Lawrence Block's Multi-tasking Style

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Lawrence Block has a straightforward style. His sentences are mostly active and declarative, written as if he is stating a simple fact, or presenting elaborations—examples or other details—substantiating his declarations. But his style is deceptive. Every sentence counts; each has a purpose, a job to do—often, several at once.

The opening sentence of his short story, “Out the Window,” anthologized in The Night and the Music, reads, “There was nothing special about her last day.” Like any declarative sentence, this one implies questions. It implies (1) who is “her”? and (2) why was there “nothing special about her last day”?, and (3) in what way was it her “last day”? Did she quit her job? Did she move? Did she leave town? Did she die? The fact that we're told that there “was nothing special about her last day” suggests that her last day is somehow significant, despite the fact that it was in no way “special.” Otherwise, why mention it at all? Indeed, why mention “her” at all? The declaration generates suspense; we want to learn more about this ordinary woman, whoever she was, and her last day.

 

Liam Neeson as NYPD Detective  Matthew Scudder

Without identifying “her,” the narrator (Private Detective Matthew Scudder, we will learn) mentions that the woman “seemed a little jittery” and “preoccupied,” but her emotional state and her state of mind were not remarkable: “This was nothing new for Paula.” Finally, we get her name— Paula—who, it seems, was apparently “jittery” and “preoccupied” most days. Nevertheless, readers are likely to note that, despite her routine jitters and preoccupation, her behavior caught Scudder's eye; it was memorable to him, perhaps because, in retrospect, it was “her last day.”

“She was never much of a waitress in the three months she spent at Armstrong's,” the narrator declares. In the process, readers learn (1) she wasn't especially good at her job, (2) the nature of her occupation, (3) the period of her employment, and (4) her employer or place of employment. The rest of the paragraph (two longer sentences) offers examples to support the narrator's contention that Paula “was not much of a waitress”: she'd “forget” some orders and confuse others; she was inattentive; and she often performed her duties mechanically, as though she were an automaton.

She's a spirited young woman, though, the narrator suggests, generous with her smiles and able to make customers feel at ease.

In the story's fourth paragraph, the narrator supplies Paula's last name, Wittlauer, and compares her to himself: “You no more set out to be a waitress in a Ninth Avenue gin mill [Paula] than you intentionally become an ex-cop coasting through the months on bourbon and coffee [Scudder].” The narrator's sense of humor is exhibited in his statement, “We have that sort of greatness thrust upon us,” which, in its use of “us,” draws readers into the story. Scudder switches from talking only about Paula Wittlauer to including “us,” turning his monologue into a conversation.

He contrasts Paula's relative youth with his own more advanced age, through an aphorism that comments upon the point of view of one less experienced in life with that of another who is wise to the ways of the world: “When you're as young as Paula Wittlauer, you hang in there, knowing things are going to get better. When you're my age you just hope they don't get much worse.” This bonding of the two characters, victim and detective, is important, because it is Paula's death, following her otherwise uneventful “last day,” that Scudder, at the request of her sister, Ruth, investigates throughout the rest of the story.

Although I've examined only a few of the ways in which Block makes his sentences accomplish his goals as a writer, sometimes multitasking in the undertaking of double, triple, or quadruple narrative tasks, the point, I believe, has been sufficiently made. There's a reason Block has been named a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America. His books have a lot to teach both professional and aspiring novelists and short story writers, especially those who specialize in thrillers and chillers.

"The Cone": Style, Sentence by Sentence

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

As I mentioned in “H. G. Wells: The Art of 'The Cone,'” Wells is a master of style. He makes every word count toward the creation of the final effect he designs his stories to create. Style, as Jonathan Swift defines it, is “proper words in their proper places.” Mark Twain, like other writers, agrees that “the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” AlfredHitchcock says something similar concerning images, the lexicon of film. It is not any single image that matters, he says, but the way in which they are assembled to evoke thought and feeling. On the importance of style, a science fiction writer, a satirist, a humorist, and a master of suspense agree, as does any serious writer or producer. Style is not a small thing; it is everything, for it shapes and invigorates everything: character, including dialogue, action, plot, setting, theme.

With a single phrase or sentence, Wells often accomplishes several narrative or rhetorical purposes at once in his exemplary short story, “The Cone,” as he does in his other tales. The story is a true tour de force, the literary equivalent of expressionistic and surreal paintings, but, as I discuss this aspect of the story in “H. G. Wells: The Art of 'The Cone,'” there's no need to repeat it here. Instead, I will concentrate on the effects, literary and rhetorical, he achieves by several phrases and sentences in “The Cone.”

At the outset of the story, his omniscient narrator comments, “They [Mrs Horrocks and the artist Raut] sat at the open window, trying to fancy the air was fresher there.” This sentence accomplishes three things:

1. It suggests that the air is not “fresher” near the open window, because it is not “fresh” anywhere.
2. The fact that they are “trying to fancy” fresh air near the window means that they are not succeeding. The open window admits no fresh air; like their attempt to imagine fresher air, the open window is a mere prop and, therefore, a failure.
3. The illicit couple's attempt to “fancy the air was fresher” characterizes them. In the face of a reality they find unpleasant, they imagine their circumstances are different. They seek to impose their own preferences upon the world, adjusting what is to what is suitable to them. In this, the sentence's use of “attempt” suggests, they also fail.

Wells gets much out of other phrases, too. In the story's fifth paragraph, his narrator describes an approaching train: “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight black oblongs—eight trucks—passed” not only shows the passing of the cars, but also makes readers count them as they go past: “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight black oblongs—eight trucks.” The counting helps to make the paragraph active, but it also reinforces the number of cars in the train. The ironworks, we think, is a busy, productive place. In the same sentence, the narrator adds that the cars “were suddenly extinguished one by one in the throat of the tunnel,” causing readers to imagine each car being “extinguished” as it enters the tunnel's “throat.” This description includes one of the many personifications Wells uses to bring his ironworks to life as an active, vengeful, and menacing entity.

For Raut, the ironworks represents “Gehenna,” meaning “a place of burning, torment, or misery,” or, “(in Judaism and the New Testament, Hell).” The ironworks is impertinent, daring to belch “fire and dust into the face of heaven.” Raut's words suggest that the ironworks is an affront to God Himself, an impious, wicked hell the very existence of which is an insult to heaven. “Fire and dust,” the insults, as it were, which the hellish ironworks belch “into the face of heaven,” are later juxtaposed to the Biblical phrase “pillars of cloud” and “pillars of fire” in which God appears to Moses and the Israelites as He guides them across the desert after their escape from pharaoh: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.” (Exodus 13:21). The substitution of “fire” for the more eloquent phrase “pillars of fire” and of sullying “dust” for the more elegant expression “a pillar of a cloud” degrades the poetic language of the Bible, substituting crass terminology for its elevated diction. While Raut accuses the ironworks of insulting God, it is he, through his paraphrases of scripture, who actually does so.

In two clever sentences, Wells creates a sort of reverse-personification. His omniscient narrator describes blast furnaces, which stand “heavy and threatening, full of an incessant turmoil of flames and seething molten iron,” as if they are hearts full of passion and rage; Horrocks himself, as their manager, is the mind, or soul, that controls these savage breasts. His “seething” passions and the “incessant turmoil of [the] flames” of his rage are the vengeful hearts that will burn Raut alive. 

 

Throughout descriptions of the ironworks, Wells's omniscent narrator uses phrases suggestive of violence, blood, death, and hell to depict the ironworks, the scene of Raut's eventual demise: “ghostly stunted beehive shapes,” “a ringing concussion and a rhythmic series of impacts,” “fitful flames,” “hammer beat heavily,” “palpating red stuff,” “blood-red reflections,” “succession of ghosts,” “blood-red vapour as red and hot as sun,” “white as death,” “fire writhing in the pit,” “sulphurous vapor,” “boil the blood,” and “hot suffocating flame.”

References to Gehenna, “the pit,” “pillars of cloud by day,” “pillars of fire by night,” “sin,” “sulphorous vapor” and “God” give the story a Biblical, if not an expressly Christian, context, as does Horrocks's horror at what he has done when “his sanity returned to him,” following his apparent crime of passion and he observes the effect of his vengeance, the sobbing, “inhuman, monstrous creature” that had been Raut. However, this context is undercut by Raut's reference to Jove and the omniscient narrator's allusion to “half-naked Titans.” Not only does the adulterous behavior of Raut and Mrs. Horrocks and Horrocks's seeking of vengeance against Raut suggest that religion is, for them, merely conventional, rather than sincere and devout, but Raut's use of the expression “by Jove,” like the omniscient narrator's employment of the phrase “half-naked Titans,” also implies that none of the characters is religious. Whether Horrocks' own plea to God at the end of the story is genuine or merely an expression of his horror at the sight of what he has done is open to question.

Through his conscious and deliberate selections of words and constructions of phrases throughout “The Cone,” Wells creates and maintains a style that is not only appropriate to his tale, but one which complements it at every turn, creating ironic contradictions; movement and pace; a religious context; complex characterization through allusions and personification; a sense of violence, blood, death, and hell; doubt concerning the characters' true devotion to the religious faith that is implied by the story's allusions to religious themes and theological concepts; and, overall, the unity of effect that produces a seemingly inevitable resolution of the story's central conflict. Wells' style delivers a great deal, largely thanks to his deliberate use of language—“proper words in their proper places”—a and to his own inimitable artistic genius.

Alfred Hitchcock on the Importance of Style in Cinematic Storytelling

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Often, horror Movies don't expect much from their audiences. Typically, there's nothing philosophical or theological about them. As a rule, they don't offer social criticism. If they mix science with their horror, the science is likely to be dubious. Psychology, when it's included, as an explanation for a character's bizarre behavior, is apt to be simplistic or patently absurd. History is usually general and vague or wrong altogether.

Audiences don't mind. They're happy to overlook such discrepancies. They're not interested in factual or political correctness. They want to see death and destruction, blood and guts, and a naked scream queen or two. Give them that, and they'll consider their $10 well spent.

Nevertheless, some horror movie directors want to give audiences more bang for their buck. They have something to say, and they want to say it. In addition to merely entertaining viewers, they want to share their visions, their understandings, their insights with audiences concerning evil, society, heroism, the human psyche, art, filmmaking, or what-have-you. Alfred Hitchcock is one such director. Stanley Kubrick is another. Both Scott Derrickson and William Friedkin are other horror movie directors whose films deliver more than fear, as is David Rosenberg.

Some of the points Hitchcock makes is about filming per se. In an interview with Cinema magazine, the director defines cinema as “pieces of film assembled.” The individual pieces of film, he adds, mean “nothing”; it is their combination, in such a way as to form a “mosaic” of them, whereby their “combination creates an idea” (or, he adds, later, “an emotion”), that they become meaningful. Part of the forming of the mosaic is the selection of the images; another part, in Psycho, in particular, is the “juxtaposition of angles” and the rapidity with which each piece of film appears, for only a fraction of a second, on the screen, resulting in the assembly of a “montage” suggestive of the stabbing of Marion Crane (Jennifer Leigh), while, in fact, “no knife ever touched any woman's body in that scene.”

In the same interview, Hitchcock also speaks of how he maintained and intensified suspense while avoiding a cliche in North by Northwest. The cliche was “a place of assignation [taking] the form of a figure under a street lamp at the corner of the street,” which is often used to “put [a] man on the spot.” Besides the boredom that results from the use of a cliche, another problem is that cliches set up predictable situations. The audience has seen them so many times before that they know what will follow.

To avoid this hackneyed device, Hitchcock “take[s] the loneliest, emptiest spot I can so that there is no place to run for cover, no place to hide, and no place for the enemy to hide, if we can call him that,” having the protagonist disembark from “the bus . . . , a little tiny figure,” standing in the middle of a “complete wasteland.”

Then Hitchcock seems to threaten the man. Just as he intends, the audience thinks, “Well. This is a strange place to put a man.” As cars pass, the audience begins to suppose, “"Ah, he's going to be shot at from a car,'” but Hitchcock frustrates this expectation by showing “a black limousine go by.”

Next, a car approaches from a different direction, stops, and “deposits a man,” before returning from the direction it came. Just as the director intends, the audience imagines the man may be the protagonist's assassin. When the main character approaches him, engaging the stranger in conversation, it's clear to the audience that the new arrival is not a killer. For a second time, Hitchcock has raised the audience's expectation as to what will occur, only to frustrate their prediction.

Now, as “the local bus” approaches, the stranger to whom the protagonist is speaking says, “That's funny.” He points out that a crop-dusting plane is “dusting a place where there's no crops.” The stranger gets onto the bus and leaves. Hitchcock says, “The audience says . . . 'Ah, the airplane.' Now, what's gonna be strange about the airplane, and you soon know. And from that point on you have a man trying to find cover. There is no cover until he gets into the cornfield. Now, you do in the design a very important thing.”

By avoiding a give-away cliche, and repeatedly arousing and frustrating his audience's expectations about what will happen, Hitchcock creates and maintains suspense. Then, when the threat they suspect is coming finally arrives, Hitchcock makes sure the action continues, as the protagonist scrambles “to find cover,” as he is chased by the menacing airplane. The entire scene, from beginning to end, is carefully designed before it is ever filmed. As Hitchcock explains, “This sequence is very carefully designed step by step both visually and to some extent in its menace . . . . So that's production design, exemplified in terms of its function.”

Any author of horror fiction should take the same pains as Hitchcock did in planning the action of his movie's scenes, remembering that the images created on the page, like those filmed on the sound stage or on location, are, when properly combined, in such a way as to form a “mosaic,” the means by which the writer “creates an idea”—and the way that he or she manipulates readers by causing them to draw inferences as to what will come next—inferences which the writer must then frustrate as he or she introduces new possibilities or plot twists.

Now that he has explained how to design combinations of images to create ideas, Hitchcock explains how to use the same process to create an emotion in his audience.

Hitchcock offers two examples. The first, from Psycho, involves Detective Milton Arbogas entering the Victorian house occupied by Norman Bates and his “mother.” As Arbogas steps onto the upper-story hallway floor, after having ascended the staircase, “Mother” rushes from her bedroom, knife in hand, and stabs him across the face. A close-up shot shows the bloody gash in his forehead and cheek and registers his shock as he begins to fall backward, down the stairs, pursued by his killer. Hitchcock explains how he captured this horrific sequence:

. . . When he got to the top of the stairs, I took the camera very high, extremely high. So that he was a small figure. And the figure of the woman came out, very small, dashed at him with a knife. And the knife went out, and we're still very high, and as the knife started to come down, I cut to a big head of the man. And the knife went right across the face, and he fell back from that point on. Now the reason for going high—and here we're talking about the juxtaposition of size of image. So the big head came as a shock to the audience, and to the man himself. His surprise was expressed by the size of the image. But you couldn't get the emphasis of that size unless you had prepared for it by going high.

As an example of how an effect can be varied, he refers to Rear Window, whose main character is L. B. “Jeff” Jeffrey, a photojournalist convalescing after having broken his leg. A voyeur, he spends much of his time peering at his neighbors across the way.

Mr. Stewart is sitting looking out of the window. He observes. We register his observations on his face. We are using the visual image now. We are using the mobility of the face, the expression, as our content of the piece of film. Let's give an example of how this can vary, this technique, with whatever he is looking at: Mr. Stewart looks out. Close-up. Cut to what he sees. Let's assume it's a woman holding a baby in her arms. Cut back to him. He smiles. Mr. Stewart likes babies. He's a nice gentleman. Take out only the middle piece of film, the viewpoint. Leave the close-ups in—the look and the smile. Put a nude girl in the middle instead of the baby. Now he's a dirty old man. By the changing of one piece of film only, you change the whole idea. It's a different idea.

When Jeffrey smiled at the baby, the audience thought him a “nice gentleman,” but were a nude woman substituted for the baby, the audience would have imagined Jeffrey is a pervert, and their emotional response to him would have been quite different.

Every piece of film that you put in the picture should have a purpose,” Hitchcock says, which means each sequence of images should be planned in detail and be combined so as to encourage the audience's ideas and emotions while depicting whatever action is called for by the scene. Style is the means by which Hitchcock says he accomplishes these goals, insisting, “I put first and foremost cinematic style before content . . . . Content is quite secondary to me.”

Alexander Pope defined style, with regard to writing, as “proper words in their proper places.” If “images” were substituted for words, so that, so amended, Pope's definition reads that style, with regard to film making, is proper images in their proper places, Hitchcock, no doubt, would agree. By substituting one image for another, Hitchcock can change the context of a scene and, as a result, the audience's reaction, or feelings, about Jeffrey.

Note: In future posts, we will consider the messages Stanley Kubrick, Scott Derrickson, William Friedkin, and David Rosenberg express through their films:

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

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

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

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

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

Mark Twain

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

Dean R. Koontz

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

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

page . . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sinking, she kicks and waves her arms.

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

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

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

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

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

She is snatched underwater.

 

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

 

The sky is nearly dark.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sinking, she kicked and waved her arms.

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

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

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

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

She was snatched underwater.

 

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

 

The sky was nearly dark.

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

Edgar Allan Poe

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

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

Sergei Eisenstein

Now, Hayes's note:

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

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

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

Shirley Jackson: Horror as a Slice of Life

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

I am reading The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson, and, as I do so, I am struck, again and again, by the strong similarity between her style and that of Flannery O’Connor’s. There is a directness to their sentences, a no-nonsense, straightforward cadence that marches resolutely forward, even as it describes and narrates unlikely stories typically involving grotesque characters. Despite the improbable tales and the fantastic characters, Jackson’s narratives are frequently slice-of-life stories, or narratives that involve mere segments of their characters’ lives without exposition, with little overt action, with minimal conflict, and with an inconclusive denouement. Her stories start in media res, characterizing their protagonists and antagonists as they go, seemingly on the fly. The incongruity, and, often, the irony, that results from this bare-bones approach in which realistic portrayal is juxtaposed to, or is the vehicle for, the grotesque and eccentric, is jarring. To get a sense of the meaning of any of Jackson’s stories, one must reread them, usually several times. The reward for one’s time and effort, however, is well worth the trouble.

Since most of her stories start, progress, and end the same way, an analysis of one is a sufficient introduction to Jackson’s method. I choose to illustrate her approach with an examination of “Trial By Combat,” which originally appeared, in 1944, in The New Yorker.

The plot is deceptively simple. Emily Johnson, a young woman working in New York City, while her husband is away in the Army, possibly at war, lives in a rooming house, where, during the past two weeks of her six-weeks’ residence to date, she begins to notice that someone is pilfering her belongings. Handkerchiefs, costume jewelry, perfume, and “a set of china dogs” have disappeared from her room.

One day, when she is returning to her room from the roof, where she has been sunning herself, she sees “someone come out of her room and go down the stairs,” and Emily recognizes her “visitor” as her downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Allen. (It is “an old house,”wherein the tenants’ skeleton keys fit one another’s, as well as their own, rooms.) Emily goes to Mrs. Allen’s room, where the two women have a cordial conversation about their respective husbands and their fondness for flowers and plants before Emily makes oblique references to someone’s having come repeatedly into her room and pilfered her belongings, declaring that the trespassing and theft “has to stop” or she will be obliged to “do something about it.”

Emily sees that Mrs. Allen’s room is almost identical to her own in its furnishings: “the same narrow bed with the tan cover, the same maple dresser and armchair; the closet. . . on the opposite side of the room, but [with] the window. . . in the same relative position” (42). Although Mrs. Allen is twice her own age, the widow’s late husband, “dead for nearly five years,” was a soldier. The couple was childless, although photographs of “several” children cluster about his photograph, his “nephews and nieces,” Mrs. Allen explains. When Emily expresses her fondness for flowers as a means of brightening her room, lamenting that they “fade so quickly,” Mrs. Allen tells her that she can prolong their color by adding an aspirin to the water so that “they last much longer” and “make a room look
. . . friendly.”

Despite her visit to Mrs. Allen’s room, the thefts continue: “The following evening, when Emily came home from work, a pair of cheap earrings was gone, along with two packages of cigarettes which had been in her dresser drawer” (45). Emily responds to these additional thefts by calling in sick to work and biding her time in her room until she hears Mrs. Allen go downstairs, at which point Emily goes to the elderly lady’s room. After looking “for a moment at the picture of Mrs. Allen’s husband,” Emily opens the top drawer of the widow’s dresser and finds her own belongings inside: “Her handkerchiefs were there, in a neat, small pile, and next to them the cigarettes and the earrings. In one corner the little china dog was sitting” (46).

Mrs. Allen returns, catching Emily in the act of rifling her drawers. And Emily tells herself, “now turn around and tell her,” but instead of accusing the widow of having stolen her belongings, Emily says that “I had a terrible headache and I came down to borrow some aspirin. . . . and when I found you were out I thought surely you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed some aspirin” (47). Mrs. Allen accepts Emily’s explanation, gives her the aspirin, and tells her that “I’ll run up later today. . . just to see how you feel” (47).

Much of the meaning of this seemingly simple, six-page story is derived from what is left unsaid rather than from what is directly stated. The similarities between Emily and Mrs. Allen bind them together. The widow is almost an older version of the protagonist, an embodiment of Emily’s own future. They both live in a rooming house, in Spartanly furnished, nearly identical rooms. Their husbands are both away--Emily’s in the Army, Mrs. Allen’s a soldier taken by death, perhaps (the story’s title suggests) as a casualty of war. They seem lonely (Mrs. Allen’s only “companion” is the Woman’s Home Companion she is reading when Emily visits her, and the widow tells the younger woman, “It’s so seldom one meets anyone really. . .nice. . . in a place like this” [42]).

The flowers and plants they purchase to “brighten up” their rooms and make them seem friendlier also suggest the loneliness and barrenness of their lives, as does Mrs. Allen’s (and, indeed, Emily’s own) childlessness, which is emphasized by the children’s photographs clustered around the dead soldier’s photograph, as if his nephews and nieces were his and Mrs. Allen’s surrogate children. As the story’s title indicates, both women have endured a “trial by combat,” and it is the commonality of their experience that appears to draw them to one another.

They lead pitiful lives, but their empathy allows them to pity each other. Moreover, both women are lonely and confide in one another that they have been eager to meet one another, which suggests that, in their misery, they seek company: “I’ve seen you, of course, several times,” Mrs. Allen tells Emily, “and thought how pleasant you looked.” Emily replies, “I’ve wanted to meet you, too” (42). Their common plight allows Emily to overlook Mrs. Allen’s thefts and to conspire with her in pretending that they are nothing more than neighbors, or even friends, not strangers, who are concerned about one another’s health and well being.

There seems to be a darker, somewhat horrific subtext to this story, too. It may be that Mrs. Allen practices a sort of symbolic cannibalism. Her kleptomania seems to be an attempt to secure for herself some of Emily’s “nice” and “pleasant” circumstances. By taking items that belong to Emily, the older widow seems intent upon becoming like Emily, at least in part, by performing a ritual similar to that of ancient and medieval warriors who ate the hearts of their vanquished foes in order to take into themselves their enemies’ courage and military prowess by literally ingesting the presumed seats of their souls. If such an interpretation is accepted (admittedly, it is controversial), the implication of Emily’s observation, addressed to Mrs. Allen, “You’ve made yours [i. e., Mrs. Allen’s room] look much nicer than mine” and Mrs. Allen’s rejoinder, “I’ve been here for three years. . . . You’ve only been here a month or so, haven’t you?” much more significant--and macabre--than this dialogue might seem otherwise. Has Mrs. Allen been stealing from other tenants’ rooms for “three years”? Are her thefts the reason that her room looks “much nicer” than Emily’s, and will Emily, who has already trespassed upon Mrs. Allen’s room, as Mrs. Allen has trespassed upon Emily’s, likewise become a kleptomaniac, whose thefts improve the appearance of her room, making it “nicer,” brighter looking, and friendlier? Will Mrs. Allen’s ways become Emily’s ways? Will the widow become the mentor and Emily the apprentice in cannibalizing the lives of other tenants, as it were, by stealing bits and pieces from their neighbors’ lives?

“Trial By Combat” is a much eerier story than the text which meets the reader’s eye, because its subtext opens itself to unusual, even grotesque, interpretations, largely because of the technique that Jackson employs in writing slice-of-life stories involving mere segments of their characters’ lives, told without exposition, with little overt action, with minimal conflict, and with an inconclusive denouement. Writers, aspiring or professional, can learn a lot by apprenticing themselves to such a master as Shirley Jackson, author of “The Lottery,” The Haunting of Hill House (which is one of the inspirations for Stephen King’s television miniseries Rose Red), and many other haunting tales.


Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery and Other Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982. Print.

Quick Tip: Writing Means Reading

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

It seems self-evident that writers must be (not should be, but must, be) readers. Every writer worth his or her salt will tell anyone who wants to write (or, more likely, thinks he or she wants to write), that, to be successful as a writer, he or she must also read.

Stephen King, for example, reads a couple of hundred books or more every year. In fact, his reading has caused him to discover, among others, Bentley Little, a horror writer of no small talent himself. As the many blurbs he has written to help sell other writers’ works indicate, King is as much a fan of other writer’s work as readers are of his oeuvre. His love of reading is shared by his wife and fellow writer Tabitha and their children, one of whom, Joe Hill, has followed in his father’s footsteps, writing horror novels himself.

Writers should read every novel or short story (or see every movie) at least twice (although several times more is actually recommended), the first time for pleasure and to get a sense of the story’s structure, of how it is put together, and of how it attains unity. The second time, readers who would also be writers should read for technique.

How does the writer describe persons, places, and things? How does he or she create and maintain suspense? How are transitions used to tie action and scenes together? Are flashbacks used? If so, why, and, again, how are transitions used to tie past and present together? What figures of speech (metaphors, allusions, irony, symbols, and so forth), either explicit or implicit, are used in the story, and how and why are they used? Why is the action narrated in this, rather than some other, sequence? What can be gleaned from the writer’s choices of words and images? How does he or she fully involve readers in the action of the story? Why is the setting important, if not essential, to the characters, plot, conflict, setting, and theme? What is spicy or memorable about the dialogue? If the novel is a murder mystery or a detective story, what clues does the writer drop, when, where, how, and why? Which are red herrings? If the novel is a horror story, what mythos, legend, historical fact, or scientific discovery or theory grounds the paranormal or supernatural incidents or characters in the everyday world of commonsense realism, and how does the protagonist learn the truth of the monster’s origin or nature so that he or she can banish or destroy it?

Almost every writer has weaknesses as well as strengths, and both aspiring and established writers can learn from both. One of King’s weaknesses is his inclusion of extraneous scenes and exposition in his overly long plots; one of his strengths is his characterization, especially of the young. One of Little’s weaknesses is his novels’ unsatisfying, tacked-on or inconclusive endings; one of his strengths is his ability to create, maintain, and heighten suspense, often through the powers of his descriptions of menacing places. As a reader, learn to avoid the mistakes of writers and to adopt their strengths.

Then, read the novel or the short story or watch the movie again to discover all the wonderful tricks of the trade that you missed the first couple of times you read or watched the story unfold.

Anaphoric Allusions

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Kenneth Burke

No matter how we parse it, evil comes from but two sources (internal or external) and consists of only two types (natural or supernatural). (It may be suggested that there is a third type of evil, namely, paranormal, but a little reflection makes it clear that, by definition, paranormal phenomena are also natural, rather than supernatural, incidents; when their effect is injurious or damaging, they are, from a human perspective, also evil.) Misery, it would seem, is not nearly as “manifold,” as Edgar Allan Poe’s “Berenice” would have us to believe.

In Hitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror, Dennis R. Perry reminds his readers that Kenneth Burke

. . . listed several sources of the sublime, including power (fear of a superior force), difficulty (extremely complex predicament), obscurity (darkness, fogginess, confusion producing a sense of isolation and helplessness), and privation (isolation, silence, solitude, darkness) (12).

(In reference to horror fiction, “sublime” may be defined as “awe-inspiring,” “astonishing,” or as producing a sense of the uncanny, which includes experiencing a sense of terror; think Rudolph Otto.)

Certainly, Burke’s analysis is insightful and useful to writers of horror fiction, and it seems to expand (although it does not, really) the categories of evil phenomena we listed earlier. Perhaps what Burke’s explanation accomplishes, more than anything, is to characterize the elements of the sublime, or, as we call them here, the types of evil phenomena.

Having suggested the sources, the types, and the character of evil phenomena, we now turn our attention to the ways by which writers of this genre of fiction can, through the use of a limited number of synonyms, reinforce and perhaps even heighten the horrific character of a monster. (There are many other, more sophisticated and subtle ways to accomplish this same objective, of course, such as the use of literary allusions, metaphors, similes, images, irony, and so forth, but, in this post, we concentrate on one of the simplest means of reinforcing and highlighting the character of the monster.)

There may be a few others, but, listed alphabetically, these are the synonyms that come most readily to the mind, perhaps, as means by which to refer to an antecedent term that represents a monster of some kind:

animal, beast, being, demon, entity, fiend, grotesque, imp, it, monster, predator, thing

To this list of basic synonyms may be added one or two more unusual, hyphenated compound adjectives: “hell-beast” and “hell-spawn.” Stephen King (and no doubt others) has created an interesting spin-off, as it were, on the use of such compounds, the first part of which is comprised of the character’s name and the second part of which is made up of the noun “thing,” introducing the compound itself with the definite article “the.” Having forgotten King’s character, “Gary” is hereby substituted, by way of illustrating King’s technique: “the Gary-thing.”

Alfred Hitchcock

Although short, our list gives us simple, but effective, ways to smuggle in associations between our monster, whatever it is, and the fierce or bestial attributes of various other entities, thereby extending, in shorthand fashion, the ongoing sense of the monster’s monstrosity. Of course, some synonyms will be more appropriate to the type of monster stalking our story’s protagonist (and, vicariously, our reader as well) than others would be, and the author should give due consideration to the suitability and aptness of potential synonyms.

For example, if the monster is a natural force, “it” would be fitting, whereas “being” or “entity” would not be suitable, as a synonym. However, if the force were also sentient or intelligent, perhaps “being” or “entity” could be appropriate as a synonym for the monster. Paradoxically, “it” or “thing” might be appropriate even for a human being, suggesting that the person has devolved or otherwise been dehumanized and is more a monster, now, than the man or woman that he or she once was.

Edgar Allan Poe

It helps, too, to have described the monster in terms of the characteristics of the creature to which it will later be related before using a synonym to refer back to the monster thus described. For example, if, later in a sentence, paragraph, chapter, or book, an author uses the word “animal” or “beast” to refer to a monster that he or she has previously described, the effectiveness of the use of such a synonym is heightened if, when the monster was first described, it was characterized as having “sharp teeth,” “fangs,” “claws,” “talons,” “scales,” “wings,” and so forth, for the subsequent allusion to it as an “animal” or a “beast” will then be sufficient to recall to the reader these characteristics of the monster.

The use of nouns and adjectives to refer back to a monster that has been previously introduced and described may seem a slight matter, but, in the final analysis, a writer’s style, which consists, in large part, of his or her deliberate choice of this word or phrase over that, is what separates an author like Edgar Allan Poe from a lesser writer--or, as Mark Twain put it, lightning from the lightning bug, and horror, like all other genres of fiction, is built of words and the choices authors make in using them.

Source

Perry, Dennis. Hitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003. Print.

Guest Speaker: H. P. Lovecraft: Notes On Writing Weird Fiction

My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualising more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature. I choose weird stories because they suit my inclination best--one of my strongest and most persistent wishes being to achieve, momentarily, the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations of time, space, and natural law which forever imprison us and frustrate our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces beyond the radius of our sight and analysis. These stories frequently emphasise the element of horror because fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of Nature-defying illusions. Horror and the unknown or the strange are always closely connected, so that it is hard to create a convincing picture of shattered natural law or cosmic alienage or "outsideness" without laying stress on the emotion of fear. The reason why time plays a great part in so many of my tales is that this element looms up in my mind as the most profoundly dramatic and grimly terrible thing in the universe. Conflict with time seems to me the most potent and fruitful theme in all human expression.

While my chosen form of story-writing is obviously a special and perhaps a narrow one, it is none the less a persistent and permanent type of expression, as old as literature itself. There will always be a certain small percentage of persons who feel a burning curiosity about unknown outer space, and a burning desire to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest. These persons include great authors as well as insignificant amateurs like myself--Dunsany, Poe, Arthur Machen, M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, and Walter de la Mare being typical masters in this field.

As to how I write a story--there is no one way. Each one of my tales has a different history. Once or twice I have literally written out a dream; but usually I start with a mood or idea or image which I wish to express, and revolve it in my mind until I can think of a good way of embodying it in some chain of dramatic occurrences capable of being recorded in concrete terms. I tend to run through a mental list of the basic conditions or situations best adapted to such a mood or idea or image, and then begin to speculate on logical and naturally motivated explanations of the given mood or idea or image in terms of the basic condition or situation chosen.

The actual process of writing is of course as varied as the choice of theme and initial conception; but if the history of all my tales were analysed, it is just possible that the following set of rules might be deduced from the average procedure:

Prepare a synopsis or scenario of events in the order of their absolute occurrence--not the order of their narration. Describe with enough fulness to cover all vital points and motivate all incidents planned. Details, comments, and estimates of consequences are sometimes desirable in this temporary framework.

Prepare a second synopsis or scenario of events--this one in order of narration (not actual occurrence), with ample fulness and detail, and with notes as to changing perspective, stresses, and climax. Change the original synopsis to fit if such a change will increase the dramatic force or general effectiveness of the story. Interpolate or delete incidents at will--never being bound by the original conception even if the ultimate result be a tale wholly different from that first planned. Let additions and alterations be made whenever suggested by anything in the for mulating process.

Write out the story--rapidly, fluently, and not too critically--following the second or narrative-order synopsis. Change incidents and plot whenever the developing process seems to suggest such change, never being bound by any previous design. If the development suddenly reveals new opportunities for dramatic effect or vivid story telling, add whatever is thought advantageous--going back and reconciling the early parts to the new plan. Insert and delete whole sections if necessary or desirable, trying different beginnings and endings until the best arrangement is found. But be sure that all references throughout the story are thoroughly reconciled with the final design. Remove all possible superfluities--words, sentences, paragraphs, or whole episodes or elements--observing the usual precautions about the reconciling of all references.

Revise the entire text, paying attention to vocabulary, syntax, rhythm of prose, proportioning of parts, niceties of tone, grace and convincingness of transitions (scene to scene, slow and detailed action to rapid and sketchy time-covering action and vice versa... etc., etc., etc.), effectiveness of beginning, ending, climaxes, etc., dramatic suspense and interest, plausibility and atmosphere, and various other elements.

Prepare a neatly typed copy--not hesitating to add final revisory touches where they seem in order.

The first of these stages is often purely a mental one--a set of conditions and happenings being worked out in my head, and never set down until I am ready to prepare a detailed synopsis of events in order of narration. Then, too, I sometimes begin even the actual writing before I know how I shall develop the idea--this beginning forming a problem to be motivated and exploited.

There are, I think, four distinct types of weird story; one expressing a mood or feeling, another expressing a pictorial conception, a third expressing a general situation, condition, legend or intellectual conception, and a fourth explaining a definite tableau or specific dramatic situation or climax. In another way, weird tales may be grouped into two rough categories--those in which the marvel or horror concerns some condition or phenomenon, and those in which it concerns some action of persons in connexion with a bizarre condition or phenomenon.

Each weird story--to speak more particularly of the horror type--seems to involve five definite elements: (a) some basic, underlying horror or abnormality--condition, entity, etc.--, (b) the general effects or bearings of the horror, (c) the mode of manifestation--object embodying the horror and phenomena observed--, (d) the types of fear-reaction pertaining to the horror, and (e) the specific effects of the horror in relation to the given set of conditions.

In writing a weird story I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere, and place the emphasis where it belongs. One cannot, except in immature pulp charlatan-fiction, present an account of impossible, improbable, or inconceivable phenomena as a commonplace narrative of objective acts and conventional emotions. Inconceivable events and conditions have a special handicap to over come, and this can be accomplished only through the maintenance of a careful realism in every phase of the story except that touching on the one given marvel. This marvel must be treated very impressively and deliberately--with a careful emotional "build-up"--else it will seem flat and unconvincing. Being the principal thing in the story, its mere existence should overshadow the characters and events. But the characters and events must be consistent and natural except where they touch the single marvel. In relation to the central wonder, the characters should shew the same overwhelming emotion which similar characters would shew toward such a wonder in real life. Never have a wonder taken for granted. Even when the characters are supposed to be accustomed to the wonder I try to weave an air of awe and impressiveness corresponding to what the reader should feel. A casual style ruins any serious fantasy.

Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. The moment it tries to be anything else it becomes cheap, puerile, and unconvincing. Prime emphasis should be given to subtle suggestion--imperceptible hints and touches of selective associative detail which express shadings of moods and build up a vague illusion of the strange reality of the unreal. Avoid bald catalogues of incredible happenings which can have no substance or meaning apart from a sustaining cloud of colour and symbolism.

These are the rules or standards which I have followed--consciously or unconsciously--ever since I first attempted the serious writing of fantasy. That my results are successful may well be disputed--but I feel at least sure that, had I ignored the considerations mentioned in the last few paragraphs, they would have been much worse than they are.