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.

Talking Pictures: Plotting through Image Analysis and Imaginative Elaboration

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Characters, incidents, settings, processes, and motives are among the persons, places, and things that inspire horror. Pretty much anything can, as long as it is eerie or lends itself to an eerie interpretation.

 

For moviemakers, images often suggest horror. (They also horror to many writers of other genre fiction as well, of course; C. S. Lewis, the author Christian and children's fantasy and science fiction, for example, said his stories often began with images.)

When examining a picture—never merely look at a picture, whether it's a drawing, a photograph, a painting, or some other visual representation; study it in detail; then, wait a while and study it again—ask yourself, Which question do I first ask myself about the picture: who? what? when? where? how? or why?

The right picture will speak to you. How can you be sure the picture you're studying is the “right picture?” Easy. If it is, it will let you know; it will speak to you.

Not literally, of course. Not out loud. But it will suggest questions, imply ideas, elicit emotions, show relationships between one of its elements—color, perhaps—and others—texture, maybe, or shape. One thought, one intuition, one feeling will lead to another and another.

Before you converse with pictures, it's helpful to know what sort of things to study. Remember, too, that, in the Western world, people are taught to read from left to right and from top to bottom. The most important part of the image will be positioned close to the center of the image.

Here are some basic elements to consider: contrasts, colors, distance, intensity, overlapping of objects, placement, position, shapes, sizes, structural pattern (e. g., horizontal, diagonal, vertical, sectional), text (if any), and textures.

On the figurative level, consider whether the image alludes to anything beyond itself, such as a work of art or an historical period; look for visual metaphors; consider symbolism; and determine whether personification is used. Often, if the picture has symbolic or metaphorical significance and text, the text will act as the key to unlocking the literal meaning suggested by the visual figure of speech.

If figures are included in the image, consider their sex, gender, age, financial status, social class, costume, facial expression, posture, pose, body language, and relationships to other figures, if any, and to the objects, or “props,” if any, and the landscape or interior space shown in the image.

Now, let's try a simple exercise, using this image:

What question first addresses itself to me is, Why is the doll crying? In other words, I am most interested in the question of motive. If I am uncertain, I may hazard a guess, indicating it as such by following the guess with a question mark in parentheses; if, as yet, I have no answer, I will indicate this by using just a question mark.

Now that I've determined my chief interest in the image, I should answer the other, related questions:

Who? = doll

What? = crying

When? and Where = In the darkness

How? = magic (?)

Why? = ?

Next, I will “read” the image from right to left and from top to bottom, making notes concerning questions, ideas, emotions, and relationships between one of its elements of the image:

• Right eye is half-closed; left eye, open
• Right eye is dark; right eye, blue
• A teardrop on the doll's left eye suggests the toy is crying
• In comparison to the nose and mouth, the doll's eyes are exceptionally large—why?
• There is no background, just a close-up of the doll's seemingly large, round face
• The face is cracked and worn

These are my initial observations. I should ask what each is intended to suggest or mean. (In studying an image, especially if it was produced by a professional artist, we should assume that every detail is carefully thought out and is present for a purpose.)

• The right eye suggests thought, reflection; it seems to look inward. The left eye is open; the doll sees, but it also cries: whatever the doll sees seems to make it sad.
• There is only a single, large teardrop, which seems to imply that either the doll is no longer crying or has only just begun to cry; either it has cried itself out or it is only now being moved to tears.
• The relatively large eyes focus the viewer's attention on them, rather than on its nose or mouth. Its vision, thought, and emotion and what it sees are the important things.
• The setting is unknown, other than by darkness; the time and place are irrelevant. However, the darkness could symbolize fear, ignorance, or death, since black is often associated with one or all of these emotions or states of existence. The large size of the face also focuses the viewer's attention on the doll's face. Its face, the symbol of identity, like the doll's behavior—crying—are the focal points of the image, suggesting that these are the most important features of the picture.
• The crack in the doll's right cheek and the wear on its face could symbolize its suffering; it seems careworn, tired, and slightly injured.

Add any additional observations:

• The image makes use of personification and symbolism.
• None of my observations answers my original question: Why is the doll crying? In other words, what is its motive?

At this point, we are beyond the image. We are asking ourselves a question that the image itself does not, and cannot, answer. Therefore, we must use our imaginations, our knowledge of human nature, and our own experiences as human beings to guess why a doll, if it were capable of crying, might weep. In doing so, we should also be true to the questions, ideas, emotions, and the relationships between the focus feature of the image (in this case, the doll) and the image's other, related elements.

We can start by listing facts known about dolls:

• A doll usually belongs to a girl.
• A doll may be given to a girl as a gift, perhaps by her parents.
• A girl often invests her doll with a “personality” (personifies the doll).
• When a girl is not playing with her doll, the doll is often left by itself, perhaps in a dark place, such as a closet or a toy box.
• A girl may project her own emotions onto her doll.
• A girl may assign the role she plays in her present life to her doll.

Based on these thoughts, we might construct a scenario to explain our original question, Why is the doll crying?

Melinda Jackson abandons her doll, Bessie—not to a closet or to a toy box this time, but to the alley behind her house, beside the trash cans to be collected, along with the other trash, by the city's sanitation crew. Melinda is sad to say goodbye to Bessie, who's been her dearest companion, her confidante, her best friend for most of her life. They've been through a lot, good times and bad. But Melinda is older now—too old for Bessie—and, so, Melinda abandoned her doll. She imagines Bessie alone in the dark alley, frightened and in despair, crying, as Melinda herself is crying. But it is only a tear. She brushes it away. Besides, Bessie is just a doll. Bessie can't really cry.

The idea for the story suggests three parts:

1. Melinda becomes aware that she is “too old” for a doll. (Maybe she has a sleepover and her friends make fun of her for still having a doll.)
2. Melinda is sad to say goodbye to her doll, but, convinced the time has come to part with Bessie, Melinda places Bessie in the dark alley behind her house to be hauled away by the city's sanitation crew.
3. Twist ending

We need to surprise the reader with an unexpected outcome to the story. With Melinda's new awareness that she is “too old” for a doll (Part I) and Melinda's abandonment of her doll so that Bessie can be hauled away by the city's sanitation crew (Part II), we have set up the expectation, in the reader's mind, that Bessie will be discarded. There are several ways the story could end with a twist:

1. One of the sanitation crew could take Bessie home for his own daughter to “adopt.”
2. A dog could carry Bessie home, where another girl could “adopt” Bessie.
3. Bessie really could be magical, and she could return to Melinda, who decides to keep her, after all.

Adopt one of these twists or (or another possibility) and use it to write part three of the story's summary:

III. Recovering from her fright, Bessie walks          back to Melinda's house, returns to the girl's       bedroom, with muddy feet, and takes her          customary place of honor on Melinda's bed.       Shocked, Melinda decides Bessie is magic          and decides to keep her, regardless of her          the taunts of her "friends."

The fifteen basic needs identified by advertising executive Jib Fowles should also be considered in relation to the image: the need to achieve, the need for aesthetic sensations, the need for affiliation, the need to aggress, the need for attention, the need for autonomy, the need to satisfy curiosity, the need to dominate, the need to escape, the need to feel safe, the need to nurture, the need for sex, the need for prominence, and physiological needs (food, drink, sleep, etc.). For example, in the sample story, Madeline feels the need for affiliation (she has a sleepover), and Madeline feels the need for autonomy (she feels that it is time for her to say goodbye to her doll). By appealing to one or more of these basic needs, a story is likely to allow readers to develop empathy for the narrative's characters—in the case of the sample story, for both Madeline and Bessie.

If you'd care to try this approach for a story of your own, you might use the following (or some other) image:

Plotting Board, Part 8

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Although there are several patterns of plots, one is the three-part structure described by Aristotle in his Poetics: beginning, middle, and end. We can think of this three-part structure as consisting of a cause of an action by which action an effect is produced:

1. Cause
2. Action
3. Effect

Every effect, or outcome, can be either comic (end well for the protagonist) or tragic (end poorly for the protagonist).

With this in mind, many varieties of plots can thus be developed:

The Problem-Solution Plot

1. Problem
2. Solution
3. Effect (Outcome)

As Good As It Gets (1997) uses this plot:

1. Problem: Misanthropic Melvin Udall suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder
2. Solution: Melvin falls in love with Carol Connelly, a server.
3. Outcome: Through his relationship with Carol, Melvin reaches the point at which he can overcome his obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The Sex-Violence Plot

1. Sex
2. Violence
3. Outcome

Fatal Attraction (1987) uses this plot:

1. Sex: Dan Gallagher has an affair with Alexandra "Alex" Forrest.
2. Violence: Unstable and possessive, Alex refuses to end the affair, attacking Dan's wife, Beth.
3. Outcome: Dan rescues Beth, who shoots Alex, preventing her from killing her husband.

The Masquerade-Unmasking Plot

1. Masquerade
2. Unmasking
3. Outcome

The Crying Game (1992) uses this plot:

1. Masquerade: Dil, a transvestite, masquerades as a woman.
2. Unmasking: Dil's true sex is revealed as she is about to have sex with Fergus.
3. Outcome: Fergus and Dil remain close friends.

The Victimization-Vengeance Plot

1. Victimization
2. Vengeance
3. Outcome
   
   
   
   
   
   

Sudden Impact (1983) uses this plot:

1. Victimization: Jennifer Spencer and her sister are raped.
2. Vengeance: One by one, Jennifer kills the rapists.
3. Outcome: Detective “Dirty Harry” Callahan learns the serial killer's identity, but lets Jennifer walk.

The Temptation-Sin Plot

1. Temptation
2. Sin
3. Outcome

Joan of Arc (1999) uses this plot:

1. Joan of Arc is tempted to commit the sin of pride.
2. Joan arrogantly insists on attacking Paris.
3. Joan repents and receives God's forgiveness.

The Status Change-Adaptation Plot

1. Status Change
2. Adaptation
3. Outcome

Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part II uses this plot:

1. Status Change: Prince Hal becomes King Henry IV.
2. Adaptation: Henry IV adapts to his new status, becoming responsible and wise.
3. Outcome: Henry IV defeats his enemies and rules well.

The Threat-Response Plot

1. Threat
2. Response
3. Outcome

Alien (1979) uses this plot:

1. Threat: An alien aboard the Nostromo space tug threatens Warrant Officer Ripley and the rest of the vessel's crew.
2. Response: Ripley fights the alien.
3. Outcome: Using her wits, Ripley defeats the alien, opening an airlock, which causes the creature to be sucked from the vessel, and blasts it with Nostromo's engine exhausts.

The Role-Reversal Plot

1. Role
2. Reversal
3. Outcome

The Final Girl (2015) uses this plot:

1. Role: Veronica poses as a helpless young woman, allowing four teenager serial killers to “lure” her into a forest as their next intended victim.
2. Reversal: Actually a highly trained assassin, Veronica, the boys' intended prey, becomes the predator.
3. Outcome: One by one, veronica kills her would-be killers.

There are plenty of other variations on this basic plot pattern. Perhaps we will consider others in a future post.

Lawrence Block and the "Biter Bit" Plot

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Lawrence Block, who started his career as an author by writing erotic pulp fiction novels under such pen names as Jill Emerson, Paul Kavanagh, Sheldon Lord, Andrew Shaw, Don Holliday, Lesley Evans, Lee Duncan, Anne Campbell Clark, and Ben Christopher, wrote, on average, one of these “sex novels,” as they're known in the trade, per month. He's also written many short stories, typically completing one in a single evening or, sometimes, over a weekend, for which reason he calls one collection of his short stories and “novelettes” One Night Stands and Lost Weekends. The anthology contains 25 “one night stands” and three “lost weekends.” Most of them are thrillers, but the book also includes a science fiction story, “Nor Iron Bars a Cage.”

The majority of the stories in this collection are of the so-called “biter bit” variety, which involve a form of poetic justice in which the tables are turned on the antagonist or, sometimes, since Block's fiction is often populated with anti-heroes, the protagonist. The formula is discernible fairly early on, but the stories remain suspenseful because readers wonder how Lawrence will bring about the ironic reversal which ends a particular tale. To say that he's innovative in effecting his resolutions is an understatement. 

Here are a few examples:

“The Bad Night”: Robbers and would-be killers, Benny and Zeke, are subdued and bound by their intended victim, an aging war veteran named Dan.

“The Badger Game”: Dick Baron, a con man, misreads a lonely woman's invitation to have sex with her as a con game, assuming that her husband will arrive to rob him, but Sally English is sincere; when her husband discovers them together, Baron knocks him unconscious before having sex with Sally. Later, Baron is shocked when her husband, having beaten Sally until she'd told him Baron's name, which the husband then used in a bribe paid to the hotel's desk clerk in exchange for Baron's room number, knocks at the con man's door. Forcing his way into Baron's room at gunpoint, the husband shoots and kills him. 

“Bargain in Blood”: At Rita's insistence, Benny Dix, a callow youth, murders her boyfriend, Moe, to win her heart, only to learn, too late, that Rita is aroused by murder, and she stabs Benny to death with the same knife he'd used to kill Moe.

“Bride of Violence”: After saving his girlfriend Rita from a rapist, Jim rapes her himself, despite his knowledge that she was preserving her virginity for their wedding night.

“The Burning Fury”: A woman promises to make a lumberjack “happy,” but, after they leave the bar in which they meet to go to his place, she discovers, too late, that there's only one way to make him happy: he's a sadist.

“The Dope”: A mentally challenged man is astonished that Charlie remains friends with him, even though Charlie served a one-year sentence for the crimes they committed (robbery and manslaughter), while he himself serves a 10-year sentence.

“A Fire at Night”: An arsonist regrets the death of Joe Darkin, a firefighter who'd risked his life seeking to rescue Mrs. Pelton, an obese woman, from the tenement that the arsonist—and the late firefighter's fellow fireman—set earlier that night.

“Frozen Stiff”: Brad Malden, a terminally ill man, decides to commit suicide by shutting himself inside the freezer at his butcher's shop. When his wife Vicki shows up in the company of another man named Jay, Malden realizes they're having an affair. To deny Vicki the double indemnity his life insurance includes for accidental death, Malden rigs a side of lamb with a meat cleaver so that, when he gives the lamb's carcass a swing, the cleaver cuts his throat, making it look as though he were murdered, confident that Vicki's fingerprints, which are “all over the cold-bin door,” will incriminate her.

“Hate Goes Courting”: John murders his older brother Brad after the latter's endless taunts escalate and Brad rapes John's fiance, Margie.

“I Don't Fool Around”: To avenge the murder of criminal Johnny Blue, a veteran cop shoots and kills the murderer, Frank Calder, making it look as though the shooting had been in self-defense. The cop hopes his junior partner, Fischer, who's bothered by the legally unjustified killing, will ask for a new partner.

“Just Window Shopping”: A woman, catching a voyeur peeping at her, invites him into her house, at gunpoint, to have sex with her. When she won't take no for an answer, he shoots her, killing her with her gun, which she'd set aside as she'd pressed herself upon him. Police try to beat a confession out of him, but he refuses to confess to a rape he did not commit.

“Lie Back and Enjoy It”: After an armed woman is raped by the motorist who'd picked her up hitchhiking, she shoots and kills him with a revolver she carries in her purse, telling him that, until he'd raped her, she'd intended only to steal his car and to leave him stranded with “a little money to get home on.” 

“Look Death in the Eye”: A beautiful woman is picked up in a bar by one of the three men she notices are interested in her. At his apartment, she stabs him to death, cuts out his “bright eyes,” and takes them home to keep in a box with others she's collected in the same way.

“Man with a Passion”: Jacob Falch, a blackmailer, is on vacation after having extorted money from a mayor whose wife Falch photographed in various “compromising positions.” Now, Falch encounters Saralee Marshall, a young woman hoping to escape her small-town life by becoming a model. She agrees to pose nude for him in his motel room, where Falch plies her with liquor and has sex with her, only to discover, later, that her boyfriend, Tom Larson, who was hidden in the closet, has photographed them. Informing Falch that Saralee is only seventeen, Larson tells Falch that paying him to suppress the photographs “is going to cost . . . plenty.”

“Murder Is My Business”: A woman invites a hit man to her apartment after hiring him to kill her husband, and they have sex. Afterward, a man hires the hit man to kill someone at a particular address. Now, the hit man has two people to kill on the same night. He kills both of his clients: the man is the husband who's hired the hit man to kill his wife; the woman is the wife who's hired the hit man to kill her husband.

“Nor Iron Bars a Cage”: Two Althean guards discuss their planet's first prison: a 130-foot-tall tower with a cell at its top and sides that slope in, preventing anyone from escaping by climbing down it. Food is delivered by a pneumatic tube, and the prisoner tosses discarded items from the cell's balcony. The guards leave the key to the prisoner's shackles in his cell and wait until he throws them to the ground. Then, the prisoner flaps his wings and flies away, escaping. 

“One Night of Death”: A condemned man's son ties his ex-girlfriend, Betty, to Dan Bookspan, the son of his father's dishonest business partner, for whose murder his own father is being executed at midnight in San Quentin's gas chamber. Then, the condemned man's son turns on the gas jets in his victims' apartment at the same time that his father is being executed in California. In doing so, he obtains revenge on Dan for his having stolen Betty after his own father had killed the elder Bookspan.

“Package Deal”: John Harper, a local banker, hires Castle, a “professional killer,” to murder four small-time criminals who have taken over the seedy activities of Arlington, Ohio. Castle kills all his targets, and then notifies a man in Chicago, who responds, “We'll be down tomorrow.” The implication is that the Chicago party is a mobster. Either Castle has double-crossed Harper, notifying the Chicago gangster that the local competition has been eliminated and that Arlington is now ripe, as it were, for the picking or he has actually been working for the Chicago mobster, rather than for Harper. In either case, a double cross has occurred, a device that gets considerable play in Lawrence's short stories and novels.

“Professional Killer”: Professional killer Harry Varden receives a telephone call from a woman who, without knowing his name, hires him to kill her husband, saying he's boring and she's met another, more exciting man. By killing her husband, she will receive his life insurance and be able to marry her lover. When Harry collects the slip of paper from his post office box, along with his client's payment in full, in cash, he is angry as he learns the name of his target. He calls Pete, another hit man, hiring him to kill his own client, his wife, who has unknowingly hired Harry, her own husband, to kill himself.

“Pseudo Identity”: After renting an apartment in which to spend the nights he works late as a copywriter, bored and boring Howard Jordan gradually assumes an alter ego, that of Roy Baker, a hip, fun-loving guy who is popular with the in-crowd. When he sees his wife, Carolyn, with another man, he poses as her boyfriend, and sets her up, telling her to come to his apartment, where, dressed as Ray Baker, he kills her. In doing so, he realizes, he has also destroyed the life of his alter ego, as he can never again be Ray Baker without risking arrest and trial for Carolyn's murder. His is stuck with Jordan's lackluster, responsible identity and life.

“Ride a White Horse”: Andy Hart's daily routine is disrupted when his favorite bar is forced to close for two weeks for having sold alcohol to a minor. After he eats at the diner he typically frequents, he tries another bar in the neighborhood, the White Horse, where a 24-year-old blonde invites him home with her, and they become a couple, living together as if they were married, buts she doesn't talk about her past, and Andy isn't sure how she can pay her bills without working. The woman, Sara Malone, asks him to pick up a package for her at the local library. He does so, picking up additional packages at the library and elsewhere. He unwraps one and discovers it contains a white powder, which Sara identifies as heroin. Andy quits his job and works full-time for Sara, a pusher, and becomes addicted to heroin, losing interest in Sara. He wants to expand their operation, and, when Sara is hesitant, he stabs her to death.

“A Shroud for the Damned”: An aged mother knits shrouds. When her son becomes a thief to feed them and begins to associate with criminals, she stabs him to death after he dons the shroud. She is confident that the shroud won't only keep him warm on cold nights, but that it will also “keep the evil spirits from him.”

“Sweet Little Racket”: After losing his business, a liquor store, to a chain of stores, an unemployed entrepreneur decides to demand protection money from wealthy businessmen, threatening to kill their children if they don't pay him $50 per week. When he attempts to extort a fifth victim, Alfred Sanders, Sanders tape-records him threatening to harm his son, Jerry. When Jerry is killed by someone who drives a car similar to that of the extortionist, the criminal realizes that Sanders's tape recording will send him to prison.

“The Way to Power”: A corrupt police chief takes one of his cop's advice when the cop, Joe, suggests they frame Lucci, a freelancing bookie, for the murder of a tramp. Joe volunteers to kill the tramp. Instead, he has Lucci come to the chief's house, shoots the chief, then shoots Lucci, and tells the investigating officer Lucci shot the chief for “cracking down on him” and Joe killed Lucci. Joe wonders whether the chief's widow is still awake, commenting to the reader, “I felt powerful as hell.”

Shared or Recurring Element	Stories Featuring Shared or Recurring Element
Robbers	“The Bad Night,” “The Dope”
Con men, blackmailers, and extortionists	“The Badger Game,” “Man with a Passion,” “Sweet Little Racket”
Rapists	“Bride of Violence,” “Hate Goes Courting,” “Lie Back and Enjoy It”
Hit men and other killers	“The Dope,” “A Fire at Night,” “Hate Goes Courting,” “I Don't Fool Around,” “Just Window Shopping,” “”Lie Back and Enjoy It,” “Look Death in the Eye,” “Murder Is My Business,” “One Night of Death,” “Package Deal,”Professional Killer,” “Pseudo Identity” “Ride a White Horse.” “A Shroud for the Damned,” “Sweet Little Racket,” “The Way to Power”
Sadists	“The Blinding Fury,” “Bargain in Blood,” “Look Death in the Eye”
Sex perverts	“Bargain in Blood,” “The Burning Fury,” “Just Window Shopping”
Female character named Rita	“Bargain in Blood,” “Bride of Violence”
Double crosses	“Package Deal,” “Sweet Little Racket,” “The Way to Power”
Fornication, lust, paraphernalia, rape, or seduction	“The Badger Game” (adultery), “Bargain in Blood” (sexual sadism), “Bride of Violence” (rape), “Frozen Stiff” (adultery), “Hate Goes Courting” (sex), “Just Window Shopping” (voyeurism), “Lie Back and Enjoy It” (rape), “Man with a Passion” (statutory rape), “Murder Is My Business” (adultery), “Ride a White Horse” (fornication)

As the table above indicates, in addition to the common “biter bit” plots, these stories share certain types of characters (robbers, con men, rapists, hit men and other killers, sadists, sexual perverts, and lonely men and women); in one case, two stories both feature a woman named Rita. Although some characters are naive, most are wise to the ways of the world, sometimes behaving in a cynical, even cruel, fashion. For example, sex is easily available and, generally, tawdry. The protagonist of “Murder Is My Business” callously murders the same woman with whom, earlier, he'd had sex, and the main character in “Bride of Violence” rapes his own fiancee after having saved her from another rapist.

In having written several, sometimes many, short stories which contain the same elements, Block developed themes and characters that he would later use in series of novels. His hit men become the precursors of his series about “professional killer” Keller, the anti-hero-protagonist of Hit Man, Hit List, Hit Parade, Hit and Run, Hit Me, and Keller's Fedora. Block's style captures the gritty underworld of the big cities in which his stories often take place, and his plots exhibit his familiarity with the vices and crimes committed by those who live in such cities. However, his tales are not limited to big cities; the action in “Lie Back and Enjoy It” seems to take place in the middle of nowhere, while the action in “Man with a Passion,” like that of “A Bad Night,” occurs in or outside small towns.


Structurally, many of Block's stories tend to follow Aristotle's narrative divisions of plot into three parts: beginning, middle, and end:

“Lie Back and Enjoy It”

Beginning: A driver picks up a young woman who's hitchhiking.

Middle: The driver rapes the hitchhiker.

End: The hitchhiker steals the driver's car and kills him.

“Look Death in the Eye”

Beginning: A beautiful woman in a bar waits for one of three admirers to make a pass at her.

Middle: One (“Mr. Bright Eyes”) picks her up.

End: In his apartment, the woman kills him, cuts out his eyes, and leaves with them, adding them to her collection at home.

“Just Window Shopping”

Beginning: A voyeur watches a woman in a shower.

Middle: The woman confronts the voyeur with a gun, inviting him into her home.



End: When the woman, demanding sex, refuses to take no for an answer, the voyeur kills her.

Although Block himself has admitted he's not at his best in creating titles for his stories, those in One Night Stands and Lost Weekends are effective. They're not only eye-catching, but they also tend, in many cases, to hint at, or even to summarize, their stories' plots, especially once it's recognized that he often employs the “biter bit” formula:

“The Burning Fury” suggests the lumberjack's motive for savagely beating a woman he's never met before.

“The Dope” suggests why the mentally challenged robber and killer is easily controlled by his partner in crime and why he continues to regard his “buddy” as a friend, despite the other man's harsh treatment and manipulation of him.

“Frozen Stiff” alludes to a dead body (a “stiff”) and the manner of death (“frozen”), suggesting that the "stiff" froze to death.

“Just Window Shopping” suggests that the voyeur is not interested in “buying” (i. e., in having sex); he's just looking, or “window shopping,” a critical insight into why he refuses the woman's demand for sex and why, despite being beaten by the police, he refuses to confess to rape, a crime he did not (and, indeed, might not have been able to) commit, for it appears that he is probably psychologically impotent.

The idiom used as the title of “Lie Back and Enjoy It” supposedly originates with the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who allegedly said, “If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.” Certainly a callous and sexist bit of advice, to say the least, the expression introduces the crux of Block's story, which concerns a hitchhiking woman who is raped by a supposedly good Samaritan, the motorist who stops to give her a ride. The phrase also indicates the rapist's indifference to his victim's well-being; when she uses the same idiom, as she is about to shoot and kill the man who has raped her, the irony of her words underscores the poetic (street) justice she's about to deliver. This narrative's title shows how much information and meaning can be implied by the well-chosen name of a story.

By studying these stories, anyone who aspires to writing thrillers, especially of the noir type, can learn the craft.

Poe's Influence on H. G. Wells

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Although H. G. Wells claimed that the only standard for judging the value of a short story is whether it has readers, he also suggests, by way of his literary mentor, Edgar Allan Poe, that a few additional criteria may be used to assess the quality of such a work of fiction. He learned from Poe that a short story exists to create a “single effect.”

Whereas Poe wrote, in “The Philosophy of Composition,” that a writer, after “having deliberately conceived a certain single effect to be wrought, he then invents such incidents . . . combines such incidents, and discusses them in such a tone as may serve him best in establishing this preconceived effect,” Wells wrote, in “The Contemporary Novel,” “a short story is, or should be, a simple thing; it aims at producing one single, vivid effect; it has to seize the attention at the outset, and never relaxing, gather it together more and more until the climax is reached.”

According to J. R. Hammond, having learned this lesson from Poe, Wells “adhered to” it “throughout his long career as a practitioner of the short story” (20).

Based on Wells' own statements, then, it seems that a short story, which he suggests can be read in less than an hour, should be judged on the bases that it:

1. Produces an effect that is both “single” and “vivid”;
2. Seizes the reader's “attention at the outset”;
3. Heightens the reader's attention as the story progresses;
4. Attains a “climax”;
5. Can be read in an hour or less; and
6. Is a work that people want to read.

Hammond elucidates several of Wells' terms. By “effect,” Wells seems to have in mind a narrative outcome that is of a specific sort (“informative, amusing, or terrifying”), “depending on the particular story” and which is also unquestionably real. In other words, the story's effect may be cognitive, diverting, or emotional in nature, relating to epistemology, amusement, or affect (20). Wells' own short stories, Hammond says, are often of a “disturbing quality” (20).

As in Poe's fiction, Wells' short stories are concerned with generating a “single effect”; all incidents of the plot, like the story's tone, are intended to produce what Poe calls “the predetermined effect.” Therefore, of the six elements which Wells suggests are the bases for the criticism of the short story, that of the effect seems paramount.

In writing his stories, Wells developed a formula, or “characteristic devise,” Hammond observes, for depicting the climax of any of his stories: “a moment of revelation or discovery in the life of an otherwise unremarkable individual whose outlook is transformed as a result,” and “the story focuses on the moment of crisis or climax and in doing so sets in motion speculations and doubts in the mind of the reader” concerning what he or she might do in a situation or set of circumstances similar to that of the story's protagonist (20). Due to the abbreviated length of the short story, as compared to the novel, Hammond says, “in place of the leisurely working-out of the plot through character and incident there is a single moment of illumination or decision” (20).

Hammond's elucidations allow the critic, as Wells envisions him or her, to expand on his or her analysis and evaluation of the story's effect, the story's climax, and, possibly, the narrative techniques by which the author motivates people to want to read the story. Therefore, one who is interested in criticizing a short story by Wells should begin by isolating its climax, for this is the “characteristic devise” by which Wells provides the transformational “moment of revelation or discovery in the life of” his “otherwise unremarkable individual.”

Then, if desirable, the critic can contend with the other five elements of what may be called the Wellsian critical approach: the production of an effect that is both “single” and “vivid”; the seizing of the reader's “attention at the outset” of the story; the heightening of the reader's attention as the story progresses; the story's length; and the techniques by which the author motivates people to want to read his or her story. (Part of the heightening of the reader's interest must surely lie in the ironic juxtaposing of the life of the “otherwise unremarkable” protagonist's view of the world “before” the revelation or discovery that shatters his [all of Wells' protagonists are male] complacency and the protagonist's view of the world “after” his complacency has been so shattered.)

Hammond is helpful, once again, in identifying the climax of Wells' short story “A Slip Under the Microscope”: The protagonist, a biology student named Hill, is seeking to “identify a specimen placed on a glass slide under a microscope.” Students are “strictly forbidden to move the slide,” but, as Hill adjusts the instrument, he accidentally slips, moving the slide. No one has seen him do so. Now, he must decide whether to “own up to the fact” or “remain silent.” His actions, Hill says, presents a “grotesque puzzle in ethics” (106).

According to Hammond, the climax of the story should be the vehicle by which Wells presents the “moment of revelation or discovery in the life of” Hill, “an otherwise unremarkable individual whose outlook is transformed as a result.” If the slip hadn't occurred, Hill would have continued in ignorance of the significance of “how easily normal life can be deflected by chance . . . occurrences” (20)

Wells heightens the reader's interest in the outcome of the story by relating Hill's ethical dilemma to a personal situation. Hill resents another student Wedderburn, because Wedderburn, whose parents are wealthy, has both the means and the confidence that Hill himself lacks—and because they are both interested in the same coed classmate. If he does what he believes to be the right thing, he may be expelled and lose any chance to court the coed.

When Hill informs the college's authorities, he is, in fact, expelled. He suspects that Wedderburn, who may also have cheated, chose not to confess; by not telling the truth, Hill's rival remains in school, able to woo the coed student whom they both admire. As Hammond points out, Wells implicitly asks his reader whether any “circumstances” may warrant one's lying by omission. The narrative, in this way, is, in effect, “disturbing,” as most of Wells' short stories are.

Hammond, J. R. H.G. Wells and the Short Story. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1992. Print.