Showing posts with label picture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label picture. Show all posts

Saturday, October 16, 2021

Creating an Eerie Setting and Tone, Part II

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 

In the first part of this series, we considered this same topic. In this post, we take a look at it from a different perspective.


Woods can be unsettling. Why? They are apart from developed areas, which are products of human knowledge, innovation, art, technology, imagination, and technique. Development takes (and shows) a mastery of the environment, control over nature.

We did not ask trees to assume the dimensions and configurations of floors and walls and ceilings. We used trees to make planks and boards, panels and drywall, just as we used lime or gypsum and sand and water to make plaster and converted sedimentary material into clay to make bricks. Every building, commercial, residential, or otherwise, is a human product, an example of humanity’s power and control over the earth.

Outside cities and suburbs and farms, though, nature, not humanity, rules. Beyond civilization, the wilderness reigns. Woods, like other natural landscapes, represent the untamed world of nature, “red in tooth and claw,” as Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1992) reminds us. Our power centers are only fortresses and outposts in an indifferent universe in which menace and death are as likely as benefit and nurture.

Like deserts, islands, mountains, rain forests, swamps, and the open sea, woods, or forests, remind us that human power and authority over nature are limited, especially outside the cities and suburbs and farms that peoples have carved out of the wilderness, and “tamed” (to some extent) for themselves, as centers of human enterprise. (Blizzards, earthquakes, forest fires, floods, hurricanes, landslides, tornadoes, and other natural disasters are also reminders that human power and authority are limited and fragile; both can be lost in a moment of time.)

When we leave behind our homes and communities to venture into the wilderness, we leave behind the support and assistance of government, families, friends, and neighbors; we also leave behind the organizations and institutions we have created and developed over centuries: military forces, police, firefighters, paramedics, hospitals, doctors, nurses, jails, prisons, forts, highways, vehicles. We put ourselves, to a large degree, at the mercy of nature, “red in tooth and claw.”

Certainly, we may have some tools at our disposal: a tent, food, water, a knife, perhaps a pistol or a rifle, a telephone, matches or a lighter, maybe a hatchet. While such items certainly assist us with everyday tasks and provide the means to satisfy basic needs, they might not be all that helpful against a bear, a cougar, a forest fire, a flash flood, illness, or an escaped prisoner.

What copywriter Barbara Gips observed, in suggesting the tagline to her husband, artist Philip Gips, for the Alien movie poster he was creating, “In space no one can hear you scream” is as true in the woods as it is beyond the exosphere or, as Star Wars puts it, “in a galaxy far, far away.” We are cut off, isolated, on our own, without recourse to protection or any other kind of assistance.

People who read our fiction may not remember their vulnerability as they sit down to read a novel or a short story of watch a movie, but they will feel this helplessness and exposure, all right, if we, as writers, do our jobs well, because our fiction—and our settings—will put them at risk, if only vicariously, and the risk will not be slight; it will be the risk of the loss of life or limb. Described properly, an eerie setting can, and should, suggest this vulnerability to injury or death or, at the very least, to peril, to menace, to danger, to jeopardy, to pain and suffering, and, quite possibly, death.

“Think globally, but live locally,” we have been advised. Similar advice is good for writing: “Think cosmically but write personally.” As writers of horror, we have a Weltanschauung, or world view, that is likely pessimistic: we may hope for the best, but we expect the worst. Possibly, that’s the case because we are aware that the shadow of death falls across all things: friends, family, pursuits of happiness, love, and life itself. With some exceptions, for horror writers, life is a tragedy, ultimately: Life is a bitch, and then we die.

Again, we shouldn’t expect our readers to think about such glum ideas as they read our stories, but we should; we need to know what lies ahead, and, we know, what lies ahead is not a pretty or an encouraging sight. All may be well that ends well, but life does not end well. Instead of lecturing readers, we show them. What happens to our characters, we suggest, could happen to our readers. That’s what identification and vicarious experience are all about.

We describe settings as eerie; we show what happens to our characters in such a setting. We leave it to our readers to discern that they, too, could become prey or victims, whether of the environment itself or a wild animal, a monster, a serial killer, or some other peril. 

I am studying a picture, now, of woods. The image evokes a feeling of disquiet, of uneasiness; it is unsettling, eerie. I write, describing it.

The fog, white here, gray there, as if unable to settle on one shade or the other, is a wall. Rising from the forest floor, it ascends into the sky, a screen, a barrier that cuts off sight, rather than passage. It does not move, does not waver or drift, but stands, a wall immovable and resolute, sinister in its immovability, in its resolute intent.

Leafless trunks, sparse of branch and twig, stand, tall and thin and dark—at least up close; those more distant are vague suggestions, obscured by the pallid pall of the fog engulfing them, the mist that seems to leech away their vitality, their form, their very being. They are more the ghosts of frees, it seems, pale and thin in the motionless haze of the fog. The stand of trees is lost, kindling wood awaiting the flames, should lightning strike this dreary wood in a storm that has not gathered yet, but will.

The fog and the frail, thin trees I take in at a glance, but my eye is arrested by the leaves shed by the trees, the leaves lying, by the hundreds and the thousands, red, like drops of blood, upon the forest floor, lit by a moon unseen—or, perhaps, by an unearthly, unnatural light not of this world. It is as if the very trees or the earth itself bleeds! What power could injure the land itself, blight a forest, obscure the wilderness itself with a veil that is not of this world?

Let’s trek through this forest, the forest of my description, and mark the rhetorical trail we have forged through the narrative wilderness, the better to see the way we have come, and how.

We start with a personification, as the fog is unable to decide (“settle on”) whether to be white or gray and, consequently, is both. An effect of the weather, fog has no intelligence or will—except that we have given it both! If the fog is possessed of a mind that can consider alternatives and make choices, in principle, at least, it could decide to act against us and plan an attack upon us. Its indecisiveness may not work to our advantage. If the fog is unable to decide how best to kill us, it might try several methods, proceeding by trial and error. It is also a barrier, cutting us off—from what? Community? Society? Assistance? The infrastructure of organizations and institutions? Highways? Resources? Or is the fog preventing us from seeing whatever lies beyond it—our way out, perhaps, our avenue to rescue or escape? Whatever its aim, the fog’s intent seems hostile. It is also resolute, determined, staunch: it will not permit sight and the knowledge that vision provides. By blinding us, it keeps us ignorant and, therefore, vulnerable—perhaps to whatever it hides.

The trees of the forest suggest that nature itself is under attack. The trees are bare, leafless, perhaps lifeless. They are thin, pale, perhaps sickly. They are “engulfed” by the parasitic fog, which seems to “leech away their vitality, their form, their very being.” Whatever threatens the trees—the very forest itself—is likely to threaten any who enter the forest, including us. Seen from a distance, the trees appear to be already dead, to be mere “ghosts of” themselves. They seem to be “lost” souls, as it were, awaiting the destructive “flames” of divine judgment, of a wrathful god’s lightning bolt. We, who have entered the forest, are likewise under the sentence of divine judgment.

Finally, our gaze is “arrested” by the sight of the blood-red, fallen leaves, which make it appear that “the very trees or the earth itself bleeds!” We wonder, as does the omniscient narrator, “What power could injure the land itself, blight a forest, obscure the wilderness itself with a veil that is not of this world?” Whatever it is, it is a power with which to reckon, to be sure!

These techniques—personification; ambiguous, paradoxical personality traits; and suggestions of a force able to attack and drain the vital forces of nature itself, with specific references to tangible natural objects, fog, trees, and leaves—create an eerie setting that imperils both the forest and anyone, including the story's characters and we, readers who identify with the characters, conveying feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, confusion, and terror.


Thursday, May 19, 2011

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.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Creating an Eerie Atmosphere and Tone

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Let’s begin with descriptions, by yours truly, of three Internet images.

But, first, a brief digression: The Internet provides a wealth of sketches, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and other images to assist the writer in developing descriptions. All one needs--besides a computer, an Internet connection and a graphics browser--is an appropriate keyword. The pictures upon which the following descriptions are based resulted from a search using the keyword “eerie.” (In addition, such searches allow writers to learn more than they might have anticipated. For example, relatively few of the images in the “eerie” search were of interior locations; the vast majority were landscapes, which suggests that people tend to find the outdoors eerier than the indoors.)

Now, back to the issue at hand. Here are the descriptions:

The forest floor is lost to darkness. Against a hazy gray sky, black branches writhe like the tendrils of a monstrous, unseen beast, thickening in the distance to an impenetrable tangle that bars the fleeing youth’s way, inhibiting his escape and trapping him within the wilderness inhabited by the ravenous, bestial nightmare-creatures. Their howls are louder now; they are terribly close. (The image upon which this image is based can be viewed on Flickr.)

A snapping twig, a tumbled stone, the flight of a startled animal hidden in the brush--something had caught Drake’s attention, and he paused, turned, and looked back at the edge of the dark forest behind him, unaware of the birds that gathered above him, their wings forming truncated crosses against the leaden sky in which storm clouds gathered, dark and ominous, promising something terrible and fierce. (The image upon which this image is based can be viewed on Flickr.)

At the end of the hallway, a solitary brass lamp, itself half lost in darkness, was mounted upon the cracked and yellowing wall. Its two thin, up-thrust arms extended electric candles. Their tapered bulbs cast shadows, transforming the lamp into the visage of some dark god who mocked the light. Perhaps the dreaded deity was Lucifer himself, Emily thought. (The image upon which this image is based can be viewed on Flickr.)

To resume our digression (or, if you prefer, to digress yet again): It seems that many find the night sky and forests particularly eerie, as many Internet images show these features. If a writer needs a different type of eerie image, he or she can simply change the keyword, substituting a synonym for “eerie” or whatever the keyword is that one is using. One might try using “uncanny,” for example, or “bloodcurdling.” One may, instead, extend the keyword, by adding “room” to the original term, and changing “eerie,” for instance, to “eerie room.”

Now, back to the issue at hand.

The type of the place imagined is part of what makes an image (or a description) eerie. Shadows can also make a location eerie. Unexpected colors can transform a normally cheerful or neutral location into something sinister and chilling. Bathing a bedroom in crimson, a playroom in a ghastly green hue, or a basement in sepia can create a sense of doom and gloom. Inverting the colors of a photograph or drawing can also make something ordinary look extraordinary--and frightening. A dark figure in the corner of a room might go unnoticed the first time the chamber is scanned, so that, when it is seen on a second look, its presence startles and disturbs. A boarded up door--perhaps to a closet, a basement, or an attic--gives the viewer or the reader pause as well, for a barred entryway makes one wonder why the door is locked and what may lurk behind it. A locked door will almost always motivate a character to get inside the room beyond it--and, usually, come to a horrible end as a result. Heavy drapes are ominous, for they may hide other menaces. Mirrors are always potentially disturbing, for they may show reflections of things that one cannot otherwise see or, conversely, may not reflect otherwise visible persons, places, or things. Unexpected activity, especially if it’s weird and inappropriate--the water in an aquarium suddenly begins to froth and churn, an unplugged television set starts showing images of death and destruction, furniture begins to levitate--is also cause for alarm.

Let’s return to our descriptions and analyze why they’re written as they are and what (we hope) is eerie about the mood they create.

The forest floor is lost to darkness. Against a hazy gray sky, black branches writhe like the tendrils of a monstrous, unseen beast, thickening in the distance to an impenetrable tangle that bars the fleeing youth’s way, inhibiting his escape and trapping him within the wilderness inhabited by the ravenous, bestial nightmare-creatures. Their howls are louder now; they are terribly close.

In the United States, we learn to read books from left to right and from top to bottom. We will “read” any text the same way that we read a book (and, of course, anything can be a text). In this description, though, the writer (me) violates the normal way of reading an image, starting the reader at the bottom of the image (“The forest floor is lost to darkness”) and leading his or her eye upward, toward the sky (Against a hazy sky, branches writhe”). Images of darkness are among the first thoughts that this description puts into the reader’s mind: “darkness,” “gray,” “black.” Vision is further obscured by a “hazy. . . sky.”

Symbolically, “down” is associated with immanence, and “up” is linked to transcendence. Men and women live upon the earth; gods, upon mountaintops or in the sky (and demons, like the dead, exist under the earth). Normally, in times of trouble, religious people appeal to God for help, but the “hazy gray sky” is like a veil between this world and heaven. If there is a God, his presence is cut off, as it were, by the “hazy gray sky,” just as the “impenetrable tangle” of tree branches “bars the. . . way, inhibiting. . . escape.” There is no help to be had from on high.

The same sentence (sentence two) personifies the forest, comparing the trees’ branches to “the tendrils of a monstrous, unseen beast.” At the same time, however, the woods is also likened to a prison or a cage; its “black branches“ thicken “in the distance to an impenetrable tangle that bars the fleeing youth’s way, inhibiting his escape and trapping him.” The woods is alive; it is capable of exercising a will which, to the “youth” is hostile in its intent. The forest seeks to cut off his escape and to trap him, and it hopes to do so for a reason, so that its inhabitants, “ravenous, bestial nightmare-creatures” can catch and devour their prey.

The image upon which this description is based does not include any human figures. The “youth” is invented and added to the scene that the image depicts. The addition of the youth brings human interest to the description of the wilderness, as the woods are seen from his point of view. It is, in fact, he who makes the forest eerie, because, apart from human perception and sensibility, a woods, no matter how dark and foggy, is still merely a woods. To paraphrase a philosophical koan, If there’s no one there to see a dark and hazy forest, there is no dark and hazy forest. (“To be is to be perceived.”) There are no animals in the image upon which the description is based, either. Their addition adds to the description’s eeriness as well, for their presence transforms a merely potentially frightening scene into a truly menacing one. As the trapped youth seeks to escape his predatory pursuers, he fast loses ground. The writer allows the reader to hear what the youth hears, leaving both with the bestial creatures’ “howls,” which are “louder now” and “terribly close.” Finally, the whole paragraph is written in the simple present tense to lend as much immediacy to the action as possible.

Now, let’s consider the second description:

A snapping twig, a tumbled stone, the flight of a startled animal hidden in the brush--something had caught Drake’s attention, and he paused, turned, and looked back at the edge of the dark forest behind him, unaware of the birds that gathered above him, their wings forming truncated crosses against the leaden sky in which storm clouds gathered, dark and ominous, promising something terrible and fierce.

This one gets the reader immediately inside the character’s head, as the reader hears what Drake just heard: “a snapping twig, a tumbled stone, the flight of a startled animal hidden in the brush.” The character isn’t sure what caused the sound, but, whatever it was, it has startled him, as it might have startled an “animal hidden in the brush.” If the sound he’s heard was that of a frightened animal, the animal’s bolting from the cover of the brush suggests that Drake may also be about to flee. His senses are heightened: something has “caught his attention,” and he has “paused, turned, and looked back at the edge of the dark forest behind him.” Obviously, he hopes to hear something else, more definite and identifiable. Most people have adopted just this attitude on occasion, and the reader will be able to understand easily what Drake feels--anxiety, tension, curiosity mingled with fear. He is poised in a flight-of-fight attitude, a rush of adrenaline only a heartbeat away.

Ironically, his attention is so focused on “the edge of the dark forest behind him” that he is “unaware of the birds that gathered above him.” The real threat, the reader may think, is likely to come from above, not from behind, him, and is likely, therefore, to arrive unseen, blindsiding him. The birds are ominous. They’re black--a color associated with evil and death--and their wings resemble crosses, but “truncated,” or shortened, crosses. The cross is a Christian symbol, associated with the passion and the sacrifice of Christ, but it is here “truncated,” or curtailed. The sky is heavy and gray--“leaden”--and storm clouds gather in it, like the birds, “dark and ominous, promising something terrible and fierce.” Storms often represent energy and violent emotion, such as rage. They are associated, in the description, with blackbirds, which are often symbolic of misfortune and death, as is the “bird of ill omen” in Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem, “The Raven.” This paragraph uses the simple past tense because this tense allows the writer to establish an immediate link between what the character, Drake, has just perceived and the reader’s own imaginary hearing of the same sound as Drake tries to identify what’s caused the noise. As Drake tries to identify the source of the sound, focusing upon “the dark forest behind him,” and fails to see the birds in the stormy sky above him, the reader may get the feeling that the character is being set up by something, as the disturbing, but possibly irrelevant, sound seems to have distracted Drake from the true threat at hand.
Let’s consider the remaining description:

At the end of the hallway, a solitary brass lamp, itself half lost in darkness, was mounted upon the cracked and yellowing wall. Its two thin, up-thrust arms extended electric candles. Their tapered bulbs cast shadows, transforming the lamp into the visage of some dark god who mocked the light. Perhaps the dreaded deity was Lucifer himself, Emily thought.

Normally, light is reassuring, but the light cast by this lamp seems anything but comforting or encouraging. It is insufficient, for one thing, “itself half lost in darkness.” What it does manage to illuminate--“the cracked and yellowing wall” and shadows that transform “the lamp into the visage of some dark god who mocked the light”--are certainly not inspiring sights. The “up-thrust arms” seem to indicate some degree of resistance to the darkness, but they could also signify nothing more than a merely defensive posture. Ironically, the bulbs cast “shadows” rather than light, and these shadows seem to have a magical, or even a demonic, character: they transform “the lamp into the visage of some dark god who mocked the light,” whom the character in the scene equates with “the dreaded deity. . . Lucifer himself,” the light-bearing angel that, in Christianity, became Satan after rebelling against God and being cast into hell.

In the first and third descriptions, a character has been added to the scenes depicted in the Internet images. In both cases, as well as in the case of the image in which a human figure is shown, that of the birds in the sky above the youth, the writer has capitalized upon the characters by using them as perceptual, emotional, rational, and narrative focal points. In addition, these characters’ situations could be given thematic significance. These descriptions create an eerie atmosphere and tone, thrusting the reader into the story, and, at the same time, accomplish several other purposes, as mentioned. A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but, judging by the word count of this post, a description can be worth, on the average, at least 733 words each.

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to Todorov:

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

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

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

My Cup of Blood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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