Category: lovecraft

So, let’s begin with a shameless plug…

You may have noticed the new button on the right for The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe. It’s a new novel I co-wrote with Daniel Defoe and H.P. Lovecraft. Pick it up today and watch as I break every single suggestion and rule I’ve ever given here on the ranty blog by writing in Defoe’s style. Plus you’ll have some fun with it and hopefully even find it a bit creepy and chill-inducing at points. You may even shed a tear or two.

But now, back to out regularly scheduled rant…

I’ve prattled on here a few times about writing dialogue. I’ve talked about descriptor issues, genre problems, and more than a few times about spelling. Oh, the rants about spelling. I can feel another one building even now…

What I’d like to blather on about now, though, is a few big things. These issues tend to not be limited to this character or that character. They usually extend across a writer’s dialogue as a whole.

Some of these I’ve mentioned before, and you may notice some common threads between them. I like to break them down like this because I know the little distinctions help me notice this stuff sometimes in my own writing.

Monologues – If you don’t know the term for some reason, a monologue is when a character gives a long speech. Here’s a hint. If a character has a block of dialogue which fills more than half a page, in either script or prose format, it’s probably leaning towards a monologue. If there’s no one else in the room with them when they do this it’s definitely a monologue. Unless your character is named Hamlet and your name is William, this is generally a bad thing.

People don’t talk in monologues in normal, everyday life. Or even in abnormal, once-in-a-lifetime life. They stand out because most of the time they’re either a character thinking out loud or dumping a boatload of exposition, and either of these things can be accomplished in better ways–assuming they’re needed at all. There’s a reason screenwriter Brad Bird made fun of this dialogue habit in his movie The Incredibles.

If one of your characters is giving a monologue, ask why they are. Is it really an inner monologue that could be expressed through action or subtext? Is it an info-dump for the reader that may not be entirely necessary? If there’s someone else there, could this person be breaking that block of dialogue up by asking for clarifications, offering corrections, or even making jokes?

Declamation – Here’s a term you don’t hear tossed around much anymore. It’s when someone speaks in very practiced, rehearsed statements. Have you ever noticed how a lot of politicians or salespeople sound like they’re declaring things even when they’re asking questions? There’s a degree of absolute certainty to their statements that just comes across as false or staged.

Believe it or not, declamation used to be considered a minor art form. No, seriously. Read I, Claudius by Robert Graves sometime and check it out. Or just pretend to buy a car and spend half an hour on the lot. Or watch some FOX News commentaries. It tends to happen in writing a lot when characters are just the mouthpiece for a message from the writer.

Remember that real people–and real characters–don’t have everything rehearsed. They don’t always have the perfect word on the tip of their tongue. They get caught flat-footed and can’t come up with something to say. And sometimes they say the wrong thing.

Here’s an easy trick. If you think some of your dialogue may be more declaimed than spoken, look at the page for a few moments, then look away and try to speak that dialogue from memory. Did you get it word for word? Or did you substitute different words and simpler structure? That’s speaking versus declamation. Same information gets conveyed, but one doesn’t sound rehearsed.

Wooden – If you are wondering, dear reader, what a person means when they refer to dialogue as wooden, it means the lines of dialogue which are presented in such a blunt and dry fashion that they do not sound natural. These sentences tend not to have an organic flow to them. They are difficult to read because of this.

A common sign of such dialogue is a lack of contractions, which, as you all know, are a natural part of speech and conversation. Without contractions, the dialogue becomes stiff, thus the sobriquet “wooden.” A strict adherence to the rules of grammar is not unheard of, as well. These are not the only signs of wooden dialogue, however they are two of the most common.

You may have noticed, dear reader, that the previous two paragraphs lack the usual tone and cadence you may have become accustomed to in these posts. They seem a bit lacking and awkward to read. This is because I am forcing myself to write in a stilted, stiff manner not unlike that which I have seen in the wooden prose of some manuscripts.

And I’m sick of doing that sooooooooo… moving on.

On The Nose – What does it mean when someone tells you you’re right on the nose? It means you’re absolutely correct. Spot on. Got it in one. Right on target. Which is great if you’re doing pub trivia, but not so good in dialogue.

On the nose dialogue has no subtlety to it. It’s when people say exactly what they mean without a shred of caution or concealment. This dialogue isn’t layered with meaning because it’s not even layered. It’s the sheet cake of dialogue. It gets the job done, but only just, and you’re kind of left wondering if it was even worth it.

In real life, people beat around the bush. They’re coy. They feel each other out, in a verbal sense. They use implications, and inferences and innuendoes.

You want a phenomenal example of not on the nose dialogue? Watch Four Weddings and a Funeral and look at the scene about 2/3 of the way through when serial monogamist Charlie tries for a solid minute to declare his love for Carrie before ever getting around to saying it.

So, there you have it. A quartet of dialogue problems that tend to blanket work rather than cropping up here and there. Give your writing a look and see if there’s anything that stands out.

Next time around I want to toss out a few tips for getting from A to B. It really isn’t all that hard. Honest.

Until then, go write.

Thank the late Captain Murphy for that title.

Let me pull out the big guns right at the start. There’s a great line by Tolstoy (see, I warned you)– Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. There’s a wonderful lesson in those words, and it’s what I wanted to pontificate about this week.

Everyone reading this has read something that was awful or seen a movie that just sucked, right? I mean, if you’re doing your job as a writer and taking in everything you can, it’s unavoidable. We’ve all been exposed to some serious crap.

Time for another one of my random guilty confessions. I love bad stuff. I can watch awful movies for hours (sometimes I even get paid to watch them). I’ve been exposed to crap scripts that are getting off easy with the label crap. I read horrible books cover to cover, and I’ve read some stinkers. My girlfriend is often in awe (we’ll call it awe, anyway) that I continue to read things even as I lament how bad they are. I admit I take a certain perverse pride in being able to say I’ve finished almost every book I’ve ever picked up. Some took longer than others, and some I’m still working on, but I don’t think I’ve ever given up on something once I started reading it.

Why?

That’s a fair question. I mean, why subject yourself to the bad stuff? There’s plenty of great stuff out there, after all. There are timeless works of fiction in all genres. Some phenomenal movies and television. Why should anyone waste time and effort going over the crap?

Let’s play a little game. Name five writers someone must read if they want to be a good writer. No ifs, ands, or buts, you have to know these authors’ works. You can write them down if you like, or just keep them in your forebrain for a few minutes. This won’t take long.

Got ’em?

Okay, then…

Shakespeare’s probably there on your list, yes? Maybe Hawthorne, Dickens, Hemingway, or Steinbeck? If you’re a bit more horror-oriented, odds are you have Lovecraft or King. Bradbury and Matheson both bridge horror and sci-fi quite nicely, if that’s your focus.

The point of the game–of this round of it, anyway–is that I probably just named at least three of your top five authors, didn’t I? Maybe even all five? The reason I can do that is because everyone picks the same authors. We could do the same thing with five filmmakers every budding director or screenwriter should study. Go on, try it with your friends.

That brings us to round two. Can you name five authors someone should avoid at all costs if they’re studying to be a writer? Heck, can you just name five books?

It’s been said that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. The unspoken lesson is you can’t just study all the winners, you have to study the losers, too. Knowing why Ronald Reagan won his election is good, but it’s also good to know why Jimmy Carter lost–and no, they are not the same reasons.

The same goes for writing. You can take dozens of classes that will teach you (and tens of thousands of other people) all the same things about all the same good authors and novels. Then all of you can turn out the same good stories of your own that imitate those same authors and novels.

The problem here is that you’re not learning how to avoid the problems and pitfalls of writing– you’re being taught they don’t exist. It’s the literary equivalent of the spoiled rich kid whose never had to do anything for him or herself. Paris Hilton never learned how to change a flat tire because in her world there’s always a repairman and a back-up limo one phone call away. Does that make her an expert at car repair or just someone who never has to deal with it?

Of course, just reading the bad stuff and rolling your eyes doesn’t help. Anyone can say “that sucks.” Anyone. It doesn’t take any special skills or education. Heck, you can train a parrot to say it. Keep that in mind. When someone points at a piece of writing and just mocks it for no reason, they’re operating on the same level as a bird (or celebutante daughter of a hotel magnate) with a brain the size of a walnut.

No, you need to look at the bad stuff and be able to explain why it sucks. What mistakes did the storyteller make. What’s wrong with the dialogue? Why can’t you believe in the characters? Is it an actual problem or a matter of personal taste? Why was the resolution so unsatisfying? And the most important question to answer, of course, is how could you make it better? What would it take for this piece of crap to be something passably good, or even great? Again, you want to have a real answer, not a smart-aleck, off-the-cuff response. A real writer can discuss a crap book just as easily as a good one.

Which brings us back around to the why.

Y’see, Timmy, if you can honestly identify and critique another piece of work, it’s going to make it easier for you to judge your own work. Being able to honestly judge your own work is how you’re going to improve. There are a lot of ways to be a bad writer, and if you can’t recognize them for what they are–and figure out how to avoid them–then odds are that’s the path you’ll end up on and you won’t even know it.

So go forth and learn from the badness.

Next time, I’d like to talk about something completely different.

Until then, go write. And for God’s sake, write something that doesn’t suck.

It’s like a radio–a radio tuned to the frequency of evil!

If you get that reference… God, I pity you.

So, I’ve talked about different genre issues here a few times before. With the upcoming holiday, though, I thought it would be nice to pause and talk about one that’s near and dear to me.

To be honest, I wasn’t always into horror. As I noted on a friend’s website recently, it wasn’t until my college years that I really embraced the many forms of the genre. Before that, I was terrified of more things than we’ve got room to list. Yet I eventually hit the point that I started selling original horror stories of my own and was even asked to become a dark god and crush the hopes and dreams of mortals.

But that’s a story for another time…

The different forms of horror is what I really wanted to talk about in this week’s little rant, though. Anyone who’s dabbled in the genre knows that, alas, when you tell folks this is your field you tend to get lumped into this vague slasher/ vampire/ Satanist category. Either that or earmarked as someone working through childhood issues. Most folks don’t realize horror can be broken down into many different sub-genres, just like comedy, drama, or other art forms like painting. Being under the same umbrella of “horror” doesn’t mean Dracula is anything like Hostel, and neither of them resembles Resident Evil. As a wise man once said “I am nothing like Family Guy!!”

The catch here (and there’s always a catch, or you wouldn’t be bothering to read any of this, would you?) is that a lot of fledgling writers aren’t sure where their stories fit under the umbrella, either. They’ll start off with the trappings of one sub-genre, move into a plot more fitting a different one, wrap up with an ending that belongs on a third, and have the tone of yet another through the whole thing. They have a specific name for this problem. It’s called Plan 9 From Outer Space.

It’s important to know just what you’re writing, for two different reasons. One is so you’ll be true to it and don’t end up with a sprawling story that covers everything and goes nowhere. You don’t want your slasher pic to degenerate into torture porn, and if you’re aiming for cosmic-level evil it’d be depressing to find all the earmarks and resolutions of a common supernatural story. You also want to be able to market your story, which means you need to know what it is. If you tell an editor it’s not torture porn when it plainly is, at the best you’re going to get rejected. At the worst, they’ll remember you as “that idiot” when your next piece of work crosses their desk.

So, here’s a few different panels of that umbrella. Some of them are established sub-genres which have already been debated to death. Others are just things I’ve noticed on my own that I feel are worth mentioning. Use them a lot and maybe they’ll enter the lexicon.

Supernatural stories

This is one of the easiest ones to spot. It’s your classic ghost story. The phone lines that fall into the cemetery. The girl out hitchhiking alone in the middle of night. The mother who wishes on a monkey’s paw that her dead son would come home.

There are a few key things you’ll notice about these. One of the biggies is that the protagonist rarely comes to harm in a supernatural story. Their underwear will need to go through the wash three or four times and they may not sleep well for years afterwards, but physically, and even mentally, they tend to come out okay. If anyone suffers in a supernatural story it’s usually the bad guy or some smaller character. Also, these stories tend not to have explanations– they just are. There aren’t any cursed objects or ancient histories at play. Things happen because… well, they happen.

Even with it’s clever twist, The Sixth Sense is still a great example of a supernatural story, as is “The Signalman” and “A Christmas Carol,” both by that populist hack Charles Dickens.

Giant Evil stories

These are the grim tales when the universe itself is against you. Every person you meet, every thing they do–it all serves some greater, awful evil. H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Howard wrote a lot of giant evil stories. The Omen is another good (so to speak) story of the universe turning against the protagonist. And any fan of Sutter Cane will of course remember the reality-twisting film In The Mouth of Madness.

Personally, I would toss a lot of haunted house stories in here, because the haunted house (or ship, or insane asylum, or spaceship, or whatever) is essentially the universe of the story. Not all of them, but a decent number. The reader or audience doesn’t see anything else and the characters don’t get to interact with anything else. The Haunting of Hill House, The Shining, and Event Horizon could all be seen as supernatural stories, but their settings really elevate them to giant evil stories.

Thrillers

Thrillers also stand a bit away from the pack because they tend to be the most grounded of horror stories. No creatures of the night, no dark entities, far fewer axe-wielding psychopaths. The key thing to remember is that a thriller isn’t so much about what happens as about what could happen. It’s more about the ticking clock, the killer hiding in the closet, or the booby trap that’s a razor-width from going off and doing… well, awful things to our characters. There’s a lot of suspense focused on one or two characters and it stays focused on that one character for the run of your story. A thriller keeps the characters (and the reader) on edge almost every minute.

Alfred Hitchcock was really the master of thrillers, although much of his work came from other sources. How many folks have actually read Robert Bloch’s Psycho, for example? Silence of the Lambs is another great thriller, both the book and the film.

Slasher stories

Slasher stories are really about one thing, and that’s the body count. How many men, women, and fornicating teens can the killer reduce to cold meat? Note that there’s a few distinctions between a slasher story and a torture porn story (see below), and one of them is usually the sheer number of people killed. There’s also often a degree of creativity and violence to the deaths, although it’s important to note it’s rarely deliberate or malicious. Often it’s just the killer using the most convenient tools at hand for the job. The original Friday the 13th film series has pretty much become the standard for slasher pics, and it’s what most people tend to think of first when you mention the term..

A lot slasher stories used to have a mystery sub-element to them, and often it was trying to figure out who the killer is. These days it’s more often a twist, and often not a very well-done one. You’d’ve never guessed she was the killer, would you? And the reason you never guessed was because she has no motivation, there was no foreshadowing, and it makes no sense whatsoever within the established story. Slasher films, especially, developed a bad habit of falling back on the insanity defense and got stereotyped as “psycho-killer” movies. Which is a shame because some of them are actually very clever and creepy.

Monster stories

The tales in this little sub-genre tend to be about unstoppable, inescapable things that mean the protagonist harm. They’re rarely secretive or mysterious, but they do have an alarming habit of tending toward unkillabillity (new word, just coined, take that Shakespeare). The emphasis here is that nothing your heroes (or the villains, police, military, or the innocent bystanders) do can end this thing’s rampage, and any worthwhile rampage tends to involve people dying. There may be blood and death, but the focus with a monster isn’t finding it or learning about it– it’s stopping it or at least getting as far away from it as possible. Of course, how far is far enough with something that doesn’t stop?

The original monster story is, of course, Frankenstein. Godzilla is a monster, in a very obvious sense, but so are zombies and even Freddy Kruger. I still hold that the reason Jason X is so reviled by fans of the franchise is that the filmmakers turned it into a monster movie, not a slasher film like the ones before it.

Adventure Horror stories

To paraphrase from Hellboy (which would also fit in this category), adventure horror is where the good guys bump back. While they may use a lot of tropes from some of the other subgenres, the key element to these stories is that the heroes are fighting back. Not in a weak, flailing, shrieking cheerleader way, but in a trained, heavily-armed, we’ve-got-your-number way. Oh, it can still go exceptionally bad for them (and often does), but this sub-genre is about protagonists who get to inflict a bit of damage and live to tell the tale. For a while, anyway. To quote an even wiser man, even monsters have nightmares. Or bothersome irritations, at the least.

Brian Lumley’s Titus Crow novellas are a great example of adventure horror stories that are set in the world of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, as is the short story “Blood Bags and Tentacles,” by D.L. Snell. The Resident Evil franchise is horror adventure with zombies, just like my own Ex-Heroes. Some of you may have seen Dog Soldiers, and several of you have probably seen Army of Darkness.

Torture porn

Paul Verhoven once commented that the reason Murphy is killed so brutally in the beginning of Robocop was because there wasn’t time at the start of the film to develop him as a character. So they gave him a horribly gruesome death, knowing it would create instant sympathy for the character, and then they’d be able to fill in more details about his life later on in the film. That’s the general idea behind torture porn. Minus the filling in more details about the characters later.

I’m not sure if Stephen King himself actually coined the term “torture porn” in his Entertainment Weekly column, but that’s the first place I remember seeing it. Before then, I was referring to these as “uncomfortable stories.” Torture porn, at its simplest, is about making the reader or the audience squirm. If you can make them physically ill, power to you. The victims are usually underdeveloped, unmemorable, and doomed from the moment they’re introduced. It’s not about characters, it’s about the visceral things being done to the characters. They’re getting skinned, scalped, boiled, slowly impaled, vivisected… and we’re getting every gory detail of it. As I mentioned last week, porn is when you show everything and this sub-genre is about leaving nothing to the imagination. They are the anti-thriller, to put it simply. This is where you’ll find the Saw and Hostel films, and many of Rob Zombie’s movies.

A key element to torture porn is the victim is almost always helpless. They’re bound, drugged, completely alone or vastly outnumbered. Unlike a slasher film– where there’s always that sense that Bambi or Candi might escape if they just run a little faster or make a bit less noise– there is no question in these stories that the victim is not going to get away. That hope isn’t here, because that’s not what these stories are about.

In closing, I’ll also toss in the free observation that it’s very difficult to merge two of these subgenres because a lot of them contradict each other by their very nature. Not impossible, mind you, but very difficult. If you remember the jumble that was Freddy vs. Jason, a big part of the problem there was as the script stumbled back and forth between a monster movie (when it focused on Freddy) and a slasher film (when Jason was on screen). You can’t have a film that focuses on chopping up teens one moment and just terrorizing them the next. It’s also why the film stabilized a bit, tone-wise, in the second half when it settled into a straight out monster-mash.

So, that’s enough of that. Feel free to dwell on these points while you’re munching on the ill-gotten gains you scored via your candy beard. Yeah, all of you with kids, you know what I’m talking about…

Happy Halloween. Don’t forget to get some writing done.