The Three Lessons of the Watchbirds and the Hawks

Copyright 202 by Gary L. Pullman

The fabulous short story “Watchbird” in The Robert Sheckley Megapack: 15 Classic Science Fiction Stories (a true bargain at only 99 cents for the Amazon Kindle version) is a masterful satire concerning logic, linguistics, and morality.

In a futuristic setting, the brainwaves and glandular processes of potential murderers tip off high-tech, flying guardians, alerting these “watchbirds” of impending murder. The watchbirds then swoop down to shock would-be killers into submission. If multiple shocks are necessary, so be it: the watchbirds' first rule is to protect potential victims, regardless of the cost. By using them as their enforcers, the government hopes to stem a rising tide of violence and save lives.

At first, things go even better than officials had hoped, and the murder rate plummets drastically. However, one of the manufacturers of these drone-like guardians is concerned that human beings shouldn't shove off their duties and responsibilities onto machines. His protests are all but ignored. Meanwhile, by regularly sharing “new information, methods, and definitions” with each other, the watchbirds become more and more effective at policing the public.

The definition of terms is a key concern of the story. Initially, murder is defined as “an act of violence, consisting of breaking, mangling, maltreating, or otherwise stopping the functions of a living organism by another organism,” as opposed to a more traditional understanding of the concept, such as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” The definition programmed into the watchbirds may seem clear, detailed, and exhaustive, but it contains some odd wording. It is not often, if ever, that a killer “breaks” or “mangles” another person. The engineer's definition (and, therefore, the watchbirds', into which the definition is programmed) is also too broad, specifying “living organisms,” rather than the traditional definition's “human being.” In formulating the definition, Sheckley lays the groundwork for much of the conflict and suspense that the remainder of the story generates, maintains, and heightens.

Based on their experience (the watchbirds are conscious and rational, but unemotional), the mechanical guardians, which are able both to learn and to think, modify and amend the original definition of both “murder” and “living organism.” Their actions follow from their revisions of these concepts. First, a slaughterhouse employee is knocked out with a high-voltage blast because, as the wingbirds understand the it (and the act), murder occurs whenever any “living organism,” human or animal, is killed. For the same reason, fishermen and a hunter are dealt with, as is a man who attempts to kill a fly. A surgeon is shocked when he starts to operate on his patient, with the result that the patient dies.

A driver is shocked when he tries to turn off his car (an organism's attempt to stop “the functions of a living organism” constitutes murder, and the watchbirds now consider automobiles to be “living organisms”). Thanks to the watchbirds themselves, the murder rate begins to skyrocket. People get the message and begin to modify their behavior so as not to become watchbird targets.

However, life itself is also at risk, as farmers are prevented from plowing the earth, since the watchbirds have come to regard the planet itself as a “living organism.” Farmers cannot cut hay to feed their cattle, which starve to death. Industries are crippled. Even a radio is a living organism and, like cars, may not be turned off, since doing so is the same as murdering the device. Rabbits are slain because they eat vegetables. A butterfly is dispatched for “outraging a rose.” The watchbirds are unable to appreciate, as the narrator states, that there is a close relationship between the living and the dead; nor do the machines comprehend that, for the watchbirds' creators, at least, there is a hierarchy of value where “living organisms” are concerned, with human beings at the top and other life forms on progressively lower levels of significance.

Clearly, something must be done!

The answer is to build a better machine, one that's faster, stronger, and deadlier, one that will be able to hunt and kill the watchbirds. The new mechanical slayer is called the hawk, and, before long, there's a multitude of the ferocious predators in the sky, making short work of their prey. Unfortunately, the engineers didn't learn their lesson from the watchbirds fiasco. Not only do they assign human duties and responsibilities to the new, and improved machines, but their makers deliberately refrain from installing “restricting circuits” that would limit the Hawks' targets. There just wasn't time to include these regulators. Instead, the engineers and manufacturers simply release the hawks.

After killing most of the pesky watchbirds, the hawks decide that humans constitute another type of prey, and the problems that homo sapiens had with the watchbirds pale in comparison to those involving these new predators.

The story's themes seem threefold.

First, death is necessary for life's continuance, but “no one has told the watchbirds that all life depends on carefully balanced murders,” even that of the alpha predator among machines, the hawk, which may need humans to maintain and repair it, as the watchbird had. The watchbirds have thoroughly destroyed the equilibrium between the living and the dead, the consumers and the providers, totally disrupting their fragile relationship.

Second, humans cannot pass on their responsibility to machines, or, as the narrator puts it, “pass a human problem into the hands of a machine” that has been assigned, by humans, to enforce human laws. Robots do not have emotions, nor have they accumulated centuries of human experience (nor are they able to do so). Machines lack human respective and understanding. They cannot perceive, analyze, evaluate, or understand life from any perspective but that which is based upon algorithms and memory and microchips and processing units and programming. Despite their artificial intelligence, which can be brilliant, computers are severely limited. To forget these two simple truths is to be in danger of creating “guardians” like the watchbirds and hawks to police the mechanical police.

Third, neither the watchbirds nor the hawks can understand that the lives of some creatures have a higher value than the lives of other, “lesser” animals. A whale, an impala, a cow, a dog, a cat, a garden slug, even a flea or a cockroach, is all well and good, in its way, but human beings are the species that can remember, through books and databases, the events and circumstances of centuries; can manipulate time and space; can transform the world, building cities and hospitals and prisons and airplanes and automobiles and trains and ships; can put men and women into space and, perhaps some day soon, on other worlds; can plumb the depths of the ocean and climb to the top of mountains; can create art and culture, producing Michelangelo and Leonardo and Shakespeare and Dante; can commune with nature and with God. True, the depths to which humans can fall are just as incredible as the heights they can achieve, as such "accomplishments" as the atomic bomb, the Holocaust, and two World Wars, among many others, indicate, but the point is that, whether it is used for good or evil, human beings have these great abilities, abilities that far outstrip those of any other animal. In fact, these abilities are not only remarkable among the creatures of nature, but they are transcendent to nature itself as well. Human abilities reflect not mere animal existence, but also a spark of the divine. Although all men may be created equal, all animals are not. The failure to make such distinctions is, perhaps a form of insanity, for it is madness to equate a maggot with a man, a butterfly with a woman, or an earthworm with a child. Machines, even artificially intelligent ones, by such a measure, are mad—or would be . . . if they were human. Instead, they are merely machines. Their very character as such constitutes their true “restrictive circuits.”

What would be the likely end of a situation such as that which Sheckley lays out in “Watchbirds”? The author himself suggests the probable outcome: more and more capable machines would be created to eliminate the less-capable previous generation, and the situation, for humans, would get worse and worse until they were completely exterminated. Then, one by one, the machines would fail, for there would be no one to maintain or to repair them or, for that matter, to manufacture them—at least, not yet.

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For Untouchables: Masochistic Horror

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

In the middle of a pandemic, most of us might not care to read stories involving plagues and pandemics. However, horror fiction appeals to masochistic readers as well as to others and, if the truth were to be told, there is, in most, if not all, of us, a bit of the masochist. Fear is disturbing. It is stressful. It is unpleasant. Paradoxically, however, it is also quite pleasurable to many of us. If it were not, there would be no profit in making horror movies or in writing horror novels or short stories.

Critics and psychologists suggest that the reason that we enjoy horror dramas and narratives is that we know that, despite what happens on the sound stage or on the page, we ourselves, as spectators or readers, are safe. What happens to the victims in the story cannot happen to us. We enjoy the invincibility of the secret voyeur. We watch, untouched and untouchable. That is our power. We survive the slaughter because it cannot do to us what it does to the characters in the movie or the book. (Only, in the case of the coronavirus, we may not be quite as invincible as we might imagine!)

So, for the masochistic supermen and superwomen among us, Chillers and Thrillers suggests a pair of horrific tales by the father of modern horror himself, Edgar Allan Poe. One of the two tales caused Robert Louis Stevenson to opine that “he who could write [this story] had ceased to be a human being.” Which story occasioned this assessment of its author, “The Masque of the Red Death” or “King Pest”? Chillers and Thrillers will leave the answer to this question to you to decide!

Horror Story Plot Formulas

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

In every horror movie, there is, of course, a protagonist and an antagonist. For convenience, I'm going to refer to them as the monster and the hero. Of course, the monster, both human and non-human, and the “hero” can just as easily be a girl or a woman as a boy or a man.

For there to be a story, there has to be conflict, and the major and most important type of conflict, that between the monster and the hero, results from their encounter. Therefore, they must come together, usually in the first part of the story. Writers have come up with a variety of ways for the monster and the hero to meet, if not greet, one another. These methods of encounter, in turn, help to establish various narrative formulas.

Some of these formulas we might call The Return, The Invasion, The Trespass, The Act of Vengeance, and The Fish Out of Water. Here are the breakdowns of these plots and a few examples of each.

The Return

Beginning

A monster (an ancient evil) awakens or returns.

Middle

The monster becomes active again.

End

By learning the monster's origin or nature, the hero eliminates or neutralizes the monster.

Examples: Summer of Night, It

The Invasion

Beginning

A monster moves into a community foreign to itself.

Middle

The monster becomes active in its new surroundings, behaving as it did in its original habitat.

End

By learning the monster's origin or nature, the hero eliminates or neutralizes the monster.

Examples: Dracula, 'Salem's Lot

The Trespass

Beginning

Trespassers disturb or threaten a monster's habitat.

Middle

The monster defends its turf.

End

The trespassers capture or kill the monster, escape from the monster, or are killed by the monster.

Examples: The Descent, Poltergeist, King Kong, The Thing

The Act of Vengeance

Beginning

The monster or his or her loved one is wronged.

Middle

The monster seeks to avenge him- or herself or a loved one.

End

The monster is imprisoned, killed, or otherwise neutralized or escapes.

Examples: The Abominable Dr. Phibes, I Know What You Did Last Summer, A Nightmare on Elm Street

The Fish Out of Water

Beginning

The hero, relocated to a strange new environment, usually that of the monster, is out of his or her depth.

Middle

The monster, at home in the environment, maintains the upper hand against the hero.

End

The hero kills the monster or escapes or is killed by the monster.

Examples: Open Water, Backcountry, Jaws.

Note: A future post may present other horror story plot formulas.

Character in Action: It's Elemental

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

All elements of fiction besides those of character and action—conflict setting, point of view, tone and mood, and theme—are interrelated. Two ways, used independently or together, relate these elements: character and action.

Character and action are themselves interrelated as well: a character is what he or she does (action determines and reflects character), and a character does what he or she is (character determines and reflects action): we are what we do, and we do what we are.
 

In fiction, personality (i. e., character) is represented as being composed of traits. In other words, a character is the sum total of his or her personality traits. These traits, in turn, are expressed in the character's action, or behavior.

There is a final element of personality, or character, as it is represented in fiction: will, or choice. It is will that sets human characters apart from the animals that are included in stories. It is the ability to choose, especially to choose to act or not, that makes literary characters human.

 

During the course of a story, the protagonist, whose “personality” is made up of a group of traits, positive and negative, some innate, others learned, is presented with challenges, obstacles, and problems that he or she must meet, overcome, or solve, but he or she is motivated to do so by his or her will, the exercise of which is manifest in the choices that the protagonist makes.

 

Therefore, in creating a character, first determine what he or she wills to happen: What he or she want?

Then, decide upon the character's traits, both positive and negative.
 

Add meaningful personal stakes associated with the character's pursuit of his or her goals.

Huckleberry Finn wants to escape the “sivilizing” effects of a corrupt society.

Huckleberry Finn is a realistic boy who relies mostly on his own experience to fathom the truth, is a loyal and devoted friend, and prefers to live a simple life, but he is ignorant, relies too much on what others believe and expect, and is literal-minded.

Huckleberry Finn risks the loss of his personal freedom and, he believes, eternal damnation.

Next, make sure these additional questions are answered:

• What does the character do to obtain his or her heart's desire?
• When and where does the character live or travel?
• How does the character accomplish is goal or securing that which he or she desires, and how does he or she meet, overcome, or solve challenges, obstacles, or problems that threaten his or her success in accomplishing his or her goal (securing his or her heart's desire)?
• Why does the character want what he or she wants? What motivaes the character to undertake the quest, risking whatever is at stake personally?

* * *

• Huckleberry Finn runs away from home in the company of runaway slave, Jim.
• Huckleberry Finn lives in the American South during the early nineteenth-century and travels down the Mississippi River on a raft.
• To escape the “sivilizing” effects of a corrupt society, Huckleberry Finn runs away from home.
• Huckleberry Finn values personal freedom.
  
  
  

Let's apply this approach to horror fiction using, as our example, the motion picture adaptation of William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel The Exorcist.

What does my protagonist want?

Father Karras wants to hold on to his faith in God.

What traits, positive and negative, make up my protagonist's character, or “personality”?

Aware of evil, Father Karras has begun to doubt his faith in God, but he remains a courageous and compassionate man who is committed to living an authentic life.

What meaningful personal stakes are associated with the protagonist's pursuit of his or her goals?

Father Karras risks losing his faith and his sense of transcendent meaning of existence which makes life worth living.

What does the character do to obtain his or her heart's desire?

Father Karras participates in an exorcism to deliver a young girl from her domination by the devil.

When and where does the character live or travel?

Father Karras restricts his action to a Georgetown townhouse.

How does the character accomplish is goal or securing that which he or she desires, and how does he or she meet, overcome, or solve challenges, obstacles, or problems that threaten his or her success in accomplishing his or her goal (securing his or her heart's desire)?

Through the exorcism rite and his willingness to sacrifice himself for the girl, Father Karras exorcises the devil.

Why does the character want what he or she wants?

Father Karras is a loving and compassionate man who values both human life and free will.

What motivaes the character to undertake the quest, risking whatever is at stake personally?

Father Karras's love for his mentor, Father Merrin, and his compassion for the possessed girl Regan McNeil, allows him to participate in the exorcism, despite his weakened faith.

Werewolves: Three Scientific Explanations

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Chillers and Thrillers has devoted quite a bit of space to several articles on Tzvetan Todorov's insightful analysis of the literary fantastic. At this point, despite the oversimplification that results, we can say, for Todorov, the fantastic usually resolves itself into the explained and the unexplained. The former he calls “uncanny”; the latter, “marvelous.” Only when there is no resolution, one way or another, does the fantastic remain fantastic.

In our first post in this series, “Ghosts: A Half-Dozen Explanations,” we include a few examples of each type of story.

We also noted that, to write such a story, an author must allow either of two understandings of the action: either reason or science can explain the phenomena, bizarre though they may, as natural events or the strange phenomena are beyond explanation and, as such, may actually be of an otherworldly or supernatural origin. The tension between these two alternatives creates and maintains suspense. It is only when the story shows that the action is natural (explicable by reason or science) or supernatural (inexplicable by reason or science) that the story itself is no longer fantastic, but either uncanny or marvelous, respectively.

It helps, therefore, to know how scientists explain seemingly fantastic phenomena, such as (for example) ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies.

Werewolves are, like most beasts, especially hairy. Sometimes, so do human beings, due to hypertrichosis, a genetic disorder that results in the covering of the face and body in thick hair resembling an animal's fur. Before genetics was understood (about the turn of the twentieth century), this condition could have led people to believe that victims of hypertrichosis were men or women who'd transformed into wolves—in other words, werewolves (in Old English, “wer” means “man” and “wulf” means “wolf”).

Porphyria, a condition mentioned in a previous post, could have contributed to people's belief, in earlier times, in werewolves: the condition “is characterized by extreme sensitivity to light (thus encouraging its victims to only go out at night), seizures, anxiety, and other symptoms.” (Often, scenes of people transforming into werewolves include behavior that closely resembles seizures, as does this scene from the movie The Howling [1977].)

A medical condition known as clinical lycanthropy is more about the mind that the body: it causes its victims to believe that they are werewolves, which, in turn, causes them to act accordingly. Serial killer Peter Stubbe is a case in point. He believed he owned “a belt of wolfskin that allowed him to change into a wolf.” His confessions to his murders were extracted under torture, as his “flesh was . . . ripped out with hot pincers and his limbs [were] crushed with stones.”

Once again, scientific accounts of the werewolf phenomenon offer suggestions about characters, including therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, police officers and detectives, medical doctors and specialists, and even torturers. In addition, the offices of these personnel might occur as settings in some scenes, but, depending on the century in which a story is set, settings might also feature dungeons, torture chambers, prisons, or mental asylums. Of course, forests are a virtual certainty with regard to the settings of such stories.

There have been many movies about werewolves, including Silver Bullet (1985), which is based on Stephen King's 1983 novella Cycle of the Werewolf. Such imaginary beasts have also been popular with well-known short story authors, Robert Louis Stevenson (“Olalla” [1887]), Algernon Blackwood (“The Camp of the Dog” [1908]), Bram Stoker (“Dracula's Guest” [1914)], and Robert E. Howard (“Wolfshead” [1968]). Alexander Dumas wrote a novella on the subject, The Wolf-Leader (1857), and Guy Endore penned a novel, The Werewolf of Paris (1933). (There's even a werewolf romance subgenre!)

 Studying these stories will show readers how such writers give new blood, so to speak, to a truly ancient horror trope.

In our next post, we'll take a peek at what science says about zombies.

The Z Plot

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Although it would be ludicrous to suggest that a story could follow a “Z” plot, the concept is, nevertheless, a good reminder that thrillers and chillers should move from one action scene to another at a fairly fast pace.

What is a “Z” plot? It's an imaginary sequence of action that is on the fact that, in English, readers read from left to right and from top to bottom. In other words, their eyes, in reading, trace the figure of a “Z.” Sometimes the stem (the diagonal line connecting the upper and the lower arms of the “S”) is shorter; other times, longer, than typical, depending on the length of the paragraph the combined sentences of which make up the stem of the letter. For example, a short paragraph produces a short stem; a long paragraph, a long stem:

Think of the paragraph as representing a scene. Each point at the beginning or the end of the arm of the “Z” represents a point of possible change. Perhaps the first point would be to establish the setting, while the second point would be to introduce the protagonist. At the third point, maybe you would contrast two supporting characters. The fourth point might be that at which you relocate the main character. These four points, regardless of the length of the scene (represented, in the “Z” plot by a paragraph), would make up the entire scene. However, the next scene, with its four points, would provide opportunities for additional, perhaps different (depending on the scene's purpose), plot changes, such as changing the pace of the story (with a longer or a shorter scene), using dialogue between tow or more characters to inform the reader of necessary background material, having circumstances or an incident impede the protagonist, and arranging for the antagonist to confront the protagonist (or vice versa). The next scenes would, likewise, present opportunities, at each of their four points, to change the plot again, again, again, and again.

Besides the actions indicated above, writers can use these points of the “Z” plot to heighten suspense, bolster the protagonist (or the antagonist) with reinforcements or assistants, capture a character, have a character escape, pursue a character, bring about a character's return home or to an earlier point of departure, characterize a character, have a character learn something important, or change a character's attitude, beliefs, feelings, perspective, or values.

Although the structure of your story's your plot, in reality, is unlikely to resemble a “Z,” helping to think of the progress of the action in such a manner could help you to remember to change the course of action frequently not only throughout the story as a whole, but also during each and every one of its scenes. As a result, it's unlikely your readers will become bored; in fact, they should be as excited as hell!

The Means to an End, or Catch and Release

 Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

In plotting horror fiction, as in other genres, it helps to think of the phrase “a means to an end.”

The “means” are the means that the writer employs to encourage the reader to continue to read the story.

The “end” is the theme, or the “meaning,” of the story of film, the point of the narrative or the drama, what it is all “about.”

Here is a simple illustration: an attractive young woman in a bikini is the “means”; the reason for her being a part of a story about a serial killer who preys upon attractive young women in bikinis is the “end.”

We can think of the means as a series of hooks. The writer hooks the reader, but releases him or her; hooks the reader again, and releases him or her a second time; hooks the reader yet again, and releases him or her a third time; and so on, until, at last, the writer releases the reader for good, at the end of the story.

Too often, writers think of not a series of hooks, but of a single hook: the hook that lands the reader, that succeeds in getting him or her to read the rest of the story. However, the idea that even a short story has but a single hook does not work, and it does not work for a novella or a novel, either. (It also doesn't apply to a feature-length film—and what we say here, in this post, about written stories also applies in general to filmed ones; simply substitute “screenwriter” for “writer,” “film” or “movie” for “story” or “novel,” and “audience,” “spectator,” or “viewer” for “reader.”)

We might also note that every hook leaves behind a question which is answered either sooner or later. The hooks (usually actions) generate questions; the questions generate suspense. Once the suspense is satisfied—temporarily—the next hook is set.

Let's take, as an example, H. G. Wells's short story “The Red Room.” Here are the hooks:

Hook 1: Castle caretakers warn a young man who has recently arrived not to spend the night in the Red Room, which, they say, is haunted.

Question: Will the young man be dissuaded?

Hook 2: The warning is repeated.

Question: Will the young man be dissuaded?

Hook 3: The warning is repeated again.

Question: Will the young man be dissuaded?

Hook 4: The young man proceeds upstairs to the Red Room.

Question: Will the young man continue to the room or change his mind and depart from the castle?

Hook 5: The young man locks himself inside the room.

Question: Will he stay in the room?

Hook 6: Having secured himself inside the room, the young man inspects the chamber for any signs of secret entrances or hiding places.

Question: Will the young man find any secret entrances or hiding places.?

Hook 7: A candle goes out.

Question: Why?

Hook 8: The young man suspects a draft, but he cannot find a source of an air current.

Question: What caused the draft that blew out the candle—or was it a draft that extinguished the flame?

Hooks 9-12*: One by one, additional candles are apparently snuffed.

Question: What caused the drafts that blew out these additional candles—or were they drafts that extinguished the flame?

Hook 13: The fire in the fireplace is abruptly extinguished.

Question: What caused the fire to go out? (Here, the reader may draw a tentative conclusion: a draft of air certainly could not have extinguished the fire!)

Hook 14: The young man panics, running through the room, and is knocked out.

Question: Did ghosts attack him?

Hook 15: The castle's caretakers ask him whether the room is haunted, as rumored?

Question: What will the young man answer: is the room haunted?

End: The room is haunted—by the young man's own imagination, which ran away with him.

*The numbers are invented, as the exact number escape me at present.

While the incidents of a plot must be linked by cause and effect, they should also be related through actions, or hooks, that cause questions, generating suspense, until, at the end, all is explained.

But must stories be explained? Isn't ambiguity best, in some cases? That's a question for a future post.

Playing with Words

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Cozy mystery titles are BIG on wordplay. Paula Darnell's DIY Diva Series is a case in point. The first book of the series, Death By Association, takes place in a guard-gated community governed by a homeowners association.

 The next volume in the series, Death ByDesign, features protagonist Laurel McMillan's Perfect Pillows class—and a not-quite perfect murder.

 

The third novel in the series, Death By Proxy features mistaken identity. Her forthcoming series, A Fine Art Mystery, explores an art cooperative in Arizona; the books' titles are also based on, or reflective of, plays on words. The first is Artistic License to Kill.

Using wordplay can also be an effective way of triggering ideas for plot horror ideas for novels.

Hostel Takeover, for example, suggests a setting and a motive for horror. Settings, of course, often, in turn, suggests characters. A hostel would be the temporary home of young travelers (typically ages 16 to 34).

By researching hostels, additional plot ideas can be obtained. For example, in some such establishments, sleeping quarters are segregated by sex; in others, bedrooms are open to guests of both sex. Some hostels offer more amenities than others, and hostels, in general, offer benefits, but also have disadvantages, when compared to hotels or motels. Many are independent, but some are units in a chain or are affiliates of larger organizations (Zostel and Hosteling International, for example).

 Before writing a horror novel based on a hostel as a setting, it's a good idea to check out movies or other novels that have used hostels as their settings, such as Hostel and Hostel: Part II. There's no need to tread familiar ground.

The second part of the title, Takeover, is important, too; in fact, it may well be the key that distinguishes your own story from other horror stories that feature hostels as their settings. The idea of a hostel (and of a hostile) takeover suggests the acquisition of a hostel, against the will of the current owner, by a bidder or through a proxy fight.

In a horror story, of course, the owner is apt to resist the takeover by more than legal means, and much of the horror could stem from his or her resistance. It's not difficult to imagine possible twists: maybe the owner loses the takeover and kills off the hostel's guests to create such a bad impression of the place that its future is doomed.

Perhaps the focus is on the owner's efforts to fend off the takeover by any means necessary, including murdering the management, stockholders, or bidder. Another possibility is to adopt the bidder's point of view and concentrate on other means of takeover than financial expedients after the initial offer is refused. From either point of view, the scenes practically write themselves: collapsing bunk beds, exploding ovens, blood showers, bizarre “guests,” murderous interlopers, ghosts of the dead . . . .

The takeover could, indeed, be hostile, with guests and employees meeting grisly fates and prospective guests being killed even before they arrive at the establishment. A combination of approaches is also a possibility.

Quite a lot can be suggested by simply wordplay.

Using Typical Genre Elements to Generate Horror Story Plots

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

By isolating the types of characters, actions, settings, processes, and motives or causes upon which horror movies are typically based, we can devise a plot generator.

Although this is a basic list, a starter, as it were, which can be extended by further considerations of horror, both on the sound stage and on the page, it suggests the method.

Who? What types of characters generally appear again and again in the horror genre?

Protagonist, antagonist, victim, authority figure, expert, parents, siblings, tormentor, extraterrestrial, supernatural being

What? What types of actions do many horror stories represent? In other words, what type of activity occupies the characters? What do they do, on a sustained basis, throughout the film or most of the film?

Filming, capturing, escaping, experimenting, rescuing, conceiving, avenging, exploring, invading

When? Where? What settings (times and places) are typical of horror fiction?

Isolated property, closed public property, private property, laboratory, spaceship, suburbs, school, town, forest

How? What processes are typical of the horror genre? In other words, what type of series of actions forms the basis, or vehicle, of the story's plot, as opposed to the actions of the characters themselves? What propels the story as a whole?

Traveling, visiting, creating, reproducing, disturbing, working, persecuting, vacationing, possessing, exorcising, trespassing

Why? What are the motives of the protagonist and the antagonist? If one or both of these characters is (are) otherworldly (e. g., extraterrestrial or supernatural) or a physical force (e. g., energy or disease), what causes them to “act”?

Revenge, financial profit, escape, conquest, insanity, invasion, survival, destruction

Now, it is possible to generate plots by mixing and matching these typical foundational elements. Here are a few examples.

This example uses the first words from each category:

Protagonist films on isolated property while traveling during a vendetta.

To make the plot more concrete, substitute more specific terms for the generic ones; in doing so, it is all right to eliminate an element that no longer seems to fit; in the following revision, “traveling” has been omitted.

The camera operator is hired as a member of a film crew shooting a documentary concerning life inside a prison so he can avenge his father's death by killing the inmate who murdered him.

Here is another example, based on the third term in each of the categories. In this example, it was necessary to add a noun after “by creating”:

A victim escapes from private property by creating a ruse in order to be free.

Again, to make the plot more concrete, substitute more specific terms for the generic ones; in doing so, it is all right to add or alter an element if doing so is desirable and appropriate.

An enslaved woman escapes from an island resort by disguising herself as a guest so she can leave with other departing visitors.