Darwinian Horror

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Frankly, no, I've never wondered what's in a Navy SEAL's survival kit until I saw Time's online article, “You're a SEAL Stranded in Hostile Territory: What's in Your Survival Kit?”

If you're a Navy SEAL, this is what's in your survival kit (contents change on occasion):

• Mini-multi tool
• Button compass
• lED squeeze light
• Fire-starting kit
• Water-storage device
• Water-purification tablets
• Electrolyte tablets
• Signal mirror
• Thermal blanket
• Kevlar line
• safety pins
• P-38 can opener
• Stainless-steel wire
• Duct tape
• Fresbel magnifying glass
• Waterproof notepaper
• Ink pen
• Broad-spectrum antibiotic ointment
• Cotton pad
• Hacksaw blade
• Ceramic razor blade
• Moleskin adhesive patch
• Kevlar thread
• Fishing leader and downrigger cable
• Suspended navigation magnet
• ferro cerium rod
• Cotton ball
• Bobby pins
• Handcuff shim (pick)
• Universal handcuff key

Of course, each item must conform to Navy specifications. To give you an idea of the nature of such specifications, here are the ones for a few of the items listed above:

Mini-multi Tool

• Stainless-steel mini-multi tool that can function as pliers, wire cutters, a file, or an awl in a rattle-proof package.
• A quality AA, 14-millimeter, liquid-dampened button compass with at least eight hours of luminous capability.
• LED squeeze light equipped with a red lens and a switch that allows selection between continuous and momentary use.
• A fire-starting kit which includes a ferro cerium rod no longer than three inches and no wider than eight millimeters packaged in a reclosing bag.
• A two-inch by three-inch signaling mirror with an aiming hole, the non-mirrored side of which is covered with an infrared-reflective material and the mirror side of which is protected against scratches; the mirror's protective cover must be removable with one hand.

What goes into a survival kit depends on what sort of enemy, terrain, or other type of threat the kit's carrier is expected to encounter. Although the Navy SEALs' survival kits are doubtlessly helpful in assisting them in surviving the threats they are likely to encounter in the performance of their missions, the contents of their kits wouldn't probably be much aid for, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Instead her survival kit would likely contain such items as the nineteenth-century vampire kits that really did (and, in some cases, still do) exist. Although the contents varied somewhat from one kit to another, these items would have appeared in a fully stocked kit:

• Wooden stakes
• Mallet
• Crucifix (for Roman Catholic vampires)
• Cross (for Protestant vampires)
• Bible
• Derringer
• Vials of garlic
• Vials of holy water (again, for Roman Catholic vampires)
• Knife or sword (presumably for beheading vampires)

Buffy, although as dutiful as any Navy SEAL, is sometimes lax in keeping rules, so, instead of a vampire kit, she often makes do only with a wooden stake or two, carried in her purse, or with whatever weapon she happens upon, conventional or not, during the course of a fight, and, instead of using a mallet, she simply stabs her prey, driving the stake into its heart with nothing more than her own superhuman strength. She is, after all, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (The stabbing tactic didn't work too well, at first, against Kakistos, though.)

Although Charles Darwin never used the term—Herbert Spencer introduced it, based on Darwinian concepts—“survival of the fittest” has been used to summarize the gist of evolution as it pertains to the continuance of species competing with one another for survival. Just as clarification concerning who originated the phrase is often needed, so is the definition of the phrase itself: “Survival of the fittest doesn’t mean ONLY the physically or mentally strongest survive. It means the organism with traits most fit for survival in a given environment survives, thrives, and procreates regardless of what trait makes it most fit.” (Notice the phrase “traits most fir for survival in a given environment”? This is a key qualification; upon it are many horror movies based, even if some of the filmmakers themselves were unaware of the Darwinian basis of their films. By definition, a film concerns itself with only one type of antagonist and with one dominant setting; these elements often determine the type of threat to which the hero or heroine is exposed, the type of threat that tests the survivability of his or her traits.)

Survivors survive against a specific type of threat—in horror fiction, usually this threat takes the form (or formlessness, as the case may be) of a monster. This threat tests the survivor's fitness; if the hero or heroine is fit enough, he or she survives; if not,

well . . . .

Laurie Strode,  Halloween's final girl

In many horror movies, though, survivors don't have any ready-to-hand weapons except those which nature or nature's God (depending upon one's point of view) equipped him or her or traits and skills he or she acquired along the way: brains, brawn, courage, decency, loyalty, and so forth. In such cases, fitness, Darwin's sole prerequisite for survival, is a matter of physical, intellectual, and emotional suitability. One character, in particular, has what it takes to survive against monsters and pretty much all other odds, even without ready-to-hand weapons or survival kits: the final girl.

The good girl (and other horror movie survivors) makes it possible to analyze and evaluate horror movies from a Darwinian point of view. These movies' settings and the monsters who originate or dwell therein represent the environments that test the hero's or heroine's traits, determining whether the traits are such as would survive in such an environment.

Note: just because a survivor is shown to possess the traits that enable him or her to survive against the threats of one environment does not necessarily mean that he or she would survive in another horror movie's environment. Take Buffy, for instance. She does well in Sunnydale, against the minions of the Hellmouth, but how would she make out against Pennywise, the dreaded Dormammu, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Anti-Monitor, Doomsday, or Mister Mxyzptlk?)

With mixed results, scientists can use computer models to test hypotheses when it's impractical or impossible to test them through actual experiments. It's too bad that human experience is too complex to be tested in the same way. The best we can do, perhaps, at present, is to envision situations, characters, and settings which, at least in theory, allow us to see which traits might sustain us in struggles to survive against specific, albeit fictional, threats in a variety of particular environments. One of the problems with such an approach was pointed out by Edgar Allan Poe, in a different context, well over a century ago: by definition, fiction's plots are inescapably tautological, their beginnings predetermined by their ends, which, we might add, is not at all how evolution works. Do we see because we have eyes, or do we have eyes because we see? Which is cause, and which is effect?

This article lists some of horror movie characters who have survived against all odds; each is a version of the final girl.

Just as the Navy SEALs' and the nineteenth-century vampire hunters' kits (and Buffy's wooden stakes) give their owners tools and abilities they don't have naturally, so does human culture, with its emphases on such traits as brains, brawn, courage, decency, loyalty, and so forth. By nurturing these traits, by emphasizing them with role models (may of whom are fictitious), and awarding their expression, we, as a society, seek to ensure their survival, because they have helped to ensure our own. With human beings, humanity itself has become a factor in evolution, human and otherwise, because we have learned that our actions influence our fate. If we are not yet fully masters of our own destiny, we are members of a crew sailing upon the cosmic sea in which our survival as a species is determined not only by the blind forces of evolution but by the contributions we make to the direction these forces may take. Nature or nature's God has given us a part to play in the cosmic play unfolding before us each moment, every day.

Plot Twists and Cliffhangers

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Although Charles Dickens didn't actually invent the cliffhanger—it was used as early as The Arabian Nights—he did popularize its use. Like many authors of his day, Dickens serialized his novels, a few chapters of his novels appearing each month until the conclusions of their stories. To keep readers interested in the developing narratives, Dickens ended each installment with a cliffhanger, leaving his protagonists in a difficult situation, in a quandary, with a discovery, or with a revelation. The next installment would resolve the cliffhanger and, at its end, introduce another plot twist.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes “adventures,” introduced another innovation in serialized storytelling. Instead of relying upon plot twists to maintain suspense, Doyle's stories employed the same characters and some of the same settings, but he centered each of his stories upon a new mystery, often with a new villain, for his detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson, to solve. Over time, the characters of both Holmes and Watson were gradually developed, as readers learned more about them.

For any long story or for any continuing story, plot twists, whether in the form of cliffhangers at the end of the story or as unanticipated incidents within a particular story or installment itself, are vital. They seem difficult to devise, but they aren't all that challenging, because writers—and television series' writers in particular—have already developed a sizable number of types of plot twists that represent a source from which other writers may draw inspiration.

In addition to the four types already mentioned (difficult situation, quandary, discovery, and revelation), the American crime drama Justified suggests such types of plot twists and cliffhangers as the double-cross, the triple-cross, the setup, the death (often as the result of a murder) of a character, the rescue, and the assumed identity, to mention but a few variations.

A double-cross occurs when Boyd Crowder's cousin Johnny agrees to betray Boyd to a rival criminal, Wynn Duffy, to avenge himself for Boyd's father Bo's having crippled him as a result of having shot Johnny in the stomach. (Bo was avenging himself on Johnny for Johnny's having tipped Boyd off about an Ephedrine shipment Bo was due to receive, allowing Boyd to blow up the shipment with a rocket launcher. Johnny's betrayal of Bo is another example of a double-cross.)

A triple-cross is shown during a poker game Bo is playing with Roscoe, Jay, and Ali, men who work for Rodney Dunham, a marijuana distributor. Dunham has sold Johnny out to Boyd, who tried to recruit him as a partner in the state-wide heroin-distribution ring Boyd hopes to establish in Tennessee. Learning from Boyd of an upcoming drug shipment from Mexico, Dunham suggests that he and his men hijack it. Asked his source of the information concerning the shipment, Dunham identifies Boyd, as Roscoe, Jay, and Ali point their guns at Johnny, their action suggesting that Dunham has double-crossed Johnny. However, when Johnny reveals that he invested in “people power” by sharing the money he received for his part in an earlier robbery with Roscoe, Jay, and Ali, the men turn their weapons on Dunham, suggesting a triple-cross against Dunham on Johnny's part.

A setup takes place when Albert Fekus, a jail guard, plants a makeshift knife, or “shiv,” in the cell that Boyd's fiancee, Ava Randolph, occupies after her arrest for attempting to dispose of the body of Delroy Baker, whom she shot to protect Ellen May, a prostitute who'd worked for her. Albert had earlier tried to rape Ava, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Susan Crane, a female guard, who informed Albert that Ava was a “protected” prisoner. Albert stabs and cuts himself with the shiv, blaming Ava, whose cellmate backs up Albert's lie. As a result, Ava is transferred to a state prison to await trial on an attempted murder charge. The setup is intensified by the fact that, the day before, charges had been dropped against Ava after Boyd eliminated the witnesses who observed Ava's attempt to dispose of Baker's body (after their scheme to incriminate Boyd for the same act backfired on Ava.)

Deaths occur frequently on Justified as Raylan dispatches outlaws and criminals kill one another as well as the victims of their crimes. Often, such deaths introduce plot twists, as when Boyd's murder of crooked businessman Lee Paxton and Boyd's murderer-for-hire, Hayes Workman, kills Deputy Sheriff Nick Mooney results in the dismissal of charges against Ava for having murdered Baker.

Ellen May is about to be murdered by Boyd's henchman, Colton “Colt” Rhodes, who enters the restroom at a local gas station to cock his pistol, in preparation for shooting Ellen May, while she fills his car's gas tank. (He is driving her to Alabama, when Ava decides it's better to kill than to relocate Ellen May.) When Colt returns, Ellen May has mysteriously disappeared. Did she catch a ride with someone else? Did she run away? The audience is left hanging until the next episode, when it's revealed that a local lawman, Sheriff Shelby Parlow, rescued her.

Parlow also later surprises the series' viewers when it's revealed that he is not who he appears to be. He is introduced as a security agent for the Black Pike Mining Company. He's saved by Boyd during a robbery. To gain control of Harlan County's sheriff's department, Boyd helps Shelby get elected as sheriff. After several other plot twists, it's revealed that Parlow has been living under an assumed identity. He's actually Drew Thompson, a former member of Detroit's Theo Tonin Crime Family. After witnessing Tonin murder someone, Thompson relocated to Harlan, Kentucky, where he started a new life under the name of Shelby Parlow. 

Justified isn't a horror series, of course, but the types of plot twists and cliffhangers it introduces can be used in any genre, so, to make a novel or a short story suspenseful and unpredictable, these types of such devices, used judiciously and with finesse, are recommended:

• difficult situation
• quandary
• discovery
• revelation
• double-cross
• triple-cross
• setup
• death (often as the result of a murder) of a character
• rescue
• assumed identity
  
  

Other television series also suggest a variety of types of plot twists and cliffhangers. Arrow has a multitude, as do most others. By analyzing the episodes in these series, you can compile a long list of types of situations and actions with which to surprise, shock, and intrigue readers while you maintain and heighten your story's suspense. To get you started, here are a few examples from several television series and other works of fiction; there are plenty of others:

Type	Setup	Twist
Death follows survival of death	Arrow: Oliver Queen's father survives a shipwreck.	He commits suicide.
Survival of death or apparent death	Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Holmes falls from the edge of a cliff.	Holmes survives.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers drowns.	Buffy is revived by Xander, who administers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers is killed.	Willow Rosenberg uses witchcraft to return Buffy to life.
	Arrow: Sara Lance is presumed dead in same shipwreck.	She was rescued and trained by the League of Assassins.
	Arrow: Thea Queen kills Sara Lance (Black Canary).	Sara is brought back to life by the Lazarus Pit.
Secret, false, or mistaken identity (anagnorisis)	Arrow: Oliver Queen's father is not Thea's father.	Malcolm Merlyn is Thea's father.
	Arrow: Oliver Queen is not Thea's full brother.	They are half-siblings.
Murder of a recurring character	Arrow: Oliver Queen's mother is a recurring character.	Oliver's mother is murdered.
Murder of a recurring character (continued)	Arrow: Laurel Lance is a recurring character.	Damien Darhk kills Laurel.
Star-crossed lovers meet their doom	Romeo and Juliet: Romeo and Juliet love one another.	Romeo and Juliet commit suicide.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers falls in love with Angel, a vampire.	Angel leaves Buffy, moving away from Sunnydale.
A seemingly unbreakable rule is broken	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: There is only one Slayer in all the world.	Kendra Young appears after Buffy Summers's “momentary” death.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: There is only one Slayer in all the world.	Faith LaHane appears after Kendra's death.
Reversal of fortune (peripeteia )	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Cordelia Chase's father is wealthy.	Cordelia's father loses his fortune.
A character discovers a life-changing truth about him- or herself	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow Rosenberg believes she is heterosexual.	Willow discovers she's a lesbian.
Readers discover a secret about a character	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Oz seems to be a typical high school student.	Oz discovers he's a werewolf.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Joyce Summers's new boyfriend, Ted, seems a likable man.	Ted is a robot.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Rupert Giles is a sedate, responsible, mature mentor.	In his youth, Giles, then known as “Ripper,” was wild and violent and dabbled in witchcraft.

Readers discover a secret about a character (continued)	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sunnydale's germophobic mayor, Richard Wilkins, seems personable, if a bit wacky.	Wilkins is a demon.
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Professor Maggie Walsh and her graduate assistant, Riley Finn, work at UC Sunnydale.	Walsh and Riley are both secret government agents.
Mistaken belief	Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A threat is believed to have been neutralized.	The threat reappears.
Chekov's gun: a seemingly minor character or plot element introduced early in the narrative that suddenly acquires great importance to the narrative.	A beggar woman appears at the beginning of Sweeney Todd.	The beggar woman is Todd's wife.

Writing Monsters: A Review: Part 2

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

In Writing Monsters, Philip Athans offers a number of definitions, his own and those of others, to suggest that the concept is fluid and open, at least to some extent, to individual writers' interpretation:

A monster is something alive and uniquely strange that we instinctively fear.—Alan Dean Foster

[A monster is] inhuman, it's animate, and it wants to destroy you. Many monsters are supernatural or [act] outside the norms of nature in some way, but that's not always necessary.—Richard Baker

A monster is something that is frightening because it is inhuman . . . . It may be incomprehensible.—Martin J. Dougherty

A monster is a species that is neither a part of the civilization of sentient people [n]or among the ranks of mundane flora and fauna,” and a monster is “scary.”—Philip Athans

Later, Athans, who often exemplifies the concept by reference to such animals as slugs, sharks, and lobsters describes them as as-yet-undiscovered animals.

He also suggests that the effect of monsters can be heightened by relating them to fears or phobias common, if not universal, to human beings, such as arachnophobia (fear of spiders), social phobia (fear of a hostile audience), pteromerhanophobia (fear of flying), agoraphobia (fear of the inability to escape), claustrophobia (the fear of enclosed spaces), acrophobia (the fear of heights), emetophobia (the fear of vomit or of vomiting), carcinophobia (the fear of cancer), astraphobia (the fear of thunder and lightning), and taphophobia (the fear of being burned alive).

Athans points out that readers know only as much about a story's monster or monsters as the author allows, and , as long as the writer is consistent with how the monster's characteristics, abilities, and behavior, readers will accept its existence within the story. It is best not to divulge too much information about the monster, he suggests, as readers will tend to “fill in the blanks” with their own ideas about the monster.

Typically, monsters, have a number of qualities, Athans says, among which are that they are frightening, mysterious, violent, predatory, amoral or immoral, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and terrifying in their appearance. Monsters usually isolate their prey, often defy humans' attempts to use technology against them, undergo some type of physical transformation, do not think like people (if they think at all), may be more intelligent than the average person, and are purposeful (they perform a task). Most monsters have otherworldly origins; they may come from outer space or hell. Others result from scientific experiments gone awry or from such natural processes as mutations of diseased states. They may come from underground, underwater, or other remote places.

Monsters may also be metaphorical. They can represent “ideas, feelings, dangers,” states of existence, the effects of bullying or greed, or any number of other real behaviors, conditions, or situations. Although Athans doesn't discuss Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this context, fans of the show are likely to know that its creator frequently made the series' monsters the metaphorical reflections of real-world problems. In the episode “Beer Bad,” for example Buffy Summers adopts the crude, almost animal-level behavior of a woman after she drinks enchanted beer. Her state of drunkenness is a metaphor for her uncivilized conduct. Likewise, in “Out of Sight,Out of Mind,” a high school student who is ignored by her peers actually becomes invisible, her invisibility a metaphor for her being neglected and unheeded. In the same way, Athans says, Godzilla is a metaphor for the atomic bomb. He is born of a test involving an underwater nuclear detonation, and he terrifies Japanese cities with his devastating radioactive breath.

Monsters introduce and sustain conflict throughout the story, but they also help characterize the human characters, showing them as tenacious, loyal, trustworthy, and as having the capacities to forgive and to join forces against a common threat. At the same time, they may exhibit self-centeredness, a capacity for exploitation, and vindictiveness.

It is important, Athans says, to provide monsters with an offense, a defense, and a “utility.” By “utility,” he means a signature behavior, such as the Blair Witch's “marking her territory [with bizarre] “stick figures” or vampires' needing to be invited into one's home.

With monsters, size is not important, as long as the monsters are frightening and have monstrous qualities and abilities.

Monsters must have a weakness or two so the human characters can kill or otherwise neutralize it. For example, vampires suck blood, can “live” for centuries, are extraordinarily strong, can turn into bats and fly, have hypnotic power, and can even levitate, but they can't abide crucifixes, sunlight, mirrors, or holy water; they have to be invited into one's home; and they can killed by being drowned or decapitated or by having a wooden stake driven through their hearts. When a monster is familiar to readers, writers must “tweak the trope,” Athans observes. An example he doesn't offer makes the point: Stephen King makes a crucifix's effect on his vampires depend on the faith of the character who wields it.

Athans suggests horror writers use the first-person or the limited third-person point of view.

Descriptions of the monster should involve as many of the five sense as possible. Readers respond best to horror stories that have visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory appeal. Only near the end of the story should the monster be fully revealed; until then, writers should rely on the other senses, providing only snapshots, instead of more detailed, glimpses of the monster so that it remains mysterious and terrifying. What a monster looks like, smells like, and feels like are often interrelated, Athans points out: “a slimy monster” is apt to “be shiny, to be heard slithering along, and to leave a trail of slime,” signs that warn people “not to touch the slimy thing.”

Use short sentences to increase pace and to suggest terror and hyperventilation, he suggests, and long sentences to reflect a character's breathlessness.

Athans also has a tip concerning the omnipresent cell phone. Isolate characters, and then banish their phones. They could have dead batteries, succumb to poor reception, get broken, or be left behind on purpose.

On Amazon, Writing Monsters has generated eighteen review. The lowest, two stars, found it a good basic guide for beginning writers, but not the manual the reviewer was seeking; he wanted a book that would guide him through the process of creating bigger (and badder?) monsters, rather than one that walks him through the process for creating them to :”exist at all.” The review is more about the reviewer's interests, unfortunately, than it is about the book that Athans actually wrote.

A middle-of the road, three-star, review found the book to generic, “a victim of its own wide-spectrum approach” that ended up being more about “how to write speculative fiction” than a “specialized work” concerned with monster-making. Perhaps this reviewer wanted less context and more hands-on material.

A five-star review reads:

Enjoyed this immensely. Great insights into the subject of monsters in fiction, their roles, suggestions on monster design, how to handle strengths vs. weaknesses, etc. I dislike zombies as monster du jure [sic] but I benefitted [sic] from the observations offered by the author who visualizes zombies as a force-of-nature, like Godzilla, with the real conflict of a zombie story between the people involved. Monsters, of course, figure into horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Notwithstanding frequent references to science fiction monsters, I believe science fiction requires some more in-depth examination of creature creation than this book can provide, [sic] however useful it may be, especially when aliens are involved. That's just a whole separate topic.. [sic] But an excellent book, [sic] I can't recommend it enough.

How would I rate Writing Monsters? It's an interesting, well-written book that offers food for thought in the creation and deployment of monsters. Perhaps a few writing exercises, at the end of each chapter, would have improved the work, but, overall, the author provides much for monster-makers to consider, the approach is easy to understand, and the book supplies solid tips. The final chapter reprints a short story, “The Unnamed,” by H. P. Lovecraft, whom Athans admires. Athans annotates the story, but his annotations do not zero in on the techniques of horror that Lovecraft uses in any detailed or comprehensive manner. This is an example of the overall criticism I have of the book: it offers a lot, but it lacks focus and detail, so it is more a survey than an analysis of monster-making. It deserves a place on one's bookshelf, as a basic guide or a series of reminders, which, unless we're Stephen King, we can all use from time to time.

"Writing Monsters": A Book Review

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Philip Athans's 210-page Writing Monsters offers some good tips on creating such monsters as inhabit fantasy worlds and horror domains.

He lays the foundation for most of his book early on, with "The Monster Creation Form," a tool that helps writers plan their monsters as they consider such questions as:

• What's it called?
• What does it eat, and how does it eat?
• How does it move?
• What does it look like? (Overall form, head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, limbs)
• How big is it?
• What covers its body, and what color is it?
• How smart is it?
• What motivates it?
• What scares it?
• What hurts it?
• What senses does it possess?
• In what way is it better or more powerful than the average person?
• In what way is it weaker than the average person?

The remaining chapters of his book flesh out these considerations.

 

Philip Athans

The tips are practical, as how-to tips should be. Athans's own advice, observations, and insights are sprinkled among his tips, as are recommendations by other fantasy and horror writers. Lynn Abbey, for example, echoes Edgar Allan Poe's advice, in "The Philosophy of Composition," that writers plot their stories backward: "Start with the monster's fall," she suggests, "then dismantle the characters' knowledge and preparation, then construct the plot details that allow the characters to pick up the pieces they're going to need" to neutralize the monster. 

 

Lynn Abbey

Athans recommends that, as a rule, writers avoid supplying exact measurements of a monster's size. Instead, authors should provide such information indirectly, through comparisons or dialogue. If a monster is "twice as tall as the king's watchtower," the reader can learn that the tower is twenty stories tall by having earlier observed the king as he climbed "twenty flights of stairs" to its top. Likewise, a writer can give readers an idea as to a monster's weight by having it fall through a rooftop before a character observes, "that roof can hold three thousand pounds."

 

Edgar Allan Poe

He suggests that writers reveal their monsters slowly, in a piecemeal fashion, in three phases, "The First Encounter," "The Growing Threat," and "The Tipping Point." The first and third will offer brief glimpses of the monster or perhaps only its effects—the "aftermath" of its visits—whereas the second phase will provide details about the beast, showing its killings of several characters, inept or inconclusive attempts to neutralize the monster, some :misdirection" (e. g., in Jaws, "a shark" is killed, but not "the shark" [emphasis added]). Only toward the end of phase three should the monster be revealed fully, in all his, her, or its glory. (The Tipping Point occurs, Athans says, as the heroes, armed with knowledge about the monster. its qualities, and its behavior, take charge of the situation and seek to kill or otherwise neutralize it.

 

H. P. Lovecraft

Athans illustrates his tips with excerpts of novels and short stories, especially those of Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft, respectively.

He has other tips that are likely to be helpful to writers interested in creating monstrous monsters. We'll take a look at them in the second installment of this review.

How Buffy Was Written

Copyright 2016 by Gary Pullman

In Dusted: The Unauthorized Guide to Buffythe Vampire Slayer, Buffy writer Jane Espenson explains how the series' team of writers wrote the show's weekly scripts.

First, Espenson says, they'd start with the emotion upon which a particular episode would be built.

Then, they would create a metaphor expressive of this emotion.

Using “A New Man,” an episode that she wrote, Espenson says the team decided that Rupert Giles feels alienated from Buffy and her friends, who are now enrolled at the University of California, Sunnydale, pursuing lives and interests of their own. He feels left out, almost as if he is estranged from them, because, during high school, as the school librarian, he saw them frequently and was more central to their lives. To prepare for this emotional experience, Espenson observes, previous episodes of the series had marginalized Giles.

The writers decided that Giles' transformation into a demon would be the metaphor expressive of his feeling alienated.

After deciding upon the emotion and the metaphor, the show's creator, Joss Whedon, and the writing team determine the “emotional high point,” or cliffhanger, that is to occur at the end, or “break,” of each act, Espenson says. In “The New man,” these incidents occur during the episode's four act breaks:

Act I: Sorcerer Ethan Rayne appears. (It is he who casts the spell that transforms Giles into a demon.)

Act II: Giles is a demon.

Act II: Buffy, believing that demon-Giles has murdered Giles, threatens to slay him.

Act IV: Despite his demonic appearance, Buffy recognizes Giles as she is about to slay him.

Prior to Act I, a brief “teaser” captures viewers' interest in the story to come.

After the emotion, the metaphor, and the act breaks are identified, the writers, working “scene by scene, from the general to the specific,” Espenson explains, break each scene of the episode into beats. (Espenson defines a “beat” as the smallest dramatic moment, which expresses an emotion or presents an action, and, according to her colleague, writer Tracy Forbes, each scene contains from seven to nine beats.)

Then, an outline is constructed.

Finally, with feedback from Whedon, between each draft, the writer responsible for writing the week's episode's script—Espenson, in the case of “A New Man”—writes one or two preliminary drafts, depending upon the time available, before writing the final draft of the script.

Forbes points out that every Buffy episode is built upon three elements: “emotional arc,” “metaphor,” and “monster.”

To sum up, Buffy episodes were written according to this process:

1. The emotion upon which a particular episode would be built was determined.
2. A metaphor expressive of this emotion was created.
3. The “emotional high point,” or cliffhanger, that is to occur at the end, or “break,” of each act was identified.
4. Working “scene by scene, from the general to the specific,” from seven to nine beats are created for each scene.
5. An outline is developed.
6. One or two preliminary drafts are written, with revisions involving feedback from Whedon.
7. A final draft is written.

"Large. . . and Startling Figures," Indeed

copyright 2014 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror hides inside us all, actually or potentially, taking many forms.

What horrifies us is our own demise.

We are horrified, too, by the measures we will take to survive.

In an us-against-them scenario, it is we who will survive—or will to survive—whatever the cost, including the destruction of another person. We are horrified that we may be killed, but we are horrified, also, that we may kill, even if we should be compelled to do so to prevent ourselves from being killed.

We kill or we are killed; therein lies our horror, the secret horror within, which assumes a multitude of disguises, but is always only the same fear, the same loathing.

Sometimes, though, the survival of the fittest is disguised. We compete for laurels and for jobs, for love and attention, for fame and devotion, for men and women, as well as for life and not death.

Each time we win, we kill; every time we lose, we die.

Horror fiction is horrible because it tells this truth about us: we are all both predator and prey, hunter and hunted, stalker and stalked, quick and dead.

Sometimes, we are, simultaneously, one and the same, as when, for example, we commit suicide.

There are several ways to kill oneself, to be both predator and prey, perpetrator and victim: morally, psychologically, and, yes, physically.

When we look the other way, introspectively or with extroversion; when we deny or reject the truth, we die.

Little by little, we die every day.

But slow death is often overlooked, in the moment, at least, when we are too busy with our lives:

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me

EmilyDickinson tells us.

In the literature of horror, death stops for us, and, in doing so, he employs the strategy of Flannery O'Connor:

To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.

Blood and gore, deformity and disfigurement, madness and mayhem, death and destruction, disease and pestilence, fear and trembling are “large” and “startling figures,” indeed, but even they may not succeed, in every case, to startle us out of the complacency of ourselves, and, when they are not, we are not.

How "Buffy" Was Written

Copyright 2012 by Gary L. Pullman

In The Watcher’s Guide, Volume 2, the television series’ writer Jane Espenson explains the procedure that she and the other Buffy the Vampire Slayer writers used to develop the show’s scripts.

Before the writers plot the episode, they determine its “emotional arc.” On Buffy, the monsters typically symbolize the emotional states of the show’s characters. In “A New Man,” the episode in which Giles is transformed into a demon by Ethan Rayne, a sorcerer with whom Giles practiced black magic as a youth, the “emotional arc” is alienation: “We talked a lot about alienation,” Espenson says, and, as examples of times when a person may feel alienated, they discussed “what it’s like when your father has a breakdown, what it feels like to be old.”

They also identified Giles’ “concerns” and the source of those concerns, whether the source was “his career” or whether Buffy, who is older and more independent now that she has graduated from high school and attends college, living on campus, loves “him anymore.” In addition, they considered the idea that his girlfriend, Olivia, who had been visiting him from England but had returned there, might decide to break off their relationship and thus might not be “coming back.”

The outcome of their discussion concerning the causes of Giles’ alienation was to decide that “the redemption for Giles comes when Buffy sees him [in his demon form] and recognizes him [as Giles]. And that sort of brings him back. It doesn’t solve all his problems. He’s still not as central to Buffy’s life as he used to be.” Nevertheless, “he knows that she knows him; she saw him; she values him. She was ready to kill the demon, not just in her normal demon-killing way, but with specific revenge in her heart. ‘You killed Giles.’ So we had to have all that before we could even start thinking about what happens in each scene.”

Once the writers have decided upon the episode’s “emotional arc” (alienation”), its cause (Giles’ life seems to be falling apart, especially since Buffy has become more independent), and the resolution of this crisis (he realizes that Buffy does value him), they determine “what happens in each scene.” In doing so, they follow a definite procedure, Espenson points out.

Each episode, she says, is divided into a teaser and four acts. The writing of the script begins by nailing down the “emotional high point” with which each act is to end. The “emotional high point” becomes more climactic at the end of each act. The first “act break” (the end of the act and the beginning of the advertisers’ promotional messages) may be end on a relatively weak “emotional high point,” one that appeals to viewers’ curiosity more than to their emotions per se. The “emotional high point” with which the second act ends, or breaks, is the episode’s climax, or turning point, where things begin to improve or to sour for the protagonist. The third act break identifies the protagonist’s decision with regard to how she plans to resolve the conflict that the earlier acts have set in motion and sets the protagonist or another character in the direction of “ultimate danger.” The fourth act resolves the conflict. Here is the example, complete with explanations, that Espenson offers:

The act breaks is where you start. At the end of each act, which is going to be its emotional high point. You want to make sure the audience comes back after the commercial. . . . At some point [in the discussion of ideas among the writers] Joss [Whedon] will say, “Oh, I’m beginning to see a story here. If this [episode] is about Giles feeling alienated, and we’re going to have Giles turn into a demon, then he should turn into the demon at the end of [act] Two.”

We knew Episode Twelve would have Buffy’s birthday, because it always does, so we knew that was a good way to get Giles feeling alienated early.

At some point Joss just said, “Okay, end of One. Ethan steps out.” He pitched the moment exactly as it appears in the script. He had that whole thing completely in his mind. That was our first-act break.

Second-act break, okay, he’s a demon. Third -act break, Buffy says, “He killed Giles. I’m going to kill him.” So that we have Giles heading for the ultimate danger moment as we head into Act Four.

So it’s the moment in which Joss lays those three moments down, the ends of Acts One, Two, and Three--at that point you’re very close to writing things up on the dry erase board. But not until then. We never start writing anything up there until Joss has decreed the act breaks.

This is The Watcher’s Guide’s summary of the episode; now that Espenson has explained how its “act breaks” are determined in advance, based upon each of the episode’s “emotional arcs,” one can see how the writers gets from point A to point B, and so on, filling in the action between the incident that ends each act. (The book’s authors summarize the action differently than according to its divisions into teaser and acts; here, its sequence has been modified to fit the structure that Espenson indicates is typical of the episode’s construction.)

Teaser

It’s Episode Twelve, and time for Buffy’s birthday party. This time, it’s a surprise party, and Giles is there as the only guest over twenty-five years of age.

Act I

He’s startled to discover that Buffy has a new boyfriend, and stunned when Willow and Xander casually mention that Riley’s in the Initiative, both of them assuming that he already knew. . . since they, Anya, and Spike know. [His being out of the loop concerning what is going on in Buffy’s personal life suggests that Giles is and feels alienated from her.] Add that to Maggie Walsh’s dismissive attitude toward him, and her opinion that Buffy has lacked a strong male role model, and it’s time for a midlife depression for Giles [in which he feels both expendable and emasculated]. Ethan Rayne, a sorcerer who practices Black Majik and worships chaos, is back in town.

Not seen in Sunnydale since [the episode] “Band Candy,” he commiserates with Giles in the Lucky Pint, a Sunnydale watering hole, about feeling old and useless [this part of the scene reinforces Giles’ feeling of alienation]. He also tells Giles that rumors are flying fast and furious about something called “314,” which has demons quaking in their boots [this is an allusion to a situation that will be revealed in a future episode of the show]. [“Okay, end of One: Ethan steps out.”]

Act II

The two become quite drunk together, and in the morning Giles suffers from more than a hangover. Ethan [has] slipped him something that has turned him into a Fyari demon. He’s hideous, with huge, curved horns, and his speech consists of Fyari grunts and growls. When he goes to Xander’s house and tries to tell him what happened, Xander reacts violently and defends himself with pots and pans. Giles escapes, running through Xander’s neighborhood, prompting a 911 call. [“Second-act break, okay, he’s a demon.’]

Act III

While on the run, Giles runs into Spike. It turns out that Spike speaks Fyari, and can, therefore, communicate with him. Spike agrees to help him. . . if Giles will pay. Meanwhile, Buffy, Riley, and the rest of the gang assume that the demon has either kidnapped Giles or killed him--in which case Buffy promises vengeance. She takes from Giles’ desk what she believes to be a silver letter opener; silver is what can kill the Fyari demon. With great glee Giles chases Maggie Walsh down the street--payback to the “fishwife” for her insults. Buffy and Riley go to the magic shop to look for clues. Buffy finds a receipt signed by Ethan Rayne, and with Riley’s help traces Ethan to his crummy motel. Riley tries to tell Buffy that the Initiative will take it from here, but Buffy insists that this is her battle. [“Third -act break, Buffy says, “He killed Giles. I’m going to kill him.”]

Act IV

Together, they go to the motel and discover that Giles (still a demon) is already there, in full demon rage, about to kill the duplicitous sorcerer. Buffy attacks Giles. [”We have Giles heading for the ultimate danger moment as we head into Act Four.”]

Only after she has dealt him a. . . blow [with the silver letter opener, which should kill him] does she recognize him. . . by his eyes. It turns out that the letter opener is made of pewter, not silver. Giles’ life is spared.

After changing Giles back into his human form, Ethan is taken into custody by the military police. When Giles and Buffy talk about what’s happened, he realizes that she loves him like a father and always will. Riley tells Buffy that he likes her strength and her take-charge attitude. Much mutual admiration takes place.

For practice in seeing how the Buffy writers use this approach to write other episodes, one can find both summaries and scripts of each of the show’s episodes at the Internet web site Buffyworld.