I’ve been studying The Turn of the Screw lately. A group of people are sitting around the fire telling Christmas ghost stories, as you do (this is a Victorian UK thing). Storyteller (Douglas) claims that the story he’s about to tell comes from his sister’s governess, who has been dead 20 years. He sends away for […]
There’s always some sucker willing to bumble into the wrong part of town…or some small town willing to host something it shouldn’t. Something’s looking for trouble. Surprise, surprise, our characters are just the suckers needed–wrong place, wrong time, and distracted. Technically, the characters didn’t ask for it, although maaaaybe they tried to get a little something
By themselves, books don’t mean anything. They’re code marks on paper. In order to “run” a book-slash-program, a reader has to read it. Hardware for the software. You can’t predict what the hardware is going to do to the software with 100% accuracy. Sometimes it won’t run. Sometimes it runs a mysterious program that you
The first signs of trouble were small. So small that we ignored them. Ditto the second, third, fourth, fifth… There’s a relatively minor problem. Everyone blows it off (although there might be one person who panics about the situation in an obviously useless, “it’s all in your head” fashion). Until it’s too late to do anything
The main character has a dilemma. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation–but there’s damnation, and then there’s damnation. The character has a problem, or is called in to deal with a problem. The character has to choose between a couple of craptastic options. They try to avoid choosing. But eventually, they
Simple Horror Plots, Part 2: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Read More »
(A writer emailed to ask, “What makes a book engaging?” I, who am constantly in need of topics upon which to write blog posts, did a little huzzah.) What makes a book engaging? Back up. What does a (fiction) book actually do for a reader? What is this mysterious “entertainment” that writers aspire to? Escape.
For some reason, nailing down horror plots is harder for me than mystery plots, so this is even more tentative than usual. There is a problem. The backstory* is so epic that it dominates the present or real story. Wait wait this problem comes from the epic backstory that we never talk about and didn’t
Simple Horror Plots, Part 1: That One Thing We Don’t Talk About Read More »
So let’s say you have a series of books, movies, TV episodes, TV seasons, etc. Any given series of storytelling. Doesn’t have to be linear in time. Doesn’t even have to be about the same characters (a la romances about a number of sisters, etc.) With or without an overarching plot. Could just be “monster
Okay, the frame as a narrative device. Most writers have at least heard of it. There’s a story within a story. But let’s look at this from a mystery perspective: A crime happens or is discovered (in the case of a long-past crime). The main action of illustrating the crime happens on another level, for
I’m always looking for new books to read, while building up impossible lists of books to read. So I’m wiping out the various wishlists (mostly) and gathering them here, while ruthlessly cutting them down. Soon, I’ll post the list of recommended reading I got lately, from other people. Nonfiction: Rats: Observations on the History &
