Showing posts with label The annotated Poe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The annotated Poe. Show all posts

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Inference and Implication as the Language of Film

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman




A rule of thumb is that one page of a screenplay equals one minute of screen time. The cost of filming is expensive, so, ideally, each foot of film is vital to the story. It helps to set the scene, establishes the mood, introduces a character, presents a significant conflict, symbolizes or underscores the theme, or otherwise advances the plot or the movie's overall purpose.




Of course, the opening scene* of a motion picture also bears the burden of “hooking” the audience, of capturing their interest, of making them want to see the rest of the movie.




The primary language of film is imagery, the organized sequences of pictures that appear on the screen. Imagery is often supplemented and complemented by sound, including dialogue. The language of film is rich and powerful, primal and rousing, but it is also limited. Written language can tap more than sight and sound; it can get inside readers' minds, evoke (or represent) thought, reflection, and consensus or disagreement between characters (or between characters and readers), as well as characters' and readers' emotions. Although movies may occasionally awaken the mind, motion pictures mostly elicit feelings. They're directed, first and foremost, at the heart.




The language of film—image and sound—is limited in another way as well. It relies almost entirely upon suggestion, or implication. Unless a director resorts to a rather heavy-handed use of exposition, telling audiences, rather than showing them, what something means or how action should be understood, all a movie can do is to show images, have actors comment upon events, and leave it to audiences to put two and two together (and to read between the lines, so to speak) in order to infer the meanings of the images and sounds presented to them. Written narratives can and do use exposition (although they do so less frequently today than in the past). Sometimes exposition is provided for pages at a time. By this means, omniscient narrators go directly inside characters' heads or explain the meanings of incidents, scenes, or, in some cases, entire short stories or novels.

It's important to remember that the language of film requires directors to imply and audiences to infer. With this in mind, let's take a look at the opening scene of a well-known slasher flick.

First, we describe the action shown to us by the camera. Then, in blue font, we provide an inference or two to represent those which are likely to be made by audiences who see and hear each sequence of images. In our examples, viewers mostly see, rather than hear, what follows.
 
Halloween (approximately five minutes of screen time)




As our eyes travel from left to right across the front of a porch, we see the white wall of the front of a clapboard suburban house, the front door, vague human shapes moving behind a window curtain, and a Jack-o-lantern on a porch rail, among dense, dark foliage. The foliage ends, its leaves casting shadows upon the house's wall.

It's Halloween. Who are the people inside the house? What are they doing? Are they residents? Home invaders? Cat burglars?




Inside the house, through the window, we see a young couple. The girl is seated on a couch, the boy sitting beside her. She holds him around the waist, as he kisses her, his hands holding the sides of her head. Hearing something, they pause and listen. The boy lifts a mask to his face, pressing it into the girl's face as he kisses her. She shoves him away, and he removes the mask, grinning at her. We have become—or have been made to become—voyeurs. We watch the young couple make out on the couch.

Whose house are they in? Probably hers. What have they heard? Despite having heard something, their playfulness suggests they're unconcerned about the sound or noise they heard a moment ago.

They embrace, kiss again, and the boy leaps to his feet. The girl joins him, and they leave the room, dashing upstairs together.

The couple probably plan to make love.




Outside, the porch flashes past, from left to right. We see the Jack-o-lantern on the porch rail among dense, dark foliage, the white wall of the front of the clapboard suburban house, two windows fronting the porch—our gaze rises; above the eaves, we see a pair of lit windows on the right; the pair on the left are dark. The light in the windows on the right go out. We are not the only voyeurs. The point of view, resumed a second time, as the observer retraces his or her steps, indicates that there is a watcher present.

The unseen watcher is interested in the lit window of the room into which the young couple appear to have retreated to make love.

We see the porch sweep past, we turn a corner, and we spot the open back door. Entering the kitchen, we see shelves, cabinets, a mixer. A light comes on, and we see the stove; the sink; a vertical rack of dishtowels, an orange one at the front; the tile floor.

The observer has found an entrance to the house and entered the residence. He or she moves through the kitchen.

Because the camera represents the invader's point of view, in watching him or her, we accompany this person.

An arm clad in the sleeve of a camouflage shirt is extended; its hand grips the handle of a butcher's knife, removing it from the drawer. Decorative plates hang on the wall near the stove. To their left, a doorway leads into the dining room: table braced with chairs and set with a linen tablecloth and silver candlesticks bearing long, slender tapers; a side table; a silver tureen on the doily atop the side table; pictures on the wall above the side table. The invader, knife in hand, enters the dining room.

His or her targets are likely to be the young couple making love upstairs.

Another doorway leads into the living room: a television, a rocking chair, a pole lamp, a sofa, a painting on the wall—the same room in which the young couple were necking. 

The invader seems intent on following the path of the young couple. The knife he or she has acquired suggests harm is intended.

Another doorway leads into a hallway, where a staircase banister appears. There's a ceiling lamp, and, on the wall above the staircase, a painting. Near the top of the stairs, a boy, tugging a shirt down his naked torso. He bounds down the stairs—the same boy who was making out with the girl on the couch a few moments ago. At the front door, he pauses, looks back, says goodbye to someone—the girl, we assume. The door closes.

As the invader starts to enter the hallway, the teenage boy who was necking with the girl on the living room couch runs down the stairs, pulling on a shirt. He says goodbye before leaving.

He and the girl have finished making love. He's going home. The girl is alone in the house, unaware of the invader.

Into the hallway and up the stairs, past the painting, into the darkness. At the top of the stairs, a hallway. A right turn. A hand reaches into the hallway to pick up a toy. Clothes and a bag on a bed. The invader does not pursue the boy.

He or she is after the girl.

Our conclusion is borne out by the fact that he climbs the stairs.




At a vanity, the girl, naked but for her panties, brushes her hair. Her bed is rumpled. The girl, sensing she is not alone, turns, shocked and frightened. She covers her breasts, ducking away.

The half-naked girl is startled by the invader's arrival.

As the eye holes of a mask look into the room, at the girl, we see the room and the girl from the invader's point of view.

The intruder is masked.

A flashing knife stabs downward, again and again. The girl falls, lying still on her back.

He or she has killed the girl.

The eye holes look back and forth.

The killer searches the room.

The staircase. The front door, seen through the eye holes.

He or she is going downstairs.

The door opens. Darkness. Night.

The killer is intent upon escape.



A car's headlights. A dark car. A man and a woman exit the vehicle. The man lifts a mask from a boy dressed as a clown and holding a knife—the same knife as stabbed the girl. He blinks. The knife is bloody. The killer is unmasked; we see the action from an objective, omniscient point of view. The killer is a child, dressed as a clown.




As we've made clear, moviemakers are restricted to images and sound; with these tools, they must imply meanings, which audiences must then infer. Short story writers and novelists can describe sights and sounds, but they can also appeal to the senses of touch, smell, and taste. In addition, by using interior monologues and narrative exposition, among other techniques, short story writers and novelists can also directly represent characters' thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, values, and other subjective states and qualities, without the need to have readers infer much of anything. What such writers gain is offset by the loss of the directness of communication typical of imagery and sound, which create the impression that events are actually transpiring before the audience's very eyes (and ears). There's always a distance between short story writers or novelists and their readers—the distance of the written word.

There are a few ways by which writers can approximate the directness with which movies communicate with their audiences:




Describe what a camera shows. The camera can be a video recorder, the source of “found footage,” as in The Blair Witch Project, or surveillance cameras that have recorded crimes or otherwise unsettling behavior or events, as in 13 Cameras. Such footage may also be provided by videos taken of vacation trips or by home movies.




Describe the images in a dream as the dream occurs. A Nightmare on Elm Street takes this approach, although, of course, the film shows the dream images directly, rather than describing them. 

If the horror movie also involves science fiction, a person's consciousness, projected as images on a screen, through a brain-computer or other interface, could be described. (This may become an actual reality in the near future!)

Describe the imagery transmitted by a camera mounted on a drone.

Describe what a sniper sees as he or she trails a target through his or her weapon's scope.

None of these techniques will provide the directness that a motion picture camera provides; at best, each is merely an approximation of such directness. Nevertheless, such techniques are likely to make the communication between the writer (or his or her narrator) and readers more direct than it would be otherwise.

* * *
For Edgar Allan Poe, the short story's form is superior to that of the novel, because the former's compact structure, greater unity, and better coherence results in a greater emotional effect on readers than the latter's longer, less unified and less coherent development. In a short story, which, according to The Annotated Poe, Poe defines as taking no longer than an hour to read, all narrative elements contribute to the payoff at the end of the tale, making the story's conclusion, whether that of the comedy's denouement or that of the tragedy's catastrophe, seem inevitable, given what has transpired before it.

According to the Internet Movie database (IMDb), in 2010, feature-length films were, on the average, approximately 130 minutes long (Halloween is 129 minutes long), which is about 2.15 times longer than the optimum length Poe names for the 60-minute short story. Halloween's opening scene lasts about five minutes, which is about 3.9 percent of the movie's overall length. At the same ratio, the comparative length of time for a 60-minute short story would be about 2.34 minutes.

According to Forbes, reading speed increases with education and (presumably) experience, but the “average adult” reads at a rate of about 300 words per minute. In 2.34 minutes, therefore, the average adult reader reads about 702 words, or about 2.81 pages if each 6 x 9-inch printed page bears 250 words) or 2.55 pages (if each 6 x 9-inch printed page bears 275 words). In other words, if we base our calculations on 275 words per page, a short story writer or a novelist has about 2.55 pages, or 701 words, in which to accomplish the task that Halloween's director, John Carpenter, accomplishes in the five minutes of his film's opening scene.

*However, the film's opening scene does not comprise the whole of the movie's beginning, which is significantly longer and more complex. For a more accurate contrast of the differences between cinematographic and linguistic modes of communication, the actual beginning of the movie and the beginning of a short story or a novel should be considered in detail. As defined here, the beginning of a film, short story, or novel, using Gustav Freytag's model of dramatic structure, would consist of the first act, the exposition, which begins with the start of the story and ends with the inciting moment that initiates the rising action, or the second of the five acts of the story, during which the basic conflict is complicated.




For the movie Halloween, the beginning of the story runs to Michael Myers's escape from the sanitarium to which he was confined after stabbing his sister, Judith, to death. His escape, which occurs at about 10 minutes and 41 seconds, or about 8.5 percent, into the 129-minute film. (It is Judith whom he saw, as a boy, making out with her boyfriend in the living room of their home while his parents were away.) By comparison, 8.5 percent of the 166-page novel Halloween, which is based on the movie, equals about 14 pages.


Thursday, June 14, 2018

Challenging (and Following) Literary Conventions

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman



Today, many people believe that the conventions of literature are as old as literature itself. Such is not the case. H. G. Wells experimented with many approaches to telling short stories and lamented the standardization of the form that began to develop during the later part of his career, believing that experimentation kept short stories innovative and intriguing.


Even earlier, Edgar Allan Poe also struggled with some of the prejudices of his day concerning what was acceptable in writing fiction. As Kevin J. Hayes, the editor of The Annotated Poe, points out, in a note on the text of Poe's “debut tale,” “Metzengerstein”:

[Poe] added the subtitle [“A Tale in Imitation of the German”] to forestall complaints about his gothicism or, as the gothic style was also known, “Germanism.” In his preface to Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, Poe offers a defense of his Germanism: 'If in many of my publications terror has been the thesis,' he observes, 'I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul' (I, 6).

Although, as Hayes notes, “Eastern European settings are characteristic of much gothic fiction,” American authors pressed for the use of American settings. The West, in particular, was considered fertile ground for American stories. Possibly, they encouraged American settings in an effort to establish a literature that was distinctly American, a feat that is often attributed to Mark Twain. On this point, Poe took issue as well. Although he agreed, Hayes says, that “American authors should strive for originality,” he also believed that “they must be free to use whatever settings they wish” and thought, further, that “imaginary landscapes have greater potential than actual ones,” setting many of his own tales in fantastic realms.


In literature, as in all things, conventions are necessary; they impose standards and, therefore, bring order to a discipline or an enterprise, making predictions possible. In reading horror stories, readers expect certain elements to be present and for particular incidents to occur. Often, such stories follow a formula familiar to readers of the genre, and authors depart from this formula at their own peril. However, as Poe and other writers have pointed out, conventions can also be too restrictive, thwarting innovation and creativity. Occasionally, as in the cases of Wells, Poe, surrealist writers, and authors, such as William S. Burroughs, conventions are set aside or violated, and new approaches to creative writing emerge.

However, for the most part, the marketplace is the final arbiter of what is published, and publishers want what their customers, readers, want: conventional, if not formulaic, stories that are largely predictable (but allow enough plot twists to maintain interest). It would be absurd to suggest that Poe was not innovative or creative. Not only did he invent the modern horror story and the detective story, but he was also an early practitioner of science fiction and adventure. His writing also identifies several personality disorders, including bipolar disorder, that were unidentified in his day.

At the same time, however, as Hayes observes, Poe made changes to his stories for no other reason than to make them more marketable:

Poe made few changes to “Berenice” when he included the story in Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, but when he revised it in 1845 for the Broadway Journal, he softened the tale considerably. Poe scholars tend to assume that every time Poe revised a story he did so for aesthetic reasons. With “Berenice,” his reasons were pragmatic.

 
There is a “golden mean,” Aristotle suggested in his Eudemian Ethics, between two extremes, and it is this meeting place, the philosopher suggested, that minds should aspire to reach. Poe's fiction suggests that he is content to compromise at times, on some points, but not always. As a writer, he has his principles.

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Techniques of Terror

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman


Judging by the quality, rather than by the quantity, of one's work, Edgar Allan Poe is probably the greatest writer of horror fiction ever to live. (I make the distinction because some Internet polls give first place to Stephen King, who, in his early novels, did sometimes tell amazingly good—and chilling—stories, but who has since declined sharply, his fiction often offering little more than personal invective and political pontification. These polls' first-place awards to King seem to be based on the volume of his output, which is admittedly vast, rather than on its quantity, which is mediocre at best. King himself admits that his style is the “literary equivalent of a Bic Mac and fries.”)


As the foremost writer of horror fiction, Poe exhibits several techniques of terror from which we can learn. In The Annotated Poe, editor Kevin J. Hayes points out several.


In an earlier post, “Writing Dramatic Scenes,” we saw how Poe's descriptions anticipated filmmaking techniques, well in advance of Hollywood studios' use of them. Hayes cites a paragraph in “Metzengerstein” as an example:

The career of the horseman was, indisputably, on his own part, uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive struggling of his frame gave no evidence of superhuman exertion; nut no sound, save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through, in the intensity of terror (The Annotated Poe, 34).

As Hayes notes:

The cinema has much to offer when it comes to understanding Poe, partly because his work has contributed so much to its development. The great Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein found that Poe's writing anticipated visual techniques that would not be fully utilized until the invention of motion pictures. This paragraph provides a good example. Poe depicts Metzengerstein in close-up (the “agony of his convulsions”), pulls back to show him from a distance (“the convulsive struggling of his frame”), and then supplies an extreme close-up (“his lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through”). The rapid shifting of images quickens the narrative pace, which the ensuing cacophony of sound—the shriek of Metzengerstein, the clatter of hoofs, the roar of the flames, and the shriek of the wind—further intensifies, thus providing a narrative running start for the horse's final bound up the staircase (The Annotated Poe, 34).


In Introduction a la litterature fantastique (1970), Tzvetan Todorov distinguishes between the “uncanny” and the “marvelous.” That which is presented in certain types of literature, including the horror genre, as fantastic, Todorov says, is usually resolved as being either uncanny (susceptible to explanation via scientific knowledge or natural law) or marvelous (inexplicable via scientific knowledge or natural law). Only that which remains ambiguous at the conclusion of such stories retains its fantastic character. In “Manuscript Found in a Bottle,” Poe sets up a similar “dynamic between the narrator's love of scientific explanation and the supernatural events of the story” by the way Poe describes the story's narrator; as Hayes points out, the narrator, is “a man who has 'a strong relish for physical philosophy'” (37). The narrator's description of the particulars of material objects, such as the ship upon which he embarks as a passenger (“a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons, copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak”) also shows the narrator's character as “a man who has 'a strong relish for physical philosophy'” (37). According to Hayes, “Poe has learned well the need, in a fantastic adventure tale, of a credible witness” (38).

Poe's use of blanks in dates, “18—“ in “Manuscript Found in a Bottle,” for example, was not new with Poe. It was an established convention, Hayes says. Used to enhance “mystery” by implying that the story being told is based on “a true story whose details have been deliberately withheld to protect those involved” (37). The device is similar to the notification, at the beginning of a movie—and often a seemingly fantastic film, at that—that the picture is “based on a true story.”


Such a statement may make the dubious incidents seem more believable, despite the fact that movies “based on a true story” often depart substantially from the facts of the “true story” itself. (For example, Backcountry is “based on a true story,” but the roles of female victim and the male survivor are changed, among other alterations of the facts, with the male being killed and the female escaping in the movie version. Likewise, in The Exorcist, the possessed person is a girl, whereas, in the “true story” upon which the film is based, this individual is a boy. Examples of such changes could be multiplied extensively.)

Poe employs the juxtaposition of contrasts to heighten horror, as when he alternates between “static and dynamic imagery” in describing, in “Metzengerstein,” the appearance of “a gigantic ship” at sea (42):

At a terrific height directly above us, and upon the very verge of the precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship . . . . What mainly inspired us with horror and astonishment, was that she bore up under a press of [an unfurled] sail in the very teeth of that supernatural sea, and of that ungovernable hurricane. When we first discovered her, her bows alone were to be seen, as she rose slowly from the dim and horrible gulf beyond her. For a moment of intense terror she paused upon that giddy pinnacle, as if in contemplation of her own sublimity, then trembled and tottered and—came down.

Poe's shift of tense in the same story indicates a compression of “space, time, and information,” that, anticipating “the technique of a cinematic montage,” increases the story's pace, “propelling readers toward its climax” (Hayes, 43).

Through description, Poe suggests similarities, both superficial and significant, between his characters. As Hayes notes, “Making narrator and captain the same height (5'8”), Poe draws the reader's attention to a deeper resemblance between the two men. Both are men of science,” or, rather scientism, “relying too heavily on science to explain everything.” (46).

Even cliches are used for effect in Poe's story, characterizing his characters: “The 'eagerness of hope' and 'the apathy of despair' are cliched proverbial phrases. The narrator's growing reliance on stock phrases suggests he is lost for words as he approaches the unknown” (Hayes, 48).

Poe uses the dialogue that a particular character uses, including his or her choice of words, as a way to suggest subtle motivations for their behavior. In “Ligeia,” the narrator's “mellifluous word pairs—a”thrilling and enthralling,” “steadily and stealthily,” “unnoticed and unknown”—reveal a narrator deliberately shaping personal experience into ornate literary prose,” Dorothea E. von Mucke contends (Hayes, 66).

Poe also enriches the possible implications and meanings of his tales with frequent allusions, mostly to the Bible, to classical mythology, to history, and to literature, but he also refers to folklore, legends, and occult systems of belief. These allusions make his stories seem predicated upon ancient knowledge or traditions, associate them with existing worldviews or metaphysical themes, and suggest his own work is, at times, commentaries or innovative adaptations or extensions of these previous materials.

In summary, Poe uses a number of techniques, the chief among which is description, to accomplish a variety of narrative effects. These techniques include those which anticipate cinematic techniques yet to be developed, dates deliberately left incomplete, descriptive characterization (i. e., characterization via description), juxtapositions of contrasts, deliberate shifts of tense, descriptive motivation (i. e., implication of motive via description), the deliberate use of cliches to characterize characters, and various allusions.

Note: Poe's use of additional techniques of terror may be considered in a future post or two.







Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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