"Heavy-Set": Learning from the Masters

Today, I'm sharing an essay I wrote for another of my blogs: “bit Lit: Short Stories Anesthetized, Euthanized, and Sterilized.” It's a critical analysis of Ray Bradbury's under-appreciated short story, “Heavy-Set.” This story, which originally appeared in Playboy magazine (October 1964)  showcases Bradbury's talent and exhibits his mastery not only of fantasy and science fiction, but also of the horror genre.

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

"Heavy-Set" is, in fact, a lesson in how to use understatement to heighten suspense, terror, and horror.

It starts by identifying the main character, who is not Heavy-Set, but his mother, thus orienting the story to follow from her perspective, although the narrative itself is told from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. The opening sentence also establishes an everyday setting, which will sharply contrast with the tale’s understated terror: “The woman stepped to the kitchen window and looked out.” In doing so, she sees her son, Leonard, among the many weights with which he works out on a regular basis:

There in the twilight yard a man stood surrounded by barbells and dumbbells and dark iron weights of all kinds and slung jump ropes and elastic and coiled-spring exercisors. He wore a sweat suit and tennis shoes. . . .

This was her son, and everyone called him Heavy-Set.

By continuing to insert “and” between the items in the series in which he identifies the equipment that Heavy-Set uses, Bradbury stretches out the list of items, thereby impressing upon his readers how many items of equipment Heavy-Set has on hand. “A man stood surrounded by barbells and dumbbells and dark iron weights of all kinds and slung jump ropes and elastic and coiled-spring exercisors [bold added]” is more effective, for this reason, than “a man stood surrounded by barbells, dumbbells, dark iron weights of all kinds, slung jump ropes, and elastic and coiled-spring exercisors [bold added]” would be. It’s rhythm is also more melodious. It is in these seemingly small matters of diction and style that the truly great writers take pains to shine, and Bradbury, even among other established writers of his genre, is known for his perfection in this regard.

Next, Bradbury stresses the size and strength of the antagonist:

Heavy-Set squeezed the little bunched, coiled springs in his big fists. They were lost in his fingers, like magic tricks; then they reappeared. He crushed them. They vanished. He let them go. They came back.

Bradbury is such a skilled craftsman that he easily accomplishes several objectives at once--or, at least, like all true masters, he makes doing so look easy. In the short paragraph just quoted, for example, he emphasizes Heavy-Set’s size and strength with such phrases as “big fists” and “lost in his fingers,” but his description of Heavy-Set exercising with the “coiled springs,” employing the simile “like magic tricks” and short sentences (“He crushed them. They vanished. He let them go. They came back.”), also makes readers see this character exercising and, more than this, makes them see, also, how Heavy-Set exercises: slowly, methodically, purposefully. For him, exercise is more than merely exercise; it is ritualistic, perhaps even therapeutic. His devotion to his workouts is reinforced by the single-sentence paragraph that follows the description of Heavy-Set at work with the “coiled springs”: “He did this for ten minutes, otherwise motionless.” It is obvious that he is focused. Indeed, it is almost as if he is one with the springs that he crushes and lets go.

Readers see, next, that lifting a one-hundred-pound set of barbells is easy for Heavy-Set; he does so without effort:

“Then he bent down and hoisted up the one-hundred-pound barbells, noiselessly, not breathing. He motioned it a number of times over his head, then abandoned it” for a punching bag, which he punched. . . easily, swiftly, steadily,” working it over the same way he worked the weights.

He is proud of his size and strength; his physical prowess is the basis of his self-image and, perhaps, his self-esteem. As he finishes his evening’s exercise regimen, he fills “his lungs until his chest” inflates to “fifty inches” and stands “eyes closed, seeing himself in an invisible mirror poised and tremendous, two hundred and twenty muscled pounds, tanned by the sun, salted by the sea wind and his own sweat.”

Having established the size and strength of his story’s antagonist, Bradbury next establishes Heavy-Set’s “childlike” nature by having him carve Halloween pumpkins, as if it were a “job” in which to take pride, rather than a few moments’ pastime:

He had gone out earlier in the day and bought the pumpkins and carved most of them and did a fine job: they were beauties and he was proud of them. Now, looking childlike in the kitchen, he started carving the last of them. You would never suspect he was thirty years old. . . .

There is the suggestion that Heavy-Set may be mentally handicapped. His mother, who is very much aware of how much her son exercises, hearing “him every night drubbing the punching bag outside, or squeezing the little metal springs in his hands or grunted as he lifted his world of his weights,” seems to dote upon him for this very reason. She is extremely solicitous of his comfort and enjoyment, asking him whether he liked the dinner she prepared for him and telling him that she bought “special steak” and “fresh” asparagus. When he says that “it was good,” she replies, “I’m glad you liked it, I always like to have you like it.” The strange syntax stresses her desire to please her son, and readers wonder whether her solicitude is meaningful beyond itself.

Although girls and “eighteen-year-old boys” are attracted to him, for different reasons--the girls wanting to date him and the boys looking up to him--Heavy-Set avoids their company, and his mother is “used, by now, to hearing Heavy-Set each night on the phone saying he was tired to girls and. . . no, no he had to wax the car tonight or do his exercises to the. . . boys.” He seems to have trouble with relationships with others and avoids situations that could lead to such associations, whether of a dating or of a more general and casual sort, his difficulty reinforcing the suggestion that he may be mentally handicapped.

He seems better able to interact with young people in a group, for a limited amount of time, as he plans to attend a Halloween party to which he‘s been invited indicate. He has “bought two jugs of cider,” he tells his mother, in case “they all show up,” although, he worries, “they might not show up.”

As the story progresses, Bradbury’s narrator continually inserts references to Heavy-Set’s weightlifting and his squeezing of the exercisors. Bradbury also repeatedly alludes to his antagonist’s size. Such repetition has the effect of highlighting these actions and characteristics.

The narrator next associates the character’s physical prowess with his immaturity. After Heavy-Set finishes carving the last of his pumpkins, he moves “into his bedroom, quietly massive, his shoulders filling the door and beyond,” from whence he returns dressed in a very childlike costume, indeed, consisting of “a pair of short black pants, a little boy’s shirt with a ruff collar, and a Buster Brown hat” and “licking a gigantic peppermint-striped lollipop.” To his mother, he announces, “I’m the mean little kid!” If there were any question as to the antagonist’s being mentally handicapped, his dressing, at age thirty, in such an outfit eliminates all such doubt. His mother humors him as he parades before her, pretending to lead “a big dog on a rope,” exclaiming, “You’ll be the life of the party!” Nevertheless, she finds his antics “exhausting.” Readers suspect that putting up with the immature thirty-year-old man is no easy task for her.

Heavy-Set’s “childlike” nature becomes more apparent as one of the “eighteen-year-old boys” with whom he sometimes interacts calls to tell him that many of them won’t be attending the party. Unlike Heavy-Set, who avoids girls, the boys, although twelve years his junior, are more interested in dating than they are in attending a Halloween costume party, and “half the guys,” he learns, “aren’t showing up at the party” because they have “other dates.” Tommy, the boy who’s called to relay this news, says he himself has “a date with a girl.”

When, dejected, Heavy-Set says, “I ought to throw the pumpkins in the garbage,” his mother encourages him to go to the party, anyway, assuring him that “there’ll be enough for a party” and that he should “go on and have a good time,” especially since he hasn’t “been out in weeks.”

The narrator informs the readers that Heavy-Set has dated two girls during the past decade, neither of which date went well. His more customary way of spending his days is in solitary pursuits such as playing “a game of basketball with himself. . . in the backyard,” swimming, surfing, or, of course, working out with his weights and punching bag. In such activities (all of which are typical of men younger than he), Heavy-Set finds momentary release from the tension and stress that results from his loneliness and his inability to establish or maintain adult relationships. They are also a means for him to repress his sex drive, as the following description, with its almost-subliminal metaphorical allusion to orgasm, indicates:

Some nights he stood around like this and then suddenly vanished and you saw him way out in the ocean swimming long and strong and quiet as a seal under the full moon or you could not see him those nights the moon was gone and only the stars lay over the water but you heard him there, on occasion, a faint splash as he went under and stayed under a long time and came up, or he went out [as if on a date] sometimes with his surfboard as smooth as a girl’s cheek, sandpapered to a softness, and came riding in, huge and alone on . . . [an ejaculatory] white and ghastly wave that creamed along the shore. . . .

Although he has opportunities to date, he passes on them, and the boys who admire his physique, once they turn twenty-one, abandon him, to be replaced by a new set of youthful admirers who shall also abandon him in due time.

As the protagonist thinks of her son, Leonard, whom his youthful friends call “Heavy-Set” or “Sammy,” which is “short for Samson,” or “Butch” or “Atlas” or “Hercules,” her exhaustion comes through, and readers get a sense of her own desperation. Earlier, while she’d been watching her son parade in his Buster Brown costume, Heavy-Set’s mother felt “exhausted.” Now, readers learn that her son’s condition affects her in other ways, too. She is also lonely. Her son is uncommunicative and regards her not so much as his mother but as a generic female, “the woman,” who waits on him hand and foot and is always solicitous of his happiness and comfort:

He went into the kitchen. “I guess there’ll be enough guys there,” he said. “Sure there will,” she said, smiling again. She always smiled again. Sometimes when she talked to him, night after night, she looked as if she were lifting weights, too. When he walked through the rooms she looked like she was doing the walking for him. . . .

Having reassured him, again, that plenty of his acquaintances will be present at the party, his mother shoos him out the door, saying, “Fly away.” These words are as much a hope for herself as they are an encouragement to him. She hopes that he will do just this, like a bird that has been too long in the nest. His presence prevents her from living a full and independent life, for her own is devoted, almost entirely, to caring for him, despite the fact that Heavy-Set does, indeed, have a job of sorts, working “on the high power lines all day, up in the sky, alone.”

As the evening grows later, she keeps an eye out for her son’s return, hoping against hope, all the while, that, at last, he may have met “someone” and won’t be coming home, in which case, she herself will be free:

What if, she thought, he found someone tonight, found someone down there, and just never came back, never came home. No telephone call. No letter, that was the way it could be. No word. Just go off away and never come back again. What if? What if?

However, her desperate hope is short-lived, as she thinks, “No!. . . there’s no one, no one there, no one anywhere. There’s just this place. This is the only place.”

Earlier, she wondered what happened in her son’s life to retard his emotional development and to make him want nothing to do with girls, with sex, with marriage, or a normal life. Her questions show that she does not know much about her son, despite having lived with him for thirty years. He doesn’t communicate much, except when he is angry or disgruntled. There may not be much depth to him, and he certainly does seem to be mentally handicapped. He may harbor latent homosexual tendencies, as he is more concerned with what teenage boys think of him than he is with the marginal women who dote upon him. He seems, in a way, to court the teenage boys’ favor and admiration, rather than to avail himself of the pitiable women who display an interest in him, and his mother appears to attribute his behavior to a past traumatic event, possibly molestation, that he’s never mentioned to her:

Leonard, my good boy. . . . just where, in all the years, did the thing happen that put him up that pole alone and working out alone every night? Certainly there had been enough women, here and there, now and then, through his life. Little scrubby ones, of course, fools, yes, by the look of them, but women, or girls, rather, and none worth glancing at a second time. Still, when a boy gets past thirty. . . .

Readers also learn that much of the mother’s solicitude has to do with her fear of her oversize, mentally handicapped son rather than with her concern for his comfort and pleasure. She seeks to keep him content, as much as possible, to prevent his losing his temper and becoming violent with her, “the woman.”

Heavy-Set comes home from the party early and upset. He explains to his mother that only a few people showed up, and no one but him wore a costume. Despite his efforts to amuse them, the other partygoers simply stood around. The boys were more interested in their dates than they were in the party, and “just stood around” before, in couples, they went off to the beach together, leaving Heavy-Set alone:

“They had their girls with them and they just stood around with them and wouldn’t do anything, no games, nothing. Some of them went off with the girls. . . . They went off up the beach and didn’t come back. . . . I felt like a fool, the only one there dressed like this, and them all different, and only eight out of twenty there, and most of them gone in a half an hour. Vi was there. She tried to get me to walk up the beach, too. I was mad by then. I was really mad. I said no thanks. And here I am. You can have the lollipop. . . . Pour the cider down the sink, drink it, I don’t care.”

The narrator has suggested that Heavy-Set alleviates tension by exercising and working with his weights. Heavy-Set does so again, now, his mother watching and listening to her son punch the bag. Assessing the level of his anger by the time that he works the bag, she concludes that he is especially angry tonight:

He must have drubbed the punching bag until three in the morning. Three, she thought, wide awake, listening to the concussions. He’s always stopped at twelve before.

When he finally stops punching the bag, he comes into the house, and his mother has “a feeling he still” wears “the little boy suit,” but she doesn’t “want to know if this were true.”

She retired for the night long ago. Now, her son joins her in bed, lying beside her, “not touching her.” She feigns sleep, aware that her son’s body is “rigid,” and feels the “bed shake as if he were laughing.” More likely, he is weeping soundlessly, disheartened by the brokenness of his personality and the fiasco of the party at which he’s humiliated himself, and then he begins to work the “coiled spring exercisors,” and she wants to “slap them out of his fingers”--until a disturbing thought occurs to her: “What would he do with his hands? What could he put in them? What would he, yes, what would he do with his hands?” Her only recourse, she believes, is prayer, so she prays:

So she did the only thing she could do, she held her breath, she shut her eyes, listened, and prayed, O God, let it go on, let him keep squeezing those things, let him keep squeezing those things, oh, let him, let him keep squeezing. . . let. . . let. . .

It was like lying in bed with a great dark cricket.

And a long way before dawn.

Perhaps, readers may suppose, Heavy-Set has gotten into bed beside his mother to assault her, both sexually and physically, and perhaps to kill her. She certainly seems frightened enough to warrant such an interpretation. However, it seems more likely that he has gotten into bed next to her because he seeks comfort. He has experienced a traumatic humiliation, and he understands, perhaps, on some level, conscious or otherwise, that he is not normal, that he does not behave as even younger males do, and that his interests are immature and “childlike,” rather than manly. At thirty, he is single and still lives at home, with his mother. He may even still wear “the little boy suit” over his man-size body, she thinks.

Physically, Heavy-Set is strong and powerful. He appears to be manly, but he lacks virility, and, intellectually and emotionally, he is weak and boyish. These qualities, and his latent homosexuality, seem to suggest that he sees his mother, as “the woman”--an alien, but, nevertheless, comforting, presence. He does not relate to her sexually but as a dependent and inadequate youth relates to an independent and self-sufficient adult provider and caregiver. He seems to want comfort, not sex. At the same time, however, as he gets older, she is apt to become less and less able to provide the maternal nurture and comfort that she more easily supplied him in his younger days. If she stops giving the reassurances he needs, she is afraid that she will no longer be necessary to him, and he may, in a pique of uncontrolled temper, take out his frustrations and fears, his disappointments and helplessness, his defeat and impotence upon her. As an aging Atlas, he longer carries the world as easily upon his shoulders as his younger admirers, male and female, may suppose.

Although he’s known more for science fiction or fantasy than he is for horror, Bradbury’s “Heavy-Set” proves that the master is capable of writing superb horror fiction as well.

Horror stories typically start with an everyday situation, as “Heavy-Set” does, gradually introducing an element of the bizarre. In this case, this element is the discrepancy between the thirty-year-old, fit and muscular antagonist and his minimal intellect, emotional maturity, and social skills which, becoming clearer and clearer as the antagonist ages, traps both him and his victim, his own mother, in an existential trap that narrows more each year, threatening, ever, to spring shut upon them. Because of Bradbury’s masterful, understated storytelling, this subtle story of a man’s interrupted development is horrific, indeed. Readers are likely to say, along with the protagonist, “Let him keep squeezing those things!”

Plot Generators: The Key to Writing a Series of Novels

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

As its name suggests, a plot generator generates plots for a series of stories, such as those which are shown on a television show. Occasionally, the title of the series references its plot generator. The plot generators are sources of both the conflict (and often the villains) and the explanation of the series' bizarre events. In addition, plot generators determine the type of the threats (e. g., science fiction, fantasy, horror).

Well-known examples of plot devices include:

The Time Tunnel (1966-1967)	Time machine (i. e., the Time Tunnel)
Star Trek (1966-1969)	Mission (to explore new worlds)
The Prisoner (1967-1968)	Village (island prison)
Land of the Giants (1968-1970)	Planet other than Earth
The X-Files (1993-2002)	X-Files (unsolved cases involving bizarre paranormal or supernatural events or agents)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)	Hellmouth (mystical gateway between Earth and hell)
Haven (2005 - ) and Arrow (2012- ) (first season)	Troubles (a mysterious affliction suffered by the “Troubled”)
Supernaturals (season one) (2005)	John Winchester's notebook
Flash (2014- )	Particle accelerator explosion
Supergirl (2015 - )	Prison

Since Chillers and Thrillers is concerned with horror fiction more than with science fiction or fantasy per se, we'll limit our discussion of plot generators to those used in the horror genre: The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Haven, and Supernaturals.

For The X-Files, the plot generator is the X-Files (unsolved cases involving bizarre paranormal or supernatural events or agents). These mysterious files involve FBI agents Fox (“I want to believe”) Mulder and skeptical Dana Scully in investigations of alleged alien abductions, supposed government conspiracies, mysterious murders, ghosts, murderous computers equipped with artificial intelligence, UFO crashes, a eugenics program, pyrokinesis, psychics, astral projection, age reversal, miracle healings, werewolves, unseen forces, human hibernation, and reincarnation—and these investigations all occur in the first of the series' eleven seasons.

The Hellmouth, an inter-dimensional portal between Earth and hell, is the plot generator in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The current slayer, Buffy Summers, is the one and only slayer in 1997, when she dies at the hands of The Master, a centuries-old vampire trapped inside The Hellmouth. Although she is resuscitated shortly after her death, her demise triggers the activation of her replacement, Kendra Young, who has come to the United States from Jamaica to assume her duties as the “new” slayer under the tutelage of Buffy's Watcher (mentor), Rupert Giles, the librarian of Sunnydale High School in Sunnydale, California. Kendra is replaced, in turn, by Faith Lehane, the slayer who assumes Kendra's role as slayer upon Kendra's death. First with Kendra, and then with Faith, Buffy became the first slayer in history to share her title and responsibilities with another slayer equipped with her own supernatural powers.

The Hellmouth is located beneath Sunnydale, California. In addition to its being an inter-dimensional gateway to hell, the Hellmouth also enhances supernatural energy, causing bizarre, dangerous incidents to occur with regularity. Due to the intensified supernatural energy caused by The Hellmouth, the portal also attracts demons. Numerous attempts are made to open The Hellmouth, but none succeed until the end of the series, when Buffy, Faith, and Potential Slayers (girls who have the powers of the slayer but who have not been activated as such) open The Hellmouth's Seal. After the Sunnydale Hellmouth is destroyed, Giles tells Buffy and her friends that another Hellmouth exists in Cincinnati.

In Haven, Maine, when the characters of Haven known as The Troubled undergo emotional crises, they experience The Troubles, which are characterized by supernatural incidents, including weather phenomena, the perception of one's worst fears, and the realization of personal fantasies. The Troubles began 350 years ago, when Haven was founded, and have been occurring ever since. In some cases, The Troubled can be treated or controlled, if not cured, through medication, temporary confinement, a job change, or other means.

Supernatural's John Winchester, monster hunter, records information about his prey in a journal that had previously belonged to his father, Henry. After John's death, his sons, Dean and Sam, whom he trained to follow his own unusual occupation, use the journal as a guide. Not only does the journal contain myriad entries concerning particular demons, monsters, ghosts, and other supernatural entities, but it also provides information concerning Azazel, a powerful demon to whose defeat John had dedicated his life. After season nine, the journal is used only infrequently, although it remains a resource throughout the series and is employed once more in season thirteen, as Dean and Sam seek information about the Hell Gate and the Princes of Hell. 

Each of these plot generators has several elements in common with the others, suggesting those that any such device should be or include:

• the facilitation of encounters with a variety of paranormal and/or supernatural entities or forces
• a source of conflict between the protagonists and antagonists
• information concerning the paranormal and/or supernatural threats the protagonists encountering, including, in some cases, the means for overcoming them
• a history that predates the plot generator itself and often includes previous protagonists who used or were affected by the device
• the opportunity for the plot generator itself to become the subject of a book published by the permission of the show's creator, producer, production company, owner, or other authorized authority, as in the case of Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal.

For novelists or short story writers who are interested in developing a series of related sequels, the creation and use of a plot generator is an effective, imaginative way to accomplish this goal.

 

Dramatic Images

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Instead of writing descriptions, filmmakers project images. As Alfred Hitchcock points out, style consists in the arrangement of the images; the images themselves mean “nothing,” he says. A paraphrase of Alexander Pope gets Hitchcock's point across well: Style is proper images in their proper places. (For more on Hitchcock's view of style, see my post, “Alfred Hitchcock on the Importance of Style in Cinematic Storytelling.”)

In this post, let's take a look at a few specific images (motion-picture stills) of scenes from a variety of horror films, ascertaining their effects. By learning to convey thought, emotion, and suspense through the use of imagery, horror novelists and short story writers may create more effective descriptions, for artists often learn from their counterparts in other media and genres.

To focus specifically on the images themselves, we'll consider them out of context from the rest of the scene in which they appear, examining them only in terms of themselves.

In this image, a man (Jack Torrance, we learn in the movie version of The Shining) looks menacing. His appearance is unkempt, his hair uncombed, a few strands straggling over his brow. He hasn't shaved recently, so his cheeks, chin, jaw, and upper lip bear stubble. His eyes gaze madly under arched eyebrows. His face is visible between a broken-out door panel, suggesting he may break through the barrier separating him from whomever he's menacing. There's not much between him and his intended prey. Were we to summarize the idea that this single movie still communicates to the audience, we might say “menace.” However, the image also communicates such emotions as fear and suspense.

In a still from the movie Veronica, two young children, a boy holding a telephone and a girl clutching a doll, cling to a woman—presumably, their mother—who stands in a living room, holding a cross aloft. Due to her stance and her direct, unflinching gaze, the woman looks brave and confident, in contrast to the expression of fear on the children's faces. Due to the association, in horror fiction, of a cross or crucifix with vampires, we may conclude that one of the undead is her likely adversary and, from her reliance upon the cross, a symbol of Christianity, that she is a woman of faith. The image suggests that the conflict is of a supernatural nature, a contest, on one level, between human beings and vampires, but on another level, between God and demons, since it is demons who animate the corpses that feed on human blood. Through the window behind the woman and the children, we see three stories of an adjacent building, which suggests that the woman and the children live in an apartment house. What little furniture we can see—a lamp, a shelving unit, part of the arm of an armchair—suggests that the woman is a member of the middle class. The contrast between the everydayness of setting and the supernatural foe against whom the woman defends the children enhances both worlds—those of the everyday and of the supernatural.

Various camera angles suggest various emotions. Novelists and short story writers can use this technique to create similar effects as those created by filmmakers. In this image, from The Birds, a victim of one fowl attack (yes, pun intended) sits on the floor, staring in shock, her hair disheveled and a bloody scratch across her forehead and right cheek. Her jacket and skirt have been ripped, and her right leg is smeared with blood. She looks exhausted, frightened, and dismayed. On the floor, a seagull approaches her, while above it, a second gull flies toward her, suggesting the woman's ordeal is far from over. The dark shadow behind her, on the blood-splattered wall, emphasizes her disheveled hair and her frailty. The picture also suggests the incongruity of her situation: she sits inside a house, the floor of which is partially covered with a carpet, but it is a home that offers no safety from a natural world gone mad. Although we think of our homes as secure refuges, this image shows us that they are poor havens against wild animals. Our safety is largely an illusion. The tilting of the camera has made the image stand out, because it offers an atypical view of the scene. Normally, we do not see things at such an angle, so the picture strikes us as different, and we are hard-wired to notice the unusual; our survival, we have learned, may depend upon our recognition of that which is unusual or singular.

Other camera angles allow filmmakers to represent additional cognitive, emotional, and thematic effects. Novelists and short story writers can adapt such techniques to their own narrative aims and needs.

Novels and short stories are not movies. That's one reason that films based on novels or, less often, short stories, are called “adaptations”: they must be adapted to the screen, or to cinematic storytelling. What works on the page may not work on the soundstage and vice versa. Novelists and short story writers who want to employ cinematic techniques must adapt these techniques to the printed page—that is, to the reading process, which differs in many respects from the viewing process. Readers are not audience members, just as moviegoers are not readers.

For one thing, readers read from left to right and from top to bottom, whereas the movement of the eyes of people watching a movie is more fluid, directed by color, intensity, the composition of images, on-screen action, relative sizes, the locations of characters, and many other elements. Even during moments when a scene is less active, viewers “fill in” the “spaces” between overt actions by visually considering the inactive or passive visuals included in the scene. For example, between a vampire's attack upon a woman and her children, a viewer's gaze might sweep the room, noticing the type and color of the drapes at the window, the building next door, a lamp or a bookcase, or a portion of an armchair. These observations are “automatic,” made while the viewer's gaze darts about the room until renewed action—the vampire's attack, perhaps—orients and claims the viewers' vision. In short, to be does not imply being singled out; to be seen simply requires that something be present in the scene.

Readers are more active participants in the storytelling process. They are not likely to envision specific “props” in a story or a chapter's scene. If the writer wants the reader to “see” something, he or she must present it, must describe it. Each particular character, object, or action must be described to be “seen,” “heard,” “felt,” “tasted,” or “smelled.” This necessity presents several problems filmmakers do not have. Long, detailed descriptions tend to bore readers. They don't want the story's action to be bogged down by the descriptions of a scene's particulars.

Therefore, any detailed description must be as short as possible and must be set up as integral to the story. Sometimes, an introductory sentence or two (or less) is enough. The transition should explain the importance of the description and provide a specific point of view so readers know why a particular description is important to the viewpoint character:

The horror of her situation created an impression as indelible as a photograph. Wendy could never forget Jack, his hair uncombed, a few strands straggling over his brow; the stubble of beard on his face; his wild, arched eyebrows; the madness in his predatory gaze; his face, shoved between the broken-out door panel announcing his intent to break through the barrier at any moment. Her bathroom refuge had been inadequate and flimsy. She trembled, even now, at the thought of how vulnerable she'd been in the face of her husband's madness.

Another technique is to make the symbolic significance of the description (kept, again, to a minimum) explicit at the beginning of the paragraph and, again, describe the scene from the point of view of one of the characters involved in it:

The fate of her children depended on her faith in God. Only He could protect them now. She held the cross up, before them, like a shield. In the center of their apartment's living room, her son, gripping the telephone, her daughter, clutching a doll, clung to her. She must be staunch in her faith, unbending and resolute. She stood her ground, her unflinching gaze, her faith in God, and her love for her children giving her courage and confidence. This was her home! In this contest, between vampire and family, mother and children were going to win, God help her.

The scene from The Birds is filmed from an omniscient point of view, which gives the action the appearance of objectivity and disinterest, or impartiality. In describing this scene in a novel, a writer could maintain this point of view, shortening the description:

Melanie sat on the floor, her back to the wall, staring in shock. Her hair was disheveled, and bloody scratches marred her forehead and cheek. Her jacket and skirt had been ripped, her right leg smeared with blood. Exhausted, frightened, and dismayed, she watched the seagulls that had invaded the house. One bird approached, walking across the carpet; above it, a second gull flew toward her. Her ordeal was far from over. Her safety was an illusion: a mere house couldn't protect her from nature gone mad.

Alternatively, this paragraph could be written from the limited third-person point of view:

Melanie sat on the floor, her back to the wall, staring in shock. Her hair was disheveled, and bloody scratches marred her forehead and cheek. Her jacket and skirt had been ripped, her right leg smeared with blood. Exhausted, frightened, and dismayed, she watched the seagulls that had invaded her house. One bird approached, walking across the carpet; above it, a second gull flew toward her. My ordeal is far from over. My safety's an illusion: a mere house can't protect me from nature gone mad.

The process doesn't seem that difficult when we already have images supplied to us by movies, but when we have to plan a scene ourselves, we have to be able to assume the task not only of writer, but also of director. Before we can accomplish this undertaking, we have to learn at least some of what directors know, such as camera angles and their uses; storyboarding principles; the principles of cinematic style; and how to communicate primarily through images, rather than through words.

At the same time, we have to remember that novels and short stories are not inferior to motion pictures. They're merely different, and both media influence the other. Indeed, novels and short stories have powerful techniques and tools not available to moviemakers. A judicious use of them can only enhance novels and short stories. By adding techniques of filmmaking that enhance written storytelling, however, novelists and short story writers add to their ability to tell their stories more effectively.

Underscoring Horror

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror movies aren't about stubbing one's toe. They're about life-and-death struggles, about suffering life-threatening injuries, about being driven insane.

But they can be about subtler, but equally horrific, experiences, although they seldom are.

In my own urban fantasy novel, A Whole World Full of Hurt, one scene is about some worm-like monster that consumes a woman from within, on her wedding day, as she stands at the altar, about to exchange vows with her husband-to-be. The subtext relates to a bride's anxiety about entering a lifelong relationship and her questions, largely unconscious, perhaps, about what could go wrong with such a union.

Every scene in a horror novel should have a deeper layer, a theme beyond the literal horror, that goes to the heart of being human in a hostile world. (For example, the scene previous to that which involves the bride on her day of days concerns a college student who feels guilty about not spending enough time with his younger brother; collecting for the newspaper from one of his kid brother's peskier customers is an attempt to rectify such neglect, but it doesn't go well.)

By coupling scenes of horror with existential situations and predicaments, writers give symbolic significance to such action scenes, thereby enriching the story. Stories, even horror stories, are about people (i. e., characters), after all, not about mere incidents in themselves.

In A Whole World Full of Hurt, the scene involving the worm-things came to me, from who-knows-where—my imagination, the stockpile of horrific imagery I've accumulated over the years, my own unconscious fears?—as I wrote the scene. I hadn't planned it. I had worked out the structure of the novel, knew who most of the characters were, and had the setting firmly in mind, but the monsters, the plot twists, and the thematic significance of various scenes presented themselves out of the ether, if you like.

That's often not the case with me and with many other writers. Ideas come from everywhere, bidden and unbidden. One source is news, especially, if you're a writer of dark fantasy or horror (if there's really a difference between the two) is bizarre news.

Here's an item, for example, that might easily suggest the basis for a novel of fear and trembling. Part of a headline in a Daily Mail newspaper proclaimed, “Women's breasts 'eat' themselves after they finish breastfeeding.” Remove the quotation marks from around the verb “eat,” and the word acquires a literal, rather than a figurative, meaning: breasts actually consume themselves. By “eating” cells “left over from . . . breastfeeding,” a process known as “phagocytosis ,” breasts revert from their engorged, milk-producing state to their “natural state in a matter of days,” undergoing a type of self-destruction, the article informs us.

Male anglerfish (circled) attached to female; he will atrophy to little more than parasitic testicles.

In itself, this process could make a remarkable short story, if not a novel, but it could also be extended to other anatomical parts that essentially commit suicide after they've completed the process for which they've evolved to perform: the completion of ovulation, gestation, or ejaculation could cause the ovaries, the uterus, or the testes to cannibalize themselves or to be cannibalized by the body. That's pretty much what happens with the male anglerfish.

Different stories would result according to whether a woman or a man knew, ahead of time, the fate that ovulation, gestation, or ejaculation would bring or remained ignorant of this effect until the process was complete. If a person knew in advance that her ovaries or uterus would self-destruct or his testicles would consume themselves or be consumed bu their bodies, what type of character would sacrifice this part of him- or herself and why? Who would refuse to accept this fate and why? What effects would the decision have, either way?

Other news items that might suggest equally bizarre horrors are the one reported under the eye-catching title “Tapeworm Removed From Woman's Breast 5 Years After She Swallowed Live Frogs.” What kind of woman swallows live frogs? A carnival sideshow performer? A starving woman who raids a frog farm (yes, there are such places)? An overweight woman on a tapeworm diet? What would possess a person to embrace such an extreme measure—besides entertaining a rather kinky audience of voyeurs, staving off starvation, or losing a few pounds of unwanted weight? Such a story cries out for psychological and sociological exploration.

The important thing, though, is to associate the horror of the story and its scenes with character and theme. That way, your short story of novel will have something to present besides blood and guts; you will underscore the horror of your story by making it symbolize something meaningful beyond itself. You will emphasize your terror by making it represent something about human beings (your characters) that most people didn't realize or, in rare cases, perhaps didn't know at all.

Want a Revolution? Try Being a Reactionary

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Written horror fiction is a dying breed. There are plenty of reasons for this state of affairs. Anyone and everyone can write and deliver-on-demand a printed or electronic version of as many horror novels as he or she wants, selling them through Amazon, Google, Barnes & Noble online, or some other website.

Talent doesn't much matter, nor does familiarity with the history of the genre, nor does respect for the genre or its readers. Just put it out there, and nobody will buy it. (Sales are spectacularly dismal for any but established writers, and sales are dismal enough for 99 percent of them). However, the sheer volume of “novels” now available in cyberspace clogs publishing arteries, offering so many choices that readers are apt to make none at all, unless its a novel by somebody like Stephen King, whose best work seems to be far behind him.

We prefer movies to books, because we're more visually than cognitively oriented, preferring images to words. Besides, we don't have to use our imaginations or think much when we watch a movie: the writer, director, actors, special effects team, and others have done most of the work for us. Watching a movie, as opposed to reading a book, is almost pure entertainment and unadulterated pleasure. Reading, by comparison, seems a laborious, often unrewarding, burden.

Novelists have tried to emulate screenwriters, writing tighter scenes, eschewing exposition and long-winded dialogue, foregoing interior monologues and stream-of-consciousness, restricting themselves, more and more, to the limited third-person point of view, avoiding “head-hopping,” and making something happen every other page or so. They strive to show, avoid telling, and still—readership declines and declines. Some statistics have suggested even moviegoing isn't as popular as it once was, although it's way more popular than reading. Times change, and written horror, the horror of the pages, as opposed to the soundstages, is a casualty of these changing times.

I'm not blaming technology. Times, as I said, change. Those who don't change with them—well, we know what happens to organisms that fail to evolve. Emulating the techniques of the screen isn't enough. Novels—and novelists—are on their way out. (That's why Borders went bankrupt and Barnes & Noble may be next.) No, they won't be gone overnight. (The dodo was last seen alive in 1662.). But novels and novelists, it seems, are doomed. Their day has come and is just about gone.

Like most people, I'm a movie fan, although I find I watch fewer and fewer each year, and I watch the few I do watch on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu. I prefer to see them streaming into my living room, on my big-screen TV, than to go to all the trouble and bother of leaving home, driving to a theater, waiting in line (or buying online so I don't have to wait in line), finding a seat (usually, an uncomfortable one with limited space for my arms and legs), being interrupted by late arrivals and talkative neighbors, and being blasted by sound that's much louder than necessary, even for me (and I'm hearing impaired). If I want to buy snacks or visit the restroom, my moviegoing experience is much worse. Then, at the end of the movie, I have to file out of the theater, find my car, and drive home, through the fairly heavy traffic of Las Vegas. (And, oh, yes, pay about $10 for the ticket, not to mention the round-trip cost of gasoline and the snacks, if any, I buy.) No, thanks, I'd sooner stay at home and watch a movie from the comfort and convenience of my living room couch.

I'm suggesting that movie theaters may be on their way out. The future of fiction (i. e., movies), it seems, is streaming—but it isn't.

What is the future of fiction? Who knows? Nobody has a crystal ball, including the few who have crystal balls. Maybe movies will happen inside the theaters of our skulls, as sounds and images are uploaded to our brains, either by wire or through wireless technology (I prefer the latter—I think).

Instead of dreaming at night, we'll watch the streaming movies of our choice. For those who enjoy nightmares, horror movies will likely be available. During the day, we might be immersed in 3-D holographs. (Princess Leia was ahead of her time.) Instead of a movie's coming soon to a theater near you, it will be coming at once, all around, or inside, you.

Maybe on our way to or from work, if we're still working outside our homes—or working at all—we'll be able to upload a movie trailer or two. A few forward thinkers also suggest our fiction may be written by robotic devices using linguistic-mathematical logarithms, virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI). (The “fake news” of our own day suggests that “non-fiction” may be produced and delivered in much the same way.)

Once the few remaining, die-hard horror novelists, the Stephen Kings, the Peter Straubs, the Bentley Littles, and the Whoever-Elses, expire, the horror genre, as far as the novel is concerned, at least, is likely to become extinct. Movies will probably continue to be made, promoted, released, watched, and critiqued until something more evolved comes along. Then, they, too, will go the way of all celluloid.

The process is already in progress. This trailer from 20^th Century Fox (courtesy of IBM's AI program, Watson) is about a superhuman AI. To create the trailer, Watson analyzed “100 horror movie trailers, studying each scene and looking for common ground,” before selecting 10 of them from the 90-minute movie Morgan that Fox had produced. The whole process took Watson a mere 24 hours. Humans take as long as a month to make a trailer. Watson cheated, though: a film editor had to piece “together the scenes,” because the AI program lacks the ability to “understand and calibrate . . . emotions,” Morgan's director, Luke Scott said.

Jim Smith, a fellow with Machine Vision—IBM Research, said a lot must happen before Watson or any other AI program could develop an entire movie, if such a program is ever able to accomplish such a feat at all. It's unlikely AI will “be able to create art,” Smith believes, because it is incapable of the “original thought . . . essential in creativity.”

Yes, all this may (or may not) happen, but, in the meantime, as comic book writers are fond of writing, what, if anything, can be done about the current, stagnant state of horror novels?

We need a revolution of sorts, and that's the problem. Historically, revolutions in art start as reactions against the art of the status quo. In painting, impressionism started as a reaction against traditional artistic conventions. Other times, innovations occur within a revolutionary cycle itself, as when Vincent van Gogh “carried Impressionism to its limits by using expressive colors [and] Fauvism went one step further in using simplified designs in combination with an 'orgy of pure colors.'” Likewise, Expressionism can be considered “a German modern art version of Fauvism.”

New forms of painting also originated as reactions against commercial transitions, such as that which occurred when an industrial economy began to replace the earlier agrarian economy: “Art historians tend to interpret this new movement [art nouveau] as a natural reaction to the Industrial Revolution.” In turn, the Industrial Revolution might also have affected art nouveau, as Art Deco, which followed art nouveau, represented a “simplified” movement that was “closer to mass production.” 

Surrealism turned inward, seeking to emphasize the importance of the unconscious mind. It wasn't restricted only to painting, however; it also influenced literature and film.

A reaction against abstract art, popular art, or pop art, sought “to bring art back into the daily life of people” and took, as its subject matter, “objects from everyday life.”

Literature has long allied itself with painting, as it has with the other arts. It has also long been allied with theology, philosophy, history, geography, psychology, sociology, and, more recently, with the sciences. In fact, one of the great strengths of literature—perhaps its greatest—is that it unites human experience, bringing together a wide variety of interests that, although seemingly unrelated, have a common source in humanity itself, in individuals, society, and culture. In fiction, human beings truly are “the measure of all things.”

Too often, writers are caught up in the moment, not only representatives, but also prisoners, of their own times. It is by venturing out of one's habitat, by setting forth to explore new lands, that creativity is excited and originality is awakened. By writing the same thing over and over that has proved to have a market, writers (and publishers)—and, yes, readers as well—sell and buy the same sort of fiction over and over again. Why take a chance on writing something new, on publishing something different, of buying an unknown quantity, when we already know another Stephen King novel, no matter how familiar the characters, setting, plot, and theme, will be a New York Times bestseller. We get the type of horror fiction we want and, some might suggest, deserve.

Until AI can write movie scripts for us to play inside our heads or surround us on every side, if we want something different, readers are going to have to demand it, writers write it, and publishers publish it. Maybe the history of recent art movements among painters can suggest some ways writers can write some new forms of fiction, horror and otherwise. Our world suggests, more than ever, perhaps, many things to which horror novelists (and moviemakers, for that matter) could react, if they've a mind to do so.

Otherwise, look for yet another "blockbuster" by Stephen King, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, or Whoever-Else; it's probably being written, published, or distributed this very moment.

"Teeth" and the Horrors of Sexual Repression

 Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Although on a literal level, Teeth, a movie about a teenage girl with a toothed vagina, or a vagina dentata, is—there's no polite way to say it—imbecilic, on a figurative level, the film, despite its sophomoric plot, offers more than its mixture of horror and comedy: it has something significant to say about the effects of sexual repression on teenage girls. 

It's difficult for young male moviegoers to envision, much less to appreciate, the social and psychological pressures teenage girls are under. By virtue of their having been born female, rather than male, they're subject to social expectations concerning sex that do not apply to males. Girls, after all, can become pregnant; males cannot. Therefore, women are encouraged to avoid sexual intercourse until they're married, when, having wed, they've acquired a potentially secure means of providing for the welfare of their children. Indeed, unmarried women, especially teens, are discouraged from participating even in non-procreative sexual behaviors, which could lead to sexual intercourse.

Teenage boys rarely face such taboos, although, in the interests of sexual equality and political correctness, lip service may be given to the importance of their committing to abstinence until marriage as well, as they are encouraged to do in Teeth. It's obvious, however, that the boys don't take their vows very seriously, and most of them seek to have sex whenever possible. 

These prohibitions against premarital sexual intercourse are represented in the movie by the protagonist's devotion to her vow to abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage. Dawn O'Keefe doesn't merely commit to this goal, but she champions it in speeches to her abstinence group, The Promise.

Unlike other girls, Dawn is equipped with a sharp set of teeth in her nether region. They seem sentient enough to know when their territory, so to speak, is threatened with invasion. As a toddler, her future stepbrother Brad's curiosity gets out of hand while he's seated in a wading pool, next to Dawn, and her teeth bite off the tip of the forefinger he's inserted into her vagina.

Despite her sincere devotion to her ideals, teenage Dawn's resolve is tested. With Tobey, a boy to whom she is attracted, Dawn goes to a cave in which teenagers often retreat to have sex. Although she returns Tobey's kisses, she refuses to have sexual intercourse with him. Angry, he becomes aggressive. When he tries to rape her, Dawn struggles, and her head strikes the ground, dazing her. Tobey rapes her. Recovering, Dawn fights back, and her teeth bite off Tobey's penis. Horrified, Dawn flees the scene.

Feeling guilty and depressed at having succumbed to temptation, Dawn, nevertheless, addresses The Promise, but the pastor seems to see that she has been sexually active and ushers her away from the group. Returning to the swimming hole near the cave in which she involuntarily lost her virginity, Dawn throws her Promise ring, a symbol of her vow to preserve her virginity until marriage, into the water. She sees a crab crawling on Tobey's severed penis, and the horrible sight inspires her to research her condition.

Realizing she may be in possession of the legendary vagina dentata, she visits a gynecologist, asking him to examine her to determine whether there is anything inside her. When her gynecologist slips his bare hand into her during a pelvic examination, her teeth bite off his fingers. Terrified, Dawn flees the clinic on her bicycle.  

Her coy demeanor during her first visit to a gynecologist—and a male one, at that—; her nakedness under the hospital gown she's made to don for the occasion; her humiliating position on the examination table, with her feet in the stirrups and her legs spread wide; her having to follow the doctor's repeated instructions to “scoot down”; and the cold, barren, antiseptic, clinical setting dehumanize and objectify her while, at the same time, they emphasize her sexuality. The scene brings home the way women, especially young women, are made to feel alien and “other.” Their sex even requires them to have a medical doctor who specializes in problems and issues related strictly to women. 

Horrified, Dawn flees on her bicycle from the scene of carnage, only to see a police officer driving Tobey's car. She returns to the swimming hole, where she sees police retrieving Tobey's corpse from the water. He appears to have died of shock and blood loss as a result of his injury. Her sexual repression has led her to take a boy's life, just as, indirectly, sexual repression may have prompted Tobey to commit rape, although, of course, ultimately, from a legal and societal point of view, both Dawn and Tobey are responsible for their own actions, despite the pressures, social, psychological, and sexual, under which the teenagers find themselves.

At home, Dawn is further traumatized by her discovery that her mother, who is seriously ill and has collapsed on the floor, must be rushed to the hospital. This incident, like Dawn's first, forced sexual experience, marks the end of her childhood. Her mother is unavailable, which means that her experience and wisdom as an adult female is also unavailable to Dawn. The daughter becomes entirely responsible for herself, at least as a female, which puts even more pressure on her to act responsibly. 

The boy's half-hearted “devotion” to their vows of abstinence (and, therefore, their relative freedom from the social and psychological, if not the sexual, pressures placed upon them) is highlighted by the behavior of Ryan, who pretends to befriend Dawn, only to take advantage of her when the opportunity arises. She goes to him, disturbed by Tobey's death, the gynecologist's dismemberment, and her mother's condition. Although he pretends to sympathize with her and to comfort her, Ryan offers her a tranquilizer only so he's able to masturbate her with a dildo while she's in an acquiescent state of mind. Relaxed, Dawn's vagina dentata do not defend her as she engages in quasi-consensual sex.

When they have intercourse the next morning, the couple is interrupted by a telephone call from one of Ryan's male friends, and Dawn learns that the boys had placed a bet as to whether Ryan would be able to “score” with Dawn. In her anger, she bites off Ryan's penis with her vagina, leaving him to seek help from his mother. 

After her mother dies, Dawn learns that Brad continued to have sexual intercourse with his girlfriend Melanie at the O'Keefe family's house, instructing Melanie not to go to the aid of Dawn's mother after she had collapsed at home. (Brad is the son of Bill, who marries Dawn's mother.) Bent on revenge, she seduces Brad (who had previously tried to seduce her), bites off his penis with her vagina dentata, and leaves him, presumably to die of shock and blood loss, as Tobey had done. The previous times during which Dawn used her vaginal teeth to kill or maim, she'd been attacked, humiliated, or insulted; this time, she acts with premeditation, so this incident marks a wholly voluntary, conscious, and deliberate act, not an instinctive or reflexive reaction to sexual, physical, or emotional trauma. With this act, Dawn has crossed a moral line. She is no longer innocent; she has become as monstrous as those who have committed crimes against her. She is definitely now a criminal. 

After leaving home, Dawn is picked up while hitchhiking. Exhausted, she sleeps, awakening after nightfall. When she tries to get out of the driver's vehicle, the old man repeatedly locks the doors. He looks at her, licking his lips, and she, understanding his intentions, smiles seductively at him, implying that she intends to commit another murder.

Despite its comic elements, this seemingly simple horror movie is disturbing because it indicates how rigid expectations of sexual repression, reinforced by societal, parental, and religious support, can create psychologically pressures that can be dangerous to oneself and others. The movie does a good job of showing how a teenage girl, in particular, is affected, emotionally and otherwise, by such taboos. 

Francisco Goya's painting, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, suggests that terrible consequences can spring from irrationality. Teeth suggests that it is irrational, perhaps unnatural, to fetter young adults, particularly teenage girls, with ironclad expectations that, difficult to meet, place unbearable pressure on the young. It might be hyperbolic to suggest, as this movie does, that the result of sexual repression could transform a normal, “nice,” or “good” girl into a monstrous killer, but hyperbole gets attention, especially when the girl involved in the nightmarish situation is as likable, appealing, and familiar as the schoolgirl played by Jess Weixler, who, despite a silly script, does a good job of portraying the girl next door. The movie's theme saves it from being the clunker it would have been without the depth the movie receives from its explorations of vows of abstinence, sexual repression, on one hand, and underage, premarital sex in a permissive society on the other.