Benefits of Alternate Endings: Pick One

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

It was fashionable in Hollywood, at one time, to produce movies that have alternate endings. Hollywood executives hoped that, by trying out two or more endings for the same movie on test audiences, they could determine which one viewers enjoyed most, which might translate into more ticket sales (i .e., dollars) at the box office.

For short story writers and novelists, however, there may be other benefits to devising possible alternate endings. In doing so, however, authors should follow Aristotle's dictum (and Edgar Allan Poe's advice) that a story's ending should end in a manner that does not destroy the integrity of the rest of the plot.

Devising possible alternate endings to a story can also assist writers in selecting the most appropriate, effective, and memorable ending possible from an array of alternatives.

In addition, imagining possible alternate endings can, perhaps, improve the story, because a new possibility might round out, explain, or otherwise complete the narrative in a more believable or otherwise satisfying manner than the original ending. (We're speaking, now, of works in progress, rather than published, stories.)

Imagining alternate endings could also produce unexpected or better twist endings than the one a writer originally had in mind.

“The Cone” by H. G. Wells

Current ending: Raut, who has cuckolded Horrocks, is doomed when a blast-furnace cone lowers him into the furnace, while Horrocks pelts the adulterer with hot coals.

Alternate ending: Horrocks seizes Raut by the arm, shoving him into the path of an oncoming railway tram. (This incident occurs earlier in the story, but, at this point, Horrocks is terrorizing Raut and, at the last minute, pulls him to safety; revised, the original story would end with this incident, without Horrocks pulling Raut from the tram's path.)

“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce

Current ending: An entry in Morgan's diary reveals that the creature he hunts is invisible because its color is imperceptible to the human eye.

Alternate ending: Both Morgan's friend Harker, who witnessed Morgan's death and Morgan himself are insane, the former because of his fantastic testimony at the coroner's inquest concerning the cause of Morgan's death, the latter because, in writing of the incident in his diary, he described it in a manner that is consistent with Harker's account of the occurrence. On suspicion of having killed, and possible brainwashed Morgan, Harker is arrested and held for trial.

“Dracula's Guest” by Bram Stoker

Current ending: Horsemen frighten off the werewolf guarding and keeping an English hotel guest warm in a forest and take him back to the hotel; they were dispatched at the request of a Transylvanian count named Dracula.

Alternate ending: The horsemen arrive to find the Englishman's throat torn out by the werewolf feasting upon his corpse.

 

"The Signalman" by Charles Dickens

Current ending: The narrator learns that a signal-man, seemingly mesmerized by something he saw, was struck and killed by an approaching train after ignoring the engineer's repeated warnings to get off the track.

Alternate ending: The train strikes the signal-man, but investigators cannot find his body; on the anniversary of his supposed death, the signal-man again appears on the track and is struck, but, afterward, investigators cannot find a body.

Werewolves: Three Scientific Explanations

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Chillers and Thrillers has devoted quite a bit of space to several articles on Tzvetan Todorov's insightful analysis of the literary fantastic. At this point, despite the oversimplification that results, we can say, for Todorov, the fantastic usually resolves itself into the explained and the unexplained. The former he calls “uncanny”; the latter, “marvelous.” Only when there is no resolution, one way or another, does the fantastic remain fantastic.

In our first post in this series, “Ghosts: A Half-Dozen Explanations,” we include a few examples of each type of story.

We also noted that, to write such a story, an author must allow either of two understandings of the action: either reason or science can explain the phenomena, bizarre though they may, as natural events or the strange phenomena are beyond explanation and, as such, may actually be of an otherworldly or supernatural origin. The tension between these two alternatives creates and maintains suspense. It is only when the story shows that the action is natural (explicable by reason or science) or supernatural (inexplicable by reason or science) that the story itself is no longer fantastic, but either uncanny or marvelous, respectively.

It helps, therefore, to know how scientists explain seemingly fantastic phenomena, such as (for example) ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies.

Werewolves are, like most beasts, especially hairy. Sometimes, so do human beings, due to hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder that results in the covering of the face and body in thick hair resembling an animal's fur. Before genetics was understood (about the turn of the twentieth century), this condition could have led people to believe that victims of hypertrichosis were men or women who'd transformed into wolves—in other words, werewolves (in Old English, “wer” means “man” and “wulf” means “wolf”).

Porphyria, a condition mentioned in a previous post, could have contributed to people's belief, in earlier times, in werewolves: the condition “is characterized by extreme sensitivity to light (thus encouraging its victims to only go out at night), seizures, anxiety, and other symptoms.” (Often, scenes of people transforming into werewolves include behavior that closely resembles seizures, as does this scene from the movie The Howling [1977].)

A medical condition known as clinical lycanthropy is more about the mind that the body: it causes its victims to believe that they are werewolves, which, in turn, causes them to act accordingly. Serial killer Peter Stubbe is a case in point. He believed he owned “a belt of wolfskin that allowed him to change into a wolf.” His confessions to his murders were extracted under torture, as his “flesh was . . . ripped out with hot pincers and his limbs [were] crushed with stones.”

Once again, scientific accounts of the werewolf phenomenon offer suggestions about characters, including therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, police officers and detectives, medical doctors and specialists, and even torturers. In addition, the offices of these personnel might occur as settings in some scenes, but, depending on the century in which a story is set, settings might also feature dungeons, torture chambers, prisons, or mental asylums. Of course, forests are a virtual certainty with regard to the settings of such stories.

There have been many movies about werewolves, including Silver Bullet (1985), which is based on Stephen King's 1983 novella Cycle of the Werewolf. Such imaginary beasts have also been popular with well-known short story authors, Robert Louis Stevenson (“Olalla” [1887]), Algernon Blackwood (“The Camp of the Dog” [1908]), Bram Stoker (“Dracula's Guest” [1914)], and Robert E. Howard (“Wolfshead” [1968]). Alexander Dumas wrote a novella on the subject, The Wolf-Leader (1857), and Guy Endore penned a novel, The Werewolf of Paris (1933). (There's even a werewolf romance subgenre!)

 Studying these stories will show readers how such writers give new blood, so to speak, to a truly ancient horror trope.

In our next post, we'll take a peek at what science says about zombies.

Alliterative Plotting (?)

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

I can't say whether Erle Stanley Gardner used alliteration as a way of prompting plots, but some of the titles of his Perry Mason novels sure did—as did even more—most, in fact—of the CBS television series' episodes—could have suggested story lines.

Gardner himself created such alliterative titles as

The Case of the Lucky Legs

The Case of the Caretaker's Cat

The Case of the Dangerous Dowager

The Case of the Shoplifter's Show

The Case of the Perjured Parrot

The Case of the Haunted Husband

The Case of the Drowning Duck

The Case of the Crooked Candle

The Case of the Black-eyed Blonde

The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

The Case of the Cautious Coquette

The Case of the Negligent Nymph

The Case of the Fiery Fingers

The Case of the Moth-eaten Mink

The Case of the Grinning Gorilla

The Case of the Hesitant Hostess

The Case of the Restless Redhead

The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

The Case of the Terrified Typist

The Case of the Demure Defendant

The Case of the Lucky Loser

The Case of the Daring Decoy

The Case of the Mythical Monkeys

The Case of the Singing Skirt

The Case of the Waylaid Wolf

The Case of the Duplicate Daughter

The Case of the Shapely Shadow

The Case of the Spurious Spinster

The Case of the Blonde Bonanza

The Case of the Stepdaughter's Secret

The Case of the Amorous Aunt

The Case of the Daring Divorcee

The Case of the Phantom Fortune

The Case of the Horrified Heirs

The Case of the Troubled Trustee

The Case of the Beautiful Beggar

The Case of the Worried Waitress

The Case of the Careless Cupid

The Case of the Fabulous Fake

The titles also often invoke mystery or suspense or both. Why are the legs lucky? Why is the loser lucky? What is the stepdaughter's secret? Why is the waitress worried?

Most of these titles also contain adjectives that characterize specific types of fictional character, many of them women: blonde, brunette, coquette, nymph, redhead, typist, daughter, spinster, aunt, divorcee, waitress. Often, in the television series, at least, the character identified in the title became Mason's client and the defendant in a murder trial.

While identifying a type of character, each of the titles also suggest several questions. The answers to these questions may imply still other questions, or, at times, they may hint at plot twists or even a resolution.

The Case of the Haunted Husband: Who is the husband? Who is his wife? Why is he haunted? In what way is he haunted? Has h done something that frightens him or haunts him with guilt? Maybe he murdered someone. Maybe he had an affair with someone? Maybe he murdered another woman with whom he had an affair. If so, who is this other woman? Where did they meet? What attracted them to one another? Did they break off their relationship? Did the wife know about the affair or find out about it? Lieutenant Tragg might consider such knowledge a motivation for the wife to have killed the mistress. Perhaps the husband didn't kill the other woman, after all. Maybe she was killed by the wife of a previous husband with whom she had had an affair, a wife who's tracked her down to kill her. Was the husband or his current wife the killer's fall guy? (Since Gardner was writing Perry Mason novels, Gardner also had to answer the question, How is Perry going to prove his client is innocent of the charges that the police will lodge against her?)

The Case of the Borrowed Brunette: Who is the brunette? Who borrowed her? How was she borrowed? For what purpose was she borrowed? Was she returned? If so, to whom? An intriguing title, the name of this story conjures up all kinds of possibilities. Did the woman look like another woman? Was she borrowed to impersonate another brunette? Was she, perhaps, killed so the other brunette could disappear and start a new life or escape a prison sentence? Did her boyfriend or her husband plan to kill the other woman and run away with the borrowed brunette? Was the borrowed brunette a model, a call girl, a wealthy businesswoman, a woman from a man's past? (Remember, too, that because Gardner was writing Perry Mason novels, Gardner also had to answer the question, How is Perry going to prove his client is innocent of the charges that the police will lodge against her?)

The Case of the Worried Waitress: Who is the waitress? Who or what worries her? Why is she worried? What, if anything, does she do to eliminate the cause of her worries—or what do the police believe she has done? Is she a victim? A witness to a murder? Did someone she served as a waitress leave incriminating evidence behind? Did she see or hear something she shouldn't have while serving a diner? (As always, since Gardner was writing Perry Mason novels, Gardner also had to answer the question, How is Perry going to prove his client is innocent of the charges that the police will lodge against her?)

Although the plots of the episodes of the television series may differ from those of the novels, the episodes provide at least one way writers answered such questions, generated a plot, and solved the cases. Summaries of the episodes on the Perry Mason TV Series wiki indicate that, in The Case of the Haunted Husband, the series' writers came up with this approach:

Hitchhiker Claire Olger is charged with grand theft auto and manslaughter when the driver of the car she's riding in hits a truck, killing the truck driver, then flees the scene, leaving Claire to take the blame. 

 

Perry agrees to help Claire and eventually does locate the missing driver. Trouble is, he's dead. Burger drops the previous charges against Claire and files a new one: first degree murder. A second murder only complicates things more.

For The Case of the Borrowed Brunette:

Eva Martell gets a part, not on stage but impersonating Helen Reynolds, a woman she has never met. She is paid extremely well and given a beautiful apartment to live in with her Aunt Agnes as long as she continues the charade. Still, Eva suspects foul play in paradise, and seeks the advice of a good lawyer. 

Perry steps in and meets with the real Helen Reynolds, who swears she is not doing anything illegal, but cannot reveal her motives. That’s fine until they find that dead body in her apartment. . . [.]

The wiki doesn't provide a summary for The Case of the Worried Waitress, but a detailed synopsis appears on Thriftbooks:

The Case of the Worried Waitress [sic], by Erle Stanley Gardner[,] 'The 'Foreword' [sic] is dedicated to Marshall Houts, who gave up a lucrative law practice to become an investigator for the Court of Last Resort. Houts investigated several murder cases in which innocent men had been wrongfully convicted, and brought about a satisfactory conclusion. Houts created 'Trauma', [sic] a publication that deals with the field of legal medicine. Forensic medicine applies to many cases, from accidents to the more publicized murders. Perry Mason and Della Street have lunch at a restaurant, and are served by a new waitress Katherine Ellis. The next morning Kit Ellis visits Mason for a consultation about her Aunt Sophia. Kit's parents were killed in an automobile accident, she was left penniless, and moved in with Aunt Sophia (who met a divorced man, and turned over her money to him). After he died of heat stroke, his first wife took everything (their divorce wasn't final). Perry Mason said this could be a partnership, and Sophia could claim half of the property. Kit says Aunt Sophia has a hatbox filled with cash, and she is afraid of burglars. Perry advises her to move out for her own safety. Soon Perry gets a phone call from Kit Ellis; she is being accused of theft by a Stuart Baxley. Baxley hired a private detective to get fingerprints from the hatbox. Paul Drake said this is difficult. But Perry Mason knows that Macdonell Associates of Corning NY have invented a method to do this with magnetic dust (Chapter 4). They learn that Aunt Sophia Atwood is in the hospital, someone hit her on the head with a five-cell flashlight. Kit Ellis had gone back to the house by taxi at night to retrieve her shoes and clothing. Lt. Tragg arrests Kit Ellis at Perry's office (Chapter 9). Mason and Paul Drake visit another person who knows Sophia Atwood (Chapter 10). Perry bait a trap with a seemingly missing will (Chapter 11). Does golf get blamed for things that are the result of human carelessness, stupidity , and foolishness (Chapter 12)? Perry assigns an investigation to Paul Drake: put a female operative at the Gillco Company who can pose as a blind woman (Chapter 14). The Preliminary Hearing begins with Stuart Baxley. Perry destroys his credibility in his cross-examination. The judge expresses doubt as well (Chapter 15). Then Stuart Baxley changes his story again! In Chapter 16 Perry thinks of a theory that can explain the strange events at that house. Perry and Paul find a cache of money, and are found out by Lt. Tragg (Chapter 17). In Chapter 18 Perry brings in a surprise witness who reveals shocking secrets! Lt. Tragg admits fingerprints on the flashlight do not match Perry's client, and do match fingerprints on the water cooler, but are from an unknown person. Perry later hands Lt. Tragg some fingerprints to analyze. Kit Ellis is freed to rejoin her Aunt Sophia (Chapter 19).

Gardner's technique—and, let's admit it, his use of alliteration is fun—can work for any genre, horror included. Let's make up a couple of alliterative horror titles (since Chillers and Thrillers is a blog about The Theory and Practice of Writing Horror Fiction, after all):

The Case of the Ravenous Rats: Why are the rats ravenous? Where do they live? Are they captives? If so, who has them? Why are they being kept? Are they to be used in a mass attack on someone? When? Where? Why? If the rats are not ravenous, where did they come from? A research laboratory? The site of an nuclear reactor's failure? The military? (Maybe the rodents are living weapons?) Are they genetic mutants? How are they stopped? By whom?

(Another way to approach plotting from alliterative titles is to consider stories that actually involve ravenous rats, such as Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"; Bram Stoker's "Burial of the Rats" and "The Judge's House"; or my own "A Job Well Done.")

The Case of the Grotesque Gallery: What's grotesque about the gallery? What exhibits are shown in it? Is it a private or a public gallery? Does it exhibit corpses as sculptures, paintings made with body fluids for paint? Do tableaux depict perverted acts? Are the owners insane artists? Failed artists? Are their models alive? If so, are they held against their will? Do the same ones appear in multiple works of art? Do the paintings or sculptures that include them show them as victims (or perpetrators) progressive acts of torture? Do the artworks depict past—or future—catastrophes? Why does the grotesque gallery exist?

 

The Case of the Screaming Skull: Part of this title actually includes the title of a 1958 indie horror film, The Screaming Skull, giving us an example of how an alliterative title might have suggested a plot; the synopsis is courtesy of Wikipedia:

Over a scene [sic] of an opening coffin, a narrator explains that the film's climax is so terrifying that it may kill the viewer, while reassuring the audience that should they die of fright they will receive a free burial service. Inside the coffin is a card that reads "Reserved for You". [sic]

Newlyweds Jenni . . . and Eric . . . move into Eric's palatial country home. Jenni is Eric's second wife; his first wife Marion died when she accidentally slipped and hit her head on the edge of a decorative pond on the estate. At the home they meet Eric's friends, the Reverend Snow . . . and his wife . . . , as well as Mickey . . . , the developmentally disabled gardener. Eric privately mentions to the Snows that Jenni spent time in an asylum following the sudden death of both her parents, and Mrs. Snow reveals that Jenni is very wealthy.

Jenni is disturbed both by Mickey's belief that Marion's ghost wanders the estate and by Marion's self-portrait inside the house, which Jenni believes resembles her mother. When she begins to hear unexplained screaming noises and see skulls around her house, she believes that Marion is haunting her. Though Eric speculates to Jenni that Mickey, who was a childhood friend of Marion and thus dislikes Jenni, may be behind the trickery, Jenni worries that she is going insane. Eric suggests to remove Marion's self-portrait from the home. Eric and Jenni take the painting outside and burn it, later uncovering a skull from the ashes. Jenni panics at the sight of the skull, but Eric denies that the skull is there. Jenni faints and Eric withdraws the skull and hides it, revealing that he has been gaslighting her all along.

Believing she has finally lost her sanity, Jenni resolves to be committed. She tells Eric that the entire property will be meticulously searched for the skull as a last resort. Mickey secretly steals the skull and brings it to Snow before Eric can retrieve it. That night, Eric prepares to murder Jenni and stage it as a suicide. Jenni sees Marion's ghost in Mickey's greenhouse and flees back to the house, where Eric begins throttling her. The ghost appears and chases Eric outside, corners and attacks him, drowning him in the decorative pond.

After Jenni regains consciousness, the Snows arrive. Mrs. Snow comforts a hysterical Jenni and the Reverend discovers Eric's body in the pond. Some undisclosed time later, Jenni and the Snows depart from the house. Reverend Snow declares whether or not Marion's death was an accident will remain a mystery. 

Gardner's plotting technique (if his alliterative titles really was a plotting technique, rather than just a fun way of enticing readers to buy his books) can be used by anyone, for any genre. Why not try it yourself?

Anthology Ideas (and a Few Freebies!)

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

There are probably as many ways to come up with an anthology idea as there are editors who come up with anthology ideas. In the brief head notes to his stories in his own anthology of twice-told tales, The Collection, Bentley Little mentions a few of them. For any who imagined that the innards of the publishing industry are as confused and messy as those of a dissected high school biology class frog, his comments on the matter suggest that such cynics are pretty much right on the money.

The ecology movement gave rise to the notion for one anthology: The Earth Strikes Back was to be a collection of tales concerning “the negative effects of pollution, overpopulation, and deforestation” upon the planet, or so Little supposed, at least, “judging by the title of the book.”

Another anthology, Cold Blood, was also to be centered on a “theme” and its stories were to have been written to “specific guidelines.”

A third anthology was to have included “stories based on titles the editor provided,” all of which “were. . . clichéd horror images.” This one, Little says, “never came to pass.”

According to Stephanie Bond, author of “Much Ado About Anthologies,” these collections “are assembled in various ways,” sometimes as the result of a group proposal by several authors, sometimes at the suggestion of an editor, sometimes as a way to test the marketability of an idea, and sometimes to capitalize upon a specific author’s unusual success. Usually, they come together because “editors formulate ideas for anthologies to fill holes they perceive in the market.”

I submitted a story for an anthology myself. It (the anthology, but my story also) concerned animals. My story was accepted, but I declined the invitation, because it was to have appeared in an electronic magazine and the editor wanted to pay via PayPal. At the time, I preferred payments by check, the old-fashioned way.

Anthologies have a common theme, of course, provided by a timely or evergreen topic, a holiday, an intriguing situation, or any other reasonably good excuse for a score or more (or fewer) stories by the same or different authors of the same genre.

Horror movies have also gone the anthology route. Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye and Creepshow are only two among many. Most follow the simple convention of sandwiching three of four short movies between an opening prologue that sets up the theme to be followed and an epilogue that rounds out the series and provides an appropriate sense of closure.

Were you yourself to publish a horror anthology, what short stories would you include? Your list could indicate not only your own interests in the genre, but also some of the narrative themes, writing techniques, and stylistic approaches your choice of stories represents, especially if you write a brief headnote to introduce each story.

My own imaginary anthology is an eclectic one, featuring some better-known and some lesser-known stories by well-known authors. A few might be by famous people who aren't known for writing chillers and thrillers, but who have written some admirable tales of terror and suspense, and a few others might be written by relatively unknown authors or by authors who are relatively unknown, at least, to most American readers.

In alphabetical order (by author's name), here's the list of the candidates I'd likely include, some of which might stretch the traditional definition of “horror story”:

Bierce, Ambrose: “The Damned Thing”

The color of “the damned thing” is the source of horror in this story about a creature never seen before among humanity. (You might also enjoy my two-part commentary on the story, “The Damned Thing": Bierce's Exercise in Existential Absurdity.”) 

Bierce, Ambrose: “A Tough Tussle”

This story shows what the Civil War was like, up close and personal, for the men who fought it. It's a haunting tale in which death stares the living in the face.

Bradbury, Ray: “Heavy-Set” (in I Sing the    Body Electric)

A childlike man has trouble fitting in, relying on bodybuilding and fantasy to get him through the day. His mother, with whom he lives, hopes his interest will be enough to sustain him—and to protect her. (You'll also want to read my analysis of this story, “'Heavy-Set': Learning from the Masters.”

Chopin, Kate: “The Story of an Hour”

When a woman learns her husband has been killed, his demise is a dream come true—or is it?

Churchill, Sir Winston: “Man Overboard”

Similar to Stephen Crane's short story, “The Open Boat,” the former British prime minister's tale confronts a pleasure-seeker with the indifference of nature. (My analysis of this story, “'Man Overboard': Questioning Nature and Its Creator,” offers food for thought.)

Crane, Stephen: “The Open Boat”

Four men in a dinghy learn the lesson of their lives concerning their place in the cosmic scheme of things. (“Taking Away the Teddy Bear” provides insights concerning this story, “Man Overboard,” and other works.)

Dickens, Charles: “The Signal-man”

Based on a true incident, Dickens revisits the scene of a tragic railway accident, suggesting the incident might have had a supernatural cause.

Du Maurier, Daphne: “The Birds”

We've seen Alfred Hitchcock's movie, but have we read the short story it's based on?

Faulkner, William: “A Rose for Emily”

What secrets is dear old Emily hiding in her family's decaying mansion?

Gilman Perkins Charlotte: “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The wallpaper will give you the willies.

Hemingway, Ernest: “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”

Feminism was never like this!

Jackson, Shirley: “Just an Ordinary Day”

At the end of the day, it's time to switch.

Lawrence, D. H.: “The Odour of Chrysanthemums”

Before there were funeral parlors, bodies of the deceased were prepared by family members and laid out in the parlor, as in this story.

O'Connor, Flannery: “Good Country People”

Her dark suspicions about God and religion don't save her from the traveling salesman with a morbid interest in her prosthesis.

Poe, Edgar Allan: “Hop-Frog”

A fool makes a fool of a sadistic king and his toadying couriers. (“'Hop-Frog': A Story of Reversals” investigates Poe's technique.)

Stoker, Bram: “Dracula's Guest”

A strange landscape. Rumors of vampires. A graveyard in the midst of a forest. A corpse revived. A werewolf. Military troops. This one has it all, including a note from the Count of Transylvania, soliciting assistance in the protection of his “guest.”

Rabindranath Tagore: “The Hungry Stones”

Visions of the dead have a hypnotic effect on tax collector.

Wells, H. G.: “The Cone”

The descriptions of an ironworks are extraordinary, as is this horrific tale of terror and revenge.

Wells, H. G.: “The Red Room”

Influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Wells offers an eerie tale of terror in a haunted castle, offering an explanation opposite that presented in the film adaptation of Stephen King's “1408.” Reading Tzvetan Todorov's analysis of the fantastic and its tendency to be resolved as either marvelous or uncanny helps in understanding the nuances of both this story and the film version of King's story.

Fortunately, for those who may want to read one or more of them, many are available, free, online, as the links embedded in their titles indicate, or may be checked out on loan from local public libraries.

Creating Hostile or Threatening Settings

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Writers of horror fiction have several ways by which to suggest threatening or hostile environments.

1. Writers can depict a setting that is, in itself, bizarre.

I know a homeowner, Bruce, who cut down all the trees in his yard. He'd had a swimming pool installed in his backyard, and he was frustrated when, each fall, his trees dropped their leaves, littering his lawn and the surface of his new pool. His solution was to chop down not only the trees in his backyard, but all his trees, including those in his front and side yards. At no charge, he even volunteered to cut down the trees of his neighbor, but the neighbor declined his offer. 

Most of us, I believe, would have said no thanks, because most of us love trees. They're big, beautiful symbols of life—and they provide shade. So what if they drop their leaves every autumn? Everybody poops. (Yes, dead leaves are essentially tree droppings.) 

But, when we're confronted with trees unlike any most of us have ever seen, trees that are not only unfamiliar to us but also strange-looking? Then, maybe we'd give Bruce a call.

A case in point: the dragon tree (Dracaena cinnabaril), which thrives on Yemen's remote Socotra Island an on the Canary Islands. Named for its red sap, this tree looks as though it was planted upside down, its limbs resembling roots at the end of which grow clumps of stubby leaves. In bloom, their blossoms grow among their leaves, looking pretty much like yellow versions of the former. Unfortunately, the population of these trees has been greatly reduced and now consists mostly of only mature trees. Scientists describe the tree's status as “vulnerable,” which places it between “near threatened” and “endangered.”

Another bizarre inhabitant of Socotra Island is the cucumber tree (Dendrosicyos socotrana). It has “a bulbous trunk and a small crown,” bearing 10-inch “round leaves” with “slightly toothed” bristles and inch-long yellow fruit.

The bottle tree (Pachypodium lealii Welw) is also a rather odd-looking specimen, resembling a turnip planted upside down. This tree grows is indigenous to the Namibia.

The Juniper Tree (Juniperus phoenicea), which grows on Spain's El Hierro Island, literally bends over backward. Some, such as the one shown here, resemble human figures. Coming unexpectedly upon such a tree at dusk might send a chill up one's spine.

This bizarre specimen, the Tree of Tule, a Montezuma cypress (Taxodium mucronatum) makes its home in a Oaxaca, Mexico, churchyard. Did it not exist, a description of its appearance might seem unbelievable. Some see the shapes of jaguars, elephants, and other animals in the bark of the ancient tree's trunk, which gives it the nickname “The Tree of Life.”

 This West Australian boab tree (Adansonia gregorii ) allegedly doubled as a jail. Prisoners would be kept inside the tree overnight on their way from one place to another.

California's boojum tree (Fouquieria columnaris) is tall, exceedingly slender, and nearly leafless. Imagine walking up on a forest of these in the middle of the desert on a moonlit night. According to Seri beliefs, “touching this plant will cause strong winds to blow (an undesirable state).”

This kapok tree's strange trunk appears to consist of three branches that have grown woody “webbing” between one another. The trunk is broad enough so that two or more thick branches, each pointing in its own direction, can grow from the same side of the trunk.

The time-space continuum warp featured toward the end of my urban fantasy novel A WholeFull of World of Hurt, which was inspired by Steve Ditko's illustrations of the enchanted realms through which Marvel Comics's Dr. Strange traveled on his astral journeys, is (like Ditko's own mystical lands) a good illustration of this approach. The execution of this technique doesn't have to involve the use of surreal imagery, though, as Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House, Stephen King's Rose Red and The Shining, and Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine indicate.

2. Another way to suggest threatening or hostile environments is to make the familiar seem strange. The strange appearance of the trees we described (above) may not, in itself, be frightening enough to horrify readers (but their looks are a start!). Writers need to associate the odd-looking trees with bizarre origins or give them a back story (such as a legend) that gives them a horrific provenance. Imagining answers to questions about some of the trees described above may offer some possibilities.

What, precisely, is threatening the existence of the dragon tree? Could the tree's name derive from a source other than the accepted one? Could it have grown from the spawn of actual (now extinct) dragons, which would account for its blood-red sap? Perhaps such trees are capable, under the right circumstances, or spontaneous combustion.

Are the human shapes discernible in the bent-over-backward juniper trees actual humans who've been incorporated into tree branches, perhaps through dark magic? Were they dancers in some sort of fantastic ritual?

Do the animal shapes amid the bark of the Tree of Tule actually come to life at times? Do its elephants, jaguars, and other beasts spring from its bark to do the will of those who conjure them, returning to their passive, woody state after fulfilling their summoners' deadly missions? 

Is a character among your adventurers a criminal whose past catches up with him or her when the band passes the Boab Prison Tree? Is it more than a jail? Maybe the tree practices its own brand of vigilante justice, acting as judge, jury, and executioner concerning violent offenders who've escaped justice (until they encountered the Prison Tree). 

Why would someone generate a desert vortex—and who planted the mysterious boojum tree that creates such an effect? A Seri? Someone else? Research the Seri, and if their beliefs don't seem, by modern standards, strange enough to intrigue and, more importantly, frighten readers, substitute an imaginary people and their beliefs for those of the Seri. All is possible in fantastic fiction, after all, a genre which includes horror. Don't forget to include a bizarre motivation for the horrific horticulturalists.

Of course, the context in which the trees are introduced also makes them frightening. A writer must build toward his or her character's encounter of the mysterious trees, and the author's account of the tree's nature and origin must be fantastic and dark, if it's to generate fear.

Bentley Little is a master of this approach. In particular such of his novels as The Resort and The Influence are especially good examples of this approach. Dan Simmons's Summer of Night is also evocative of hostile landscapes, as is Stephen King's It and Dean Koontz's The Taking. Other masters of this technique include Nathaniel Hawthorne ("Young Goodman Brown") and Edgar Allan Poe ("TheFall of the House of Usher")

3. Authors can focus on the disconcerting, possibly sinister, details of an everyday place. An effective technique is to search an image browser using a phrase such as “eerie photos of landscapes.” Conducting such a search, using this same phrase, resulted in these (selected) images. (As my search term suggest, I restricted my search to scenes of actual, existing exterior places—as far as I can determine.) In considering your own gallery, ask yourself what characteristics make the photographs seem eerie. Think about both the literal (physical) and the psychological aspects of the environment.

This photograph shows dense foliage. The trees, bushes, and other forms of plant life are clothed, as it were, in thick growths of leaves that make the eye wander. One's gaze is easily lost in the abundance of detail. The tufts, clusters, and clumps of vegetation among the shadowy “hollows” between the leafy trees lead the eye in many directions and, at the same time, nowhere. We are genetically hard-wired to seek patterns in everything, but this mass of flora exhibits no discernible form or structure; it is a senseless tangle, a meaningless maze, offering no clue as to its location or context. However, our minds are reluctant to accept this symbol of meaninglessness; we are apt to stare, demanding that some meaning assert itself, even if we must invent such meaning ourselves, imagining faces or forms that exist only in our own minds, seeing her a visage, there a figure. Therein lies the possibility for terror: the abundance of foliage is a mirror of the soul, as we project upon it our own tortured fantasies; committing the pathetic fallacy, we envision a menacing place, a hell, of our own design. Denied orientation, we become confused and distraught; when meaning isn't forthcoming, we become anxious and unsettled.

At first, this slight, tree-lined berm may appear pleasantly bucolic, but this sense of sylvan beauty dissipates under closer inspection. What, we may wonder, lies buried under the extended mound? A monstrous worm, a serpent worthy of Ragnarok, a dragon? The trees, especially those in the foreground, are barren, and their sharp-pointed branches are stubby, as if they've been snapped off—but by what? Even more eerily, the row of trees on either side of the berm stand like sentinels, appearing to direct our steps, to channel us, suggesting that we take this elevated pathway to a point unknown. Are we the human equivalents of cattle being directed, along an arboreal chute, to the slaughter? How might these various perceptions—a grave for a snakelike monster, snapped-off branches, sentinel-like trees, a channeling landscape—add up to? What single scenario could unify and explain them? When we believe—or even feel—we have lost our autonomy, we experience panic.

A dark and foggy wood stimulates the imagination by depriving us of the light which is necessary for vision. In fog, as in darkness, our visibility is limited. We cannot see clearly or, sometimes, at all. Effectively blind, we can no longer be confident of our surroundings or of what threat to us may lurk ahead (or, for that matter, to either side or behind us). Dense clusters of branches and foliage also impedes vision. A remote location cuts us off from the aid of others. This photograph uses darkness, fog and the obstruction of abundant tree growth to obscure our vision, a remote site to isolate us, but it also seems to mock us. In a place devoid of human contact, we see a bench among clumps of grass, a bench green with lichen, moss, or algae, an artifact of human technology being overcome by nature. Shall this be our own fate? Cut off and alone, shall we succumb to our fate, our corpses taken over by invading plants? Perhaps we know why we began our journey, before we became lost, near nightfall, but where are we now? It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say, but, certainly, we are alone. Deprivation of sight and the company of others, we feel vulnerable and helpless.

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child succeed admirably in employing this approach in many of their novels, including Still Like with Crows, Crimson Shore, and White Fire. Bram Stoker's short story "The Burial of the Rats" is a tour de force.