Knowing Your Endgame

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Flash fiction works well for horror. We have the word from both Edgar Allan Poe, who said that a reader should be able to read a horror story in “a single sitting”—and he was talking short stories, not flash fiction as such. Although he was vague (what constitutes “a single sitting”?), we can, perhaps, get some direction from famed director Alfred Hitchcock, who brought both Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963) to the big screen. He declared, “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”

Of course, his definition is also somewhat obscure: the “endurance of the human bladder” is apt to differ, sometimes considerably, among individuals. However, adults average 120 to 240 minutes between visits to the restroom to urinate. Assuming that Hitchcock applied his own criterion to the films he directed, a horror film, at least, should be between 109 minutes (Psycho) and 119 minutes (The Birds), which are well within the guidelines that he himself established.

Definitions of the permissible word length of “flash fiction” stories differ, with some suggesting that such stories should be no more than 600 to 1,000 words, while others argue that flash fiction stories could be as long as 2,000 words. Flash fiction author Michael Williams, author of Tales with a Twist, tries to stay at or below 1,000 words, but, occasionally, he admits, one of his stories reaches 1,200 words:

“I think setting my goal as 1,000 words, maximum, helps me focus. It gives me something to shoot for, but I wouldn't sacrifice a good story just to stay within an artificially imposed limit; if I have to go beyond, 1,000 words, I have to go beyond 1,000 words. For me, though, that's the exception. Most stories I write can be done well—probably better—in 1,000 words or fewer.”

Research finds that most people read at a rate of between 200 and 250 words per minute, so a flash fiction story, for most readers, would certainly meet both Poe's and Hitchcock's definitions:

A flash fiction story isn't characterized only by its brevity, however. “Flash fiction stories—I usually refer to them as flashes—usually end with a twist,” Williams says. “That's part of the their appeal, part of their fun. It's also a large part of their popularity.”

There are various ways to “twist a tale.”

One is to start with an outrageous, or even seemingly impossible, incident or situation. That's part one, the beginning, of the story. It hooks the reader. Then, follow with a logical result of this initial incident or situation. That's the middle of the story. The end of the story, part three, delivers the twist.

One way to generate the twist itself is to play with the six questions related to any form of communication: Who?, What?, When?, Where? How? and Why? Make a list, as complete as possible, of possible answers to each of these questions as they relate to your story's premise.”

Here's an example:

Beginning: A snowman melts, revealing a corpse.

Middle: Police respond.

End (twist): . . . .

To come up with the twist, start the list of answers to the seven questions that apply to any form of communication, including fiction:

1. WHO? WHO is the dead person? If he or she was murdered, WHO is the murder? WHO might be a character in the story? The body, of course and the murderer (if there was a murder). The police officers. A neighbor. The mail carrier. A repair person. A bus or a taxi driver or passenger. A spouse. A child, minor or adult. A delivery person. A maintenance person. A utility worker. A meter reader. A sanitation employee.
2. WHAT? What happened to the dead person? Murder? Suicide? A prank gone wrong? An ill-advised advertisement? An attention-seeking act gone astray?
3. WHEN? A two-day interval, on day one of which the person is encased in snow and, on day two of which, he or she is found as the snowman begins to melt.
4. WHERE? The front yard of a suburban home.
5. HOW? The person encased in snow freezes to death over night.
6. WHY? (This is usually the point at which the twist suggests itself, although any of the six questions could prompt an answer that includes the story's twist): A prop master who remains employed by his uncle, a movie director, despite the prop master's Alzheimer's, forgets that he has packed snow over an actor's body, and repeatedly does so, rather than freeing the actor from the “snowman” after the shot is complete, causing the unintended victim to die of exposure overnight.

 

Notice that the twist, in this example, is the result of the WHY? question, but the identity of the killer does not appear among the answers to the WHO? question. This just goes to show that, in actual practice, the questions themselves may not produce the “answer” that provides the twist, but, without having gone through this process, it's unlikely that the idea would have occur at all. Answering the questions starts the ball rolling, the mind thinking, and the imagination visualizing.

Now, we can complete the framework, or skeleton, of the story's plot:

Beginning: A snowman melts, revealing a corpse.

Middle: Police respond.

End (twist): A prop master, having developed Alzheimer's, forgets that he has packed snow over an actor's body and repeatedly does so, rather than freeing the actor from the “snowman” after the shot is complete, causing the unintended victim to die of exposure overnight.

Note: As in any story, before writing it, you need to research any technical aspects of the plot to make sure they are accurate. For example, would a person freeze to death if encased in snow overnight or would he or she suffocate? How long would such a death, whether of hypothermia or suffocation, take? Maybe overnight isn't long enough. Research and revise, as necessary. If the technical reality doesn't allow the ending you've conceived, think of one that will stand the test of the facts.

Article Word Length: 1,014

Estimated Reading Time: 4.05 to 5.07 minutes

Syntactical Storylines

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

The adjectival subject verbed its object adverbially.

(Example: The old man ate cake quickly.)

The above sentence reflects the basic, normal syntax (word order) of the English language, which can be modified by additions of words, phrases and clauses, as necessary or desirable. Reducing this syntax to one of subject-verb-object, and appending to it a final phrase or clause that identifies or explains its cause, motivation, or reason can suggest a storyline that can then be developed into a plot. Here are some examples, based on summaries in Fantasy and Horror: A Critical and Historical Guide to Literature, Illustration, Film, TV, Radio, and the Internet, edited by Neil Barron:

Most writers can come up with the subject (protagonist or antagonist), the verb (incident or action), and the object (which may or may not be the antagonist). The explanation as to why the incident or the action occurred is what often troubles authors--and it is upon just this item that the whole story hangs, for without a cause, a motive, or a reason, a sequence of incidents or a chain of actions (behaviors) has no meaning. Consequently, the story has no consequence or value. It is merely a meaningless succession of pointless happenings unrelated to one another except by chronology.

One of the beauties of a syntactical approach to creating storylines is that, in compiling a list of examples of the process, such as the one that we have complied here, based upon stories’ summaries in Fantasy and Horror, one can obtain, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of causes, motives and reasons--of the explanatory origins or consequences--of a plot’s incidents or a protagonist’s or an antagonist’s actions, which allows the writer to give significance and understanding to such incidents or actions.

Motivated actions, or behaviors (which, unlike incidents, which are caused, rather than motivated) have ends, or purposes; such actions are goal-directed. They may be directed toward self-satisfaction or the satisfaction of another. In either case, they fulfill various needs that psychologists have identified. Some needs can be fulfilled by oneself; others needs must be fulfilled by someone or something other than oneself; and still other needs may be fulfilled by either oneself, may be fulfilled by another, or may or must be fulfilled by both the self and another who act together, in cooperative interaction, with one another. (Abraham Maslow identifies classes of universal basic human needs that energize, or motivate, human behavior: physiological needs, safety need, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs, and other psychologists identify still other types of universal needs with which writers should be familiar.)

In horror fiction, the past often affects the present, and the present often affects the future. Sometimes, these effects are intended; they are set up by a character on purpose, to initiate future incidents. Other times, they seem to be merely the workings of chance. They may be caused by a character’s performance of a ritual by which he or she hopes to impart a supernatural status to a natural object, process, set of circumstances, condition, or event. They may result from the contact of two points in the space-time continuum that are usually separate. An action may be the result of hubris, or they may be intended to effect catharsis, or a venting of powerful emotion.

The explanation for the incidents that occur or the actions that the protagonist or the antagonist performs may also suggest a back story--or, at least, elements that should be developed and, eventually, explained in the back story. For example, if an architect is motivated to perform ritual murders as a means of “baptizing” the cathedrals he designs or builds, in order to cause later repetitions of these initial killings, the reader, at some point, will want and expect to know why--in other words, what motivates this character to do want to do such a thing to begin with? The character’s immediate purpose, or motive, is to cause later repetitions of the original killings; his or her motive for wanting the initial murders to be repeated might be called the final motive. Learning the immediate cause, the reader will be content to read further, but he or she will expect to be told the final cause as well, at some point in the story, or the character’s actions will, despite the immediate cause having been identified, remain baseless and incredible. Withholding, but ultimately disclosing, the final cause as well is a good mean of maintaining suspense--as long as, at some point, the final cause is also revealed.

Note: All summaries are quoted directly (except where modifications are indicated) from Alan Frank’s The Horror Film Handbook.

The storyline, or premise, of a narrative should normally follow the subject-verb-object syntax that is typical of English sentences and include any necessary articles:

A bishop unleashes a demon.

Usually, the subject identifies the story’s protagonist; the verb, his or her action; and the object the recipient of the protagonist’s action.

The storyline may add words, phrases, or dependent clauses to provide additional information about any or all three of these elements. However, the additional details should be necessary and minimal, at this point. For example, Since this story (Abby) (1974) is set in an African country (Nigeria) and, in fact, the demon itself is a native, as it were, to this country, the bishop’s race may be regarded as significant; therefore, it is mentioned; otherwise, it would not be:

A black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon.

If it is pertinent to the plot of the story to further describe any of these elements, additional words, phrases, or clauses can be added. For example, the type of demon can be indicated; in our example, based upon the movie Abby, the demon is one “of sexuality,” so this phrase is added, after the noun “demon”:

A black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing. . . .

This sentence comprises the setup of the story; it is the inciting moment--the one incident in the action of the story that sets everything else in the narrative in motion, the spark, or catalyst, that ignites the remaining actions of the plot. To identify this moment as the cause of the actions which follow, rather than merely their antecedent, many writers convert the sentence into an adverbial clause by adding “When” to the beginning of the group of words:

When a black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing. . . .

What was formerly an independent clause (“A black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing”) is now a dependent clause (“When a black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing”), and an adverbial one, at that, which will modify the as-yet non-existent independent clause that will follow it, completing the sentence. The independent clause (underlined in the example, below) will identify the effect, or consequence, of the cause that the dependent, adverbial clause identifies:

When a black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing, his daughter-in-law becomes possessed.

As before, if it is pertinent to the plot of the story to further describe any of these elements, additional words, phrases, or clauses can be added. For example, the location in which the daughter-in-law lives may be deemed relevant; if so, it should be identified (as it is here, underlined):

When a black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing, his daughter-in-law in Louisville becomes possessed.

The consequence that follows from the storyline’s initial cause can itself become the cause of a subsequent consequence, as in the extension of the premise (in which the added consequence is underlined):

When a black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing, his daughter-in-law in Louisville becomes possessed and he has to perform an exorcism.

This is a fairly well-written summary of Abby’s basic plot, or storyline, although the phrase “and evil-doing” possibly could be omitted. As such, it specifies the three parts of the story, in a cause-and-effect sequence, thereby representing the germ of a logical, coherent, well-structured, three-act premise:

Beginning (Act I): A black bishop unleashes a Nigerian demon of sexuality and evil-doing. Middle (Act II): His daughter-in-law in Louisville becomes possessed. End (Act III): He has to perform an exorcism.

A storyline can also state or suggest the protagonist’s motive, as this one does, in summarizing the plot of The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), in which, here, underlining has been added to indicate the motive:

A wealthy musical genius, the horribly disfigured Dr. Phibes, plans to murder all the surgeons who failed to save his wife’s life and uses methods of death based on the ten curses of [i. e., on] Pharaoh.

In other words, Dr, Phibes is motivated by revenge. This premise could be improved:

A wealthy musical genius, the horribly disfigured Dr. Phibes uses methods of death based on the ten curses of [i. e., on] Pharaoh to murder all the surgeons who failed to save his wife’s life.

Notice that this summary, in addition to suggesting the protagonist’s motive (revenge), also identifies an unusual twist: Dr. Phibes will employ “methods of death based on the ten curses on Pharaoh.” If a story contains such a twist, the storyline should indicate it, as this one does, because it is such unusual twists that add interest to a storyline. However, a writer is still well advised to start with the simplest subject-verb-object method of delineating the original germ of the plot and then add such words, phrases, or clauses that seem justified to present all pertinent details, whether of character, setting, unusual plot twist, motive, or otherwise:

A genius murders surgeons.

The following summary (of The Abominable Snowman) also indicates the movie’s three-part plot structure, the character’s motive, and the setting:

An expedition travels into the Himalayas [Beginning (Act I), which constitutes the inciting moment and includes an identification of the setting as “the Himalayas”] in search of the legendary Yeti [Middle (Act II), including the characters’ motive] and discover the creatures to be monstrous but friendly [End (Act III)].

Notice that this summary could be recast in the “when-this, that” format:

When an expedition travels into the Himalayas in search of the legendary Yeti[,] [the team] discover the creatures to be monstrous but friendly.

Even a classic like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) can fit this format:

[When] a young woman steals $40,000 from her employer and stops over at an isolated motel . . . she is killed by a schizophrenic transvestite who believes that he is his own mother.

[Beginning (Act I)]: A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer. [Middle (Act II)]: [She] stops over at an isolated motel. [End (Act III)]: She is killed by a schizophrenic transvestite who believes that he is his own mother.

Although this summary doesn’t state or suggest her motive, the movie itself does, and the summary could easily be adapted to do likewise:

[When] a young woman steals $40,000 from her employer to finance a new life with her boyfriend before stopping over at an isolated motel . . . she is killed by a schizophrenic transvestite who believes that he is his own mother.

Source: Barron, Neil, ed. Fantasy and Horror: A Critical and Historical Guide to Literature, Illustration, Film, TV, Radio, and the Internet.

Frank, Alan. The Horror Film Handbook. Barnes & Noble Books: Totowa, NJ. 1982.

Middles: How Would You Finish The Story?

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In a previous post, “Beginnings: How Would You Finish the Story?,” we reminded you that a story, after presenting background information, begins with an inciting moment--an incident that sparks the action that follows (the story proper). Following this moment, the story’s conflict is complicated as increasingly difficult obstacles are thrown into the protagonist’s path until a turning point is reached and the story starts in the opposite direction, ending in a resolution (comedy) or a catastrophe (tragedy). Then, we provided summaries of the way that three well-known horror stories begin and invited you to create your own middles and endings for these stories, alternative to the actual ones that the writers of these stories wrote. We suggested that you then consult an Internet source to see how the actual stories developed their middles and endings. The stories are Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Stephen King’s Needful Things, and The Thing From Another World.

Since you may not remember, in detail, how these stories developed their middles and endings, even after consulting an online summary of them, we’ll summarize their middles in this post and offer some comments upon them. In a later post, we’ll do the same with regard to these stories’ endings.

Let’s start with Psycho:

Norman panics upon discovering Marion’s bloody corpse. However, he manages to wrap her body inside the shower curtain and cleans up the mess. Placing her body and all her belongings, including the stolen money, which Marion had hidden in a folded newspaper, into the trunk of her car, he pushes it down a slope, into a swamp.

Marion’s sister, Lila, worried that Marion is missing, contacts her lover, Sam, as does a private detective, Milton Arbogast, whom Mr. Lowery has hired to recover the money Marion has stolen. The detective suspects that Lila or Sam knows Marion’s whereabouts. Tracing Marion to the Bates Motel, Milton questions Norman and insists upon interviewing his mother, which Norman forbids. The detective calls Lila, telling her that Norman is not being truthful. Milton then sneaks into Norman’s house, but he is pushed down the stairs, backward, as he climbs them toward the second floor. To finish him off, he’s stabbed to death.

When Lila alerts the local deputy sheriff, Al Chambers, of Milton’s claim to have seen Norman’s mother, the lawman is baffled: the woman was buried 10 years ago, after she’d poisoned herself and her lover.

At home, Norman confronts his mother, urging her to hide out in the house’s fruit cellar to prevent herself from being discovered by those who are hunting for the missing woman, Marion, whom Mrs. Bates has murdered. She refuses to do so, irate as she recalls Norman’s having persuaded her to stay there previously, for a long time. Nevertheless, Norman carries her there, against her will, as she screams, “Put me down! I can walk!”

Sam and Lila conduct an undercover operation of their own. Pretending to be married, they rent a room at the Bates Motel. Norman is careful to assign them to one that is far from the one he’d rented to Marion, but they sneak into Marion’s former room and discover that the shower curtain is missing. Peering into the toilet bowl, Lila notices a bit of paper on the edge, with “$40,000” written on it--proof that her sister had been a guest at the Bates Motel.

Lila sneaks into Norman’s house to talk to Norman’s mother while Sam distracts him in the motel office by accusing Norman of having murdered Marion for the money she’d stolen. However, soon after they begin to argue, Norman discovers that Lila is absent. He knocks Sam out and flees to his house, but Lila, seeing his approach, takes refuge in the fruit cellar, where she finds Norman’s mother. She is horrified to learn that Mrs. Bates is a mummified corpse.

Wearing his mother's clothes and a wig, Norman bursts into the cellar, armed with a knife, identifying himself as his mother, Norma. Sam, having regained consciousness, disarms Norman, tearing his dress in the process.

Let’s see how the screenwriters, Joseph Stefano and Samuel A. Taylor (unaccredited), developed the middle of this story.

The middle of the story deals with the aftereffects of Norman’s murder of Marion. This portion of the story includes his murder of several other victims, and the revelation of his secret identity as his deceased mother (and thus his severe mental illness), which is accompanied by his cross dressing. It ends with Norman’s being disarmed by Sam as he attacks Lila, dressed as his mother, Norma. In other words, the middle of the story is logically connected to the beginning and explains the bizarre incidents that were suggested at the outset of the movie more than they were shown. The middle of the story also transitions to the ending, which we’ll look at in a later post. In the process, additional characters are introduced (often victims) as the initial conflict is complicated and the story moves toward its climax, or turning point. This approach is typical to horror story plots. After describing a number of bizarre incidents, the plot explains the cause or reason for these incidents as the main character discovers why such odd things are afoot. This knowledge allows him or her to solve the problem represented by these incidents and to restore order or the status quo, which takes place at the end of the story.


The beginning of Needful Things seems too slight for much development, but, as we mentioned in our previous post, Stephen King manages to get 792 pages out of it, and the movie based upon his novel has a running time of 120 minutes. How does King manage to get so much mileage out of the simple situation of a man with supernatural powers’ opening of a curiosity shop in small-town Castle Rock, Maine?

Let’s start by summarizing the middle of the story:

After the shop opens, the townspeople visit Needful Things, each to buy that which he or she wants more than anything else. Brian Rusk wants a Sandy Koufax baseball card on which the player has signed his (Brian’s) name; Danforth (“Buster“) Keeton wants a machine that forecasts the winners of horse races; others want things that have a special meaning for them. All agree to do a “favor” for the store’s kindly owner, Leland Gaunt, ignoring the warning, “Caveat emptor” (“Let the buyer beware”) posted in his shop. The favor is always a seemingly harmless, if sometimes mean-spirited, prank that is played upon a casual acquaintance. However, the pranks turn out to be anything but harmless, causing the townspeople to turn upon one another in an escalating series of violent acts that threatens to destroy the entire town.

The only person in town who is not susceptible to Leland’s powers, because he already has everything he needs, is Castle Rock’s sheriff, Alan Pangborn. During the course of the story, Alan suspects that the series of violent acts can all be attributed to the same source, or cause: Leland Gaunt. The story climaxes when Leland seduces the sheriff’s girlfriend, Polly, by presenting her with a necklace that relieves the pain she suffers as a result of her arthritic hands. Leland’s seduction of Polly forces a showdown between him and the sheriff.

King says that this novel was inspired by the greed he saw in the behavior of televangelist Jim Bakker and his late ex-wife Tammy Faye Messner.

The middle of the story is an outgrowth of its beginning, showing what many of the residents of Castle Rock value above all else and the consequences of their willingness to do harm to others to acquire these material objects. Therefore, it is a logical development of the story’s initial situation and, like Psycho’s middle, the middle of King’s novel also explains the cause of the bizarre incidents that occur in and around the town. Ironically, it is the man who values someone else, his girlfriend, above all merely material objects who can stand against Leland’s powers, and it is when Leland threatens the one whom Alan loves that the shopkeeper sets up the final showdown between the force of good and the force of evil that is played out at the end of the story. In the process, King also introduces more characters (mostly victims), and, by delving into the back stories of the many residents of Castle Rock who appear in this novel, King gives depth (and length) to the narrative. In addition, he provides the motives of, and insights into, his characters, making their choices of Leland’s wares and their willingness to harm others understandable if not always entirely believable.


Finally, we will summarize and comment upon the third story whose beginning we summarized in our previous post, The Thing From Another World, a 1951 science fiction classic film which qualifies as a horror flick, too, because of its chills and thrills:

A team of scientists at a remote arctic research laboratory, investigating a possible aircraft crash, find the wreckage of a flying saucer, covered in ice. Using explosives to free the ship, they accidentally destroy it, but they recover a body frozen in the ice.

As they return to their outpost, a major storm approaches, making communication with their headquarters in Anchorage problematic. Some scientists want to thaw out the creature, but the commanding officer, Air Force Captain Patrick Hendry forbids them from doing so until he receives orders from Anchorage.

Nervous in the presence of the alien body he guards, an airman uses an electric blanket to cover the ice block in which the extraterrestrial being reposes, causing the creature to thaw out, and it revives. Sled dogs attack the escaping alien, biting off one of its arms, which the scientists recover. As the limb warms, it absorbs the canine blood and returns to life. The scientists, examining the arm, conclude that, although the creature seems to be an animal of human-like appearance, it is actually a plant. (Yes, this twist stretches the willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.) Despite the creature’s obvious handicap to communication, one of the scientists (probably not a Nobel laureate) believes that they can reason with the creature. By contrast, the Air Force personnel do not believe that the plant can think or communicate with them, and they assume that it could be dangerous. (See, there is such a thing as military intelligence, on rare occasions.)

To survive, the plant-man attacks and kills other sled dogs, living upon their blood. When Dr. Carrington discovers a sled dog’s body, devoid of blood, hidden in the outpost’s greenhouse, he has volunteers among his team stand guard. The creature later kills several of them before it is lured into a trap inside the greenhouse.

Having determined that the creature needs human blood to reproduce, Dr. Carrington sneaks plasma from the base infirmary, using it to incubate the seeds he’s extracted from the creature’s severed arm.

The middle of this story is also logically connected to its opening situation, as the characters seek both to understand the nature of the creature they’ve recovered and to eliminate it as a threat after an Air Force guard inadvertently thaws the ice in which the creature reposes and it attacks sled dogs and humans. They learn the secret as to its true nature (a plant in human form) and the reason that it needs blood (to survive and to reproduce). Several characters become the monster’s victims. There is a conflict between a scientist’s desire to learn the secrets of nature, as represented by the alien plant-creature, and ordinary humans’ instinct for self-preservation, or survival. The former impulse is shown as being in opposition with the latter--at least when an extraterrestrial plant, capable of moving under its own power, is involved. The middle also transitions toward the story’s end, which we will consider in a later post. This story, incidentally, also makes use of a convention that is common in horror fiction, but effective, nevertheless--the isolated setting in which characters are cut off from the rest of society, from culture, and, indeed, from civilization itself and are stranded to survive (or not) on their own.