Sunday, July 12, 2020
Three Girls Walk into a Forest, and . . . .
Friday, February 14, 2020
Learning from the Masters: Lawrence Block's Use of Metaphor as a Narrative Device
The narrator does not tell what he did to this girl; he mentions only that “he'd thought long and hard about it.” However, his recollections of other victims' fates suggests that he also rendered her unconscious and, therefore, helpless, and dispatched her after terrorizing and raping her. Despite his claims to the contrary, there does seem to be a method to his madness, after all.
Monday, July 16, 2018
"The Cone": Style, Sentence by Sentence
- It suggests that the air is not “fresher” near the open window, because it is not “fresh” anywhere.
- The fact that they are “trying to fancy” fresh air near the window means that they are not succeeding. The open window admits no fresh air; like their attempt to imagine fresher air, the open window is a mere prop and, therefore, a failure.
- The illicit couple's attempt to “fancy the air was fresher” characterizes them. In the face of a reality they find unpleasant, they imagine their circumstances are different. They seek to impose their own preferences upon the world, adjusting what is to what is suitable to them. In this, the sentence's use of “attempt” suggests, they also fail.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Quick Tip: 12 Methods of Characterization
- Comment directly: “John was as brave as he was reckless.”
- Describe the character’s appearance: “John was square-faced, with penetrating, but kind eyes, which always seemed secretly amused at a private joke, but his firm jaw and thin lips belied any sense of frivolity.”
- Use allusion, comparing a character to another familiar literary character, to a celebrity, or even to a famous cartoon or comic strip character: “John’s lantern jaw, narrow eyes, and beaked nose made him a living embodiment of the cartoon detective Dick Tracy.”
- Show the character performing an action: “John jammed the .38 in the thug’s ribs.”
- Use dialogue: “‘If you move, you’re dead; it’s as simple as that. I’m taking you back to face a judge and jury, to face justice,’ John said.”
- Reveal the character’s thoughts: “The American judicial system was far from perfect, John thought, but it was better than those in countries in which a defendant was guilty until proved innocent.”
- Describe the character’s emotions: “John was satisfied that the killer would be forced to pay for his crime, but he was sorry for the young woman he‘d killed and for the victim‘s family.”
- Describe the character’s facial expressions and body language: “Arms crossed over his chest, an eyebrow arched, John scowled at the speaker,”
- Let another character summarize his or her thoughts about the character who is being characterized: “Sue knew that John was a man of determination and courage, a man of honor and true grit.”
- Let another character summarize his or her feelings about the character who is being characterized: “Sue felt safe when she was with John; she felt something else, too, something that made her blush.”
- Link the character’s past to his or her present situation or circumstances: “Having served in combat had given John the steel backbone and granite will that would serve him so well in his present one-man vigilante war on crime.”
- Use “props”: “Regardless of the suit or the occasion, John wore an American flag pin on his lapel.”
By the way, Happy New Year!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Quick Tip: Writing Means Reading
It seems self-evident that writers must be (not should be, but must, be) readers. Every writer worth his or her salt will tell anyone who wants to write (or, more likely, thinks he or she wants to write), that, to be successful as a writer, he or she must also read.
Stephen King, for example, reads a couple of hundred books or more every year. In fact, his reading has caused him to discover, among others, Bentley Little, a horror writer of no small talent himself. As the many blurbs he has written to help sell other writers’ works indicate, King is as much a fan of other writer’s work as readers are of his oeuvre. His love of reading is shared by his wife and fellow writer Tabitha and their children, one of whom, Joe Hill, has followed in his father’s footsteps, writing horror novels himself.
Writers should read every novel or short story (or see every movie) at least twice (although several times more is actually recommended), the first time for pleasure and to get a sense of the story’s structure, of how it is put together, and of how it attains unity. The second time, readers who would also be writers should read for technique.
How does the writer describe persons, places, and things? How does he or she create and maintain suspense? How are transitions used to tie action and scenes together? Are flashbacks used? If so, why, and, again, how are transitions used to tie past and present together? What figures of speech (metaphors, allusions, irony, symbols, and so forth), either explicit or implicit, are used in the story, and how and why are they used? Why is the action narrated in this, rather than some other, sequence? What can be gleaned from the writer’s choices of words and images? How does he or she fully involve readers in the action of the story? Why is the setting important, if not essential, to the characters, plot, conflict, setting, and theme? What is spicy or memorable about the dialogue? If the novel is a murder mystery or a detective story, what clues does the writer drop, when, where, how, and why? Which are red herrings? If the novel is a horror story, what mythos, legend, historical fact, or scientific discovery or theory grounds the paranormal or supernatural incidents or characters in the everyday world of commonsense realism, and how does the protagonist learn the truth of the monster’s origin or nature so that he or she can banish or destroy it?
Almost every writer has weaknesses as well as strengths, and both aspiring and established writers can learn from both. One of King’s weaknesses is his inclusion of extraneous scenes and exposition in his overly long plots; one of his strengths is his characterization, especially of the young. One of Little’s weaknesses is his novels’ unsatisfying, tacked-on or inconclusive endings; one of his strengths is his ability to create, maintain, and heighten suspense, often through the powers of his descriptions of menacing places. As a reader, learn to avoid the mistakes of writers and to adopt their strengths.
Then, read the novel or the short story or watch the movie again to discover all the wonderful tricks of the trade that you missed the first couple of times you read or watched the story unfold.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Writing an Effective Title
Ideally, like a movie tagline, an effective title should snare its reader’s attention, suggest the novel’s or film’s genre, indicate the type of monster or other threat, promise enjoyment, and have aesthetic appeal. Although it is difficult for single-word titles to accomplish such a three-fold task, it is possible. Pyscho is an attention-grabber, suggesting that the movie that bears this title is apt to be a horror film, indicates that the threat is that which to be posed by a madman, and promises a display of madness and mayhem. The Exorcist gets prospective audiences’ attention, suggests horror as its film’s genre, and promises an appearance not only of an exorcist but of a demon to exorcise and of a victim from whom to cast out the devil.
In addition to accomplishing the tasks of snaring the reader’s attention, suggesting the story’s genre, and promising enjoyment, a good title should be pleasing to the ear. Some examples of titles that accomplish this goal are Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (use of alliteration), The Bride of Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (use of allusion), and Stephen King’s The Storm of the Century and Wes Cravens’ The Hills Have Eyes (use of common phrases).
A good story title may accomplish other ends as well. Although titles may not, in so many words, express what is at stake in the battle between good and evil that occurs in most horror novels and movies, it may do so. For example, The Exorcist suggests that an individual’s soul is at stake. H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds suggests that the fate of the Earth itself is at issue. The movie Independence Day implies that liberty--a value sacrosanct--to the American public which would make up a huge segment of the film’s presumed audience--is in peril.
Other titles suggest both the nature of the beast and its habitat: It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Alien, The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Most titles ignore the question of “Why?” (saving the answers, if any, to this bigger concern for the novel or movie itself) and concentrate on more immediate questions such as those which involve the agent (“Who?” or “What”?), the setting (“When?” and “Where”), and the method, process, or technique (“How?”). By reserving the answer to “Why?” for the story itself to resolve, writers maintain the suspense that, hopefully, their titles have created.
For motives related to the foreign release of films and for other reasons, the same horror movie may be released under two or more titles, offering one the opportunity to compare and contrast the titles with an eye (and mind) toward determining which seems more effective and why. Such an exercise can make one more cognizant both of more effective and less effective techniques for creating titles and may disclose the subtle differences in how various audiences perceive stories and storytelling and clues as to what may offend one audience but not another. For example, Planet of the Vampires was also released under the alternate titles of Demon Planet, Planet of Blood, Space Mutants, Terror in Space, The Haunted Planet, The Haunted World, The Outlawed Planet, The Planet of Terror, and The Planet of the Damned.
If a writer wants to pack even more into his or her title, he or she can add a subtitle.
A good way, of course, to learn what makes good titles is to study those of well-established writers and directors such as, in the field of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Dan Simmons, Robert McCammon, Bentley Little, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, James Rollins, H. G. Wells, Frank Peretti, Ray Bradbury, Alfred Hitchcock, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma, Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, George Romero, and Tobe Hooper.
A lot goes into a carefully written title because a lot is expected from it.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Anaphoric Allusions
. . . listed several sources of the sublime, including power (fear of a superior force), difficulty (extremely complex predicament), obscurity (darkness, fogginess, confusion producing a sense of isolation and helplessness), and privation (isolation, silence, solitude, darkness) (12).
Certainly, Burke’s analysis is insightful and useful to writers of horror fiction, and it seems to expand (although it does not, really) the categories of evil phenomena we listed earlier. Perhaps what Burke’s explanation accomplishes, more than anything, is to characterize the elements of the sublime, or, as we call them here, the types of evil phenomena.
Having suggested the sources, the types, and the character of evil phenomena, we now turn our attention to the ways by which writers of this genre of fiction can, through the use of a limited number of synonyms, reinforce and perhaps even heighten the horrific character of a monster. (There are many other, more sophisticated and subtle ways to accomplish this same objective, of course, such as the use of literary allusions, metaphors, similes, images, irony, and so forth, but, in this post, we concentrate on one of the simplest means of reinforcing and highlighting the character of the monster.)
There may be a few others, but, listed alphabetically, these are the synonyms that come most readily to the mind, perhaps, as means by which to refer to an antecedent term that represents a monster of some kind:
animal, beast, being, demon, entity, fiend, grotesque, imp, it, monster, predator, thing
For example, if the monster is a natural force, “it” would be fitting, whereas “being” or “entity” would not be suitable, as a synonym. However, if the force were also sentient or intelligent, perhaps “being” or “entity” could be appropriate as a synonym for the monster. Paradoxically, “it” or “thing” might be appropriate even for a human being, suggesting that the person has devolved or otherwise been dehumanized and is more a monster, now, than the man or woman that he or she once was.
The use of nouns and adjectives to refer back to a monster that has been previously introduced and described may seem a slight matter, but, in the final analysis, a writer’s style, which consists, in large part, of his or her deliberate choice of this word or phrase over that, is what separates an author like Edgar Allan Poe from a lesser writer--or, as Mark Twain put it, lightning from the lightning bug, and horror, like all other genres of fiction, is built of words and the choices authors make in using them.
Perry, Dennis. Hitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003. Print.
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Rhetoric of Emotion
- Symbol = “any object, typically material, which is meant to represent another.”
- Metaphor = “The use of a word or phrase to refer to something that it isn’t, implying a similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described, and without the words ‘like’ or ‘as.’”
- Simile = “a figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another, generally using like or as.” Allusion = “Indirect reference; a hint; a reference to something supposed to be known, but not explicitly mentioned; a covert indication.”
- Description = Concrete illustration of a person, place, or thing by an appeal to one or more of the five physical senses.
- Juxtaposition = “A placing or being placed in nearness or contiguity, or side by side, often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences.”
- Contrast = difference.
- Comparison = similarity
- Parallelism = “agreement or similarity; resemblance; correspondence; analogy; likeness.”
- Ambiguity = “something liable to more than one interpretation, explanation or meaning, if that meaning etc cannot be determined from its context.”
- Repetition = “the act or an instance of repeating or being repeated.”
- Irony = “a statement that, when taken in context, may actually mean the opposite of what is written literally; the use of words expressing something other than their literal intention.”
Note: Except for the definitions of “contrast,” “similarity,” and “description,” these definitions are taken from Allwords.com, an “English Dictionary - With Multi-Lingual Search”
Of course, it is one thing to know the meanings of words; it is another thing entirely to learn to master the concepts to which they point. A dictionary cannot teach us to do that. To learn the techniques, we must apprentice ourselves to the masters and learn from observing them at work. For example, to learn to use symbolism effectively, we might study the works of Stephen Crane, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain. Ambiguity might be best learned from the example of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Proverbs can teach more than morality; Proverbs can also teach us how to employ parallelism, both complementary and antithetical. Poe is a master of symbolism, too, but he is also gifted in the art of juxtaposition and repetition. There are many masters from which to learn. We have already learned a preliminary lesson, however: a knowledge of the meaning of words is merely a beginning. To become adepts, we must become students of the adept.
Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?
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
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.
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.
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