-Files called Kaddish. Lee brings the reader a modern version of an old Jewish folk tale based on Judah Loew, a 16th century rabbi who created a golem to defend a Prague ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks. Lee brings the folktale to life with vibrant rituals and an exploration of a dark sect of Kabbalah based on Kischuph. The story revolves around the small town of Lowensport, Maryland. In 1880, a group of Jewish refugees from Prague, led by the evil rabbi Gavriel Loew, construct two golems to defend themselves from the attack of the Conner clan, a local group of settlers lead by an ex-military deserter. The story is told in parallel with the present-day tale of Seth Kohn and his girlfriend Judy, who move into the old Lowen mansion and find themselves in the middle of a plan by Gavriel's great-great-great grandson to resurrect Gavriel as a golem and--you guessed it--take over the world, or at least small part of it.
I think the book presents an interesting bit of folklore, but aside from that, I didn't find much appealing here. I don't know if this work is representative of Mr. Lee's style (I'll have to read another to decide), but I had difficulty in getting into the book because of the language. The book is riddled with adverbs, which isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself but Lee uses them to such an extent that I found myself struggling to visualize much of anything in the book. For instance, twice in the work Lee uses the word 'paranoically' to describe two different characters.
"Of course!" But then [Judy] looked paranoically behind her. (pg. 24)
And
Czanek looked paranoically over his shoulder again. (pg. 52)
In both instances, Lee provides the action (the showing)--both characters look over their shoulder. The reader sees what the characters are doing and the context provides the tension. What does the word 'paranoically' bring to the reader? The reader is bumped from the story with such an awkward word. These are two instances, but they are representative of the work's style. I found myself jostled from the story with almost every turn of the page. This is what made the book feel like a first draft. I think the language could have been cleaned up and more appropriate description put in to help draw the reader deep into the story.
In addition to the language, I struggled with some key things Lee chose to focus on in the story. The reader gets two pages describing the video game Seth wrote and sold to make his millions, but the game itself has very little to do with the storyline. The reader also gets a lot of time spent on Switchgrass, the local cash crop, but again, other than providing a setting for characters to hide in, the Switchgrass and its use as a biofuel has little to do with the story. Whats more, the way the reader finds out many of these details was bothersome. Judy, being an ex-college professor, seems to know a bit about everything. Whenever the reader needs an explanation, or even when the reader doesn't, Judy pipes up to give details. Yet, when she's walking through the Switchgrass, the reader gets a strange gap in her knowledge:
Watch for snakes, she recalled the remarks of the man from the state. This new path was barely shoulder width. Did ticks live in switchgrass? No, she didn't think so. (pg. 194)
We get pages of infodump from this character, but when it comes to something as trivial as ticks, she seems at a loss.
So, style aside, is there a good story here? It's interesting in terms of the ritual and folklore of the golem, but I found myself struggling to care about what happened to any of these characters.
First, the 1880 story centers around a group of black-magic Jewish refugees (evil guys) locked in a struggle the Conner clan, with a group of local settlers led by an ex-military deserter and his cohorts (evil). I found neither side appealing, so I had no one to root for. Both sides wind up wiping each other out, leaving a single golem. I found nothing redeeming in the people on either side of this conflict. I initially had some sympathy for the Jewish refugees until it became clear that they were ousted by their own people in Prague because of their adherence to Kischuph. So while there's some satisfaction in having a bunch of bad guys kill each other, there's no one left at the end that I cared about.
The present-day story centers on Seth Kohn and his girlfriend Judy. Seth is a game designer lost his wife two years earlier and struggled through a bout of alcoholism. His girlfriend is an ex-college professor who struggled with crack addiction. They met in rehab. But when the story opens, both have recovered, Seth has made millions on his video game, and they buy Seth's dream home near Lowensport, Maryland. These people have everything, so I also had trouble sympathizing with either of them. During the course of the story, Judy falls off the wagon and gets raped several times by local drug dealers as part of the plot to recover Gavriel Lowen's head from the mansion, but by the time this all happens I, as a reader, have already disconnected from her as a character.
Compare these two with the main characters in Nate Kenyon's novel Bloodstone. Billy Smith is an ex-convict, guilty of drunk driving and manslaughter. Billy is paired with Gloria Johnson, a heroin addict and hooker. These are sympathetic characters at low points in their lives, victims of circumstance to a degree. The reader cares about Billy, who has done his time but still lives burdened by the guilt of his crime. The reader cares about Gloria, a victim of drug addiction who, at the start of the story, is near the end of her rope. We cheer them on, we want them to get better.
Overall, I think The Golem provides little in the way of a good writing or good story telling. But I have to admit, if this book is ever made into a move, I will watch it. I think there are some visually stunning scenes: the Kischuph ritual of golemancy, the dynamiting of the mill, and of course the murderous mayhem inflicted by the golems. I have a deep love for horror movies, and I'm much more forgiving of story in exchange for the visual appeal.
I look forward to giving Lee's work another chance. If you have suggestions of what is representative of Lee's writing, post a comment. I'd love to hear from you!
One Helluva Ghost Story
I just finished reading Tom Piccirilli's A Choir of Ill Children--for the second time. I read it back in February and decided that to do it any justice, I needed to set it aside and reread it. It's not an overly complex book, but I'm not used to the Southern style. The last book I read that felt stylistically similar was Faulkner's As I Lay Dying--over fifteen years ago.
The first thing that I noticed is the uniqueness of every character. I was familiar with the book prior to reading it, and had an admittedly biased expectation that at least some of the characters would be backwater rednecks. Piccirilli, however, invests each character with a distinct personality that I don't believe fit any stereotypes. Further, I expected at least some of the dialog to have poor diction. Again, I was totally wrong. Most of the dialog uses good diction--Piccirilli makes very prudent use of "ain't"s throughout, for which I'm grateful.
But--why did I have those expectations? As a reader, I'm not sure I would have ever noticed the very subtle use of regional dialect. As a writer, however, I noticed it because I often fail at capturing dialect or using it properly. Reading Piccirilli's book has made me aware that my failure comes in large part from personal bias. I'm born and bred mid-west; I've lived in Ohio my whole live, though I've been fortunate enough to travel to many states and abroad. But still, part of me connects southern dialect with uneducated, not through any conscious decision, but simply from my experiences (or lack thereof).
But the characters presented in A Choir of Ill Children are anything but uneducated. They lack formal education, but are full of the knowledge and experience life offers in such a setting. We're told as much in one section where Thomas, the main character, reflects the fallacy of his father who built schools for the county:
The schools sat empty until the storm and wind damage wore them away inch by inch. You couldn't blame the people of Potts County just because the board of education hadn't offered any kind of a useful curriculum. Chemistry in a tube wasn't pertinent. The wheel of the universe didn't turn when the cream went bad. Logarithms, geometry, and algebra did not apply to the height of the river during flood season. (p. 24)
So throughout the story we find characters who speak with very little regional dialect, which I believe helps the reader see them as honest people and not just a collection of rednecks.
So if these aren't rednecks, who are they? Piccirilli presents a truly unique and memorable collection: a biker obsessed with fencing, a pair of drug-addled film students, a monastery dedicated to The Flying Walendas, backwater granny witches who fight to stave off storms, a child molester and the ghost of one of his victims, and a mute girl who appears from nowhere. There is also Thomas, heir to a huge house, a sizable family fortune, and The Mill--the town's only sustainable business. The story is told from Thomas's point of view, in present tense, with calm clarity and deep inquiry into the events that surround him.
Thomas also has three brothers, which I hesitate to count as more than a single character, conjoined at the frontal lobe, sharing a pineal gland, and at times speaking as one although each has a distinct voice as well. Ah, this must be the backwater, uneducated redneck of the book. Well, no:
Sebastian is full of malice, Jonah with regret, and Cole speaks of love and nothing but love, no matter how hideous his words. (p. 1)
Interesting. Or how about:
My brothers speak as one, each mouth working like a pipe organ, playing a different portion of their communal speech. It's the way that the brain works. The "ch" goes to Sebastian, along with the glottal noises, "uh" and "ooh," "ing," names of foreign countries and pronouns, anything that brings the teeth together.
Jonah gets the hisses, the "ph" and drawn-out orgasmic "eeeeeee," titles of symphonies and sit-coms, all the poetry.
Cole is left with the growls and hard consonants, the adverbs, numbers following ten, dirty words, colors, sweet nothing, and every predicate. (p. 5)
Now that's one (or is it three) intriguing character. So what's this guy sound like when he speaks? Just a sample:
Jonah's up there already beginning to squawk and croon, the poetry pouring into the air. "For where she lies, my swept drifted spirit follows, the course unmatched and not known, nor cared for, whether it dies or is kept..." (p. 22)
And again, later, Thomas describes Jonah's poetry as he tries to woo Sarah (one of the drug-addled film students):
His sonnets have poorly stressed syllables but the meaning is worthy. He has talents that would have meant something a century ago. (p. 90)
So very clearly this, the most deformed character in the book, is not a redneck but a complex character who is more than capable of the full range of human emotion. This is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and challenging characters I have ever encountered in horror. I think Piccirilli plays against the reader's bias, particularly in this case, to develop interesting characters that the reader can relate to.
Later in the story, Velma Coots (a granny witch) tries to convince Thomas to give some of his sperm for a brew to stave of a storm of souls. Their brief dialog is follows, with Thomas speaking first:
"What the hell do you want from me?" I ask.
"Jest a little blood and vinegar, there, in the pot."
"Vinegar?"
"Some of yer seed."
"My seed?"
"Sperm."
"You've got to be shittin' me." (p. 51)
I call this out to because Velma Coots's diction, a backwater witch, has minimal dialect--just two words of improper English: jest, and yer. Even this woman's dialog is kept relatively clean, letting the reader focus more on what's being said than how it's being said.
Another example of fine dialog is found when Thomas speaks with Abbot Earl of The Holy Order of the Flying Walendas, a man who used to drive a bulldozer for Thomas's father. Abbot Earl wants to discuss Lucretia Murteen with Thomas, a prominent nun of the order who the Abbot was once intimate with. Thomas tells the Abbot he has nothing to be ashamed of, and Abbot Earl replies:
"And I'm not, to be sure. But it's also true that she's been acting...reticent lately. Perhaps a bit taciturn. She refuses to tell me what's bothering her. I'm afraid that these troubles are actually making her consider leaving us." (p. 86)
Once again, through using words like "reticent" and "taciturn", Piccirilli shows the reader that this man is not just some dumb redneck who runs a strange cult of acrobat worshipers. The word choice gives the reader a sense of depth to the character.
The last character I want to touch on is Darr, a biker who has a couple run-ins with Thomas. On their second encounter, Darr and Thomas come face-to-face, and Darr asks Thomas a question:
"You know what I simply cannot stand?" he asks me.
"I'll play along since this has the structure of a rhetorical question. What is it that you cannot stand?"
"Fencing."
I clear my throat. "Fencing?"
"Watching fencers who have no notion of the hardcore reality behind the art form. They think it's a sport, the damn fools. Or worse, some kind of performance they're putting on for their mamas, like ballet or synchronized swimming. It was never meant to be a sport. You've got to have convictions to live with the blade. Belief. True belief, that's it, that's what I'm talking about. But those players, they might as well be shooting hoops or sliding into third base. They never embrace the...the tenets, the ideology behind that discipline."
"I can't say that I have an opinion one way or the other."
"Trust what I'm tellin' you. No matter how much training they go in for they always got that swashbuckling bullshit fantasy going on in their heads. No way around that for most of 'em. They feel gallant sashaying around with their Musketeer sword, lunging after each other on the mats, shouting in French like it means somthin' special when they can't even pronounce the words. With those silly helmets on over their faces, you shouldn't be caught dead in one'a them, and the machines buzzing when they tap each other on the chests." (p. 119-120)
Now clearly this biker has not only been exposed to fencing--something most would consider an upper class sport--but he's put the time into contemplating the sport and how it relates to him. This, and the subsequent dialog, give Thomas (and the reader) a unique insight into this biker character:
Not only does Darr expect the world to handle itself but he's also got high hopes for the logic of his assertions to eventually come to validity all on their own. Maybe he's talking in metaphor. I wonder if this is some vague attempt at intimidation. (p. 121)
Is that a threat? How does one respond to a man like this? I think Thomas's reaction reinforces Darr's character by matching closely what most people would think.
I have one more section of dialog to call out. Whether Piccirilli meant this to reinforce the idea that the people of Potts County are anything but uneducated, or whether he simply meant it to be funny I can't say. But to me, it works well in both ways. This is an exchange between some minor characters in Leadbetter's, the local bar. One character, Verbal Raynes, was recently left by Gloria, a woman who has decided to return to her husband Harry. Gloria and Harry left for a second honeymoon, and left their kids with poor Verbal:
"No wonder she and Harry are lookin' so sprightly these last couple weeks. I thought it was just 'cause they were heading to the Caymans, but--"
"The hell's the Caymans? That near Gainesville?"
"Western Caribbean, a peaceful British Crown Colony known as the Cayman Islands."
"What?"
"Consists of three islands just 480 miles south of Miami. The Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman."
"Goddamn!"
"Me and Deeder went down there once, few years back, after the insurance settlement came through for when we caught the game warden illegally tapping our phones."
I found the interjection on the Caymans funny and revealing. These people don't all just sit around the bar drinking (well, maybe most of the time) but have been exposed to the world at least enough to know that there's a bigger world out there.
The last thing I would like to touch on is the story itself. I said I had to read it twice, and I believe this will be a book I pick up every year or so to reread because I have trouble understanding exactly what the story is about. And I realized why on the second reading. Piccirilli poses so many story questions, using a setting and characters that feel like a fevered dream, that I struggled to keep track of what all the events meant. But on this second reading, I realized that not all the events are necessarily important to the story. Piccirilli admits as much in the last chapter, where Thomas reflects on the events and goes through all the unanswered story questions and dismisses them in one way or another. Normally, I would say that it's bad form to leave major story events unanswered, but in this case I can accept it. I think many of the unanswered events serve to build the characters and setting and need no explanation. But the risk is overwhelming the reader with questions and not satisfying them at the end.
This is one helluva ghost story.
Another Round of How-To, Part 3
This is the last of a three-part journal on How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Edited by J. N. Williamson, a collection of How-To articles by some of the best horror writers, circa 1987. Part one covered chapters 1-8; part two covered chapters 9-18.
The advice found in these final chapters still mirrors advice found in the wonderful On Writing Horror, another collection of How-To articles by some of horror's best writers circa 2007. But here's one thing I've learned from reading both books (and a slew of other How-To books) that's not actually in either. I'm sick of reading How-To books on writing. In my genre session during last writer's residency, Dr. Arnzen commented that if all you read are how-to books, then all you'll be able to write are how-to books. I've grown to appreciate his statement. With that, let me get through this and hopefully I'll be done with anything How-To for a while.
Another Round of How-To, Part 2
This is part two of a three-part journal on How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Edited by J. N. Williamson, a collection of How-To articles by some of the best horror writers, circa 1987. Part one covered chapters 1-8.
In my first post, I mentioned how strikingly similar the advice is to that found in On Writing Horror, another collection of How-To articles by some of horror's best writers circa 2007. I've still found this to hold true. I don't mean that as a slight against either work, as the essays in both are unique to the authors. For me, this reinforces that the advice found within each work has a certain timeless quality to it even though markets have changed.
Another Round of How-To
This is the first of three posts on How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Edited by J. N. Williamson. The book is a collection of How-To articles by some of the best horror writers, circa 1987.
Late last year I did a series of posts on On Writing Horror, another collection of How-To articles by some of horror's best writers circa 2007. Twenty years separate the publication of these two books, but so far I haven't found anything other than the market survey that really differentiate the two. I've commented before that information repeated across authors is usually good advice, and I think that's still true. But, I'm a little disappointed that I haven't found anything new here. Yet.
A Fogged-Out Landscape
It's wonderful how much we can learn from stories, particularly when well told. Stephen King spends the first part of his book, On Writing, by walking the reader through a series of 'fogged-out' memories. The book itself is about writing. But he sets the stage by doing what he does best, and tells the story of what made him what he is today.
I can't say if it was intentional on his part, but in telling what he considers his "C.V.", King demonstrates a series of important lessons that were critical in shaping him. Notice I said demonstrate. I think this is, perhaps, one of the first aspects he teaches us. His book is about writing, but instead of listing out a series of lessons, he shows us what he learned and how he learned it. It is a vehement adherence to the old adage of "show, don't tell". I've read too many books and articles on writing that do little more than list out rules or guidelines or maxims or adages or aphorisms or whatever word you want to use. But, in the end, they're nothing more than a handful of words on a page that leave the reader with little more than a sense that there's something to memorize. There's no feeling in the lessons they impart, no connection to the reader. Just rules.
I also think that each person who reads his book will come away with different insights based on how they relate King's stories to themselves. I'll recount what I learned from this, but by no means is this an exhaustive list of lessons to be found. It's one of those things that you simply must read for yourself in order to get at the real value.
Humor and Horror are very close cousins. As writers, we don't necessarily need to avoid one in favor of the other. King emphasizes that having a sense of humor is important. Rather, we need to be aware of both and conscious of when we cross the line between the two. He learned this (sort of) early on from his experience with a baby sitter who would fart on his face. Boy could I relate - for me, it was my brother. He also tells the story of how he was cut off the list for being in Honor Society due to his sense of humor, and how he's happy to have humor over prestige any day.
Good ideas don't come from some common place that we must learn to tap. For him, they come from taking two unrelated things and putting them together. He demonstrates this by discussing how the ideas for several of his stories appeared. This is pretty common advice anymore, but I think he does a really good job of demonstrating it.
Even Stephen King felt shame about his writing. I just can't imagine this guy ever being ashamed of his writing, but he lays it out. Early on, there were people in his life, authority figures, who thought that writing horror was a waste of his talent. That shame stuck with him for a while. There's always going to be someone who will try to make you feel bad about your ability to create and how you choose to use it. Don't let it keep you down. That's a tough one to deal with. I know I've experienced shame, I even tried to set my desire to write aside, chalk it up to some sort of childish endeavor. But it caught up with me. There's misery in letting other people manipulate you through shame.
The first draft of a story is you telling it to yourself. The second draft and beyond are you telling it to someone else. This is one I personally struggle with. The perfectionist in me wants to do it right the first time and be done with it. I have no idea why that's part of my personality. I suppose, if I look at my parents, there's something of a perfectionist in each of them. But it's also not fair for me to attribute that to them at my age. I think part of it is also living in the 9 to 5 culture. When someone is paying you by the hour, they're not inclined to just let you try until you get it right. I've also read that perfectionism is a form of fear, a way of delaying the end of something. Sounds weird, but okay, I guess it's possible. Whatever the reason, the important thing is that I'm aware of it now, and I can work on giving myself permission to use the first draft to tell myself the story. Then I can go back and rewrite it for everyone else.
King gets into this idea of work ethic, which is not something I've every really heard directly associated with writing (or any creative endeavor). It's more than just perseverance. He talks about a poem his wife wrote when they were still in school. Part of what made the poem so appealing to him was that, in a time when people were just writing crap out of thin air (my words, not his), she constructed a poem with intent and full understanding of what she was trying to accomplish. I can really relate to this. My undergraduate work involved several poetry writing classes. I saw my fair share of words thrown together with disregard to craft. I did my fair share, as well. In the long run, it's unsatisfying for everyone involved.
During a rough period in his life, when he was working hard and felt like he was just repeating his mother's life, King finds himself thinking that that isn't what his life was supposed to be. I suppose at one time or another we may all think this, and he admits as much. The difference, and this isn't anything unique to writing, is that King did something about it. Even when the writing was hard, when it came infrequently, and the day-to-day drained his life away, he never gave up. This is a quality most successful people share, and I think it also relates to work ethic. Never give up.
Even from the start, King had emotional support. His mother encouraged him, and later on, his wife encouraged him. This isn't advice for the writer, but for those around him or her. King sums it up: "Just believing is usually enough."
King gives background on the story of Carrie. He drafted three single-spaced pages of the novel, and then threw them away. His wife recovered them later, and encouraged him to work on it (there's the support), but what I found really interesting is why he threw those pages away in the first place. He gives four reasons, and provides them in order from least important to most important:
- It didn't move him emotionally.
- He didn't like the lead character.
- He wasn't comfortable with the setting or the all-female cast of characters.
- The story wouldn't pay off unless it was pretty long - longer than what the men's magazine market supported at the time. He didn't think he could sell it.
Look at that list again - it speaks volumes about King's work ethic and his sense of writing as a business. The least important thing on his list was that it didn't move him emotionally. The most important was whether or not he could sell it. It turns out that he was wrong about #4, but the point is, it was at the forefront of his mind when writing. He treated it as a career, it was a source of income for him and his family, not some esoteric activity he did on the side. I suppose some might think these priorities aren't in the right order, but I think they are. In order to be an author, one must recognize and engage in writing as a business as well as a creative endeavor. Writing a book is easy. Sit down and bang away at a keyboard until you've produced somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 words. That doesn't make you an author, although it's good practice and a necessary part. Sit down and do the same thing with all the awareness and intent of one doing business, producing something that has market value, and now you're an author. It doesn't have to be a big market, but in the end, authorship comes through sales. Okay, so I guess the first time through is for yourself, as discussed above. But, it must be refined into marketable material.
King wraps up his C.V. with the story of his battle with drugs and alcohol. Through it all, he kept writing. In retrospect, it's clear that many of the works he produced were related to this battle. Some are more direct than others. Part of writing fiction is developing metaphors for life, revealing truths through lies. But in discussing his drug abuse and how his works relate to it, King gives a spectacular demonstration of fiction as a metaphor. More importantly, though, is that King shows us that his fiction contains metaphors for his life. That, I think, is key. It's a combination of the idea of metaphor and the idea of writing what you know. Your work will likely contain metaphors for your own life, and getting in touch with those personal metaphors can help develop both your work and you.
There's a little section after his C.V. called "What Writing Is". Kings spends just a few pages on the subject, but they provided an immense amount of clarity to me. One of my problems is getting caught up in details. I think it must be related to the perfectionist in me, but at times I think it's also a form of procrastination. Somewhere I read that writing is about the half-described gesture, and King says as much. King describes writing as a form of telepathy, and that what's important is the message, not the details. Trust the receiver / reader to know what you're talking about, that a cage need only be described as a cage if it's not the core of the message. He closes the section with some noteworthy advice:
Come to [the page] any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.
...If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else.
I'm here to take it seriously.
“On Writing… oh, to hell with it.
The last section of "On Writing Horror" is all about the business aspect of being a writer. It provides a nice overview of the current markets, good resources for research and promotion, and some worthwhile advice from editors and writers alike.
Here's the advice I'm taking right now, given by Night Shade Books:
Write what you think is your best book. Put it in a trunk and write another one. Do this four times. Then start sending your novels out for submission.
So, while it's never to early to build awareness about the market, right now I'm focusing on building my writing skills. If there's nothing to sell, there's nothing to market.
Oh, and the afterword by Harlan Ellison - quite cool.
I'm done with this book, moving on to the next.
“On Writing Horror” – Part Seven
Part 7 of On Writing Horror is titled "Genre and Subgenre", but the 10 articles also cover concerns with medium as well (screenplay, theater, audio).
Archetypes and Fearful Allure: Writing Erotic Horror, Nancy Kilpatrick
I really struggled with this one. Kilpatrick seems to rely heavily on the concept of Archetypes, and the just of her advice can be summed up in the following quote:
This means that the energy embedded in the image resonates with all readers because it taps into and stirs up the collective unconscious.
I don't see anything practical in that sort of advice. I mean, conceptually, it's a neat way of thinking about it - Archetypes as a framework for developing characters can be useful. But, I didn't find any truly functional advice in here.
A few other things bothered me. She makes a pretty bold statement when she addresses the balance between Erotic and Horror in a single story: "The story needs to perform on both levels equally." My problem is, this is a black and white statement. The story works if it achieves and appropriate balance, not by achieving 100% equality on each side.
The rest of the article reiterated a lot of the same things as the other. Reinforcement of good ideas, but nothing really new or useful to me personally.
Writing for the New Pulps: Horror-Themed Anthologies, John Maclay
This one interested me. I always thought Anthologies were 'invite only' publications. Goes to show how little I know about the publishing world. Anyhow, Maclay and the editors he interviewed make some good cases for working with anthologies.
- They are geared to sell, although not necessarily in a way that authors make significant money.
- They are an opportunity for new authors to get published next to established authors.
- They have taken the place of the old pulp magazines, many of which are dwindling or defunt.
Never considered it as an accessible market, now I will. I guess that's what I got from this.
Freaks and Fiddles, Banjos and Beasts: Writing Redneck Horror, Weston Ochse
Great introduction to Urban Horror. Honestly, I've never really given much serious consideration to what exactly it is, but I really think Ochse gets to the heart of the matter. Urban Horror is about isolation, not locale. Urban Gothic, Brian Keene's latest novel, is a great example of this concept. It's a standard Cannibal Clan story, along the lines of Wrong Turn or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it takes place in a New Jersey ghetto. Intoday's world, that ghetto in NJ is just as isolated as the solitary farm in Appalachia.
Ochse goes on to discuss what a Redneck is, and gives a comparison of the 'stereotype' with great examples from current works. He boils it down to a perspective on the world that's derived from the isolation, the lack of "book-learning" and a reliance on intuition. He adds in this sort of fiction relies more heavily on dynamic characterization, but I think that's a good target regardless of subgenre.
What really spoke to me in this piece is Ochse treatment of style. He claims that Backwoods Horror is neither genre nor subgenre, but a style. Maybe, maybe not. The style he goes on to describe, though, is one I've found myself striving for as of late. He says that "imagery fails as sentence structures expand", and he cites Ed Lee as an example of strong prose through "active voice and transitive verbs." The writer still has to describe things to the reader, but:
This is done with short, declarative sentences and strong transitive verbs. The reader gets the image in a one-two punch instead of a long visual wrestling match.
I've found that the more I focus on achieving this style of writing, the less my work wanders. I guess in a way it forces me to get to the point, and I think it creates a fast pace for the reader regardless of the level of action.
Youth Gone Wild, Lee Thomas (aka Thomas Pendleton)
I'm not interested in writing YA stuff, but there are some interesting observations in here. Thomas notes that teens are in a unique point in their lives, and I don't think anyone can argue with that. Teens are in a constant struggle, one that can serve as a metaphor for the human conditions of life and death, of movement and journey, and of loss. These are all very powerful emotions that can serve as underpinnings for good horror.
The rest of the article covers usage of slang (sparingly, just like dialect), boundaries, and an overview of what editors look for in teen fiction. Not interesting to me.
Writing Horror comic books - And Graphic Novels, David Campiti
This was another enlightening article. As with anthologies, I personally never considered writing comic books. Much of the actual writing advice in here is a rehash of ideas presented throughout with some focus on comics, but the gem is revealing how lucrative comic books actually be for a writer.
Acts of Madness: Writing Horror for the Stage, Lisa Morton
I have no interest in being a playwright. Morton's article covers the peculiarities of being a playwright, from working with a company to the mechanics of portraying visceral horror on the stage. But, I personally found nothing in there that would help me be a better writer. Not a shortcoming of the article, just a mismatch of interests.
Fear Spins Off: The Tie-In Novel Comes Into Its Own, Yvonne Navarro
Tie-Ins are a long way off for me. If ever. Actually, probably never. I prefer to work in my world, not someone else's. Navarro makes it pretty clear that Tie-Ins are really only available to writers who have proven themselves, so experience and reliability are key to even getting a chance in this space.
I found it interesting that Tie-Ins are usually written just from the script. It explains why the visualizations contained in the novel version often stray quite a bit from the movie.
The Play's the Thing on the Doorstep: Writing Video and Role-Playing Games, Richard E. Dansky
Another one I'm not interested in at this point. I'm just trying to be a better writer! Anyhow, writing for rpgs and video games is clearly a team sport. Dansky does a nice job of delineating the writer's role in both processes.
Now Fear This: Writing horror for Audio Theater, Scott Hicky and Robert Madia
Another interesting medium to work with, one I might tackle some day. What I found really interesting, although not surprising, is that dialog has to spell things out for the listener. What makes for good dialog in print makes for terribly ambiguous audio scripting.
Hicky and Madia also make the claim that "...the time is ripe for a comeback of the genre in new and emerging media." Okay, yes, the Internet certainly provides a readily accessible channel for setting audio theater. But, having an accessible channel doesn't mean this will make a comeback. I'm not arguing against it, but I didn't see anything in the article aside from "the internet makes it so" to support this statement. Is there an audience for it? In the face of competition from the likes of On-Demand cable and streaming video like YouTube, is there a contingent of folks other than the nostalgic few to make and keep audio theater horror as a viable market? I don't know, but it seems counterintuitive to me.
Good Characters and Cool Kills: Writing the Horror Screenplay, Brendan Deneen
What I got most from Deneen's article is a sense of proportion. He covers the issues of premise, protagonist, villian, kills, second act, and conclusion, much of it similar to what's been said before.
In his discussion on Second Act and Conclusion, he gets at something not really covered. The idea of timing (or pacing), and how it needs to be tracked and manipulated to meet audience expectation. He talks in terms of screen time, but I think it's an important notion. In order to keep things moving along, to keep the audience engaged in the middle, the story must have layers. And, it's during the second act that those layers are explored and peeled back, momentarily leaving the prime horror element to explore the lives of the characters. It's a good framework, I think, for tackling the middle of any story, not just screenplays. The conlcusion, then, serves to tie all the layers together. He adds that in a screenplay, the conclusion should be open-ended enough for a sequel.
One other bit Deneed pulled out that I had not put any thought into is that the protagonist and villain should have a direct connection. When I read it, I thought, "duh". But in considering my current work, I realized I had not made a direct connection yet between the two. So, I got some work ahead of me.
NB: All in all, I didn't get a lot out of this section. I think that's because it covers so much in such broad terms that there's bound to be parts that aren't of interest to all horror writers.
David L. Day
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