Ghosts: An Endangered Species?

Copyright 2010 by Gary Pullman

For various reasons, from humanity’s earliest days, the spirits of the dead, or ghosts, are alleged to have visited the living. Some return to avenge their murders, other to warn loved ones of impending catastrophes, and still others to assuage guilt so powerful that it has survived the grave. If one can believe the stories associated with ghosts, they have haunted everything from ancient graveyards and medieval castles to modern mansions and hotels. Short story writers, novelists, and screenwriters would have their readers and audiences believe that some ghosts have a sense of humor while others are somber, indeed. They have appeared in literary works as diverse as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Macbeth, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, H. G. Wells’ “The Red Room,” Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, Mark Twain’s “A Ghost Story,” Stephen King’s The Shining and Bag of Bones, and Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas. Ghosts have appeared as guest stars, so to speak, in such movies as Topper, Poltergeist, Beetlejuice, Ghost Busters, The Sixth Sense, The Others, An American Haunting, and many others, and in episodes of such television shows as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Bewitched, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Ghost Hunters. There’s no doubt about it: ghosts have not only been reported throughout history, but they have also enjoyed plenty of airtime. The virtual omnipresence of ghosts is curious when one considers that such entities may not actually exist. Although men and women who believe in the existence of ghosts offer such evidence for their existence as eye-witness reports, photographs, electronic voice phenomena, abrupt temperature drops, and sudden increases in electromagnetic radiation, this evidence can be explained without reference to the entities that are supposed to cause them, which makes the actual existence of ghosts questionable at best.

Since the beginning of time, people have claimed to have seen ghosts, and believers in the existence of spirits of the dead declare that so many people couldn’t be deceived or lying in providing eye-witness testimony. It does seem likely that some--perhaps many--such eyewitnesses really do believe that they have seen ghosts. Seeing isn’t believing, though, or shouldn’t be. Scientists regard eyewitness testimony, or anecdotal or testimonial evidence, as they prefer to call it, as being notoriously unreliable. In “anecdotal (testimonial) evidence,” an Internet article concerning such evidence, Robert T. Carroll points out that “anecdotes are unreliable for various reasons,” including the distortion that occurs as accounts are told and retold, exaggeration, confusion regarding “time sequences,” “selective” memory, misrepresented “experiences,” and a variety of other conditions, including the affect upon their testimony that “biases, memories, and beliefs” have. Carroll also suggests that gullibility, “delusions,” and even deliberate deceit also make such testimony “inherently problematic and usually. . . impossible to test for accuracy.”

Most people who investigate reports concerning the presence or appearances of ghosts also seek to photograph them. It has been said that cameras do not lie, but the problem with photographic evidence is that it is easy for photographers to doctor film. In his Internet article concerning “spirit photography,” James Randi gives an example of a rather crude attempt by some spiritualists to fool folks into believing they’d captured the apparition of the deceased author of the Sherlock Holmes short stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who, as himself a spiritualist, was a frequent focus of “spook-snappers” who “claimed to summon him up after his death in 1930.” The problem, Randi says, with their evidence is that it is “apparently a cut-out of a reversed photo placed in what appears to be cotton wool”; otherwise, the spirit photograph “agrees in detail, lighting, and expression with the original” photograph of the Doyle which was taken in the author’s “prime” (“spirit photography”). In other words, the photograph is a fake. A favorite technique among those who create fake spirit photographs, Carroll points out, is the “double exposure,” an example of which appears on the article’s webpage. A double exposure occurs when the same film is exposed to first one, and then another, object, with the result that the image of the second object overlays or overlaps the image of the first object; both images appear to have been photographed together, at the same time and in the same place. However, pictures of supposed ghosts sometimes result from the photographer’s own incompetence or “natural events,” rather than deliberate deceitfulness, Carroll concedes, including

various flaws in camera or film, effects due to various exposures, film-processing errors, lens flares (caused by interreflection between lens surfaces), the camera or lens strap hanging over the lens, effects of the flash reflecting off of mirrors, jewelry. . . light patterns, polarization, [or] chemical reactions.

When deliberate deceit occurs, photographers may also use graphic art software or computer graphics software to deliberately manipulate photographs that are uploaded from the camera, into a computer.

If neither eyewitness testimony nor photographs prove the existence of ghosts, perhaps electronic voice phenomena, or EVP, do so. A sophisticated term for tape-recorded voices, EVP demonstrate the presence of ghosts, some contend, since sensitive instruments have recorded the disembodied voices of apparitions. However, as Carroll indicates, in his Internet article, “electric voice phenomenon,” skeptics point out that such sounds may not be voices at all, but may be nothing more than the results of “interference from a nearby CB [citizen’s band radio] operator or cross modulation”--one radio station transmitting over another station’s broadcast. Likewise, EVP may be nothing more than a listener’s interpreting “random noise” as the statements of a disembodied voice or voices. In the same Internet article, Carroll cites the explanation for this tendency by Jim Alcock, a psychologist: “When our brains try to find patterns, they are guided in part by what we expect to hear. . . . People can clearly ‘hear’ voices and words not just in the context of muddled voices, but in a pattern of white noise in which there are no words at all.” It seems that, for these reasons, EVP is just as problematic as the proof of ghosts’ existence as eyewitness reports and photographs have been shown to be.

Perhaps the abrupt drop in temperature that some ghost hunters have both felt and recorded will prove more convincing evidence of the existence of the spirits of the dead. According to an anonymous “paranormal researcher,” who writes, in answer to a question posted on Yahoo! Answers, it is believed that such “cold spots” result from ghosts’ draining of energy sources, such as electricity, as a means to produce sounds or to speak. Supposedly, the energy they draw from the environment heats their own energy, but this heat is then dissipated by the sound effect the ghost produces with this borrowed energy. Neither this researcher nor any other seems able to explain how a disembodied spirit--that is, an entity that has no lips, teeth, tongue, vocal cords, or lungs--can speak, even if it does help itself to ambient energy sources. Once again, Carroll finds such evidence to be less than persuasive. In his Internet article, “ghost,” he notes that “many people report physical changes in haunted places, especially a feeling of a presence accompanied by temperature drop and hearing unaccountable sounds” and agreeing that such people “are not imagining things,” he, nevertheless, discounts the notion that ghosts are responsible for these phenomena. Instead, he says,

Scientists who have investigated haunted places account for both the temperature changes and the sounds by finding physical sources of the drafts, such as empty spaces behind walls or currents set in motion by low frequency sound waves (infrasound) produced by such mundane objects as extraction fans.

Sudden increases in electromagnetic radiation are “produced by such things as power lines, electric appliances, radio waves, and microwaves,” Carroll observes, in his Internet article “EMF (EMT).” Therefore, he adds, the idea that ghosts somehow cause such radiation seems unlikely, and, indeed, “some think that electromagnetic fields are inducing the haunting experience” (“ghost”).

Occasionally, as a Halloween feature, some newspapers or television shows spotlight a supposedly haunted house. The ghostly phenomena are described, and then a natural explanation is provided for each of the supposedly supernatural elements of the tale. One such account, by Cathy Lubenski, appeared under the title “When your house has spooks, who are you going to call” in The San Diego Union-Tribune. Her story included reports of slime oozing from walls, cold spots, lights flashing on and off, doors opening by themselves, knocking inside walls, foul odors, and howling. Were one living in a house in which such phenomena were occurring, it might well seem that the residence was indeed haunted. Instead, each of these phenomena had a natural cause, not a supernatural origin. The slime was from a bee’s nest in the attic; the cold spots resulted from an air-conditioner unit’s return airflow; the stench was an effect of dead rats in the wall and trapped sewer gas; the howling was the wind, blowing down a vent. Philosophers advise people to adopt the principle of Occam’s razor, which says, essentially, that one should never consider more possible causes than the number that are necessary to explain why something happens. As Carroll points out, “Occam’s razor is also called the principle of parsimony,” and “it is usually interpreted to mean something like ‘the simpler the explanation, the better’” or “as most people would put it today, ‘don’t make any more assumptions than you have to.’” To demonstrate the principle, Carroll offers this example: “[Erik] Von Däniken could be right: maybe extraterrestrials did teach ancient people art and engineering, but we don't need to posit alien visitations in order to explain the feats of ancient people.” Therefore, according to Occam’s razor, one should not attribute “art and engineering” to the human intelligence and ingenuity that men and women develop as the result of their evolutionary, genetic and environmental inheritance. The same applies, of course, with respect to ghosts. The fact that eye-witness reports, photographs, electronic voice phenomena, abrupt temperature drops, and sudden increases in electromagnetic radiation that have been cited as evidence for the existence of ghosts can be explained without reference to these supernatural entities, which are supposed to cause them, makes the actual existence of ghosts questionable at best. Therefore, one can conclude that it is more likely that ghosts do not exist than to suppose that they do. Nevertheless, some are likely to believe in them because they add mystery to the everydayness of ordinary life, they suggest that there is some sort of existence after death, and they make interesting literary and dramatic characters that enliven short stories, novels, and movies. Likewise, they are convenient symbols of such emotional and psychological states and experiences as guilt, the memory of traumatic past experiences, and of actual historical events. In the sense that human beings are, to some extent, products of their own previous experiences and of historical affairs, they are haunted, after all--by the ghosts of their pasts.

Works Cited

Carroll, Robert. "anecdotal (testimonial) evidence." The Skeptic's Dictionary. 23 Feb 2009. 22 May 2009.

---. "electronic voice phenomenon (EVP)." The Skeptic's Dictionary. 23 Feb 2009.

---. "EMF (EMR)." The Skeptic's Dictionary. 23 Feb 2009. 22 May 2009.

---. "ghost." The Skeptic’s Dictionary. 23 Feb 2009. 22 May 2009.

"I believe spirits use energy to communicate with us. But which energy sources?" Yahoo! Answers. 2009. Yahoo!. 22 May 2009.

Lubenski, Cathy. "When your house has spooks, who are you going to call." The San Diego Union-Tribune 29 Oct 2000: C6. Print.

Randi, James. "spirit photography." An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. 2007. James Randi Education Foundation. 22 May 2009

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.