Threat Recognition: Keeping It Real

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Most of us, if we survive our childhoods--no easy task, often--develop the ability to distinguish threatening situations, plants, animals, and other people from their non-threatening counterparts. How do we manage to do such a feat, within seconds or less, as often as necessary (except during naps)? Most people would probably attribute this ability to “instinct,” and, certainly, instinct (whatever is meant by this word) could have be one way--maybe the only way--by which this feat is accomplished. However, it seems reasonable that there may be something more to it than just the action of a genetic automatic target-recognition sixth sense or gut feeling. In this post, we offer a few additional possibilities, leaving it to the psychologists to determine whether any of these ideas seem worth the time and trouble of writing a multi-million-dollar grant proposal. (If it is, and the proposal is successful, remember who made the whole thing possible!)

Predators, scientists tell us, whether they (the predators, not the scientists) are lions, tigers, bears, or your Aunt Matilda, have binocular vision, with their eyes facing forward to look straight ahead, rather than having sideways-oriented oracular organs as do, for example, wildebeests, impalas, deer, and Uncle Henry. Doesn’t it seem possible--or even probable--that, over the centuries prey might come to understand that if the eyes face forward, danger threatens?

Likewise, anything that’s bigger than oneself, whether oneself is a shrimp, a slug, a sparrow, a bunny rabbit, or Cousin Bertha, is likely to be able to kill one and should be, at least until proper introductions are made and a chaperone armed with a 12-gauge shotgun is present, avoided.

Speed, too, may be a red flag, even though many prey animals are fairly fleet-footed themselves. There’s probably a reason that snakes are lightning quick and cheetahs run as fast as a lot of Mustangs--over a short distance, anyway. A fast animal, especially if it’s also relatively large, like a lion or a bear or a shark, ought to be avoided. Likewise, anything that just looks weird or scary, such as a snake or a puffer fish, should generally be kept at bay.

Most plants look harmless (although the Venus flytrap’s pretty scary looking, with all those thorny--or toothy--things along the edges of their leaves). Prey animals can learn something from them and their bright-colored animal friends (or foes), too, though. Some plants, like some animals, mimic dangerous cousins (and, sometimes, grandparents). Bright colors, scientists tell us (possibly as a result of a little too much experimentation) often indicate poison, in both plants and animals, and some harmless ones imitate the dangerous ones by assuming the deadly varieties’ coloration. Anything that’s imitated--female impersonators, for instance--are best avoided.

Persons, places, or things that move--things that move?--Sure, we’re talking horror, right?--in numbers (killer bees, a school of piranhas, a pack or wolves or hyenas, a graveyard full of zombies--should, it goes without saying, be avoided, evaded, and otherwise eluded. (Remember The Birds?)

Sen. John McCain, a Republican in name only (RINO)

Anything that has something you don’t have--armor-quality skin, fangs, claws, spines, quills, thorns, rabies, or whatever--is also a no-no when it comes to even casual dating. Avoid these creatures; they are armed and dangerous.

By knowing what constitutes a potential threat, horror writers can lend verisimilitude to their stories by describing threats in reference to the features that may, to the plants and animals that have learned, as the victims of such bullies, what clues to look for, which, again, includes straight-ahead binocular vision, large size, fast speed, Technicolor apparel, a pack mentality, or some sort of organic weapon.

If the threat’s not human or animal or vegetable--if it’s some kind of machine, for example--a website such as that of Federation of American Scientists (listed among our “Recommended Sites” at the bottom of this column) can shed more light than heat, we hope, upon threat-recognition as it applies to enemy aircraft, artillery, poisons, and other weapons systems, at least.

In other words, you’re pretty safe with roses and daises--unless you’re allergic to pollen or there are killer bees about.

Remember, knowing what constitutes a threat--or the appearance of one--helps you to keep it real as a writer. Who knows? It may even save a life.

Note: The photographs that appear in this post are from the U.S. Government Photos and Graphics website. (In other words, you paid for them.)

Tag! You’re It!

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Occupy the seats. These three words summarize the box office imperative of movie theaters across the country. Since motion picture studios are in business to make money and, in their industry, making money is based upon selling tickets, movies, to be, must be perceived. To entice potential audience members, trailers or previews of movies are shown. Another tactic, besides advertising in general and the movie poster in particular, is the use of the movie tagline. A tagline is a short, sometimes witty, slogan that focuses readers’ attention upon specific features of the film--often its storyline. As we will see, though, a well-written tagline can intimate much more than simply the basic plot of its film. Since Chillers and Thrillers is concerned with the theory and practice of writing horror fiction, we’ll consider the taglines for movies in this genre. Makes sense, right? Some taglines suggest the identities of the protagonist and the antagonist and intimate the nature of the basic conflict between them. Of course, the antagonist is going to be in some way horrific, as is the struggle that takes place between the two main characters--we’re talking horror, after all, not romance--and, no, they’re not the same thing (not always, or necessarily, at any rate). Here’s an example:

His mind is her prison (The Cell).

This tagline suggests that the antagonist is likely to be a stalker. The tagline tells us that he is a male, and his prisoner is a female. His thoughts about the protagonist somehow imprison her. Apparently, he is obsessed with her. He is likely to have stalked her. Whether he has, in fact, kidnapped her is unspecified, but possible--even likely. This tagline is effective. In only five words, it identifies the type of protagonist (a victim) and antagonist (a stalker or a kidnapper) and the nature of the struggle between them. It also raises a few tantalizing questions. If she has been adducted, where is she being held captive (other than in his mind)? If “his mind is her prison,” is he a control freak and, perhaps, a sadist? If she is literally a captive, will she escape? If so, how? If not, why not? Does her captor kill her? In what manner, and why? Is torture involved? 

The title of the movie, The Cell, constitutes an effective play on words, for a cell can be a compartment in a jail or prison, but it is also the tiny, constituent structure of body organs, including the brain. “Mind” and “brain,” while not necessarily synonymous (depending upon one’s worldview), are often used more or less interchangeably. Therefore, the play on words links the mental state of the antagonist and the physical prison in which the antagonist is likely to be incarcerated, reinforcing the tagline’s message, “His mind is her prison.” 

The next tagline lacks a context (until one reads the title of the movie to which the tagline refers):

Bigger. Smarter. Faster. Meaner. (Deep Blue Sea)

What’s “bigger, smarter, faster, and meaner”? We aren’t told. Therefore, we’re free to imagine what these adjectives refer to. They could refer to a machine, to a new species resulting from bioengineering or eugenics, or to a robot or cyborg assassin. In fact, it’s a maritime threat, and the comparative forms of the adjectives in the tagline compare it, favorably, against the great white shark that appeared as the monster in Jaws. This tagline, in alluding to a previous movie, appeals to the fans of the Steven Spielberg film, but suggests that the movie to which it refers, Deep Blue Sea, will be even more chilling and thrilling than Jaws was. “If you liked Jaws,” it suggests, “you’ll love Deep Blue Sea.” After all, this movie, like its monster, will be “bigger, smarter, faster, and meaner” than Jaws. 

We can get out of most difficulties by using a variety of Freudian defense mechanisms or even simpler techniques such as lying, rationalizing, excusing, and blaming others (not that any of these tactics is justifiable or recommended). In fact, an aphorism suggests that there are but two things that one cannot avoid: death and taxes. This tagline offers a similar observation:

Death doesn’t take “no” for an answer (Final Destination).

Death is unavoidable; it “doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Therefore, the grave is our “final destination,” as the title of the movie, in the context supplied to it by its tagline, suggests. Of course, the tagline also suggests that we’re in imminent danger: death has asked us to join him (or it), and he (or it) is awaiting our answer--which had better be “yes,” since “Death doesn’t take no for an answer.” Is there a fate worse than death? Hamlet thought so:

To be, or not to be--that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep-- No more--and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep-- To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprise of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. . . .

Many others, both fictional and living, believe the same thing, more or less, and are afraid that there may very well be “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in. . . [their] philosophy,” including, perhaps, hell. The fear of damnation, which still beats within the breasts of many, is the wellspring of terror upon which the following tagline depends for its gush of dread, implying that, as great as it may be to lose one’s life, the loss of one’s eternal soul is unimaginably worse:

You have nothing to lose but your soul (Lost Souls)

The next tagline refers to a game, and a common metaphor compares life to a game:

The game is far from over (Along Came a Spider)

Other types of games may spring to mind, too, such as the rather sadistic “game of cat and mouse,” wherein a predator amuses itself by tormenting its prey. If the game in question is life--and life, perhaps, spent in misery, as the victim of a sadist who amuses himself by tormenting his victim--and “the game is far from over,” a sense of horror asserts itself readily enough. (We were much more frightened when we thought that the tagline might refer to Hillary Clinton’s winning the White House! After all, she’s always assuring us--or herself, perhaps--that the Democratic primary, a game if ever there was one, “is far from over.”) Like most taglines, this one lacks a context--until the title of the movie with which it is associated is read. Along Came a Spider is taken from the “Little Miss Muffet” nursery rhyme:

Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, Eating her curds and whey; Along came a spider, who sat down beside her And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Therefore, this tagline comprises a literary allusion. After describing a picture of innocence and everyday comfort (a little girl, dining), the tagline introduces a threat--the spider, an unwelcome intruder, which violates the heroine’s personal space, sitting “down beside her,” and frightens her. The tagline also suggests that the nursery rhyme has some bearing upon the movie’s plot, theme or, perhaps, its protagonist or antagonist (or both). If we haven’t yet seen the film, we may not be sure of the exact nature of the significance the nursery rhyme has in regard to the film, but we can be pretty certain that, whatever it is, it will be horrendous, and that it will involve the frightening intrusion of a threat upon an innocent. (In fact, the allusion is a bit more tenuous than we might anticipate; the movie turns out to be more of a thriller than a chiller, the Little Miss Muffet of which is a congressman’s daughter who is abducted from a private school by the kidnapper, or “spider.”) 

It seems that, everyday, we seek to impose our wills upon others or others attempt to impose their wills upon us. We seek constantly to make others do our bidding or to take upon themselves our likeness, just as others seek to do the same with regard to us. Sometimes, we acquiesce willingly. Other times, we allow ourselves to be used or changed or manipulated or controlled only under protest and duress. The next tagline suggests that the latter is likely to be the case in regard to those who may now be less than perfect (according to someone else’s standards) but need not worry, for, after all, they are about to undergo a metamorphosis, most likely against their will:

It doesn’t matter if you’re perfect. You will be (Disturbing Behavior).

Sure enough, the movie involves a plot by townspeople to transform their rebellious teens into perfect citizens. (Ironically, what’s “disturbing” about the teens’ behavior is that it’s literally too good to be true.)

Personification (the attribution of human characteristics or behaviors to animals or inanimate objects) is not uncommon in taglines, and this one makes use of this literary device, assigning “appetite” to the “night,” and transforming the darkness at day’s end, therefore, into something that is like to be beastly or monstrous (for, again, we’re talking horror movies here, not romances):

The night has an appetite (The Forsaken).

Most likely, the veterans of horror movie madness will think, this movie, The Forsaken (short, perhaps for The Godforsaken), deals with something on the order of vampires or werewolves. (In fact, the film’s antagonists are the undead.)

 

Mothers, God bless them, are more full of cautionary tales and aphorisms than the Bible. With their children’s best interests and welfare always at heart, they have a wise word for every occasion. They also have some verbal pearls to cast even when there is nothing particular about an upcoming event. These all-purpose pearls, of course, tend to be more general in scope than the occasion-specific gems. Here’s one of the more inclusive Mom Maxims:

Be careful who you trust (The Glass House).

Pretty sound advice, even if it’s a tad general--especially in a horror movie. Some people, we learn, are not worthy of our trust. The movie’s title calls to mind another aphorism: “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” meaning that the pot is ill-advised to call the kettle black, since it takes one to know one or something like that. In this movie, the glass house, however, turns out to be the home of the Glasses, Terrence and Erin, who are the former Malibu neighbors of two siblings whose parents are killed in a car crash. After their parents’ deaths, the children, Ruby and Rhett Baker, are taken in by the Glasses, who treat them well--at first. Ruby then finds some evidence that suggests that the Glasses, motivated by the chance to get their greedy hands on their new wards’ four-million-dollar trust fund, may have been responsible for her parents’ deaths. The Glasses are not as transparent as they seem; they have some dark secrets. Once again, Mom’s Maxims prove to be right on the money. (An alternate tagline for this movie is “It’s time to kick some Glass.”)

The next tagline speaks for itself:

What’s eating you? (Jeepers Creepers)

It doesn’t, really, of course. It’s only a rhetorical question, after all. Isn’t it? As it turns out, it can be taken literally: in the film, a pair of siblings, Darry and Patricia Jenner, on their way home through an isolated stretch of countryside during spring break, encounter a cannibalistic creature known as The Creeper. (The “What’s” part of the question suggests, on a figurative level, that there’s something the matter, emotionally, perhaps, with the person being eaten, as it were. On the literal level, the same part of the question implies that the identity of the devourer is unknown, perhaps mysterious or even monstrous, as though one were really asking “What in hell is eating you?”)

 

The movie’s title derives from part of a 1938 jazz song:

Jeepers Creepers, where’d you get those peepers? Jeepers Creepers, where’d you get those eyes? Gosh, all get up! How’d they get so lit up? Gosh, all get up! How’d they get that size? Golly gee! When you turn those heaters on, woe is me! Got to get my cheaters on. Jeepers Creepers, Where’d you get those peepers? Oh, those weepers! How they hypnotize! Where’d you get those eyes? Where’d you get those eyes? Where’d you get those eyes?

The tagline for Jeepers Creepers II maintains the allusion to eating, but defines the moviegoer as the monster’s food: “He can taste your fear.”

 

Shamelessly, the tagline for The Fly--in which fly DNA gets scrambled with the human DNA of a mad scientist who, having too much time on his hands, is working out the kinks of a teleportation device that disassembles matter and reassembles it elsewhere--tells the potential audience just how they should feel while whiling away the hours in front of the screen showing this movie:

Be afraid. Be very afraid (The Fly).

The next tagline identifies the setting--a place far more remote than the locales in which the action of most horror movies takes place--and suggests that something dreadful is going to take place therein, something that would make its victims scream:

In space, no one can hear you scream (Alien).

Why do people scream when they’re afraid? “Duh! Because they’re afraid!” is the obvious answer, but, according to evolutionary biologists there’s another, somewhat more profound reason for this unseemly behavior. Screaming is the human equivalent of an air-raid siren, a car alarm, or an emergency vehicle siren: to annoy the hell out of everyone who hears it’s incessant, screeching wail. No, really, the purpose is to alert, to alarm, to warn, to get others’ attention. It’s a cry for help. The fact that “in space, no one can hear you scream” adds another layer to the distress of the victim, heightening the horror of the injured party’s fate, because screaming, as an attention-getter, is of no avail: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”

 

There are many, many other taglines, and we may analyze a few more in other posts, but, for now, let’s consider what these slogan-like ad pitches teach us about writing horror:

• They describe a basic situation that lacks a context, the context being provided by the title of the film for which the tagline is a pitch, making a sort of game out of the two elements (title and tagline).
• They pique our interest by identifying the main characters (protagonist and antagonist) and suggesting the nature of the conflict between them.
• They include plays on words that associate literal with figurative meanings, relating physical actions to emotional states.
• They allude to similar films, suggesting that they are better (read scarier) than their competitors.
• They confront their audience with a powerful, apparently unstoppable foe.
• They personify non-human threats.
• They place characters in nearly impossible situations that are likely to get them dismembered or killed (or both).

An opening paragraph in a short story, the first chapter of a novel, or the first fifteen minutes or so of a movie that accomplishes one of these feats is likely to hook its reader or viewer, too.

The aspiring writer isn’t--or shouldn’t be--too proud to beg, borrow, or steal--well, not steal, maybe--effective techniques wherever he or she may find them, including the lowly motion picture tagline. Nothing succeeds like success, after all, and, yes, sometimes “brevity” certainly is “the soul of wit,” as Shakespeare’s Polonius advised.

Fictional Stories as Thought Experiments

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

According to James Robert Brown’s article in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, thought experiments are “devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things.” (This definition makes fiction itself a grand and complex thought experiment, we may argue.) Among the more famous of such experiments are “Newton’s bucket, Maxwell’s demon, Einstein’s elevator, Heisenberg’s gamma-ray microscope, and Shrodinger’s cat”:

Schrödinger's cat. . . does not show that quantum theory (as interpreted by Bohr) is internally inconsistent. Rather it shows that it is conflict with some very powerful common sense beliefs we have about macro-sized objects such as cats. The bizarreness of superpositions in the atomic world is worrisome enough, says Schrödinger, but when it implies that same bizarreness at an everyday level, it is intolerable. . . . Einstein's elevator showed that light will bend in a gravitational field; Maxwell's demon showed that entropy could be decreased. . . . Newton's bucket showed that space is a thing in its own right; Parfit's splitting persons showed that survival is a more important notion than identity when considering personhood (“Thought Experiments”).

Thought experiments are just as important to philosophy, Brown observes, as they have proven to be to science: “Much of ethics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind is based firmly on the results of thought experiments,” and, to illustrate his observation, he identifies several of the more important philosophical thought experiments: “Thompson's violinist, Searle's Chinese room, Putnam's twin earth, Parfit's people who split like an amoeba.” (We might add the example of the philosophical zombie, discussed in a previous post, as well.)

Describing an early thought experiment, which appears in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, Brown identifies three “common features of thought experiments”: “We visualize some situation; we carry out an operation; we see what happens.”

Like special effects, thought experiments can be conducted even when actual conditions or moral considerations make an actual experiment impossible or objectionable.

Occasionally, thought experiments might help to revolutionize scientific theory as well, according to Thomas Kuhn: “a well-conceived thought experiment can bring on a crisis or at least create an anomaly in the reigning theory and so contribute to paradigm change” (Brown). For additional benefits from, and some objections that scientists and philosophers have advanced concerning the use of thought experiments, those which were conducted by the likes of Newton and Einstein notwithstanding, check out Brown’s article (liked above).

We suggest that, before science, there were also thought experiments, called fiction (or, before fiction was recognized as invented rather than of an inspired or an empirical origin), as myths, folktales, and legends. Ancient Greek (and Egyptian and Norse) myths were of special significance in establishing the ways by which storytellers and their audiences (pretty much all of any society of the time) understood, thought about, and interpreted themselves and the world around them. Such stories, from time to time, also sought to investigate the possibilities of human existence and of nature. At such times as these, the myths became what we could call narrative or dramatic thought experiments. Even today, stories, especially in the fantasy and science fiction genres, continue to pose and conduct thought experiments about all aspects of human existence and nature itself. Horror fiction also conducts such experiments on occasion (as the popularity of the mad scientist, for example, suggests).

Brown’s analysis of Lucretius’ thought experiment led him to posit three features characteristic of all thought experiments: “We visualize some situation; we carry out an operation; we see what happens.” The what-if mode of envisioning stories (an abbreviated way of saying “What might happen if”), common, once again, to fantasy and science fiction (and to alternate history stories) virtually demands such an approach, at least at times, but horror fiction and literature in other genres can do so, too. In horror fiction, we might ask, “What if a chemical compound could, when ingested, cause abnormally large growth in the animals that had consumed it?” The result of this visualization of a specific situation, carried out by the telling of the tale, might be H. G. Wells’ The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, in which the result is shown to be an imminent war between the haves (the “Children of the Food” and the have-nots (the “Pygmies”) to determine whether growth shall win out over the non-growth of the status quo.

Unhampered by modern science’s knowledge of natural laws, Greek myths (as well as those of other ancient nations) asked what-if questions with the abandonment that can result only from the naiveté of the abysmally ignorant:

• What if a person (or maybe a demon) could assume whatever shape it chose, for as long as it chose to do so?
• What if a person were of gigantic size and had a single eye in the middle of his forehead?
• What if a creature were half-man and half-horse?What if a creature were half-woman and half-fish?
• What if a horse, having wings, could fly?
• What if men and women lived forever and could rule over various aspects of nature?
• What if one man had the strength of twenty men?
• What if women could fight as good as--no, better than--men?
• What if a woman had a baby after being raped by the devil?
• What if God mated with a mortal woman?
• What if a house were haunted by a vengeful ghost?

Horror fiction asks similar (or, indeed, on occasion, identical) questions, but with an emphasis on the horrific:

• What if a person (or maybe a demon) could assume whatever shape it chose, for as long as it chose to do so? (It)
• What if a demon could animate a corpse? (Dracula)
• What if the spirits of the dead exist in some shadowy manner and can interact with humans? (The Turn of the Screw)
• What if a scientist could cause a body constructed of parts from corpses to live again? (Frankenstein)
• What if a man could change into a wolf and back again into a man? (The Howling)
• What if a woman, raped by the devil, gave birth to a son? (Rosemary’s Baby)
• What if a child abuser, torched by his victims’ parents, returned as a vengeful bogeyman? (Nightmare on Elm Street) \
• What if an extraterrestrial female came to earth, seeking a mate? (Species)
• What if vampires came to a small town in modern America? (‘Salem’s Lot)
• What if a modern-day Cinderella with telekinetic powers had a terrible time at the ball? (Carrie)
• What if myths were based upon true incidents or creatures? (Dominion)
• What if the earth were invaded by a Martian military force (The War of the Worlds)
• What if a scientist tried to create an intelligent, hybrid human-animal species? (The Island of Dr. Moreau)
• What if a brain could survive inside a decapitated head on life-support? (The Brain That Wouldn’t Die)
• What if an extraterrestrial creature, trapped in a block of ice, were thawed out by a group of scientists operating an arctic research laboratory? (The Thing)

These and countless other what-if questions allow writers to envision a situation that is improbable or impossible in nature or because of moral concerns, carry out a thought experiment (writing or reading the resulting story), and see what happens. Different genres appeal to different concerns and respond to different issues:

• Adventure appeals to the desire to escape and to explore new worlds.
• Detective and mystery stories appeal to the desire to solve a puzzle and to see that justice is served.
• Fantasy appeals to the desire for experience wonder and awe.
• Horror appeals to the desire to survive against seemingly impossible odds and to endure great losses and suffering.
• Science fiction appeals to one’s innate curiosity about the world and the desire to discern the realities behind appearances.
• Romance appeals to the desire to meet and marry Mr. Right.
• Westerns appeal to the desire for law, order, and justice, especially for the underdog.

Each genre of fiction is apt to pose imaginary (and imaginative) situations that, peculiarly appropriate to their own purposes, allow writers and readers to “carry out an operation” and “see what happens” with regard to the genres’ own special interests and concerns. As much as the myths, legends, and folktales of yesteryear, contemporary fiction, including horror stories, remains a vast and complex series of never-ending thought experiments that can draw upon not only science and philosophy but also theology, art, and all other cultural realms and practical aspects of human existence.

Source cited

Brown, James Robert. "Thought Experiments.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2007.

Going Through the Motions, or The Physics of Fiction

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Viewing a subject from an unfamiliar or little-used perspective renews one’s own appreciation and understanding of the matter, making the familiar appear strange and new again. In The Physics of Superheroes, Professor James Kakalios, himself a physicist, provides such a vantage point as he applies the principles of physics to the powers of costumed crime fighters with superhuman abilities in order to explain why they could perform the feats they routinely perform (or, in some cases, why they could not perform such deeds), given the willing suspension of disbelief that is required to accept the premise that these characters can perform such exploits to begin with, the “miracle exception” that represents “the one thing you have to buy into to make the superhero plausible” and that allows “the rest that follows” to “be consistent with science” (15). The various superheroes whose mighty deeds Kakalios considers comprise a true who’s who list of caped crusaders (and a few super villains), including Superman, Spider-man, Flash, and Ant-man (in “Section 1” of his book, concerning “Mechanics”) and Flash, The Atom, the X-Men, Superman, Electro, Superboy, Magneto, Iron Man, and others (in "Section 2" of his book, concerning "Energy--Heat and Light.") It’s an interesting book for bookworms like Peter Parker and geeks of all ages.

We’re interested in the book for reasons of our own, though, which pertain to the theory and practice of writing horror fiction. The principles that Kakalios uses to explain the actions of the superheroes and villains in DC and Marvel Comics also explain how, if not always exactly why, horror fiction chills and thrills its readers, offering a fresh way of seeing the effects of dramatic structure and plotting.

In the first section of The Physics of Superheroes, Kakalios reminds his readers of the “three laws of motion” laid down by Sir Isaac Newton:

1. An object at rest remains at rest, or if moving remains moving in a straight line if no external forces act upon it.
2. If an external force is applied, the object’s motion will change in either magnitude or direction, and the rate of change of the motion (its acceleration) when multiplied by the object’s mass is equal to the applied force.
3. For every force applied to an object there is an equal and opposite force exerted back by the object (24-25).

Let’s apply these laws of motion to the horror story plot (or, for that matter, any other type of plot).

According to Gustav Freytag, an incident in the story’s plot sets everything that follows it into motion. This incident, called the inciting moment, is like a spark that starts a fire or, in terms of Newton’s laws of motion, it is the external force that changes the plot-as-object’s motion, causing it to take a new direction. Were it not for the inciting moment, the plot would continue forward, in a straight line, so to speak, rather than changing direction as it begins its upward climb which commences what Freytag calls the plot’s rising action.

The third law of motion is also useful as a means of envisioning what writers, literary critics, and readers call conflict, for it is the “force applied” by the protagonist to the antagonist, or “object,” countered by the “equal and opposite force exerted back” by the antagonist that balances the story’s action (at least until the turning point, a second inciting moment of sorts, which intervenes to set the plot off in a new, downward direction, as it were, Freytag’s falling action.

As Kakalios points out, the second law of motion (“If an external force is applied, the object’s motion will change in either magnitude or direction, and the rate of change of the motion (its acceleration) when multiplied by the object’s mass is equal to the applied force”) can be represented by the mathematical formula F = ma, wherein F = force, m = mass, and a = acceleration (25). (Acceleration differs from velocity, Kakalios reminds his readers. The former refers to the change in speed over time, whereas the latter refers to the change in speed over distance [30].) Mass is simply a measure of how many atoms make up an object. A piece of plastic is made up of relatively few atoms, whereas lead is comprised of many more atoms, packed, as it were, in an equal amount of space. The more atoms-per-space (mass) and the greater the rate of acceleration, the more force results. In terms of story plotting, we mentally replace atoms with narrative incidents (or, in description, perhaps with action verbs and shorter sentences). The more incidents, action verbs, and sentences we “pack” into a passage, the greater its force, or narrative effect, upon the reader. It seems that Edgar Allan Poe has something similar to this concept, minus the physical laws of motion, in mind, when he argues, in “The Philosophy of Composition,” that a shorter story, especially one that can be read in “a single sitting,” without interruption, has a greater effect upon its readers than a longer story which is, in effect, simply a series of shorter stories told successively and related to one another through cause and effect. To make a story more horrifying, speed up the action (writing action verb-packed short sentences in a rapid-fire series of narrative incidents); to slow the pace and the story’s effect (horror), slow down the same process.

It seems that, understood figuratively, Newton’s laws of motion apply to plotting horror fiction (and other literary genres) as much as they do to physical and mechanical motion.

Source cited

Kakalios, James. The Physics of Superheroes. New York: Gotham Books, 2005.