Showing posts with label Douglas Preston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Douglas Preston. Show all posts

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Styling the Thriller

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

 Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night


In his “Introduction” to the 2006 Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night, James Patterson, playing the role of editor, reminds readers that the varieties of thrillers is deep and wide, including “the legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, and military thriller, but they have “common ground” in “the intensity of emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness.” In short, a thriller must thrill (iii).


James Patterson

Thrillers are also fast-paced, Patterson says, and their protagonists achieve “an objective . . . at some heroic cost. The main character's “goal can be personal (trying to save a spouse or a long-lost relative) or global (trying to avert a world war) but often it's both.” There may be a ticking clock (iii). A thriller, he maintains, may “build rhythmically to rousing climaxes that peak with a cathartic, explosive ending,” or a thriller may “start at top speed and never let off” (iii). Thrillers tend to be well-researched and to use “accurate details.” At the end, readers “should feel emotionally satisfied and better informed” (iii).

The collection includes thirty short stories by thirty-three well-known writers, among them Lee Child, James Rollins, David Morrell, John Lescroart, Eric Van Lustbader, F. Paul Wilson, Brad Thor, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. In many of the tales, well-known protagonists make another appearance: Jack Reacher (“James Penney's New Identity”), Joe Kowalski (“Kowalski's in Love”), Repairman Jack (“Interlude at Duane's”), Nick Neumann (“Assassins”), NYPD's Detective Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta (“The Fisherman”).

Often, the situations on which a thriller is built is as at least as interesting as the story's protagonist and villain, and those in Thriller are, generally, intriguing, even if they are familiar, in large part because of the way their authors handle them. The stories are based on such situations as “an explosion at the U. S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay” (34), street gangs (53), an unexpected storm (68), an empath (89), the setting of a trap for a dangerous former FBI profiler (178), prison life (259), Balkans intrigue (292), a road trip (342), and the theft of an Inca sacrificial knife (542). Most are close to twenty pages in length.
James Penney's New Identity”


In Lee Child's story, “James Penney's New Identity,” the divorced protagonist is fired from the factory job at which he's worked for seventeen years, because of downsizing. Unable to pay for his new Firebird, Penney burns down his house. The fire also destroys the homes of two of his neighbors. With six weeks' pay in his pocket, from his last check, Penney leaves town. After spending the night in a cheap hotel, he wakes to find that his Firebird has been stolen. He goes to the local police station to report the theft, but sees a wanted poster with his photograph on it; he's wanted for arson and criminal damage. He flees, and, wen a driver offers him a ride, he accepts.


The driver, Jack Reacher, is a military police officer who has false identification documents, which he seized from Edward Hendricks, an Army liaison officer he'd arrested. He lets Penney have a set of the documents, handcuffs him, and, Penney posing as his prisoner, are passed through a police roadblock after the authorities check their identification and record their names.

The men separate, and Reacher disposes of the corpse in the trunk of his car. Lee leaves it to his readers to make the connections between the story's rather over-the-top set of coincidences and figure out their collective significance.

Gone Fishing”


We don't learn the first names of the on-the-lam duo of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's “Gone Fishing.” They've stolen an Inca sacrificial knife from New York City's Natural History Museum. They'd made a deal to sell the stolen artifact to Lipski, a psychopathic criminal fence, who'd planned, in return, to sell it to a wealthy collector. After stealing the knife, though, Woffler and Perotta decide to cut out Lipski, the “middleman,” and fence the item themselves; failing to find a buyer, they'll melt the knife down for its rubies and gold.


First, however, they plan to lie low and have rented a mountain cabin surrounded by woods near Passumkeag Lake, New Hampshire. On their way to their destination, Perotta annoys Woffler by needlessly drawing attention to them by speeding, sending his hamburger back twice at a restaurant, staring at a tough ex-con in the restaurant and spewing rocks and dust over him as he peels out of the parking lot, and honking at a psychedelic VW bus bearing “Honk if You Support Pro-Choice” bumper stickers.


Soon after their arrival at the cabin, they hear a knock at their front door, but no one is there. They imagine they've heard the sound—then, there's a second knock. Investigating, Woffler sees footprints at the edge of the woods, leading into the forest. At Perotta's insistence, Woffler follows the footprints into the woods. Both men wonder whether his partner plans to double-cross him and abscond with the stolen relic. Perotta also wonders whether their mysterious stalker is the ex-con. Although Perotta also suspects Lipski, he thinks the fence an unlikely suspect. He also dismisses Lipski's potential buyer, who wouldn't know of the theft yet.
Thirty minutes pass. Woffler has not returned to the cabin. Perotta hears what might have been a scream and, arming himself with a flashlight, sets out on his partner's trail. Along the way, he sees what he thinks is a mushroom, then a shell; the object, he realizes to his horror, is, in fact, a severed human ear.


Fleeing, he becomes lost. He suspects the stalker is Lipski, after all; suspicious of Woffler and Perotta, Lipski has followed them. A bloody hand seizes Perotta, but he shakes it off and hastens from the area, still lost. His flashlight illuminates a severed foot, then a decapitated head. A voice threatens to do to Perotta hat was done to other victims.


Natural History Museum, New York City

The story skips forward. Lt. Vincent D'Agosta, NYPD, is on the scene as local investigators bag the body parts. Police have determined that the victims are Woffler and Perotta, employees of New York's natural History Museum. Local police have found the men's wallets and Ids and the stolen knife and called the NYPD, having heard of the heist. D'Agosta warns a local police officer that there will be more victims and that the murders of Woffler and Perotta ave nothing to do with the sacrificial knife they stole, but the officer does not believe D'Agosta.


The story skips ahead again, as the serial killer, The Fisherman, sits inside his psychedelic VW bus, parked by the side of the road leading out of town. A passing car, noting the bumper stickers on his bus, honks. Thankful to God that He has given him another opportunity to “serve” Him by killing and dismembering “another killer of the unborn,” the murderer drives onto the road and follows the carload of his next victims.

Techniques

Child and the writing team of Douglas and Preston use their own techniques to craft their stories, techniques that help them to build their thrillers.


Detective Sergeant Joe Friday of Dragmet

Child uses a straightforward approach, in which he straightforwardly moves from one incident to the next, using a journalistic style in which, despite his stories' intense emotions, seems to present “just the facts,” as Dragnet's Sergeant Friday was fond of saying to witnesses recounting their stories. This happened, and then this, followed by this next thing. His technique lulls the reader into accepting the events, even when they would become hard to believe otherwise. Just what are the chances that a wanted arsonist would encounter a murderer disguised as a police officer—and a military police officer, at that? Whatever they are, the odds become even less likely when the killer just happens to have a few sets of fake Ids in the trunk of his car, the one inside which he's hauling his victim's dead body. However, thanks to Child's disarmingly straightforward, matter-of-fact style, readers are likely to pass over so,me of these “details” or at least pretend to turn a blind eye to them. Child's style, in short, helps readers to maintain a Coleridge an “willing suspension of disbelief.”


Preston and Child pile up details—a lot of them—while tossing half a dozen suspects at readers. The story's incidents snowball, but, at the same time, have a relationship with the other incidents of the story, incidents bound to other incidents and to characters, and characters tied to other characters and to incidents. What is a simple story, when everything is unraveled at the end, seems complex and mysterious in the telling. Who's out there, in the woods (and the swamp), stalking the pair of robbers? The ex-con? Lipski, the fence? Lipski's prospective customer? One or the other of the two robbers himself, intending to double cross his partner in crime? The vengeful spirit associated with the stolen Inca knife of sacrifice? These suspects are linked through the crime Woffler and Perotta have committed; through their road trip; through Perotta's making “scenes” along the way, by speeding, harassing a waitress, eyeballing and dissing an ex-con, and honking at a VW bus parked alongside the highway, during the robbers' drive from New York to New Hampshire; and by the remote cabin they rent in the deep woods. Everything is related, but only one set of relationships, in the end, counts. Preston and Child keep their readers guessing by a style that draws relationships everywhere, at all times.

The juxtaposition of a museum in a world-class city with the barbarism of The Fisherman is also a technique that increases the emotional thrill of the horror in the woods.

Saturday, June 29, 2019

Showing Off the Neighborhood

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Stephen King is known for the small-town settings of his horror novels, but other novelists also find plenty of horror in small-town settings, including Dan Simmons (Summer of Night), Robert R. McCammon (Boy's Life), Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Still Life with Crows), Dean Koontz (Phantoms), and, of course, Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes).



It's not hard to see the appeal of such stories.

Small towns are, in a way, an extension of home, as the term “hometown” suggests. In the past, especially, whether realistically or naively, many families left their doors unlocked at night and allowed their kids to roam the neighborhood at will, the single caveat “be home by dark.”

A community, we like to think, is a safe place, like home. It's a place full of friends, we like to believe. It's a place where everyone knows everyone else. There are, in small towns, interrelationships of many kinds: familial, romantic, friendly, neighborly, commercial.

One of the challenges that writers face when a small town is the setting of their novels is familiarizing readers with the community. Lots of people live in the town, people of various statuses, living on different streets, and performing different functions. Sometimes, those we think we know are actually strangers—perhaps dangerous ones—and those we don't know all that well turn out to be heroes. In a small town, anything is possible.

But how to introduce the town and its people, the townspeople? How to show their relationships to others? How to indicate their own hopes and dreams, fears and uncertainties?

In other words, how may readers be shown about town?

Writers tackle this task in several ways. Here are a few.

 
Still Life with Crows: The authors opt for description:

Medicine Creek, Kansas. Early August. Sunset.
The great sea of yellow corn stretches from horizon to horizon under an angry sky . . . .
One road cuts through the corn from north to south; another from east to west . . . .
A giant slaughterhouse stands south of the town, lost in the corn, its metal sides scoured by years of dust storms . . . .
The temperature is exactly 100 degrees . . . .
Twilight is falling over the landscape . . . .
A black-and-white police cruiser passes along the main street, heading east into the great nothingness of corn, its headlights stabbing into the rising darkness . . . 


Something Wicked This Way Comes: The author moves from character to character:

The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm . . . .
There's nothing n the living world like books on water cures, deaths-of-a-thousand slices, or pouring white-hot lava off castle walls on drolls and mountebanks.
So said Jim Nightshade . . . .

Watching the boys vanish away, Charles Holloway suppressed a sudden urge to run with them . . . .


Phantoms: The author uses an eclectic approach, using description, and skipping from one character to another, but employing the dramatic, or “showing,” method rather than the expository (“telling”) method to bot introduce his town and townspeople and to generate and maintain suspense:

The scream was distant and brief, a woman's scream.
Deputy Paul Henderson looked up from his copy of Time. . . .

During the twilight hour of that Sunday in early September, the mountains were painted in only two colors: green and blue. The trees—pine, fir, spruce—looked as though they had been fashioned from the same felt that covered billiard tables. Cool, blue shadows lay everywhere, growing larger and deeper and darker by the minute.

Jenny Paige had never seen a corpse like this one.

The Santinis' stone and redwood house was of more modern design than Jenny's place, all rounded corners and gentle angles. . . .

Whichever technique an author uses—and the few above are but a tiny sample—he or she must make the setting seem “real” (i. .e, believable), provide a sense of “thereness,” create and sustain suspense, introduce the characters (townspeople), and, of course, establish a mystery that's rooted in horror. If, in the process, they can establish theme or symbolism or tone or point of view bigger than those of his or her characters' individual perspectives on life, those are pluses—and big ones.

In a later post, we'll consider how horror movies that feature small-town settings show viewers around their neighborhoods.


Thursday, June 7, 2018

Creating Hostile or Threatening Settings

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Writers of horror fiction have several ways by which to suggest threatening or hostile environments.

1. Writers can depict a setting that is, in itself, bizarre.

I know a homeowner, Bruce, who cut down all the trees in his yard. He'd had a swimming pool installed in his backyard, and he was frustrated when, each fall, his trees dropped their leaves, littering his lawn and the surface of his new pool. His solution was to chop down not only the trees in his backyard, but all his trees, including those in his front and side yards. At no charge, he even volunteered to cut down the trees of his neighbor, but the neighbor declined his offer. 

Most of us, I believe, would have said no thanks, because most of us love trees. They're big, beautiful symbols of life—and they provide shade. So what if they drop their leaves every autumn? Everybody poops. (Yes, dead leaves are essentially tree droppings.) 

But, when we're confronted with trees unlike any most of us have ever seen, trees that are not only unfamiliar to us but also strange-looking? Then, maybe we'd give Bruce a call.

A case in point: the dragon tree (Dracaena cinnabaril), which thrives on Yemen's remote Socotra Island an on the Canary Islands. Named for its red sap, this tree looks as though it was planted upside down, its limbs resembling roots at the end of which grow clumps of stubby leaves. In bloom, their blossoms grow among their leaves, looking pretty much like yellow versions of the former. Unfortunately, the population of these trees has been greatly reduced and now consists mostly of only mature trees. Scientists describe the tree's status as “vulnerable,” which places it between “near threatened” and “endangered.”


Another bizarre inhabitant of Socotra Island is the cucumber tree (Dendrosicyos socotrana). It has “a bulbous trunk and a small crown,” bearing 10-inch “round leaves” with “slightly toothed” bristles and inch-long yellow fruit.

The bottle tree (Pachypodium lealii Welw) is also a rather odd-looking specimen, resembling a turnip planted upside down. This tree grows is indigenous to the Namibia.
The Juniper Tree (Juniperus phoenicea), which grows on Spain's El Hierro Island, literally bends over backward. Some, such as the one shown here, resemble human figures. Coming unexpectedly upon such a tree at dusk might send a chill up one's spine.

This bizarre specimen, the Tree of Tule, a Montezuma cypress (Taxodium mucronatum) makes its home in a Oaxaca, Mexico, churchyard. Did it not exist, a description of its appearance might seem unbelievable. Some see the shapes of jaguars, elephants, and other animals in the bark of the ancient tree's trunk, which gives it the nickname “The Tree of Life.”
 This West Australian boab tree (Adansonia gregorii ) allegedly doubled as a jail. Prisoners would be kept inside the tree overnight on their way from one place to another.
California's boojum tree (Fouquieria columnaris) is tall, exceedingly slender, and nearly leafless. Imagine walking up on a forest of these in the middle of the desert on a moonlit night. According to Seri beliefs, “touching this plant will cause strong winds to blow (an undesirable state).”
This kapok tree's strange trunk appears to consist of three branches that have grown woody “webbing” between one another. The trunk is broad enough so that two or more thick branches, each pointing in its own direction, can grow from the same side of the trunk.
The time-space continuum warp featured toward the end of my urban fantasy novel A WholeFull of World of Hurt, which was inspired by Steve Ditko's illustrations of the enchanted realms through which Marvel Comics's Dr. Strange traveled on his astral journeys, is (like Ditko's own mystical lands) a good illustration of this approach. The execution of this technique doesn't have to involve the use of surreal imagery, though, as Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House, Stephen King's Rose Red and The Shining, and Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine indicate.

2. Another way to suggest threatening or hostile environments is to make the familiar seem strange. The strange appearance of the trees we described (above) may not, in itself, be frightening enough to horrify readers (but their looks are a start!). Writers need to associate the odd-looking trees with bizarre origins or give them a back story (such as a legend) that gives them a horrific provenance. Imagining answers to questions about some of the trees described above may offer some possibilities.

What, precisely, is threatening the existence of the dragon tree? Could the tree's name derive from a source other than the accepted one? Could it have grown from the spawn of actual (now extinct) dragons, which would account for its blood-red sap? Perhaps such trees are capable, under the right circumstances, or spontaneous combustion.

Are the human shapes discernible in the bent-over-backward juniper trees actual humans who've been incorporated into tree branches, perhaps through dark magic? Were they dancers in some sort of fantastic ritual?

Do the animal shapes amid the bark of the Tree of Tule actually come to life at times? Do its elephants, jaguars, and other beasts spring from its bark to do the will of those who conjure them, returning to their passive, woody state after fulfilling their summoners' deadly missions? 

Is a character among your adventurers a criminal whose past catches up with him or her when the band passes the Boab Prison Tree? Is it more than a jail? Maybe the tree practices its own brand of vigilante justice, acting as judge, jury, and executioner concerning violent offenders who've escaped justice (until they encountered the Prison Tree). 

Why would someone generate a desert vortex—and who planted the mysterious boojum tree that creates such an effect? A Seri? Someone else? Research the Seri, and if their beliefs don't seem, by modern standards, strange enough to intrigue and, more importantly, frighten readers, substitute an imaginary people and their beliefs for those of the Seri. All is possible in fantastic fiction, after all, a genre which includes horror. Don't forget to include a bizarre motivation for the horrific horticulturalists.

Of course, the context in which the trees are introduced also makes them frightening. A writer must build toward his or her character's encounter of the mysterious trees, and the author's account of the tree's nature and origin must be fantastic and dark, if it's to generate fear.

Bentley Little is a master of this approach. In particular such of his novels as The Resort and The Influence are especially good examples of this approach. Dan Simmons's Summer of Night is also evocative of hostile landscapes, as is Stephen King's It and Dean Koontz's The Taking. Other masters of this technique include Nathaniel Hawthorne ("Young Goodman Brown") and Edgar Allan Poe ("TheFall of the House of Usher")

3. Authors can focus on the disconcerting, possibly sinister, details of an everyday place. An effective technique is to search an image browser using a phrase such as “eerie photos of landscapes.” Conducting such a search, using this same phrase, resulted in these (selected) images. (As my search term suggest, I restricted my search to scenes of actual, existing exterior places—as far as I can determine.) In considering your own gallery, ask yourself what characteristics make the photographs seem eerie. Think about both the literal (physical) and the psychological aspects of the environment.

This photograph shows dense foliage. The trees, bushes, and other forms of plant life are clothed, as it were, in thick growths of leaves that make the eye wander. One's gaze is easily lost in the abundance of detail. The tufts, clusters, and clumps of vegetation among the shadowy “hollows” between the leafy trees lead the eye in many directions and, at the same time, nowhere. We are genetically hard-wired to seek patterns in everything, but this mass of flora exhibits no discernible form or structure; it is a senseless tangle, a meaningless maze, offering no clue as to its location or context. However, our minds are reluctant to accept this symbol of meaninglessness; we are apt to stare, demanding that some meaning assert itself, even if we must invent such meaning ourselves, imagining faces or forms that exist only in our own minds, seeing her a visage, there a figure. Therein lies the possibility for terror: the abundance of foliage is a mirror of the soul, as we project upon it our own tortured fantasies; committing the pathetic fallacy, we envision a menacing place, a hell, of our own design. Denied orientation, we become confused and distraught; when meaning isn't forthcoming, we become anxious and unsettled.

At first, this slight, tree-lined berm may appear pleasantly bucolic, but this sense of sylvan beauty dissipates under closer inspection. What, we may wonder, lies buried under the extended mound? A monstrous worm, a serpent worthy of Ragnarok, a dragon? The trees, especially those in the foreground, are barren, and their sharp-pointed branches are stubby, as if they've been snapped off—but by what? Even more eerily, the row of trees on either side of the berm stand like sentinels, appearing to direct our steps, to channel us, suggesting that we take this elevated pathway to a point unknown. Are we the human equivalents of cattle being directed, along an arboreal chute, to the slaughter? How might these various perceptions—a grave for a snakelike monster, snapped-off branches, sentinel-like trees, a channeling landscape—add up to? What single scenario could unify and explain them? When we believe—or even feel—we have lost our autonomy, we experience panic.
A dark and foggy wood stimulates the imagination by depriving us of the light which is necessary for vision. In fog, as in darkness, our visibility is limited. We cannot see clearly or, sometimes, at all. Effectively blind, we can no longer be confident of our surroundings or of what threat to us may lurk ahead (or, for that matter, to either side or behind us). Dense clusters of branches and foliage also impedes vision. A remote location cuts us off from the aid of others. This photograph uses darkness, fog and the obstruction of abundant tree growth to obscure our vision, a remote site to isolate us, but it also seems to mock us. In a place devoid of human contact, we see a bench among clumps of grass, a bench green with lichen, moss, or algae, an artifact of human technology being overcome by nature. Shall this be our own fate? Cut off and alone, shall we succumb to our fate, our corpses taken over by invading plants? Perhaps we know why we began our journey, before we became lost, near nightfall, but where are we now? It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say, but, certainly, we are alone. Deprivation of sight and the company of others, we feel vulnerable and helpless.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child succeed admirably in employing this approach in many of their novels, including Still Like with Crows, Crimson Shore, and White Fire. Bram Stoker's short story "The Burial of the Rats" is a tour de force.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

The First Three Closing Paragraphs in “Gideon’s Sword”: A Study in Motivation

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


An earlier series of posts examined Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s use of opening chapters in their latest Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast novel, Fever Dream. In this series, I will take a look at the authors’ use of the first three closing paragraphs in their first Gideon Crew novel, Gideon’s Sword. Since I won’t be providing more than the most cursory and pointed chapter synopses, readers who are interested in how this thriller arrives at these closing paragraphs will have to read the book, which is unlikely to be the best thing that ever happened to them, but will likely be a fairly satisfying experience.

Here’s the closing paragraph of chapter 1:

“Dad!” he screamed into the grass, trying to claw back to his feet as the weight of the world piled up on his shoulders, but he’d seen those feet move, his father was alive, he would wake up and all would be well (7).
At this point in the novel, Gideon is twelve years old; he has just seen his father shot, numerous times--has seen him, in effect, assassinated by soldiers as he sought to surrender, hands up, having released his hostage. His screaming of “Dad” reinforces the father-son relationship that the chapter established earlier, and young Gideon is portrayed almost as though he is an animal: he is belly down, in the “grass,” screaming as he seeks to “claw” his way “back to his feet.” A pitiful figure, the boy is made even more so by his hope (vain hope, readers will surmise) that his father, who has been shot multiple times, will survive. This paragraph brings the chapter’s action to a climax and motivates readers to read on. It also characterizes Gideon, showing his love for his father, his desperation, and his naiveté.

As chapter 1 ends with the dying of Gideon’s father, chapter 2 concludes with the demise of his mother, who has extracted from her son, who is now twenty-two years old, the promise that Gideon will avenge his father’s murder:

Those were her last words, words that would resonate endlessly in his mind. You’ll figure out a way (13).
Her words, reiterated by the omniscient narrator in italics, become important to the authors’ characterization of Gideon as a young man who can and does perform the impossible, not only in avenging his father’s murder, but also in saving the world--or, at least, the United States. His love for his parents motivates him to plan, to scheme, to strategize, long-term and on the fly, persevering against all odds until he succeeds in attaining his objective. The deaths of his parents, whom he loves, fuels his resourcefulness, his perseverance, and his occasional ruthlessness.

Chapter 3 ends with a single-sentence conclusion:

There was only one way to find out (17).
Gideon has developed a specialized search engine that tracks hits concerning the classified document that his father had written for the government, and, during this chapter, he discovers that a hit has occurred “in a table of contents released to the National Security Archives at George Washington University” concerning his father’s “still-classified” report, “A Critique of the Thresher Discrete Logarithm Encryption Standard EVP-4: A Theoretical Back-Door Cryptanalysis Attack Strategy Using a Group of y-Torsion Points of an Elliptic Curve Characteristic y.” To most readers, myself included, this title is apt to sound impressive, despite its unintelligibility, and this effect, perhaps, is all that Preston and Child intend. For his part, despite his own mathematical aptitude, Gideon is unable to understand all of the document, although he realizes that “this [may] be the memo that General Tucker had supposedly destroyed” and the one that his father had been authored in criticism of the “Thresher” logarithm that got him killed. Given the motivations of his love for his parents and his desire to honor his mother by avenging his father’s murder, readers are likely to be convinced that Gideon will do whatever he needs to do to accomplish his mission now that he has what may be the lead he has long sought. If there is “only one way to find out” whether this is the “brass ring” he’s been seeking, readers will likely believe that Gideon will do it, whatever it is.

Note: To further strengthen Gideon’s motivation to serve his country, even after he has avenged his father’s murder, he is informed that he has but one year left to live, for he is dying of a “vein of Galen aneurismal malformation,” or “an abnormal tangle of arteries and veins in the brain involving the great cerebral vein of Galen,” a “usually congenital and usually asymptomatic” condition which is both inoperable and fatal, usually within a year or two (72-73). Given this veritable death sentence, Gideon is told, he can either “spend your last year amusing yourself, living life to the fullest, cramming it in till the end” or “working for your country” (75). That Gideon chooses the latter alternative ennobles him to readers and reinforces his motivation to do whatever it takes to accomplish his goals and to serve his country.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 1 through 20: Recap)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


The opening paragraphs of Chapters 1 through 20 of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream (like the rest of those which introduce the novel’s other 60 chapters) use a variety of techniques to accomplish several purposes. As I have observed in previous posts concerning this topic, these techniques and purposes include:
  • Setting the scene
  • Using figures of speech, such as similes, metaphors, images, and personifications to create atmosphere or tone
  • Involving the reader in the action
  • Beginning the narrative in media res
  • Creating a sense of immediacy (or “you-are-here”) for the reader
  • Generating, maintain, or increase suspense
  • Contrasting nature with civilization
  • Linking action to characters’ emotions
  • Identifying points of view
  • Characterizing characters by associating them with particular places
  • Introducing new or recurring characters
  • Alluding to past events in characters’ lives
  • Planting clues or red herrings
  • Describing places important to the action or theme
  • Linking one distant location to another, both of which are scenes of the story’s cosmopolitan action
  • Creating, maintain, or intensify conflicts
  • Posing rhetorical questions, both explicit and implicit, for the reader’s consideration

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 17 through 20)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


The opening paragraph of Chapter 17 of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream locates the current action in New Orleans’ Tulane University, as the protagonist arrives at the school’s Health Sciences Center, downtown, on Tulane Street, to visit Miriam Kendall. The link between the building and “New York’s financial district” links the action of the novel that occurs in Louisiana with the action that occurs in New York:

The downtown campus of Tulane University Health Sciences Center, on Tulane Street, was housed with a nondescript gray skyscraper that would not have looked out o place in new York’s financial district. Pendergast exited the elevator at the thirty-first floor, made his way to the Women’s Health Division, and--after a few enquiries--found himself before the door of Miriam Kendall (90).
Chapter 18 opens upon a tempestuous note. It also allows readers another glimpse of Pendergast’s palatial plantation house, as he makes his way to his vast collection of books. The authors’ use of such words as “moaned” and “worrying,” even though they are used to describe weather conditions, keep readers in mind of the mental anguish and worry that Pendergast is undergoing concerning his late wife’s murder and his attempt to find her killer. Likewise, a sense of the novel’s ongoing conflict is discernable in Preston and Child’s use of such verbs (again relating to the weather--at least ostensibly--and not to Pendergast per se) as “thrashing” and “beat,” and the mystery surrounding Helen’s death is underscored by the authors’ reference to the “heavy, swollen clouds” that “obscured the full moon,” just as the “the remains of a bottle”--an odd adjectival phrase, certainly--is a reminder of Helen’s remains:

Pendergast said good night to Maurice and, taking the remains of a bottle of Romanee-Conti 1964 he had opened at dinner, walked down the echoing central hall of Penumbra Plantation to the library. A storm had swept north from the Gulf of Mexico and the wind moaned about the house, worrying the shutters and thrashing the bare limbs of the surrounding trees. Rain beat on the windows, and heavy, swollen clouds obscured the full moon (95).
One forgets, almost, as he or she reads the opening paragraph to Chapter 19, that the protagonist is investigating his wife’s brutal murder in Zambia nine years ago. In “Bayou Goula, Louisiana,“ as the chapter’s tagline indicates, surrounded by the trappings of a luxury hotel’s “palm-lined courtyard,” the FBI’s Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast sits as still as a sculpture, his pale complexion reinforcing the illusion that he is one of the “alabaster statues that framed the gracious space.” Far away are the African wilds--and the concrete jungle of New York, where his investigation occasionally takes him or his assistant, first NYPD’s Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta :

Pendergast sat in the palm-lined courtyard in front of the elegant hotel, one black-clad leg draped over the other, arms crossed, motionless as the alabaster statues that framed the gracious space. The previous night’s storm had passed, ushering in a warm and sunny day full of the false promise of spring. Before him lay a wide driveway of white gravel. A small army of valets and caddies were busy ferrying expensive cars and gleaming golf carts here and there. Beyond the driveway was a swimming pool, sparkling azure in the late-morning light, empty of swimmers but surrounded by sunbathers drinking bloody Marys. Beyond the pool lay an expensive golf course, immaculate fairways and raked bunkers, over which strolled men in the broad brown swath of the Mississippi River (99).
The “elegance” of the hotel is emphasized by the paragraph’s allusions to “a small army of valets and caddies,” “expensive cars,” “gleaming golf carts” (and a golf course), and “a swimming pool, sparkling azure in the late-morning.” Perhaps, the reader may think, Pendergast is at a resort. If so, why, though? Isn’t he determined to find who murdered his wife and to bring the killer to justice? Perhaps Pendergast is taking a break, although such conduct would be out of character for him, as the reader has come, by way of other novels in which he appears, to know him. In any case, his sudden appearance at a luxury hotel makes readers curious and, curious, they read on, confident of finding answers to these rhetorical questions which they themselves have raised, in response to the protagonist’s unusual situation. Moreover, the authors keep the tension simmering by suggesting that, although “the previous night’s storm,” which had seemed so ominous, “had passed, ushering in a warm and sunny day,” it is a day which is, nevertheless, deceptive, a “day full of the false promise of spring.”

The opening paragraph of Chapter 20, the tagline of which locates the novel’s action in “St. Francesville, Louisiana,” shows D’Agosta as a man who is out of his element. As a homicide detective, the New York City investigator, is a member of the middle-class, moral, courageous, intelligent, and loyal, but far from wealthy or sophisticated. Nevertheless, he finds himself “in front of the white-washed mansion” known (readers learn in the next paragraph) as Oakley Plantation, having arrived not in a Porsche or a Rolls-Royce, as the wealthy Pendergast might arrive, but in a “rental car.” However, more significantly, the detective is out of his element when it comes to the assignment that Pendergast has given him. On one hand, it seems “hardly more than an errand,” although, on the other hand, it involves a subject matter that is beyond his experience, relating, as it does, to “dead birds”:

D’Agosta pulled up in front of the white-washed mansion, rising in airy formality from dead flower beds and bare-branched trees. The winter sky spat rain, puddles collecting on the blacktop. He sat up in the rental car for a moment, listening to the last lousy lines of “Just You and I” on the radio, trying to overcome his annoyance a having been sent on what was hardly more than an errand. What the hell did he know about dead birds? (106)
It is obvious that D’Agosta does not relish his present assignment. He thinks it both beneath him and beyond him. The weather seems to agree, for “the winter sky,” readers observe spit “rain,” as if to indicate its derision for the detective’s present mission. This paragraph accomplishes what Preston and Child often do, involving a character in a situation for which he or she seems ill-equipped, almost invariably going on to show, during the remainder of the chapter, just how well, as a matter of fact, the character is equipped (although neither he or she nor the reader would have likely believed this to be the case at the outset of the chapter) to resolve the situation’s dilemma or problem--and, of course, D’Agosta will prove more than a match for the situation involving the ‘dead birds.” (If he were not, Pendergast would not have dispatched him to attend to it.)

Having analyzed the opening chapters of twenty of Preston and Child’s Fever Dream, or twenty-five percent of the eighty chapters of which the novel, as a whole, is comprised, I believe that I have provided a representative sample of their opening-chapter techniques, and I plan to move on to other matters. However, one additional post concerning these authors’ use of opening chapters will follow, recapitulating the authors’ accomplishments in the use of the techniques I have identified and discussed.

Until then, sweet dreams. . . .

Friday, August 5, 2011

"Gideon’s Sword": The Verdict

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


In a note at the end of their latest Aloysius Pendergast novel, Fever Dream, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child promised to debut the protagonist of a new series of thrillers, Gideon Crew. In Gideon’s Sword, they make good on their promise, introducing a younger man than Special Agent Pendergast. In his twenties, Gideon is billed (on the novel’s dust jacket) as a “trickster, prodigy,” and “master thief.” After avenging the death of his father, Gideon comes to the attention of a well-heeled private organization that hires him to, well, save the world. More specifically, his mission is to steal plans for a secret doomsday weapon from a Chinese agent who may or may not be defecting from his homeland. One thing leads to another (they way one thing should do in a thriller), and, before long, Gideon is in the company of prostitutes, call girls, female CIA agents, and others as he flees a Chinese martial arts expert-cum-assassin who is known only by the name of Nodding Crane.

It’s all good fun, but I find the plot, at times, unbelievable and, at other times, hard to believe. The characterization is fairly solid, although Gideon lacks (at this point, at least) the likeability of Pendergast. The Gideon books are apparently designed to appeal to younger-than-Pendergast novel-readers, which is all well and good, which probably explains the slightly more risqué (and sometimes crude) language, the references to prostitutes and call girls, and the double entendres (a few of which fall flat). Dialogue is not one of the authors’ particular strengths (although it is not a weakness, either), and, occasionally, what is intended to sound witty sounds more contrived than clever. Here’s an example:

“Bur Dubai Hotel is rather nice,” Mindy Jackson said as they passed through customs and headed for the taxi queue. “You owe me a stiff one.”

He spread his hands, “Drink, or . . . ?”

She colored. “Drink. A stiff drink. What a mind you have” (172).
Overall, though, the 342-page novel is exciting enough, although I wouldn’t go as far in my praise for it as those who supply the back cover’s blurbs (not all of which seem to have been written specifically for this Preston and Child novel). Would I read another Gideon Crew novel? Sure.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 14 through 16)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


The fourteenth chapter of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream is the shortest so far. Its purpose is purely utilitarian: to involve someone (protagonist Pendergast, as it turns out) in conversation. The chapter’s tagline informs the reader that the scene is “Penumbra Plantation,” which is Pendergast’s home:

“Would you care for another cup of tea, sir?” (74)
Although the speaker is as-yet unidentified, the one line of dialogue, a question, posed in media res, one might suspect that he is Pendergast’s factotum, Maurice, as, indeed, it proves to be.

The opening paragraph for Chapter 15 is longer. Preceded by a tagline that identifies the setting as “Rockland, Maine,” we are in a tavern with D’Agosta, a place that appears to be much like the lieutenant himself, in three particulars, at least. There is no reason to assume that the detective is “cheap,” but, otherwise, he is much like the tavern: “honest, unassuming, working class.” However, his state of mind prevents him from identifying much with the place, and he is in no mood to share a few rounds with the tavern’s local patrons:

Under ordinary circumstances, The Salty Dog Tavern would have been just the kind of bar Vincent D’Agosta liked: honest, unassuming, working class, and cheap. But these were not ordinary conditions. He had flown or driven among four cities in as many days; he missed Laura Hayward; and he was tired, bone-tired. Maine in February was not exactly charming. The last thing he felt like doing at the moment was hoisting beers with a bunch of fishermen (77).
Of course, if “the last thing he felt like doing at the moment was hoisting beers with a bunch of fishermen ,” why, the reader must wonder, is the detective in a tavern with such patrons? This simple, seemingly throw-away comment on the omniscient narrator’s part whets the reader’s curiosity. To find the answer to this implied question, the reader will have to continue to read. Preston and Child have, once more, demonstrated their skill in manipulating the reader so well and smoothly that the reader is not likely to realize that he or she has been manipulated into continuing to read the novel.

We all enjoy time to ourselves, especially after a busy day at work, so we can easily sympathize (in “New Orleans,” as the chapter’s tagline indicates) with Desmond Tipton’s desire to enjoy his own solitude after “the visitors [have] gone and he is alone, once more, in the museum in which he works:

Desmond Tipton liked this time of day more than any other, when the doors were shut and barred, the visitors gone, and every little thing in its place. It was the quiet period, from five to eight, before the drink [sic] tourists descended on the French Quarter like the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan, infesting the bars and jazz joints, swilling Sazeracs to oblivion. He could hear them outside every night, their boozy voices, and infantile caterwauling only partly muffled by the ancient walls of the Audubon Cottage (84).
Again, the authors’ description of a place also serves to typify a character. Tipton, a museum worker (possibly the curator) is more at home among things than he is among people; in the Audubon Cottage, things are safe (“the doors are shut and barred”), “quiet,” and orderly (“every little thing [is] in its place”). The Cottage is charming, because of its serenity and peace, but it is also charming because of its art, its culture, and even its age. At home in the museum, the metaphors upon which Tipton’s thoughts are constructed tend toward the ancient, the artistic, and the cultural. He sees the revelers of the French Quarter as invading barbarians, as “the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan.” Tipton is obviously an educated and cultured man and a man who, as such, fears the “hordes” of drunken “tourists” who disturb his own peace as they swarm “the bars and jazz joints,” drinking cocktails “to oblivion,” but not before disturbing the general peace with their “boozy voices, whoops, and infantile caterwauling,” which not even the wonders of Audubon’s Cottage can keep at bay for long; the din is “only partly muffled by the ancient walls of Audubon Cottage” (84). It will be interesting to see with whom Tipton interacts--the drunken “tourists” who behave “like the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan,” a low-life who lives in the vicinity, or someone of a more sophisticated and cultured air, such as Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 11 through 13)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


The eleventh chapter of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream\ introduces the reader to the “Wisley ‘farmstead,’” somewhere in remotest Zambia. The protagonist, the FBI’s Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, and his investigative partner, homicide lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta, are traveling, via ramshackle Land Rover, to their destination, somewhere “northwest of Victoria Falls”:

Everyone, it seemed, knew where the Wisley “farmstead” was. It lay at the end of a well-maintained dirt track on a gently sloping hill in the forests northwest of Victoria Falls. In fact--as Pendergast paused the decrepit vehicle just before the final bend in the road--D’Agosta thought he could hear the falls: a low, distant roar that was more sensation than sound (53).
The fact that the “dirt track,” despite its location, “in the forests northwest of Victoria Falls,” in deepest Zambia, is “well-maintained” suggests that the “farmstead” that it serves belongs to a man of means, for it would be difficult, indeed, to maintain even a simple “dirt track” far in the interior of the African continent, among forests as thick as those which surround Victoria Falls. Such a “dirt track,” obviously connects the “farmstead” to such greater civilization as Zambia is able to offer, suggesting that its owner has been or expects to be in residence on his “farmstead” for some time. One wonders, of course, what Wisley might be doing in such a place. The paragraph concludes with a phrase that will communicate well to anyone who has ever been in the vicinity of a powerful waterfall, which, indeed, seems, as Preston and Child observe, to be “more sensation than sound” and helps to create a sense of immediacy for the reader, placing him or her on the scene, as it were, able both to see, to hear, and to feel the environment that the authors’ omniscient narrator describes.

The opening paragraph of Chapter 12 places us back in the United States, in “Savannah, Georgia,” as the chapter’s tagline indicates. The civilized charm of the deep South contrasts sharply with the wild beauty of the African forests, a connection with which the narrator establishes with the paragraph’s last sentence:

Whitfield Square dozed placidly in the failing light of a Monday evening. Streetlights came up, throwing the palmettos and the Spanish moss hanging from gnarled oak limbs into gauzy relief. After the cauldron-like heat of Central Africa, D’Agosta found the humid Georgia air almost a relief (62).
It’s unclear as to why D’Agosta finds the cooler air “almost a relief” rather than an actual relief, but the setting’s serene, seemingly indolent tone contrasts with the “forests” and the “falls” of “Central Africa” as clearly as Georgia’s “humid” air contrasts with Zambia’s “cauldron-like heat.” Of course, the “palmettos and the Spanish moss hanging from gnarled oak limbs” also contrasts starkly with “the forests northwest of Victoria Falls” and the “distant roar” of the falls “that was more sensation than sound.” The contrast between the wilderness of Africa, in which Pendergast’s wife, Helen, was killed in a lion’s attack, and the urban environment of the postbellum South in which her murder is under investigation is as stark as villainy and goodness. This paragraph, masterfully written, contrasts not only two continents and two ways of life, but also two extremes of the moral continuum.

Chapter 13’s opening paragraph is more utilitarian, changing the scene from Savannah, Georgia to “New Orleans” as Pendergast drives into a Louisiana parking lot:

Pendergast turned the Rolls-Royce into the private parking lot on Dauphine Street, harshly lit with sodium lamps. The attendant, a man with thick ears and heavy pouches below his eyes, lowered the gate behind them and handed Prendergast a ticket, which the agent tucked in the visor (69).
The authors’ description of the parking lot attendant keeps the paragraph interesting, individualizing a character that could easily have been bypassed or written off, so to speak, as merely “the attendant.” The references to his “thick ears” and to the “heavy pouches below his eyes” humanizes him. Such tags may also characterize Pendergast as someone who is trained to make note of the distinguishing features of not only criminal suspects but of everyone. As a well-trained and experienced FBI agent, little that goes on around him is lost to Pendergast; his mind seems to have assumed the efficiency of a surveillance camera in recording the details associated with any and all particular persons, places, and things, including even a parking lot attendant whom Pendergast is unlikely to see again for a long time to come, if ever.

The opening paragraphs to chapters 11 through 13, like those which have come before, show how adroitly and purposefully accomplished writers of the likes of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child make use of descriptive, introductory text. These authors’ style and technique are certainly worthy of study by anyone who writes or wishes to write thrillers, horror stories, or fiction of any other genre.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 7 through 10)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman


The seventh chapter of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream places the reader (alongside D’Agosta and Pendergast) in New York City, as the FBI agent’s “Rolls-Royce” tears “up Park Avenue.” The homicide detective and the FBI agent are seated in the back of the vehicle, with D’Agosta “feeling awkward” because of Pendergast’s uncharacteristically emotional openness:

The Rolls-Royce tore up Park Avenue. Late-cruising cabs flashing by in blurs of yellow. D’Agosta sat in the back with Pendergast, feeling awkward, trying no to turn a curious eye toward the FBI agent. This Pendergast was impatient, unkempt, and--most remarkable--openly emotional (37).
Like most of the other of the novel’s opening paragraphs, this one sets the scene, accomplishing its purpose with economy. At the same time, the paragraph characterizes both the scene and the main character. As if employing deft strokes of an artist’s brush, the authors use phrases to paint the picture: “Rolls-Royce” and “Park Avenue” suggest wealth and luxury; “cabs flashing by in blurs of yellow” provides an image that the reader can not only visualize in his or her mind but also nearly hear; and the adjectives that appear at the end of the paragraph characterize the protagonist with the same decisive economy: “impatient, unkempt, and. . . emotional.”

Chapter 8 introduces another of the series’ recurring characters (or, for first-time readers, debuts her): Captain Laura Hayward, although she is not seen or even heard; she is introduced merely by the omniscient narrator’s mention of her: “D’Agosta stood, a little uncertainly, in the hallway of the tidy, two-bedroom he shared with Laura Hayward.” The reader learns that the couple has only just become a couple again, after an apparent earlier breakup, and that D’Agosta fears that his partnering with Pendergast may cost him his newly repaired relationship with the police captain:

D’Agosta stood, a little uncertainly, in the hallway of the tidy, two-bedroom he shared with Laura Hayward. It was technically her apartment, but recently he’d finally begun splitting the rent with her. Just getting her to concede to that had taken months. Now he fervently hoped this sudden turn of events wouldn’t undo all the hard work he’d put into repairing their relationship (42).
There is conflict here--or potential conflict: Hayward may break up with D’Agosta again. There is also the implication that Hayward was hard to win over; it was difficult for D’Agosta to gain her trust and her heart, for it “had taken months” for him to get her to “concede” to his offer to split the apartment’s rent with her--in other words, to accept him as a roommate and not just a visitor. Moreover, there is the suggestion that D’Agosta finds Hayward worth the effort that it has taken for him to win her over again: he has put a lot of “hard work into repairing their relationship.” Finally, there is also an allusion to a past event or series of events that had somehow fractured their relationship; otherwise, no “repairing” would be necessary. Once again, the authors set the scene with their chapter’s opening paragraph, and, once again, at the same time, they accomplish more--in this case, creating suspense (for new readers, at least) concerning what has happened to damage the relationship between D’Agosta and Hayward in the past and (for readers old and new) the question as to whether D’Agosta’s partnering with Pendergast will have a disastrous effect upon their present relationship, undoing “all the hard work” that D’Agosta has “put into repairing their relationship.”

Again, using carefully worded phrases to paint a picture of the New York Harbor, as Pendergast and D’Agosta, driven by the FBI agent’s chauffeur, Proctor, the authors set the scene, suggest the narrative’s progress, and introduce a “detour”:

The Rolls, Proctor again at the wheel, hummed along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway south of the Brooklyn Bridge. D’Agosta watched a pair of tugboats pushing a giant barge heaped with cubed cars up the East River, leaving a frothy wake behind. It had all happened so fast, he still wasn’t quite able to wrap his head around it--they would have to make a brief, but necessary, detour (44).
Where will the detour take the characters, the reader wonders, and why? We, along for the ride, are apt to be as curious as D’Agosta, eager to learn of our destination and its purpose. With economy, Preston and Child, as usual, suggest action (we are riding along with D’Agosta and Pendergast, “along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway south of the Brooklyn Bridge,” tugboats on view outside the window of the Rolls-Royce), and create suspense (concerning the nature and the reason for the “detour”) that D’Agosta and Pendergast must take--quite a feat for a paragraph of only sixty-six words!

The opening paragraph of the next chapter returns the reader to Africa, or, more specifically, as the chapter’s tagline makes clear, “Zambia.” D’Agosta (with Pendergast at the wheel, the reader learns, in the next paragraph), travels inside a rickety and ramshackle vehicle along a rutted road. We are not sure what we are doing in Zambia, when, last we knew, D’Agosta and Pendergast were in New York, about to catch the airplane that, presumably, has brought them here, to Africa, but, it seems clear, we will soon find out. Once again, the authors maintain the reader’s interest by shifting scenes:

Zambia

The smiling, gap-toothed man at the dirt airstrip had called the vehicle a Land Rover. That description, D’Agosta thought as he hung on for dear life, was more than charitable. Whatever it might have been, now it barely deserved to be called an automobile. It had no windows, no roof, no radio, and no seat belts. The hood was fixed to the grille by a tangle of baling wire. He could see the dirt road through giant rust holes in the chassis (48).

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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