Horror Fiction: The Appeal of the Need to Dominate

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

All of us feel the need to dominate others, Jib Fowles notes. Advertisements, he says, appeal to this universal “basic need.” The desire for “clout,” this need is characterized by “the craving to be powerful—perhaps omnipotent”—and it may take the form of a desire to “dominate and control one's environment.”

Although Fowles doesn't mention these other forms specifically, it seems that the “basic need” to dominate would also occur in such endeavors as those involving social, personal, economic, governmental, and technological ends, to name but a few.

Horror fiction, like other genres of literature, often appeals to the need to dominate.

In one of Stephen King's novels, Gerald's Game (1992), men sexually dominate a woman; in another, Misery (1987), a woman physically dominates a man.

Gerald's Game: After Jessie tells her dominant husband, lawyer Gerald Burlingame, she does not want to engage in another session of bondage and discipline with him, he persists, climbing atop her after handcuffing her to the bed, despite her protests. She kicks him, he falls onto the floor, has a heart attack, and dies. Alone in the remote cabin to which they have repaired, and shackled to the bed, Jessie begins to hallucinate, seeing a figure she calls “Space Cowboy” and hearing voices, each a different aspect of herself that she's repressed. The voices help her to better understand her past as a victim of paternal sexual abuse and her present as a wife who is more valued as a trophy than as a human being who's an equal partner in marriage. She has settled for Gerald, despite his emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of her, because he is financially secure. After several attempts at escape, she finally frees herself of the handcuffs by cutting away enough of the skin on one wrist to lubricate her skin with her blood. She pushes the bed to the bureau, retrieving a key with which to unlock the cuffs and free her other hand. However, the blood loss she has suffered causes her to lose consciousness, and, upon awakening, she imagines she is being pursued by the Space Cowboy and wrecks her car. Later, as Jessie is recovering, a nurse tells her that the Space Cowboy is actually a necrophiliac killer, Raymond Andrew Joubert, who was passing through Maine when he came upon her cabin.

A victim of her father, her husband, and a serial killer and necrophile, all of whom abused and dominated her for their own sexual and sadistic purposes, Jessie is a survivor because she is willing to do whatever it takes—repress horrific memories of her past to the extent that she becomes three personalities, rather than one; kill her husband; and evade a killer who had apparently left her to die in the cabin so he could return to have sex with her corpse.

Misery: Romance novelist Paul Sheldon wrecks his car during a blizzard and is rescued by his “number one fan,” Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who lives in a remote house in the mountains. Angry that Sheldon has killed his heroine, Misery Chastain, in the last book of the series, Annie keeps him prisoner, demanding he resurrect Misery in a sequel, Misery's Return. He discovers she's a serial killer but isn't aware that she plans to kill them both after reading Misery's Return. After Sheldon finishes his manuscript, he sets it ablaze. (In fact, however, the manuscript is merely a counterfeit of the actual document.) He and Annie struggle until Annie collapses after falling and striking her head on the mantelpiece in his bedroom. The next day, he gets the attention of state police who are seeking her in connection with a trooper she'd killed earlier. At first, they cannot find her body, but it is later discovered in the barn. She'd made her way there to get a chainsaw with which to kill Paul, but died from the injuries she'd sustained in their fight. Paul publishes Misery's Return, before working on a literary novel, planning to launch a new career as a serious author.

The ordeal through which Sheldon goes, suffering emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his psychotic “biggest fan,” is not only a testament to his courage, perseverance, and will to survive, but they are also the reasons that he is able to endure the torment to which he is subjected, escapes, and emerges alive, more or less in one piece. His tenacity also allows him to overcome the alcoholism that plagues him and the writer's block he suffers as a result of his ordeal. By showing the traits of character and will that Sheldon requires to come back from the brutal abuse of a dominant personality, King suggests the way forward for actual individuals who have experienced similar barbarity.

As Fowles observes, dominance doesn't have to be sexual or depend on relationships between men and women. In William Golding's The Lord of the Flies (1954), a novel King says he wishes he'd written, the need to dominate is expressed socially.

Economic dominance occurs in Bentley Little's The Store (1998). A national chain of big-box department stores has virtually taken over the brick-and-mortar retail world. The Store is everywhere. Its ever-expanding growth wipes out mom-and-pop stores, most franchises, and any vendors and suppliers who don't want to meet its terms. Stocking anything anyone could ever want to buy, and selling merchandise at discount prices, The Store is quickly becoming the only place to shop. Its benefits—a huge inventory, low prices, thousands of locations, employment for an army of workers, and taxes to local, state, and federal governments, are as numerous as its operations are vast. However, there's a downside to The Store—and, like its benefits, its negative effects are tremendous.

The Store: Juniper, Arizona, wants The Store, so officials offer tax breaks and other incentives to entice its executives to build one in its community. From the beginning, there are indications that The Store may not be the blessing local politicians believe it will be: dead animals—and a human corpse—at the construction site, black vehicles delivering mysterious merchandise in the middle of the night, and The Store's taking over of the town. Bill Davis senses trouble, and he's uneasy when his daughters become employees of The Store. Night Managers terrorize the staff. Employees disappear. Bizarre merchandise, including a line of dildos and other sex toys, show up on the shelves. Through its economic power, The Store runs roughshod over the lives of employees, customers, townspeople, politicians, vendors, suppliers, and other businesses. Just who is The Store's CEO, Newman, and what does he want to accomplish through his domination of the town—and of the nation?

Sometimes, we forget the true power of money, thinking of power in physical terms, as brute strength, weapons, or military force. However, economics is the basis of every enterprise, especially in capitalistic countries, and its potential for evil, like its potential for good, is tremendous. How is such economic clout to be resisted and overcome? How are individuals, families, communities, and nations to survive against such a powerful economic threat to their autonomy, safety, welfare, and liberty? The need to achieve through economic dominance, Little reminds his readers, is a force to be reckoned with.

Dean Koontz's The Taking(2004) depicts attempt to dominate the environment. 

The Taking: After a torrential downfall of semen-scented rain, a mysterious slime appears overnight, coating buildings, streets, trees, lawns, bushes, and the rest of the landscape. The small town in which Neil and Molly Sloan reside is isolated from the rest of the world as telephone, radio, television, and Internet service fail. The Sloans gather a group of their neighbors. Some among them believe the apocalypse is upon them. The truth is that an advance team of alien scientists have arrived, and they're reverse-terraforming the earth to make it habitable for them in preparation for a massive invasion.

By showing the effects on the environment through the lens of an alien invasion, Koontz provides a fresh look at the effects of pollution and energy waste that societies are inflicting on their own planet, offering an ironic portrayal of some of the effects that continuous neglect and abuse of the planet could have on Earth and its inhabitants, including human beings themselves. It's a harrowing story condemning the dominance of the environment that is underway today, as it has been for generations. 

The story is made all the more unsettling, indeed horrible, because of the actual use of pesticides to control weeds and defoliants to denude vast acreages of plants. 

Developed in the 1970s by Monsanto, Roundup, a “glyphosate-based pesticide,” is today used in more than 160 countries, on a variety of crops, despite controversy concerning whether the product is a carcinogen. 

During the Vietnam War, the United States military used Agent Orange to strip the foliage from “3,100,000 hectares (31,000 km²; 12,000 sq mi)” of forest, in the process exposing millions of Vietnamese people and thousands of U. S. military personnel to the agent, which has been linked to a variety of cancers. The “herbicidal warfare” operations occurred from 1961 to 1971, but their effects continue to cause health problems to the Vietnamese people and to Vietnam veterans. 

Whether the intent has been to protect crops by controlling pests or to defoliate forests during “herbicidal warfare” operations, chemical attempts to dominate the environment have had effects even more chilling than those of which Koontz writes in The Taking, because, unlike his novel's horrors, those that resulted from the use of pesticides and defoliants are real, not imaginary. 

Both King's and Koontz's novels also chronicle the results of attempts by the federal government to dominate society. King's Firestarter (1980) and Koontz's Watchers (1987) depict how ruthless the United States government can be in its quest to use science and technology as instruments of government dominance.

Firestarter: “Charlie” McGee develops telekinesis and the ability to “push,” or make hypnotic suggestions using the power of thought, after her father, Andy, participated as a subject in a clandestine government experiment. Over time, Charlie's powers become enormously powerful. She and Andy are hunted by government agents, including an assassin known as Rainbird, after they escape from the government laboratory, “the Shop.” Eventually, they escape to a cabin in Vermont, but they are subsequently captured and taken to a secret location in northern Virginia. Using their powers, they escape again, destroying the government facility, although Andy is killed. Charlie informs a national publication of her experiences.

Watchers: Travis Cornell, formerly of the Delta Force, stumbles upon a golden retriever and a hulking creature, the outsider, which have escaped from a top-secret government laboratory. The latter is pursuing the former, in an attempt to kill the canine. Because of the retriever's extremely high intelligence, Cornell names the animal “Einstein,” and he and the dog save a woman, Nora Devon, from a sexual predator. They become a trio, pursued by the Outsider, federal agents, and a Russian operative, Vince Nasco, who wants to kill the scientists involved in the experiments that produced Einstein and the Outsider and capture the dog to sell.

What makes these novels truly terrifying is that they address issues that have actually occurred in similar government experiments in which the human rights of test subjects were wantonly violated with impunity. In 1953, during MKUltra, the Central Intelligence Agency administered lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to Frank Olson, an army biologist, without his knowledge or consent. As a result, he leaped to his death.

For forty years, from 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service conducted the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. Six-hundred-and-twenty-two poor black men, supposedly receiving free medical care, were monitored without being treated for the disease, despite the proof that penicillin could cure them. None of the participants in the study were notified that treatment was being withheld, and none of them consented to the withholding of treatment. Forty of their wives contracted the disease, and nineteen children were born with congenital syphilis.

During Operation Top Hat (1953), the United States Army Chemical Corps deliberately “exposed personnel” to biological and chemical warfare agents, including phosgene, a suffocant; blister agents; and nerve agents, so decontamination methods could be tested.

James Patterson's novel Humans, Bow Down (2017), written with Emily Raymond, focuses upon technological dominance, as do the films the Terminator (1984-present) franchise, Demon Seed (1973), and many others.

Humans,Bow Down: In a war between humans and smart robots, which occurred some time ago, robots were the victors. Now, as the title of the novel suggests, humans have been subjugated to their conquerors. Whenever a robot leader appears, humans are ordered to “bow down,” showing their submission to their dominant masters. When a small band of humans dares to defy their mechanical overlords, there is hope that humans may regain their freedom, but liberty will not come cheaply, if at all.

Terminator: In the future, smart robots rule the Earth, and humans live minimal lives in filth, discomfort, and poverty, until John, the son of Sarah Connor, leads his fellow humans in a war against their brutal conquerors. To prevent this event from happening, the robots send one of their own, The Terminator, into the past to kill Sarah before she can conceive him. However, Sarah is not alone: her son also sends a soldier of the resistance back through time to protect her.

Demon Seed: Dean Koontz's 1973 novel, which was adapted to the big screen under the same title (1977), features Proteus, an artificially intelligent, state-of-the-art computer that plans to impregnate Susan, a wealthy divorcee whose home is controlled by a computer system. After commandeering Susan's home computer system, Proteus imprisons her in her home, in effect putting her under house arrest, and uses hypnosis and subliminal perception on her, interacting physically with her by using “pseudopod” tentacles that Proteus designs and constructs in the nearby university that houses “him.” From their union, a monstrous human-hybrid creature results, their “child,” with which Susan must do battle. 

Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has been used to dominate workers and consumers, the economies of both domestic and foreign markets, military forces, politicians, and, indeed, entire political systems. It is only now becoming possible, some believe, for technology to dominate individuals in personal ways, such as by enslaving them or transforming their sex lives through the use of “sexbots” (robots designed as surrogate sex partners). If this proves to be the case, such visions as those presented in Humans,Bow Down, Terminator, and Demon Seed may be closer to realization than many might imagine. 

Although horror and science fiction are both forms of fantasy, writers of each genre have made some fairly horrific speculations about the abuses that stem from the need to dominate others and the environment.

In the past, it seems, more authors were likely to be optimistic about the future effects of present-day personal, social, economic, governmental, and technological efforts to dominate the world. After experiencing such horrors as two world wars, the medical experiments of Josef Mengele, the gassing of millions of Jews and others by the Nazis, the effects of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and such covert operations by American organizations against their own citizens, as carried out during the Vietnam War, the MKUltra project, the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, and Operation Top Hat (to mention only a few), contemporary authors do not seem to share such an optimistic view of the need to dominate, as Gerald's Game, Misery, The Store, The Taking, Firestarter, Watchers, Humans, Bow Down, Terminator, and Demon Seed unanimously suggest.

The need to dominate may be universal among all individuals, but that doesn't mean its practice will necessarily produce beneficial outcomes.

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.

Plotting the Horror Story: Lessons from Poe, King, and Koontz

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

As I mentioned in my “‘The Philosophy of Composition’ and ‘The Red Room’” article, Edgar Allan Poe argues that a writer shouldn’t write anything at all until he or she knows how his or her story (or poem) will end and, in fact, should plot the narrative backward, from the ending to the beginning, so that he or she is able to maximize the impact of the story’s emotional effect. This is sound advice, but, for many aspiring writers, it poses a difficult question: how, precisely, would a writer know how to write a story backward, as it were?

I certainly wouldn’t challenge the advice of a writer of Poe’s stature. Among horror writers, he is in class by himself, a true master among masters. Not even today’s maestro, Stephen King, whose output dwarfs Poe’s own work, measures up against Poe.

What I am prepared to do, though, is to offer two other, alternative methods of plotting horror fiction. One is based upon my analysis of King’s work--or, at least, my analysis of a few of King’s novels. I believe that this alternative approach can suit today’s writers, whether of horror or another genre of fiction, well.

Let’s consider a novel that has been the topic of quite a few of my own recent posts to Chillers and Thrillers: Under the Dome. The evil that takes place in this story occurs as the result of the descent of a transparent dome, or barrier, that cuts off a small town in Maine, Chester’s Mill, from the rest of the United States and, indeed, the world. The wickedness ends when the dome is lifted. What comes down must go up. This is the basis of the alternative method of ending stories that I mentioned. Not down and up (or even up and down, for that matter) per se, but a pair--any pair--of binary opposites: down/up, left/right, start/stop, right/wrong, good/evil. . . you name them

We tend to think in dualities, ordering reality according to a twofold structure of opposite categories, traits, or values. Of course, such a structure is far too simplistic and, therefore, erroneous. There is always a middle ground, always a great many shades of gray between the extremes of black and white.

King is aware of this, of course, and his novel takes advantage of the simplicity of the duality of dome-down/dome up. First, the military tries to destroy the dome by launching two Cruise missiles against the barrier. When this tactic fails, the brass douses the dome with an experimental acid that is capable of penetrating solid rock. Again, the attack fails. The dome remains in place, unharmed. It is only when Julia Shumway persuades the adolescent extraterrestrial female who has set the dome in place to remove it that the barrier is taken away.

In Desperation, King uses another pair of opposites to structure his problem-solution plot. The demon Tak escapes from a caved-in mine which is opened by a local mining company. He wrecks havoc until the mine is closed again. The dichotomy: open (mine)/closed (mine). The horror and terror and evil and pain and suffering takes place between these two polarities. Again, a duality (open/close) is used to structure the novel’s plot.

Any duality can become the basis of a plot, and using the array of points between the extremes of the continuum, the writer can create the middle of his or her story, creating suspense while, at the same time, disguising the fact that the end of the story will be based upon the opposite of the continuum with which the narrative began.

Let’s look at one additional example. The novel Insomnia is based upon the extremes of sleeplessness (insomnia) and eternal rest (death). At the story’s outset (and throughout the rest of the narrative, until the end), the protagonist is unable to sleep. He begins to see things from another dimension, and discovers that beings from this alternate universe seek to kill a woman; by sacrificing himself, he prevents the woman from being killed. The story that started with his inability to sleep ends with his death, or eternal rest. Once again, a duality (insomnia/death, in the sense of eternal rest) is used to structure one of King’s narratives, the middle of which is taken up by the conflict between two adversaries from the alternate dimension, who vie for the woman’s life.

It seems odd that a novel--especially a novel as long and seemingly complex as King’s--could be based upon such a simple--indeed, simplistic--duality of extremes or opposites, but Under the Dome, Desperation, and Insomnia show, as do several other of King’s books, that such is the case.

Finally, Dean Koontz’s novel The Taking illustrates the second alternative method of beginning and ending a novel to that which Poe suggests in “The Philosophy of Composition.” I have mentioned this technique in a previous post, calling it the bait-and-switch approach. The writer suggests that a story will end in a particular fashion, but, using situational irony, surprises the reader by ending the narrative in a different, unexpected, but appropriate fashion. Koontz suggests that the bizarre doings in The Taking are due to a reverse-terraforming of the planet Earth by invading extraterrestrials who seek to make the hostile Earth habitable for their fellow aliens. Instead, the extraterrestrials turn out to be Satan and his angels.

Although Poe’s prescription for writing horror stories (plot backward from the end to the beginning so as to maximize the narrative’s emotional effect) is a superior method of storytelling, the ones exemplified in several of the works of King, such as Under the Dome, Desperation, and Insomnia, and the one that Koontz’s fiction, including The Taking, illustrate, are alternatives that can work and are much less demanding upon the writer than Poe’s approach.