Dark & Twisty

I have some things to discuss today, but they don't really have much in common.  They have little in common with horror, I guess.

First things first, I hate drug addicts.  There I said it and its out in the open.  They ruin my otherwise perfectly planned day with idle psychotics.  They suck and more than valiums or meth. 

Number two, My friend J.B. reads this blog.  I forget this sometimes.  He sent me a text message yesterday that said he was going to the mullet toss.  I know what this is.  You toss fish.  In the gulf, we have fish called mullets.  People decide to throw them.  It's great fun.  The thing is, I like the other idea it conjures up.  Tossing men, women and children with mullets.  What a competition.  It could be an Olympic Sport.  The Americans should triumph.  Anyway, that's another random thing.

Third, Did I mention that I hate drug addicts?

Fourth, someone gave me a free copy of Tuesdays with Morrie.  I'm wondering what I did wrong.  Have I committed some henous crime that I'm being punished for?  Does this qualify as cruel and unusual punishment? 

Fifth, I hat drug addicts.  Have you got that yet?

Sixth, I set a goal for myself this year in writing.  I wanted to publish at least 4 short stories in 2009.  I'm one away from this goal having sold a story last night.  I'm excited but my short story stockpile is dwindling down.  I've got to get to writing some more.

My seventh rambling, I may have been sellling stories this year, but I've still fallen short of the goal of  being able to join HWA.  This I might have to put as a goal for 2010.  I don't like pushing goals back but after the rough year I've had, I think that would be fine.

Number 8, Did I mention my hate for drug addicts?

Nine Ladies dancing.

Ten is that I got paid today.  I'm paying off a small loan made for tution at SHU.  I'm excited about that.

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I continue to drink my haterade against this guy.  Why is Lil' Wayne still around?  What is this guys appeal?  Will someone please tell me.

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Is there anything better than a satisfying ending?  Of course not.  A story that ends against what we want or desire really bothers us and we don't care for it at all.  I can think of the story In the Woods.  This story ended, but didn't satisfy me.

I recently read three short stories.  All dealt with insanity.  All had endings, but they didn't all satsify.  "The Tell-tale Heart" had the most satisfying ending.  We get to see the narrator taken away for a grievous murder, but we dont' really know where he is.  I like that we can have the leeway to think of him as sitting in jail or in an asylum.  There were no surprises or things that were not expected. 

Now, I also read "The Sandman."  This story is from German gothic literature.  The whole story was not to my taste.  I can see the benefit it would have.  It takes on the creepy structure that all gothics have, but this story didn't satisfy me because it seemed schizophrenic in the idea.  We are led to believe during the story that this evil man is something more than man.  He is taking eyes and killing fathers.  He is an alchemist.  Then the main character falls in love with a robot.  The fact that she's a robot and the evil man steals her eyes makes him crazy.   Then he kills himself.  This story bothered me because it started in one direction then ended up in some strange realm withe love robots.  It's almost like the main character deserved to die.  He was quite stupid if he couldn't tell the difference between a live girl and a wax doll. 

Then the last of the three story, was "Dread" by Clive Barker.  This was the newest of the stories, and didn't really satisfy me.  The story is a good idea.  It delves into the fears of two of the characters.  These characters are then tortured to the breaking point.  The problem is that the tormetor is then killed by what he fears.  The issue is that we never really get the fear of the tormentor until the end.  It doesn't go into as much depth.  The problem is that he is killed by his fear, but there's no build up to it. 

Three stories ended.  Two left me with a bad taste in mouth, and despite the fact that horror should leave that, I needed a tasteful bitter taste.  The Poe story ended well.  It made good sense.  The other two had much potential, but failed.

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What about a unreliable narrator isn't to love?  Probably one of the best examples is this story from Edgar Allen Poe, the master of the unreliable narrator.

This story is like interviewing a mental patient.  For laymen, who will never have this opportunity, this story should be an adventure.  The narrator tells you that he is not insane, but tells the craziest story ever.  He even discusses the craziness as a sign of his sanity. 

Poe did a good job of going into the speech patterns of a mentally ill person.  The way he explains thing is much like a mentally ill person does when trying to make you believe that all their delusional ideas are sane. 

Now, why is this scary?  That's easy.  A person who believes his own delusions will hurt you.  In his twisted mindset, he believes that you wish him wrong.  He'll stalk you nightly planning your death, then strike.  It's terrifying to think about.  The real scary thing is that person could be anywhere.  Many people who hold such paranoid delusions or have paranoid personality disorder may have never gotten treatment for his their disorders.  They could be in the next apartment fixated on something.

One of the most fortunate things about people this sick is that their paranoia usually keeps them inside.  They fear the outside world and wont' leave too often.  Only in this story, the paranoid narrator lives with the focus of his paranoia making it easy for him to strike.

So, do you hear the beating of the heart?  Or does your neighbor look a little too suscipious?  Maybe, just maybe you've got a paranoid personality beside you or within you. 

Thump. . . thump . . . thump. . .

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I just finished another classic, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  This is another of those audio book things all the young folks are so crazy about.  I have for many years tried to read the actual "dead tree media" version of this tale. (I hope my friends and enemies appreciate the quoted section.) I was never able to get past, It was Wang Lung's wedding day.  I am glad I listened to this story, however.

I really picked very little in the way of writing techinque from this book.  I used a POV style that I don't use very often and did a lot of telling and very little showing.  The characters never received proper names, and to be frank, it was a pot boiler.  I did learn that even stories about things I have no connection with whatsoever can be engrossing. 

The way I knew that this story affected me was I was sad in the end.  I know that since my father's death I have become far more emotional about things.  I can't watch telephone commercials because I cry, which is convient because I don't have an antanea or satelite so I don't get televsion except for DVD's and Bluray.  This book touched me though. 

I believe that country people are the same the world over. We have a connection to our community and to our land.  This is case in this text.  The whole story revolves around Wang Lung's desire to do better, but when he is at the end of his wits, he always returned to his land.  It provided him the ulitmate solace for whatever he needed. 

The story goes for Wang Lung's adulthood with all the trails and tribulations.  The saddest thing is that in the end, his land, that touchstone he has relied upon, is going to be sold once he is dead. His family connections will be lost and his mind his family will fall.

If you've never read it, pick up this book or audiobook.  I recommend the audiobook it's easier to get into than the text.  I'm a horror writer and have to stay emeshed in the genre, but I still love classics, and love to frolic in them.  This story is itself a bit of horror, but one that maybe only those who are truly country can understand. 

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I'm going to talk a bit here about old school gothic stories.  This is a preface to the beginning of my new horror documentation.  The thing is; I hate gothic stories.  I hate the way they are written.  I hate the language they use. 

The stories are supposed to be all creepy and then they just don't pay off.  The stories oftentimes deal with ghosts, which aren't my favorite subject.  For some reason, I can suspend disbelief for just about anything, werewolves, vampire, zombis, but ghosts I just can't do it. 

I also don't like the old school stories because they are or feel so hokey.  The ideas of alchemey and witchcraft just don't amaze me.  The old science ideas that come up in this literature seems so unreal to me, that it causes me trouble.  I even try to read the stories as a product of their time. I still can't get into them.

The last thing that bothers me about these kinds of stories, is they are so often written in letter form and break down the fourth wall.  They address the reader and play with them.  I don't like this in books.  It annoys me to no end, for the gentle reader to be addressed so much.  I generally dislike in all literature that it is found in, but it seems more prevelant in 1700's and early 1800's literature.  Give me a break.

But anyway.  I've made my rant against old gothic literature.  Now I must read some.  (Actually, I've already read a particular story, I'm just waiting until next week to do my discussion of it.  Needless to say, I'm going to have some issues with it."

Goodbye old gentle reader.

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I have one thing to say.  If all of Faulkner's work was as fun and easy to read as this, more people would be reading Faulkner.

This book is a Southern gothic noir story.  It is set in several areas across Mississippi, Memphis, and even give Birmingham, AL a shout out.  The story follows  the trail of black man accused of raping a girl and murdering a mentally retarded man.  It also follows the kidnapping of Temple a deb who is the girl accused of being raped.

In reality, she was raped by a man named Popeye (not the sailor).  He is little more than a antisocial personality disorder, who was scarred by his mothers syphallis.  He is impotent and it drives most of his criminality. HE raped Temple with a corn cob but told her it was his junk.  The girl bleeds profusely but doesn't realize that she's been raped with a corncob.  As the story goes on, Temple falls in love Popeye who makes her have sex with another man whle he watches. 

This story revolves around much of this antisocial behavior.  The Temple character even becomes evil. She lets the innocent black man take the rap for her rape and the murder.  All the man is guilty of is bootlegging, and being dumb enough to let these people hang around his joint.

Now, this story is wonderfully Southern Gothic.  The settings are dark and brooding as are the characters.  You don't know who to trust.  There is even overtones of horror.  The grotesque exists in the characters who float around. 

Other backwoods stories can be seen in this story.  I got the feeling of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  There are so many of these disgusting characters floating around. 

Faulkner can teach alot about writing, but his control of language, local color and dialect is superb.  I'm Southern (from Alabama not far from Birmingham,  yo!)  I enjoyed reading this tale out loud during the dialetical parts.  His way of coming up with spelling and pronunciation was excellent.

I greatly enjoyed this book and learned quite a bit from it.  A good read.  A really good read.

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I started this blog in January to discuss the readings for the Readings in Genre.  Now a new semester has started and soon this blog will become focused on the new readings.  As time has passed I've kept up with other readings I have done, and discussed what I've learned from them in terms of writing. 

I look foward to discussing some old classics this time as well as some new classics.  I'll be reading some authors that as of yet, I haven't breached.  This will be interesting to do. 

While I review stories I have to read, I'll be filling in some that I'm reading for other reasons.

So, I think the book I look most forward to reading this time is Psycho.  I've seen the movie, and enjoyed it.  I'm hoping to enjoy the book as much.  I hope that it doesn't disappoint me too much.  I know how Hitchcock liked to change his reference material significantly for his books.  (The Birds.).

So, The new semester has begun, and there is a time to everything.  A time read more horror and a time to refrain.  A time to write more about horror and a time to write fiction.  A time to freak out and a time to freak out others. 

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Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card was a quick read for a writing book.  When I started it, I thought to myself, "why am I reading this book?  I don't write sci fi or fantasy."  I figured it out not long before finishing it.  The elements he talked about using were just as important for writing any type of fiction as it is for scifi or fantasy.

I took notice when discussing world building.  I have always thought of this just for fantasy and sci fi.  The term always seemed to mean to literally build a world.  If it was sci fi, then the planetary issues and fantasy the world of the fantastical.  The thing is any world in fiction has to be built even when it is the real world.  Certain aspects of the fictional world have to be totally understood and sold.  If the story has factors of laws that don't exist in our world, let's say that after 3 attempts of suicide the person has to be killed.  This story needs a world to be built  This world is where some law makers have decided that the time for rampant suicide attempts were over. 

Although the above is a "real" world scenario, there are not laws like that.  It has to be built so that the reader will accept it.  This is an easy example, but so much must go into it. 

As I read Card's book further, I realized that horror is a form of fantasy even when it is in the real world. Monsters aren't real, but writer's bind them with their own laws and rules.  Maybe the monster can come out in the day light but not at night.  Maybe it eats only little children.  Maybe it's afraid of Chuck Norris and all images of him.  This is all world building.

The most important thing from Card's book is the MICE algorythm.  This helps the writer determine what type of story they are writing.  M (milleu) I (Idea) C (character) and E (I don't remember, but I've go tthe book at home) [I do a lot of blog writing from work].  This is helpful because when writing and a plot is waffling looking at the MICE will help determine where the story should go or if it needs revamping or not from a different perspective.

I enjoyed this book on writing.  The most important thing it provided was setting me to thinking about the art of writing and how to get plot and things straightened out.  The book is rather old now.  It's pushing 20 years, but I've read them much older like Elements of Style  or On Writing Well by Zensser.  The book still holds true.

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Writing Journal: On Writing Horror

On Writing Horror was a production of the HWA to advise novice writers of the art and “science” of writing horror.  It has essays from a myriad of the organization's membership. The first bit of advice that seems to stick out is from the essay by Wayne Allen Salle.  He posits in a boiled down form that writers should write what is the truth of the character and the story not just what they know.  Oftentimes when a writer reads The Writer or Writer's Digest, he or she is given the advice to “write what you know.”  That is all well and good, but some people do not know that much or have such a narrow scope of knowledge that his or her writing would be very boring.  Salle seems to say that it is important to write as accurately as a writer can about the subject that he or she knows about, but that it is also important to realize in the world that the writer has created that there are certain truths that transcend what the writer knows to the laws and truths of the “real world.”  Being a stickler for the exact facts and “just the facts ma'am” may not be true to the story and its characters and nuances. The following essay by Michael Marano seems to lead into the idea that a writer can learn more that what he or she knows about a subject by borrowing the idea of method acting.  He states that a writer can go to the scary places being written about by studying them closely or even submerging himself or herself into the situation.

            Much of the text deals with the idea of improved writing itself.  Several of the veterans talk about getting the bones down.  They discuss the syntax and formation of lines and sentences.  They talk about getting things moving and keeping them at a pace that adds to the writing.  All these things are important to keep in mind while reading.  Sometimes it is easy to get bogged down in the story or in the process of writing.  What tends to happen is the story stalls somewhere far from the end, and it may be abandoned and then forgotten.  This particular text deals with this issue, and the issues of finishing a work, pimping and selling the work, and avoiding the clichés that everyone is tired of. 

            Some of the topics discussed in the text go against some of the advice given in other works.  As mentioned earlier, writing magazines often discuss the write-what-you-know formula.  This can be problematic for horror and spec fiction writers because the worlds and situations that we write about are unknown because they are for the most part unreal.  The previous edition of this text written in the late 1990's had much of the same advice as the current edition.  This is no shock because later editions often just add a few new articles or paragraphs but keep the initial text as close to the earlier editions.  This new edition, however, adds many new sections and discusses the changes in the market that have happened over the last decade.  The advice about storytelling and doing so in a grammatical fashion stands up across other composition related texts.

            This book is thorough in its explanations of writing horror.  It covers most every aspect of the profession, and little would need to be added.  The section that discusses mental illness, personality disorders, and other mental defects might be longer and injected with more information.  Horror fiction relies on the psychological. Unfortunately, not many writers, especially novices understand the psychology of fear and dread.  Most have little knowledge of psychology and psychopathology beyond an introductory course in college.  This adds to much erroneous writing about the psychological factors of depravity.  This section could be moved nearer the front and stressed more.  (This idea would hopefully keep the novice or none psychologically sophisticated writer from confusing someone being psychotic or sociopathic.) The section on redneck horror could be more informative as well.  As the author of that essay said, rednecks do not live exclusively in the South, but most people think they do. The discussion of the stereotype bias for this subset of the American population might be stressed more.  Publishers and reading audiences would not tolerate a book or story filled the stereotyping of city dwellers that a rural writer might make.  Why should they tolerate the stereotype of country dwellers by urban (not urbane mind you) writers?  Because rednecks do not read perhaps, but hillbillies   do (and they're watching, 'cause I'm one of them.)

            Examples are given to help people understand things better.  In my own writing I have a few examples that stand out to some of the points made by the authors in this text.  In a my story “Dr. Kildare's Favorite Color”, a nurse on a psychiatric unit makes a statement that in real life a good and wizen nurse, like the character in this story, would never say.  The director of my unit (a psych unit) read this work upon publication.  She brought to my attention that a real psych nurse would never make a statement like that to a patient.  Although I had not written what I knew to be true in the real world, I had written the truth for the story's world.  In that world, this nurse would have said that because the rules and laws were different.  This falls in to the idea of writing what  you know but also being true to the story you are writing and the rules that are involved in that world.

            Everyone is different.  I hope that is not a shock to most people.  On Writing Horror is edited by a single editor, but it is filled with works by numerous authors.  Each other shares his or her advice to the novice writer who has picked up the text.  The problem is that advice is just a suggestion of something that work for this person so it might work for you.  In a perfect world, all advice given when implemented would turn out to the same result.  That would be a good spec fiction work, but reality is totally different.  It is not difficult to come up with an idea or situation in which a writer might have to vary from the advice given in this book.  Dues ex machina, the dreaded god in the machine, is an example.  This wonderful plot solver is frowned upon but keeps coming up over and over again.  Why? Some situations warrant it.  I can think of this in Stephen King's Dark Tower Series. Many times convenient things happen for the characters brought about by dues ex machina.  In the stories, this problem is solved by saying that the author, Stephen King, who in a way is a god, leaves these things in his story as he writes about these characters.  It is still a convenient way to get characters out of a corner.  Time travel stories also have the advantage of using this device because of characters remembering to leave stuff behind so that the time traveler can use it.  Isn't the sun coming up just at the right moment in a vampire story much the same thing?

            If teaching this book in a module, the section that talks about the psychopathology of characters would be a main focus.  This is because I know this, and you should always teach what you know.  The psychological constructs of a character's mind is also very important.  It can be handled sloppily and mess a story completely up, but it can be handled masterfully and make the story excel and be a page turner that the reader cannot put down.  This concept is also very easy to grasp.  Although psychology is brain science, it's not brain surgery.  Just a little knowledge of mental illness, personality disorders, and cognitive functioning and processing can add much to a story and its characters.

            On Writing Horror has been a useful guide while writing.  It offers not only tips on how to write better but also lists of books that may aid the writer in improving their concept of the genre and what has been done very well in the past.

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 These are entries from my original blog.  There are several on Dr. Moreau.

Who is the monster on Dr. Moreau’s Island? - 3.10.09

The answer to the topic is, everyone.

Everyone on that island is a monster in some way. The narrator becomes one trying to frighten the manimals into obedience. Moreau and his sadistic vision is easily defined as monsterous. Montgomery, of course a monster. The manimals are by definition monsters even though they are mostly good. Then there is the real monster

The island is the monster. I said it there it is. How can an island be a monster, Jared?

Thanks for asking.

Easy. Everyone there goes nuts. Sure Moreau was nuts before he got there, but look at the effect on the others. Of course the island drives them crazy. They are stuck in the middle of the South Pacific with no help and no way of communicating. I’d go crazy to. Dr. Moreau’s Island is like the hotel in The Shining. It isn’t haunted, but it is a malevolent character that drives the other story characters into doing horrible things. So it is the ultimate monster. One last point, this kind of stuff wouldn’t have happened on any other island or location. I like when location is monster.

***

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1995) - 3.10.09

Jared

Where else would you find Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando in a movie but on Dr. Moreau’s island? No where. Only something as weird as this tale could get these two giants of the cinema together.

So this movie not so good, but an interesting take on Moreau’s twisted ideas. The movie moves away from vivesection to genetic manipulation, which is good because it makes more sense. The problem is everyone is either a loony tune or a drug addict. There was more dope smoked on screen and in the making of this movie than Up in Smoke. There was also a lot of monkey love.

The story carries it own. The evilness or madness of Moreau’s idea still carries over in this adaptation. Brando is not very convincing. I keep thinking about Dom Deluise in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. “You should come over for a canolli.”

So as I have reviewed movies based off the works we have read. I liked the book better than the movie. The movie to me is also not as well known as other works which makes it a bit obscure for most movie viewers. The concept and special effects were wonderful. I loved the pregnant manimal giving birth and having 6 nipples. That was sweet. The little rat people were good too. The love story was too much for me, and like all American movies, has to be there to please the masses. Stupid masses.

***

Fall of the House of Pain - 3.10.09

Besides being a band from the 1980’s or 1990’s (with such good music who can remember), the house of pain was the major disciplinary hut for Dr. Moreau.

Moreau was a sadist, no doubt about it. He wasn’t even a fun sadist either. There was no spanking or ball gags for him, nope just straight cut you up put you back together fun. Nothing says sweet delicious pain like that. The house of pain was his lab. He performed his sadistic rituals here and called it science. Like Callie said in her poem, the ideas were heavily based on evolutionary theory, either Darwinism or something else. The author is a product of his own beliefs. H.G. Wells didn’t care too much for religion. Some people might call him an atheist. He probably was. He put his belief in science no matter how brutal. His story mixed the two. Although Moreau doesn’t seem to have religion, he passes himself off as a god and gives the manimals he created 10 commandments of sorts. Not to walk on all fours that is the law.

The story seems to be this is what happens when science and religion try to mix. Science always wins. In this story it did. The house of Pain fell because the animals went back to their instincts proven scientifically.

Is Wells saying this? I think so.

***

A psych analysis of Dr. Moreau - 3.7.09

Arznen wanted it, so here it is.

In my professional opinion, Dr. Moreau was a nut job. That’s technical professional terminology.

In the truest since of things, Moreau does not have a diagnosis as such. He is not schizophrenic because he wouldn’t be able to do what he has done if he was. Schizophrenics are too loose to be able to make human-shaped animals. The fact is, he suffers from personality issues if not disorders.

The first disorder I think he would suffer from would be narcissism. It is obvious that he thinks very highly of himself, but when challenged has very little underneath to support it. This is the reason he fashions himself as a god if not God himself.

I think as we delve deeper in Moreau that he also suffers from Antisocial personality disorder. As many know, this is called the serial killer disorder. I don’t think Moreau was a serial killer and that title for the disorder is a misnomer. The true traits of this disorder is a total disregard for rules and life. Moreau makes his own rules and has no regard for life human, or manimal. We know that early on people who suffer from this personality disorder torture animals. I would say Moreau fits this. He just never stopped.

Oftentimes if not always, we find antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder walks hand in hand. They are as we say professionally “comorbid”. This is reason most serial killers get caught. They feel that they can’t (the narcissism) and do something over the top. (Think about the Unibomber and his manifesto, the BTK killer and his letters written from his church’s computer, or the Cheryl Tate slayings of the Manson family). Moreau does this and it gets him killed by his manimals.

So for an analysis of Moreau this is it. He has no Axis I diagnosis (ie typical mental illness). he suffers from at least two Axis II diagnoses (personality disorders) Antisocial and narcissistic. Some might argue he also suffers from Schizoid PD due to his hermit type life but he doesn’t seem to have the psuedo-psychotic features for this. If he has a third PD, it would be avoidant, which is a shyness type PD which migh explain his want to live alone on a island with manimals.

***

The Planet of Dr. Moreau - 3.6.09

In my strange wonderings, I thought what would happen if Dr. Moreau landed on the Planet of the Apes. I would watch this movie. Would he be bent to make the humans more ape like? Would Dr. Zaius turn around and make Moreau in his own image.

I think that it would be an interesting idea for a story. Imagine a man who has made men from apes on a planet where apes have evolved past men. It is great. He would caught up in a strange version of his own story. In ways it reflects what happens. The creatures Moreau make kill him, doubtless the Apes from POA would do the same, but they might vivasect him, which would be only his just rewards for the cruelty he instills on this victims

***

Let’s make Manimals - 3.5.09

Dr. Moreau was a good man. He liked animals so much he decided to make them human by experimenting with them and causing them considerable pain. That’s a great way to say I love you. Here kitty, kitty, I’m going to make you a manimal. Not only that I’m going to not give you guidance but expect you to know the ways of man and act like him.

I think that Dr. Moreau should have read or seen The Jungle Book. King Louie would really like to be like you. See Moreau wouldn’t have to made Manimals. H.G. Wells meet King Louie.

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This is from a writing journal from first semester at Seton Hill University.

Of all the selections for my reading assignments this semester, the worst book by far was The Ruins by Scott Smith.  The purpose of reading in our genre and books about writing and of an academic nature is to learn what to do to make writing better.  The purpose is also to introduce us to books and subgenres we might overlook due general disinterest in that subset.  Little was gleamed from The Ruins that I would want to use in my own writing. 

            From the start, the book’s characters were stock.  Each one was a cardboard cut out that I as the reader had no empathy for.  The characters had so little developed personality that when they were talking without taglines, they became indistinguishable.  The characters seemed unreal and unlikable.  No connection or care was ever made to them.  Each character had finished college and was heading to graduate school, medical school, or work.  Each came from the New York or some urban-type area.  Each was a WASP.  Even the minor characters held no sympathy.  The German could have been taken straight from Hogan’s Heroes.  The Greek characters played like Greek stereotypes on BBC comedies.  From the start, I wanted these characters to die.  I did not care how, a bus wreck would have done fine; plus, I would not need to wait 300 pages for a bunch of vines to eat them.

            I have trouble with characterization sometimes.  It happens to be an area I have tried to work on and have looked at in the books I have read.  Smith has the same problem and did not try to fix it.  In my own writing, I have tried to be mindful of not making characters stock characters.  This would be easy to do in my current project due to dealing with hillbillies.  As I write dialog, I listen to the voice and the words.  I may even say the lines out loud so I can tell if the characters sound too much alike.  The horrible job on characterization by Smith in this book has definitely taught me what to look for and avoid.

            In this text, the story is told from the point of view of the four main (boring) characters.  The scenes swap back and forth from character to character.  Oftentimes, the same scene is played out in its entirety through two or three points of view.  This not only became distracting; it became annoying.  This method of narrating did not seem to move the story forward either.  It bogged it down and slowed the pace even more than it was already slowed to.  There is nothing wrong with multiple points of view in a story.  It is a good practice to give the story depth.  I use multiple points of view myself.  The problem is when it bogs the story down.  The Ruins girth in pages relied solely on the redundant point of view.  It seems that Smith was trying to make the book more artsy or cutting edge by doing this.  Instead, it came out looking amateurish.  As I have been writing, I caught myself doing this exact thing, writing the same scene from a different point of view.  I now call it “The Ruins Effect”.  When I (and my critique partners) caught this, I got rid of it with a large machete better used for chopping the killer Southern vine of kudzu.  Something positive I got from this book, and I am amazed.

            Again, there was so much of what not to do from this book.  The villains in this story do not make sense.  They are described clearly, but they are intelligent, carnivorous vines.  There is no explanation to why the vines are there.  There is no reason given as to why the Mayan characters keep people there, except to prevent the spread of the vine, which Roundup or Agent Orange would deal with handily.  When I write speculative fiction, I get that the villains and situations are going to be a stretch that requires suspension of belief, but I believe there needs to be some logic to things too.  Even a delusional person who is totally out of his mind within his own delusions finds them logical.  There is no logical explanation of the villains or the motives.  They just eat.  Even if survival is the main drive for a character it should be explained in some way.  When I write, I always have the logic behind why someone does what he does in my mind.  It doesn’t always get written down the first time.  Upon editing, it gets in there.  It explains to the reader why this is happening.  This section of The Ruins gives further support and reinforcement as to why this needs to be done.

            I am a title person.  I have pointed this out in other essays.  The Ruins is a creepy title with so much potential.  That’s why I wanted to read it, because I thought it was going to deal with great ancient Mayan evils.  The characters never even make it to any ruins. Most of the action takes place at an abandoned mine.  The title is a total let down.  It should have been called The Killer Vines of the Abandoned Mine and the Idiots who Went There.  Another obvious reinforcement for striving for the best title.

            Two other things need discussing.  The book read like it was written to be a movie.  I have been guilty and still remain guilty of thinking about my story in cinematic terms.  I often write with movie shots in mind.  This story has opened my eyes to how poorly that translates onto the pulp paper.  The story lacked so much because it was written that way.  I have become more aware of the way I write, my metawriting if you will.  Every time I seem to be starting writing with the 20^th Century Fox music playing in my head, I stop and think and write differently.   The last thing to discuss and again something I have been guilty of and see how silly it looks on the page.  When the story’s point-of-view characters have died, the story needs to end.  There is no one to tell the story anymore, even in the third person. If you have been in a character or characters head(s) for the whole book and they die, whose perspective is the story being told from?  The answer is something that does not work and seems very amateurish.  I blush thinking about all the stories I have made this mistake in.  I have started to look at where the story is going to end before I decide who needs to tell it.  In The Ruins, the story closes when non-point-of-view characters show up and repeat the process of the first set of characters.  It ends like a horror movie.  You can almost see the screen fade to black and expect a boring sequel.  I have put these two things in my do not do file.

            So The Ruins did not have too many points to immolate.  It did have many points to avoid, and learning is both imitation and aversion.  From all the text I read for this semester, I took more away from this one to improve my writing.  Often the best example is the worst example.

Posted by Jared at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This comes from a writing journal from my first semester at Seton Hill University.  Part of the program is reading academic books.  This is the one I chose.

            The academic book that my mentor and I chose for this semester comes from my background in psychology.  It is the text by Sigmund Freud called Totem and Taboo.  This book is a description of Freud’s theory of incest taboo and how it relates to the development of humans.  Freud stated that the incest taboo is what makes humans successfully leave the phallic stage of development.  He stated that during this stage the Oedipus and Elektra Complexes begin, and incest taboo vanquishes these disorders. 

            Now what does the premier text on Freudian incest taboo theory have to do with writing?  It happens that one of the major plot points of my thesis rests on incest and a cult built around the idea of incest. Freud was one of the first researches to spend time thinking and theorizing about things like incest.  He believed that we first become incestuous because of deep-seated sexual desires for our parents of the opposite gender that he theorized occurred during the phallic stage of development.  This text looks at the aboriginal people of Australia and other Oceania countries.  He found that even these “primitive” people had a distaste of incest.  He stated that to these natives incest surpassed just blood relations and extended to members of the same tribe.  He theorized that people of the same “totem” or spirit guide would not intermarry or breed with one another. 

            The villainous characters of my thesis are members of an incestuous cult.  They believe that a prophecy handed down from God gives them permission to mate with their family.  Freud’s theory strictly forbids this and says that even the most “amoral” people abhor incest and avoid it to great extents.  This theory applies to my thesis because the characters according to Totem and Taboo are lower developmentally than the private peoples of the world of not our time but the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.  It gives a vision into the psyche of these characters who handed down this prophecy from God. 

            Freud’s basic idea is that people choose to be incestuous.  He states in a very round about way that normal humans left to their own decisions and basic ideologies and programming will not go toward incestuous love and breeding.  He says that people are instinctually appalled by incest after the age of about 5 or 6.  The impact on my thesis is that Freud’s basic research over 100 years ago still holds true. (One of the few Freudian theories that can.)  Contemporary researchers will tell you that there is not an instinctual drive to mate with ones own kin. 

            In my thesis this lack of the incest taboo would mean that the characters, named the Hassle family, are cognitively around 3 to 5-years-old, or they have been made to think like that age group.  The cognitive age the characters have to be affects how they are written.  It affects their verbiage and syntax.  It also affects their behavior.  These are characters that have been trained to have the thought processes of young children; yet, they are adults and pubescent children.  They have desires that young children do not fully understand, and they can act on them.  The Hassles are then little more than animals driven solely by the drive to procreate.

            Freud would view this as just the case. He would say that these characters if they were real people would be little more than overly developed apes.  He would see them as less advanced than any “primitive” peoples of the world.  In all likelihood, he would have written a study about them. 

            In writing popular fiction, the old classic ideas are hardly seen anymore.  Freud has been written off for the most part as a perverted kook.  Few of his theories are still used or hold much water.  Incest taboo, however, still has a place in psychological study and practice.  There is a real aversion to marrying and interbreeding with family members.  Federal and state laws prohibit close relatives from marrying.  Popular culture jokes and shows the effects of what first cousins marrying will do.  The idea of incestuous people being less than human is really not looked at that much.  The primal sex drive overpowering one of our deepest phobias is not often investigated.

            What would Freud think of this thesis? He would find it to be a work of cathartic release.  He would say that the author never quite made it out of the phallic stage and still held on to his Oedipus Complex and incestuous desires that successful completion of that stage would have eliminated.  He would (strangely enough) think that the thesis was a healthy defense mechanism for the author to get his repressed feelings out of the way so that he could move on past his phallic hang-ups. 

            So Totem and Taboo, a text about incest taboo in primitive peoples by Sigmund Freud, can actually be a writing aid.  It does not teach anyone how to write better structurally, but it can and does give insight into how to characterize people who suffer from serious hang-ups like incest.  Taking the Freudian approach that such characters would still be trapped in an underdeveloped stage cognitively adds much depth to the characters and the story.

Posted by Jared at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is taken from a writing journal from my first semester at Seton Hill Universisty.

            Writing can be a difficult venture.  It requires time, patience, and a very thick skin.  To be a successful writer, you have to learn from experience and from other writers.  Genre writers often are looked down on as hacks. So when a book comes along that easily falls into a genre, and it wins a prestigious award, things look up for genre writers.  The Road is just the case. Written by Cormac McCarthy, it won the Pulitzer Prize and made it onto the much envied Oprah Book List.  McCarthy is considered a literary writer, greatly due to his unique style of writing and use of syntax. The Road, however, moves into the realm of speculative fiction. 

            One of the hardest things about writing is the feeling of claustrophobia.  Oftentimes, a story or novel takes place in a constrained setting.  The tight walls encompassing the story make writing it feel constricted.  The Road is a very claustrophobic story, although it takes place over a wide expanse of landscape.  The way McCarthy deals with this and makes the story more claustrophobic and frightening, is to tell  the story from one perspective for most of the book.  We never leave the mind of the main character (he) until his death.  Two things can be learn from this technique.  One, it teaches how to keep a constricted story moving and lively.  The main problem with constricting stories, as I have found them, is they get stale so easily.  When you are writing in a shoe box, you run out of physical room.  McCarthy moves from the physical area to the psychological and cognitive areas.  He delves into the mind of the he character.  McCarthy shows his fears and desires.  He shows us the world of this story through those scared eyes.  With my writing, characterization and length are often problems.  These can walk hand in hand.  When characterization is limited, the length, depth, and breadth of the work is hindered.  Although this story was not a very long one, it still filled out its story and pages with psychological study as well as action.  The second part of this argument comes from that.  The action of the story is limited, but again the reader keeps turning the page.  The world is well described with sparse words and descriptions, but it is so vivid. Action outside of walking and starving rarely comes.  The description of this is what makes the story work.  With brief discussion of the horrible actions of the other characters in the book, the reader keeps turning the pages to see if the two characters are going to run into more dangers.  Page-turning writing is always good to learn from.  The problem is that in most genre fiction, readers demand more action than is provided in this book. 

            As I think about writing, I take into account the way McCarthy uses claustrophobia and sparse, intensely described action to his advantage.  Claustrophobia is frightening.  Studies have shown it is one of the most common fears among Americans.  It plays a key part in horror writing and is hard to pull off.  The way McCarthy does this with views into the characters mind is something to take into consideration.  His descriptions of the horror, which other humans have preformed on each other and the hints of the evil they will do, gives the prefect tease that a good horror story needs.  Oftentimes, I give too much away too quickly, or not enough away too slowly.  While I have been writing, I have been attempting to keep this technique in mind.  It is a delicate game of how much detail to give and how much to keep back.

            A few things did not work in the story or were distracting.  Besides McCarthy penchant for not using much punctuation, the fact that the characters are only named he and boy became hard to follow at times.  During dialog,  the pronoun he would often refer not to the main character but the boy.  I found myself having to go back and read over again to realize who was talking, because the characters often spoke so similarly.  When writing, I have found that I have run into similar situations.  I have seen how it does in this and other books and work hard to avoid the issue by either being clear in the tag or making the voice of each character distinct enough to make a difference. 

            Then there was the ending.  I am not opposed to a wonderful happy ending, but the ending of the story was very stark to me.  It was also unclear if it was real or Heaven.  The main character dies requiring a shift in point of view to the boy, who had not had a point of view in the book.  This was a problem that I found to be a bit amateurish.  If I had sent this story back to the author, I would have asked for that to be made different.  The ending was also a little unrealistic, which caused me to think that it was Heaven instead of real place.  The whole story existed in a dead, ashen world, but at the end, the characters end up in a beautiful live valley.  It was almost like the make-believe farm of Lenny and George in Of Mice and Men.  It was Eden in a place that did not have Eden.  The thing is that in horror an ending like that would be scoffed as too cinematic even if it meant everyone was dead.  After all the bleakness, it seemed like a cop out.  When writing, I want the ending to be realistic, no matter how unrealistic the story is.  Even in unrealistic or future worlds logic and truth still exist, at least in my worlds.  If a happy ending is not possible, as I felt it was not in The Road, why force it?  Equally if a happy ending or at least pleasant ending is logical and will work why not use it?

            The Road  has made me look at the endings of the stories I write to make sure they fit.  Many writers work hard to avoid the deus ex machina parts of a story, but an unrealistic ending achieved by normal means is no different from a god descending from the sky and fixing everything.  This seemed to happen in The Road, and it disappointed me. 

            Writing is a difficult art.  There is much to balance and keep check of.  The Road had many things that a writer can learn from, and many things to avoid.  The tight writing that expands out of a claustrophobic setting and the brief vivid descriptions of horror were positives.  The pie in the sky (literal or figuratively) ending was something to avoid.

Posted by Jared at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a copy of a writing journal from my first semester at Seton Hill University.

            Peter Straub wrote Ghost Story over thirty years ago during a time when horror writing lay in a shallow grave.  His story about ghouls shook up the genre.  The story takes the typical paradigms of horror and turns them on their ears.  He took on the pillars of horror, the vampire, the ghost, the werewolf, and the zombie and changed them into something new and interesting.

            The story, itself, is structured as a frame story of sorts.  It starts in the seedy side of Panama City Beach (A place I just happen to have been and imagined vividly.). The main character of the story at this point is with a little girl he has kidnapped and plans to kill.

            The whole start of the story is a distraction from what is going on.  Straub does not reveal much about the happenings to that point.  The main character seems to be schizophrenic or sociopathic. His reasons for kidnapping the little girl and planning her death seem to be delusional or at least twisted by a disturbed mind.  Straub, however, has just set his readers up and as the story unfolds, we learn that there is a logical reason for everything. 

            The story switches point of view often across the various protagonist, and even some minor characters.  At times this becomes a bit hard to follow, distracting, and bothersome.  Although it gives the story part of its richness, the shifting points of view often required flipping back to previous pages or even chapters to see who is telling the story or to re-familiarize with the character, especially when the point of view character was little more than a town person who gets mentioned a few times.  In writing, I have tried to avoid the excessive use of switching point of view for this reason.  It put a blemish on this otherwise excellent story, so I can only imagine what it would do to a story that was not of the same quality.  I actually don’t have to do that because another reading from this semester showed me that all too well. 

            For the strong points of this book, Straub knows his tale and keeps a very multifaceted plot going in a good direction.  Everything falls into place and follows the same course.  The tangential lines of the plot fit neatly together at the end, and gives the reader a great “aha” moment.  The writing toward this end was excellent.  Although the shifting points of view did muddy the waters of these diverging and converging plotlines, the characterization of the protagonists and antagonist helped to keep things straight.   His strong characterization is something that I tried to learn from after reading this story.  Characterization is one of the areas I have difficulty with.  The subtle differences between otherwise psychologically similar characters help to make the difference between characters more evident. 

            The thing that I take away more from this story in regards to writing is how the author turned the old horror standbys if not clichés into a new vital creature. The way the vampire, ghost, zombie, and werewolf were mixed into one creature.  One of the problems with horror is that so much of our writing is dependant on the cut by numbers characters.  Even the serial killer or other creature type stories have suffered from this.  Mixing the unexpected qualities of stock and standard horror characters is a great way to remodel the “classic” story.  At the time this was written, not many authors had tried this technique.  Another issue related to the writing was the ease of reading the story.  So often, writers write to the highest denominator.  They try to compensate for being genre writers by aiming high with the vocabulary.  It distracts from the story as it showcases $5 words.  Straub kept the story easy to read. The story was not simple but was still simple to read.  Being able to write a story that is as complex as this story was in a reader friendly way is the object of all writers. 

            Writing a good story can depend on many things.  Ghost Story is a good story, a good scary story.  The use of villain melding and reader friendly writing shows a wonderful way for writers, starting out or not, to pen a good story to.  Even the title adds so much to how to write.  Sometimes the best title is the short and sweet one that sums everything up.  Ghost Story, what a great title for this story.  It takes into account not only the ghostly characters but the society that tells ghost stories.  It also simplifies the story and gives the reader something she may not expect.  It is not a straight spook tale.  It was more complex.  In writing, a title should be able to do that.  I am a writer who believes in a good title.  There are many authors who do not put much thought or consideration into a title.  The same is true of editors who title stories as well.  So much can get lost from a poor story title.  Straub or his editor, whoever titled it, did a good job. 

            So what can be taken away from this story that I can use in the story.  One is the simplicity of the writing of the complicated story.  The writing was not simple but was so reader friendly it makes someone jealous of another’s talent.  I have striven to work on this in my writing.  The bending of the characters is not something that can be done well in my thesis, but I do plan on looking at using this in future writings.  Finally is the title.  I love a good tricky title.  I try my hardest to work on making good titles and I am often disappointed by a title more than any other part of writing. 

            The best thing that I can take away from this story is not anything that is written in the text by Straub. I read an edition of this book that had a forward by Stephen King.  In this forward, King tells the story of Straub and Ghost Story. It seems that this book was not the first one Straub wrote or published.  It did end up being his first success.  This is a great thing to think about while writing.  Not everyone’s first published book is a runaway success nor is the second or beyond.  Writers can still publish and not have blockbusters.  Although this cannot be incorporated into writing, it can be the platform that writing is done from. 

            There were many things that I have taken from Ghost Story to use in my own writing.  The simplicity of writing a complex story is the one I most hope to use and get better at.  Also the strong sense of characterization is another area that the book has shown me how to improve on.

Posted by Jared at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently finished reading Asylum by British author Patrick McGrath.  I didn't like it, not one little bit.  The problem is that I cannot read books set in psychiatric facilities because I see everything that is wrong with the story.  In this story, the asylum is in Britian and it's the late 1950's.  All the psychology is Freudian psychoanalysm which has since died away. But I write this blog to keep up with writing and why the writing is the problem.

McGrath can write.  He uses words beautifully.  This story however seemed dusty and distant.  I think he wanted it to.  The problem was that the voyeuristic tone he set for it didn't work for me.  I've read other stories told from a narrator that had to piece the story together.  These are always unreliable narrators when telling the story of another character.  The Virgin Suicides  was written in this style.  It worked better to me. I think because the narrator of that story is an adult remembering from childhood.  This made that story's unreliable narrator more realistic. 

Back to McGrath. The story did little for me.  I finished it and set the book on the floor.  I looked at my wife and said "what was the point?" 

I hate a book I finish and have to ask the question why? or what was the point?  I like to feel like I gained something from a book when I finish, and this one left me hollow. 

Like Palahnuik in a previous blog, I probably won't ready anymore McGrath.  His dusty closed in style of writing was a little to crusty British and boring for me.

Posted by Jared at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I've never read anything by Mr. Palhnuik, and I still haven't (technically).  I listened to Choke on CD, as the author reads it.  The text was unabridge so it's like reading the book, and to be frank, I don't have the time for idle reading. 

The major thing that struck me about this book is the writing.  I'm not sure I would be able to read it.  Listening to it at times became taxing.  The repeative, "I say 'Dude,' I say."  I felt like Foghorn Leghorn had written this story.  I was not at all impressed with the writing style of this book.  The juxtapostion of some of the prose with the other parts was distracting to no end "see also being pulled out of the story, see also the horrible quotations, see also see also references."

Now to the story.  This was listed according to some sites as satire and black comedy.  I found it more absurdist, which I like.  The characters are over the top, and unrealistic in that way, but that's good absurdist writing.  The narrator was very unreliable.  I don't like this so well in writing.  This is just my particular preference.  But the main issue with this story, is that I was not satisfied at the end.  The character has a change.  His hole sick little world fell apart as anal beads descended from his colon, but I'm not sure he learned anything, and It had been a stretch for me to care about the characters from the start.  (This is a problem with absurdist fiction at times.)

The one thing I have to say about Palahnuik is that this is a man's book.  There is no frilliness to it.  It lacks any foofoo.  It's hardcore as a book about sex addicts should be. 

The unfortunate thing is I'll probably never pick up another Palahnuik book again.  This one ruined me on him.  But I will credit that I don't hold him in the contempt I hold Scott Smith and his The Ruins in.  I actually pick up copies of that book and openly make fun of it in a book store.  I won't do that with Palahnuik because I think he has some positive qualities in his writing, but it's just not for me. See also Earnest Hemmingway, see also Stephanie Meyer, see also H.P Lovecraft.

Posted by Jared at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

  "Captain Freecock, are you pee?"

We never heard her say this on the show but it is an outake from Are You Being Served?.  Earlier this week Mrs. Mollie Sugden (Mrs. Slocomb above) passed away.  This lady was one of the funniest to ever be on television. She rivals even our own Lucille Ball, but with brighter hair. 

Whether her hair was pink or blue, she made us laugh.  She could talk about her Pussy (cat) with a straight face, and show her underwear all the same. 

We have lost a great comedian.  The unfortunate thing is that we also lost her co-star Wendy Richard (Ms. Brahms) earlier this year to cancer.  Now few of the Are You Being Served? actors remain. 

This celeb death strikes me worse that Michael, Billy, or Farrah, because she made me laugh and I saw her almost every Saturday night for nearly twenty years.

Goodbye Mrs. Slocomb, you've done very well.

Posted by Jared at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been thinking about pen names that I may need to start using to keep my identity secret.  My mentor said that with my novel, I might be needing to keep my true identity secret because kooks could find me.  (They already know where I'm at.  I work with them daily.)  So I've been racking my brain to figure out a good nom de plume.

I have always liked Vickery because it is a mysterious sounding name and there isn't too many of us floating around out there.  Here's some i've come up with

Vic Kery (or come variation: Vic Kerry, Vic Carrie, Vic Carre, etc.)

J.W. Vickery (just my initials)

W. J. Vickery (My intials backward)

V. J. Wade (My middle name as my last)

Vic Kerry Waid (again a variation on my name Wade is my middle name it was mother's maiden spelled like here)

V. K. Waid (or a variation)

J. V. Waid (or Variation)

Kirk Twist (just like it)

Ian K. Ennoy

Or of course

Norm D. Plum.

Well, When I decide, I'll post something.

Posted by Jared at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)