Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts

Friday, March 11, 2022

The Problem-Solution Plot

 Copyright 2022 by Gary L. Pullman

In some horror movies, the plot is structured by attempting to solve a problem to no avail. Such plots have three parts: the problem, which is the film's inciting moment; the solution, its turning point; and the failure of the attempted solution, the denouement.

These are examples of films that have this three-part structure.

 

The Hunger (1983)

Problem: Beautiful vampire Miriam's husband John begins to age rapidly.

Solution: Miriam seeks a new lover.

What Goes Wrong: Miriam ages rapidly after a lover locks her inside a coffin.

Jennifer's Body (2009)

Problem: A ritual transforms Jennifer into a succubus who must devour men to survive.

Solution: Jennifer goes on a killing spree.

What Goes Wrong: During a fight Jennifer bites Needy, who then kills Jennifer but, assuming some of Jennifer's traits, Needy becomes a killer.

 

 

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Problem: Witches seek the perfect man.

Solution: They find the devil, who poses as their dream come true.

What Goes Wrong: The witches attempt to control the devil through various magic spells.

Piranha 3D (2010):

Problem: Flesh-eating, prehistoric fish swarm Lake Victoria during spring break.

Solution: The fish feed on tourists.

What Goes Wrong: The piranha are killed, but they are only babies; the mature piranhas live, continuing the attacks.


Species (1995)

Problem: A female alien, Sil, needs to breed.

Solution: Sil kills men unsuitable mates.

What Goes Wrong: Although blasted with a shotgun, Sil mutates into a different, equally vicious, organism.


Nekromaniac (1987)

Problem: Rob, a street sweeper who cleans up after grisly accidents brings home a full corpse for him and his wife Betty to enjoy sexually.

Solution: Betty prefers the corpse over Rob.

What Goes Wrong: Rob commits suicide.

Psycho (1960)

Problem: Norman Bates's mother won't allow him to date.

Solution: Norman kills a woman to whom he is attracted.

What Goes Wrong: Norman, who dresses as his late “mother,” is arrested and jailed.


Monday, January 10, 2022

The Writer's Toolbox, Part I

 Copyright 2022 by Gary L. Pullman

 A writer's toolbox contains instruments that are used to perform specific tasks related to a particular process. These same tools serve both the writer of fiction and nonfiction:


  • Analysis: the separation of an idea or an argument into its constituent parts for the understanding the function of each part individually and their interrelationships with one another; see process analysis

  • Argumentation: the use of inductive and deductive reasoning to advance and support a premise with convincing argument or to refute the premise of an opposing point of view

  • Classification: the grouping of persons, places, things, or ideas or evidence into categories according to common characteristics

  • Comparison: the process of identifying similarities between two or more persons, places, things, or ideas that are alike in a significant way

  • Contrast: the process of identifying differences between two or more persons, places, things, or ideas that are unalike in a significant way

  • Definition: identifying the meaning of a word based on its genus (classification among similar terms) and its differentiae (differences from those with which it is classified)

  • Description: the presentation of the characteristics of persons, places, things, or ideas

  • Division: the separation of persons, places, things, or ideas on the bases of differences between or among them

  • Exemplification: the process of providing examples to illustrate a thesis or topic sentence.

  • Process analysis: the process of identifying and explaining the steps, in sequence, result in a particular outcome


Some of these tools, such as classification and division and comparison and contrast, are opposites but are often used together.

These tools, or patterns of development, may be used on the page (onstage, as it were), while writing a story or a script, or off the page (offstage), during the planning of a story or a script, for example.

In our next post, we will consider how several notable authors of horror fiction use these instruments in the writing of their fiction.



Wednesday, November 24, 2021

What Scares Me and, More Importantly, What Scares YOU?

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman


The List Challenges website depicts “A List of 100 Common (And Not So Common) Fears. Maybe some of yours are on it. A few of mine certainly are!

 


Among the fears identified on the List Challenges list are the fears of heights, dogs, diseases, dying, spiders, flying, snakes, crowds, elevators, being pregnant, and a lot more.

What scares me?

 


The uncertainty of life: We are here today and gone tomorrow, but we don't know when “tomorrow” may come.

 


Being trapped: Despair, followed closely by madness, seems likely to be the end results of being trapped; when there is no way out, there is no hope; when there is not hope, sanity seems certain.

 

Pain: Each of us has his or her own pain threshold. For some, it is lower than for others but, at some point, we will have had more than enough, more, maybe, than we can handle. When and where the threshold is—well, we wouldn't know that until we'd passed it.

 

Torture: To be tortured implies that one is bound or caged, as no one would suffer torture willingly, and if we are immobilized or confined, we have neither freedom nor control; we are helpless at the hands (literally) of a sadist. Watching another person being tortured might not frighten as much as horrify.


Heights: A height reminds us of the precariousness of our existence, of how quickly, completely, and irrevocably our existence—our minds, hearts, dreams, and intentions—can be wiped out within seconds, should we fall.


Now, what about you?

What sacres you? Make a list. Then, ask yourself what the fear is about. For example, if you fear darkness, why? What does darkness imply, or represent, to you? Blindness? Vulnerability? Loss of control? Helplessness? All of the above?

Once you have your list and you have identified what each specific fear may “mean” to you, ask yourself how you could visually represent the fear and its “meaning” to an audience. What images would you choose? How would you convey them?


Here's how I would visualize my own:

The uncertainty of life: A patient lies in bed, on his back. He turns onto his left side. A patient nutrition representative enters the room, picks up the patient's tray, on which the meal delivered earlier remains untouched. It is a meal that could be served for lunch or dinner. The representative shakes his head, looking with pity upon the sleeping patient, the leaves, removing the tray. The patient rolls onto his right side. The vital signs monitor's alarms sound, the numbers on the multiple displays spinning impossibly fast, as various lights flash. The monitor shows flat lines. In bed, the patient twists, sits rigidly upright, collapses, writhes, frothing at the mouth, his eyes bulging. The vital signs monitor melts, catching fire. A clock shows a second hand sweep past noon or, perhaps, midnight: the lighting of the room makes it impossible to tell which. The patient's body relaxes, goes limp; his eyes stare at nothing.

Being trapped: A mine collapses. Inside, pinned beneath fallen rock, a miner struggles to free himself. After a strenuous struggle, he quits, out of breath and weak. He sees a saw just out of reach. The mine remains unstable. A fall of rock shoves the saw within the miner's reach. Grimacing, he cuts off the leg beneath the rock, ties a tourniquet around his amputated calf, and crawls down the tunnel of the mine. He passes out. Awakening later, he is weaker from blood loss, but he manages to crawl toward a shaft of sunlight, hopeful that he has found a means of escape. As he continues to crawl, another collapse of the mine occurs, burying him and crushing him to death.

Pain: A surgeon tells a missionary who preaches at a remote African mission that his injury has become infected with gangrene and that his leg must be amputated. Fortunately, medical supplies are available, and the surgeon has everything he needs—except an anesthetic. The surgeon tells four men he has recruited as assistants to “hold him down.” To the missionary, the surgeon says, “Star praying, padre.”

Torture: A Chinese soldier is assigned the task of filming the torture of a Chinese man who tried to assassinate a politician. The failed assassin has been condemned to die the death of a thousand cuts. The soldier photographing the horrific torture wants desperately to avert his eyes but cannot. He winces as the first cut to the condemned man's body is made.

Heights: A woman taking a selfie poses at the edge of a 2,000-foot cliff. Unnoticed to her, a rat scampers over nearby rocks. “It's funny,” she says aloud, “how we fear one thing and not another. I mean, I'm terrified of rats, but heights mean nothing to me.” She adjusts her stance, moves her camera in and out, adjusting the range. The rat dashes forth from a crevice. Seeing it, she jumps backward and falls to her death, her body tumbling down the jagged face of the cliff.

Now, ask yourself what to change, if anything. Add details? Delete details? Change an angle? Show blood? Viscera? Switch between everyday incidents and the building horror you are showing? Have two people trapped in different ways? Two people experiencing different kinds of pain? Two people being tortured at the same time but in different ways? Two people climbing a cliff, one of whom falls? Change the character's age, sex, or social class? Change the setting so that, perhaps, torture occurs in the penthouse suite of a luxury hotel or the fall from a height involves a helicopter instead of a cliff? Change the time that the horrific incident takes place? It's not a mine, but one's own mind, in which the character is trapped? Work up several scenes before deciding on which is most horrific. Then, change your description into a full, dramatic scene and use it in your novel, short story, or film script.


Saturday, October 30, 2021

Happy Halloween

 A few stories you might enjoy this Halloween:

 


Child's play Real story behind 'haunted' island of the Dolls in Mexico

Deep in the heart of the canals of Xochimilco—Mexico City’s last vestige of the Aztecs—is one of the world’s most haunted and tragic locations: the Island of the Dolls

New York Post

 


 
Killer goods Museum devoted to serial killers & cults is pandemic's hot tourist spot

The Graveface Museum, which opened its doors on Valentine’s Day 2020, is filled with eerie oddities like Charles Mansion’s sweatpants, packets of Flavor-Aid taken from the scene of the Jonestown cult mass suicide and even the actual spine of Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.

 New York Post

 

Time marches on! Fascinating snaps show how the years take their toll on objects - from a moss-covered chair to the shadow of an ID photo on its plastic cover

Daily Mail

 

10 Creepy Corpses on Public Display

. . . after death, a persons’ corpse, embalmed or mummified, might be put on public display, as an exhibit visitors would pay to see. For we who yet live, this list of 10 creepy corpses that were on public display at one time or another suggests just how ghastly and gruesome such a posthumous fate would be.

 Listverse

 


10 More Cinematic Chillers & Thrillers Based on Horrific Crimes

 The[se] criminal offenses, which include body-snatching, train robbery, kidnapping, and fraud, involve the use of picks and shovels, dynamite, “burking,” pistols, ropes, knives, water, machine guns, and, yes, even cameras. In addition, each has inspired a cinematic chiller or thriller nearly as terrifying and electrifying as the crime itself.

Listverse

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Structural Elements of Horror

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

An analysis of horror films discloses the use of a number of specific types of scenic elements that tend to recur frequently in such movies. Except for the prologue and the epilogue, the order in which these scenic elements occur may differ, and not all may be present in a film, although, typically, many, if not all, appear. In addition, each scenic element can be shown by itself or in combination with another (for example, an abduction can stand alone or be followed by a rescue or a murder). (Those common to more than one of the films analyzed in this post are in bold font.)

In Halloween (1978), these scenic elements occur in this order:

  • Prologue (introduction)

  • Escape (flight from antagonist or captivity)

  • Stalking (hunting)

  • Investigation (search for information by either amateur or professional sleuth[s])

  • Murder(s) (unjustified killing[s])

  • Encounter of protagonist and antagonist (first meeting of hero or heroine and villain, usually without violence)

  • Initial attack on protagonist (first attack upon the hero or heroine)

  • Escape

  • Sustained attack on protagonist (sustained attack on hero or heroine, often by antagonist)

  • Rescue (deliverance from danger)

  • Epilogue (conclusion following main action of plot)

In Annabelle (2014), these scenic elements occur in this order:

  • Prologue

  • Murder(s)

  • Investigation

  • Attack

  • Rescue

  • Intelligence (provision or acquisition of information, often about the villain [e. g., origin, past, relationships], through secondary sources, such as television or radio news broadcasts, Internet browsing, books, police reports)

  • Paranormal or supernatural incidents: (events inexplicable by science or reason)

  • Relocation (displacement from one location to another)

  • Pursuit

  • Escape

  • Discovery (finding of intelligence through own or others' actions)

  • Attack

  • Discovery

  • Attack

  • Warning (advisory of imminent danger)

  • Attempted abduction (carrying away by force)

  • Epilogue

In The Exorcist, (1973), these scenic elements occur in this order:

Prologue

Paranormal or supernatural incidents

Investigation (medical)

Investigation (constabulary)

Encounter of protagonist and antagonist

Intelligence

Paranormal or supernatural incidents

Attack

Death (loss of life due to natural causes)

Attack

Death

Rescue

Epilogue

In Psycho (1960), these scenic elements occur in this order:

  • Tryst (private meeting between lovers)

  • Crime other than murder (theft)

  • Escape

  • Investigation

  • Relocation

  • Concealment of stolen property

  • Encounter of protagonist and antagonist

  • Argument (heated discussion between two or more characters)

  • Repeated encounter of protagonist and antagonist

  • Decision to make restitution (deciding to restore to the rightful owner something that has been taken away, lost, or surrendered)

  • Murder

  • Disposal of incriminating evidence

  • Intelligence

  • Investigation

  • Murder

  • Investigation

  • Discovery

  • Intelligence

  • Investigation

  • Distraction (deliberate diversion of someone's attention from one incident or action to another)

  • Attack

  • Concealment of oneself or another

  • Discovery

  • Attack

  • Rescue

  • Intelligence

As this partial analysis of the recurring types of scenic elements common to horror films shows, such movies frequently use the same ones, despite the dramatic details of their plots. A writer who is interested in writing a horror novel or screenplay can use these same scenic elements to construct a plot based on a structure that has stood the test of time.


Saturday, October 16, 2021

Creating an Eerie Setting and Tone, Part II

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 

In the first part of this series, we considered this same topic. In this post, we take a look at it from a different perspective.


Woods can be unsettling. Why? They are apart from developed areas, which are products of human knowledge, innovation, art, technology, imagination, and technique. Development takes (and shows) a mastery of the environment, control over nature.

We did not ask trees to assume the dimensions and configurations of floors and walls and ceilings. We used trees to make planks and boards, panels and drywall, just as we used lime or gypsum and sand and water to make plaster and converted sedimentary material into clay to make bricks. Every building, commercial, residential, or otherwise, is a human product, an example of humanity’s power and control over the earth.

Outside cities and suburbs and farms, though, nature, not humanity, rules. Beyond civilization, the wilderness reigns. Woods, like other natural landscapes, represent the untamed world of nature, “red in tooth and claw,” as Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1992) reminds us. Our power centers are only fortresses and outposts in an indifferent universe in which menace and death are as likely as benefit and nurture.

Like deserts, islands, mountains, rain forests, swamps, and the open sea, woods, or forests, remind us that human power and authority over nature are limited, especially outside the cities and suburbs and farms that peoples have carved out of the wilderness, and “tamed” (to some extent) for themselves, as centers of human enterprise. (Blizzards, earthquakes, forest fires, floods, hurricanes, landslides, tornadoes, and other natural disasters are also reminders that human power and authority are limited and fragile; both can be lost in a moment of time.)

When we leave behind our homes and communities to venture into the wilderness, we leave behind the support and assistance of government, families, friends, and neighbors; we also leave behind the organizations and institutions we have created and developed over centuries: military forces, police, firefighters, paramedics, hospitals, doctors, nurses, jails, prisons, forts, highways, vehicles. We put ourselves, to a large degree, at the mercy of nature, “red in tooth and claw.”

Certainly, we may have some tools at our disposal: a tent, food, water, a knife, perhaps a pistol or a rifle, a telephone, matches or a lighter, maybe a hatchet. While such items certainly assist us with everyday tasks and provide the means to satisfy basic needs, they might not be all that helpful against a bear, a cougar, a forest fire, a flash flood, illness, or an escaped prisoner.

What copywriter Barbara Gips observed, in suggesting the tagline to her husband, artist Philip Gips, for the Alien movie poster he was creating, “In space no one can hear you scream” is as true in the woods as it is beyond the exosphere or, as Star Wars puts it, “in a galaxy far, far away.” We are cut off, isolated, on our own, without recourse to protection or any other kind of assistance.

People who read our fiction may not remember their vulnerability as they sit down to read a novel or a short story of watch a movie, but they will feel this helplessness and exposure, all right, if we, as writers, do our jobs well, because our fiction—and our settings—will put them at risk, if only vicariously, and the risk will not be slight; it will be the risk of the loss of life or limb. Described properly, an eerie setting can, and should, suggest this vulnerability to injury or death or, at the very least, to peril, to menace, to danger, to jeopardy, to pain and suffering, and, quite possibly, death.

“Think globally, but live locally,” we have been advised. Similar advice is good for writing: “Think cosmically but write personally.” As writers of horror, we have a Weltanschauung, or world view, that is likely pessimistic: we may hope for the best, but we expect the worst. Possibly, that’s the case because we are aware that the shadow of death falls across all things: friends, family, pursuits of happiness, love, and life itself. With some exceptions, for horror writers, life is a tragedy, ultimately: Life is a bitch, and then we die.

Again, we shouldn’t expect our readers to think about such glum ideas as they read our stories, but we should; we need to know what lies ahead, and, we know, what lies ahead is not a pretty or an encouraging sight. All may be well that ends well, but life does not end well. Instead of lecturing readers, we show them. What happens to our characters, we suggest, could happen to our readers. That’s what identification and vicarious experience are all about.

We describe settings as eerie; we show what happens to our characters in such a setting. We leave it to our readers to discern that they, too, could become prey or victims, whether of the environment itself or a wild animal, a monster, a serial killer, or some other peril. 

I am studying a picture, now, of woods. The image evokes a feeling of disquiet, of uneasiness; it is unsettling, eerie. I write, describing it.

The fog, white here, gray there, as if unable to settle on one shade or the other, is a wall. Rising from the forest floor, it ascends into the sky, a screen, a barrier that cuts off sight, rather than passage. It does not move, does not waver or drift, but stands, a wall immovable and resolute, sinister in its immovability, in its resolute intent.

Leafless trunks, sparse of branch and twig, stand, tall and thin and dark—at least up close; those more distant are vague suggestions, obscured by the pallid pall of the fog engulfing them, the mist that seems to leech away their vitality, their form, their very being. They are more the ghosts of frees, it seems, pale and thin in the motionless haze of the fog. The stand of trees is lost, kindling wood awaiting the flames, should lightning strike this dreary wood in a storm that has not gathered yet, but will.

The fog and the frail, thin trees I take in at a glance, but my eye is arrested by the leaves shed by the trees, the leaves lying, by the hundreds and the thousands, red, like drops of blood, upon the forest floor, lit by a moon unseen—or, perhaps, by an unearthly, unnatural light not of this world. It is as if the very trees or the earth itself bleeds! What power could injure the land itself, blight a forest, obscure the wilderness itself with a veil that is not of this world?

Let’s trek through this forest, the forest of my description, and mark the rhetorical trail we have forged through the narrative wilderness, the better to see the way we have come, and how.

We start with a personification, as the fog is unable to decide (“settle on”) whether to be white or gray and, consequently, is both. An effect of the weather, fog has no intelligence or will—except that we have given it both! If the fog is possessed of a mind that can consider alternatives and make choices, in principle, at least, it could decide to act against us and plan an attack upon us. Its indecisiveness may not work to our advantage. If the fog is unable to decide how best to kill us, it might try several methods, proceeding by trial and error. It is also a barrier, cutting us off—from what? Community? Society? Assistance? The infrastructure of organizations and institutions? Highways? Resources? Or is the fog preventing us from seeing whatever lies beyond it—our way out, perhaps, our avenue to rescue or escape? Whatever its aim, the fog’s intent seems hostile. It is also resolute, determined, staunch: it will not permit sight and the knowledge that vision provides. By blinding us, it keeps us ignorant and, therefore, vulnerable—perhaps to whatever it hides.

The trees of the forest suggest that nature itself is under attack. The trees are bare, leafless, perhaps lifeless. They are thin, pale, perhaps sickly. They are “engulfed” by the parasitic fog, which seems to “leech away their vitality, their form, their very being.” Whatever threatens the trees—the very forest itself—is likely to threaten any who enter the forest, including us. Seen from a distance, the trees appear to be already dead, to be mere “ghosts of” themselves. They seem to be “lost” souls, as it were, awaiting the destructive “flames” of divine judgment, of a wrathful god’s lightning bolt. We, who have entered the forest, are likewise under the sentence of divine judgment.

Finally, our gaze is “arrested” by the sight of the blood-red, fallen leaves, which make it appear that “the very trees or the earth itself bleeds!” We wonder, as does the omniscient narrator, “What power could injure the land itself, blight a forest, obscure the wilderness itself with a veil that is not of this world?” Whatever it is, it is a power with which to reckon, to be sure!

These techniques—personification; ambiguous, paradoxical personality traits; and suggestions of a force able to attack and drain the vital forces of nature itself, with specific references to tangible natural objects, fog, trees, and leaves—create an eerie setting that imperils both the forest and anyone, including the story's characters and we, readers who identify with the characters, conveying feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, confusion, and terror.


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, September 19, 2021

Interview with Michael Williams

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman and Michael Williams

Michael Williams is the author of Twisted Tales, a superb series that consists, at present, of three volumes of flash fiction, Tales with a Twist, Tales with a Twist II, Tales with a Twist III, Tales with a Twist IV, and Tales with a Twist V. Besides writing, Michael especially enjoys sailing and “cultural exploration.” We're happy to share this interview on Chillers and Thrillers.


Q: What interests you in the super-short genre of flash fiction?

A: Alfred Hitchcock once said that a movie shouldn’t be longer than the capacity of the human bladder. I find I agree. Edgar Allan Poe considered the effect of short fiction to be more intense than that of longer works, such as novels or—my apologies to Hitch—full-length motion pictures. I also tend to concur with Poe: shorter fiction can pack more of an emotional wallop than longer forms. In our modern, fast-paced world, I think shorter fiction is also more convenient for many. A lot of people want complete stories without having to spend hours or days to read them.


Q: It seems that you prefer fantastic to realistic stories. Why is that?


A: Actually, I enjoy reading and writing all forms of fiction, but I think that tales of the fantastic, marvelous, and uncanny—handy distinctions that Tzvetan Todorov makes—add an element of magic to mundane experience, the icing, so to speak, on the cake. I also believe that, as Flannery O’Connor once said, a writer sometimes needs to use hyperbolic techniques to communicate with readers, and the shock of the surreal; the astonishment of the weird; and the wonder of the otherworldly, the supernatural, the occult, and the mystical provide these rhetorical approaches.

Q: As the titles of your books suggest, your tales are rather “twisted.” I'm going to ask the question most writers hate to hear: Where do you get your ideas?

 


A: I'm an eclectic reader. I enjoy learning about a variety of subjects. I guess you could say I'm a generalist. Sometimes, when the stars are in alignment, a remembered fact here will meet up with a recalled fact there, and, out of this connection of one thing and another, an idea will emerge. I might combine one of Thomas Edison’s inventions with the spiritualistic belief in the ability of the living to communicate with the dead, or I could update an ancient myth or a modern horror movie. As Arthur Golding wrote, in translating John Calvin, “All is grist for the mill.”


Q: I know you're something of a mariner. Does the sea ever feature in your stories?


A: Not as often as I might expect, but, yes, there is a sea tale or two. In one, the ocean solves a murder, which is rather a novel notion, I think.


Q: By definition, according to the title of your series, Twisted Tales, and by the titles of the books in the series, each of your flash fiction narratives contains a plot twist. How do you think up so many of them?

 


A: Usually, the story suggests one. However, I also employ a couple of tricks, or techniques—three, actually. First, when plotting a story such as those in Tales with a Twist, Tales with a Twist II, or Tales with a Twist III, I keep in mind the idea that almost everything has a direct opposite: new, old; lost, found; hero, villain; reward, punishment; rich, poor; right, wrong. Then, I start with one polarity and end with its opposite. The second way is more concrete. I keep a list of the plot twists I see in novels, short stories, movies, and TV series. Then, I adapt them to fit the situation or circumstances of my own stories. My third technique is to remember that there is a fine line not only between good and evil and right and wrong, but between all such polar opposites. A person who is cautious may become distrustful or even paranoid; a man who's strict can become controlling; a woman who's concerned with her own health and that of others—a doctor or a nurse, perhaps—can become a hypochondriac; a trusting person may become gullible. Each of these possibilities is a source of plot twists.


Q: How many of your tales with a twist are autobiographical?

A: Many of them are fantasies in which I explore how something might be if a particular set of unusual circumstances were to apply. Many of my stories are thought experiments, of a sort. I place a certain type of character in a particular kind of environment and see whether he or she adapts and, if the character does adapt, how he or she manages to do so. Frequently, the environment is physical, but it need not be; some of my stories' environments are philosophical, or moral, or psychological, or political, or cultural, or otherwise. The autobiographical element, when there is one, may be small—a detail here or there, the description of a place I've been, desires I've experienced, wishes I may have wanted to fulfill, thoughts or feelings or impressions I've had, that sort of thing, embedded in the narration, the exposition, or the dialogue.


Q: Let's talk a bit about some of the individual stories themselves. “Empty Pockets,” in Tales with a Twist, the first volume: where did that come from?

 


A: I remember reading about the childhood of Jeffrey Dahmer. By his own admission, he had nurturing parents and a good childhood. I never read anything that contradicted his assessments. Nevertheless, he turned out to be both a serial killer and a cannibal. I also remembered how, growing up, my brothers and I and the rest of the boys in our neighborhood carried a collection of odds and ends, some living, others inanimate, in our pockets. As a boy, what would a serial killer the likes of Dahmer of Ted Bundy be apt to carry in his pockets? What would his mother think if she discovered the contents of her son's pockets?


Q. To paraphrase someone we both know, out of a connection between a remembered fact here and a recalled fact there, a story arises, right?

A: Precisely.


Q: “A Living Hell,” in Tales with a Twist II, seems to be a satire on life insurance companies. Is that what you intended?

A: Partly, yes. But I also wanted to touch upon the narcissism of some who indulge in high-risk activities as well as examine the potential consequences of insuring oneself against hazardous escapades. It's as much a spoof on the behavior of those who pursue an adrenaline rush as it is a lampoon of insurance companies that will insure anything if the price of the premium is high enough.


Q: “Love Bite,” in Tales with a Twist III, is a neat take on the vampire tale. Can you give us an idea how it originated?

 

 

A: I wanted to start with the my-boyfriend-is-a-vampire trope, but in reverse, so the vampire is the girlfriend, and I added to that the additional trope of the boy's being an unpopular geek—not a literal geek, mind you, who bites heads off chickens, à la Ozzy Osbourne with the bat, but in the sense of being a nerd. So that raised the question, for me, of what this hot chick is doing with him as her boy toy. I thought of a couple of angles, but I think the one I decided on gives the story both its twist and its kick.


Q: It's certainly a story readers can sink their teeth into.

A: Wow! What a great blurb! Do you mind if I use it?


Q: (chuckles): Help yourself, Michael. “Spirits,” in Tales with a Twist IV, seems to be a cautionary tale. Do you intend it to be such?

A: I suppose it is, yes. Its theme, although not overt, or explicit, is discernible in the fact that the culprit’s addiction survives his death. On a figurative level, this situation suggests not how difficult it is to overcome one’s dependence on a drug, but also the degree to which such dependence can affect someone; the effects can persist beyond the person’s own existence, affecting the lives of others, including even people who are strangers to the deceased. I’m not sure all that was there, the meaning, before I wrote the story, but it is embedded in the finished tale.


Q: The epigraphs of some of the stories in the fourth and fifth volumes of Tales with a Twist mention other writers: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frank R. Stockton, Emily Dickinson, Ovid, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, for example; a couple of other stories’ epigraphs mention philosophers or artists as well: Paracelsus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Johan Wolfgang Mozart. Would you consider these individuals a major influence in your own work?

A: Let’s not forget Jonathan Edwards; he’s mentioned, too, indirectly, by way of the title of one of his sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” I’d say that each of them, in his or her own way, has been, and remains, more or less influential and inspirational, as have many others, including H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Shirley Jackson, Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming, Daphne du Maurier, Lawrence Block, Bentley Little, Joyce Carol Oates, James Patterson, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Sheckley, Mark Twain, and, of course, William Shakespeare. (Laughs.) I could go on and on. Each of them has taught me something vital about writing.


Q: Could we have an example, please?

 



A: I’ll give you a couple. Bradbury, a consummate wordsmith, taught me that poetry need not be restricted to verse, that prose itself can be poetic. His diction, but also his images, his metaphors, and his other figures of speech, give his writing cadence and rhythm, nuance and color, magic and wonder. Wells and Poe, at least equally adept in painting landscapes and interiors of horror, are also excellent practitioners of the both the art and craft of writing, painting in words what Edvard Munch, Hieronymus Bosch, H. R. Giger, Frida Kahlo, and Renee Magritte, to name a few, captured with pigments. From Poe, Sherwood Anderson, and Shirley Jackson, I learned the nature and the use of the grotesque.


Q: One final question, if I may?

A: Please.


Q: Will your Twisted Tales series have more Tales with a Twist?

A: I'm working on the next one now.


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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