Friday, November 7, 2008

Plot, Character, Setting and Theme as Narrative Starting Points

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

The four primary elements of fiction are plot, character, setting, and theme. Associated with most of these is a cluster of related components: plot is divisible into exposition, inciting moment, rising action, turning point, falling action, moment of final suspense, and (depending upon whether the narrative is a comedy or a tragedy) resolution or catastrophe.

Of course, all plots are also derived from, and developed upon, conflict. Likewise, setting is not merely a matter of a specific time and place, but it also entails the particular cultural milieu that exists in this particular time and place. Victorian London, for example, is quite different than nineteenth-century Tombstone, Arizona.

Similarly, character involves motivation, various personality traits, and, usually, interrelationships among several fictional persons. Only theme is simple, rather than complex, having no subordinate constituents.

Since any of these four elements is a potential starting point for a story, a writer may generate an idea for a story by considering plot, character, setting, or theme. Some writers, among them both C. S. Lewis and Stephen King, have been inspired by mental images of characters in specific situations or settings.

C. S. Lewis specified the image of a fawn, or satyr, carrying an armload of parcels, as the mental picture that launched The Chronicles of Narnia, and Storm of the Century, King says, began with his imagining a strange man incarcerated in a jail cell.

The placement of a character in a particular situation or setting is not a story, of course, but it is (possibly) the beginning of a story that could start by considering an interesting character. It is the starting point from which a series of questions can begin to be asked. The choice of a protagonist or an antagonist can also suggest, or even determine, the story’s counterpart as well. Once William Peter Blatty decided upon a demon—maybe Satan himself—as his story’s antagonist, an exorcist became the most logical choice of a protagonist. (Although The Exorcist is said to be based upon a true story, Blatty, as an author of fiction was free to select a character other than a priest as his protagonist, had he wished to do so; fact does not determine fiction, even when the latter is based upon the former.)

Dean Koontz says he begins many of his stories by involving a character in a bizarre situation that compels him or her to react to the incidents that ensue therefrom.

Many of Jesus’ parables begin as answers to his disciples’ questions concerning the meaning of the law or of right conduct in regard to particular situations. They are stories told, in other words, to impart wisdom. Their purpose is not primarily to entertain, but to instruct. Therefore, they originate as a means for expressing, in concrete terms, abstract ideas or values. They are theme-driven.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates the meaning of forgiveness. The Parable of the Good Samaritan shows the meaning of loving one’s neighbor. The Parable of the Mustard Seed shows the meaning of faith.

Horror stories, as cautionary tales, also often drive home a theme. Beowulf teaches the destructive and deadly effects of intertribal vengeance. The Shining shows the terrible consequences of self-absorption, self-indulgence, and child and spousal abuse. Cujo is not only about a rabid dog, but also about the devastating effects of adultery upon one’s marriage and family.

Sometimes, a setting will suggest a story. It is no accident that many horror stories take place in isolated environments, total institutions, or confining spaces. What other monster but the strange troglodytes could have inhabited the cavern into which, as if into Satan’s maw, the female spelunkers enter in The Descent? What better foe could beachgoers encounter in the finny deep than the gargantuan white shark with which Peter Benchley confronts his readers in Jaws? Likewise, the rain forest in which Special Forces soldiers first encounter the camouflaged extraterrestrial in Predator fairly cries out for such a monster as its antagonist.

Edgar Allan Poe’s essay, "The Philosophy of Composition," is the quintessential document, perhaps, alongside Aristotle’s Poetics, for the point of view that it is the plot that matters more than other elements (a point not always conceded by other authorities).

Poe argued that a writer should commence not at the beginning of his or her story but, on the contrary, with its end, working backward in determining the sequence of actions and other details that will best lead, inevitably, toward the narrative’s climactic finale, using his own narrative poem The Raven as an example of the process.

Many writers share Aristotle’s and Poe’s respect for plotting, so much so that they find themselves at a loss to put pen to paper (or, more commonly, finger to keyboard) until they have plotted the whole tale, from “A” to “Z.” (Others, such as Mark Twain, write the same way that the Who’s “Pinball Wizard” plays his game, blindly, as it were, purely “by inspiration.”)

The fact that a writer can generate a story from any of the four primary elements of fiction quadruples his or her opportunities for inspiration. It does more than this, however: it also provides the writer with a way of considering, and deciding, which element he or she wants to emphasize.

The author must consider whether the story highlights an individual’s actions in the face of fate (plot); personal limitations, abilities, and will (character); the effects of time, place, and culture on the understanding and development of character and the limitations imposed upon one by his or her environment (setting); or the lesson that the main character learns as a result of his or her experience, as recounted in the story (theme).

The choice that the writer makes at this initial point will affect the story as a whole and how the reader understands the tale. In this sense, four possible stories confront the writer, and he or she must choose which of the four to tell.

For horror story writers, Poe suggests a solution to this dilemma: pick the element that will best sustain and heighten fear and trembling. After all, that’s what horror is all about.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Learning from the Masters: Robert McCammon, Part 2

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Robert McCammon is the author of A Boy’s Life, Stinger, Swan Song, Gone South, and several other highly readable horror novels. He has also written his share of short stories, and it is to one of these that we turn in this post, that we may learn from another master of the genre in its rather abbreviated form.

For those who have not read his short story, “Black Boots,” which originally appeared in Razored Saddles (1989), a summary is in order:
Davy Slaughter is running from his nemesis, Black Boots, whom he has killed eight times. The problem is that his enemy keeps coming back, from the dead, and, Davy believes, he’s on his trail again now. The young gunfighter becomes so keyed up with the thought that he is being stalked by Black Boots that he challenges a distant figure, firing several bullets in its direction, before he realizes that “he was shooting at a cactus.” Davy also finds that his gun hand is stiff, the fingers aching. As he crosses the desert for Zionville, he spits and plucks white worms from his mouth. He runs out of water and drools blood.

In Zionville, Davy is greeted by a two-headed dog that runs circles around his mount, both mouths yapping, and Davy observes that the sheriff has been “long gone,” leaving the bank and its meager holdings easy pickings should Davy decide to go to the trouble of robbing it.

He bellies up to the bar in the town’s saloon and exchanges a few words with the bartender, Carl Haines, whose face, one moment seems covered in flies but the next moment is “clear again, not a single fly on it.” Davy asks whether the town has a sheriff. One is on the way, from El Paso, Carl tells him, asking whether Davy intends to cause any trouble.

Davy is disturbed to see the “snout of a rattlesnake” appear inside the “black, empty socket” of the one-eyed bartender’s face. Carl assures Davy that the Zionville populace are “peaceful folk” who “don’t quarrel with nobody.” As Carl speaks, Davy is “fascinated” to see that the rattlesnake’s head now completely extends from Carl’s eye socket. Davy feels as if his own skull may explode. The next moment, the snake is gone and Carl has two eyes again.

Davy asks whether anyone has been asking for him, and Carl assures him that no one has. He describes Black Boots, asking whether Carl has seen him in particular. When the bartender says he has not, and that no one else has been asking for Davy, the young gunfighter confides in Carl that he has killed Black Boots eight times and that Black Boots is, nevertheless, stalking him at the moment.

The saloon’s swinging doors open behind him, and Davy spins, gun drawn, and nearly shoots Joey, a youth who’s followed him to the saloon, fascinated by Davy’s appearance and demeanor. Carl and Davy tell Joey to go home, but the youth asks whether Davy knows how to use his gun. Davy sees Carl’s brain matter seeping through a wound in the bartender’s brow and thinks it an “interesting sight.” Davy asks, “Don’t that hurt?” and ventures to poke the wound with his finger when Davy discerns that Joey is really Black Boots in disguise, “wearing a kid’s skin.”

Davy kills Black Boots, watching him die as Joey’s mother, having come in search of her wayward son, finds Joey dying in front of the saloon and Davy standing over him. Where Black Boots had been, Davy sees, the body of a youth lies, dead.

From behind him, Black Boots, now armed with a rifle, shoots at the same time that Davy, alerted by the sound of the weapon being cocked, wheels and fires his own weapon, and Black Boots goes down, behind the bar. Davy shoots his adversary again, but, as he stares down at the body behind the bar, he sees that it is not Black Boots anymore; it is the bartender, Carl.

Davy staggers outside, where his horse is a skeleton, its heart and lungs visible and alive within its ribcage. He mounts the steed, but it resists his effort to turn it, and Black Boots dashes out of a store, gun in hand, and he shoots Davy three times, one of the bullets knocking him from his skeletal steed. Davy tries to return fire, but he’s out of ammunition. Black Boots shoots Davy twice more, killing him.

Davy is declared to have been “crazy as hell” and to have shot Joey for no reason.

Davy’s body is wrapped in a canvas sheet, stood against the wall and photographed for the new sheriff to examine upon his arrival from El Paso, and buried without benefit of a pine box, and “the man who,” burying his corpse, “threw dirt on the gunfighter's face wore black boots.”
Like others in McCammon’s body of short stories, “Black Boots” is based upon a stereotypical character, that of the itinerant young gunfighter who is haunted by the reputation that his speed and deadly accuracy have earned him. An obviously paranoid character, Davy’s fear of being killed by another gunfighter who is seeking a reputation of his own seems to have given form to his fear, creating Black Boots as a representative of the predatory wannabe killer who stalks him--in his own mind, if nowhere else. Davy claims to have killed Black Boots “eight times,” to no avail. His nemesis returns, a revenant reborn of his own imagination and fear. Black Boots cannot be killed, because he is a product of Davy’s own paranoia.

The opening paragraphs of the story show the reader that Davy’s thoughts are focused upon death. He imagines that his mouth is full of worms. Perhaps they are maggots. If so, their presence suggests that he is in a state of decay, and the blood in his mouth suggests that he has been wounded or injured, perhaps severely. However, his nonchalant demeanor suggests that he has suffered this condition for some time. Since his response--or near-non-response--to his discovery of worms and blood inside his mouth is not normal, he also appears to be, well, abnormal. Likewise, his belief that a dead man has returned to life (not once, but eight times) marks him as being a seriously disturbed individual--unless, that is, the context of the story, which is of the horror genre, after all, subsequently validates his belief as being, in the horrific and bizarre world that he seems to inhabit, possible. However, the reader, awaiting further evidence, as it were, is certainly apt to reserve his or her judgment concerning Davy’s sanity or the lack thereof. His thoughts about the mysterious Black Boots, whom he believes is stalking him with the intent to kill him, also establishes Davy’s fixation with death and dying.

Davy mistakes a cactus for Black Boots, firing several bullets at it, but this error can be attributed to his fear and need not mean that he is insane. However, when he arrives in Zionville and sees a two-headed dog, the reader is likely to place another tick mark in the “Insane” column. Still, it may be that the story takes place in a world of mutants, perhaps, for all one can know at the moment, following a nuclear holocaust. One thing is clear, though: Davy definitely bears watching!

The bizarre incidents keep coming, as Davy observes--or, hallucinating, imagines--the bartender’s face to change, undergoing extreme--indeed, impossible--transformations. First, it is covered in flies, next he loses an eye and a rattlesnake inhabits the vacant socket, and then his brain tissue starts to seep through a wound in his skull. Finally, he believes that his nemesis, Black Boots, can “wear a kid’s skin,” thereby disguising himself as someone else by actually becoming another person. The jury, in the form of the reader, is no longer out; the verdict is in: Davy is a stark, raving lunatic, completely established as an unreliable narrator. Much, if not all, of what he believes is the product of hallucinations, caused, it seems, by his psychotic paranoia.

The reader who guesses the plot twist is not surprised by the story‘s ending. McCammon offers many clues that all is not as it seems with the protagonist. However, the reader may, nevertheless, be amused by the tale. The same technique that piques the reader’s curiosity--Davy’s bizarre visions--gives away its secret. Still, it is interesting to hallucinate along with him. Like many other stories in the horror genre, “Black Boots” relies upon a confusion of the normal and the abnormal, the ordinary and the extraordinary, the everyday and the astonishing. The duality soon exhausts itself, though, and it would not work at all in a longer piece. Surprisingly, this split between the sane and the insane that results from a life lived in fear of a one-upmanship that is not merely unpleasant but, in fact, fatal, is slim, indeed, pointing, perhaps, to the inadvisability--the foolishness--of living one’s life on such terms. The thin plot ploy supports the narrative’s much deeper theme, making this slight tale worthwhile reading, after all.

There is one more thing to say about this story, too, which shows McCammon’s inventiveness all the more, especially since he relies upon such a slim story line: the last line of the story, referring to the “black boots” worn by the nameless, faceless man who buries Davy, suggests that Black Boots was not, perhaps, a phantom of his victim’s madness, after all. He may be, as Davy believed him to be, a supernatural being, capable not only of raising himself from the dead and assuming the forms of others but also of warping reality itself, making Davy believe that a cactus was his stalker, that a dog had two heads, that Joey and Carl and the shopkeeper were other incarnations of the predatory gunfighter whom Davy feared and fled, and that his horse had become a living skeleton. Perhaps in his shootouts with other gunfighters, Davy had, at last, met his match in a monster that is as much beyond life and death as he is beyond good and evil, a monster that wears black boots.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Learning from the Masters: Robert McCammon

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman


Robert McCammon is the author of A Boy’s Life, Stinger, Swan Song, Gone South, and several other highly readable horror novels. He has also written his share of short stories, and it is to one of these that we turn in this post, that we may learn from another master of the genre in its rather abbreviated form.

For those who have not read his short story, “The Thang,” which originally appeared in Hot Blood (1989), a volume of erotic horror, a summary is in order:

Dave Nielson has traveled 700 miles to visit a magic shop in New Orleans, where he hopes to find a solution to his problem (nature was not generous in endowing him with the essentials of masculinity). He hopes a voodoo practitioner may be able to help him. He meets one, Miss Fallon, at the shop, who offers to remedy his anatomical deficiency, asking for half her $300 fee up front and the rest after Dave has seen the results. She mixes him a drink, replying to his query as to its ingredients, “You don’t want to know.”

After he manages to drink the potion, Miss Fallon orders him to return to her after the weekend, eating nothing, meanwhile, but gumbo and oysters. Dave rents a room in a nearby motel.

He feels “different” almost immediately, and is able--or imagines himself to be able--to hear “the blood racing in his veins.” However, when he checks himself, he is distressed to see that his problem remains. He sees a gentleman’s club across the street from his motel, and he decides that, since he’s unable to sleep, he may as well enjoy the show. “Without thinking,” he orders a beer.

Aroused by a dancer, his manhood springs free, now “the size of a small artillery piece,” his testicles as large as “cannonballs.”

Horrified, Dave flees the club, its patrons terrified of him. He returns to his motel room, where, after having reached a length of 17 inches, Dave’s “thang” returns to its
former puny size. He struggles to prevent himself from having erotic thoughts, but a woman’s announcement, on the street below, that she seeks immediate intimacy with a man causes him to lose control over his libido. As the woman, Ginger, continues to voice her need, Dave struggles with his monstrous organ, causing enough noise to capture the attention of his neighbors, an elderly couple, who, having appeared in the doorway, witness “what appeared to be a naked man fighting a pale python.”

Apparently, they call the desk clerk, because he and a security guard arrive within moments. The clerk declaring, “We don’t permit. . . this kind of behavior in our establishment,” and Dave is summarily evicted. When he arrives to open the magic shop, the shop’s owner, Malcolm, takes one look at Dave, “suitcase in his hand and his shirttail out,” waiting “on deserted Bourbon Street,” and concludes, “You done screwed up, didn’t you?”

When Miss Fallon arrives at the shop, Dave confesses to having drunk a beer, learning the bad news that there is no antidote to the potion that has extended him--not, that is, unless he is willing to allow Miss Fallon and her Aunt Flavia to “experiment” on him by concocting various elixirs. In three months or so, she says, the two women might be able to produce an antidote.

However, there is one not-so-small catch. Dave must agree to become Aunt Flavia’s boarder. She is an unattractive woman, a husky octoroon woman with copper eyes, her long-jawed face like a wrinkled prune,” whose feminine parts are as oversize as Dave’s masculine counterparts--so large, in fact, that Dave is horrified to see “something loose and fleshy was brushing against the front of her caftan, down between her thighs. . . Something very large.”

This story is almost entirely situational. There is little development of character. It is similar to a medieval fabliaux, in which the foolishness of a protagonist is highlighted and exemplified by his or her behavior, which is motivated by a simple desire to engage in sex. This desire is, in turn, usually frustrated or complicated by another character, often with the result that the protagonist is humbled, if no wiser. These cautionary tales sometimes end with the statement of an explicit moral, but, just as often, they conclude without making their messages clear. It is difficult to imagine how a reader could not conclude for him- or herself the moral of a story like “The Thang.”

Men are as obsessed with the size of their genitals, it seems, as women appear to be preoccupied with the dimensions of their breasts. Those of both sexes who find themselves dissatisfied with their endowments in these particulars often seek to enlarge them, whether through the use of chemicals, instruments, or surgery. For many, the results are satisfactory, but, occasionally, something goes wrong, as it certainly does in McCammon’s story. Reducing the whole of himself to a part (or parts) is dehumanizing, and, therefore, absurd. Dave is a grotesque character, because his overriding concern with the size of his manhood in particular and with sexual considerations in general reduce him to silly dimensions as a human being. He is ruled by his libido, which makes, for him, the matter of his endowment of extreme importance. He discovers, only after the trauma of getting what he has wished for, that his dream, having come true, is a nightmare. His having to live with and satisfy the fleshly appetites of a woman who is as self-absorbed with sex as he himself is--or has been--is an ironic penance. However, matters could be much worse, for Dave’s apparent promiscuity obviously makes him susceptible to risks that far outweigh even a nearly uncontrollable phallus the size of a “python.” The gargantuan member seems to symbolize Dave’s own infatuation with sex and size. As the story’s title suggests, Dave’s gargantuan member is itself a manifestation of his obsessive interest in such matters. The story shows--literally--that his obsession with sex and size is monstrous.

He seems more in need of a psychologist than of a pair of voodoo priestesses. McCammon’s bawdy story pokes fun at the proclivity of men in general to be ruled, in sexual matters, by their passions. Dave, for better or for worse, is an everyman, whose sexual obsessions amuse, annoy, mystify, and anger women who can’t understand why a man can’t simply be satisfied with what nature has given to him (even if, in their own cases, they may seek to “enhance” their breasts with surgical implants.) Perhaps McCammon will pen a sequel that focuses upon such damsels in distress.

There is, at times, a fine line between humor and horror, and, in “The Thang,” McCammon has found, if not crossed, this line.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Do Not Pass “Go”; Do Not Collect $200: Monster Board Games

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

When one tires of Monopoly and Scrabble, there’s always the death and destruction of the diabolically creepy horror board game. They may make better Halloween presents than Christmas gifts, but, should Santa need a stocking stuffer, your wee ones could enjoy receiving one of these ghoulish games.


Arkham Horror (Fantasy Flight Games): H. P. Lovecraft provides the town and the mythos. Bizarre incidents occur in the town that Lovecraft made, heralding a horrific catastrophe; Lovecraft’s Old Ones are the culprits, and all that stands between them and the end of the world are the game’s players, a team of investigators, numbering between one and eight, who are twelve years old or older and who can spare two to three hours--not much time when one considers the height of the stakes involved: the fate of the world awaits the throw of the dice.

Gateways open upon other areas of the town, and, if too many open at once, look out! An alien will enter the scene, wrecking havoc. Therefore, it’s a good idea to close the gates! Unfortunately, to do so, the players themselves must enter these same portals and be teleported to--well, somewhere else.

An interesting addition to this game is its extension, Dunwich Horror (also manufactured by Fantasy Night Games), which supplies a game board for another Lovecraft town, Dunwich, which is a short distance from Arkham and is beset by its own mystical and macabre problems. The play is similar, but the rules have changed. Similar games from the same maker are the additional Arkham Horror Expansion games Kingsport Horror (based on yet another of the fictional towns that Lovecraft invented), Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, and The Black Goat of the Woods.

There is also Zombie Town: players’ neighborhood have gone to the zombies, who rise from their graves in the cemetery in the middle of the community, and no help is forthcoming; it’s up to each player to scrounge up the makeshift weapons he or she needs to survive for the ten days’ duration of play, by which time the neighborhood will be overrun by zombies, some of whom will be one’s next-door neighbors! Isn’t this the same premise of The Beverly Hillbillies?


For younger players, All Wound Up: Escape from the Cemetery (Twilight Creations) is a fun alternative, in which the pieces are, as the game’s title suggests, wind-up zombie toys. Players are allowed to wind their avatars so many times, depending upon their play, as they race in various directions to be the first to reach the cemetery’s front gate. Two to four players, eight to adult, can participate in the mayhem.


Dracula (Rio Grande Games/Kosmos) is based upon Bram Stoker’s novel, and sets Dr. van Helsing the unenviable task of locating the coffins of the undead while his nemesis, Count Dracula himself, seeks five new victims. Play lasts about half an hour, can be joined by two who are twelve or older and have sound hearts, if not sound minds, and contains such contents as the game board, cards, figures, barriers, energy cubes, and a rulebook, which, appropriately enough, come in a box. This is one you can really sink your teeth into! (Sorry; couldn’t resist.)


There are lots of other games in the horror genre waiting to take a bite out of your favorite goblin this Christmas; some are apt to be harder to find than others, and a few may be out of production altogether (but there’s always eBay):
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Susan Prescot Games)
  • Dracula’s Revenge (Human Head Studios/Green Ronin Publishing)
  • Frankenstein’s Children (Human Head Studios)
  • Vampire: Prince of the City
  • When Darkness Comes: The Awakening Game Board (Twilight Creations)
  • Munchkin Bites (Steve Jackson Games)
  • Betrayal at the House on the Hill (Avalon Hill)
  • Ghosts (Milton Bradley)
  • The Great Brain Robbery (Cheapass Games)
  • Minion Hunter (Games Designers Workshop/Dark Conspiracy)
  • Which Witch? (Milton Bradley)

Sunday, November 2, 2008

The Vagabond Menace

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman


The Ancient Mariner relates his tale to the Wedding Guest.

In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the character of the same name is presented as a world-weary old man who has the uncanny, perhaps supernatural, ability to hypnotize his listeners, to whom, as an act of penance demanded by a deity, he must recount the cautionary tale of what befell him and his fellow sailors after he shot and killed an albatross for no reason. Many critics consider the bird to represent a symbol of God’s grace, making the ancient mariner’s act similar to the crucifixion of Christ and the mariner’s fate like that of the proverbial, anti-Semitic Wandering Jew, who was punished, as the story goes, for having mocked Jesus as he was hanging upon the cross by having to wander the earth until Christ’s second advent.

This type of character, the vagabond menace, although not necessarily common in horror fiction, has appeared in several stories of this genre. Often a male, this character has no home of his own. Instead, he travels from place to place, under an assumed name, causing havoc and misery (or, less often, averting the same), sometimes as a result of a curse (or as the result of having been assigned a mission). He is not the same as another type of itinerant character, the herald, for he does not go before another, greater character, announcing or otherwise preparing the latter’s way, as, for instance, the Silver Surfer scouts planets for his master, Galactus, to consume. Many times something of a trickster, the vagabond menace almost always has specialized, usually occult, knowledge or wisdom, which he uses to effect his covert plans or, less often, enlighten or rescue others, saving them from the same or a similar doom as that which has befallen them. He may be a force of good, but, more frequently, he is an agent of evil. He may represent a higher power, but he often acts merely in his own interest, according to his own plans, which usually remain unshared until the end of the story if they are revealed at all, although the reader may surmise the motives for the vagabond menace’s actions from clues provided by the writer.

For example, he appears as a houseguest in W. W. Jacobs’ short story “The Monkey’s Paw.” In this tale, he is a traveler who has come to visit parents who have recently lost their son Herbert. He has with him the monkey’s paw of the story’s title, a talisman, or charm, that grants its user three magic wishes.

The wise (or at least knowledgeable) traveler also appears in Stephen King’s novel Needful Things as a shopkeeper who offers customer’s their hearts’ desires--in exchange, if not for their souls, a steep spiritual price that involves both sin and cruelty to their fellow townspeople. That this stranger may be the devil himself is hinted at rather strongly by his past and present, especially his ability to perform supernatural feats. Of course, he is also a wedge between the residents of Castle Rock, Maine, where, in the novel, he most recently sets up shop.

Another King story, Storm of the Century, features a villain of supernatural powers who, again, it is hinted, may be something on the order of a demon, who, getting along in years, visits the island town in search of a protégé who can, when properly trained, take his place.

The vagabond menace also makes an appearance in Shirley Jackson's quirky short story "An Ordinary Day, With Peanuts." This character goes about her day creating as much havoc as possible in as many individuals' lives as she can. At the same time, her husband does the opposite, playing, as it were, the angel to his wife's demon. They discuss their respective days when they get home, and the husband reminds his wife that, the next day, it's his turn to play the loving, caring role and hers to play that of the hateful, malevolent part. (Or maybe it's the opposite; it's been some time since I've had the pleasure of reading this clever tale, and it's not easily found, but the point is that the spouses switch roles, alternately playing the angel and the demon every other day.)

Even Mark Twain makes use of a vagabond menace in his short story “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” a tale that has suspiciously strong similarities to King’s Needful Things. In Twain’s story, the vagabond menace is a stranger who, in passing through Hadleyburg, which has a reputation as an “incorruptible town,” is offended by the deeds of one of its residents. To avenge himself, he offers a bag of gold worth $40,000 to the person who gave him $20 in a time of need and some invaluable advice. To claim the gold, one need only to submit, in writing, to Hadleyburg’s Reverend Burgess, the advice that he or she offered to the traveler. Unknown to the others, each and every resident receives an anonymous note from the stranger that reveals the advice that he was given, and they all submit the same remark to the minister, thereby claiming to be the rightful claimant of the stranger‘s reward. They all run up enormous debts, buying merchandise on credit, knowing that they can easily repay the debts once they have been awarded the gold.

At a public meeting, the townspeople are shamed when Burgess, reading the submitted slips of paper, reveals that all the residents of Hadleyburg have submitted the same bit of advice, but that none of them has submitted the entire statement that the stranger says he was told. They have submitted only the first half: “You are far from being a bad man--go, and reform.” The complete statement is “You are far from being a bad man--go, and reform--or, mark my words--some day, for your sins you will die and go to hell or Hadleyburg--try and make it the former.” Finally, another note in the sack of gold is opened and read. It offers some advice of the stranger’s own to the townspeople whom he has duped and humiliated. They should not be so quick to claim incorruptibility, he suggests, because it is easy to do so when one’s virtue has gone untested. The gold turns out to be lead.

One couple, the Richardses, submitted the same note as all the others in Hadleyburg, but theirs is never read, and they receive the money that the sale of the sack of lead earns at an auction, but they are unable to enjoy their newfound wealth, as they live in constant fear that their duplicity will be revealed. However, their note is never read aloud, the stranger claiming to have prevented this occurrence in honor of a favor the couple did for him long ago. Before the old couple die, Mr. Richards confesses their guilt in hiding the secret that they, too, like all the other residents of their town, lied as to their advice to the stranger. They never gave him any advice or money, but merely wrote the same statement on the slip of paper they submitted in claim of the gold as everyone else had done. Twain ends his tale with the ironic statement, “It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that catches it napping again.”

The prototypical vagabond menace is Satan himself, the slanderer who appears before God, arriving from his wanderings in the earth, to accuse Job of false piety and devotion to God and afflicts God’s “good and faithful servant, Job” with a series of distressing conditions, including the loss of servants, livestock, and offspring and painful boils all over his body:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down
in it.

And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?

Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?

Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.

But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face (Job 1: 6-11).

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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