broken abbey One writer's thoughts…

“On Writing Horror” – Part Four

Part 4 of On Writing Horror is titled "Horror Crafting", and encompasses 7 articles on the craft.  So many articles, and much of it is advice I've heard before, so I'm going to keep this as short as I can.

Such Horrible People, Tina Jens

Per Jens, "Horror is about how people react when they encounter the plot."  So to have good horror, we need good characters who interact with the plot.  That's nothing new to me, and it's sound advice.

Jens goes on to talk about balancing out developing plot and character, describing an initial process where you (the writer) might start with and idea, find characters to put in, jump back to plot to find the "monster's" goal, who's the monster up against, etc.  Then she says that, after some initial back and forth, it's time to stop with the plotting and get to know your characters.

She outlines several things writer's can do to develop their characters:  starting with people you know, working with picture files, developing full-fledged character sketches.  She does a good job of covering these, a good introductory source for those interested.

She continues on to say the payoff in doing all this seemingly unnecessary work is that now you have created characters that you can trust to help you develop the plot by interacting and reacting rather than just following orders.  Or something along those lines.  She sums the concept up well, "Listen to your characters.  It pays off."

Again, a definite plus, but also pretty common advice (at least to me).  But I think there's something much more important here than just, "knowing and trusting your characters".

Building an awareness and a trust in your characters is a misnomer.  They're not real.  What this process really does is help the writer develop an awareness and trust in themselves, and tune the skills of imagine characters in toto, so that as the plot develops, the writer isn't constantly second guessing or making inconsistent decisions.

Let's take the question of, "What would my character have for breakfast?"  Sure, who cares, but stay with me a moment.  The writer who has to stop and consider this while plotting needs to refine their skills on character by utilizing processes such as Jens describes.  But, the goal is not to produce mountains of character sketches and character data that will never be incorporated into the story.  The goal is to use the process to develop those skills internally, so that the next question that comes up can be answered with confidence and consistency.  We all have weak spots, so some writers may have to do character sketches the rest of their careers, but that's okay.  Just as long as they keep sight of the point - build trust and confidence in your knowledge of the characters.

A Hand on the Shoulder, Joe R. Lansdale

Lansdale's article is primarily about environment.  He raises an interesting perspective on the writer's connection to his or her environment, and how to benefit from it.  I think his main thrust is something I've only recently come to recognize.  I've always been tempted to set my stories in exotic places with strange characters.  Who isn't?  But, there's an incredible benefit to using what's around me everyday in my stories.  It creates a sense of honesty in the lie.

My environment is a part of who I am and what I know.  If I use it (the familiar settings and characters) as fundamental elements in my writing, then it shows through in both confidence and style.  Plus, when I do break from those and delve into the 'unusual', it has greater impact.  The normal aspects of my writing become more believable because they are real things, not imagined.  There's no need to dream up the real world when it's right in front of us.  Save the creative efforts for those things that aren't real (we hope...)

Eerie Events and Horrible Happenings: Plotting Short Horror Fiction, Nicholas Kaufmann

I didn't find much personal value in Kaufmann's article because it's concerned with short fiction.  I'm currently working on novel related skills, and I've also been working with short stories for a few years now.

That's not to say there's no value in the article.  It's does a good job of covering the fundamentals of short horror fiction.  Some of the basics covered:

• Start close to the action.
• Every scene should be related to the plot
• The main character must either have the most to lose or the most to gain
• Short stories usually stick to one conflict
• The end must tie directly to the main conflict

Definitely one I'll use to refresh myself when I tackle my next short story.

Reality and the Waking Nightmare: Setting and Character in Horror Fiction, Mort Castle

Castle's article carries a message similar to Lansdale's.  Save the imagination for the places it really matters.  Good fiction must be credible, and the best way to achieve that is to keep as close to the truth as possible when it comes to setting and character.  Two quotes sum this up:

...readers are familiar with the ordinary; they live there.  Readers relate to the ordinary...

and

When the ordinary is invaded by the terrifyingly extraordinary, horror happens.

I like that last one, and I'm striving to keep it close to the heart.  In a world where everything is fantastic, everyone is a monster or a superhero, then the writer has to work extra hard to bring in anything with shock value.  But, if we keep things as close to normal as possible, then shocking the reader should come more easily.

"He Said?" She Asked: Some Thoughts About Dialog, David Morrell

Dialog has and is one of my toughest challenges.  At least it's where I've been spending most of my focus lately.  The advice found in here is an invaluable listing of the fundamentals of dialog.  Morrell addresses the following common problems in dialog:

• Use of tags - Stick to the basics: said, asked, and a few others.
• Use of adverbs - DON'T
• Use of punctuation - Stick to periods and question marks.  Emphasize through action or description, not tags or exclamation marks.
• Colloquialisms - Extreme moderation
• Sloppy Diction via misspelled words - Again, Extreme moderation

Worth the read for anyone just getting into dialog challenges.

Keep It Moving, Maniacs: Writing Action Scenes in Horror Fiction, Jay R. Bonansinga

Writing action is like writing poetry.  While Bonansinga doesn't say this directly, I think it's a fair way to sum up the first part of his article.  The point is to get the language to match the action.   Fundamentally, it's about rhythm, establishing it and getting it to change along with the action of the scene.  Bonansinga describes various techniques that include moving from terse sentences to more free-form, abrubt insertion of all caps, and alliteration.

The other considerations he covers are:

• Presenting through a character - action should be shown subjectively to provide emotional as well as physical response.
• Engaging the environment - having the character interact with the environment to enhance action.
• Details - make use of the human tendency to fixate on details during violent events.
• Time - make time compress and expand to bring focus in on the action and expedite periods of inactivity.

I really appreciate his final words on the subject:

That's what action is.

A human being in peril - forced to perceive.

The Dark Enchantment of Style, Bruce Holland Rogers

Rogers reiterates what I think is pretty common advice on the subject of style.  Read, analyze and practice.  But, there are two new perspectives he presents that I think are invaluable.

I struggle with style constantly, but I've never been certain why.  Style has always been something an author has in my mind, and Rogers says flat out that this is wrong.  In fact, he says that finding your voice is inappropriate advice.  The trick is, and I agree, to find the voice for each story.  That voice may, and likely will, be different.  Yes, a writer may have a particular style that shines through every work, but I agree with Rogers when he says:

The voice, rather, is one that is just right for telling a particular kind of tale.

and

A good writer suites the telling to the tale.

The other piece of advice he gives is to slow down in both reading and writing.  It's a process he's suggesting, one that will serve to make the writer more aware of language, and that certainly can't hurt.

“On Writing Horror” – Part Three

Part 3 of On Writing Horror is titled "Developing Horror Concepts".  It contains four articles dealing with conceiving and developing ideas for horror.

A World of Dark and Disturbing Ideas, J. N. Williamson

Williamson chooses to speak in terms of "useful premise" as opposed to "idea", and I can appreciate his working definition.  Idea's are great, but they are largely useless if they cannot or will not be executed.  This is true pretty much regardless of profession or circumstance.  Per Williamson, a "useful premise" is:

a concept that (1) may be new or hasn't been developed into a plot for quite awhile, (2) the writer is comfortable with, and (3) for which, it can be reasonably assumed an accessible market exists.

Great working definition, and good advice.  Ideas are great, but if it's not relatively unique, you're not comfortable with it, and there's no certainty around marketing it, move on.

He moves on to talk about the "Hypnagogic State" as being an essential resource of "useful premises" for him.  As I read, I thought of a few things I'm familiar with - the concepts of Lucid Dreaming and the Akashic Records.  Williamson seems essentially to be talking about dreaming with intention, or staging yourself so that, when you fall asleep, you're able to tap into the workings of your unconscious mind to work up your own "useful premises".  Whatever the method or the terminology, I like what he's talking about, and I try to utilize it myself.  It's a controlled wandering of the mind, a release and freedom to explore that seems to be an extremely difficult thing to accomplish in today's society - due to constant, unfettered access (email, cell phone, instant messaging) and increased demands for our time and attention by things other than writing.  I think the crux of Williamson's article here is pretty much that you have to make time for your craft, for your mind to work beyond just "ideas" by being permitted to focus an idea into a "useful premise".  We, as writers, have to make time to get in touch, and stay in touch, with our creative side.

Mirror, Mirror, Wayne Allen Sallee

Sallee's article addresses 'getting ideas'.  Personally, I didn't find anything really new in here.  It's a decent summary of where a writer can find ideas, though.  Essentially, he talks about finding ideas in the circumstances that surround you (like news stories, etc), finding characters by observing the people around you, and finding horrors by introspection.

There were a few things he mentioned that I find interesting, though.  In the section about introspection, he says that while terror may not be new, there is the potential for a new angle by understanding different behavioral traits.  I noted in the margins that "changes in understanding and perspective on behavior provide a fresh look".  Contemporary psychology provides an opportunity for redefining the old tropes by allowing for different reasons and perspectives on circumstances.

The other interesting piece in here that I hadn't considered comes in his final section.  He suggests that the contemporary horror writer is faced with greater challenge than ever because our readers are constantly bombarded with horror in a way that wasn't possible in the past.  This is incredibly important, I think, even though it's not about how a writer finds ideas because it's critical in understanding which ideas are 'useful'.  He further suggests that in spite of this, successful writing must have characters (good or bad) with human traits of affliction.  The humanity of our characters is what will help to bind them to our readers and create the shared experience we all must drive for.

Going There: Strategies for Writing the Things that Scare You, Michael Marano

One of the best ways to ensure you'll frighten your audience is by writing about what frightens you.  I think Marano definitely has a valid point here, but I think it's even broader.  It's about getting the emotion into the writing in general.  If the writer believes in his own work, feels the blood rushing through his veins, his temperature rise, the cacophony and confusion that result from stress, it'll come through in the work.

Marano poses a few ways of honing this ability.  One is the often cited means of copying another writer's work.  The idea is that by going through the process of actually writing out scenes that move you, you learn how to write such scenes yourself.  This is pretty common advice (at least it has been in my experience) - to become a master, start by copying one.  I'm not really a fan of this.  I've tried it, and I always wind up getting caught up in the mechanics of the process, like a transcriber rather than a student.  It may work for some, but I've not felt any great personal gain by this exercise.

Method Acting is another tactic he poses a possible route for getting the emotion into it.  This is one I do draw on, but it's more of an instinctive response rather than a planned out or focused activity.  I find myself dropping down into my characters at tense moments and trying to link their situation with some similar emotional situation in my own past.  It's also something I find works best for me incorporated into my writing process, not set aside as a precursor to writing.

The last method he discusses is one of my favorites - that of surrounding important items with "negative space" or empty space.  This is something I also experimented with in my poetry writings - the power of what's left unsaid.  I find that some of my more best (most fulfilling) writing often comes by giving incomplete descriptions, what Marano calls "strategic glimpses".  There's a powerful psychology at work underneath this tactic, one that serves to pull the reader in - the idea of the Gestalt effect.  In simplest terms, it's the natural tendency of our minds to 'fill in the blanks'.  By leaving strategic blanks, or divulging only glimpses of an image, you force the reader into completing the picture with what is most terrifying to them.

Honest Lies and Darker Truths: History and Horror Fiction, Richard Gilliam

I'm not all that interested in historical fiction, but there were some items in Gilliam's article that I found interesting.  His article seems mostly geared towards helping those interested in writing historical fiction through understanding how to research and how to apply that research.  I think the most interesting part of this article is Gilliam's discussion on accuracy and relevance.  I can agree with him that, it is the relevance of a story that makes historical fiction stand out, as opposed to its historical accuracy.  This links back to the idea of character.  If the characters in the story are both interesting and relevant to the audience, then historical inaccuracy is likely to be forgiven or ignored by most.

Gilliam also discusses a few forms of historical fiction - the "What-If" story, and the "Parable".

He says the first is an underutilized form, and that there's two possible problems with its use.  One possible problem is that the premise is more interesting than the story.  The other, that the subject's personality may conflict with the "what-if".  In the what-if, there's a challenge of keeping an 'honest lie', keeping true to the character's historical personality while changing the context.

The Parable is retelling a contemporary situation in a historical context.  The prime example he offers, which most writer's are familiar with, is that of The Crucible as a repesentation of the McCarthy trials.

Interesting, but not all that relevant to me right now.  Why?  Well, his next section on Gothic Horror sums up why I think it's in my best interest to steer clear of historical fiction:

Most commercially successful horror fiction has a contemporary setting.

I think my horror writing is best told in a contemporary setting, so I'm going to stick with that for now.

“On Writing Horror” – Part Two

Part 2 of On Writing Horror, titled "An Education in Horror", briefly addresses a horror writer's education in four articles.

What You Are Meant to Know: Twenty-One Horror Classics, Robert Weinberg

Weinberg's message is pretty clear - know your genre.  He suggests that, in order to be marketable, you must be original.  And, in order tob e original, you must know what's already been done.  Aside from the mechanics of writing, a horror writer must be familiar with what's been done.  I think that's great advice regardless of genre, that in order to be creative - combine the usual in unusual ways - you must first know what is usual.  He lists out 21 books that every horror writer should read.  Sad to say, I've only read 6 and seen the movie version of 4.  I guess I have some reading to do...

Avoiding What's Been Done to Death, Ramsey Campbell

Campbell's message is similar to Weinberg's - know your genre.  Rather than provide a list of representative works, though, he instead provides several guidelines to help the new horror writer.

• Be true to yourself.
• Read widely outside the genre.
• Find your own voice.
• Imagine how it would feel to be all your characters.
• Feel involved with your writing, or else no one else will.

Good advice, but all things I've heard in other places.  There is, however, one additional interesting bit to his article that deals with the cliche of evil.  Campbell says:

Horror fiction frequently presents the idea of evil in such shorthand form as to be essentially meaningless.

I think his point is, that often horror presents evil as just that - an abstraction of words on the page, a mysterious force that moves people and warrants no explanation.  Rather than that, he says we need to define horror by how it relates to us (that's "us" as in the writers).  I rather like his point.  Evil is an abstraction, and in my opinion, meaningless without context.  What's horrific and evil to one may not be to another.  It's important that we address and demonstrate evil in the human context - give it a face, give it a name, let it walk around, maybe even give it a few likable qualities.  Evil as something that just is, a mysterious driving force, feels like a cheat to me.  I think that not doing this, doing the shorthand form of evil, might be a way of not tackling the issue of portraying a fresh and creative view on it.  It's a form of procrastination on the part of the writer to just say, "this happened because the devil made him do it".  I just hope I remember not to do this myself.

Workshops of Horror (and Seminars and Conferences), Tom Monteleone

Aside from a repectable list of conferences, seminars, and workshops, Monteleone provides an important message.  In order to be good writers, we must close the feedback loop.  I know for my part, I struggled a long time trying to work in isolation to develop my craft, and it just doesn't work.  Writing is such a subjective thing that it's impossible to know if you're getting any better without direct and immediate feedback from other, experienced writers (and readers).  Conferences, Seminars, and Workshops provide that feedback loop.

I went back to school for this very reason.  I participated for a year in a local workshop that provided good feedback, but I needed more.

Degrees of Dread: Horror in Higher Education, Michael A. Arnzen

Like Monteleone, Arnzen's article also addresses the idea of closing the feedback loop.  His suggested route, though, is through academe.  He says that there's been a significant change in the times, and that in today's world, publishers and editors expect new writers to come to them relatively complete.  There is no more concept of apprenticeship within the industry.

Arnzen suggests that major components a new writer can gain from an academic program are process (how to write) and experience (writing).  He says it's possible to compile your own educational agenda from the various workshops and published materials, but that the education system offers more.  In addition to teaching process and discipline, the new writer gains access to contemporary published authors in an academic program.

The rest of his article provides good guidance on locating a program.  I won't reiterate it here, but I will say that this article is one of the many things that convinced me to go back to school.

“On Writing Horror” – Part One

Today I'm starting my journal entries for On Writing Horror, A Handbook by The Horror Writer's Association.  The book contains about 50 individual articles, divided among 8 different sections, so I'm going to match my entries up to the sections rather than address the articles individually.

Part one is called "Horror, Literature, and Horror Literature".  The three articles in this section seem to address the question of whether or not Horror Fiction is or isn't Literary Fiction.  Or more broadly, the contention between Genre Fiction and Literary Fiction that seems to be pervasive, and has been for quite some time, in the literary community.

The Madness of Art, Joyce Carol Oates

Oates talks about art forms in general, and how in the visual arts there seems to be no mainstream or convention that divides the community.  In music, there is almost the opposite extreme - that the classics continue to be classics while contemporary composes struggle for access to small audiences.  I guess she's not talking about mainstream or popular music, because I think if you include all the rock/pop/alternative musicians (those who get 80% of the radio coverage), then the same problem occurs as you see in literature.  Pop artists are rarely if ever considered 'serious' musicians.

In literature, Oates says that the classics have demoted other works, that

...the elevation of "mainstream" and predominantly "realistic" writing has created a false topology in which numerous genres are perceived as inferior to, or at least significantly different from, the mainstream.

Oates claims that, in part, the difference between "Gothic" (her preferred term) work and literary work is as the difference between Plato and Aristotle - the difference between what may be and what actually is.  That's a bold way of saying, I think, that horror (and likely genre fiction in general) is the realm of imagination, an exploration of what could be, that doesn't seem to be readily apparent in literary fiction.  Okay, I'm not so sure what she's really trying to get at with this, but what she comes to next did strike a chord with me.

She goes on to talk about the weaknesses in horror fiction, saying that any problem lies in the quality of execution.  She addresses one of my favorite authors, H.P. Lovecraft, who I'll readily admit is not always easy to read.  Briefly, she said that:

"phenomena" rather than "persons" are the logical heroes of stories, one consequence of which is two-dimensional, stereotypical characters about whom it is difficult to care.

Yup, big problem.  Often in horror, you see the situation or circumstances overshadow any attention to the characters themselves, so often, when the characters struggle through circumstances that culminate in a victory or defeat, you don't care.  The kids who get slaughtered at summer camp were just fodder for the serial killer, and no one shed a tear over them.  She wraps up by saying:

The standards for horror fiction should be no less than those for "serious, literary" fiction in which originality of concept, depth of characters, and attentiveness to language are vitally important.

I'll take those standards to heart.

Acceptance Speech: The 2003 National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Stephen King

Long title and a long speech.  The bulk of his speech contained thanks to those who supported him and a brief summary of his life and work.  But the core of what's important in his speech can be summed up in two words:  Write Honestly.

What's that mean?  King talks about how often people talk of genre writers as being only concerned with making money.  He says for him, that's as as far from the truth as you can get.  He says that had he written with fame and fortune in mind, he would not have been successful because those are nothing but distraction.  I agree.

He talks about how he tries to stay true to human nature, even though he writes about fantastic situations.  That, when an elevator falls, people are much more likely to scream "Oh shit!" than spout out things like "Goodbye, Neil, I will see you in heaven."  That for him, staying true means writing the "Oh shit!" line because that's how people are more likely to react.  I think he sums this up really well:

We understand that fiction is a lie to begin with.  To ignore the truth inside the lie is to sin against the craft, in general, and one's own work in particular.

He wraps up his speech by talking about how we need to bridge the gap between literary and popular fiction.  Popular fiction is the "fiction of one's own culture", and to ignore it is to ignore one's culture.

Why We Write Horror, Michael McCarty

Not much to this one, as it's a series of writers' responses to the question "Whey do you write horror?"  The interesting thing is, McCarty says that while a lot of genre writers get this question, when it comes to horror, the question is asked in the same manner one might say, "Whey do you think this way?"

The answers don't very too much.  Several talk about addressing Mystery.  I like how Straub puts it:

...the mysterious realm that we sometimes apprehend around us, with a sense of the numinous, with a sense of things unknown...

Several others talk in terms of honest, very similar to what King talks about in his acceptance speech and his other works that deal with writing.  A few say that first and foremost, they write, and that it just happens to be that horror always seems to come out.  And a few seem to say that it's just how their wired or how they were born.

I guess all are feasible reasons.  Why do I write horror?  A little bit of all of these, but I think the biggest reason is the mystery.  The most interesting things to me are what happens when things get weird.  In humans, as in physics, things bend and twist in wild, wicked ways when things go to extremes.  The rules seem to change, or we learn that the rules weren't what they seemed or didn't exist at all.