Cemetery Dance, The First 10 Chapters and the Epilogue: A Study of Technique

By Gary L. Pullman

The use of situational irony; the introduction of new or recurring characters; the planting of clues; the descriptions of violent encounters which could be injurious or fatal to sympathetic characters; the teasing of readers by the raising of questions, large or small (especially those which concern motive or cause), which are then answered incorrectly or partially, either immediately or in the future; the creation of ambiguous situations which themselves give rise to questions in readers’ minds which are also then answered incorrectly or partially, either immediately or in the future; the inclusion of unusual or bizarre incidents, characters, settings, or objects; the piecemeal revelation of character; and the allusion to bizarre beliefs and rituals, especially with the suggestion that they may be true and real, are all ways by which to generate the suspense by which readers’ interest in a story is created or maintained.

These elements are often about significant incidents, but even small matters can, and do, sustain suspense (at least for a short time) and, therefore, readers’ interest in the story. Those which are more significant than others might be mentioned more than once, often in dialogue between different characters.

Short, tightly written chapters, comprised of only one or two scenes, in which composed, if not serene, action alternates with fast-paced, sometimes violent, action (and usually a change of setting and characters), also keeps readers reading. Most of the chapters of Cemetery Dance are five or six pages long, but there are 85 chapters and an epilogue, or 435 pages, total.

Writers and readers alike complain about the difficulty of bringing a narrative to an appropriate and satisfying end--one which doesn’t make readers feel as though the writer has cheated them with a convenient, tacked-on, but emotionally unsatisfying and philosophically unrealistic, conclusion. Cemetery Dance’s epilogue shows an effective way of concluding a story of combined genres, which might be called the horror-mystery-thriller.

Note: Bold black font indicates incidents which create or maintain suspense; bold red font explains how these incidents accomplish this purpose.

Chapter 1 (pages 1-7)

Who: Bill Smithback, his wife Nora Kelly, and Colin Fearing
What: Fearing kills Smithback after Nora leaves on an errand; Fearing also attempts to attack Nora
When: Smithback’s and Nora’s first anniversary
Where: Smithback’s and Nora’s apartment in New York City
How: Knife
Why: Unknown at this time
Twist: None

Contrast is used to effect situational irony [readers’ expectations are overturned] as New York Times reporter Bill Smithback, a character who has appeared in several previous novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, anticipates, on his first anniversary, an intimate evening with his wife, Nora an archaeologist with New York City Museum of Natural History who has just received the news that her expedition to the “Southwest” to analyze “the spread of the Kachina Cult” has been approved [is this cult somehow important to the story, and, if so, how and why?]; instead of the intimacy that Smithback anticipates, he is brutally killed by a knife-wielding assassin identified by eyewitnesses and surveillance video as his neighbor, “out-of-work British actor” Colin Fearing. In addition, Smithback’s fight for his life [will he survive?] helps to maintain readers’ interest, as does Fearing’s attempted attack upon Nora [will she be injured or killed?] as she returns home from having run an errand. The motive for the murder, which is not known [what is the motive?] at this time, also maintains readers’ interest in the story, as does Smithback’s reminder to Nora to be careful as she embarks upon her errand, especially since they have been receiving “weird little packages” [what is in the packages, who has been sending them, and why?].

Chapter 2 (pages 8-13)

Who: Detective Vincent D’Agosta and Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast
What: D’Agosta and Pendergast investigate the crime scene
When: Morning of Smithback’s murder
Where: Smithback’s and Nora’s apartment in New York City
How: Knife used in murder; crime-scene analysis performed; Pendergast performs own tests
Why: Murder is thought to have followed an attempted rape gone wrong
Twist: Pendergast eliminates suspect

The introduction of two other recurring characters, Detective Vincent D’Agosta and Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast [for new readers, who are they; for regular readers, what are they up to this time around?], maintains readers’ interest in the story, as does the discovery of clues at the crime scene [which, if any, are important to the case, and why?], the identification of the suspected motive for the crime [is this the true motive?], hints that the murder is not “open and shut,” [why not?], as D’Agosta believes it to be, the disclosure that “a star witness” awaits interrogation [what will the interview disclose about the case?], and the situational irony that results from the twist ending to the chapter, wherein Pendergast informs D’Agosta that the suspect is dead [readers’ expectations are overturned].

Chapter 3 (pages 14-18)

Who: Detective D’Agosta, Special Agent Pendergast, “star witness” Enrico Mosquea (doorman), and Pendergast’s driver, Proctor
What: With D’Agosta present, Pendergast interviews Mosquea
When: The morning following Smithback’s murder
Where: The lobby of Smithback’s and Nora’s apartment building; the interior of Pendergast’s 1959 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith
How: Interview; surveillance tape
Why: Pendergast questions a witness and views a surveillance tape for clues
Twist: Pendergast observes that it is curious that Fearing, just after he has committed a murder, would look into a camera he knows to be present

With D’Agosta present, Pendergast interviews Mosquea [what will the interview disclose about the case?], who swears, most adamantly, that the killer is Fearing, maintaining his belief even after Pendergast tells the doorman that Fearing has been dead for 10 days; in Pendergast’s car, D’Agosta and Pendergast review the surveillance tape [what will the tape disclose about the case?], showing Fearing entering and exiting Smithback’s apartment building, bloody upon egress, and Pendergast thinks it curious that Fearing, just after he has committed a murder, would look into a camera that he knows to be in the lobby [why does Fearing do so?]. The authors provide three possible explanations for the killer’s resemblance to the dead actor [which, if any, is correct?]: Fearing has a twin, there are two men named Colin Fearing in New York City, or the medical examiner’s office has “made a terrible mistake” in misidentifying Fearing as the dead man.

Chapter 4 (pages 19-23)

Who: Caitlyn Kidd, obituary writer Larry Bassington, “a bald, heavyset man” and Heidi, the latter two of whom were Smithback’s neighbors
What: Caitlyn responds to a police scanner’s report concerning Smithback’s murder
When: Morning following Smithback’s murder
Where: Interior of Caitlyn’s car, as she eats breakfast and monitors her police scanner; exterior of Smithback’s apartment building
How: Monitoring of police scanner; driving of personal automobile
Why: Caitlyn seeks her next news scoop
Twist: None

The introduction of another recurring character, West Sider reporter Caitlyn Kidd [for new readers, who are they; for regular readers, what are they up to this time around?], maintains readers’ interest in the story, as does Caitlyn’s scanning of the police monitor in her car [will she hear an important lead?], and her interviewing of witnesses outside Smithback’s apartment building [will she learn anything significant about the murder?]. A minor incident--the possibility of her getting a ticket for illegal parking (next to a fire extinguisher) also maintains readers’ interest (she does get a ticket).

Chapter 5 (pages 24-27)

Who: Nora, a bloody man, three nurses
What: Nora dreams that a bloody man is attacking her
When: The night after Smithback’s murder
Where: Nora’s hospital room
How: Dream
Why: Dream, perhaps resulting from trauma
Twist: None

Nora awakens from a drug-induced sleep, alone in her hospital room, the privacy curtain drawn around her bed, but, when she hears moans from the bed beside her own and sees a “silhouette” through the curtain, she assumes another patient has been admitted who needs help [is this person another patient; Smithback, who has somehow survived; the killer, come to murder her; or someone else who is sinister?]; then, the other person seems bent upon attacking her [is she actually being attacked or does she only believe she is being attacked and, if she is being attached, why?], and she jabs the call button. A trio of nurses arrive, one giving her an injection, another righting the intravenous stand Nora has knocked over, and all of them helping her back into bed, assuring her that she has had a nightmare [are they telling her the truth, are they mistaken, or are they part of a conspiracy?], which is not uncommon “after a concussion” and showing her that the other bed in the room is not only empty but well made [was the while thing a dream or was it real, and if it truly happened, why is the adjacent bed still made?].

Chapter 6 (pages 28-32)

Who: Detective D’Agosta, Nora Kelly
What: D’Agosta interviews Nora about Fearing’s murder of Smithback
When: The morning after Smithback’s murder
Where: Nora’s hospital room
How: Interview
Why: To elicit information that can help to find and convict Fearing
Twist: None

During D’Agosta’s interview, Nora supplies a list of suspects [will one or more of them turn out to have been Smithback’s killer?] in her husband’s death by telling the detective of several enemies who may have wanted to kill Smithback, including Lucas Kline, who “runs a software development company” and was exposed by her husband as someone who sexually harasses his female employees; Kline (and others) sent Smithback “threatening letters”; she also tells D’Agosta about the “strange packages” she and Smithback received, filled with dolls, animal bones, moss, and sequins” [who sent the packages, why, and why do they contain such bizarre objects?]. She asks why Fearing would have armed himself with only a knife, rather than with a gun [D‘Agosta admits that this is a “good question,” as readers are likewise apt to do], asks why Fearing neither disguised himself nor avoided witnesses and the lobby’s surveillance camera [this echoes Pendergast’s comment about Fearing’s looking into the camera, again implying that the killer’s doing so was intentional and making readers wonder what the killer’s motive for doing so might be], and asks whether she can return to her apartment after her release later in the afternoon (she can).

Chapter 7 (pages 33-35)

Who: Special Agent Pendergast, Miss Kyoko Ishimura (Pendergast’s deaf mute housekeeper)
What: A tea party inside Pendergast’s apartment teahouse
When: Unidentified, except as after Smithback’s death
Where: Pendergast’s apartment
How: N/A
Why: Pendergast bids farewell to Smithback
Twist: None

Pendergast enters the furthest extension of his Dakota’s apartment on West 72nd and Central Part West Streets, where he has a teahouse beyond a garden; therein, he drinks tea, remembering the times he’s had with Smithback and the deeds they’ve accomplished together, bidding farewell to the murdered reporter, using a foreign tongue (waga tomo yusurakani) to do so. [This chapter’s interest for readers is in the curious nature of Pendergast’s abode and his unusual behavior in drinking tea in memory of his deceased friend. It is also a lull, as it were, before the dramatic storm to come. This chapter also suggests that Smithback really is dead; Pendergast is too good a detective to be fooled into supposing Smithback dead when he is not.]

Chapter 8 (pages 36-42)

Who: Detective D’Agosta, Special Agent Pendergast, security guard, secretary, Dr. Wayne Heffler (assistant medical examiner)
What: D’Agosta and Pendergast interview the assistant medical examiner, who autopsied Fearing
When: Noon (of the day following Smithback’s death?)
Where: New York City’s medical examiner’s office
How: Interview
Why: To request that an autopsy on Smithback’s body and DNA tests be expedited
Twist: None

With Pendergast in tow, D’Agosta interviews Dr. Heffler, the assistant medical examiner who autopsied Fearing; they learn that Fearing’s sister, Carmela Fearing, identified the body, Fearing having committed suicide (his body was discovered in the Harlem River). They learn that Fearing’s identity was also collaborated by his birth mark, which was described on his birth certificate, and the tattoo parlor that had tattooed Fearing lately, but Pendergast’s questions disclose the facts that there is no record of Carmela’s proof of her identity, that no one witnessed Fearing’s suicide, and that no “forensic examination” of the suicide note was performed “to ascertain” that the note “was indeed in Colin Fearing’s handwriting.” When Heffler denies D’Agosta’s requests to expedite the autopsy on Smithback’s body and tests on the DNA in the blood obtained from the crime scene and Smithback’s hair samples and on the blood of Fearing’s mother “for comparison,” Pendergast threatens the assistant medical examiner by threatening to expose the legal, but disturbing, practice of his office’s selling of organs harvested from the city’s indigent dead to support its work. There remains only one matter to which to attend: collecting the DNA of Fearing’s mother, which could take months to do using lawful procedures. To this end, Pendergast informs D’Agosta, they will “be paying a visit to one Gladys Fearing,” who, although she is institutionalized as mentally incompetent, Pendergast believes will “prove surprisingly eloquent.” [This chapter’s interest to readers lies in its setting up the possibility that Fearing is not dead, after all, and in the revelation that Pendergast is both innovative and unwilling to be bound by petty bureaucratic procedures or by petty bureaucrats. Pendergast’s reference to a future visit with Fearing’s mother also foreshadows this event, thereby creating suspense as to the visit’s nature and outcome.]

Chapter 9 (pages 43-46)

Who: Nora Kelly, anthropology curator Primus Hornsby
What: Hornsby, implying that Smithback may have been killed by a zombie, explains how Nora should bury her husband’s body, lest Smithback now be one of the living dead himself
When: 2:00 PM, two days after Smithback’s murder
Where: Nora’s office in the New York City Museum of Natural History
How: Dialogue concerning special chemicals and rituals by which to bury the dead
Why: To prevent the return of the dead as a zombie
Twist: None

Having gone straight from the hospital to work, instead of home, Nora takes refuge in her laboratory from her well-meaning colleagues. She logs onto her computer and catalogues specimens of potsherds, trying to forget her memory of the stark nightmare she’d had of the attacker in her hospital room. Primus Hornsby, the anthropology curator, visits her, showing her the latest West Sider headline: “TIMES REPORTER KILLED BY ZOMBIE?” Hornsby, implying that Smithback may have been killed by a zombie, explains how she should bury him, in case Smithback, too, is now one of the living dead: embalmed with Formalazen, mixed with rat poison, instead of formaldehyde, with his mouth sewn shut, and facedown, with a “long knife in one hand,” as they do in Dessalines, Haiti, where Hornsby did his fieldwork. [This chapter’s reference to bizarre beliefs and rituals and its implication that Smithback may be a zombie who was himself killed by another zombie intrigues readers.]

Chapter 10 (pages 47-52)

Who: Detective D’Agosta and Special Agent Pendergast, Mrs. Gladys Fearing, Jo-Ann (desk clerk at Willoughby Manor Extended Care Facility)
What: The detective and the FBI agent obtain a DNA sample from Fearing’s mentally incompetent mother
When: Shortly (perhaps two days) after Smithback’s murder
Where: Willoughby Manor Extended Care Facility, Kerhonkson, New York
How: Pendergast’s automobile; interview
Why: To obtain a DNA sample
Twist: None

After interviewing the desk clerk, Jo-Ann, about how often Gladys Fearing’s son (Colin) and daughter (Carmela) visit their mentally incompetent mother at Kerhonkson, New York’s Willoughby Manor Extended Care Facility (Colin seldom, and most recently eight months ago; Carmela, never) and extracting from Jo-Ann a promise to notify him if anyone visits the patient, Pendergast, asking Gladys about her first teddy bear, gets her to cry and to blow her nose into a tissue that he offers her, thereby obtaining her DNA (in the mucus). [This chapter shows, once again, how unconventional and resourceful Pendergast is and how adept he is at manipulating others, and advances the plot by overcoming an obstacle that would set the narrative back by weeks or months. Readers enjoy seeing character traits revealed and may wonder whether Pendergast’s encouragement of Jo-Ann to stay in touch with him may result in future revelations which are helpful to the case and, if so, what and why.]

Epilogue (pages 433-435)

Who: Nora Kelly
What: Nora disposes of her cremated husband’s ashes
When: a “day in early April”
Where: Lake Powell, Arizona
How: Powerboat
Why: Nora bids adieu to her late husband
Twist: None

To explore the offer of becoming the curator of the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute in New Mexico, Nora stays with her brother Skip, revisiting places she’d been with Smithback during their first encounter with one another, including a channel of water near a waterfall beyond Lake Powell, Arizona’s Serpentine Canyon, where she’d begun to fall in love with Smithback. Here, she shakes the ashes of her cremated husband into the water, wishing him “good-bye.” [The epilogue brings an appropriate closure both to the story and to Nora’s grief, bringing about a sense of completion to the narrative. For readers, it is also a way to allow them to bid farewell to a friend, as it were, whom they have either gotten to know for the first time in reading this novel or have known and liked for many years as returning readers of the Pendergast series.]

If, in reading how Preston and Child advance the plot of Cemetery Dance and create and maintain their readers’ interest in continuing to read their novel, you would like to know the outcome of the action, these writers have done a good job in generating and continuing your suspense.

Quick Tip: Theme As Lesson

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

The theme of a story is frequently defined as the point, meaning, or moral of the story, the lesson that the story imparts, explicitly or (more often) implicitly. This definition is true enough, and helpful, but I prefer to think of the story’s theme as the lesson that the main character, or protagonist, learns as the result of his or her experience as this experience is related in the story.

For example, the theme of The Wizard of Oz, which Dorothy Gale learns as a result of her being whisked off to Oz, encountering the enchanted land’s various residents, and defeating the Wicked Witch of the West, is “There’s no place like home.” The theme of The Exorcist is similar to that of the book of Job, that true faith in God persists despite the existence of evil and human suffering. The theme of ‘Salem’s Lot is that, by banding together, a community can defeat a force far greater than any single individual.

Quick Tip: Relate the Turning Point to the Moment of Recognition

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

To ensure tighter unity between plot and character, make sure that the former’s turning point is the vehicle for the latter. The turning point, or climax, of a story is the point at which the protagonist’s fortune changes for the better or the worse or goes from good to better or from bad to worse. (If the story is a comedy, the main character’s state of affairs will improve by the story’s end; if the story is a tragedy, the main character’s state of affairs will worsen by story’s end.)

The turning point, as part of the tale’s action, is an element of the plot. The moment of recognition occurs when the main character learns or realizes something significant about him- or herself.

For example, in The Wizard of Oz, the turning point happens when Dorothy, sent by the wizard to seize the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West, throws water on her (trying to extinguish the fire the witch has set upon the scarecrow), thereby destroying her and obtaining the broomstick. Until this moment, Dorothy has been a dependent child who has not appreciated fully the responsibilities of adulthood or her family and her home life. Now, she takes responsibility for herself, acting on her own behalf, and matures. She is able to appreciate the responsibilities of adulthood and her family and home life. The act is the means by which she changes (for the better).

This same principle works in other stories, too, including horror stories. For example, in The Exorcist, the death of Father Merrin not only places the responsibility of the exorcism squarely and solely upon the shoulders of Father Karras, but it also becomes the vehicle for the younger priest’s recovery of his faith, which enables him to sacrifice himself to rescue the possessed girl, Regan MacNeil.

Horror as Image and Word

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

What’s scary? Deprivation. No, I don’t mean missing a meal or not being able to buy an outfit. I mean not being able to see. Or hear. Or missing an eye, an arm, or a leg. Of course, physical injury or mutilation can deprive a person--or a fictitious character--of such body parts and the physical abilities associated with them, but the deprivation can be subtler. A thick fog, maybe rolling across a cemetery, darkness, or an impenetrable forest or jungle can deprive one of sight, in effect rendering him or her blind. A waterfall that’s so loud that it blocks out all other sounds in effect deafens anyone nearby.

What else is scary? Being isolated, which means being cut off--from society, from civilization, from help. There are no police or fire and rescue personnel or stores or hospitals or friends in the Amazon rain forest, on a deserted island, or atop the Himalayan mountains. However, there could be an undiscovered predatory beast, a tribe of cannibalistic headhunters dedicated to human sacrifice, or a Yeti. With nowhere to run and no one to help, the isolated character is on his or her own.

Being at the mercy of another person or group of persons, especially strangers, who not only intend to do one harm, but may well enjoy doing so, is scary. A relentless torturer or killer who just keeps coming, no matter what, is terrifying. Sleeping with a serial killer might be, too, especially if he or she is given to nightmares or sleepwalking.

Typing “scary,” “eerie,” or “uncanny” into an Internet images browser will turn up hundreds of pictures that other people consider frightening, giving a writer the opportunity to analyze what, in general, is scary about such images. Completely white eyes--no irises or pupils--are scary, because they suggest that the otherwise-normal--well, normal, except for the green skin and fangs--is inhuman. Bulging eyes can be scary because they suggest choking, which suggests the possibility of imminent death. Deformity is sometimes frightening, because it suggests that what has befallen someone else could befall you or me. Incongruous juxtapositions--a crying infant seated upon the lap of a skeleton clad in a dress, for instance--can be frightening because incongruity doesn’t fit the categories of normalcy. Blurry or indistinct images can be scary because they deprive us of clear vision and, therefore, represent a form of blindness or near-blindness. Corridors, alleyways, and channels can be frightening, because they lead and direct one, compelling him or her to travel in this direction only--and maybe trap the traveler by leading him or her into a dead-end terminus or into the jaws of death. Many other images, for various reasons, are scary, too; I will leave the “why” to your own analyses.

We think we know the meanings of terms, but when we’re considering words that are supposed to mean more or less the same thing, it’s easy to overlook distinctions that could make a big difference in writing horror--and in understanding just how and why things are scary. It makes sense for a horror writer to keep handy a glossary of terms related to horror, possibly with an account not only of the terms’ definitions but also of their origins and histories, or etymologies.

These, lifted from Online Etymology Dictionary, will get you started:

FEAR

O.E. fær "danger, peril," from P.Gmc. *færa (cf. O.S. far "ambush," O.N. far "harm, distress, deception," Ger. Gefahr "danger"), from PIE base *per- "to try, risk, come over, go through" (perhaps connected with Gk. peira "trial, attempt, experience," L. periculum "trial, risk, danger"). Sense of "uneasiness caused by possible danger" developed c.1175. The v. is from O.E. færan "terrify, frighten," originally transitive (sense preserved in archaic I fear me). Sense of "feel fear" is 1393. O.E. words for "fear" as we now use it were ege, fyrhto; as a verb, ondrædan. Fearsome is attested from 1768.

“Ambush,” deceive, trial--these meanings of the word suggest movies like Saw.

PHOBIA

1786, "fear, horror, aversion," Mod.L., abstracted from compounds in -phobia, from Gk. -phobia, from phobos "fear," originally "flight" (still the only sense in Homer), but it became the common word for "fear" via the notion of "panic, fright" (cf. phobein "put to flight, frighten"), from PIE base *bhegw- "to run" (cf. Lith. begu "to flee," O.C.S. begu "flight," bezati "to flee, run," O.N. bekkr "a stream"). Psychological sense attested by 1895; phobic (adj.) is from 1897.

“Panic” suggests the movie Panic Room, which, although a thriller rather than a horror movie per se, certainly presents elements of the horrific.

TERROR

great fear," from O.Fr. terreur (14c.), from L. terrorem (nom. terror) "great fear, dread," from terrere "fill with fear, frighten," from PIE base *tre- "shake" (see terrible). Meaning "quality of causing dread" is attested from 1520s; terror bombing first recorded 1941, with reference to German air attack on Rotterdam. Sense of "a person fancied as a source of terror" (often with deliberate exaggeration, as of a naughty child) is recorded from 1883. The Reign of Terror in Fr. history (March 1793-July 1794) so called in Eng. from 1801.

O.E. words for "terror" included broga and egesa.

Critics usually distinguish terror, as a formless fear that results from the perception of an unseen menace, from horror, which is comprised of both fear and revulsion and derives from the perception of a clear and present danger, a distinction that many horror writers find invaluable.

EERIE

c.1300, north England and Scot. variant of O.E. earg "cowardly, fearful," from P.Gmc. *argaz (cf. O.N. argr "unmanly, voluptuous," Swed. arg "malicious," Ger. arg "bad, wicked"). Sense of "causing fear because of strangeness" is first attested 1792.

Here is a reminder that the weird in itself may occasion fear, as it does in countless horror stories.

Some of the words that one encounters in tracking through the lexicon of horror may themselves suggest stories (or themes). Consider the term “Luddite,” for example:

LUDDITE

1811, from name taken by an organized band of weavers who destroyed machinery in Midlands and northern England 1811-16 for fear it would deprive them of work.
Supposedly from Ned Ludd, a Leicestershire worker who in 1779 had done the same
before through insanity (but the story was first told in 1847). Applied to modern rejecters of automation and technology from at least 1961.

Couldn’t this word have inspired The Terminator series or, for that matter, the mad computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey or the antagonist of Dean Koontz’s Demon Seed or the “I Robot, You Jane” or “Ted” episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

UNCANNY

1596, "mischievous;" 1773 in the sense of "associated with the supernatural,"
originally Scottish and northern English, from un- (1) "not" + canny.

Okay, this is Poltergeist sand its sequels, right?

ABSURDITY

absurdity 1520s, from M.Fr. absurdité, from L. absurditatem (nom. absurditas)
"dissonance, incongruity," from absurdus "out of tune, senseless," from ab- intens. prefix + surdus "dull, deaf, mute" (see susurration). The main modern sense (also present in L.) is a fig. one, "out of harmony with reason or propriety."

The attack of the birds in The Birds is scary because it is “out of harmony with reason.”

There are many, many other words related to horror that could be listed, but, again, you get the idea. Language itself, as a repository of ideas and understandings, can suggest stories to the imaginative reader, and a good dictionary can be as fruitful as an Internet image browser in suggesting ideas for novels and short stories, or even screenplays, in the horror mold.

The Reestablishment of Order as the Restoration of Faith

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror fiction often establishes a norm that it then violates. In Stephen King‘s fiction, the norm is usually everyday life as it transpires in small-town America. After setting the stage, often literally before the readers’ eyes, by having them follow a character on his or her way about town, delivering newspapers, jogging, or going about some other, ordinary, everyday task, and introducing them to several characters, King, at some point, upsets the applecart of everydayness by letting not the cat, but the monster, out of the bag. The ordinary laws of the universe no longer apply. At least, they don’t seem to apply.

When something spectacular enough to void the laws of nature occurs, readers may (and do) expect it to explain itself or, rather, they expect the protagonist to find the answers to the conundrum that the abrupt arrival of the uncanny represents. In fact, that’s the formula for much contemporary horror fiction, as I pointed out in a previous post:

1. All is well.
2. Something strange happens.
3. The protagonist learns the cause of the strange event (or series of events).
4. The protagonist uses his or her new-found knowledge to put things right again.

I also argued, as have others, that horror fiction is basically a conservative genre, because it is generally concerned with routing or destroying the monster and reestablishing order. However, in this post, as a sort of follow-up to the one in which I discuss the horror plot formula (“Horror Story Formulae”) and the one in which I talk about the loss of security in the face of evil and death (“Taking Away the Teddy Bear”), I would like to suggest, further, that the reestablishment of order renews readers’ sense of security, hope, and faith in the possibility of experiencing meaning in regard to their lives. Obviously, if the world makes no sense, if it is chaotic and capricious, nothing matters, and there is no hope of accomplishing anything that really counts.

Things that don’t fit the big picture (the model of reality that human beings have pieced together over millennia and continue to piece together in each new generation and age) threaten our security as a species, a nation, a community, or a family. The wholesale death that accompanied the spread of the bubonic plague during the Middle Ages threatened nations’ security, because the Black Death did not fit the picture of a world governed by a loving, all-powerful God. The Holocaust threatened the Jews’ security because the wholesale slaughter of their people did not fit with their understanding of themselves as God’s “chosen people.” A serial killer or a serial rapist threatens a community’s sense of security because a whole series of deaths or rapes in one’s own neighborhood suggests that the local police force is unable to protect the public; therefore, potentially anyone, male or female, is at risk of murder and any woman is at risk of being sexually assaulted. Extramarital affairs, among other things, threaten a family’s security because such behavior can destroy the family’s trust and psychological welfare.

Scientists supposedly revise their models of the universe, or nature, when discoveries warrant such revisions, replacing, for example, Newton’s theory of physics with Einstein’s theory of the same and foregoing Lamarckian evolutionary theory in favor of the Darwinian theory of evolution. By changing the big picture, scientists keep their understanding of the universe current with their discoveries of new facts. In theory, at least, and ideally, this is how scientists are said to work.

Scientists have faith that the universe is orderly, even if their own knowledge and understanding of this order is imperfect and changeable. It is, in fact, upon this bedrock of assumed certainty, of faith, that the scientific enterprise itself is based, for, without such assumed certainty with regard to the universe as orderly, no possibility of obtaining true and certain knowledge at any point would be possible. That doesn’t mean that one’s big picture is perfect; it will need correction from time to time.

The concept of the supernatural versus that of the paranormal clarifies such “paradigm shifts,” as the adaptations of scientific views concerning the universe have been called. At one time, ghosts, werewolves, zombies, and such were believed to be spiritual entities or monstrosities empowered by supernatural entities--beings beyond nature and outside the universe. Today, scientists, when they accept the notion that such phenomena exist at all (and many do not), consider them to be natural forces or entities which are, as yet, not understood, but which are, nevertheless, as natural, rather than supernatural, phenomena, understandable by science in principle.

Individuals have a harder time making such adjustments to their own big pictures. Often, the information they base their decisions--and, indeed, their very lives--on is fragmented, erroneous, partial, or untested. It is more a matter of faith and tradition, of custom and wishful thinking, than it is a matter of knowledge. It is disconnected and idiosyncratic. When new information or experiences challenge individual world views (if, indeed, such a lofty term can be applied to individuals’ often half-baked Weltanschauungs), individuals have trouble adjusting their thinking and adapting their beliefs so as to accommodate such challenges.

Some monsters challenge the world (the Martians in The War of the Worlds); others, nations Godzilla); and still others, communities (King Kong) or families (Cujo). Those that threaten the world or a nation challenge humanity on a global or national level; the others challenge humanity on a communal or familial level. In other worlds, the Martians in H. G. Wells’ novel challenge the security of a species which considers itself God’s gift to the universe, the “crown of creation” itself. If other intelligent life exists, human beings are not unique or even all that special--especially if the extraterrestrial species is technologically superior to the Earthlings whom they seek to conquer.

Human beings tend to congregate, to form cliques, families, communities, nations, and international alliances, mostly to increase their own chances for survival and to protect their group against others. A force that is not powerful enough to destroy the planet may be strong enough to destroy a nation, as the United States appeared to be, during World War II, when it dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. If the building of a nation, over a period of centuries, if not millennia, is no guarantee of safety or survival, nations have a right to tremble, as Japan does, in the shadow of the radioactive Godzilla.

Communities are based upon commonly shared characteristics (geographical location, if nothing else), common interests (the church, for example), or both. Depending upon the strength of the ties that bind such groups together, a community can withstand quite a challenge. New Orleans is regrouping after Hurricane Katrina, and the church has survived a variety of threats, internal and external, throughout much of the world, for thousands of years. However, a resurgence of the primitive, or primordial and instinctive drives that are normally repressed in the interest of the common good, can be potent enough to threaten a community, as King Kong, an embodiment of the primeval and bestial within human beings, almost succeeds in doing.

Likewise, a moral threat, such as adultery, symbolized by the attack of the rabid Saint Bernard in Cujo, or alcoholism and child abuse, the demons that haunt Jack Torrance in The Shining, can destroy one’s family.

There are plenty of threats, on every level of society and civilization, from peer pressure to nuclear annihilation. Security, which depends upon order, social, political, economic, cultural, psychological, moral, and otherwise, is subject to assault at any moment, and, indeed, it is under almost continuous attack. Whether one anchors his or her faith in God, in the human mind, in cultural and social traditions, in law, in parental love, or in some other seabed, sea serpents are apt to threaten such faith and to seek to overturn, or even to destroy, the order it tends to engender and to sustain.

Monsters shake up the big pictures that human beings piece together, on the individual, the familial, the communal, the national, and the global level. In doing so, as painful and as horrible as such “attacks” can be, the monsters do humanity a service. They expose the chinks in the armor of the individual, the familial, the communal, the national, or the international world views which, individually and collectively, comprise the beliefs, understandings, and values of humanity.

Like pain that alerts a person to a health problem, monsters alert people to moral, philosophical, theological, social, cultural, political, economic, or other problems that need to be addressed (or vanquished). If the monster doesn’t kill one (and, more often than not, it doesn’t kill the whole herd), it makes one stronger. By pointing out weaknesses in individual or communal beliefs, knowledge, or values, monsters help us to overcome them and, in the process, to transform fallacies, ignorance, and false values into the real deal, strengthening the bases of security upon which men and women build lives and societies of order, purpose, and significance, for the reestablishment of order which follows the vanquishing of the monster is a restoration of the faith which gives a sense of security to human beings who live in a dangerous world in an uncertain universe.

Formula for the Haunted House Tale

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

As an adjunct to my "How to Haunt a House" series, I am adding this summary of the formula for the haunted house tale that Dale Bailey offers in American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction. Setting: a house 1. with an unsavory history 2. with an aristocratic name 3. disturbed by supernatural events unusually unrelated to human ghosts Characters: 1. a middle-class family or family surrogate, skeptical of the supernatural, who move into the house 2. knowledgeable helpers who believe in the supernatural 3. an oracular observer who warns of danger Plot: dual structure: 1. an escalating series of supernatural events which isolates the family physically and psychologically 2. the discovery of provenance for those events climax:

a. the escape of the family and the destruction of the house

or

a. the escape of the family and the continued existence of the house b. a twist ending that establishes the recurring nature of evil

Themes: 1. class and gender conflict 2. economic hardship 3. consequence of the past (especially unpunished crimes) 4. Manichean clash of good and evil 5. clash of scientific and supernatural world views 6. cyclical nature of evil Source: Bailey, Dale. American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1999. Print.

Eighteen Things I Learned By Watching BtVS

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Some of these points I’d already learned, but I was reminded of them by watching BtVS; others were new lessons that I learned by watching BtVS.

1. Have characters make a grand entrance.

On his first arrival in Sunnydale, in “School Hard,” the vampire Spike runs his car (the windows and windshield of which are covered with black plastic to keep out sunlight) over a curb and knocks down a traffic sign. In “Hell’s Belles,” when one of Anyanka’s victims pretends to be an aged Xander Harris, come from the future to warn his younger self not to marry Anya, he appears in a rainstorm, his red umbrella drawing the viewer’s eyes. (The grand entrance doesn’t have to be “grand” in the true sense of the word, but it should stand out, separating a new character from the story’s cluttered background.)

2. End each episode (and season) with a cliffhanger.

Some of the more memorable Buffy cliffhangers: The Master drowns Buffy (“Prophecy Girl”). After fifteen years as an only child, Buffy has a younger sister, Dawn, who’s always lived with her and their mother, Joyce (“Buffy vs. Dracula”). Buffy dies when she leaps off a tower to save Dawn (“The Gift”). Willow’s girlfriend, Tara, is shot--just after the lesbian lovebirds get together after a long separation (“Seeing Red”).

3. Dialogue counts.

The witty repartee, clever puns, allusions to literary conventions, references to popular culture, and jokes of the Buffy characters are legendary.

4. Use transitional dialogue, either straightforward or ironic, to lead into the action that follows the present action.

An example might be one character’s declaration that he or she knows exactly what Buffy (or another character) is probably doing at the moment, which statement is followed by a scene that shows the declaration to be true (or false); either way, the declaration acts as a segue between the previous and the next scene.

5. Give each character a core trait.

Buffy = duty; Xander = courage; Willow = humility (at least, until she becomes evil); Cordelia = arrogance.

6. Use not one foil, but multiple foils, for the protagonist.

Both Kendra and Faith are foils to Buffy, as are Angel and Spike.

7. Give the protagonist a core desire or problem.

Buffy wants to live a normal life; Angel wants to redeem himself.

8. Substitute a Big Bad for a little bad.

Almost every season does this. For example, the viewer is led to assume that the Anointed One is going to replace the Master as the Big Bad, whereas, in fact, the Anointed One is the little bad; Spike, who kills him, is the season’s Big Bad.

9. Base villains on metaphors.

In “Beer Bad,” alcohol turns college students into cavemen (the cavemen represent the teens' boorish behavior while drunk); in “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” a neglected girl becomes invisible, a state which symbolizes her being overlooked; in “I Robot, You Jane,” an electronic demon represents the dangers of Internet dating.

10. Employ romantic triangles, and have love affairs end badly.

Initially, Willow has a crush on Xander, who favors Buffy, who loves Angel. Willow loses Oz to the wild beast of the werewolf in him, she becomes a lesbian, and she loses her girlfriend, first to her own abuse of magic and then to a bullet. Xander jilts the girl of his dreams, a vengeance demon named Anya, leaving her at the altar when he gets cold feet. Angel leaves Buffy and moves to Los Angeles.

11. Endanger all important characters, and especially those who are beloved.

Buffy dies--twice. In Sunnydale High School’s seniors’ fight against the mayor and his minions during graduation day ceremonies, some students are killed and others are transformed into vampires (“Graduation Day, Part II”). Willow chooses evil, nearly destroying the world (and Xander) (“Grave”). Glory sucks out Tara’s brain and hunts, and tries to kill, Dawn (“Tough Love,” “The Gift”).

12. Make beloved characters suffer as much as possible.

Buffy suffers from unrequited love, from lovers who leave her (or whom she leaves), and from the losses or deaths of family members and friends.

13. Make sure that, in confronting monsters, protagonists and other characters also confront themselves.

In “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” Willow and Xander (and Cordelia) face the fact that their ignoring of classmate Marcie Ross has caused Marcie to turn invisible. In “Wrecked,” “Seeing Red,” and earlier episodes of the same season (six), Willow must face the truth that she is addicted to magic and that her addiction has harmed those she loves.

14. Employ parallel plots. Have the subplot reinforce and enrich the major plot or a thread that runs through the main plot (in television, the season’s arc).

In “I Only Have Eyes For You,” as she attempts to gain the upper hand against a couple of ghostly lovers in purgatory who haunt Sunnydale High on the anniversary of the Sadie Hawkins’ Day dance, during which the teenage male killed his teacher-lover and then committed suicide, Buffy has to come to grips with ex-boyfriend Angel’s own abusive treatment of her.

15. Pump back stories. Get all you can out of your characters’ personal histories, showing what they’ve experienced, suffered, enjoyed, and done that has shaped their lives and brought them to the point they are in the story’s present moment.

Several episodes are devoted to the personal histories (back stories) of Angel, Spike, Darla, Drusilla, and, of course, Buffy herself. We learn what Angel, Spike, and Drusilla were like before they became vampires, how they became vampires, what they did after becoming vampires (before coming to Sunnydale), how Angel’s soul was restored to him in a Gypsy curse and how having a soul continues to affect him, how he was introduced to Buffy, what Buffy’s home life as a young girl was like, and many other details that provide characters’ motivations, enrich and develop them, and make them more or less sympathetic.

16. Write with different authorial tones in mind: depth (Whedon), darkness (Noxon), humor (Espenson).

A writer can see the world through many people’s eyes, adopting whichever perspective, world view, value system, beliefs, principles, desires, hopes, and fears make a character tick. In doing so, he or she should make sure that the tone, whether deep and philosophical, dark and cynical, or humorous and satirical, fits the Weltanschauung of the moment.

17. Employ symbolism and indirect communication techniques.

BtVS is replete with examples. One that I recall is a flashing caution light that is seen on a construction sawhorse as Buffy and Faith enter a dark alley, pursuing (and pursued by) vampires. It’s a little over the top, perhaps, to be truly subliminal, but the effect (CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION!) of the flashing warning light is, nevertheless, effective in heightening viewer’s anxiety and the scene‘s suspense.

18. Set he tone of an episode in its opening teaser.

Virtually every episode of the show accomplishes this, alerting the viewer as to the emotional tenor of the episode through situation, dialogue, or, often, a combination of the two.

Note: BtVS has MUCH more to teach anyone who likes to write horror fiction. Perhaps a future article will address some of these other lessons to be learned.