Making Every Word (or Image) Count

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

The opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) is well known to many moviegoers. Each moment in the sequence keeps viewers' attention, enhances the victim's humanity, characterizes the victim (or alternately dehumanizes her) or her companion, intensifies viewers' emotions, establishes contrasts that heighten emotion and sharpen theme, suggests despair, and/or leads up to the victim's savage and horrendous death. The blue font indicates how the action sequences accomplish these tasks.

A young blonde woman runs, Chrissie Watkins, along a fence, or what is left of it, pursued by a young man. Is he a threat? Does he mean her harm? Is he a stalker?

This sequence of action creates suspense, as the viewer, having no clue as to why the man is chasing the woman, wonders whether she is in danger.

He trips, falls, but is again on his feet in a second, and the pursuit continues. Chrissie glance back, over her shoulder, as she runs, shedding her denim jacket. Beneath her sweaters, her breasts bounce as she runs, suggesting she is braless. The man continues his pursuit.

Chrissie may shed her jacket because it impedes her range of motion, slowing her down. The motion of her breasts calls attention to her femininity and her sexuality, suggesting a possible motive for the man's pursuit. Is he intent upon rape?

She pauses to remove a shoe, before stumbling onward, her pursuer giving chase, as he doffs his sweatshirt.

Perhaps she removes her shoe for the same reason she removed her sweater: it slows her flight.

Chrissie pulls off her sweater; she is, indeed, braless. Viewers see her bare breasts bounce as she runs. Although she continues to flee from the man following her, viewers begin to suspect the couple are playing a game, as she has voluntarily removed her shoe and top.

The suspense dissipates, as viewers realize the couple are playing a game of sorts. Chrissie is not in danger. (However, since she soon will be, this segment of the film's introductory sequence creates a false expectation for viewers.) Her braless states suggests she is a modern, “liberated” young woman who is comfortable in her own skin.

As the man tumbles down a hill at the side of the trail, Chrissie, now completely nude, runs toward the ocean, her buttocks drawing viewers' gazes.

When suspense is unavailable, nudity can keep viewers' attention. The fact that she has chosen to be naked suggests she is a carefree young woman, just as the game of flight-and-pursuit she plays with her friend suggests she is playful.

She enters the surf and dives into the sea. She is a strong swimmer, and, by the time her friend arrives on the beach, removing more of his clothing, she is nearing a buoy some distance off shore.

The young man remains only a figure, rather than a character, he's little more than a prop; the introductory portion of the film remains focused on Chrissie. For this part of the film, at least, she is the protagonist.

Projecting her leg into the air, her foot extended straight, in a manner similar to that of a ballerina standing on her toes, she lets herself sink into the ocean. For a moment, she is lost to sight.

The positioning of her leg indicates Chrissie has a sense of humor.

A closeup shot shows her resurface, mouth wide as she gasps for breath, water streaming down her face. She smiles, before turning as she dog paddles, to look west, toward the sun, which is low on the horizon. Sunset is on its way.

Although she is in her element and is enjoying herself, Chrissie hasn't much time left: symbolically, the near-sunset indicates that the end is near for her.

On the beach, her friend is a silhouette against the wash of the surf, a stretch of low land, and a sky in which scattered clouds are illuminated, yellow and pink in the setting sun. He falls as he struggles to remove a shoe. Perhaps, given his clumsiness, he is drunk.

It seems clear that he is not the type of man who is apt to be able to rescue a damsel in distress. He cannot even take care of himself.

Chrissie resumes swimming, her gliding silhouette seen from below the calm, blue waters as she performs the breaststroke. Then, the back of her head and her arms are seen at a distance, as she continues to swim.

Seen from this perspective, below and at some distance, Chrissie is dehumanized. She might as well be a maritime animal, a fish or a seal, as a human being.

Pausing for a moment, as the camera shows her closeup, she turns her head from side to side, smiling.

Her moment of joy will contrast sharply and dramatically with her coming horror and pain.

She sinks below the surface of the ocean, kicking her legs and waving her arms. The camera views her from below. Her pubic hair is a dark, triangular patch, her breasts discernible as a pair of firm, buoyant mounds topped by her nipples.

Her sexuality is highlighted by this shot, but it is, at the same time, darkened by the lack of light, both below the surface of the ocean and in the dusky sky above. She is undoubtedly a beautiful and sexy woman; her death will seem all the more a waste. She could be a mother. Instead, she will become a corpse. Sexuality and life are established, through her nudity, as contrasts to her upcoming demise.

At the surface again, she smiles. Then, her head jerks back and she is pulled violently downward. Her eyes widen in surprise. She turns her head slightly to her right, looking puzzled. Her head dips below the surface, before reappearing. She looks panic-stricken. In a splash, she vanishes beneath the waves. When her head pierces the surface, her mouth is open, her eyes shut tightly, a grimace of terror and pain freezing her features.

Chrissie feels surprise, followed by shock, followed by horror and pain, as she realizes she is in the grip of an adversary too ferocious and powerful to resist and that, alone at sea, she is on her own.

A splash, and she is pulled across the water, past the buoy, only her head and shoulders visible above the water. She struggles. Her body is pulled to the right. She straightens, and her body is again pulled to the right. Water churns around her.

It is as if, clinging to the buoy, she hopes against hope, even in her hopeless situation, to survive somehow. Of course, she has no chance.

On the beach, her friend sleeps, as Chrissie continues to struggle for her life against her unseen adversary. She is launched toward the buoy and clings desperately to its platform. It turns, and, cast off, she swims toward shore, but, a moment later, she is seized. Her face flashes with anguish amid the roiling water, as she cries out. She is taken underwater.

This seems to be her last moment: she is buried, as it were, at sea, the closure of the water above her body a metaphorical closing of her grave.

Her friend continues to sleep on the beach, despite the breaking waves that wash over his lower body. The sky is now nearly dark.

The near-darkness suggests both the young man's sleep (and his unawareness of Chrissie's death) and Chrissie's own demise.

In well-made movies, regardless of their genre, every moment of screen time contributes to the film's overall effect while moving the movie forward. The same is true of well-written novels, although, sometimes to their detriment, novels are allowed more leeway than movies, probably because feature films cost millions of dollars to produce, while novels typically cost those who write and distribute them far less. A tightly written novel, though, in which every chapter, paragraph, sentence, and word contributes to the narrative's overall effect while moving the story forward is apt to be a superior one. Whatever their medium, one type of artist can often suggest ways to improve another one's work, regardless of its medium. The opening sequence of Jaws, like the movie's other scenes, has a lot to teach those willing to study and to learn.

The Ingredients of the Thriller

Copyright 2012 by Gary L. Pullman

In Thriller 2, Clive Cussler introduces readers to the thriller, not as a novel but in its short story form. In fact the anthology contains twenty-three thrillers. By authors as diverse as Jeffrey Deaver, R. L. Stine, Lisa Jackson, and Ridley Pearson. One of the editor's intentions, he tells readers, is to introduce those who are “new to the world of thrillers” to the genre or to allow “the rabid fan” the “chance to discover another side” of his or her “favorite author.”

Another of the editor's purposes is to define the genre. However, Cussler doesn't so so in so many words. Instead, he offers clues. The stories in this genre are not easily pigeonholed, Cussler declares. They include “novels of suspense, adventure tales, paranormal investigations, or even police procedurals.” Thrillers “push their readers just a little closer to the edge of their seats,” he says; “they cost their readers sleep, get carried to the grocery store to be read while standing in line [presumably, the readers and not the thriller are “standing in line”] and are held tightly until the last page.” Thrillers stay with readers after the last page has been read. These stories, Cussler contends, may “shock” or “cause” the “heart to skip a beat” or “make” one “laugh and flinch at the same time,”and, many times, they will be “read again in disbelief,” as readers seek “the clues” they “missed the first time around.”

Cussler also provides additional clues in the headnotes that he provides for each of the stories. They have “high stakes”; the time that is allowed the protagonist to sort things out and set things right is apt to be “short.” Situations, invariably, are intense. The storylines may be suggested or influenced by the stories' settings. A thriller might be based upon the “short step from respectable citizen to flat-out criminal,” wherein “the lead characters bear a shocking resemblance to people we might know—even to ourselves—pillars of society crumbling in an avalanche of bad decisions that seemed perfectly rational at the time.” Other thrillers are tales of revenge. Often, the action of such stories is based upon “current events.” A thriller may include “an intricate puzzle.” Some such stories spring from seedy, real-life counterparts of the characters they depict. Natural catastrophes are sometimes the culprits: “Mother Nature is as much of a threat as the killers” some characters encounter; they “must confront not only the harsh realities of their situation, but also the brutal conditions of their environment.” Occasionally, thrillers spring from the actual experiences of the writers who write them. The protagonists of thrillers may be amoral by society's standards, but they, nevertheless, usually live by “their own code of honor.” Other thrillers investigate their characters' “personal histories,” focusing upon what makes their characters tick or what motivates them to perform the dangerous feats they do. Humor is the wellspring of some thrillers. Sometimes, thrillers mix “history and science.” The action is often global in scope, and even in a world wherein science reigns, mysticism can coexist with empirical methods. Philosophical issues are not off limits to thrillers; some discuss such questions as to whether we are the masters of our fates or the fates' playthings. Politics, betrayal, dystopian futures, and patriotism can become the elements of a thriller that involves government intrigues and conspiracies. Thrillers also take their readers into the criminal underworld, showing them how hired killers view the world. Spies come in from the cold in many a thriller, and good guys protect the innocent. Romance—especially unrequited love—can set a thriller's plot in motion, and a woman scorned—well. . . . Villains include hit men, sociopaths, enemy agents, serial killers, rapists, and sadists.

Any story should start with a hook, and thrillers are no exception. These are a few from Thriller 2:

“A new weapon.”

The slim man in a conservative suit eased forward and lowered his voice. “Something terrible. And our sources are certain it will be used this coming Saturday morning. They're certain of that.”

“Four days,” said retired Colonel James J. Peterson, his voice grave. It was now 5:00 p. m. on Monday. (Deaver, Jeffrey. “The Weapon,” 16).

Bijoux Watson's body slipped underneath the muddy waters of the Brazos River without a sound, a mangled pile of flesh that had once been the biggest purveyor of black tar heroin in all east Texas (Hunsicker, Harry. “Iced,” 55).

Every time I think back on that night, I can see myself poised at that exact moment in time. I watch the story unfold—it's like watching a movie, you know?--and I wish to God I could relive that instant when I did the unthinkable (Stewart,. Mariah. “Justice Served,” 73).

What happened to Leon is a dirty shame (Stine, R. L., “Roomful of Witnesses,” 111).

“This is where they died?” (Neggers, Carla, “On the Run,” 169).

When the man he'd killed a year ago walked into the bar, Joe Dogan was surprised, So surprised that he fell off his stool (Light, Lawrence. “The Lamented,” 217).

“Give us the manuscript or we'll kill your wife” (Maleeny, Tim. “Suspension of Disbelief,” 271).

It's time to kill my husband. Izaan Bekkar. The forty-eighth president of the United States (Antrim, Kathleen. “Through a Veil Darkly,” 351).

Cussler identifies the key ingredients of the thriller. He provides twenty-three examples. There is no single formula for this type of story, but there are suggestions. Place a protagonist in an intense situation, perhaps in an isolated setting, with what little time remains before a catastrophic event fast running out, and see whether he or she can escape, avert the catastrophe, or otherwise save him- or herself and the day (and maybe the whole planet!) In the process, suggest something about human nature or, at least, a specific specimen of humanity and why life is important, especially when it is lived on the edge.

William Peter Blatty: Opening and Closing Sentences

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The Exorcist is destined to become a classic of horror fiction. Its theme--the love of God surpasses both the problem of evil and human knowledge, depending upon trust in God, or faith--and the execution of this theme in and through William Peter Blatty’s narrative make the novel a book not for its day only but for all time. Like most other books whose importance transcends its own time, The Exorcist also happens to be adroitly written, as just the opening and closing lines of each of its major divisions indicate; Blatty knows how to create, maintain, and heighten suspense, both by the use of situations, foreshadowing, and cliffhangers.

The structure of Blatty’s novel also suggests how he saw the configuration or makeup of the corrodible event--itself comprised of other horrible incidents--of which his book is ostensibly a record or account. As such, it is instructive for those who want to ensure that the structures of their own novels enhance the effect of the horrors their books narrate.

Prologue: Northern Iraq

The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat from the old man’s brow, yet he cupped his hands around the glass of hot sweet tea as if to warm them.

He hastened toward Mosul and his train, his heart encased in the icy conviction that soon he would face an ancient enemy.

I: The Beginning

One

Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men’s eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all.

What looked like morning was the beginning of endless night.

Two

He stood at the edge of the lonely subway platform, listening for the rumble of a train that would still the ache that was always with him.

He rushed for the seven-ten train back to Washington, carrying pain in a black valise.

Three

Early on the morning of April 11, Chris made a telephone call to her doctor in Los Angeles and asked him for a referral to a local psychiatrist for Regan.

There were no disturbances. That night.

Four

She greeted her guests in a lime-green hostess costume with long, belled sleeves and pants.

The mattress of the bed was quivering violently back and forth.

II: The Edge

One

They brought her to an ending in a crowded cemetery where the gravestones cried for breath.

His orders were to “rest.”

Two

Regan lay on her back on Klein’s examination table, arms and legs bowed outwards.

No one noticed.

Three

The consulting neurologist pinned up the X-rays again and searched for indentations which would look as if the skull had been pounded like copper with a tiny hammer.

Wherever Sharon moved, Regan would follow.

Four

Friday, April 29. While Chris waited in the hall outside the bedroom, Dr. Klein and a noted neuropsychiatrist were examining Regan.

Burke Denning’s head was turned completely around, facing backward.

Five

Cupped in the warm, green hollow of the campus, Damien Karras jogged alone around an oval, loamy track in khaki shorts and a cotton T-shirt drenched with the cling of healing sweat.

She screamed until she fainted.

III: The Abyss

One

She was standing on the Key Bridge walkway, arms on the parapet, fidgeting, waiting, while homeward traffic stuttered thickly behind her, while drivers with everyday cares honked horns and bumpers nudged bumpers with scraping indifference.

“Perhaps we could now have a talk. . . .”

Two

Karras threaded tape to an empty reel in the office of the rotund, silver-haired director of the Institute of Languages and Linguistics.

He continued his farewells.

IV. “And Let My Cry Come Unto Thee. . . ”

One

In the breathing dark of his quiet office, Kindemann brooded above his desk.

The river flowed quiet again, reaching for a gentler shore.

Epilogue

Late June sunlight streamed through the window of Chris’s bedroom.

In forgetting, they were trying to remember.

"Terminal Freeze," Blow By Blow

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

I just finished reading Lincoln Child's novel, Terminal Freeze.  It's 320 pages long.  I read it in five hours.  That's 64 pages an hour, or a little more than a page a minute.  I'm not bragging, just making a point.  By using the same method that I use, you can read novels quickly, too.  Why would you want to do so?  You can read more of them, gaining a better perspective on either an individual's entire collection of work, a better understanding of the entire genre itself in which he or she works, or a better appreciation of both an individual author's work and the genre to which the work belongs, all with a minimum investment of time.  In addition to reading the novel, I also wrote one-sentence summaries of each of its chapters as I went, so that, by the time I'd read the entire novel, I had a summary of the entire story, which enhances my memory of what I've read and provides a handy dandy means of evaluating and critiquing the novel, should I ever wish to do so.

If you'd like to follow the method of my madness (or the madness of my method), here's what I do when I want to speed up the reading process:

1. First, read the blurb. A blurb is the text on the inside of a hardback book’s flyleaf (the paper cover in which hardback books are usually wrapped) or on the back cover of a paperback. by reading them, you’re saving yourself from having to read maybe fifty, or even 100, PAGES of the novel itself, and you will know the main character’s name, the setting, the basic storyline, and the names of lesser, supporting characters.
2. Realize that a chapter can be summarized in one sentence. Then, read the chapter only until you can summarize it in one sentence.
3. After each chapter, write a sentence that summarizes what it presented
4. Keep a list of characters’ names, brief phrases that identify them, and the names of the places in which the action takes place.
5. Skip most of the description and exposition. Read just the dialogue. By reading just the dialogue, you will be able to keep track of the story well enough to summarize it. Only dip into the descriptive or expository blocks of text when you need to do so to reestablish a sense of continuity and context--maybe twice or so every four or five chapters. You will find that you are skipping entire pages of the text and still know what’s going on.
6. After reading and summarizing each chapter and updating your list of characters and settings, stop! You are done with the book. 

Here is the result of my application of this process to Terminal Freeze:

Chapter 1: The face of a melting glacier near Alaska’s Mount Fear falls away, revealing the mouth of an ice cave.

Chapter 2: Scientists exploring the cave find a monstrous beast (a gigantic cat) frozen in the ice.

Chapter 3: Although Usuguk, who travels south with his people, warns the scientists to leave the region, declaring that they have trespassed upon holy land, defiling it with their presence, the scientists refuse to leave.

Chapter 4: Kari Ekberg, a Hollywood location scout, arriving at the scientists’ research station to prepare for a docudrama about the discovery of the frozen beast, is given a tour of the facility--except for the northern section, which is off limits to her and everyone else, including the squad of soldiers who maintain and guard the post.

Chapter 5: As they escort Ekberg to the ice cave to see the beast, two scientists, paleoecologist Evan Marshall and evolutionary biologist Wright Faraday, explain their expertise to her.

Chapter 6: In an underground bunker below Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains, Jeremy Logan, allegedly a professor of medieval history, reads a secret memorandum concerning the deaths of a team of scientists who had been encamped at Mount Fear.

Chapter 7: Emilio Conti, the executive producer, begins filming on location, explaining that the host of the docudrama will arrive before the crew ascends Mount Fear to cut the beast from the ice--live, on camera, before millions of viewers.

Chapter 8: The Hollywood team’s legal representative, Wolff, shows the scientists a contract that their leader, Gerard Scully, signed, authorizing them to extract and thaw the beast’s carcass, on live television, despite the scientists’ objections.

Chapter 9: Using a laser and a diamond-tipped drill, the television crew extracts a block of ice in which the beast is entombed from the ice cave’s wall and transports it to a climate-controlled vault to thaw before the eyes of their television audience.

Chapter 10: Conti interviews Marshall, dramatizing the setting and dialogue, but angering the scientist when he asks him about his “dishonorable discharge” from the army, despite his having been awarded the Silver Star, and his refusal to carry a weapon, and Marshall refuses to cooperate further.

Chapter 11: Faraday reports to his colleagues that tests he’s conducted indicate that the beast is not the saber-toothed tiger they’d supposed it to be; it is at least twice the size of such an animal.

Chapter 12: An examination of the carcass--or what can be seen of it inside the block of ice--proves inconclusive as to the animal’s identity.

Chapter 13: The docudrama’s host, Ashleigh Davis, arrives, by helicopter, along with her trailer, which has been trucked in aboard an eighteen-wheeler driven by Carradine, an ice road trucker.

Chapter 14: Logan, identifying himself as a hitchhiker, who was picked up by Carradine on his way to deliver Davis’ trailer, introduces himself as the scientists gather to watch the docudrama host film a sequence of her show outside the climate-controlled vault.

Chapter 15: Marshal awakens to discover that a hole has been cut through the floor of the climate-controlled vault.

Chapter 16: Wolff locks down the compound so he can investigate and recover the carcass stolen from the vault, but the new arrival, Logan, is nowhere to be found.

Chapter 17: Faraday, having taken pictures of the hole in the vault’s floor, determined that the hole was made from above, not from below, as Wolff had supposed, which indicates that whoever sawed the hole through the floor knew the combination to the vault’s lock.

Chapter 18: Conti believes that the carcass was stolen through an act of sabotage to be disposed of and vows to make a documentary of the crime, asking Marshall to star in the film.

Chapter 19: Logan tells Marshall about the recently declassified memorandum concerning the deaths of the scientists at Fear Base.

Chapter 20: Josh Peters relieves McCoy Tyner, searching the compound for the carcass of the beast, and is attacked from behind and knocked unconscious.

Chapter 21: Faraday and the team’s graduate assistant, Ang Chen, tell Marshall of test results they’ve obtained on ice from the cave in which the creature was encased: it seems to contain ice--and a microscopic view of the photograph Faraday took of the hole in the floor suggests that the hole was made from teeth, not a saw, as if it had been chewed through.

Chapter 22: Logan reconnoiters E Level of the research facility, where he encounters the military leader, Sergeant Gonzalez, who tells him that the facility’s off-limits section had “extra berths” in it “that no military ever used” and is rumored to have involved the mauling by a polar bear of scientists who were involved in top secret work.

Chapter 23: After Marshall and his team’s computer scientist, Penny Barbour, put Conti, Wolff, and Ekberg on notice that the filmmakers will be sued if they libel or slander the scientists in their docudrama about the climate-controlled vault’s having been sabotaged, they inform the Hollywood executives that one of their men, Josh Peters, has been “torn apart” beyond the compound’s “security fence.”

Chapter 24: At Wolff’s request, Marshall examines the body, concluding that a polar bear could have killed Peters, but Wolff still insists that the creature’s carcass was stolen in an act of sabotage and suggests that Peters was killed to frighten the rest of them from continuing the Hollywood team’s search for the missing creature.

Chapter 25: Intent upon making a revised docudrama of the creature‘s theft and Peter‘s supposed murder as part of the sabotage of their original film, Conti sends one film crew to photograph the fearful reaction of the rest of the crew to the news of Peter’s horrific death and a second crew to film Peters’ corpse before it is put into cold storage.

Chapter 26: Logan discovers a notebook--perhaps a journal--that one of the scientists on the earlier, catastrophic, aborted mission kept while at Fear Base.

Chapter 27: A he prepares to leave the room in which Peters’ corpse is temporarily stored., having photographed the body, cameraman Ken Toussaint encounters “the face of nightmare.”

Chapter 28: Faraday reports to Marshall his suspicion that the ice that encased the creature was unusual and melted below the freezing mark, allowing the animal trapped inside, which may have been alive rather than dead, to escape after its ice prison had melted.

Chapter 29: Trying to pitch a screenplay to Davis, Carradine escorts her to her trailer, where they hear a loud knocking, which turns out to b Toussaint, hanging from one of the trailer’s window awning support arms, who, although he first appears dead, screams, “It plays with you! And then when it’s finished playing--it kills.”

Chapter 30: Toussaint, who has survived the attack upon him, describes his attacker as huge and equipped with many teeth; Peters’ corpse is missing; Wolff refuses to allow Carradine to drive the crew to safety in Davis’ trailer, which he offers to tow behind his eighteen-wheeler.

Chapter 31: Logan tells Marshall that the dead scientist’s journal hints at horrific events at Fear Base, and Marshall decides to take a snowmobile to visit the Tunits to see whether they can shed any light on the incidents, past and present, that have occurred at the research facility.

Chapter 32: When Allan Fortnum returns from shooting images of the Hollywood crew’s horrified reactions to Peters’ death, Conti gives the cinematographer his next assignment: stand by to film the monster as it tears its next victim apart--but Fortnum refuses to be party to this outrageous task.

Chapter 33: Both Davis and PFC Donovan Fluke, who escorts to her new accommodations, which are closer to those of the military troop attached to Fear Base to afford her better protection, are attacked by the monster.

Chapter 34: Visiting the Tunits’ settlement, Marshall finds it deserted except for Usuguk, who has remained behind to speak to the scientist, certain that Marshall would come.

Chapter 35: Sergeant Gonzalez orders the camp evacuated; everyone will ride in Davis’ trailer, which Carradine will tow with his eighteen-wheeler; meanwhile, Gonzalez plans to hunt for the beast; when Marshall returns, his colleagues plan to meet with him; only Conti and Ekberg refuse to leave, staying to film yet another revised docudrama.

Chapter 36: After Marshall tells Usuguk how he had accidentally killed his friend during the war in Somalia and had refused to cover up his mistake, thereby earning a dishonorable discharge, Usuguk agrees to accompany him on his hunt for the creature, but only as an unarmed advisor--and the shaman won’t share what he knows about the slaughter of the earlier scientific expedition party.

Chapter 37: Sergeant Gonzalez and his two men, Marcelin and Phillips, remain at Fear Base to hunt the beast after everyone else but Creel, Faraday, Scully, Marshall, Logan, Conti, Ekberg, and Wolff leaves in Davis trailer, which is towed by Carradine’s big rig.

Chapter 38: Conti and Ekberg plan to follow the soldiers, filming their hunt of the creature.

Chapter 39: Marshall returns to the nearly deserted research facility with Usuguk and learns of the monster’s killing of Davis and Fluke; Usuguk tells the others that he was the sole survivor among the earlier research party, “the one who got away.”

Chapter 40: The military troop, commanded by Sergeant Gonzalez and accompanied by Creel, the roustabouts’ foreman, follow the beast’s bloody tracks through the base‘s power station, and it attacks the group, killing Creel, after which Gonzalez retreats.

Chapter 41: Usuguk, a former soldier who had been stationed at Fear Base, tells the others how another, smaller spirit-beast killed the scientists of the earlier expedition and declares that the larger one awakened by the present expedition is an invincible and immortal guardian of the mountain in which Fear Base is installed--it cannot be killed, but it will kill them all.

Chapter 42: After crossing a frozen lake, the tractor-trailer is caught in a gust of wind that slams it into a rock and breaks one of the fuel tanks; the other tank is only one third full, and there is not enough fuel to take them the rest of the way to their destination, Arctic Village.

Chapter 43: Inside the base’s power station, the soldiers try to electrocute the creature, but to no avail.

Chapter 44: Following the soldiers, Conti, Wolff, and Ekberg find the bloody trail and Conti films Ekberg’s reaction to seeing the head that the monster had ripped from Creel’s body.

Chapter 45: Faraday finds that the monster’s white blood cell-rich blood makes it impervious to bullets but is hypersensitive to--and may be killed by--sound, so maybe they can convert the secret wing of the base into an echo chamber; meanwhile, Sergeant Gonzalez’s attempt to raise Conti and Ekberg on the radio is unsuccessful.

Chapter 46: Conti, having forbidden Ekberg to respond to Gonzalez’s radio call, orders Wolff and Ekberg to investigate a stairwell with him, and they feel pressure inside their skulls as the monster approaches them through the darkness.

Chapter 47: As Usuguk tells the party his people’s legends concerning the monster, Gonzalez, Sully, Marshall, Faraday, Phillips, and the shaman find an already-built echo chamber in the secret section of the facility.

Chapter 48: The creature kills Conti, but Ekberg escapes.

Chapter 49: Ekberg radios Marshall, advising him of Conti’s death and of her own risk, and, while Scully seeks batteries to operate the echo chamber’s sound equipment, Marshall rendezvous with Ekberg to protect her from the monster and lead her back to a site outside the echo chamber, where the monster can be ambushed.

Chapter 50: As the monster pursues them, Marshall and Ekberg retreat toward the ambush site, only to learn that no batteries are available and that the scientists have had to connect the sound equipment to a power source inside the echo chamber itself, which is farther than Marshall had anticipated.

Chapter 51: The sound equipment fails to stop the creature (as does a barrage of bullets), which attacks Scully, who is operating the sonar weapon, and tears him limb from limb.

Chapter 52: Marshall retreats with the sonar weapon into the echo chamber, where the sound is magnified, and, using a different set of “harmonics,” kills the monster with the sound waves, which cause its head to explode.

Chapter 53: Against all odds, Carradine’s big rig manages to haul the trailer to Arctic Village.

Epilogue: Logan suggests that the first beast was the second creature’s pet and that the latter had been searching for the former when it became encased in the wall of the ice cave.

Learning from the Masters: Lincoln Child Shows Us How to Write an Effective Opening Chapter

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Typically, an opening chapter, beginning in media res, sets up a mysterious, sometimes bizarre, situation that involves danger, compelling a character (usually the protagonist) to take immediate corrective action, the outcome of which may be left, for the moment, in doubt.

Let’s take a look at each of these elements.

In media res means “in the middle of things,” and refers to the narrative technique of presenting an incident out of context, apart from the related sequence of related incidents of which it is a part. A classic example in detective fiction is to begin the story with the discovery of a murder victim’s corpse. Obviously, someone killed the person. Who? How?, Why?, When?, and even Where? (the dastardly deed could have been done somewhere else and the body moved from the true crime scene to its present location) are all implicit, but as-yet, unanswered questions. The incidents that led up to the murder have been omitted. The story, in other words, has begun in media res.

The way to create mystery is to withhold key explanatory details that would create a context in which the situation would be understood. Often, such details relate to who or what is causing the situation, how the situation is being caused, or why it is being caused. A writer has only five questions with which to work in developing his or her plot and in creating, maintaining, and heightening the suspense that keeps readers reading: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, How?, and Why?* It is best, perhaps, in the opening chapter to address as few of these vital questions as possible. If an author supplies the what?, for example, and need to address the other four questions, it is probably best to leave them for later. By keeping the reader guessing concerning these questions, the writer maintains suspense.

The bizarre, of course, is the unusual. The unusual can be outlandish, but it need not be. The unusual can be a description of the life of a little-known people, such as an arctic or an Amazonian tribe. It can be a look into the customs of a different culture, past, present, or future. It can involve an expedition to another world. The unusual can be the anomalous, phenomena that do not fit the current scientific view of nature or reality. The bizarre may relate to the monstrous, the abnormal, the deviant, the fiendish, or the aberrant. Folklore, legends, and myths are sources, at times, for beliefs and attitudes that may seem bizarre to modern men and women.

Danger is most often associated with the body; it is physical. Such danger should always be present in a horror novel, of course (and is present in almost all genre fiction). However, physical danger is often coupled another type of danger--theological, philosophical, social, familial, or technological, for example, which compounds and elevates the physical dangers to which the characters are exposed. Danger to the body is frightening, but when such danger is coupled with perils to faith, belief, nation, family, or infrastructure, the fear is magnified.

The danger must force the character (usually the protagonist) to take immediate corrective action, but what is “corrective action”? Ideally (from the characters point of view), it is action that solves the problem which he or she has encountered in the opening chapter’s situation. From the readers’ point of view, though, the problem should never be so small or simple that it can be easily solved by the endangered character. Instead, his or her attempt to solve the problem should fail and, in fact, lead to or cause an even greater, related problem. Therefore, “corrective action” might mean no more than evading the danger, escaping it, or temporarily neutralizing it, only to have the same peril recur, with greater intensity or be replaced by a superior, but related, hazard. Until the end of the story, “corrective action” is generally either evasive action or stop-gap measures designed to postpone what seems to be inevitable death and destruction or a failure of some lesser sort. (As a rule, if the opening chapter does not involve the protagonist, the character who is involved in the opening chapter’s situation must turn out to be related in some way, directly or indirectly, to the protagonist or the protagonist’s plight.)

Lincoln Child’s novel Terminal Freeze offers a textbook case of beginning one’s story in media res and of setting up a mysterious, sometimes bizarre, situation that involves danger, compelling a character (usually the protagonist) to take immediate corrective action.

A tribal shaman invokes a ritual by which he hopes to appease gods who, he believes, have been angered by a woman’s careless violation of a taboo--a violation that has already led to some (unnamed) catastrophe and which, if it is not propitiated, may lead to more, even worse calamities. He performs the ritual, but it doesn’t work. Instead, something far worse threatens his people, and the shaman realizes that it is not the woman’s accidental breaking of the taboo, nor is it the failure of the ritual, but something far worse: “Only a violation of the most serious of all taboos could cause the kind of spirit fury he now paid witness to” (4). The shaman’s response is to order the woman to pack her belongings, for they must leave the next day, to travel south, “to the mountain” (5), where the violation of the most sacred taboo, presumably, has occurred. Readers are left hanging, so to speak, concerning the question as to whether the shaman and his people will be able to put matters right. If not, what horrible fate awaits them? This is another question that, left, for the moment unanswered, compels further reading.

*Some argue that a sixth question, How many? or How much? is also implied by any situation.

Fever Dream’s Opening Paragraphs (Chapters 1 through 20: Recap)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

The opening paragraphs of Chapters 1 through 20 of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Fever Dream (like the rest of those which introduce the novel’s other 60 chapters) use a variety of techniques to accomplish several purposes. As I have observed in previous posts concerning this topic, these techniques and purposes include:

• Setting the scene
• Using figures of speech, such as similes, metaphors, images, and personifications to create atmosphere or tone
• Involving the reader in the action
• Beginning the narrative in media res
• Creating a sense of immediacy (or “you-are-here”) for the reader
• Generating, maintain, or increase suspense
• Contrasting nature with civilization
• Linking action to characters’ emotions
• Identifying points of view
• Characterizing characters by associating them with particular places
• Introducing new or recurring characters
• Alluding to past events in characters’ lives
• Planting clues or red herrings
• Describing places important to the action or theme
• Linking one distant location to another, both of which are scenes of the story’s cosmopolitan action
• Creating, maintain, or intensify conflicts
• Posing rhetorical questions, both explicit and implicit, for the reader’s consideration

Plotting From Blurbs

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Although they may not be novelists, publishing company employees who pen blurbs for books and motion pictures released on DVDs are themselves accomplished writers. They know not only how to summarize a plot (or enough of the plot, at any rate, to excite the reader’s or the viewer’s interest in reading or watching the novel or the movie), but they understand, also, such narrative elements as conflict, high stakes, suspense, and pace. Blurb writers know what readers and moviegoers want to read or see and why. Aspiring storytellers, whether of the horror genre or any other, can learn a thing or two of value from the blurbs that such writers produce and use these techniques themselves in plotting their own narratives.

Let’s take a look at a few blurbs concerning horror movies, taken directly from the backs of the DVD packages upon which the blurbs appear.

 

While awaiting her husband’s return from war, Grace [the main character is introduced and the basic situation is established] and her two children live an unusually isolated existence [an isolated setting enhances character’s vulnerability, especially when the characters are a woman and two children, living alone] behind the locked doors and drawn curtains of a secluded island mansion [the reiteration of the setting’s isolated, or secluded, nature and the mention of its location on an island emphasize the house’s remoteness and inaccessibility and the character’s helplessness; the “locked doors and drawn curtains” suggest secrets or the fear of threats or both]. Then, after three mysterious servants arrive [the same number as the house’s occupants, each of whom is characterized as being in some way “mysterious”] and it becomes chillingly clear [expect to be frightened!] that there is far more to this house than can be seen [such as ghosts?], Grace finds herself in a terrifying fight to save her children and keep her sanity [the stakes are high, indeed!, as is the threat with which Grace and her children are menaced]. -- The Others

 

. . . A skeptical writer [is] investigating paranormal events [the main character is introduced and the basic situation is established]. When he insists in staying in the reportedly haunted room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel [the adjective “reportedly” makes the reader wonder whether the room will prove, in fact, to be “haunted,” as it is alleged to be; a hotel is large enough, too, to offer some real chills] against the grave warnings of the hotel manager [if “dire warnings” are deemed necessary by the man who manages the place, it may well be haunted, the reader may suppose--or is the manager trying to pull some sort of bizarre practical joke or effect some strange fraud, perhaps by destroying the “skeptical writer’s” reputation as a debunker of the paranormal?], he discovers the room’s deadly secret--an evil so powerful, no one has ever survived an hour within its walls [apparently, the moviegoer is in for an equally harrowing hour in the “reportedly haunted room 1408]. -- 1408 

 

 . . An American nurse. . . has come to work in Tokyo [the main character is introduced and the basic situation is established; the setting, far-away Tokyo, a city in a foreign land influenced by an alien culture is also introduced]. Following a series of horrifying and mysterious deaths, she encounters the vengeful supernatural spirit that possesses its victims, claims their souls, then passes its curse to another person in a spreading chain of horror [will the nurse become the spirit’s latest victim?] Now, she must find a way to break this supernatural spell [her purpose, or goal, is identified] or become the next victim [the stakes are presented] of an ancient evil that never dies, but forever lives to kill [she is up against a formidable foe--something that is not only supernatural but immortal--and, of course, evil] -- The Grudge 

Although each of these blurbs is written somewhat differently, they all include these elements:

1. Introduce the main character.
2. Establish the basic situation.
3. Identify the setting (which is usually isolated).
4. Hint at mysterious secrets, spells, or incidents.
5. Identify high stake (such as protecting innocent children or saving one’s own life, sanity, or reputation).
6. Give the protagonist a goal (often related to the story’s stakes).
7. Suggest that the antagonist is formidable, powerful, ancient, and possibly supernatural.

By including such elements in his or her own stories’ plots, the aspiring (or, for that matter, the professional) writer of horror stories, novels, or screenplays is likely to capture, hold, and heighten his or her intended audience’s emotions, making the reader or moviegoer want to read or watch the novel or film from beginning to end--maybe several times over!

Context and Conundrum

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Like all other types of fiction, the horror genre creates, maintains, and heightens suspense--in other words, keeps readers reading or viewers viewing--by withholding facts or other information that is vital to the perception, understanding, and appreciation of the narrative’s context. Because the reader or the viewer does not (yet) know enough to know what is happening (or, more commonly, why what is happening is happening), he or she is intrigued. He or she wants to know what will happen next and, ultimately, why the series of (usually bizarre) incidents is happening at all.

In fiction, context is created through the presence and unification of all narrative elements: characters, setting, action, dialogue, conflict, theme. By temporarily withholding information concerning one or more of these critical elements, providing details little by little, over a period of time, at predetermined, strategic intervals, a novelist (or, for that matter, a short story writer, a narrative poet, or a screenwriter or playwright) creates mystery. The mystery, if it is compelling--for example, it concerns an intriguing character, an important conflict, or an unusual theme (or, better yet, all three)--will cause the reader or the viewer to continue to invest his or her time in pursuing the story that he or she is reading or watching.

In horror fiction, after establishing a sense of everydayness and routine, the plot usually introduces a series of bizarre (often, increasingly bizarre) incidents that, at first, appear to have no bearing upon or association with one another. Finally, the protagonist learns the cause of these incidents and, using this newfound knowledge, and usually aided by friends, he or she sets things right, restoring the status quo. This is a simple storyline, but the withholding of key information, whether concerning characters, setting, action, dialogue, conflict, theme, or several of these elements, complicates the action, creating, maintaining, and heightening the suspense that keeps readers reading and viewers viewing. The plot might look like this:

Everyday Routine--> Bizarre Incident 1--> Withholding of Information Concerning Character--> Bizarre Incident 2--> Bizarre Incident 3--> Bizarre Incident 4--> Bizarre Incident 5--> Withholding of Information Concerning Setting--> Bizarre Incident 6--> Withholding of Information Concerning Conflict--> Bizarre Incident 7--> Bizarre Incident 8--> Bizarre Incident--> Bizarre Incident 10--> Discovery of Cause of Bizarre Series of Incidents--> Bizarre incident 11--> Bizarre Incident 12--> Use of Knowledge to Overcome Threat--> Restoration of Status Quo
 

"The Damned Thing": Commentary, Part 2

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

As I indicated in my previous post, Ambrose Bierce’s short story “The Damned Thing” depends, for its effect, upon a fragmented and out-of-sequence timeline, the piecemeal exposition of facts that prevents the establishment of a context sufficiently clear to allow interpretation, the withholding of certain items of information, and the misdirection that results from Bierce’s incongruous, often tongue-in-cheek chapter titles, which have no bearing upon the chapters they introduce and, in fact, may suggest lines of thought that are themselves absurd and irrelevant.

However, Bierce accomplishes more than the generation of mystery and suspense through the use of these techniques. By employing these strategies, he also creates a metaphor by which he implies the theme of his story. The lack of context can be read as the vague, uncertain, and finite understanding of reality that derives from human perception that is itself limited to the phenomena that it perceives.

Bierce’s story’s reference to science is not accidental, for science is the primary and predominant means by which modern individuals ascertain knowledge, if not always truth, and it is science--the science of optics, to be precise--that allows Hugh Morgan to understand the nature of the Damned Thing as being of a color imperceptible to the human eye and thus invisible. However, since science is empirical, resting upon the senses and their perception of phenomena (including colors), it is itself limited to the perceptible world, and, in the final analysis, the nature of the Damned Thing must, therefore, remain essentially mysterious.

Bierce’s fragmented and vague narration, as it occurs in “The Damned Thing,” despite the presence of his omniscient narrator, is deliberate, symbolizing the limits of the scientific method’s reliance upon empirical data and emphasizing the finitude of human perception, cognition, and knowledge by underscoring his story’s victim’s inability to see the invisible adversary that ultimately slays him. Without a context, interpretation is difficult, if not impossible, and Morgan’s (and Harker’s) inability to see the Damned Thing prevents them from understanding it, just as it also prevents the pedestrian and unimaginative “farmers and woodsmen” who make up the inquest’s jury from accepting Harker’s account of the creature’s existence as true. They conclude, despite Harker’s eyewitness testimony, that Morgan was killed by a “mountain lion.” In short, they are unable to think outside the box, so to speak, that the accepted model of reality, based upon science, provides as the basis, or context, for interpreting perception and experience. Therefore, they conclude that Harker’s story demonstrates his madness.

Science tells us how to interpret the things that we perceive (see, hear, smell, taste, or touch), but limits upon human perception and the ignorance that results from such limits make certain knowledge problematic even under the best of circumstances and can (and has) resulted in erroneous and fantastic conclusions concerning even everyday matters. For example, before the invention of the microscope, bacteria and viruses existed, but, unaware of these germs or their functioning, human beings regarded demons, not microbes, as the causes of diseases and mental illnesses. Likewise, the Hubble space telescope has increased astronomers’ understanding of the universe exponentially since its launch in 1990.

Nevertheless, to some degree, we can (and do) hypothesize about experiences, even when knowledge about what we perceive (or do not perceive) is uncertain. For example, no one has seen an actual tyrannosaurus rex, but paleontologists claim to know quite a bit about this dinosaur (even if their “knowledge” is tentative and subject to change in the wake of new discoveries and conjectures). These gigantic animals are considered to have been carnivores with extremely powerful jaws, binocular vision, a bipedal posture, and a highly developed sense of smell. The young, some believe, possessed prototypical feathers, although more as insulation than for flight. In addition, they were believed, by some, to have been scavengers and even cannibals. Although they were once considered too slow-moving and “cold-blooded,” because of their massive size and weight, to be good hunters, scientists later revised this conception and suggested that the tyrannosaurus was more likely than not a fleet-footed predator.

One may argue that some features and abilities of the Damned Thing could likewise be determined by observing its effects on its environment. It is likely to be fast and physically powerful. It is obviously predatory. It is apt to be large, for Morgan’s diary reports that its passing momentarily blocked out the stars. Nevertheless, any ideas concerning the nature of the Damned Thing must remain as vague, uncertain, and finite as humanity’s understanding of reality that derives from perception that is itself limited to the phenomena that it perceives. Bierce’s fragmented and out-of-sequence timeline, his piecemeal exposition of facts that prevents the establishment of a context sufficiently clear to allow interpretation, his withholding of certain items of information, and the misdirection that results from Bierce’s incongruous, often tongue-in-cheek chapter titles, which have no bearing upon the chapters they introduce and, in fact, may suggest lines of thought that are themselves absurd and irrelevant all conspire, as it were, to symbolize and reinforce the epistemological limits of an intelligence that is informed by perceptions of phenomena that, as a rule, cannot be confirmed independently of the senses that detect them.

"The Damned Thing": Bierce's Exercise in Existential Absurdity

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

The plot of Ambrose Bierce’s short story “The Damned Thing” is simple--so simple, in fact, that the author must rely upon a piecemeal presentation, in chopped chronological progression, of the narrative’s incidents. Bierce gives vague, and therefore intriguing, hints of something that has happened that is bigger, so to speak, than what is currently taking place, at the same time withholding details to keep the reader guessing as to what’s going on--and what has already gone on. The first paragraph introduces the reader to nine men, one of them a corpse, who have gathered in a small room. One of the men, seated at “a rough table,” reads from a book, by candlelight. There is an expectation, on the part of the men, other than “the dead man,” who is alone “without expectation.” The men, the reader learns, are locals, “farmers and woodsmen.”

By throwing together, as it were, a group of local men who seem to have nothing in common but their vocations, and informing the reader that something seems likely to happen, and soon, but otherwise withholding details that would create a context by which the action, such as it is at this point, could be interpreted, Bierce creates suspense. In addition, he characterizes the men as unimaginative and pedestrian, which will prove important, given the extraordinary incident that will soon be related by William Harker.

Only the man who reads from the book is unlike the others, a “worldly” man, a coroner, in fact, and the book he reads belonged to the dead man. It is, the reader will learn, the dead man’s diary, which was found in his cabin, which is the location in which “the inquest” concerning his death is “now taking place.” The casual manner in which Bierce presents the purpose of the local men’s gathering--an inquest into a man’s death--makes the revelation all the eerier.

Harker makes his appearance, his manner of dress marking him as a city dweller. The reader learns that he is a reporter; he arrives late to the inquest, he says, because he had “to post" to his newspaper "an account” of the incident concerning which he has been summoned to testify. Harker’s statement that he posted the account as fiction because it is too extraordinary for readers to accept as fact piques the reader’s interest, as does his declaration that he will, nevertheless, swear “under oath” as a witness at the inquest, that the story he tells is “true.” Again, Bierce provides just enough vague clues to keep the reader guessing--and reading.

As Harker begins his testimony, the reader learns that he had been visiting the deceased, Hugh Morgan, with whom he was hunting and fishing. In addition, Harker, admits, he was also observing Morgan, having found “his odd, solitary way of life” intriguing and supposing him to be “a good model for a character in fiction.”

In the second chapter of the story, Harker relates “the circumstances of” Morgan’s “death”: As they hunted quail, they heard “a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes,” and saw that the vegetation was “violently agitated.” Morgan appeared frightened and immediately “cocked both barrels of his gun. . . holding it in readiness to aim.” As the men watch, “wild oats near the place of the disturbance” begin to move “in the most inexplicable way. . . . as if stirred by a streak of wind, which not only bent it, but pressed it down--crushed it so that it did not rise; and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward” the two men. Morgan fires and flees, leaving Harker to fend for himself. Harker is “thrown violently to the ground by the impact of something unseen in the smoke,” and something knocks his own gun from his hands. As Harker looks on, Morgan seems to wrestle with an invisible creature. Before Harker can run to his friend’s aid, Morgan is killed, and the ripple and movement of the vegetation betrays the path of the invisible creature’s flight.

In the story’s third chapter, the condition of Morgan’s battered and bloody body is described as the coroner pulls the sheet that covers the corpse away; the dead man's clothing is “torn, and stiff with blood.” Despite the witness’ testimony, which the jury finds incredible, Morgan’s death is attributed to a mountain lion’s attack. Although Harker requests permission to peruse his dead friend’s diary, thinking that the public would be interested in Morgan’s writings, the coroner denies his request, claiming that it is irrelevant to its author’s demise, since “all the entries in it were made before the writer's death.”

Harker may not have been privy to the entries in Morgan’s diary, but the story’s omniscient narrator is, and he reveals to the reader that the journal contains “certain interesting entries having, possibly, a scientific value as suggestions.” Morgan had become convinced of “the presence” of an invisible intruder, and he had been terrified of the creature. However, he had resolved not to be chased away from his own home, believing, also, that God would consider his fleeing from the creature an act of cowardice. Thinking that he may be going insane, Morgan invites Harker to visit him for “several weeks,” to go hunting and fishing, thinking that, in Harker’s reactions to his own behavior, Morgan may find evidence to support either his own sanity or his own madness.

As if by “revelation,” Morgan discovers “the solution to the mystery” of the creature’s invisibility: just as there are sounds that the human ear cannot hear, there are colors that the human eye cannot see, and the invisible creature, or “the Damned Thing,” as Morgan has come to refer to the monster, “is of such a colour!”

A simple tale, “The Damned Thing” depends, for its effect, upon a fragmented and out-of-sequence timeline, the piecemeal exposition of facts that prevents the establishment of a context sufficiently clear to allow interpretation, the withholding of certain items of information, and the misdirection that results from Bierce’s incongruous, often tongue-in-cheek chapter titles, “Chapter I: One Does Not Always Eat What Is On The Table” (a corpse); “Chapter II: What May Happen In A Field Of Wild Oats” (an attack by an invisible creature!); “Chapter III: A Man Though Naked May Be In Rags” (an aphorism that suggests wisdom but introduces the final existential absurdity of death); and “Chapter IV: An Explanation From The Tomb” (the incongruity of the dead offering an elucidation of a text addressed to the living). Like the titles of Rene Magritte paintings, Bierce’s chapter titles have no bearing upon the chapters they introduce and, in fact, may suggest lines of thought that are themselves absurd and irrelevant.

Another way that Bierce withholds information, at least for a time, is to use synonymous phrases in lieu of characters' names or occupations.  For example, he refers to "a man [who] was reading," to "the man with the book"; to "the person reading," instead of to "the coroner"; he refers to "eight men," to "that company," to "farmers and woodsmen," rather than to the jurors of the death inquest; and to "a young man" instead of the inquest's witness.  In doing so, Bierce withholds, for a time, the nature of the enterprise in which the party is involved, thereby maintaining the mystery of the story and the tale's suspense.

Bierce’s reference to science is not accidental, for science is the primary and predominant means by which modern individuals ascertain knowledge, if not always truth, and it is science--the science of optics, to be precise--that allows Morgan to understand the nature of the Damned Thing as being of a color imperceptible to the human eye and thus invisible. However, since science, which is empirical, resting upon the senses and their perception of phenomena (including colors), is itself limited to the perceptible world, the nature of the Damned Thing must, in the final analysis, remain essentially mysterious.

"The Judge's House": An Example of Gothic Technique

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Bram Stoker, the author of the novel Dracula and the short story “Dracula‘s Guest,” also wrote many horrific short stories other than “Dracula‘s Guest,” one of which is “The Judge’s House,” which, having fallen into the public domain, may be read, free, on several websites.
 
“The Judge’s House” is the subject of this post. However, before turning our attention to it, a few words concerning its author and the story in general seem to be in order.
 
Stoker, who as born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1847, died in London, England, in 1912. Between these fateful years, he wrote not only Dracula, which secured his literary fame, but also ten other novels and numerous short stories, yet, except for Dracula (and more as a character than as a work of fiction), he is largely unknown and underappreciated.
 
According to Michael Kelahan’s “Introduction” to Dracula’s Guest & Other Tales of Horror (New York, NY: Fall River Press, 2010), Stoker graduated “with honors in mathematics” from Trinity College, in which he enrolled “at age seventeen.” (The protagonist of “The Judge’s House” is a mathematics student, too, possibly at Cambridge University.) A ghost story, “The Judge’s House” is (like H. G. Wells’s “The Red Room,”) a study in Gothic technique, the use of setting to create suspense, and the application of a particular narrative formula—that of the horror tale—to a work of fiction. It is these points—technique, suspense, and formula—that I propose to discuss as I summarize Stoker’s haunting tale.
 
To differentiate my comments from my summary of Stoker’s story, I include my comments in red font.
 
The story begins with protagonist Malcolm Malcolmson’s intentional isolation of himself from both his friends and “friends’ friends,” the better to devote himself to his preparation for an upcoming mathematics examination. To this end, he travels for three days, to Benchurch, where he rents an out-of-the-way, uninhabited Jacobean residence that appears “more a fortified house than an ordinary dwelling.” The house has stood idle for “a term of years,” with the result that it has acquired an unpleasant reputation, or “absurd prejudice.”
 
A ploy of the horror writer is to refer to an unsettling or unsavory reputation regarding a supposed place of evil, as Stoker does here. The servants in H. G. Wells’ short story “The Red Room” likewise declare that the castle that the protagonist visits is said to be haunted, and they give credence to the rumors, believing them to be true. In the movie based upon Stephen King’s short story, “1408,” the hotel’s manager also warns the protagonist (numerous times) that the room in which he wants to spend the night is haunted. In all three cases, the cautions fall upon deaf ears, as is, again, the traditional response (or non-response) of the main character to such warnings. Of course, such statements are a means of foreshadowing: through them, the author has all but promised the reader that something terrible will happen soon.
 
Asking the advice of the inn’s landlady, Mrs. Witham, as to what “stores and provisions” he is apt to need during his proposed three-months’ stay, he horrifies her by announcing his intention of staying in “the Judge’s house,” which, she assures him, was home to a “judge who was held in great terror on account of his harsh sentences” and confesses that she would not stay in the house for even “one hour,” even for “all the money in Drinkwater’s Bank.”
 
Many tales of haunted houses associate the domicile with past evil or with a previous owner, such as the judge, who committed despicable acts or atrocities. The suggestion of such associations is that the past evil or previous owner is somehow the cause of the present evil.
 
The servants in Wells’ story also tell their guest that there is no way that they would stay in the haunted room and plead with him not to do so, either, just as Mrs. Witham suggests to Malcolm that renting the judge’s house is ill-advised. Such counsel is another of the haunted house conventions, and it is as operative in contemporary tales as it was in Gothic literature.
 
The student tells her that, although her concern touches him, she need not worry about him, because he will have no time to worry about “mysterious ‘somethings,’ and his work is of too exact and prosaic a kind to allow his having any corner in his mind for mysteries of any kind.”
 
Typically, the protagonist is a hardheaded realist and thoroughgoing skeptic. Often, he or she is a scientist. A mathematician is an appropriate alternative, and, we should remember, Stoker himself was a student of mathematics during his college days.
 
Malcolm takes up residence in the house’s enormous dining room, where Mrs. Witham, a charwoman named Mrs. Dempster, and “several men and boys” set him up with furniture and provisions, Mrs. Witham suggesting that he put a screen around his “bed at night,” to ward off chilly draughts of air, although she herself would be too afraid of the “things” that might “put their heads round the sides, or over the top” to spy upon her as she slept. Her talk so disturbs her that she flees the house, much to Mrs. Dempster’s disdain. Unlike the inn’s landlady, the charwoman is, she says, unafraid of “all the bogies in the kingdom.”
 
Mrs. Witham is characterized as a superstitious person, prone to fear even imaginary “bogies,” as her opposite, or foil, the skeptical Mrs. Dempster refers to things that go bump in the night. Her foolish fears suggest that, perhaps, Malcolm is right to be skeptical about the reputation of the judge’s house. Perhaps we should be skeptical as well.
 
Mrs. Dempster’s own bravery derives, she suggests, from her knowledge that apparent “bogies” are really nothing more than natural phenomena that are misunderstood or unidentified:
 

“I’ll tell you what it is, sir,” she said; “bogies is all kinds and sorts of things—except bogies! Rats and mice, and beetles; and creaky doors, and loose slates, and broken panes, and stiff drawer handles, that stay out when you pull them and then fall down in the middle of the night.”

Mrs. Dempster is much of the same mind concerning “bogies” as Malcolm, and, as a recipient of charity who is forbidden, upon the pain of the loss of her benefits, from sleeping anywhere other than the home that has been provided for her, free of charge, she has good reason to refuse to stay the night at the judge’s house. However, her situation may seem a bit too convenient to readers. Although true, her reason for not spending the night in the isolated house prevents her from witnessing or, worse, experiencing any of the phenomena that allegedly occur on the premises at night. She can, in short, afford her skepticism, for it costs her nothing and need not be put to the test.
 
Moreover, her doubt adds another element to Stoker’s story that is typical of its genre, which is that incidents that are alleged to be supernatural must be explainable, in principle, at least, by reference to natural causes so that it is possible to read the same story from two perspectives—the natural and the supernatural—at the same time.
 
After the charwoman cleans the house and lays Malcolm’s meal, she returns home, leaving the student to his studies. He prepares for the examination until eleven o’clock at night, when he pauses to stoke the fire and make some tea. As he enjoys the beverage, he hears “for the first time what a noise the rats” are “making.” He supposes that the rats have been quiet until now because they’d been intimidated by his presence and the fire, but have since grown accustomed to both and are “now disporting themselves as” is “their wont.” Sure enough, as he finds later, in examining the room more closely, there are rats in the walls: “Here and there as he went round he saw some crack or hole blocked for a moment by the face of a rat with bright eyes glittering in the light” of his lamp. What impresses him most, however, is the “great alarm bell on the roof,” which Mrs. Witham had mentioned to him previously, in passing: it is suspended “in a corner of the room on the right-hand side of the fireplace.”
 
The presence of rats, especially following Mrs. Dempster’s earlier declaration that “bogies is all kinds and sorts of things—except bogies”—“rats and mice” included, provides a natural explanation for seemingly otherworldly incidents as an alternative to a belief in the supernatural.
 
Returning to his studies, Malcolm forgets the rats, the alarm bell rope, and everything else, until, hours later, he is disturbed by the sudden cessation of the noise of the rats in the walls. He is even more disturbed to see “on the great high-backed carved oak chair by the right side of the fireplace. . . an enormous rat, steadily glaring at him.” When he pretends to throw something at the rodent, it amazes him by refusing to budge and, instead, displays “its great white teeth angrily. . . its cruel eyes” shining “in the lamplight with an added vindictiveness.” Unfortunately, when Malcolm rushes at the animal with a poker, “to kill it,” the rat retreats “up the rope of the alarm bell,” escaping, and setting off a “noisy scampering of the rats in the wainscot.”
 
Were the rat of a normal size, it wouldn’t be nearly as intimidating as the “enormous one,” and Stoker’s anthropomorphic description of the rodent’s gaze as implying that the animal feels various emotions—all negative, of course—prepares readers for the narrator’s suggestion, later on, that the huge rat may, in fact, be associated with—or may even be—the judge himself.
 
Malcolm goes to sleep just before dawn and is dead to the world until Mrs. Dempster’s preparation of his breakfast awakens him. He goes for a walk, to study his books in a pleasant wood, stopping by the inn to say hello to Mrs. Witham on his way back to the judge’s house. When he tells her of the enormous rat, she refers to it as the devil, which Malcolm finds so amusing that he laughs, causing the elderly woman herself to chuckle as well.
 
Mrs. Witham’s half-serious, half-joking identification of the huge rat with the devil suggests another possible true identity for the rodent, besides that of the late judge, even though both Malcolm and she laugh at the absurdity of her suggestion. Readers may chuckle, too, or even roll their eyes; still, through Mrs. Witham’s statement, Stoker has suggested the possibility of a much greater source of evil, Satan himself, thereby elevating the suspense of the tale with but a few exchanges of dialogue between the main character and one of his new acquaintances, the inn’s landlady.
 
That evening, the rats’ commotion and noise is greater than it had been the previous evening. As on the previous night, the rats later become suddenly silent and Malcolm is disturbed to see the “enormous rat” staring at him again, “with baleful eyes,” from the “old high-backed carved oak chair beside the fireplace.” This time, the student throws a textbook at the rodent, but it doesn’t flee until he runs at it with the poker, at which point it scampers, again, “up the rope of the alarm bell,” its escape seeming to occasion “the renewal of the noise made by the general rat community.”
 
In most horror stories, the bizarre events of the action take place at night or, at least, in the dark, and Stoker’s haunted house story is no exception. Again, the reference to the rats allows a natural explanation for seemingly supernatural events. Notice, too, Stoker’s repetitions of similar events during successive days and nights. Most horror stories, past and present, offer some variation or other upon this strategy, repeating, with minor variations, one or more uncanny or fantastic incidents, or a series of such incidents, to heighten suspense while, at the same time, creating verisimilitude (or seeking to do so) by rendering the extraordinary ordinary—or at least familiar—through the recurrence of these incidents.
 
Thinking that he will trap the rat, Malcolm arranges his equipment so that it will disclose the spot through which the rodent disappears and then returns, again, to his studies:

Accordingly he lit another lamp and placed it so that it would shine well into the right-hand corner of the wall by the fireplace. Then he got all the books he had with him, and placed them handy to throw at the vermin. Finally he lifted the rope of the alarm bell and placed the end of it on the table, fixing the extreme end under the lamp. As he handled it he could not help noticing how pliable it was, especially for so strong a rope, and one not in use. “You could hang a man with it,” he thought to himself. When his preparations were made he looked around and said complacently:
 
“There now, my friend, I think we shall learn something of you this time!”

As I point out in other of my posts, the turning point of many horror stories occurs as the protagonist learns the origin or the nature of the threat that he faces. Through Malcolm’s talking to himself, Stoker suggests the nature of the turning point in this story and suggests, also, that it will hinge upon discovery or revelation.
 
When the sound of the rats again abruptly ends, Malcolm looks up to see the huge rat again, throws several books at it, and finally drives it off. The rodent retreats, Malcolm sees, through a hole in one of the paintings on the wall. Examining which books he threw at the rat to identify which tome caused it to withdraw, he sees that it was none of his mathematical treatises, but a holy book:

He picked up the books one by one, commenting on them as he lifted them. “Conic Sections he does not mind, nor Cycloidal Oscillations, nor the Principia, nor Quaternions, nor Thermodynamics. Now for the book that fetched him!” Malcolms took it up and looked at it. As he did he started, and a sudden pallor overspread his face. He looked around uneasily and shivered slightly, as he murmured to himself:
 
“The Bible my mother gave me! What an odd coincidence.”

Indirectly, by pointing out through his narrator, that it is the Bible, and not human beings’ own rational faculties, as symbolized by the mathematics textbooks in the protagonists’ posession, that drives the gigantic rat from the room, Stoker indirectly endorses the mystic’s point of view over that of the common-sense realist. Mathematics had not the power to banish the apparently supernatural villain, but the Bible, which contains a decidedly supernatural and, from a naturalistic standpoint, fantastic, worldview, exorcises the demon, so to speak. Although there is a bit of humor in Stoker’s description of the books, there may also be a suggestion that his readers would do well not to dismiss the otherworldly worldviews of religious and metaphysical or mystical sources of wisdom.  (At the same time, maintaining the tension between possible natural and supernatural explanations for the extraordinary incidents that take place—or appear to take place—in the story, the protagonist suggests that the Bible's frightening away the rat might be merely "an odd coincidence.")
 
After sleeping, Malcolm returns to his studies, paying Mrs. Witham another visit in the afternoon, finding her in the company of a gentleman identified to him as Dr. Thornhill, who admits to having come in answer to Mrs. Witham’s request that he see and advise the student. Malcolm is to avoid late nights and limit his tea intake. The physician also tells his patient that the rope up which the enormous rat runs is actually “the very rope which the hangman used for all of the victims of the Judge’s judicial rancor!” After Malcolm leaves, the doctor informs Mrs. Witham that he had deliberately planted the image of the hangman’s rope in his patient’s mind so that, should Malcolm suffer “some strange fright or hallucination,” he will use the rope to sound the alarm so that he may be assisted. He predicts that the student will sound the alarm this very night.
 
The reference to the hangman brings another element of eeriness to the book, and the doctor’s advice that Malcolm limit the amount of tea that he consumes provides another possible natural explanation for the protagonist’s apparently extraordinary experiences at the judge’s house: too much caffeine.
 
Back at the Judge’s house, Malcolm returns to his studies, and all is well until a storm begins to rage, causing the rope attached to the roof alarm to rise and fall and reminding the student of Dr. Thornhill’s declaration that the rope was the one that “the hangman used for victims of the Judge’s judicial rancor.”
 
Reminders to characters are, of course, reminders to readers as well, and such reminders maintain, if and when they do not also actually heighten, suspense by bringing to readers’ conscious awareness to threads of the narrative that have been woven into the story in previous scenes. Again, the judge is characterized as irrational and as motivated not by a belief in justice but by “rancor.”
 
As Malcolm considers who might have been hanged on the judge’s orders, the enormous rat again descends the rope, “glaring at him steadily.” It swiftly retreats, stirring the other rats in hiding to commotion, and Malcolm is reminded that he has “not investigated the lair of the rat or looked at the pictures, as he had intended.” He lights a lamp and conducts his investigation. What he sees first startles, then frightens, him:
 

At the first glance [at the painting with the hole in it through which the large rat had vanished] he started back so suddenly that he almost dropped the lamp, and a deadly pallor overspread his face. His knees shook, and heavy drops of sweat came on his forehead, and he trembled like an aspen.

The reappearances of the larger-than-life rat are coupled with advancements of the story’s plot, serving as reminders to Malcolm to undertake actions that he has previously decided, but has since forgotten, to take. Earlier, the rat’s appearance reminded him to seek its avenue of escape; now, its appearance reminds him to “investigate the lair of the rat.” By coupling the rat’s multiple appearances with the protagonist’s forgotten intentions, Stoker prevents the rodent’s reappearances from becoming tedious to the reader, seeming, as they do, to serve a purpose; indeed, one begins, perhaps, to wonder whether the rat’s arrivals and departures are entirely coincidental or may be directed by unseen powers, even, perhaps, the ghost of the judge in whose house Malcolm has taken up temporary residence.
 
Gathering his nerve, he inspects the picture again, and sees that the painting is a portrait of the hanging judge, whose “face was strong and merciless, evil, crafty, and vindictive, with a sensual mouth, a hooked nose of ruddy colour, and shaped like the beak of a bird of prey. The rest of the face was a cadaverous colour,” and “the eyes were of peculiar brilliance and with a terribly malignant expression.” The eyes disturb Malcolm, for, in them, he sees “the very counterpart to the eyes of the great rat.” Malcolm returns his attention to the painting:
 

The Judge was seated in a great high-backed carved oak chair, on the right-hand side of a great stone fireplace where, in the corner, rope hung down from the ceiling, its end lying coiled on the floor.

If the eyes are the mirrors of the soul, those of the rat, as a creature that lacks a soul, must seem terrible indeed, and alien. Again, the rat is linked to the judge, for in the stare of the rat Malcolm imagines the gaze of the judge.
 
Understanding that the picture represents “the scene of the room” as it presently stands, Malcolm is “awestruck,” and, feeling as if someone is “behind him,” looks “over the corner of the fireplace” and sees the enormous rat “in the Judge’s arm-chair, with the rope hanging behind,” staring at the student “with the Judge’s baleful eyes, now intensified and with a fiendish glare.”
 
He drops the lamp, which seems to awaken him, as it were, from his trance-like state, and, as he attends to the lamp, he calms himself. After a drink of brandy, he is able to return to his studies. Another sudden silence makes him aware of the sound of “the creaking of the rope,” and he witnesses the huge rat gnawing through the rope, which, as it falls to the floor, severed, makes Malcolm aware that his ability to summon “the outer world to his assistance” has now been “cut off.”
 
Up to this point, Malcolm has, by choice, isolated himself from others; now, his isolation is forced, his free will in the matter giving way to determinism and the fear that such loss of control (or apparent control) often entails. Moreover, Malcolm is unable to summon assistance (and readers can be quite sure that, sooner, rather than later, the protagonist is going to require it).
 
Angry, Malcolm throws a book at the rat, but the rodent drops to the floor and flees. The student decides to hunt for the animal and, removing the shade from his lamp, illuminates a greater extent of the room, including its “upper part.” The light reveals a sight that terrifies the student:
 

In the centre of the picture was a great irregular patch of brown canvas, as fresh as when it was stretched on the frame. The background was as before, with chair and chimney-corner and rope, but the figure of the Judge had disappeared.

 
At this point, unless Malcolm is hallucinating, any purely natural explanation for the incidents that he has witnessed firsthand and at length is impossible. Therefore, readers must assume, the story must be regarded as supernatural, for this incident is truly marvelous. Indeed, it may turn upon so supernatural a phenomenon as metempsychosis, a sort of reincarnation, wherein a human soul is reincarnated in the form of another living organism (as in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Metzengerstein,” for example).
 
Liberated, as it were, from the painting, the judge now occupies the room’s “great high-backed carved oak chair” and wears his judicial robes and “a black cap,” which he dons at the stroke of midnight. Rising from his chair, the judge retrieves the severed rope, fashioning one of its ends into a noose. Cutting off Malcolm’s path to the door and his escape through it, the judge attempts to toss the noose over the student’s head, but Malcolm manages, many times, to avoid it.
 
As the judge relentlessly pursues him, rats swarm the portion of the rope that yet hangs from the ceiling, their numbers and weight causing the roof alarm to sound. However, the “sound was but a tiny one.” Nevertheless, it enrages the judge, and he seizes Malcolm, who is now paralyzed with dread; secures the noose about the student’s neck; lifts him onto the great “oak chair”; ties the free end of the severed rope to the portion that yet hangs from the ceiling; and then pulls away the chair upon which he had stood Malcolm.
 
Marvel follows upon marvel now, as the judge, absent from his portrait, appears, apparently as a ghost, in the selfsame chair that Malcolm has beheld since moving into the dining room of the judge‘s house. With each new wonder, it becomes easier and easier to accept the premise that this tale involves the supernatural, after all, the protagonists’ and Mrs. Dempster’s skepticism notwithstanding—and just in time for the ending of the tale!
 
Previously, the story has intimated that the rope might be that of a hangman, and readers have heard, several times, characterizations of the judge as evil and cruel. Now, these hints and foreshadowing of the true nature of the rope and of the judge come together as the judge’s ghost becomes the protagonist’s executioner.
 
The action of the rats on the rope sets the “alarm bell” pealing, summoning a “crowd,” led by Dr. Thornhill. They break through the door and find, “at the end of the rope of the great alarm bell. . . the body of the student,” hanging, “and on the face of the Judge in the picture. . . a malignant smile.”
 
The reader is left in the dark, so to speak, as to what the “crowd” will make of the sight they witness, although it is likely that, among them, will be both believers in the supernatural and skeptics concerning its existence so that the cause of the student’s hanging, whether as the result of his suicide caused, perhaps, by an overactive imagination fueled by the isolated and macabre surroundings in which he was living, or his murder by a malicious ghost, will remain forever a mystery. In either case, the incident is likely to add to the house’s unsavory reputation, or “absurd prejudice.” This ending preserves the tension between natural and supernatural explanations, although, for the reader, natural explanations seem impossible, considering the incidents that he or she has, as it were, witnessed firsthand.