TECH: How to Write Horror Fiction 01

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Original Posting Oct. 2, 2017

Since it's Halloweenie season, I thought I'd poke around at horror a bit. And, at least to start, let me skim something I've got on my shelves – How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan. Writers Digest Book from 1990. Just looking at the table of contents…

Exploring the dark side, the roots and cellars in which horror ideas sprout. Take me to your monster! Horrible imaginings. Who – or what – goes there? Don't open that door… Building your house of horrors. Planting the hook: a fantasmagoria of spooky openings and ghastly one-liners. Masks, shadows, and surprises. The gory details… Drip, drip, drip? A dip in the pool. When the crypt is sealed.

There you go. A little shiver to start things off, right? So how about a quote from Stephen King, "We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."

So, in chapter 1, what do we have? Well, exploring the dark side… "Fear is fun. Being frightened is delicious. We tend to giggle when we're really scared – partly to expel the tension, partly because we're having such a good time."

It's facing fears and going beyond them. We've been brave! William starts off with a little reminiscence about his first book of horror stories. Boris Karloff's Tales of Terror. And pretty soon he was buying Weird Tales.

"Horror, in one form or another, has been with us since the dawn of civilization. The human animal has been, by nature, uncertain and apprehensive; we are in awe of a universe too vast for us to comprehend.…" The dark and tales of terror… Horror!

A little dab of history – Horace Walpole, 1764, with the Castle of Otranto. From which Ann Radcliffe in 1794 writes The Mysteries of Udolpho, a gothic horror. And then, of course, in 1839, we get to Edgar Allen Poe, with Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Oh!

And of course, now we have mass-market horror, movies, and plenty more.

Not to mention, of course, a little thing known as the Writers Halloween Contest!

Watch for monsters crossing… Okay, take me to your monster, coming soon!

tink

TECH: How to Write Horror Fiction 02

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Original posting Oct. 7, 2017

And, continuing our preparation for Halloweenie Horror (remember, the Writers Halloween Contest is off and running!), we look at chapter 2 of How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan...

BOO!

Now, take me to your monster. That's the second chapter's title, Take Me to Your Monster. "Because the monster is primary within the field of horror, just as the gunfighter is primary in the Western, or the private I is primary in hard-boiled detective fiction." William does say you can write horror without monsters, but even then there usually is something monstrous… Then he goes through a number of examples to show that "your options are wide open as to the type of monster you may wish to create."

Old ghoul, new approach – you can use a conventional monster, but you need to have a fresh presentation, new insights, something different. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, mummies… "If your monster is indeed supernatural, it is your job to make the creature real and understandable on human terms, despite his supernatural powers." Readers need to believe that monster feels real! Convince them, give them a monster with depth, that feels real.

Multiple monsters – sometimes multiple monsters works. For example, maybe a monster and a human… In partnership! Just who is the monster there? Be careful though, multiple monsters can be too much. Usually, two is plenty, three, four, a whole cast of monsters… Well, make sure there's one central one. Credibility! [I will note that current urban fantasy often opens with one monster, and then adds to the cast, often with a throwaway remark about where there's one monster there's more!]

Timing? When do you introduce your monster? There's no real set place, although you need to establish the worry, the fear, the menace very early. The monster? And especially the details of the monster? Those often come out much later. Frequently actions, or bloody results, get an early showing, and then the monster comes out towards the end. You might consider that the revelation is part of the climax! Also, something that is only partially seen, with hints and glimpses, can be scarier than just seeing it. You want to build suspense. It's almost as if the horror genre is a mystery play, with clues and red herrings and all of that building up to finally revealing there is the monster!

"Revealing too much too quickly robs the story of its essential suspense. By withholding facts about the exact nature and full powers of your monster, you keep its threat immediate and fresh throughout the story. And by placing the confrontation between your monster and your protagonist at the end, in the climax, you maintain the monster's fright level to the last page."

The Domain of Darkness – how powerful should the monster be? Should it have multiple powers? Well… Limited powers help ensure that the reader thinks your hero could beat it. If you got a superpowerful monster, you better have a Superman hero, and even then, it's not going to be very real. You can balance unusual strengths with unusual weaknesses. Vampires, strong, transforming, hypnotizing. But also can't stand the sun, holy symbols, holy water, even a stake through the heart. Leave room to beat your monster by honest human endeavors. By the way, if you give your monster specific powers, stick to them. Don't let the monster suddenly change powers just to confuse your hero and your readers.

Human monsters. Is your human monster just a criminal, or have they grown into monsters? No compassion, no guilt, you have to build them into savage monsters. They have to be evil.

So, William summarizes, make your monsters credible. Make sure they threaten your main characters. They must be removed from the norm. And avoid having them be all powerful.

Now pick a monster. Make them scary, and make them real.

Now that you're shivering, quivering, ready to write, remember, the Writers Halloweenie Contest is open! Short stories (up to 5,000 words) and poetry (unlimited). Send them to xxx@yyy.zzz and they will be posted to the list. Deadline October 20, 2 weeks away! So get writinng! And howl at the moon, too!

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TECH: How to Write Horror Fiction 03

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Original Posting Oct. 10, 2017

And as we slither closer, ever closer to the deadline for the Writers Halloween Contest (remember, get those stories and poems in by October 20!), we take another look at William F. Nolan's book about How to Write Horror Fiction.

Chapter 3 is about horrible imaginings. William starts out with this paragraph...

"Horror is all around us. It fills the news of the day. Woman kidnapped and killed. School bus tumbles over cliff. Terrorist attack destroys church. Commercial airliner goes down and mountains. Cancer claims more victims. Coed brutally raped on campus. Police officers shot in drug sweep. Border raid wipes out village…."

Whoosh. And that was back in 1990! Then William talks about a real-life horror from his life. Murder/suicide in Kansas City.

Horror surrounds us. And William points out that this may be why horror is so popular and effective. "They provide mass therapy, a way to deal with the everyday horrors we all encounter. Horror fiction offers us a way to survive. We are able to control the horror in a way we can never do in real life."

So, how do we separate horror from things that are just sad, unpleasant, disgusting? Well, it's really approach in handling. Horror fiction entertains, along with some chills and thrills. So where might you look for ideas?

Your childhood! As kids, there's a lot of things that are pretty scary. What's in the closet, what's under the bed, what's down the stairs? Think about what you were afraid of as a child, then put that fear in a story.

Grown-up fears? Well, there are primal fears – darkness, being abandoned, dangerous creatures, death. Being lost, waking up alone and helpless somewhere strange, becoming old, finding out that people are not really what you thought they were… What things frighten you as an adult?

How about dreams? Sure, dreams can be scary. Ideas, scenes, bits and pieces. Just grab them fast, because dreams seem to evaporate when you wake up.

Keep a notebook. Plot ideas, of course, in bits and pieces of overheard conversation, description, thoughts you had, story titles, travel notes, research data, scenes and dialogue, odd facts, memories, whatever excites you.

How about the do-it-yourself ending? Here William suggests reading just part of a story, the first half, then set it aside and write your own ending. If it's exciting enough, go back and write your own beginning. Even if the story isn't unique enough, you'll still learn a lot about structure, plotting, and some ideas.

William also suggests taking a look at a list of supernatural beliefs that J. N. Williamson put together as a background for his fiction. 22 possible seeds for your horror! I'm not going to list them all here, you'll need to read the book. But, reincarnation, voodoo, ghosts, fairies, vampires, alien invasion, mummies… There's a few, just for fun.

Finally, William reminds us that having an idea doesn't mean we have a plot. An idea is a seed. How do you turn it into a plot? Ask yourself questions! Who, what, why, where, when, and how are your friends. Figure out what's happening here. Build a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Mix well with characters, locale, threat, and resolution. And bingo! You've got a plot and the story. Now write.

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TECH: How to Write Horror Fiction 05

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Original Posting Oct. 16, 2017

Wait a minute? What happened to 04? Well, we're slipping closer and closer to the deadline (October 20? That's this FRIDAY! Get those stories and poems going!) so I decided to skip ahead...

William F. Nolan's How to Write Horror Fiction, Chapter 5. has the memorable title Don't Open That Door!

Suspense! But how do you create and maintain suspense? Well, anticipation. Something is behind that door, down those stairs, out there… And the reader wants that confrontation, but they also know the protagonists really shouldn't go there. Don't open that door!

Words and phrases, a mood… Gets built.

"One primary method of creating suspense is to set up your threat early in the book." Earlier deaths, horrors, bad things happen… And now, here comes your favorite naïve protagonist, about to walk into it.

Make the outcome uncertain. Twists, surprises, what is going to happen next? "The threat cannot be false. It must pay off, and this means you must show your monster in action." Chew up a minor character, drops of blood here and there.

"Setting your beleaguered protagonist to battle a series of dangerous obstacles is another method that can be used to create suspense."

And of course, the horrible thing behind the door.

Don't forget isolation. Dark and stormy nights, alone in the graveyard, what's a person going to do? Isolation makes most of us vulnerable.

Darkness, of course, is when ghoulies and goblins and things come out to bite.

Make the monster real. Your protagonist, your characters, everyone finally needs to believe in the monster. They should start out skeptical, but then… Wait a minute. It really is a werewolf chewing on my shoe.

"Finally, then, suspense is the pulse of life beneath the flesh of your story. The tell-tale heart of horror."

There you go. Something relaxing for the Halloween... what, you don't think opening the door is a good idea? Well, we'll just peek around it....

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHH!

slurp.

And it all begins again.

Write?
tink

TECH: Undertoads and Oranges (Really moldie oldie!)

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Original Posting Oct. 25, 2017

Writer's Digest, July, 1994!, had an article by Nancy Kress on pages 8, 10, 11, talking about Undertoads and Oranges! The subtitle helps a little bit, "literary motifs can give your writing resonance and depth. Just don't overdo it."

Nancy starts right out by pointing out that topics like dialogue are fairly easy to write about, while others, like tone and distance, are harder. "But no topic is murkier or more volatile than literary motif. Here be dragons. Also landmines, bombs, and resistance fighters." Now what is a motif? "It's the meaningful use of extended symbols to add richness and depth to prose." Sounds simple, right?

Symbols? Objects or events that represent meaning beyond and larger than themselves. Flags, apple pie, etc. However, "unlike cultural symbols, literary symbols are invented by authors." And when the same symbol is used again and again in a fictional work, it becomes… You got it, a literary motif. Undertoad, in The World According to Garp, which becomes a family joke, and a warning about submerged dangers of life! Or sometimes an orange, a physical object, turns up repeatedly in a story, and becomes a motif.

Now, can your story benefit from a literary motif? Maybe. A symbol that grows naturally out of the story can certainly do what the subtitle said, add resonance and depth. So what makes a successful motif?

1. "An effective motif arises naturally from plot events, rather than being pasted on afterward." You are more likely to recognize them while drafting than choose or construct them.

2. "An effective motif is a fresh use of an object or event." No clichés. Look for individual, unexpected, yet logical symbols for your characters.

3. "An effective motif expands its meaning each time it appears." Layers of meaning. More significance, greater symbolism, complexity.

4. "An effective motif is used with a light hand." Don't overdo. Growing importance, but not overstressed. "Restraint keeps the motif from overpowering the story, from being just an exercise in the clever manipulation of symbols, or a tool the writer uses to teach readers a lesson."

Okay, so good motifs grow naturally from your working on plot and characters. Which means you aren't going to just add them on, like frosting and sprinkles on your cake. Nancy suggests a rule of thumb that if you're about two thirds of the way through the draft and there aren't any symbols that resonate with depth, don't worry about motifs. Probably not going to happen. On the other hand…

If you have an object, phrase, or event that recurs, with growing significance, in revision, think about how you might strengthen this motif. How can you extend or use it for greater resonance?

The end of the story is an effective place to to bring in the motif. There's a lot of significance in anything that you bring up here. Be careful that it doesn't look forced.

You might want to look just before the end, at the second-to-last scene. This is another good place to bring up the motif.

"Turning a symbol into a motif must be done lightly and deftly. It requires choosing motifs that are integral to the story events, not just handy tools for expounding on the theme. It requires integrating the motif naturally into the prose, without calling attention to the process. And it requires knowing when to stop, before use of the symbol becomes strained or even unintentionally farcical."

Motifs, like almost everything in writing, get easier with practice. When you're reading, watch how good writers handle motifs. And, when the story is right, the richness of a motif can be helpful!

All right. Practice? Well, I suppose you could look at a piece that you are working on and see. Is there something that's turning into a symbol, or even a motif, in there? What can you do to support that? Are there other places where you could work the symbol, the motif, into your story? Do the characters and plot work with the motif well?

And then, watch out for undertoads and oranges!
Write?

tink

EXERCISE: While I pondered, weak and weary...

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Original posting Oct. 28, 2017

Okay! Here's a fragment from a recent dream that I had.

The car raced away from the building. Behind us, I saw two missiles hit. The first one looked almost as if someone had yanked an old water tower up from somewhere and somehow thrown it like a javelin. The other was sleeker, more like a comic book sketch of a missile than a real missile, but still scary. They both hit near the building behind us, and the explosions, the flames, the rising clouds of smoke spurred us on.

So... who's in the car? Where did these comic book missiles come from? Who is in the building that got hit? For that matter, what is the building that got hit? Where did all this take place?

And, of course, what happens next?

Go ahead, explain that dream... no Freudian interpretations, okay?

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