Writing Dramatic Scenes Using the Locomotion, or Motive Power, Technique

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Movies have a distinct advantage over novels. The former dramatize, or show, the incidents of the plot as they occur. The latter describes them. Yes, yes, novelists are told to “show not tell,” and, for the most part, most try. Still, their medium is words, not pictures, and even images, or word-pictures, aren't really pictures; they're descriptions of images, written in words. The truth is plain and simple: novelists can't “show,” not really; they can only tell.

It may be argued that what is meant by “show, don't tell,” is not that novelists shouldn't describe action, but that they shouldn't explain things. Explanations, or exposition, as it's called in literary criticism, is the sort of telling novelists are told not to write. Readers don't want paragraphs or, worse yet, pages of exposition; they want action, they want immediacy, they want drama.

Fair enough. “Don't tell” refers to exposition, not description (although, novelists are also instructed, there should be no more description than necessary, either. Provide just enough detail—often a sentence or two will suffice—to convey a general idea of the setting, a character's looks, a building's appearance or whatever and move on. Readers are likely to have seen the very person, place, or thing the novelist is describing to envision it on their own, without seemingly endless descriptions.

Mark Twain

Again, fair enough. Mark Twain said “eschew surplusage,” and he's a writer whose work is esteemed both literary and entertaining, a sometimes rare combination.

Dean R. Koontz

Even with exposition avoided and description greatly curtailed, novelists can keep their writing interesting and entertaining by using a few techniques. Dean Koontz shares a few tips in an interview with The Rumpus. Page by page, sentence by sentence, and word by word, he strives for perfection:

I rewrite the page until it’s as perfect as I can get it, which will never be perfect. . . . The constant rewriting until the page really flows and the prose really excites me and I move on to the next 

page . . . .

Twain also reminded other writers that “there's a difference between lightning and the lightning bug,” suggesting that literary lightning results from using what Alexander Pope, in defining style, called “proper words in their proper places.” In an interview with Brad Crawford, Koontz said:

I like prose to have hidden rhythms; I like prose to have a music beneath the surface. It’s almost never recognized by the reader in a conscious way, but it is recognized unconsciously. It’s why readers feel the prose flow, why it speaks to them. A poet once reviewed one of my books and recognized that entire passages were written in iambic pentameter . . . .Different poetic meters affects us emotionally in different ways. It’s not anything anyone’s going to see, but it’s one of the great techniques to suck a reader right into the heart of the story.

Polished writing and cadence—there's no substitute for them in attracting and holding readers' interest, but there's a tip I'd add to the list of techniques novelists can use to maintain their readers' involvement as they move their stories forward. For want of a better term, I'll call it locomotion, or motive power.

To present a scene using motive power, envision it as images, chosen and arranged according to a specific purpose and a well-considered design, as if the sequence were being shown on a movie screen. Think of the written scene as a filmed shot. Before starting with your own story, watch a scene from movie. Then, transcribe what you see, so to speak, into words. I did this in a previous Chillers and Thrillers post, “Making Every Word (or Image) Count.” The scene I used is the opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's classic film Jaws, but my purpose in doing so, it the earlier post was to consider how “

Young and blonde, Chrissie Watkins runs along a ramshackle fence, pursued by a young man.

Tripping. He falls, but he's on his feet again in a second.

Continuing to run, she glances back, shedding her jacket. 

She pauses, removes a shoe, stumbles onward.  Behind her, the man doffs his sweatshirt.

As he tumbles down a hill at the side of the trail, Chrissie, now completely nude, runs toward the ocean.

Entering the surf, she dives into the sea. By the time the man reaches the beach, she's nearing a buoy some distance off shore.

She sinks. For a moment, she's lost to sight.

Resurfacing, she gasps, water streaming down her face. Smiling, as she treads water, she looks west. The sun is low.

On the beach, the man is a silhouette against the wash of the surf. His outline, like a stretch of low land and scattered clouds, is lit, yellow and pink, by the setting sun. Struggling to remove a shoe, he falls drunk, perhaps.

In the distance, Chrissie resumes swimming, turning her head from side to side, smiling.

Sinking, she kicks and waves her arms.

She surfaces, smiles. Then, her head jerks backward; she's pulled violently downward. 

Her eyes widen. She turns her head slightly to her right, looking puzzled. Her head dips below the surface, then reappears. She looks panicked. In a splash, she vanishes beneath the waves. When her head bobs up, pierces the surface, her mouth is open, her eyes shut tightly, a grimace of terror and pain freezing her features.

A splash, and she is pulled across the water, past the buoy, only her head and shoulders visible above the water. She struggles. She's pulled to the right. She straightens, but, again, she's pulled to the right. Water churns about her.

On the beach, the man, her boyfriend, sleeps.

At sea, Chrissie struggles. Launched toward the buoy, she clings desperately to its platform. It turns. Cast off, she swims toward shore. A moment later, she's seized. Anguished, amid the roiling water, she cries out.

She is snatched underwater.

 

Her boyfriend continues to sleep, oblivious to the breaking waves washing over him.

 

The sky is nearly dark.

Even if we cast this passage in the simple past tense, as is conventional with novels, the sense of movement, of action, of drama that the locomotion technique produces remains intact:

Young and blonde, Chrissie Watkins ran along a ramshackle fence, pursued by a young man.

Tripping, he fell, but he was on his feet again in a second.

Continuing to run, she glanced back, shedding her jacket.

Pausing, she removed a shoe, stumbled onward. Behind her, the man doffed his sweatshirt.

As he tumbled down a hill at the side of the trail, Chrissie, now completely nude, rand toward the ocean.

Entering the surf, she dove into the sea. By the time the man reached the beach, she was nearing a buoy some distance off shore.

She sank. For a moment, she was lost to sight.

Resurfacing, she gasped, water streaming down her face. Smiling, as she tread water, she looked west. The sun was low.

On the beach, the man was a silhouette against the wash of the surf. His outline, like a stretch of low land and scattered clouds, was lit, yellow and pink, by the setting sun. Struggling to remove a shoe, he fell, drunk, perhaps.

In the distance, Chrissie resumed swimming, turning her head from side to side, smiling.

Sinking, she kicked and waved her arms.

She surfaced, smiled. Then, her head jerked backward; she was pulled violently downward. Her eyes widened. She turned her head slightly to her right, looking puzzled. Her head dipped below the surface, then reappeared. She looked panicked. In a splash, she vanished beneath the waves. When her head bobbed up, piercing the surface, her mouth opened and her eyes shut tightly, as a grimace of terror and pain froze her features.

A splash, and she was pulled across the water, past the buoy, only her head and shoulders visible above the water. As she struggled, she was pulled to the right. She straightened, but, again, she was pulled to the right. Water churned about her.

On the beach, the man, her boyfriend, slept.

At sea, Chrissie struggled. Launched toward the buoy, she clung desperately to its platform. It turned. Cast off, she swam toward shore. A moment later, she was seized. Anguished, amid the roiling water, she cried out.

She was snatched underwater.

 

Her boyfriend continued to sleep, oblivious to the breaking waves washing over him.

 

The sky was nearly dark.

This is not a story of our own, of course; it's a scene from a movie. By “transcribing” the scene, as it occurs on film, we mimic the way the film was shot, using short sentences, action verbs, few details, little characterization through description or interior monologue. The emphasis is on action, movement, drama. By writing our own scenes in the same manner, whenever possible (which is much more frequently than many novelists might imagine), we maintain readers' interest and entertain them. Trained by movies, readers will likely appreciate our style, even if only subconsciously. If they like our stories, they'll probably be back for more.

Edgar Allan Poe

One other tip, this one from Edgar Allan Poe (by way of an annotation in Kevin J. Hayes's The Annotated Poe). First, the passage from Poe's short story. “Metzengerstein”:

The career of the horseman was, indisputably, on his own part, uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive struggling of his frame gave no evidence of superhuman exertion; nut no sound, save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through, in the intensity of terror.

Sergei Eisenstein

Now, Hayes's note:

The cinema has much to offer when it comes to understanding Poe, partly because his work has contributed so much to its development. The great Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein found that Poe's writing anticipated visual techniques that would not be fully utilized until the invention of motion pictures. This paragraph provides a good example. Poe depicts Metzengerstein in close-up (the “agony of his convulsions”), pulls back to show him from a distance (“the convulsive struggling of his frame”), and then supplies an extreme close-up (“his lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through”). The rapid shifting of images quickens the narrative pace, which the ensuing cacophony of sound—the shriek of Metzengerstein, the clatter of hoofs, the roar of the flames, and the shriek of the wind—further intensifies, thus providing a narrative running start for the horse's final bound up the staircase.

Wow! Words in the hands of a master author who is both a short story writer and a poet can accomplish feats nothing short of amazing.

Using their techniques, we lesser mortals can still improve our own writing—dramatically.

Maritime Monster Menaces

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

 Chrissie Watkins, about to meet her fate

To make their characters more vulnerable, horror movies often not only isolate them, but also take them out of their element. One of the most effective ways to accomplish both these goals is to have them do battle with an undersea monster. There's nothing, except another planet, as remote as the bottom of the ocean, and, as air-breathers, human beings are totally out of their depth when they're submerged thousands of feet below the surface of the great deep or, sometimes, in shallower, but still challenging rivers, bogs, or lakes.

Chrissie Watkins (still) about to meet her fate

Over the years, as the sheer number of the following titles indicates, quite a few horror movies have featured underwater creatures, a few of which are the Jaws series, Tentacles, the Piranha series, including Piranha 3-DD, the Megalodon series, the Crocodile series, Orca the Killer Whale, Barracuda, Leviathan, Endless Descent, Beneath Loch Ness, The Lock Ness Terror series, the Octopus series, the Megashark series, Demeking the Sea Monster, Sea Beast, The Beast, Monster from the Ocean Floor, the Shark Attack series, Ghost Shark, Creature, Proteus, the Moby Dick series, Malibu Shark Attack (even the rich aren't safe!), 2-Headed Shark Attack, Bait, Black Water, The Crater LakeMonster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon series, The Rig, Deep Rising, Deep Blue Sea, Tintorera . . . Tiger Shark, The Eye of the Beast, Behemoth the Sea Monster, Island Claws, Bering Sea Beast, SheCreature, The Host, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Deep Evil, Dinoshark, Sharktopus, SwampShark, Blood Waters of Dr. Z, Sector 7, The Thing Below, The Deep, The Neptune Factor, Supershark, the Lake Placid series, Shark Night, Red Water, The Last Shark, Primeval, Croc, the Dinocroc series, Snakehead, Frankenfish, Kraken: The Tentacles of the Deep, Jurassic Shark, TheReef, Shark Zone, OpenWater, Shark Swarm (never mind the fact that sharks don't “swarm”), Marina Monster, 12 Days of Terror, Amphibious 3-D, TheBermuda Depths, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Shark Week, Up from theDepths, Demon ofParadise, Bloodtide, the Humanoids from the Deep series, Gamera vs. Zigra, Razertooth, Alligator, Island of the Fishmen, The Fishmen and Their Queen, Pacific Rim, Atlantic Rim, Attack of theCrab Monsters, Hammerhead, Shark Attack in the Mediterranean, The Jaws of Death, Shakka, TheMonster That Challenged the World, Dagon, Rogue, and Deep Shock. 

As the titles to these movies suggest, fighting an underwater monster takes characters out of their element; isolates them; plunges them into darkness; subjects them to intense pressure, both physical and emotional; endangers them; and introduces a strange realm full of bizarre and fascinating, but massive, powerful, and monstrous, creatures.

Of course, such an approach also offers an opportunity for scenes of nudity or near-nudity, especially with regard to female characters. There are female skinnydippers and plenty of bikini babes whose curves and bare skin suggest women's power to replenish life, through sex, but this possibility is often quickly and decisively prevented by the menace of the maritime monsters, as dead women can't conceive, bear, or (with rare exceptions) deliver children. Death, embodied in the beasts from below the sea, is victorious over life, for male and female characters and the latter's potential progeny.

Human beings, who, on land, are apex predators, are, in the water, easy victims. They who, on dry land, prey on every other creature, become the prey of underwater creatures which, although less intelligent than they, are typically bigger, faster, stronger, and more agile. They have great stamina, breathe in water, and are difficult to injure of kill. The predator-prey table is turned, much to the shock, horror, terror, anguish, and destruction of the helpless men and women who find themselves at the mercy of merciless maritime monsters. It's one thing to horrify and terrify; to do so after having stripping one of the confidence, power, and status that he or she takes for granted is nothing less than devastating.

Tentacles is out to get you!

Horror movies about underwater monsters can offer additional commentary on the human condition and, occasionally, on society or civilization itself. In Tentacles, a 1977 movie, a seaside resort is the scene of horror when a giant octopus attacks the beach. A place of pleasure becomes a place of pain, a vacation retreat a site of horror and suffering. The cause of the anguish is technology: the octopus is driven mad by illegal “levels” of radio signals. The theme seems clear: unregulated technology can have a devastating effect on natural locations that, otherwise, would be like paradise. Steven Spielberg's classic Jaws (1975) also provides some social criticism, suggesting that, for some powerful people, the bottom line is more important and valuable than human life.

Unknown (i e., imaginary) creatures of the sea can become even more terrifying because of their horrifying appearance and their bizarre abilities. In Stephen Sommers's Deep Rising (1998), a never-before encountered, tentacled maritime monster covered in spikes liquefies its prey, the passengers and crew members aboard a disabled luxury liner that's been attacked by pirates who later plan to destroy the vessel. Three of the survivors of the monster's attack, Finnegan, Trillian, and Joey, take refuge on an island, only to discover it's not deserted: a thunderous roar from the forest alerts them to the fact that the island they've landed on is primeval and, apparently, inhabited by other fierce, unknown creatures. In this film, the ocean setting allows the surviving characters to flee from one to yet another danger, as trapped on the island, they have nowhere to go.

In another creature feature with an underwater setting, Paul Joshua Rubin's Deep Shock (2003), the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear submarine, is attacked by a monstrous beast armed with an electromagnetic pulse. As a result of the attack, researchers in an underwater station observe, the Polaris Trench has become hot enough to melt the polar icecap and to incinerate the men and women in the research station, without having damaged the facility itself. 

As these examples suggest, the permutations on the underwater monster menace are vast. Not only are there many natural freshwater and maritime predators from which to choose—alligators, barracudas, crocodiles, kraken, octopi, piranhas, sharks, and whales—but there are as many imaginary beasts as one can imagine, including those which result from congenital cephalic disorders (2-HeadedShark Attack), fantasy beasts (the Loch Ness Monster, fishmen, and humanoids), and hybrid monsters (Sharktopus, Dinocroc, and Dinoshark).

The underwater setting can be used again and again, each with a new plot twist, theme, and, to some extent, cast of characters. The underwater monster, long a staple of both sci fi and horror stories, cinematographic and literary, is here to stay, it seems.

Making Every Word (or Image) Count

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

The opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) is well known to many moviegoers. Each moment in the sequence keeps viewers' attention, enhances the victim's humanity, characterizes the victim (or alternately dehumanizes her) or her companion, intensifies viewers' emotions, establishes contrasts that heighten emotion and sharpen theme, suggests despair, and/or leads up to the victim's savage and horrendous death. The blue font indicates how the action sequences accomplish these tasks.

A young blonde woman runs, Chrissie Watkins, along a fence, or what is left of it, pursued by a young man. Is he a threat? Does he mean her harm? Is he a stalker?

This sequence of action creates suspense, as the viewer, having no clue as to why the man is chasing the woman, wonders whether she is in danger.

He trips, falls, but is again on his feet in a second, and the pursuit continues. Chrissie glance back, over her shoulder, as she runs, shedding her denim jacket. Beneath her sweaters, her breasts bounce as she runs, suggesting she is braless. The man continues his pursuit.

Chrissie may shed her jacket because it impedes her range of motion, slowing her down. The motion of her breasts calls attention to her femininity and her sexuality, suggesting a possible motive for the man's pursuit. Is he intent upon rape?

She pauses to remove a shoe, before stumbling onward, her pursuer giving chase, as he doffs his sweatshirt.

Perhaps she removes her shoe for the same reason she removed her sweater: it slows her flight.

Chrissie pulls off her sweater; she is, indeed, braless. Viewers see her bare breasts bounce as she runs. Although she continues to flee from the man following her, viewers begin to suspect the couple are playing a game, as she has voluntarily removed her shoe and top.

The suspense dissipates, as viewers realize the couple are playing a game of sorts. Chrissie is not in danger. (However, since she soon will be, this segment of the film's introductory sequence creates a false expectation for viewers.) Her braless states suggests she is a modern, “liberated” young woman who is comfortable in her own skin.

As the man tumbles down a hill at the side of the trail, Chrissie, now completely nude, runs toward the ocean, her buttocks drawing viewers' gazes.

When suspense is unavailable, nudity can keep viewers' attention. The fact that she has chosen to be naked suggests she is a carefree young woman, just as the game of flight-and-pursuit she plays with her friend suggests she is playful.

She enters the surf and dives into the sea. She is a strong swimmer, and, by the time her friend arrives on the beach, removing more of his clothing, she is nearing a buoy some distance off shore.

The young man remains only a figure, rather than a character, he's little more than a prop; the introductory portion of the film remains focused on Chrissie. For this part of the film, at least, she is the protagonist.

Projecting her leg into the air, her foot extended straight, in a manner similar to that of a ballerina standing on her toes, she lets herself sink into the ocean. For a moment, she is lost to sight.

The positioning of her leg indicates Chrissie has a sense of humor.

A closeup shot shows her resurface, mouth wide as she gasps for breath, water streaming down her face. She smiles, before turning as she dog paddles, to look west, toward the sun, which is low on the horizon. Sunset is on its way.

Although she is in her element and is enjoying herself, Chrissie hasn't much time left: symbolically, the near-sunset indicates that the end is near for her.

On the beach, her friend is a silhouette against the wash of the surf, a stretch of low land, and a sky in which scattered clouds are illuminated, yellow and pink in the setting sun. He falls as he struggles to remove a shoe. Perhaps, given his clumsiness, he is drunk.

It seems clear that he is not the type of man who is apt to be able to rescue a damsel in distress. He cannot even take care of himself.

Chrissie resumes swimming, her gliding silhouette seen from below the calm, blue waters as she performs the breaststroke. Then, the back of her head and her arms are seen at a distance, as she continues to swim.

Seen from this perspective, below and at some distance, Chrissie is dehumanized. She might as well be a maritime animal, a fish or a seal, as a human being.

Pausing for a moment, as the camera shows her closeup, she turns her head from side to side, smiling.

Her moment of joy will contrast sharply and dramatically with her coming horror and pain.

She sinks below the surface of the ocean, kicking her legs and waving her arms. The camera views her from below. Her pubic hair is a dark, triangular patch, her breasts discernible as a pair of firm, buoyant mounds topped by her nipples.

Her sexuality is highlighted by this shot, but it is, at the same time, darkened by the lack of light, both below the surface of the ocean and in the dusky sky above. She is undoubtedly a beautiful and sexy woman; her death will seem all the more a waste. She could be a mother. Instead, she will become a corpse. Sexuality and life are established, through her nudity, as contrasts to her upcoming demise.

At the surface again, she smiles. Then, her head jerks back and she is pulled violently downward. Her eyes widen in surprise. She turns her head slightly to her right, looking puzzled. Her head dips below the surface, before reappearing. She looks panic-stricken. In a splash, she vanishes beneath the waves. When her head pierces the surface, her mouth is open, her eyes shut tightly, a grimace of terror and pain freezing her features.

Chrissie feels surprise, followed by shock, followed by horror and pain, as she realizes she is in the grip of an adversary too ferocious and powerful to resist and that, alone at sea, she is on her own.

A splash, and she is pulled across the water, past the buoy, only her head and shoulders visible above the water. She struggles. Her body is pulled to the right. She straightens, and her body is again pulled to the right. Water churns around her.

It is as if, clinging to the buoy, she hopes against hope, even in her hopeless situation, to survive somehow. Of course, she has no chance.

On the beach, her friend sleeps, as Chrissie continues to struggle for her life against her unseen adversary. She is launched toward the buoy and clings desperately to its platform. It turns, and, cast off, she swims toward shore, but, a moment later, she is seized. Her face flashes with anguish amid the roiling water, as she cries out. She is taken underwater.

This seems to be her last moment: she is buried, as it were, at sea, the closure of the water above her body a metaphorical closing of her grave.

Her friend continues to sleep on the beach, despite the breaking waves that wash over his lower body. The sky is now nearly dark.

The near-darkness suggests both the young man's sleep (and his unawareness of Chrissie's death) and Chrissie's own demise.

In well-made movies, regardless of their genre, every moment of screen time contributes to the film's overall effect while moving the movie forward. The same is true of well-written novels, although, sometimes to their detriment, novels are allowed more leeway than movies, probably because feature films cost millions of dollars to produce, while novels typically cost those who write and distribute them far less. A tightly written novel, though, in which every chapter, paragraph, sentence, and word contributes to the narrative's overall effect while moving the story forward is apt to be a superior one. Whatever their medium, one type of artist can often suggest ways to improve another one's work, regardless of its medium. The opening sequence of Jaws, like the movie's other scenes, has a lot to teach those willing to study and to learn.

Horror Film Structure: Some Thoughts, None Definitive

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

“Analyses of film structure are never theory-neutral . . . . Once the analyst determines which of the many events in a film are the most salient in the light of his theory, he builds a structure that supports his theory” (George Ochoa, Deformed and Destructive Beings: The Purpose of Horror Films, 38)

Plot Structure of Jaws, seen as a three-act story (Syd Field):

Act 1: Ends with arrival of shark scientist Hooper on Amity Island.
Act 2: Ends with shark hunter Quint’s story about surviving a shark’s attack in World War II.
Act 3: Ends with the destruction of the shark.

Plot Structure of Jaws, seen as a four-act story (Noel Carroll):

Act 1: Onset: The shark makes its initial attack.
Act 2: Discovery: Police Chief Brody discovers evidence of a shark attack.
Act 3: Confirmation: Brody convinces the mayor to hire Quint to fight the shark.
Act 4: The shark is hunted and destroyed.

Plot Structure of Jaws, seen as a two-act story (Ochoa and Carl Gottlieb, co-screenwriter of Jaws):*

Act 1: The shark attacks.
Act 2: The shark is destroyed.

*”Appropriately generalized, these two acts can be considered the basic structure of all horror movies:

“1. Attack of the DDB: The DDB attacks one or more normals, often repeatedly.“2. Final battle: A climactic confrontation occurs that involves both DDB and one or more normals. It is usually a head-on DDB-normal clash, though it may involve a clash of two or more DDBs“ (38).

“Since knowing the DDB is the primary purpose of the horror film, these two acts are the basic components of horror film structure” (39); the “details” that “are. . . overlooked” by this generalized description of horror film structure, when identified, indicate “common alternatives for how to present the DDB through its conflict with normals--the central narrative idea of the horror film” (40).

“One common elaboration is to add another act at the outset, the entrance of the DDB” so that it becomes ‘;apparent at least to the audience, and sometimes to the normals. He begins to display his deformity, which may be further revealed in later acts. An example of this three-act structure is The Abominable Dr. Phibes:

“1. Entrance of the DDB: A hooded Dr. Phibes plays his organ and dances with his assistant Vulnavia, then puts his face together in preparation for going out to a murder.
“2. Attack of the DDB: Phibes kills his first offscreen victims, then kills more.
“3. Final battle: Dr. Vesalius saves his son from Phibes’s wrath, although Phibes eludes capture” (40).

Note: This is how I see the plot of the typical horror film: Act 1: A bizarre incidents occur. Act 2: Additional, seemingly unconnected, bizarre incidents occur. Act 3. The protagonist, aided or unaided, discovers the cause of the bizarre incidents, all of which are, in fact, related to one another. Act 4: Using his or her newfound knowledge as to the cause of the bizarre incidents (often the presence of a monster), the protagonist, aided or unaided, puts an end to the incidents, thereby restoring order.

Stock Situations Useful to Horror Fiction

Copyright 2010 by Gary L.Pullman

Oral storytellers invented stock situations--sets of circumstances that could be used over and over again, perhaps with some tweaking, throughout a story or among different stories of the same cycle or genre. Many of these situations continue to be used by today’s storytellers. Some are especially fruitful for horror writers. In this post, I identify a few.

One of the earliest of these stock situations might be called the taming of the brute. The early part of The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts how a prostitute tamed the wild man Enkidu, who, after he was bested in single combat by Gilgamesh, became friends with the epic poem’s protagonist, accompanying him, much as Iolaus accompanied Hercules, on his feats of derring-do. The taming of the beast is the main plot of Beauty and the Beast, as it is of King Kong. More often, this storyline makes up only a part of the greater story, and it may be treated ironically. The scientist’s attempt to befriend the alien plant in The Thing, for example, not only endangers the other researchers at the arctic outpost that the creature attacks but is, as it turns out, the death of the scientist himself. (As I point out in a previous article, fairy tales, in general, form the basis of many horror stories; Stephen King himself points to Cinderella as having been, in part, the inspiration for his first novel, Carrie.)

The locked box (or locked room) situation is as old as the ancient Greek myth about Pandora and the story of Blackbeard the pirate. It was used recently in the movie Skeleton Key, starring Kate Hudson. Stories in which other objects--or, for that matter, persons or places--are forbidden are also examples of this stock situation.

The invaded community situation is as old as Beowulf, in which the Danes’ Heorot hall is invaded by the maraudering Grendel and Peter Benchley’s Jaws, in which a great white shark attacks swimmers off the coast of the beachfront town of Amity or even The Exorcist, in which the devil invades the MacNeil’s Georgetown residence and, indeed, Regan’s body. (Of course, the prototype of the invasion plot is Satan's invasion of Eden!)

In the ancient Greek myth that bears his name, Pygmalion attempted to create what he regarded as the perfect woman, an idea that Mary Shelley revised in her novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, in which Victor von Frankenstein attempts to create, if not the perfect man, at least a male human being fashioned of the body parts of various corpses, a stock situation put to a different use in the campy flick The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This same situation occurs, but with a female resuming the place of honor as the creation, in the movie Bride of Frankenstein, in which the scientist tries to honor his monster’s desire for a main squeeze and again in “Some Assembly Required,” an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which a younger brother tries to assemble a girlfriend for his once-dead older brother, whom he pieced together earlier. Likewise, the Buffy episode in which Warren Mears creates a robotic girlfriend, April, for himself. It might even be argued that the Arnold Schwarzenegger series of Terminator films make use of the man-made man or man-made woman stock situation that was introduced, perhaps, in the ancient Pandora myth.

The taming of the brute, the lost box or room, the invaded community, the man-made man or woman, and the man-made beast are all examples of stock situations which continue to be used (and reused) in horror fiction. By identifying the situations that recur in short stories, novels, and movies, you can add others to your list and, as a result, have a readymade source of storylines to adapt to your own storytelling purposes.