The Z Plot

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Although it would be ludicrous to suggest that a story could follow a “Z” plot, the concept is, nevertheless, a good reminder that thrillers and chillers should move from one action scene to another at a fairly fast pace.

What is a “Z” plot? It's an imaginary sequence of action that is on the fact that, in English, readers read from left to right and from top to bottom. In other words, their eyes, in reading, trace the figure of a “Z.” Sometimes the stem (the diagonal line connecting the upper and the lower arms of the “S”) is shorter; other times, longer, than typical, depending on the length of the paragraph the combined sentences of which make up the stem of the letter. For example, a short paragraph produces a short stem; a long paragraph, a long stem:

Think of the paragraph as representing a scene. Each point at the beginning or the end of the arm of the “Z” represents a point of possible change. Perhaps the first point would be to establish the setting, while the second point would be to introduce the protagonist. At the third point, maybe you would contrast two supporting characters. The fourth point might be that at which you relocate the main character. These four points, regardless of the length of the scene (represented, in the “Z” plot by a paragraph), would make up the entire scene. However, the next scene, with its four points, would provide opportunities for additional, perhaps different (depending on the scene's purpose), plot changes, such as changing the pace of the story (with a longer or a shorter scene), using dialogue between tow or more characters to inform the reader of necessary background material, having circumstances or an incident impede the protagonist, and arranging for the antagonist to confront the protagonist (or vice versa). The next scenes would, likewise, present opportunities, at each of their four points, to change the plot again, again, again, and again.

Besides the actions indicated above, writers can use these points of the “Z” plot to heighten suspense, bolster the protagonist (or the antagonist) with reinforcements or assistants, capture a character, have a character escape, pursue a character, bring about a character's return home or to an earlier point of departure, characterize a character, have a character learn something important, or change a character's attitude, beliefs, feelings, perspective, or values.

Although the structure of your story's your plot, in reality, is unlikely to resemble a “Z,” helping to think of the progress of the action in such a manner could help you to remember to change the course of action frequently not only throughout the story as a whole, but also during each and every one of its scenes. As a result, it's unlikely your readers will become bored; in fact, they should be as excited as hell!

Writing Blurbs That Sell

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

According to Tomasz Opasinski, a fifteen-year veteran of movie poster design, a movie poster focuses “on the movie's main plot twist.”

In developing summaries designed to sell their books, writers can do the same thing. Indeed, they should follow Hollywood's example and point their readers toward their own story's “main plot twist” because Hollywood spends considerable money in testing the effectiveness of this approach.

As Opasinski points out, “Poster design is increasingly driven by empirical research, not artistic intuition.” This research involves tagging “the tone and content of posters with keywords” and then tracking which keywords “performed well in the past on similar movies.”

Most writers don't have the financial resources to hire social scientists to conduct original research, so how can writers learn what keywords work for their genre? The solution is simple and effective, but entails a bit of “research” on the writer's part.

Using a web image browser (I like Bing myself), type something like “horror movie posters” (you might also include a time frame, such as “2020” or “2010 through 2020,”) You can also enhance your search term by specifying a subgenre or a particular theme: “horror movie posters 2020 forest setting.” Results are apt to be a bit general, despite the use of such qualifying terms, but it's a start.

Now, a pad and pen beside you (or an open word processing program before you), keep track of words in the movie posters' taglines that are used more than once (and preferably several times). Your resulting list should give you the keywords that researchers have blessed as effective. Use as many of these keywords as possible (and as relevant) in your own story's blurb. (You might practice on familiar movies, writing new [and improved] blurbs for classics such as Frankenstein or The Mummy.)

A poster, Opasinski says must sell a movie within “one or two seconds.” For that reason, in addition to pointing potential audience members toward the film's “major twist,” leaving “them wanting more” and using research-validated keywords, Opasinski says, poster designers also focus on a single “icon” and the use of conflict, both visual and emotional.

Although Opasinski doesn't define “icon,” presumably he uses it in its traditional, denotative sense, as “a sign whose form directly reflects the thing it signifies.” For him, it appears, the leaning bridge over which Tom Cruise, as Jack Harper, walks in the poster Opasinski designed is the “icon” he selected to sell the film. Its meaning is intended to symbolize the protagonist's survival of the catastrophe represented by the “ruined bridge.” It is this moment, presumably, that Opasinski sees as the movie's “first major twist.” He relies on it to sell potential audience members on seeing the film; his poster has led them here, leaving “them wanting more.”

Opasinski says studios provide the keywords that appear on the poster, so we may assume that the copywriter employed them in the poster's tagline, “Earth is a memory worth fighting for.” Earth is home to everyone; the word “memory” suggests that it is of the past. If it has not ended altogether (which, the poster suggests, it has not), it is in some way significantly altered. Perhaps it is to the memory of the Earth as it was, before the catastrophic event, that the tagline alludes, although it's unclear how such a state of existence, now lost, can be “fought for,” unless such fighting involves revenge.

From Opasiniski's observations about his art, we learn several principles to keep in mind as we develop the blurb to sell our own stories:

1. Select a “single icon” that represents the story's “main plot twist” and the protagonist's emotional conflict.
2. Keep the blurb as short as possible, and do the targeted readers' thinking for them. (The summary should suggest the theme of the story.)
3. Use research-based keywords to describe the book's plot.

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

Plotting From Blurbs

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Although they may not be novelists, publishing company employees who pen blurbs for books and motion pictures released on DVDs are themselves accomplished writers. They know not only how to summarize a plot (or enough of the plot, at any rate, to excite the reader’s or the viewer’s interest in reading or watching the novel or the movie), but they understand, also, such narrative elements as conflict, high stakes, suspense, and pace. Blurb writers know what readers and moviegoers want to read or see and why. Aspiring storytellers, whether of the horror genre or any other, can learn a thing or two of value from the blurbs that such writers produce and use these techniques themselves in plotting their own narratives.

Let’s take a look at a few blurbs concerning horror movies, taken directly from the backs of the DVD packages upon which the blurbs appear.

 

While awaiting her husband’s return from war, Grace [the main character is introduced and the basic situation is established] and her two children live an unusually isolated existence [an isolated setting enhances character’s vulnerability, especially when the characters are a woman and two children, living alone] behind the locked doors and drawn curtains of a secluded island mansion [the reiteration of the setting’s isolated, or secluded, nature and the mention of its location on an island emphasize the house’s remoteness and inaccessibility and the character’s helplessness; the “locked doors and drawn curtains” suggest secrets or the fear of threats or both]. Then, after three mysterious servants arrive [the same number as the house’s occupants, each of whom is characterized as being in some way “mysterious”] and it becomes chillingly clear [expect to be frightened!] that there is far more to this house than can be seen [such as ghosts?], Grace finds herself in a terrifying fight to save her children and keep her sanity [the stakes are high, indeed!, as is the threat with which Grace and her children are menaced]. -- The Others

 

. . . A skeptical writer [is] investigating paranormal events [the main character is introduced and the basic situation is established]. When he insists in staying in the reportedly haunted room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel [the adjective “reportedly” makes the reader wonder whether the room will prove, in fact, to be “haunted,” as it is alleged to be; a hotel is large enough, too, to offer some real chills] against the grave warnings of the hotel manager [if “dire warnings” are deemed necessary by the man who manages the place, it may well be haunted, the reader may suppose--or is the manager trying to pull some sort of bizarre practical joke or effect some strange fraud, perhaps by destroying the “skeptical writer’s” reputation as a debunker of the paranormal?], he discovers the room’s deadly secret--an evil so powerful, no one has ever survived an hour within its walls [apparently, the moviegoer is in for an equally harrowing hour in the “reportedly haunted room 1408]. -- 1408 

 

 . . An American nurse. . . has come to work in Tokyo [the main character is introduced and the basic situation is established; the setting, far-away Tokyo, a city in a foreign land influenced by an alien culture is also introduced]. Following a series of horrifying and mysterious deaths, she encounters the vengeful supernatural spirit that possesses its victims, claims their souls, then passes its curse to another person in a spreading chain of horror [will the nurse become the spirit’s latest victim?] Now, she must find a way to break this supernatural spell [her purpose, or goal, is identified] or become the next victim [the stakes are presented] of an ancient evil that never dies, but forever lives to kill [she is up against a formidable foe--something that is not only supernatural but immortal--and, of course, evil] -- The Grudge 

Although each of these blurbs is written somewhat differently, they all include these elements:

1. Introduce the main character.
2. Establish the basic situation.
3. Identify the setting (which is usually isolated).
4. Hint at mysterious secrets, spells, or incidents.
5. Identify high stake (such as protecting innocent children or saving one’s own life, sanity, or reputation).
6. Give the protagonist a goal (often related to the story’s stakes).
7. Suggest that the antagonist is formidable, powerful, ancient, and possibly supernatural.

By including such elements in his or her own stories’ plots, the aspiring (or, for that matter, the professional) writer of horror stories, novels, or screenplays is likely to capture, hold, and heighten his or her intended audience’s emotions, making the reader or moviegoer want to read or watch the novel or film from beginning to end--maybe several times over!

Image and Imagination

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Like many who are interested in horror fiction, I occasionally indulge myself by perusing online images linked to such search terms as “horror,” “eerie,” “scary,” and so forth. For those of us who are twisted enough to enjoy such sights, viewing such images can be not only fun (I know, I know; I’ve already admitted I’m twisted!), but also informative, even educational.

One image is that of a young woman. She wears black (or, perhaps, she is naked--it’s hard to tell, because only her face, neck, and upper chest show; she is otherwise lost in, or swallowed up by, darkness--and her skin is not only pale, but also reflective: indeed, she seems to radiate the light that shines upon her, illuminating those portions of her body that I’ve mentioned, but leaving most of her figure invisible in the darkness.

Moreover, the flesh of her upper chest seems to be alive with internal light, as if she glows from within. Her eyes are dark, and she wears a slight, mysterious smile rather like that of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. A scar is etched down her forehead, from just above her eyebrow to midway down her cheek, but the scar is not red: it is black, like her hair, her eyes, and her dress (if, indeed, she is dressed), as if she bleeds black, rather than crimson, blood, a suggestion of her innate depravity, perhaps. She seems evil, despite her youth and beauty, as if she is inwardly corrupt. The image is suggestive, posing many questions that could lead to a plot, to other characters, to a conflict, to a setting, and to a theme--in short, to a story that is both horrible to read and to contemplate. The journalist’s questions should get the imaginative writer started: Who? What? When? Where? How? Why?

The next image is full of eyes.  There are eleven of them, all feminine, with long, lustrous lashes and a glittering gaze, floating, as it seems, against a fiery background of yellow and orange, black and white. They stare, intensely, at the viewer, returning gaze for gaze. At the center of the picture, a pair of eyes, complete with the suggestion, at least, of knitted eyebrows, stares forth from the digital canvass, commanding the viewer’s attention; the presence of a strategically positioned diamond shape and of a ridge of material that resembles steel more than it does bone suggest the skeletal remnant of a nose. There is malevolence in her gaze. Filaments of light float and twist in the air, unifying the floating eyes, but there is no context for the vision, so that, collectively, the eyes seem to suggest madness. 

The subject, about whom nothing is knowable but that she is female and apparently beautiful, strikes one as mad; perhaps the multiplicity of eyes implies a fragmented consciousness, shattered perceptions of reality, and a distorted view of the world. If so, the true source of her horror is internal, not external (except insofar as she may confuse the objective with her own subjectivity). Again, this image raises more questions than it supplies answers, producing a wealth--or, at least, a welter--of possibilities for exploration and explication, and, as before, the journalist’s questions may lead the imaginative writer to a story based upon the ideas and feelings that this image may inspire.

Not all images are created equal, of course, and one must exercise discrimination in his or her perusal of the many pictures of horror that are available online. One, for example, although interesting in itself, perhaps, is too puerile to be suggestive of a situation greater than itself--and, therefore, great enough, it may be, for a story.  It shows a skull flanked by jack-o-lanterns; the eye sockets of the death’s-head glow red, as do the mesh strands that serve as the image’s backdrop. There is the suggestion that the skull and the pumpkins are caught in a web of some kind and that along may come a spider, but such intimations are not enough for a horror story and do not raise possibilities for anyone to pursue in fiction or otherwise; they are, at best, merely decorative.

The problem of the skull and pumpkins raises an important question: what must an image accomplish in order to be useful to a writer of horror fiction? What quality or qualities must it possess? What must it evoke in the writer’s imagination?

The journalist’s questions are clues. Who? refers to an agent (if an individual) or to an agency (if an institution), and, of course, to the agent’s or agency’s motive and, probably, to his, her, or its values, feelings, thoughts, and even world view. What? alludes to the situation and the series of incidents or events that have brought the agent or the agency to this point of the action and to the series of events or incidents that are likely to result from both this initial situation and the agent’s or the agency’s actions in response to it. When? and Where? point to time and place, or setting--the story’s physical location and its cultural milieu. How? addresses the behavior of the characters, especially insofar as they are the causes and effects of various situations, actions, and reactions. Why? relates to both the characters’ motives and to the story’s theme. These are the elements common to all fiction, horror stories included, and it is these, therefore, that a truly inspirational image of horror will pose to the thoughtful and imaginative viewer, especially if he or she is--or hopes to be--a writer of imaginative fiction, of the horror genre or otherwise. An image that is capable of suggesting such elements is an evocative--and useful--one, indeed.

Context and Conundrum

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Like all other types of fiction, the horror genre creates, maintains, and heightens suspense--in other words, keeps readers reading or viewers viewing--by withholding facts or other information that is vital to the perception, understanding, and appreciation of the narrative’s context. Because the reader or the viewer does not (yet) know enough to know what is happening (or, more commonly, why what is happening is happening), he or she is intrigued. He or she wants to know what will happen next and, ultimately, why the series of (usually bizarre) incidents is happening at all.

In fiction, context is created through the presence and unification of all narrative elements: characters, setting, action, dialogue, conflict, theme. By temporarily withholding information concerning one or more of these critical elements, providing details little by little, over a period of time, at predetermined, strategic intervals, a novelist (or, for that matter, a short story writer, a narrative poet, or a screenwriter or playwright) creates mystery. The mystery, if it is compelling--for example, it concerns an intriguing character, an important conflict, or an unusual theme (or, better yet, all three)--will cause the reader or the viewer to continue to invest his or her time in pursuing the story that he or she is reading or watching.

In horror fiction, after establishing a sense of everydayness and routine, the plot usually introduces a series of bizarre (often, increasingly bizarre) incidents that, at first, appear to have no bearing upon or association with one another. Finally, the protagonist learns the cause of these incidents and, using this newfound knowledge, and usually aided by friends, he or she sets things right, restoring the status quo. This is a simple storyline, but the withholding of key information, whether concerning characters, setting, action, dialogue, conflict, theme, or several of these elements, complicates the action, creating, maintaining, and heightening the suspense that keeps readers reading and viewers viewing. The plot might look like this:

Everyday Routine--> Bizarre Incident 1--> Withholding of Information Concerning Character--> Bizarre Incident 2--> Bizarre Incident 3--> Bizarre Incident 4--> Bizarre Incident 5--> Withholding of Information Concerning Setting--> Bizarre Incident 6--> Withholding of Information Concerning Conflict--> Bizarre Incident 7--> Bizarre Incident 8--> Bizarre Incident--> Bizarre Incident 10--> Discovery of Cause of Bizarre Series of Incidents--> Bizarre incident 11--> Bizarre Incident 12--> Use of Knowledge to Overcome Threat--> Restoration of Status Quo
 

From Story Idea to Story

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

A common question that aspiring writers ask the pros is "Where do you get your ideas?" Stephen King claims he gets his in a little shop in Utica, but the true answer to the question is that he gets his ideas from the same sources as every other writer, aspiring or pro: from dreams, mental images, newspaper headlines, reading, anecdotes told by others, personal observations, song lyrics, classroom lectures, history--the list is all but limitless.

But what one more than likely means, perhaps, to ask by this question is "How do you develop your ideas into stories?" The answer is simple, really: bring together person, place, and thing.

• The person is the story's main character, or protagonist.
• The story's place is its setting.
• The story's thing is its theme.

What brings the three of them together is the story's conflict and the main character's attempts to resolve this conflict, which includes both his reason, or motive for doing.

Another way of= saying the same thing is to say that a writer develops a story idea into a story by answering six questions: who? (protagonist), what? (conflict), when? and where? (setting), how? (resolution), and why? (motivation and theme). Here's an example:

Idea: A girl is possessed by the devil.

• Who? Father Damien Karras, a priest who doubts his faith (protagonist)
• What? fights the devil (conflict)
• When? and where? in a Georgetown townhouse (setting)
• How? using exorcism (resolution)
• Why? to save a possessed girl's soul and retain his own teetering faith in God (motivation and theme).

That's how it's done and why.

(There's a fill-in-the-blank way of developing the scenes of a story, too, which I explain in "The Fill-in-the-Blank Guide to Writing Fiction").

Horror Fiction: The Pleasure of Pain, or Painful Pleasures

Just as some philosophers see morality as emerging from a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, some psychologists regard sadomasochism as a universal basis for human conduct. Human existence, such students of human behavior contend, teeters and totters between active and dominant conduct and passive and submissive behavior. Today’s active, dominant person may become the passive, submissive party tomorrow--and vice versa. In “Sado-Masochism,” Elisabeth Bronfen’s gloss on the topic in The Handbook of the Gothic, the author puts the matter in Freudian terms:

From the onset of his work on instincts and perversions, Sigmund Freud emphasized that sadism as an active and masochism as a passive posture enlacing pain with pleasure are the two faces of the same perversion, although the one aspect may be more strongly developed than the other. At the same time he also emphasized that while these two terms could not be studied in isolation, it was equally true that the underlying contrast between activity and passivity extended beyond the question of sexual perversion, proving itself to be among the universal characteristics of sexual life. As such, the polarity reappears in psychoanalytic theory in the opposition between phallic and castrated, as well as in the opposition between masculine and feminine (231).

Obviously, for Freud, sadomasochism was not exclusively, or even primarily, a sexual disorder. Instead, it is the basis for all human activity. As such, it could be the ground of activities between male-male participants or between male-female participants. If sadomasochism were to take place between two men, it would be characterized as involving a phallic participant (the active, dominant party) and a castrated (passive, submissive party), whereas if sadomasochism were to occur between a man and a woman, the man would be masculine, the woman feminine. (Freud doesn’t seem to have reckoned a place in his scheme of things for masochism between two women, but, perhaps, sadomasochism between two women could be said to follow either the male-male paradigm, with the active, dominant participant adopting the role of the phallic woman while the other performed the role of the feminine party, or the male-female model, with the active, dominant participant adopting the masculine role while the other woman performed the feminine role.)

If sadomasochism truly underlies all human behavior, it is obviously a component of the conduct of horror fiction characters. Initially, the monster functions as the sadist, which is to say, the phallic, or masculine, and antagonistic, aggressive character, while the hero or heroine and the victims adopt the role of the castrated or feminine characters. However , during the course of the story, these roles are apt to be reversed, so that the sadistic-phallic-masculine monster becomes the masochistic-castrated-feminine character and the masochistic-castrated-feminine hero or heroine and the victims--those that remain alive, at any rate--become the sadistic-phallic-masculine predators. Indeed, in slasher movies, it has become a common motif for the sole survivor, a female character, to outlast even the monster, often banishing or destroying it so that she becomes the final girl (the last character standing). During the course of the story, the viewer (or, it may be, the reader), who identifies with the protagonist, is allowed to experience both poles of the sadomasochistic continuum (and, no doubt, several points between them).

The sadomasochism of the drama or narrative can be provided by an external source or it can occur internally, within the character, as Bronfen points out in the closing paragraph of her article:

Within Gothic literature phantasy enactments of sado-masochism can be found in the intersubjective conflict, the domination-submission played through in narratives where political institutions are shown to inflict violence on their subjects, notably [in]. . . scenes of torture. . . . But they can also be manifested in the register of intrasubjective conflict, where characters enact the struggle between a sadistic super-ego as a representative of the law and a masochistic ego as representative of forbidden pleasures, by suffering from guilt, self-punishment, or self-purging. . . (232).

As examples of novels in which the sadomasochism derives from “intersubjective conflict,” Bronfen cites the works of Anne Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, and Charles Maturin; as examples of stories that contain “intrasubjective conflict,” she mentions the works by Charles Brockden Brown, Herman Melville, and James Hogg.

For my own part, I believe that Freud’s theory concerning sadomasochism as a universal basis for human behavior has merit (although, typically, I am myself anything but Freudian in outlook and am not, in general, a big fan of psychology or, at least, of psychologizing), and Bronfen’s division of “enactments of sado-masochism” into “intersubjective” and “intrasubjective” conflict seems valid, although films like The Descent, it may be argued, are predicated upon both types of conflict, the threats to the characters coming at once from without and from within.

Bits & Pieces: Story One-Liners

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pulman

No, I’m not endorsing USA Today. In fact, its political bent slants opposite of my own. However, I’m certainly not denigrating it, either. It’s a decent daily in many ways. Besides, I don’t depend upon it for my news (although, I must admit, I do enjoy reading its “Across the USA: news from every state” column. It offers something I don’t see anywhere else: news from every state.

But I also check out the “TV Tonight” listings on occasion. In doing so, I find, the one-sentence summaries of TV episode and movie plots frequently encapsulate, in nut-shell fashion, identifications of the protagonist, the antagonist, conflict (if only implicitly), and the conflict’s resolution. Not bad for a sentence. Here’s an example: “A man [protagonist] drinking himself to death [conflict] finds solace [conflict resolution] with a hooker [antagonist]” (6D). While this summary, which is of Leaving Las Vegas, is not of a horror movie, the same approach can be used to sum up a horror film. Here’s an example: Ben Mears (protagonist) leads a fight against vampires (conflict), liberating his boyhood hometown (conflict resolution) from the bloodsucking fiends (antagonists). The summary is, of course, of Stephen King’s novel ‘Salem’s Lot.

The one-sentence statement of a story’s basic plot keeps a writer focused on the narrative’s main character, antagonist, conflict, conflict resolution, and through-line, which is no mean feat when one writes novels of the length of ‘Salem’s Lot. The synopsis can fit on an index card that one can tape on his or her computer monitor, pocket to take with him or her to the library (for research beyond the Internet’s delivery capability), and keep close to hand during rewrites and revisions. Again, not bad for a sentence!

Dinner Parties

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

One way to devise plots is to picture people sharing a meal at a restaurant. The diners could be a man and a woman, two men, or two women. Something as simple as the sex of the diners may suggest storylines. A man and a woman could be involved in a romance; two men could be business rivals; two women could be lifelong friends. Any number of other diners is fair game, too, of course. In fiction, what binds a relationship together, whether the nature of the relationship is, for example, one of romance, rivalry, or friendship, is conflict. As Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren point out in Understanding Fiction, “no conflict, no story.”

More than two can dine together at the same table. The addition of a third diner complicates the plot. The number of combinations of characters increases from three (two men, a man and a woman, two men, or two women) to six: a man and two women, a woman and two men, two men and a woman, two women and a man, three men, or three women. What’s on the menu? As always, conflict. Once again, in some cases, the combination of diners itself may suggest the nature of the conflict itself in which the diners are involved.

For example, let’s say that our combination of diners consists of one man and two women. I intend the dining scenario to be an analogy. The restaurant = the setting; the diners = the characters. The menu = the conflict. What the diners say and do during their meal = the dialogue and the action, respectively. The whole dining experience = the story. However, in this example, involving one man and two women, the setting could be an actual restaurant and the characters actual diners.

Imagine that the story starts with just two of the characters, Alex and Beth, present. However, three places have been set, because, as Beth informs Alex, she has invited someone else to join them. Perhaps she is vague about the other person’s identity, referring to him or her as “an old friend” or “a mutual acquaintance.” The occasion of the meal might be the celebration of Alex’s and Beth’s anniversary. They might recall the times that they have shared as a married couple--those that were amusing, challenging, enjoyable, adventurous, and romantic. Their reminiscences might include the times they have shared with their children over the years of their marriage.

Toward the end of their meal, Alex might profess his deep and abiding love for Beth, just before the couple is joined by the mysterious third party whom Beth has invited to join them--Alex’s second wife, Cynthia. Alex is a bigamist, and both Beth and Cynthia, having discovered their mutual husband’s secret, have agreed to confront him together concerning his matrimonial betrayals.

The idea for this story is based on the life of Charles Kuralt (1934-1997). A television journalist, Kuralt is best known, perhaps, for his distinguished career with CBS, and especially for his series On the Road with Charles Kuralt, which aired as segments of The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He traveled the nation, filming sentimental and nostalgic interviews with everyday Americans, offering viewers a sort of Norman Rockwell vision of the country and its citizens that proved immensely popular with viewers and earned him two Peabody Awards. After he died, however, it came to light that Kuralt had, in effect, had two marriages, one legitimate and the other the result of common law, and had had children by both wives:

But two years after his death, Kuralt's personal reputation came under scrutiny when a decades-long companionship with a Montana woman named Pat Baker was made public. Kuralt apparently had a second, "shadow" family with Baker while his wife lived in New York City and his daughters from a previous marriage lived on the eastern seaboard. Baker asserted that the house in Montana had been willed to her, a position upheld by the Montana Supreme Court (“Charles Kuralt,” Wikipedia).

The journalist’s actual life, it was clear, had been at odds with the homespun, morally upright subject matter of his series, and his reputation never recovered from the bigamist lifestyle that he had led.

Kuralt’s victims--his two wives--never met over dinner, with or without him, but the possibility of their having done so could inspire a story such as the one that I envision here. Again, such characters need not meet in a restaurant. The confrontation might take place in a less hospitable and far more dangerous environment, the two women having conspired to kill their two-timing husband after confronting him about his years-long infidelities. The analogy of dinner as a story is intended as a way of setting the stage, not the table.

In using this technique, a writer should also assign a vocation to each of his or her characters. Giving those who attend the dinner party different vocations could, in and of itself, suggest interesting possibilities for plot, character, and conflict. There are quite a few possible combinations even when three characters share the same general vocation. For example, three business rivals might each be the chief executive officer, or CEO, of his or her respective company, with one attempting a hostile takeover of his rivals’ businesses; the three may wish to establish an illegal monopoly by secretly fixing prices for the goods or services that they provide; the trio may be conspiring to “steal” the natural resources of an emerging nation; the threesome may be in cahoots against a foreign government’s attempts to control their market through tariffs or even military means. . . . the list goes on and on.

Once a writer has worked out the appetizer, the entrée, and the desserts of the story’s menu, the story itself can begin, possibly in media res, as, say, an army of mercenaries attacks a South American nation guarding the rain forest habitat of the rare species of plant that a pharmaceutical company needs (and can obtain nowhere else) for a new drug that cures the disease of the writer’s choice. At first, the mercenaries, wearing the uniforms of an adjacent nation, might be taken for actual troops of the neighboring state. As a result, war could loom between the two countries. Perhaps this was the real goal of the mercenaries’ attack. The companies financing their paramilitary operation might have wanted to instigate a protracted war against the two countries so that their own collection of the plant they need could proceed apace as the nation whose resources they are plundering is occupied with the war it is waging with its “aggressor.” The story would progress from this point, perhaps after another “dinner” among the business executives or other parties to stimulate ideas for further plot development.

The same process (a dinner between a couple or among a group of parties) can work as well for horror as for any other genre of fiction. Grave robbery was once big business. Fresh corpses were in high demand among medical schools whose professors wanted to use actual cadavers for dissection in anatomy classes despite religious and sociopolitical prohibitions upon such uses of the dead. There was a demand for dead bodies, both male and female, but no supply--until enterprising grave robbers stepped forward, pickaxe and shovel in hand to fill in--or, I should say, to uncover--the gap. Now that such sanctions have ended and men and women donate their bodies to medical school students to slice and dice--posthumously, of course--grave robbery has gone out of fashion, pretty much, even among desperadoes.

There are a few exceptions, though. Imagine Ed Gein, Jack Hughes and “Big Jim” Kennally, and Molly and Clayton Daniels having g dinner together. Entrepreneurial madmen that they were, they might find some reasons for digging up the dead even when there isn’t a large demand for their, uh, services. In fact, they actually did find reasons for doing so. Gein robbed graves so he could skin female corpses and wear their flesh as masks, vests, and leggings. After Molly came up with the idea, Clayton dug up a woman’s body to use as a stand-in for his own, and they set the corpse afire inside his car in an ill-fated attempt to fake Clayton’s own death. Hughes and Kennally conspired to steal the body of President Abraham Lincoln and hold it for ransom. Even when a market doesn’t exist for one’s goods or services, the enterprising individual can create one, even if the market consists of only him- or herself or an aggrieved nation.

Dinner parties needn’t be moribund affairs. In fact, imaginary ones can suggest endless ideas for stories that, once conceived, can be developed in numerous ways that have nothing to do with appetizers, entrees, and desserts and everything to do with characters, conflict, and suspense.

Dust Jacket Plotting

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

If you’re like most people, you find plotting a novel difficult, even with such helps as those I have identified and explained in many previous posts. There can never be enough tips or techniques, it seems, when it comes to making (or trying to make) plotting E-Z. So, here’s another tip: write your synopsis as if it’s the blurb inside the dust jacket of the finished book. Doing so is apt to help you to envision your novel as a finished product. It may also help you to emphasize the promotional aspects of your story, those features which are likely to sell your story to the reader (and, indeed, an editor). In preparation for doing so, you might read a couple of existing blurbs. These will get you into the spirit of things and indicate how to ignite your prospective readers’ interest in your story. Here are a couple, to get you started, followed by one concerning one of my own novels. The first sample is from the book jacket of Stephen King’s Needful Things (1991); the second is from the just jacket of Dean Koontz’s Breathless (2009). Each is superbly written.

Needful Things: The Last Castle Rock Story

With a demonic blend of malice and affection, Stephen King says goodbye to the town he put on the map--Castle Rock, Maine. . . where Polly Chalmers runs You Sew and Sew and Sheriff Alan Pangborn is in charge of keeping the peace. It’s a small town, and Stephen King fans might think they know its secrets pretty well: they’ve been here before. Leland Grant is a stranger--and he calls his shop Needful Things. Eleven-year-old Brian Rusk is his first customer, and Brian finds just what he wants most in all the world: a ‘56 Sandy Koufax baseball card. By the end of the week, Mr. Gaunt’s business is fairly booming, and why not? At Needful Things, there’s something for everyone. And, of course, there is always a price. For Leland Gaunt, the pleasure of doing business lies chiefly in seeing how much people will pay for their most secret dreams and desires. And as Leland Gaunt always points out, at Needful Things, the prices are high in deed. Does that stop people from buying? Has it ever?

For Allan and Polly, this one week in autumn will be an awful test--a test of will, desire, and pain. Above all, it will be a test of their ability to grasp the true nature of their enemy. They may have a chance. . . But maybe not, because, as Mr. Gaunt knows, almost everything is for sale: love, hope, even the human soul. With the potent storytelling authority that millions of readers have come to prize, Stephen King delivers an Our Town with a vengeance, an inimitable farewell to a place his fiction has often and long called home.

This blurb consists of 285 words. Notice that each of its first four paragraphs are of approximately the same length: 63 words, 58 words, 57 words, and 64 words, respectively. At 36 words, the concluding paragraph is a bit shorter. In this short space, the blurb’s author has accomplished a good deal, suggesting the tone (a mixture of “malice and affection”); introducing several characters, including protagonist Sheriff Pangborn and antagonist Leland Gaunt; identifying the setting as Castle Rock, Maine; and establishing the basic conflict, which examines, as its theme, the price that people are willing to pay for the things they want most in all the world. The blurb’s writer has, in the allusion to a famous play, also suggested a comparison between King’s novel and Thornton Wilder’s dark drama of small-town horror. Not bad for 285 words! The blurb suggests the elements that appeal most to prospective readers: intriguing characters involved in an intriguing situation in a familiar location that involves an important theme and is told with flair. Adjectives further indicate what readers will encounter in the novel’s pages: “malice,” “affection,” humor (Chalmer’s shop is named “You Sew and Sew”), the “secrets” of a small town, a mysterious “stranger,” the question of “how much people will pay for their most secret dreams and desires,” and a severe testing of characters.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz delivers a thrilling novel of suspense and adventure, as the lives of strangers converge around a mystery unfolding high in the Colorado mountains--and the balance of the world begins to tilt. . . .

Breathless

In the stillness of a golden September afternoon, deep in the wilderness of the Rockies, a solitary craftsman, Grady Adams, and his magnificent Irish wolfhound, Merlin, step from shadow into light. . . and into an encounter with enchantment. That night, through the trees, under the moon, a pair of singular animals will watch Grady’s isolated home, waiting to make their approach. A few miles away, Camilla Rivers, a local veterinarian, begins to unravel the threads of a puzzle that will bring to her door all the forces of a government in peril. At a nearby farm, long-estranged identical twins come together to begin a descent into darkness. . . . In Las Vegas, a specialist in chaos theory probes the boundaries of the unknowable. . .. On a Seattle golf course, two men make matter-of-fact arrangements for murder. . . . Along a highway by the sea, a vagrant scarred by the past begins a trek toward his destiny. In a novel that is at once wholly of our time and timeless, fearless and funny, Dean Koontz takes readers into the moment between one turn of the world and the next, across the border between knowing and mystery. It is a journey that will leave all who take it Breathless.

At a total of 254 words, the blurb for Koontz’s novel is 31 words shorter than the one for King’s, but Breathless, at 337 pages, is quite a bit shorter than the 690-page Needful Things. In fact, King’s novel is a little more than twice the length of Koontz’s book. The paragraphs of the blurb for Koontz’s novel number 42 words, 62 words, 31 words, 67 words, and 51 words each, respectively. They are not nearly as symmetrical as the paragraphs in the blurb for King’s novel, nor is the information that they impart as specific or clear.

What does the Koontz book blurb accomplish? It identifies the setting, introduces the protagonist and other major characters, suggests a situation of national importance that involves “the forces of a government in peril,” mentions a conspiracy to commit murder, alludes to a movement of mysterious forces, and indicates the narrative’s tone (“fearless and funny”). A bit vague about the details of the novel’s plot, the blurb’s elusiveness underscores the mystery of the forces at work, suggesting that fate may be operating behind the scenes, as it were. As with the King book blurb, the Koontz book blurb also uses adjectives to pinpoint the elements to which readers are known to respond: “mysterious,” “singular,” “isolated,” “unknowable,” “scarred,” “timeless,” “fearless,” and “funny.”

These blurbs are not the full-fledged synopses that editors will want to see when they are deciding whether to green light publication, of course. Their objective isn’t to summarize the entire plot of the novels they represent, but to pitch the basic storylines to prospective readers who are willing to read two or three hundred words to get an idea of what the book they hold in their hands may offer. A full-fledged synopsis will run 15 pages or more. Nevertheless, these blurbs are good starting places for writers faced with the task of plotting the basic idea for their latest (or, for that matter, first) novel. They supply such prerequisites of plotting as protagonist, antagonist, setting, conflict, tone, and theme. They seek an appealing means of orienting the writer’s storyline to readers’ interests.

Here is a blurb for my own first novel Saturday's Child:

Although Crystal Fall, her not-so-secret admirer David Lewis, and their friends Fran Newell and Dee Dee Dawkins crack jokes and behave in the silly manner characteristic of teens across America, what’s happening at their alma mater, Edgar Allan Poe High School, in southern California is no laughing matter. Their new principal, Dr. Snyder, has introduced changes, both to the school’s curriculum and to the way things are done at Poe, none of them good. For example, he not only lengthens the school days to twelve hours, but he also institutes Saturday school. Once open, the campus is now closed. In fact, it has become more like a prison than a school, with the patrol officers, or “trolls,” as the students call them, guarding the campus and surveillance cameras everywhere--even in the locker rooms and restrooms. An odd dress code is imposed, governing even students’ choice of underwear. Strange, whispered messages are repeated all day in the music piped through the school’s public address system. Students are compelled to eat in the school cafeteria, and a secret ingredient has been added to their food. A student health clinic is planned, wherein hypnotized students will receive mental health evaluations--and brain implants. If the new administration wins, personal freedom will be lost forever, and Crystal and her friends will become the first of an army of brain-dead public servants in a new world order. And the odds seem stacked against the teens, for Principal Snyder is backed by top government officials with unlimited resources, including an endless supply of funds and military forces. But the teens are willing, even at the cost of great personal sacrifice, or even death, to take back their school, and Crystal and her friends have a secret ally: God is on their side!

My blurb numbers 295 words: 48 (paragraph one), 87 (paragraph two), 64 (paragraph three), and 96 (paragraph 4), so the lengths are a bit uneven. Perhaps the text can be shortened a bit without losing the hoped-for appeal of the blurb to prospective readers. The relative lengths, in words, indicate where chopping may best take place: the second and last paragraphs are rather longwinded in comparison to the other two. As a rough draft, though, my novel’s blurb accomplishes the same sorts of things as those for King’s and Koontz’s books. Like their books’ blurbs, mine sets the tone; introduces the major players, including both the protagonist and the antagonist; identifies the basic conflict, implying that it is significant; establishes the setting; and suggests the story’s theme. As a means of getting the novel’s basic outline down on paper in a compelling fashion, it’s a pretty good way to kick-start one’s imagination and get the creative juices flowing. Such a synopsis, although far from the level of detail that a publisher would require, also allows one to expand upon the basic storyline, adding details to fill out the plot, develop the characters, describe the setting, maintain the tone, expand the conflict, and convey the theme. Not bad for fewer than 300 words.

Establishing Verisimilitude

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a woman sitting on her porch, reading a letter. Across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched, but we do not see the watcher.

Who is this woman? Who wrote the letter, and what is in it? How does she react to its contents? Does she smile, laugh, sigh, weep, shake her head, nod, shrug?

Who is watching her? A man? A woman? Why is he or she watching the woman? Is the watcher a police detective? A mobster? A stalker? A secret protector? Does he or she mean the woman harm or good?

The answers to these questions (which will suggest additional questions) depends on the genre of the story that one is writing. Is it an action-adventure story? A detective or mystery story? Espionage? Fantasy? Romance? Science fiction? Western?

Or horror?

If it’s a horror story, the watcher could be either a predator or a protector. If a predator, it could be an alien (extraterrestrial), an animal, a demon, a ghost, a madman, a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a zombie, or some other kind of monster, human or otherwise. Depending upon what kind of menace the watcher is, he, she (or it) may or many not respond to the woman’s reading of the letter and to her reaction to its contents.

Were I developing a plot about such a situation, I would opt to make the threat a human one or an intelligent entity, at least, because such an antagonist could respond to the situation, including the woman’s reaction to the letter, and if she is going to be described as reading and reacting to a letter, it would be seem desirable to the make the most of the emotional and dramatic potential of such a scene. Otherwise, why have her read a letter at all? She could just as easily be watched while she waters the flowers, takes a walk, or does any of a hundred other things. Therefore, my watcher must be one of the following: an alien, a demon, a madman, a vampire, or a witch (or, possibly, a ghost). Eliminated would be the animal, the werewolf, the zombie and any type of subhuman monster.

If, on the other hand, the watcher was the woman’s secret protector (secret because, if she know of him, he wouldn’t have to observe her from hiding), he (or she) would have to have a motive that seems feasible to readers. His or her role may or may not be related to the monstrous antagonist. If it is related, perhaps the protective character is a government agent, a demon hunter, a psychiatrist, a vampire slayer, a clergyman, or a ghost hunter or psychic. Obviously, if such were the case, this character would be present to protect the woman from the monster. Perhaps the protector’s awareness that the woman is due to receive a letter from a particular correspondent is the reason that he or she is watching the woman. Maybe the protector wants to see how the woman reacts to the letter’s contents (which, of course, implies that he or she is him- or herself aware of these contents).

The letter’s contents could be the device that links the three characters: the woman, the protector, and the antagonist. Does it announce the protector’s mission (to protect the woman) from a threatening entity (the antagonist)? Does it explain the true situation of which the woman is to play an integral part, a fact of which, until her reading of the letter, she has been unaware? Does the letter warn the woman of the monster that threatens her or will begin to threaten her, if it has not done so before? Could the woman be subject to a post-hypnotic command expressed in the letter she reads?

Why does the antagonist want to abduct or kill the woman? What is the antagonist’s motive for doing so? Is the villain acting alone or as part of a group?

The woman’s role in the situation must not be forgotten. In fact, it is likely that either she or the protective character is the story’s protagonist (unless there is no monster and the watcher is him- or herself the narrative’s antagonist). Was she expecting the letter she now reads or did it come to her out of the blue, as it were? Is the letter from a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, or a stranger? What does the letter say? Why does she react to its contents in the way that she does? Is her reaction appropriate or inappropriate to the news, and why? What else does the reader need to know about her? Is she single? Married? Separated? Divorced? Widowed? Does she work? Is she between jobs (“redundant,” as the British say)? Is she retired or independently wealthy? What predicament is she in? (She must be in some sort of predicament, of course, either now or very soon, for, as Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren point out in Understanding Fiction, “no conflict, no story.”)

Of course, the basic situation with which we started--that of a woman’s sitting on her porch, reading a letter while, across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched by an unseen watcher--could be developed in several ways besides the one I set forth as an example, and the story would, as a result, develop differently in each case, but, by linking the woman, the antagonist, and the watchful protector through the letter, we attain coherence among the characters, which establishes both a sense of narrative logic and believability, or a sense of verisimilitude, as writers and critics--mostly critics--are fond of saying.

Quick Tip: For A Story To Be Suspenseful, It Is Necessary For Its Protagonist To Suffer

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In a comedy, the main character ends up better off at the end of the story than he or she was at its beginning. A tragedy is just the opposite: the protagonist ends up better off at the conclusion of the narrative than he or she was at its start. The main character in a comedy may not end up well off or happy. He or she may be only relatively better off or happier than he or she was at the story’s beginning. A disease, believed to be fatal, might, instead of killing the protagonist, merely cripple, or disable, him or her. Likewise, although the main character in a tragedy will end up worse off or more miserable at the end of the tale than he or she was initially, he or she may actually go from bad, rather than good, to worse off.

Gustav Freytag, as I pointed out in a previous post, breaks dramas into five acts, the second one of which, which constitutes the rising action, he says, complicates the story’s initial, basic conflict, usually by tossing one obstacle after another, each more serious and more difficult to overcome than the previous, into the protagonist’s path or attempt to realize his or her goal. Dean Koontz says much the same thing when he advises writers to make it as hard on the main character as possible. Likewise, Joss Whedon told Sarah Michelle Gellar that, to make Buffy the Vampire Slayer as compelling a series as possible, it was necessary to make the character she played suffer as much as possible. Readers cheer on main characters who suffer to succeed, and, as soon as a protagonist overcomes one problem, another, worse one needs to arise, just as, when Hercules sought to kill the Hydra, cutting off one of its nine heads, two new heads appeared from the resulting wound, making his task always twice as difficult as it originally had been.

In other words, during the beginning of the story, during its rising action, a writer must make everything worse and worse for his or her protagonist. Koontz demonstrates this technique (as do most popular novelists) in all of his books. In Relentless, a sociopath who also happens to be a critic, attacks the protagonist (a popular novelist!) and his family. Warned that the antagonist is a relentless killer, the writer packs a few bags, planning to take his wife and son with him and flee their home. Rather stupidly leaving their son unattended in the back seat of their getaway car, the parents, after hearing a cellular telephone left in a closet by their assailant ring, witness their clock radios reset themselves and begin counting down toward explosions. They flee back to the car, only to find their son missing. A bad situation (looming explosions) has gotten even worse (their son is missing as the bombs are about to detonate).

By taking a tip from Koontz, Whedon, and other popular storytellers in plotting the action of your story so that one problem, as soon as it is resolved, is overtaken by a more difficult one in which the stakes (one’s home is about to be destroyed) are increased (one’s son is missing and may be killed), you, too, can generate and maintain suspense while complicating your story’s basic conflict.

To Be Is To Be Perceived (And To Be Perceived Is To Be)

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defines “edible” as meaning “good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.”

His humor’s not for everyone, but it does, in this case, at least, suggest something important to writers, whether of horror fiction or otherwise: We are either who we would have ourselves be or what others would have us be. To a hungry lion, we are perhaps viewed as food. However, were we armed with a spear (or, better yet, a rifle), the king of the beasts himself might become our prey. To Christians (in the old days, at least) and to Moslems (even today, in some cases) alike, those who were not of the faith were pagans or infidels, although, from their viewpoint, the pagans and infidels, not the Christians and the Moslems exercised the one and only true faith. To Republicans, Democrats are the opposition; to Democrats, it’s the other way around. We either define ourselves or we are defined by another.

We may also regard ourselves one way while another regards us in a completely different manner. A man may consider himself to be a suitor, whereas, from the perspective of the object of his affections, he may be considered a stalker. The use, in the last sentence, of “object,” in describing the woman whom the man (depending upon one’s perspective) either woos or stalks, was intentional, intended as a segue to the concept that Jewish theologian Martin Buber introduces in I and Thou. In this profound book, Buber points out that we can consider either ourselves or others to be either a person (an “I”) or a thing (an “it”). We will then treat ourselves or others accordingly. Employers, for example, often think of employees as “human resources,” rather than as men and women with attitudes, beliefs, dreams, emotions, ideas, imaginations, morals, motivations, needs, principles, values, and wisdom of their own--and treat them as such. (Employees seldom forget that they are, in fact, as human--or more so--than their bosses, whom they may regard as tyrants--and treat them as such.) As the Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

A philosophical adage has it that “to be is to be perceived,” but it seems equally valid to say that “to be perceived is to be,” for we assign both ourselves and others roles to play, thereby perceiving ourselves and others to “be” this or that or, perhaps, to “fit” a particular type of work, as being “suited to” or “suitable for” a certain activity. Writers should never forget that it is just as true, perhaps, that we are perceived to be certain things as it is true that we exist because we are recognized or understood.

We assign meaning, just as we assign value. In doing so, we construct reality. Both for ourselves and others. We do this every day, whether we are writers or not, but writers also do it every time they write a story. To Beowulf, Grendel is the monstrous troll who is killing Danish warriors and terrorizing the people of their village and mead hall. To his mother, Grendel is a beloved son whose death at the hands of the murderous Beowulf must be avenged. It is clear that how characters see one another can be, and often is, the basis of narrative and dramatic conflict.

Perceptions can also be the bases of ironic reversals. Indeed, such a reversal is the very foundation of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He imagined a young woman entering a dark alley, where she was attacked by a monster. However, instead of the monster killing (and possibly devouring) her, it was she who emerged victorious from their battle. The monster, a vampire, no doubt, saw the teen as prey (and, possibly, a meal), as would someone watching such a scene play out in a movie or a television episode (Buffy was a movie before it was a TV series.) Likewise, the typical teen would regard the vampire as a threat, as a predator. Both would act accordingly, the vampire actively, attacking, killing and consuming; the girl, passively, being attacked, killed, and consumed. (Acting upon the instinct for self-preservation, she might put up some resistance, of course, but it would be futile.) In Whedon’s ironic version of the scene, though, the vampire’s perception of himself as the predator and of Buffy as the prey worked against him, for it was Buffy who, as it turned out, was actually the actual slayer in their (brief) encounter.

Playing with roles can have other interesting effects, too. A boy or a girl, transitioning to adulthood, can leave childhood behind, seemingly in a moment, either because of an external event or because of an internal incident. For example, if one encounters child abuse, perhaps seeing a father bending back the fingers of his son’s hand, by way of “punishment,” will the witness become involved? Intervene? Pretend nothing unusual is happening and ignore the abuse? Whatever he or she does, the adolescent characterizes him- or herself, perhaps in several ways. Will a teen participate in the bullying, intimidation, and humiliation of a classmate simply because his or her “friends” are doing so, speak out against the harassment, stop the abuse and find new friends (perhaps starting with the bullied person), or ignore the situation altogether? Again, whatever he or she does, the teen characterizes him- or herself. The response shows maturity and independence (and compassion) or the opposites. Often, we are more revealed by what we say or do (or do not say or do) than others to whom we say or do whatever it is we say or do. (Yes, that is a sentence, of sorts.)

Dynamic characters (those who change by the end of the story) necessarily reverse the roles they played, as it were, at the beginning of their narratives. The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy Gale is disappointed in her home, dependent, and complaining at the beginning of the movie, but, at the end, as a result of the experiences she’s had in Oz, she is appreciative of her home, independent, and glad to be surrounded by the family and friends whom she’d taken for granted before. Tested, tired, and resigned to her fate at the end of the series’ seventh year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is no longer the unproven, perky, rebellious teen she was at the start of the show. Dynamic characters end up as the opposites of themselves. Arguably, even for a vampire, Buffy would be hard to mistake as a victim at the end of the series, just as it would be difficult for the Wicked Witch of the west to cowl Dorothy after all she’d been through in the wonderful land of Oz.

As far as others know (and can know), each of us is what we say, what we do, and the various roles that we play. For good or for ill, because we can think differently than we speak or act, we are able to deceive others, just as they are able to deceive us. We can also be hypocrites, acting at odds with what we say we believe or endorse. The possibilities of deceit and hypocrisy are important to writers, because they allow subterfuge, betrayals, treachery, treason, and the other violations of trust upon which intrigue, suspense, irony, and plots are built.

Speech (dialogue), behavior (action), and role playing are the bases, along with nonverbal communication cues such as facial expressions and gestures, of characterization and its exhibition to readers and audiences. It is, therefore, a good habit for a writer, in studying people (as models for fictional characters) to not only observe what and how people say and do things but, equally importantly, to imagine the various ways in which the same things might be said or done, both by the present and by other people, and both in their presently adopted or assigned roles and in other possible ones. Who might have imagined that a man, through technology, could become a mother of sorts? Mary Shelley did, in the fictional person of Victor Von Frankenstein, and, if Joss Whedon hadn’t imagine a reversal of roles between the teenage girl and her supernatural attacker, Buffy the Vampire Slayer never would have been born.

Quick Tip: Writing the Short-Short Story

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

A short-short story is a narrative that is under 1,000 words in length, It is often made up of only a single scene, wherein a conflict, usually between two characters, is posed and resolved. There is frequently a twist, or surprise, ending to the story, which is generally effected through dramatic irony, situational irony, verbal irony, or a combination thereof. However, these are not hard-and-fast rules, but sweeping statements. Many times, short short stories derive from situations. In any case, they must be tightly written. Every word counts, adding to the narrative’s development and effect.

My own short-short story, “Finis” illustrates the form. After writing it in full, I changed the second paragraph to provide a stronger motivation for the protagonist’s extreme action. Before this revision, the paragraph supplied enough information to suggest why the actress might do as she does, but not sufficient motivation for her to do what she does; the revision makes her actions more believable.

Finis

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

The director asked, “Ready, Amanda?”

The actress thought of her husband and three-year-old daughter trapped inside their SUV, burned alive before they could be rescued; of the doctor’s pained expression when he’d detected something suspicious in her left breast and had, sober-faced, his voice flat, an attempt at a smile faltering at the corners of his lips, telling her that, “just to be on the safe side,” he wanted to order a biopsy; and of the five million dollars she’d been paid for this role and of how the money would finance her institutionalized daughter’s needs, and she nodded. “Ready.”

“I’d like to get it right the first time,” he said, and she nodded.

The production assistant held the clapboard between her and the camera: Snuff, Scene 1, Take 1. He snapped the top lever, the clapstick, down, upon the board, clack!

“Action!” the director called.

The camera dollied in, close.

Blood spurted from Amanda’s left forearm, bright and explosive.

She grimaced, drawing the straight-razor down the vein in her other forearm.

Blood was everywhere. Amanda felt faint. She listed to her left, her head spinning. Dizzy, she capsized, landing in the pool of her own splattering blood. The vital fluid was warm and thick. She moaned.

“Cut!” the director cried. “Perfect. Print it.”

For Amanda, everything went dark, and silence claimed her.

Quick Tip: Narrative Reversals

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Most readers and writers know about plot twists, which usually result from situational irony--setting up an expectation that is later resolved in a manner different from that which one is led to believe is likely. However, writers can, and sometimes do, also upset expectations regarding other elements of fiction, such as character, conflict, setting, and theme. A character who is established as self-centered and self-serving can turn out to be capable of being altruistic and humane, as Han Solo, of Star Wars, turns out to be. A conflict that seems likely to end in only one way can end in an unexpected manner, as the conflict between Gone With the Wind's Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler does; all the way to the end of the novel, Rhett is interested in winning the heartless Scarlett’s heart, and, when he finally seems to get his own heart’s desire, well, “frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” he tells her. A setting that appears to be dangerous can turn out to be a refuge, as Spike’s crypt is for Dawn when she is being hunted by the goddess Glory (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). The opposite can be true, too: a character who seeks sanctuary in a church can find that the holy place is a place of danger, as Nightcrawler does in the X2: X-Men United movie, only to be tracked down and captured by Jean Grey and Storm. A theme can also be inverted through irony. The apparent theme of a story can be provided, perhaps through the dialogue or the habitual behavior of a character, only to be reversed at the end of the narrative or drama. At the outset of Gran Torino, Walt Kowalski, a racist war hero, avoids young people, members of ethnic and racial groups, religious people, and anyone else who does not measure up to his narrow standards of propriety until he rescues a young Hmong woman from black gang members who seem intent upon raping her. The movie’s theme, which seems to be that it is best to mind one’s own business, adopting an everyone-for-himself philosophy, turns out to be one that affirms the importance of brotherly love and self-sacrifice.

Characterization via Emotion

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Characterization operates by means of depicting emotion. Literary characters are, in fact, embodiments of emotion. Some emotions may be negative, either in the sense that they are unpleasant or in the sense that they cause problems, personal, social, or otherwise. Emotions can also be positive because they are pleasant or because they alleviate or resolve problems, personal, social, or otherwise.

Characters’ responses to incidents--that is, their feelings concerning events--motivate their actions. In other words, characters are often reactive: they respond to internal or external stimuli. Internal stimuli are their own attitudes, beliefs, desires, fantasies, hopes, thoughts, and, of course, emotions, such as fear, love, and self-respect. External stimuli are persons, places, things, qualities, and ideas that elicit characters’ passions, and can include threats, money, beauty, and death.

The overall, consistent pattern which underlies and is discerned in an individual’s behavior over an extended period of time suggests his or her basic personality traits and causes him or her to be regarded as just, wise, kind, ruthless, arrogant, vain, or whatever. However, many lesser, secondary traits also comprise most fictional people at any time of his or her literary life.

Hamlet is driven by his sense of duty to avenge his murdered father, but he is also hesitant, wanting to make sure that he acts justly in killing his father’s true killer--if, indeed, his father was killed, as the spirit who alleges to be the ghost of his father contends the late king was. These traits are the primary ones that motivate Hamlet, both to act and to refrain from acting. Therefore, he can be said to be a dutiful and just, but hesitant, character. In short, we might regard him as being a man of valor.

His antagonist, who is also his uncle and his step-father, King Claudius, is shown to be cold, calculating, and unrepentant, and he is driven by lust, both for power and for sex, having married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, shortly after Hamlet’s father died. Therefore, Hamlet can be read as a dramatization of a conflict between these two sets of emotions: Hamlet’s dutifulness, justice, and hesitation collide with Claudius’ coldness, calculation, unwillingness to repent, and lust for power and sex.

Horror fiction is primarily about fear, but its characters are motivated by other emotions as well. Beowulf’s hero wants to prove his mettle as a warrior. Although The Exorcist’s Father Damian Karras has begin to doubt and, perhaps, to lose his faith, he remains a man of God who loves humanity, as it is represented in the possessed soul of young Regan MacNeil, enough to risk his own life in an attempt to exorcise the devil’s victim. Many of Stephen King’s characters are motivated by their need to bond and by their need to belong to a community, or by brotherly love, one might say.

Not only the protagonists of horror fiction are motivated by their emotions; their antagonists are as well. In Beowulf, the monstrous outcast, Grendel, attacks the Danes because he envies their camaraderie. In The Exorcist, the devil possesses Regan in an attempt to get Father Karras to renounce his faith and thus be damned. Many of King’s villains (‘Salem’s Lot’s Barlow, Andre Linoge in Storm of the Century, and the protean monster of It, for example) prey upon the weaknesses of small communities and their residents, motivated by their narcissistic desire to perpetuate themselves. The emotional conflicts in Beowulf, The Exorcist, and ‘Salem’s Lot can be represented this way:

Valor vs. Envy
Love vs. Condemnation
Brotherly Love vs. Narcissistic self-perpetuation

By motivating your characters to act according to their passions, you will make your fiction seem more realistic, and you will show what’s at stake, on a personal level, as it were, in the struggle between the story’s protagonist and antagonist. The nature of the struggle, in turn, may suggest your stories’ themes. For example, The Exorcist suggests that love casts out condemnation, just as Beowulf implies that valor vanquishes envy and King's novels indicate that brotherly love is more important than narcissistic self-perpetuation.