Showing posts with label antagonist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label antagonist. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Hop-Frog: A Story of Reversals

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman
 

As a rule of thumb, a writer introduces his or her story’s protagonist before the antagonist makes an appearance. One reason for doing so is that people respond most strongly to the person they meet first, especially if the individual seems to be a decent sort of a soul, as protagonists, even self-conflicted ones, usually are, just as readers tend to most remember whatever they read first. After all, since the narrative is the story of the main character, it makes sense to introduce the protagonist first, before any other character takes the stage (or the page). Another reason for introducing the main character first is to establish clarity. Introducing the protagonist first makes it clear to the reader, from the outset, whose story is being read or told. 

Occasionally, however, this rule is violated, as is the case in “Hop-Frog,” Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of humiliation and revenge. Poe starts his tale by introducing its antagonist, or villain, a nameless, sadistic king who delights in abusing his fool, Hop-Frog.

An example of the monarch’s cruelty is the jester’s nickname. In an apparent attempt to curry favor with their liege, the king's “seven ministers,” aware of the ruler's delight in unkindness, named the jester “Hop-Frog” to make fun of his peculiar style of locomotion: “In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait--something between a leap and a wriggle--a movement that afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king.”

Such a problem would elicit pity and sympathy from a nobler person, but the king is obviously well pleased with the wittiness of his ministers’ naming the fool’s for the effect of his unfortunate disability. The king also enjoys tormenting Hop-Frog directly. The dwarf and a fellow citizen, Tripetta, also a dwarf, were abducted from their homeland and given, as if they were but things, rather than people, “as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.”

Aware that Hop-Frog misses the friends whom he was forced to leave behind and aware, furthermore, that the fool is unable to drink wine without suffering from near madness as a result, the king directs his jester to drink to in the honor of his “absent friends.”

When the wine and the thought of his “absent friends” has the effect upon Hop-Frog that the king has anticipated, the king thinks the jester’s grief and miserable state of intoxication amusing: “It happened to be the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his 'absent friends' forced the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.”

The king responds with cruel laughter: "'Ah! ha! ha! ha!' roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the beaker. 'See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are shining already!'"

The king’s malice is also seen in his abusive treatment of Tripetta. When she intercedes with the king on the behalf of Hop-Frog, upon whom the monarch seeks to force still more wine, the king “pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the brimming goblet in her face.”

The vulgarity of the king and his sycophantic courtiers, vis-à-vis the grace Hop-Frog and Tripetta, is a second reversal in the story. Not only has Poe introduced the villainous king before he’s introduced the heroic fool, but he has also traded the stereotypical natures of these two characters, making the noble king vulgar and the low fool courteous.

These reversals effect much of the story’s irony. Customarily, a reader would suppose the king, rather than a jester, to be the refined and cultured sophisticate. In fact, the comedy of the fool is often ribald and crude, involving the same sort of humiliating practical jokes, at times, as those that the king performs.

The king’s humiliation of Tripetta is the story’s inciting moment, for it is this act of outrage upon her that inspires Hop-Frog’s plan for revenge, as, ironically, he tells the intended victim: “just after your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face--just after your majesty had done this...there came into my mind a capital diversion .” Thus, the king, in a sense, is undone by his own sadistic nature, for it is one of his acts of mindless cruelty that inspires Hop-Frog’s scheme to kill him in a fashion that is at once both spectacular and horrible.

Traditionally, regardless of the king’s character or the morality of his deeds, if he orders the execution of one of his subjects, for any (or no) reason, the subject would be killed, no questions asked. In “Hop-Frog,” however, it is the fool who, in another reversal, becomes the executioner of both the king himself and his toadying courtiers. What’s more, Hop-Frog accomplishes his vengeance of Tripetta’s honor with impunity, thereby further humiliating the monarch and his noble friends, since he escapes punishment for having, in essence, assassinated his own and Tripetta’s tormentors. Each of these reversals heightens the story’s irony.

Hop-Frog’s revenge is extremely violent and horrible. Had Poe not prepared the reader to accept this act as just, albeit appalling, the reader’s sympathy for the crippled dwarf and his beloved Tripetta would likely not withstand the gruesome deaths that he causes the king and his courtiers to suffer. Instead, the immolation of the nobles would have been regarded, in all likelihood, as being too extreme and it would suggest that it is Hop-Frog who is the true monster, rather than his adversary, the king’s own cruelty notwithstanding.

The reader accepts the justice of Hop-Frog’s execution of his tormentors for several reasons. First, the odds are against Hop-Frog. He is a mere court jester. His adversary is a monarch who enjoys absolute power. Readers support an underdog. 

Second, the king is cruel. He is, in other words, a sadist. Many times, he has abused Hop-Frog simply for his own amusement and, perhaps, to show off in front of his courtiers. He is not above insulting even someone as beautiful, kind, and harmless as Tripetta, although he must know that doing so will both hurt her and offend Hop-Frog. He has no regard for their feelings.

Third, Hop-Frog outsmarts the powerful king, and readers favor one who, through the use of nothing more than his or her wits, can outsmart another, especially if the other occupies a position of far greater social status, authority, and power. If one such ordinary person can accomplish such a feat, perhaps others--the reader included--can do likewise. Certainly, many will have harbored fantasies of doing just such a thing.

Fourth, Hop-Frog, like Tripetta, is a dwarf. He is literally smaller than the king, and, figuratively, he is a common person, one of the little guys, so to speak. Hop-Frog is physically weaker, too, than his larger tormentors. Nevertheless, he uses his brain to overcome their brawn, a feat that always gains admiration and respect among those in similar circumstances.

Fifth, Hop-Frog is crippled. His severe handicap, the object of the king’s scorn and ridicule, make him ill-matched to take on the king. Nevertheless, the intrepid dwarf does so--and wins.

Sixth, Hop-Frog is shown to be a sensitive and caring person. He loves Tripetta, and, when she is insulted, he is also hurt, and he vows revenge, even at the risk of his life.

Perhaps the reader would not overlook Hop-Frog’s murder of the king and his courtiers in a such a horrible manner if only one of these conditions or characteristics mitigated against the horror of the deed, but there are at least six extenuating facts, as enumerated herein. Together, they seem to be warrant enough for the reader to ignore the stupendous horror of the dwarf’s immolation of his live victims.

Other horror stories often include a reversal, usually in the form of the surprise, O. Henry-type ending. A good example is “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs and “The Red Room” by H. G. Wells, both of which have been posted in Chillers and Thrillers. In these stories, the plot suggests a certain type of ending as likely, or even as seemingly inevitable, but then surprises the reader with the substitution of a different ending but one that is, nevertheless, logical and satisfying.

For example, in Wells’ story (which, incidentally, is a clear precursor to Stephen King’s story, “1048”), a skeptic stays overnight in an allegedly haunted room. Despite his doubt as to the reality of the supernatural, he experiences increasingly frightening incidents until, bursting from the room, he strikes the door frame. He turns, confused, and reels into various furniture until he knocks himself unconscious.

The reader is led to assume that the room truly is haunted and, then, Wells offers what, in effect, is a punchline of sorts: the room is haunted by the fear of those who, believing the chamber to be haunted, occupy the place: “Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms.”

The Others, a horror film, also has such a twist: the residents of a haunted house turn out to be the ghosts, just as the apparent ghosts turn out to be the house’s human inhabitants. Such reversals are still marginally effective, if rather overdone, but stories such as “Hop-Frog” are rare in their sophisticated employment of plot reversals, and such stories are correspondingly enriched.

Thursday, October 14, 2021

Using Horror Movie Taglines to Develop Characters' Personality Traits (and Story Plots)

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman


A movie poster tagline poses various questions related to

  • WHO? (personal identity, agent, or agency),
  •  WHAT? (identity or identities, nature or natures, or origin or origins of an object or objects or an abstraction or abstractions),
  • WHEN? (time, endurance, or era),
  • WHERE? (location),
  • HOW? (process, technique, or method);
  • WHY? (cause, motive, purpose, function, or use), and
  • HOW MANY? or HOW MUCH? (quantity of number or volume).

The tagline for the 1988 movie Call Me is “Her fantasies could be fatal.”

By identifying the questions evoked by this tagline, which should be considered in relation to the film's title, we can establish the elements of the plot that create mystery, thus creating, maintaining, and heightening suspense:

WHO is “she”? (personal identity)

WHAT are her “fantasies”? (fantasies)

WHY is she fantasizing? (motive)

HOW do her fantasies involve others? (process)

WHY do her fantasies involve others? (cause, motive, purpose, function, or use)

WHO is the other or are the others whom she includes in her fantasies?

WHY does she include this other or these others in her fantasies?

WHY could her “fantasies be fatal”? (cause)

From our investigation, we find that mysteries regarding who the woman is, what her fantasies are, why she fantasizes, how and why her fantasies involve others, and why her fantasies could be fatal fuel the suspense of the plot. Counting our “whos” and “whats” and “whys” and “hows,” we see that there is two “who” question, one “what” question, one “how” question,” and four “why” questions. Therefore, the plot's main source of suspense will be related to questions of cause, motive, purpose, function, or use (WHY?). Related to this primary source of will be the secondary questions concerning the personal identities (WHO?); the nature or natures, or origin or origins of an object or objects or an abstraction or abstractions; and process[es], technique[s], or method[s] regarding the way in which she includes another or others in her fantasies (HOW?).

The tagline uses the nominative case of the third-person personal pronoun to refer to the woman who fantasies, referring to the woman as “her.” This pronoun separates her from the viewer/reader, who regards him- or herself as an “I” (if a subject) or a “me” (if an object). The story is about her (and her fantasies); she is the protagonist. Her callers are the story's antagonists. They may also be her victims, since her “fantasies could be fatal.” Therefore, she can be a predator, even a killer. Vicariously, as we read her story (i. e., “call” her), we may become her victims as well.

WHY we might call her (our motive) suggests information about us: WHO we are and WHAT we want (and, therefore, WHAT we lack). “Call me” is an invitation to listen to her fantasies, to participate in them, vicariously, potentially as her victims. We have a motive for desiring to do so. Perhaps we are lonely, feel unloved, are unhappy either at being single or in our marriages. We lack something that we believe, or hope, that we may obtain from this woman, from her fantasies. According to the U. S. National Library of Medicine, loneliness can lead to various psychiatric disorders [such as] depression, alcohol abuse, child abuse, sleep problems, personality disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. It also leads to various physical disorders like diabetes, autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and cardiovascular diseases like coronary heart disease, hypertension (HTN), obesity, physiological aging, cancer, poor hearing and poor health. Left untended, loneliness can have serious consequences for mental and physical health of people.”

As the article explains, “Loneliness is caused not by being alone, but by being without some definite needed relationship or set of relationships.” This seems to be the lack, then, that those who answer the woman's invitation to 'call” her experience. We have learned much about the antagonists of the story, including their possible physical as well as their mental health issues and their causes. (The article also defines three types of loneliness that could be of use to a writer writing about the situation reflected in the Call Me movie tagline: “situational loneliness,” “developmental loneliness,” and “internal loneliness.”

The woman who fantasizes also wants something from us: our ears, our attention, our indulgence of her fantasies. However, she does not want us for long; we are disposable because she has, potentially, many callers, many replacements for us. We are like food, as it were, that sustains her, but nothing more. Therefore, we are expendable. What counts is she and her fantasies, her needs and desires.

 Everything seems to revolve around her and her desires and needs, which suggests that she might be a narcissist, whose behavior, according to the Mayo Clinic, is characterized by:

  • an exaggerated sense of self-importance
  • a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration
  • [the expectation of being] recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
  • exaggerate[d] achievements and talents
  • [a preoccupation] with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate [Now, we have an idea of the types of fantasies she might have!]
  • [the belief that] they are superior and can only associate with equally special people
  • [the tendency to] monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior
  • [the expectation of] special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations
  • [taking] advantage of others to get what they want
  • [having] an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
  • [being] envious of others and believe others envy them
  • [behaving] in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious
  • [insisting] on having the best of everything—for instance, the best car or office

What is she like? Someone who is unable to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships? Someone unconcerned about the welfare, or even the lives, of others? Someone who is willing to kill others without remorse or concern? A sociopath, perhaps? A killer, certainly, and a survivor, of sorts, a survivor at all costs. She is amoral, it appears, and is not bound by the mores, customs, conventions, or laws of society. She seems either unconcerned about them or believes that she is above them, a force of nature or a law unto herself, perhaps.

In addition, she is likely to be narcissistic, feel herself to privileged and entitled, possess a sense of superiority, and be arrogant, manipulative, dominant, and authoritarian.

What sort of fantasies might she have? Those that provide what she wants, but lacks, even if her fantasies provide them only momentarily. Company? Intimacy? Relief from loneliness, boredom, or emptiness? A sense of belonging, for a moment, at least, or a sense of being in control? She will also probably fantasize “about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.” Presumably, those who do not properly reinforce her concept of herself or are in any other way less than “the perfect mate” would be murdered, since the fact that her fantasies “could be fatal” suggests that sometimes they are; other times, they are not. Why does she sometimes kill, sometimes spare, those who answer her call? It seems that her decision would depend on whether or how well her callers respond to her fantasies, to her? On how well her callers fulfill her needs.

It seems that she could be a narcissistic sociopathic serial killer, possibly with sadistic sexual tendencies. As the Mayo Clinic website points out, “Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental disorder in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others.” In addition, such persons “tend to antagonize, manipulate or treat others harshly or with callous indifference. They show no guilt or remorse for their behavior.” People who suffer from antisocial personality disorder also “often violate the law, becoming criminals. They may lie, behave violently or impulsively, and have problems with drug and alcohol use. Because of these characteristics, people with this disorder typically can't fulfill responsibilities related to family, work or school.” Operating one's own erotic telephone service might be an ideal career choice for someone who displays such symptoms as the Mayo Clinic website lists for the antisocial personality disorder:

  • Disregard for right and wrong
  • Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others
  • Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others
  • Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure
  • Arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated
  • Recurring problems with the law, including criminal behavior
  • Repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty
  • Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead
  • Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence
  • Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others
  • Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others
  • Poor or abusive relationships
  • Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them
  • Being consistently irresponsible and repeatedly failing to fulfill work or financial obligations

So, is the woman who fantasizes a narcissistic sociopath who entertains dangerous, potentially fatal fantasies about others who accept her invitation to “call me”? Does she operate an erotic telephone service for lonely people who lack “a relationship or set of relationships”? Could she be a sadist and her callers masochists whom she lures into a sadomasochistic telephonic relationship? Does fantasizing sometimes cross the line between fantasy and reality, resulting in the deaths of her callers? Is the woman who fantasizes a femme fatale? Our search for answers to the questions the tagline provokes and our research into the implications of the tagline certainly seems to open such possibilities.

 

Checking a synopsis of the movie's actual plot shows that the screenwriters chose a different plot than the one we might envision from the movie's tagline, but that doesn't mean our ideas of the protagonist's character, the antagonists' characters, and the protagonist operating her own erotic telephone service while she searches for her “perfect mate,” according to her own needs and desires as a narcissistic sociopath with a well-defined list or criteria is “wrong.” It is simply an alternative plot—and perhaps a better one, at that.

   

Here are a few more horror movie taglines that you can try, each of which is capable of suggesting personality traits, if not mental disorders, for a protagonist and one or more antagonists and a plot based on those personality traits. Using horror movie taglines as a means of developing characters' personality traits goes a long way toward generating plot ideas as well.

Dawn of the Dead: When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.

Paranormal Activity: What happens when you sleep?

Saw: Every piece has a puzzle.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Who will survive, and what will be left of them?

The Grudge: It never forgives. It never forgets.

Wolf Creek: How can you be found when no one knows you're missing?


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Bits & Pieces: Story One-Liners

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pulman


No, I’m not endorsing USA Today. In fact, its political bent slants opposite of my own. However, I’m certainly not denigrating it, either. It’s a decent daily in many ways. Besides, I don’t depend upon it for my news (although, I must admit, I do enjoy reading its “Across the USA: news from every state” column. It offers something I don’t see anywhere else: news from every state.

But I also check out the “TV Tonight” listings on occasion. In doing so, I find, the one-sentence summaries of TV episode and movie plots frequently encapsulate, in nut-shell fashion, identifications of the protagonist, the antagonist, conflict (if only implicitly), and the conflict’s resolution. Not bad for a sentence. Here’s an example: “A man [protagonist] drinking himself to death [conflict] finds solace [conflict resolution] with a hooker [antagonist]” (6D). While this summary, which is of Leaving Las Vegas, is not of a horror movie, the same approach can be used to sum up a horror film. Here’s an example: Ben Mears (protagonist) leads a fight against vampires (conflict), liberating his boyhood hometown (conflict resolution) from the bloodsucking fiends (antagonists). The summary is, of course, of Stephen King’s novel ‘Salem’s Lot.

The one-sentence statement of a story’s basic plot keeps a writer focused on the narrative’s main character, antagonist, conflict, conflict resolution, and through-line, which is no mean feat when one writes novels of the length of ‘Salem’s Lot. The synopsis can fit on an index card that one can tape on his or her computer monitor, pocket to take with him or her to the library (for research beyond the Internet’s delivery capability), and keep close to hand during rewrites and revisions. Again, not bad for a sentence!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Establishing Verisimilitude

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a woman sitting on her porch, reading a letter. Across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched, but we do not see the watcher.

Who is this woman? Who wrote the letter, and what is in it? How does she react to its contents? Does she smile, laugh, sigh, weep, shake her head, nod, shrug?

Who is watching her? A man? A woman? Why is he or she watching the woman? Is the watcher a police detective? A mobster? A stalker? A secret protector? Does he or she mean the woman harm or good?

The answers to these questions (which will suggest additional questions) depends on the genre of the story that one is writing. Is it an action-adventure story? A detective or mystery story? Espionage? Fantasy? Romance? Science fiction? Western?

Or horror?

If it’s a horror story, the watcher could be either a predator or a protector. If a predator, it could be an alien (extraterrestrial), an animal, a demon, a ghost, a madman, a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a zombie, or some other kind of monster, human or otherwise. Depending upon what kind of menace the watcher is, he, she (or it) may or many not respond to the woman’s reading of the letter and to her reaction to its contents.

Were I developing a plot about such a situation, I would opt to make the threat a human one or an intelligent entity, at least, because such an antagonist could respond to the situation, including the woman’s reaction to the letter, and if she is going to be described as reading and reacting to a letter, it would be seem desirable to the make the most of the emotional and dramatic potential of such a scene. Otherwise, why have her read a letter at all? She could just as easily be watched while she waters the flowers, takes a walk, or does any of a hundred other things. Therefore, my watcher must be one of the following: an alien, a demon, a madman, a vampire, or a witch (or, possibly, a ghost). Eliminated would be the animal, the werewolf, the zombie and any type of subhuman monster.

If, on the other hand, the watcher was the woman’s secret protector (secret because, if she know of him, he wouldn’t have to observe her from hiding), he (or she) would have to have a motive that seems feasible to readers. His or her role may or may not be related to the monstrous antagonist. If it is related, perhaps the protective character is a government agent, a demon hunter, a psychiatrist, a vampire slayer, a clergyman, or a ghost hunter or psychic. Obviously, if such were the case, this character would be present to protect the woman from the monster. Perhaps the protector’s awareness that the woman is due to receive a letter from a particular correspondent is the reason that he or she is watching the woman. Maybe the protector wants to see how the woman reacts to the letter’s contents (which, of course, implies that he or she is him- or herself aware of these contents).

The letter’s contents could be the device that links the three characters: the woman, the protector, and the antagonist. Does it announce the protector’s mission (to protect the woman) from a threatening entity (the antagonist)? Does it explain the true situation of which the woman is to play an integral part, a fact of which, until her reading of the letter, she has been unaware? Does the letter warn the woman of the monster that threatens her or will begin to threaten her, if it has not done so before? Could the woman be subject to a post-hypnotic command expressed in the letter she reads?

Why does the antagonist want to abduct or kill the woman? What is the antagonist’s motive for doing so? Is the villain acting alone or as part of a group?

The woman’s role in the situation must not be forgotten. In fact, it is likely that either she or the protective character is the story’s protagonist (unless there is no monster and the watcher is him- or herself the narrative’s antagonist). Was she expecting the letter she now reads or did it come to her out of the blue, as it were? Is the letter from a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, or a stranger? What does the letter say? Why does she react to its contents in the way that she does? Is her reaction appropriate or inappropriate to the news, and why? What else does the reader need to know about her? Is she single? Married? Separated? Divorced? Widowed? Does she work? Is she between jobs (“redundant,” as the British say)? Is she retired or independently wealthy? What predicament is she in? (She must be in some sort of predicament, of course, either now or very soon, for, as Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren point out in Understanding Fiction, “no conflict, no story.”)

Of course, the basic situation with which we started--that of a woman’s sitting on her porch, reading a letter while, across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched by an unseen watcher--could be developed in several ways besides the one I set forth as an example, and the story would, as a result, develop differently in each case, but, by linking the woman, the antagonist, and the watchful protector through the letter, we attain coherence among the characters, which establishes both a sense of narrative logic and believability, or a sense of verisimilitude, as writers and critics--mostly critics--are fond of saying.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Quick Tip: Victimizing the Victim

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman


Victims are important to horror, but one would hardly know it, for, from authors, critics, and readers, they receive short shrift. Except for Carol J. Clover’s excellent discussion of the “final girl,” the survivor among a slasher film’s slew of the slain, who, as the last girl standing (Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film), typically defeats the monster, little has been said of horror fiction’s victims of late. However, as the careers of many a fine young actress attests, victimization can lead to fame and fortune--off-screen, at least.

Clover describes the final girl as virginal and drug free, with a past that is shared in part with the killer, and as someone who may have a unisex name. Clover sees audience members as able to identify with female characters, regardless of their own sex and gender; the killer, in fact, is a male who has problems with his own sexuality and gender and uses weapons, especially knives, as a phallic substitute that psychologically enhanced his own problematic virility.

Clover detects a sexist and misogynistic element in the final girl. In a patriarchal society, it’s difficult, if not impossible she (Clover, not the final girl) argues for many to identify with a terrified male character. Therefore, a female character is victimized. In other words, women make more credible victims than men. Since, during the murders of others (and, possibly, the attempted murder of the final girl), these female characters are depicted in a state of undress and, sometimes, sexual intimacy, the slasher films take on a voyeuristic nature and suggest that neither beauty nor sexuality escape punishment in a cruel and sadistic world, despite the apparent anything-goes, free-love attitude of contemporary society.

Outside slasher films, victims are not limited to nubile young women, which casts some doubt, perhaps, upon Clover’s claims of sexism and misogyny concerning victims of horror in general. Dean Koontz and Stephen King, as usual, offer good examples of a variety of victims in their fiction. The commonality among their victims lies in their sympathetic nature and their vulnerability. While some of them are women (Rose Madder), others are physically or mentally handicapped (The Bad Place). Others are verbally, physically, psychologically, or sexually abused (It). Still others are children (Desperation). Especially in Koontz’s novels, victims are even sometimes animals (Watchers).

Their conditions (being psychologically dependent, physically weak, physically or mentally handicapped, young and naïve) make them vulnerable, and something about their personalities and, at times, their past experiences, makes them sympathetic. They may be pure of heart, precocious, developmentally disabled, autistic, victims of previous traumas, social outcasts, unlucky at love, afflicted with a terminal illness, or sufferers of adultery or some other sort of betrayal.

However, the victim must also have a reserve of pluck, of nerve, of courage, of which he or she may unaware. The stalker or killer or monster or whatever other form the antagonist may take will be the means by which the victim discovers his or her courage and defeats or banishes his or her foe (or, if he or she is vanquished, after all, puts up an incredible fight).

Therefore, if you want a victim with whom your readers can identify, make sure that he or she is vulnerable, sympathetic, and courageous. Then, win, lose, or draw in his or her contest with the adversary, your victim will attract and hold your reader’s or audience’s attention--and respect.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Quick Tip: Think BIG

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman


Imagine a confederation of banshees, demons, ghosts, monsters, vampires, werewolves, witches, and zombies with a single goal to unify them against a town, a region, a country, or even the world. Now, you’re thinking BIG. Your scope is large--huge, in fact--with regard both to the numbers (and types) of characters your story (or, more likely, your series of stories) and your setting will include.

You’re talking a novel here, at least, or a whole sequence of novels--chronicles, you might decide to call them. You need a title for them, though, which not only suggests the commonality among the books but also sounds cool, as in elevated or grand: The Chronicles of Mayhem might serve your purpose. Perhaps the federation of monsters could call themselves “Mayhem” as their collective name.

Now, you’re rolling! Or not. Maybe you think this idea, whether for a single, stand-alone novel or for a series of book-length stories, is lame. That’s okay. I wasn’t trying to sell you on the idea of The Chronicles of Mayhem per se; rather, I was showing you a way to think big, to enlarge the arena of your imagination so that it encompasses a whole town, or region, or country, or planet and any number of antagonists. You can people your novel or series with whatever characters tickle your fancy and set it wherever you like. It’s your story (or stories), after all.


The point is that, to think big, you have to, well, think BIG.

But once you have decided on your characters and your setting, you can enhance your plot by introducing intrigues among different characters or groups of characters, developing romantic interests and triangles, establishing allegiances and feuds, and so forth. You have enough characters and a setting big enough in scope, now that you have thought BIG, to encompass all these plot angles and twists and more. You can write on an epic scale.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Formulating Horror Fiction

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman


To formulate horror fiction, ask four simple questions:

Who or what is under attack?
Who or what is attacking it?
How is he, she, they, or it being attacked?
Why is he, she, they, or it being attacked?
Turn each question into one word:

Who or what is under attack = victim
Who or what is attacking it = antagonist
How he, she, they, or it is being attacked = technique
Why it is being attacked = motive (or cause)
Now, flesh out the sentence; for example, here is the storyline for The Exorcist:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation (motive), the devil (antagonist) possesses technique of attack) Regan MacNeil (victim).
Here is the storyline for A Nightmare on Elm Street:
To avenge his murder (motive), Freddy Krueger (antagonist) invades the nightmares of (technique of attack) the children of the parents who murdered him (victims).

The plot storyline for ‘Salem’s Lot:
To feed (motive), vampires (antagonists) bite (and kill) (technique of attack) the townspeople of ‘Salem‘s Lot (victims).
Notice that this formula describes the storyline from the antagonist’s point of view. This is good, because it identifies the villain’s purpose, or motive, in attacking his, her, or its intended victims and the technique that the villain uses to do so. However, stories are written from the protagonist’s point of view, not that of the antagonist. Therefore, once you’ve identified the antagonist’s motive, technique of attack, and intended victims, you need to turn the angle from which the storyline is being viewed around, so to speak, so that you are seeing it from the hero’s or the heroine’s point of view. In other words, the protagonist is now the doer of the deed (and, therefore, the subject of the sentence), the deed is the action of the story (and, therefore, the verb of the sentence), and the antagonist is the person or the thing upon which the action is performed (and, therefore, the direct object of the sentence). His or her motive can be supplied in an introductory infinitive phrase:


To rescue Regan MacNeil (motive), Father Karras (protagonist), exorcises (method of attack) the devil (antagonist).
You’ve identified the main character, his or her motive, the victim, and the villain, and you’ve related them through the action that the protagonist performs upon the antagonist. Applying the same technique, you can reorient other storylines from the antagonist’s to the protagonist’s point of view. Occasionally, when there is more than one motive, protagonist, action, or antagonist, you might have to extend the sentence to express the storyline more fully, as is done with regard to the storyline for ‘Salem‘s Lot.

To survive (motive), Nancy (protagonist) captures (method of attack) Freddy Krueger (antagonist).

To protect humanity (motive), Ben Mears (protagonist) returns to ’Salem’s Lot and kills (methods of attack) vampires (antagonist).

By first starting with the plot as it appears from the antagonist’s point of view, you will be clear as to the villain’s motive, method of attack, and intended victim. By then switching the perspective from which you view the story’s events, you are clear as to the protagonist’s motive, method of attack, and antagonist

You can now combine these two perspectives into a single, comprehensive depiction of the storyline:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation, the devil possesses Regan MacNeil, but Father Karras rescues her by exorcising the fiend.

To avenge his murder, Freddy Krueger invades the nightmares of the children of the parents who murdered him, but Nancy survives by capturing him.

To feed, vampires bite (and kill) the townspeople of ‘Salem’s Lot, but Ben Mears returns to save humanity by killing the vampires.
Of course, these storylines are but the bare bones of a fully developed plot. However, they do give you a framework--a skeleton--upon which to build by asking pertinent questions related to each element (the protagonist’s and the antagonist’s respective motive, method of attack, and intended victim):

Protagonist

Who is he? Father Karras. Who old is he? Middle age. What is he (occupation)? Catholic priest. What are his strengths of character? He is compassionate, honest, humble, or teachable, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He doubts his faith. Why does he want to rescue Regan? Obviously, it is the right thing to do. However, Karras’ protective impulse would be likely to be activated by Regan’s plight, as an innocent child abused by an evil power. In addition, by exorcising the devil, Karras might be able to silence, or even eliminate, the doubts that plague him concerning his faith in an all-powerful and loving God.

The same sort of questions can be asked regarding the antagonist of your story. Concerning the antagonist of The Exorcist, questions might include:

Antagonist

Who is he? Is he Satan? Some other demon or group of demons? What are his strengths of character? He is intelligent, strong-willed, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He is full of hatred, dishonest, unscrupulous, treacherous, cruel, and unredeemable evil. Why does he possess Regan? Primarily, by giving evil a face--and that of an innocent young girl--and tormenting her cruelly so that she suffers horribly, the devil hopes to get Father Karras to renounce his faith in God so that he will be damned to hell. His possession of the girl is primarily a means to this end, although he enjoys corrupting and degrading her and causing the girl‘s mother grief and emotional anguish as well simply because he is evil and sadistic.
Why does the devil select Regan as his victim?

Victim

What makes Regan attractive to the devil as a victim? Her youth? Her innocence? Why is the victim a girl, rather than a boy? Is a girl a more sympathetic character? She is physically weaker and, perhaps, more emotionally vulnerable (or is likely to be perceived to be such, at least, by much of the audience), and the devil’s deep, masculine voice, speaking through her, will seem more perverse and unnatural, heightening the effect of horror. Also, Father Karras feels guilty for having (he feels) abandoned his mother, a female. Regan is also a helpless female, even more vulnerable than the priest’s aged mother, because she is a child.

In this manner, you build up your plot and characters. You could use the same method to develop the plots and characters in the other stories, A Nightmare on Elm Street and ‘Salem’s Lot, or any other novel or motion picture. (victims).

Notice that this formula describes the storyline from the antagonist’s point of view. This is good, because it identifies the villain’s purpose, or motive, in attacking his, her, or its intended victims and the technique that the villain uses to do so. However, stories are written from the protagonist’s point of view, not that of the antagonist. Therefore, once you’ve identified the antagonist’s motive, technique of attack, and intended victims, you need to turn the angle from which the storyline is being viewed around, so to speak, so that you are seeing it from the hero’s or the heroine’s point of view. In other words, the protagonist is now the doer of the deed (and, therefore, the subject of the sentence), the deed is the action of the story (and, therefore, the verb of the sentence), and the antagonist is the person or the thing upon which the action is performed (and, therefore, the direct object of the sentence). His or her motive can be supplied in an introductory infinitive phrase:

To rescue Regan MacNeil (motive) Father Karras (protagonist), exorcises (method of attack) the devil (antagonist).

You’ve identified the main character, his or her motive, the victim, and the villain, and you’ve related them through the action that the protagonist performs upon the antagonist. Applying the same technique, you can reorient other storylines from the antagonist’s to the protagonist’s point of view. Occasionally, when there is more than one motive, protagonist, action, or antagonist, you might have to extend the sentence to express the storyline more fully, as is done with regard to the storyline for ‘Salem‘s Lot.

To survive (motive), Nancy (protagonist) captures (method of attack) Freddy Krueger (antagonist).

To protect humanity (motive), Ben Mears (protagonist) returns to ’Salem’s Lot and kills (methods of attack) vampires (antagonist).

By first starting with the plot as it appears from the antagonist’s point of view, you will be clear as to the villain’s motive, method of attack, and intended victim. By then switching the perspective from which you view the story’s events, you are clear as to the protagonist’s motive, method of attack, and antagonist

You can now combine these two perspectives into a single, comprehensive depiction of the storyline:

To effect Father Karras’ damnation, the devil possesses Regan MacNeil, but Father Karras rescues her by exorcising the fiend.

To avenge his murder, Freddy Krueger invades the nightmares of the children of the parents who murdered him, but Nancy survives by capturing him.

To feed, vampires bite (and kill) the townspeople of ‘Salem’s Lot, but Ben Mears returns to save humanity by killing the vampires.

Of course, these storylines are but the bare bones of a fully developed plot. However, they do give you a framework--a skeleton--upon which to build by asking pertinent questions related to each element (the protagonist’s and the antagonist’s respective motive, method of attack, and intended victim):

Protagonist

Who is he? Father Karras. Who old is he? Middle age. What is he (occupation)? Catholic priest. What are his strengths of character? He is compassionate, honest, humble, or teachable, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He doubts his faith. Why does he want to rescue Regan? Obviously, it is the right thing to do. However, Karras’ protective impulse would be likely to be activated by Regan’s plight, as an innocent child abused by an evil power. In addition, by exorcising the devil, Karras might be able to silence, or even eliminate, the doubts that plague him concerning his faith in an all-powerful and loving God.

The same sort of questions can be asked regarding the antagonist of your story. Concerning the antagonist of the Exorcist, questions might include:

Antagonist

Who is he? Is he Satan? Some other demon or group of demons? What are his strengths of character? He is intelligent, strong-willed, and persistent. What are the flaws in his character? He is full of hatred, dishonest, unscrupulous, treacherous, cruel, and unredeemable evil. Why does he possess Regan? Primarily, by giving evil a face--and that of an innocent young girl--and tormenting her cruelly so that she suffers horribly, the devil hopes to get Father Karras to renounce his faith in God so that he will be damned to hell. His possession of the girl is primarily a means to this end, although he enjoys corrupting and degrading her and causing the girl‘s mother grief and emotional anguish as well simply because he is evil and sadistic.
Why does the devil select Regan as his victim?

Victim

What makes Regan attractive to the devil as a victim? Her youth? Her innocence? Why is the victim a girl, rather than a boy? Is a girl a more sympathetic character? She is physically weaker and, perhaps, more emotionally vulnerable (or is likely to be perceived to be such, at least, by much of the audience), and the devil’s deep, masculine voice, speaking through her, will seem more perverse and unnatural, heightening the effect of horror. Also, Father Karras feels guilty for having (he feels) abandoned his mother, a female. Regan is also a helpless female, even more vulnerable than the priest’s aged mother, because she is a child.

In this manner, you build up your plot and characters. You could use the same method to develop the plots and characters in the other stories, A Nightmare on Elm Street and ‘Salem’s Lot, or any other novel or motion picture.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Quick Tip: For A Story To Be Suspenseful, It Is Necessary For Its Protagonist To Suffer

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In a comedy, the main character ends up better off at the end of the story than he or she was at its beginning. A tragedy is just the opposite: the protagonist ends up better off at the conclusion of the narrative than he or she was at its start. The main character in a comedy may not end up well off or happy. He or she may be only relatively better off or happier than he or she was at the story’s beginning. A disease, believed to be fatal, might, instead of killing the protagonist, merely cripple, or disable, him or her. Likewise, although the main character in a tragedy will end up worse off or more miserable at the end of the tale than he or she was initially, he or she may actually go from bad, rather than good, to worse off.

Gustav Freytag, as I pointed out in a previous post, breaks dramas into five acts, the second one of which, which constitutes the rising action, he says, complicates the story’s initial, basic conflict, usually by tossing one obstacle after another, each more serious and more difficult to overcome than the previous, into the protagonist’s path or attempt to realize his or her goal. Dean Koontz says much the same thing when he advises writers to make it as hard on the main character as possible. Likewise, Joss Whedon told Sarah Michelle Gellar that, to make Buffy the Vampire Slayer as compelling a series as possible, it was necessary to make the character she played suffer as much as possible. Readers cheer on main characters who suffer to succeed, and, as soon as a protagonist overcomes one problem, another, worse one needs to arise, just as, when Hercules sought to kill the Hydra, cutting off one of its nine heads, two new heads appeared from the resulting wound, making his task always twice as difficult as it originally had been.

In other words, during the beginning of the story, during its rising action, a writer must make everything worse and worse for his or her protagonist. Koontz demonstrates this technique (as do most popular novelists) in all of his books. In Relentless, a sociopath who also happens to be a critic, attacks the protagonist (a popular novelist!) and his family. Warned that the antagonist is a relentless killer, the writer packs a few bags, planning to take his wife and son with him and flee their home. Rather stupidly leaving their son unattended in the back seat of their getaway car, the parents, after hearing a cellular telephone left in a closet by their assailant ring, witness their clock radios reset themselves and begin counting down toward explosions. They flee back to the car, only to find their son missing. A bad situation (looming explosions) has gotten even worse (their son is missing as the bombs are about to detonate).

By taking a tip from Koontz, Whedon, and other popular storytellers in plotting the action of your story so that one problem, as soon as it is resolved, is overtaken by a more difficult one in which the stakes (one’s home is about to be destroyed) are increased (one’s son is missing and may be killed), you, too, can generate and maintain suspense while complicating your story’s basic conflict.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Characterization via Emotion

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman


Characterization operates by means of depicting emotion. Literary characters are, in fact, embodiments of emotion. Some emotions may be negative, either in the sense that they are unpleasant or in the sense that they cause problems, personal, social, or otherwise. Emotions can also be positive because they are pleasant or because they alleviate or resolve problems, personal, social, or otherwise.

Characters’ responses to incidents--that is, their feelings concerning events--motivate their actions. In other words, characters are often reactive: they respond to internal or external stimuli. Internal stimuli are their own attitudes, beliefs, desires, fantasies, hopes, thoughts, and, of course, emotions, such as fear, love, and self-respect. External stimuli are persons, places, things, qualities, and ideas that elicit characters’ passions, and can include threats, money, beauty, and death.

The overall, consistent pattern which underlies and is discerned in an individual’s behavior over an extended period of time suggests his or her basic personality traits and causes him or her to be regarded as just, wise, kind, ruthless, arrogant, vain, or whatever. However, many lesser, secondary traits also comprise most fictional people at any time of his or her literary life.

Hamlet is driven by his sense of duty to avenge his murdered father, but he is also hesitant, wanting to make sure that he acts justly in killing his father’s true killer--if, indeed, his father was killed, as the spirit who alleges to be the ghost of his father contends the late king was. These traits are the primary ones that motivate Hamlet, both to act and to refrain from acting. Therefore, he can be said to be a dutiful and just, but hesitant, character. In short, we might regard him as being a man of valor.

His antagonist, who is also his uncle and his step-father, King Claudius, is shown to be cold, calculating, and unrepentant, and he is driven by lust, both for power and for sex, having married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, shortly after Hamlet’s father died. Therefore, Hamlet can be read as a dramatization of a conflict between these two sets of emotions: Hamlet’s dutifulness, justice, and hesitation collide with Claudius’ coldness, calculation, unwillingness to repent, and lust for power and sex.

Horror fiction is primarily about fear, but its characters are motivated by other emotions as well. Beowulf’s hero wants to prove his mettle as a warrior. Although The Exorcist’s Father Damian Karras has begin to doubt and, perhaps, to lose his faith, he remains a man of God who loves humanity, as it is represented in the possessed soul of young Regan MacNeil, enough to risk his own life in an attempt to exorcise the devil’s victim. Many of Stephen King’s characters are motivated by their need to bond and by their need to belong to a community, or by brotherly love, one might say.

Not only the protagonists of horror fiction are motivated by their emotions; their antagonists are as well. In Beowulf, the monstrous outcast, Grendel, attacks the Danes because he envies their camaraderie. In The Exorcist, the devil possesses Regan in an attempt to get Father Karras to renounce his faith and thus be damned. Many of King’s villains (‘Salem’s Lot’s Barlow, Andre Linoge in Storm of the Century, and the protean monster of It, for example) prey upon the weaknesses of small communities and their residents, motivated by their narcissistic desire to perpetuate themselves. The emotional conflicts in Beowulf, The Exorcist, and ‘Salem’s Lot can be represented this way:
Valor vs. Envy
Love vs. Condemnation
Brotherly Love vs. Narcissistic self-perpetuation
By motivating your characters to act according to their passions, you will make your fiction seem more realistic, and you will show what’s at stake, on a personal level, as it were, in the struggle between the story’s protagonist and antagonist. The nature of the struggle, in turn, may suggest your stories’ themes. For example, The Exorcist suggests that love casts out condemnation, just as Beowulf implies that valor vanquishes envy and King's novels indicate that brotherly love is more important than narcissistic self-perpetuation.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Secondary Antagonists

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Some stories have a main antagonist and one or more lesser, secondary antagonists. The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer was well known for having a Big Bad and a little bad each season except for the first, which was really more like a partial season, since it was comprised of only a dozen episodes. The Big Bad was the villain for the whole season, whereas the little bad was a villain for only a few episodes. The little bad was introduced before the Big Bad, often with several other villains following his or her debut, so as to keep viewers off-balance in discerning which of the several villains might turn out to be the Big Bad. Here’s the way the bads shake out for seasons two through six:

Other works of horror fiction also sometimes employ secondary antagonists.
Stephen King’s novel Carrie’s primary antagonist is Carrie White’s mother; the secondary anatomists are her high school’s bullies. It It, another King novel, the antagonist, a protean shape shifter able to take the form of anyone’s worst fear, is, in effect, its own secondary antagonists while, at the same time, is the novel’s primary antagonist as well.

Dan Simmons’ novel, Summer of Night, has a primary antagonist, and several secondary antagonists: the dead man walking (an eerily silent World War I doughboy’s ghost, huge worms with serrated teeth, a rendering company’s truck spooky driver, and others.

On occasion, a secondary antagonist will work independently of the primary antagonist, whereas, in other instances, he, she, or they will support the primary antagonist, often as a henchman or sidekick, as Spike and Drusilla serve and support Angel in Buffy; as Fritz (often erroneously called “Igor”) assists Dr. Henry Frankenstein in Frankenstein, the 1931 film version of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus; and as Dr. Montgomery aids and abets the criminal “research” that vivisectionist Dr. Moreau performs upon a deserted jungle island in H. G. Wells’ classic 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau.

The use of a secondary antagonist can heighten a story’s suspense, complicate its plot (even becoming the basis or bases for an additional subplot or additional subplots), and can multiply and enrich the story’s theme.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Home and the Lair, or Heaven and Hell


Beowulf and his men prepare to ambush Grendel when he attacks Heorot.

There are only two ways for, or directions of, action: inner and outer, or to and from. Therefore, if, in a horror story, the monster is to be encountered, it must either come to the protagonist and the other characters or they must go to the monster. I like to think of these two means of egress, the coming to or the going forth, as having one’s home invaded by the monster or entering the monster’s lair. In thinking of the comings and goings of the characters (and, make no mistake about it, in horror fiction, the monster most definitely is a character--usually the antagonist) in these terms allows us to consider what writers, readers, critics, and other interested parties (including the monster itself, it may be) regard as “home” and what they regard as “lair.”

In Alien, Lieutenant Ripley and the others of her platoon enter the monster’s lair, which takes the form of a derelict spaceship in which the xenomorph has taken refuge. “Home,” on the other hand, is human civilization, as represented by a detachment of this civilization, in the form of Ripley and her crew.

In Psycho, Marion Crane enters the monster’s lair. This time, the den takes the form of the Bates’ Motel, where she checks in but she does not check out. The monster is, of course, Norman Bates. “Home” is the office and the relatively respectable, if not actually thrilling, life that Marion, an adulteress, left behind when she absconded with her employer’s money instead of depositing it in the company’s bank account as she’d been instructed (and trusted) to do.

In The Taking, a Dean Koontz novel, the monster invades the home, which is really the hometown of the protagonist, writer Molly Sloan. The monster--or monsters, actually, since they turn out, despite the alien disguises, to be Satan and his hellish horde--want their small town in the mountains, possibly because of its scenic location, and, presumably, the world, which they’ve begun to reverse terraform. Their den? The Inferno, of course.

Freddie Krueger comes from outside, to invade the dreams of the children of parents who’d banded together to burn him alive inside a building after they caught him molesting their kids. Although, in A Nightmare on Elm Street, we never see it, his lair must be somewhere dark and damp and slimy, like his mind.

In The Exorcist, the devil also enters from outside, trespassing upon the sanctity and the soul of young Regan MacNeil, whom he possesses so he can levitate her and fly her around her bedroom like a cheap propeller-driven airplane (the propeller being her head, which spins around in a complete circle, often while vomiting pea soup). It beats flying Delta, one must suppose. His den? The Inferno, of course. (Weren’t you paying attention when we mentioned The Taking?)

Carrie White, of Stephen King’s Carrie, is also a trespasser; she invades her high school, carrying with her all the guilt and shame that her mother, a religious fanatic, has been able to heap upon her during a pitiful adolescence in a den not so much of iniquity as insanity. For some teens, home is hell.

The outcast monster Grendel, of Beowulf fame, motivated by his jealousy at the Danish thanes’ fellowship, slips out of his lake, or marsh, to invade the Danes’ home turf, represented by King Hygelac’s court and the warrior’s mead hall, Heorot.

Carl Denham, Ann Darrow, and their entourage, motivated by greed, enter the monster’s lair, an island jungle (or a jungle island) inhabited by the gigantic ape King Kong.

One more example: Species. In this film, alien deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA for short) is mixed with human DNA in an attempt to create a teddy bear. Well, okay, actually the scientists are trying to create a docile alien-human hybrid, which is only a slightly less silly premise. Instead, they get Sil, whom the scientists’ military arm immediately try to squash or quash or something before she can mate with men and produce more and more of her kind. She has killer good looks, so the threat’s as real as if she were Pamela Anderson instead of a weirdo-alien-rapist-phallic woman-femme-fatale-monster-thing.

We could go on and on, but we’ve made out point. There is the home, and there is the lair. The home is invaded by the monster. The lair is entered by the human. (Since we are the humans, we enter, rather than “invade,” although the monster whose den we’ve “entered” most likely regards our trespass upon its domicile as an invasion, which is one reason that it fights.) This perspective, skewed in the favor of humans though it may be, sheds light on what we consider home (the near, the dear, and the familiar) and what we regard as the monster’s lair (far and worthless and bizarre): according to our brief survey, at least, HOME = civilization, the workplace, a respectable lifestyle, one’s hometown, peaceful night's sleep, high school, the king’s court or the mead hall (today, we’d be more inclined to call it a tavern), human society, and the LAIR = a derelict spaceship, a remote highway motel, an invaded town, nightmares, one’s own mind or home when it's invaded or headed by a nutcase parent, a swamp, a jungle island (or an island jungle), and the nightclubs in which the sexually desperate shake, shake, shake their booties. Sometimes, we don’t even know that our homes are our homes, valued and loved, until they’re threatened. If we survive, though, we are apt to appreciate them. . . for a time, at least.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Plot Meets Laws of Motion

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman


Since writers tend to look for metaphors everywhere, they’re apt to find some of them in the strangest places.

How strange?

Think Sir Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion. Then, think plot. Now, there are a couple of strange bedfellows, to be sure.

Nevertheless, the metaphor seems to work, and, for writers, being the pragmatic souls they are, that’s all that matters.

To wit:

1. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

In fiction, the external force is the plot’s inciting moment, which is the launch pad, so to speak, that launches the rest of the story’s action. However, in fiction, the inciting moment can be either internal or external and, in fact, is often likely to be both, as is Dorothy Gale’s decision to run away from home and her subsequent leaving, which results in her being caught in a tornado and whisked off to Oz. Once he or she is set in motion, the main character will continue to overcome obstacles (see the third law of motion, below) until he or she succeeds or fails in realizing or attaining his or her goal.

2. The relationship between an object’s mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F=ma. Acceleration and force are vectors, and the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.

This law corresponds to the pacing of the story’s action. The bigger the threat that the protagonist encounters, the faster the story’s pace becomes; lesser threats or absent threats slow the pacing.

3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The protagonist is locked in a dance with the antagonist. Every time the former attempts to realize or attain his or her goal, the latter acts to block or otherwise frustrate the protagonist’s effort or other obstacles appear to oppose the main character. These series of antagonistic reactions to the protagonist’s actions represent the story’s rising action (that part of the plot wherein the story’s basic conflict is complicated, prior to the climax, or turning point).

Of course, the laws, which may be sufficient to account for motion, don’t exhaust the mechanics of plot, but they are a memorable way of summarizing at least some of the important elements of this element of fiction and kind of cool and interesting in a nerdy sort of way to writers, readers, literary critics, and other geeks and nerds.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Fill-in-the-Blanks (Don't panic! It's not a quiz!)

copyright 2007 by Gary L. Pullman

There are many ways to generate a plot idea and to develop it so that the action that flows from the idea follows the format of the traditional story.

A traditional story depicts its main character as wanting to attain a goal for a definite, specific reason. The main character is then pitted against an adversary, the story’s antagonist, who wants to attain the same goal or a conflicting one for a reason of his or her own.

As a result, the main character encounters a series of increasingly more difficult obstacles. At first, all goes either poorly or well. (If the story is a comedy, things go poorly at first; if it’s to be a tragedy, things go well at first.) At the story’s turning point, the main character’s fortune changes for the better or the worse. If things were going poorly to begin with, they improve. If things were going well at the beginning of the story, they begin to deteriorate.

At the end of the story, for a reason that fits the set of circumstances involved, the main character either attains his or her goal or does not do so (or realizes that the goal was not as important as he or she had once supposed). As a result of the experience that the main character has undergone, he or she learns a lesson. The lesson is the theme of the story.

One way to make sure you develop your story along these lines is to use the fill-in-the blank approach. Here’s a template that you can use:


The main character, _________________ _________________, wants to
_________________ because _________________ , but he or she must struggle against _________________ _________________, who wants _________________ because _________________. This story takes place in _________________ (location) in _________________ (time period). To attain his or her goal, _________________ _________________ (the main character) must overcome the following, increasingly more difficult obstacles: _________________, _________________, and _________________ (add more if desired). For the main character, for whom everything goes _________________ (well or poorly) at the beginning of the story, the turning point (climax) occurs when he or she _________________, and then the opposite state of affairs ensues, as things begin to _________________(worsen or improve). At the end of the story, _________________ _________________ (the main character) _________________ (attains or does not attain) his or her goal, because _________________ (reason), learning that _________________ (lesson learned from the experience; the story’s theme) and, as a result, changes by _________________ (how the main character changes).


Now, let’s see how the template would look if it had been used to outline The Wizard of Oz (film version) in which we've added bold font to highlight the key information:

The main character, Dorothy Gale, wants to return to her home in Kansas because she is homesick, but she must struggle against the Wicked Witch of the West, who wants Dorothy‘s ruby slippers because they are magic. This story takes place in Oz (location) in the present day (time period). To attain her goal, Dorothy Gale (the main character) must overcome the following, increasingly more difficult obstacles: escape the fighting trees, survive the deadly poppy field, and seize the Wicked Witch‘s broomstick (add more if desired). For the main character, for whom everything goes poorly (well or poorly) at the beginning of the story, the turning point (climax) occurs when he or she is sent by the Wizard to seize the Wicked Witch‘s broomstick, and then the opposite state of affairs ensues, as things begin to improve (worsen or improve). At the end of the story, Dorothy Gale (the main character) attains (attains or does not attain) his or her goal, because Glinda, the Good Witch, tells Dorothy how to use the ruby slippers to take her home (reason), learning that there‘s no place like home (lesson learned from the experience; the story’s theme) and, as a result, changes by being content with her life on the Kansas farm (how the main character changes).

In future installments, we’ll consider other effective ways to generate plot ideas and develop the story’s action.

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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