Quick Tip: Redirect the Reader

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

I learned this trick from my sister, although, I suppose, other mothers and grandmothers may also know and use it. Certainly, mystery writers employ it. Authors of horror fiction may find the method useful, too. I call it redirection. Elsewhere, I’ve written about both misdirection (the use of red herrings and irony, dramatic, situational, or verbal, to frustrate readers’ expectations and keep them guessing) and indirection (the use of nonverbal, often figurative, means of communication to establish mood and intensify suspense).

  

Redirection is different. Here’s how a mother or a grandmother might use redirection. Little Johnny or Susie is angry or sad. To refocus his or her attention off of him- or herself or his or her predicament, mom or grandma refocuses the child’s attention, redirecting him or her to something else. “Why don’t we bake some cookies?” she might ask or suggest, “Let’s see what SpongeBob is up to!”

 

In mysteries, writers, especially when they are dropping clues or red herrings, often redirect their readers’ attention by focusing it upon a glamorous female character, having another character engage the protagonist in an offbeat or otherwise interesting conversation, creating a disturbance, or otherwise engaging the readers’ attention.

 

Horror story writers can benefit from employing redirection, too. For example, suppose one is offering a scientific explanation for a monster whose very nature or existence is of a paranormal or a supernatural character. Obviously, as such, its nature is beyond scientific explanation. The writer is caught between the rock of plausibility and unbelievably, so, soon after the scientific explanation begins (or ends), the writer could redirect the readers’ attention, perhaps by the arrival of the monster itself, a hysterical character who rushes in to announce that the monster has attacked and killed again, or an emergency communiqué from a government official.

 

Redirection works for mom. It works for grandma. It works for mystery writers. It will also work for authors of horror stories, including you.

Establishing Verisimilitude

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

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

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

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

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

Or horror?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Tip: Remind the Reader

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Most longer fiction occasionally pauses in the presentation of its action to summarize what has gone before, thereby refreshing readers’ memories as to the narrative’s previous events. Journey to the West (published in the West as Monkey), The Song of Roland, and even Hamlet and other Shakespearean plays use this technique. In the days of ancient Greek dramas, the chorus reminded audiences of what had happened in the previous parts of the play, as did the protagonist and other characters, through monologues). Horror novels are no exception. Their authors also pause from time to time to remind their readers of what they’ve read. Occasionally, such summaries can be used to misdirect the reader, suggesting that a plot is leading toward a particular denouement (or catastrophe, if the story is to be a tragedy) rather than the one in which it actually will be resolved. On page 210 of his 386-page page-turner, The Vanishing, Bentley Little takes time out to remind his reader, through dialogue between two newspaper reporters, as to what is occurring, with increasing frequency, throughout the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area:

Wilson swallowed. “I suppose. . . we have a California-based phenomenon that causes heretofore sane and sensible individuals to go on murderous killing sprees and/or commit suicide in unusually violent ways. It’s accompanied by unusual plant growth and primarily affects the wealthy. . . . And it’s been occurring off and on for well over a century.”

(The plot sounds somewhat like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening, but, trust me, Little’s novel is way better than Shyamalan’s movie [although it’s certainly not the author’s best work]).

Little’s summary suggests that whatever the hell is going on in The Vanishing has something to do with “unusual plant growth,” which, elsewhere (on page 124, to be exact), he describes in generally malevolent terms:

His gaze moved on to the surrounding grounds. The damn place was overgrown with vegetation. This was the fourth landscaping service he’d hired just this year and it looked like he’d have to find yet another one. He’d explained to Gary Martinez, the owner of the business, how he wanted the property maintained, but either he hadn’t properly communicated with his employees or the landscapers who worked for him were incompetent. Whatever the reason, the area around the house looked like hell. . . .

Does the “phenomenon” really have anything to do with these plants, though, or does Little only want his story’s readers to assume that it does? In other words, is Little purposely misleading his readers so that, in the end, he can switch directions, surprising his fans? I don’t know, because I haven’t read the entire novel yet. However, Little has led me to believe that there may be such a connection. Either there is one, or he’s purposely misleading me through misdirection. Time will tell.

Imagined Horrors

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

-- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Conqueror worm"

Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are tales of madness and, quite often, murder. In many of them, the protagonist’s insanity is evident in his perceptions and thoughts, which tend toward the hallucinatory. In listening in on their musings, as it were, readers understand that their notions are irrational. A famous case in point: “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which begins with the admission that there is nothing wrong with the character of the man whom the narrator-protagonist would kill; his victim’s error is not in his ways, but in a physical--indeed, a facial--feature: the injured party’s offense, such as it is, is in the eye of the mad beholder:

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.

Likewise, in “The Cask of Amontillado,” the narrator-protagonist informs the reader that he is about to avenge himself for an “insult” that he, the protagonist, claims he has recently suffered at the hands of his intended victim, Fortunato. The protagonist paints himself as a longsuffering man, but as one for whom patience in the face of longstanding, ongoing abuse has finally reached its end: “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

As readers, we observe that the avenger never specifically identifies any of the “thousand injuries” he has suffered at the hands of Fortunato, possibly because he cannot do so, since these slights and injuries, in fact, never happened except in his own mind. Likewise, we see that he has plotted his revenge upon the unfortunate Fortunato, presumably for some time, and according to a principle:

AT LENGTH I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled--but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

The avenger has a powerful intellect, but his use of reason is perverted by his madness. He is careful to ensure that his vengeance goes undetected and, therefore, unpunished, as, he says, a proper act of vengeance must; a sane man would not suppose that vengeance be perpetuated according to a code or standard.

As readers, we also notice that the protagonist does not confront his intended victim with his allegation that Fortunato has in some way “ventured upon insult.” He does not give his acquaintance the opportunity, as it were, to defend himself or explain his actions. Like a husband who murders, rather than divorces, his wife, the protagonist, rather than confront his longstanding acquaintance or break off his friendship with him, decides to murder him and, indeed, takes pains to pretend that all remains well between them: “It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile NOW was at the thought of his immolation.”

No doubt, the protagonist’s pretense is designed to keep the unsuspecting Fortunato unsuspecting and to permit the avenger to carry out his vengeance with “impunity,” but it also shows the apparently rational man to be utterly irrational and the supposedly injured protagonist to be injurious, indeed. Again, the fault does not appear to lie in the character or behavior of the victim, but in the thought processes, or reasoning, of the mad protagonist.







Other of Poe’s stories, such as “The Black Cat,” are constructed on the basis of the same premise: an unreliable (because mad) narrator tells a story about his own past criminal conduct and, in the process, exposes his madness.


Poe’s method is still used by writers today, who depict similar madmen (and women) whose telling of their stories depict them as insane and whose madness is itself the source of the twisted perceptions or understandings that give rise to the acts of violence and murder that they commit. (Charlotte Gilman Perkins’ “The Yellow Wallpaper” and H. G. Wells’ “The Red Room” are masterful examples of more recent stories that depend upon their protagonist’s hallucinatory or mistaken perceptions and understandings.)

Such an approach suggests that, to an insane person, anything can be considered wrong, perverse, or threatening because the horror is not in the things themselves, or the world, but in themselves. It has been truly said that one’s perceptions are, to the one who experiences them, realities, even if they are mistaken or, indeed, entirely the products of their own psychoses.

For example, why does that light flicker so, in the dead of the night? What must it be thinking? What is it trying to communicate, so fervently ands insistently, and why?

Tip Top: Mutual Admiration Lists--Useful or Self-Indulgent?

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Most readers (and writers, for that matter) have a short list of the novels they have most enjoyed, the best of the best, so to speak, or “the top ten.” Of course, these lists differ from one person to another, because we all have our own likes and dislikes, our own interests, biases, values, beliefs, and concerns. We also have different levels of sophistication as readers--and different backgrounds.

Any list of the “best” or the “top” novels in the horror, or any other, genre is necessarily subjective. There may even be someone (besides M. Night Shyamalan himself, I mean) who enjoyed his dreadful movie, The Happening.

Despite the idiosyncratic nature of such lists, perusing them, especially if they are annotated by their creators with the reasons that the novel is on the list (that is, why the lost maker listed the book), can be instructive for writers who write with their readers’ interests in mind. On his blog, Antibacterial Pope, Nick Cato offers such a list, citing the following as the best of the best for the past year, in “My Top Ten HORROR Novels of 2009”:

1. Blue Canoe by Tim Wright
2. His Father’s Son by Bentley Little
3. Cursed by Jeremy A. Shipp
4. This entry is missing for some reason.
5. Far Dark Fields by Gary A. Braunbeck
6. Afraid by Jack Kilborn
7. Depraved by Bryan Smyth
8. As Fate Would Have It by Michael Louis Calvillo
9. Sacrifice by John Everson
10. Orphan’s Triumph by Robert Buettner

Except in general terms, I won’t identify the reasons that Cato considers these books the best of the best for 2009; you can visit his webpage for that information. In general, though, he cites their credible characters, innovative perspective, cross-genre content, philosophical musings, action, intensity of pace, suspense, gore, and, of course, frightening fare.

Michael Marshall Smith has also offered a “top 10 horror books” (apparently, of the “of all time” type) list:

1. Dark Feasts by Ramsey Campbell
2. Pet Sematary by Stephen King
3. Ghost Story by Peter Straub
4. Dead Babies by Martin Amis
5. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
6. Night Shift by Stephen King
7. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
8. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
9. At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft
10. Best New Horror (edited) by Stephen Jones

In general, Smith cites such criteria for his judgments as “disturbing.” storylines, cross-genre content, setting, creepiness, atmosphere, psychological realism, style, and variety.

Not to be outdone, I have likewise offered my own lists, both of what I consider the top ten horror movies of all time (“Toppers”) , “Horror Story Failures” and “Ideas That Don’t Work” and a list of horror novels that I believe should be on everyone’s “Contemporary Horror Fiction Bookshelf.”

There’s no need, of course, to rehash my views here. Anyone who’s interested in them can peruse my previous posts easily enough and decide whether they are the perceptions of genius or imbecility (that is, whether he or she agrees or disagrees with them).

The important point is to identify what other readers and writers like. By doing so, you, as a writer, can address these concerns and interests in your own fiction, increasing its relevance to others and, perhaps, your work’s sales appeal as well.

I’m not suggesting pandering, but a meeting of the hearts and minds or readers and write, when possible, in the pages of your novels. In many cases, you are apt to find that we all like pretty much the same sorts of things; the horror genre is, after all, a genre, and genres appeal to specific audiences or communities who share similar views, interests, and concerns.

Quick Tip: Connect the Nouns

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In school, we’re taught that a noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, quality, or idea. In a scene, a writer should connect each of these types of nouns to one another so that, together, they create a unified effect: Person = Character Place = Setting Thing = Property (“Prop”) or Figure of Speech Quality = Atmosphere or Emotion Idea = Theme. Here’s an example, courtesy of Bentley Little’s novel The Vanishing:

It was a muggy day in Manhattan [place], and Kirk [person] spent most of it in his apartment [place], sitting in his desk chair listening to the stack of CDs [thing] he’d bought the day before. But, by late afternoon, even he was tired of sitting on his ass. His mom had just returned from a two-week trip to France, and he’d promised to stop by and see her, so he took a shower, put on some clothes his parents wouldn’t find too offensive and made his way uptown to their building. He was happy [quality] to see his mother again. It was embarrassing [quality] to admit, but he’d missed her. Mama’s boy, he chided himself [idea].

This approach makes even a short paragraph seem as if it is telling a story. Little uses this technique frequently in the course of his novels, the scenes reading like anecdotes, or miniature stories, which serve other such purposes as characterizing his characters, developing atmosphere, expressing mood, developing conflict, locating action, and expressing themes, while, at the same time, both individually and collectively, they move the greater narrative forward. It’s a sound approach, built upon connecting words that refer to persons, places, things, qualities, and ideas.

Alternate Endings: When One Conclusion Is As Good As Another

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Aristotle condemned the irrelevant, tacked-on endings with which the playwrights of his day sometimes concluded their dramas (Poetics), and, Edgar Allan Poe contended that the end of a story should be implicit in and follow from the narrative’s beginning (“The Philosophy of Composition”), although not in an obvious way. Apparently, some filmmakers disagree, for, recently, alternate endings seem to have become all the rage.

According to the fine folk of Wikipedia (whoever they may be), “alternate ending is a term used (usually in movies) to describe the ending of a story that was planned or debated but ultimately unused in favor of the actual ending. Generally, alternate endings are considered to have no bearing on the canonical narrative” (“Alternate Ending”). (By “canonical,” the anonymous authors presumably mean the film as it was actually released.)

The online encyclopedia article offers a list of twenty eight alternate endings, including those of 1408, Army of Darkness, and I Know What You Did Last Summer.

In 1408, “Mike Enslin dies in the fire he causes. At his burial, his wife is approached by the hotel manager, offering his personal belongings. She refuses [to accept them], and he lets her know that her husband did not die in vain. Back in his vehicle[,] he listens to the tape recorder, and screams in fear as he sees Enslin’s burned[,] deformed body in his back seat for only a moment. The film closes with an apparition of Mike Enslin still in 1408, muttering to himself, and finally exiting the room, hearing his daughters [sic] voice” (“1408 [film]”).

In Army of Darkness, “after Ash drinks the potion that would make him sleep long enough to wake up in his own time, he accidentally drinks too much and wakes up in the future. In the new time[,] it's a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world and he screams ‘I slept too long!’” (“Army of Darkness”).

In I Know What You Did Last Summer, “Julie receives an invite [sic] to a pool party and read[s] an email that reads ‘I still know” ("I Know What You Did Last Summer [film]").

Those who have seen these films are likely to agree that their actual endings are more satisfying and integral to their stories than these alternate possibilities.

1408 ends with Enslin recovering “in a New York hospital, Lily at his bedside. He swears that he saw Katie, but Lily refuses to believe him. After his recovery[,] Enslin moves back in with Lily, beginning work on a new novel about his stay in 1408. While sorting through a box of items from his night in 1408[,] that [sic] Lily wants to discard, Enslin comes across his Mini Cassette recorder. After some difficulty[,] he manages to get the tape to play; it begins with Enslin's dictation of 1408’s appearance, but cuts in with audio from his interaction with the apparition of his daughter. [In shock,] Lily, who is standing by him[,] listening to the audio, drops a box she was holding. . . . The scene ends with Enslin staring at Lily's face” (Wikipedia, “1408 [film]”).

Army of Darkness concludes “with Ash back at the S-Mart store, telling a co-worker all about his adventure back in time, and how he could have been king. After this, a deadite starts wreaking havoc on the store (it is implied that he again raised the dead by saying the wrong words needed to travel through time), and Ash slays the creature. The film ends with Ash. . . saying, ‘Sure I could have been King, but in my own way, I am a king.’ He then says out loud, while kissing a female customer, ‘Hail to the King, baby!’” (Wikipedia, “Army of Darkness”).

In I Know What You Did Last Summer, Julie “receives a letter resembling the one she had got[ten] from Ben, but it. . . contains [only] a pool party invitation. Julie returns to the bathroom, which has filled with steam. On the shower door, ‘I STILL KNOW’ is written. Ben jumps through the shower door, attacking her” (Wikipedia, “I Know What You Did Last Summer [film]”).

The Wikipedia articles concerning the alternate endings of two of these movies explain why they were dropped and the movies’ existing endings were substituted. The reactions of test audiences at screenings of the movies before their public release did not favor the original (that is, the “alternate”) endings or studio executives ordered that a different ending be filmed:

“Director Mikael Håfström has stated that the ending for 1408 was reshot [sic] because test audiences felt that the original ending was too much of a ‘downer’”, [sic] and “when test audiences didn’t approve of [Sam] Raimi's original ending [to Army of Darkness], he cut the film down to the international cut that now exists on DVD. When it was again rejected by Universal, Raimi was forced to edit it again to the U.S. [sic] theatrical version.” (No explanation as to why the original ending to I Know What You Did Last Summer is provided by the authors of its Wikipedia article.)

In short stories and novels, which are usually produced by a lone author or, occasionally, a pair of collaborators, no advance audience reacts to the narratives’ endings before the stories or novels are published. The emphasis is upon the artwork, not the public’s reaction to it. In other words, the artists determine how and why their work should end the way that it does, and Aristotle and Poe, among others, provide the guidance that most such writers follow in ending their stories: the conclusion must both be logical and organic, as it were, flowing from the narrative’s structure, from the very beginning, and not tacked on for convenience’s sake or, these critics probably would have contended, their audience’s, readers’, or producers’ approval. Whose take is wiser, those of Aristotle and Poe or the Hollywood film industry’s? The filmmakers or their audiences? Or is the very question itself a false dilemma? Could the filmmakers be right in some cases and the test audiences’ reactions be correct in others? It’s impossible to say for certain, but devising several possible alternate endings may be useful as a tool for sustaining situational irony until the very end of a story, although, in the end, a writer should be more concerned with his or her art than with pleasing the reader (or the audience).