« July 2006 | Main | September 2006 »
I’ve been told and I’ve read that telling stories is inherently solitary. One person tells one story and that’s it. So why do we have traditions of collaborative story telling like the good old campfire ghost story activity? Why do we still pursue this illusive dream if it’s either impossible, improbable, or ill-advised?
It’s no great revelation that some crimes go unsolved, even some murders. We only need invoke the name Jack the Ripper to testify to that fact (more recently my attention was drawn to the Black Dahlia case). The writer in me was surprised to realize this though. I like to wrap things up neat and tidy, and I like to read stories that wrap things up. The bad guy doesn’t win, the good guy does. We always know who did what to whom and why. But real life intrudes and serves as a reminder that sometimes a murder gets away without a trace.
What if there were some ancient dark power, some supernatural evil from the mists of time? What if people could make a contract with it, tap into it, or otherwise use it? What if they use their newfound power to terrorize others and get their own way? Wait a sec … did I just loosely group all myths, folklore, and superstitious tales? :)
It seems to me we have some classic material when we bridge the old superstitions with modern culture in our stories. Nothing is more strange, or perhaps even more terrifying than realizing there is something supernatural out there, and has been out there all along, and someone somewhere knows how to use it (usually for evil). Seems it me there ought to be a wealth of [good] stories still to be told by looking into the past and invoking some ancient evil.
I will say nothing new here, nevertheless I will say it. Our standard pantheon of horror monster figures have become too familiar to be frightening. Vampires are all too prevalent, zombies abound everywhere (they even march around in broad daylight now). Wolfmen (lycanthropes to get all “technical”) aren’t all that common, but still common enough they don’t cause much fright. Whether or not these monsters ever actually caused real fright is beside the point; they no longer are efficacious.
Am I tired of them? By no means, but that doesn’t mean I won’t grow tired of them. I think, perhaps, this is one reason I drift toward H. P. Lovecraft: his monsters are/were original and still sparse.
I was recently talking with a friend of mine and each of us confessed we have never been scared by a book, and in truth feel no contents of any book will ever instill even a remote sense of fear. I’m sure psychologists everywhere have opinions on why this is, and frankly I don’t much care. I’m not sure I read stories to scare myself, I’m not even sure if I like being scared (and I’ve read articles stating scary movies succeed because we like being scared). And yet, when the weather cooperates and casts a pallor of gloom around me, you will be sure to find me in a dimly lit room (candles if I can) devouring as much Lovecraft and other “masters” as I can find. You might even be treated to an impromptu ghost story of my own creation.
So what am I writing when I write a horror story if I concede I will not scare anyone with it? If I am not writing to frighten, then what am I doing exactly? I’m still coming to grips with why I read, but it seems to me, from my perspective only, horror literature isn’t about fright and terror in the reader’s psyche, it’s about something else, something I can’t put my claw finger on.
Allow me to put my theology cap on. My demonology isn’t all that refined as that was not actually covered with anything more than a passing reference in my course of study, but I do know a few things. For one I know demons masquerade as angels of light; I also know Satan’s goal is to gain worshippers of his own, not necessarily to destroy, to create chaos, to corrupt into gross acts of sin against God (though I cannot deny that he might approve of such tactics; see Job). Is it so hard to believe that a person would cooperate with an angelic figure who merely wanted their worship? Then is it so hard to imagine that a person who might have sold his soul to the devil might not be a dark and sinister man?
Go forth and write. I know of few characters who made a pact like this, but it seems far more likely than the usual means of making a contract with demons and the devil. And no, I have no ideas how one might actually go about contacting a demon in order to make this contract in the first place, I’m assuming it will happen by chance when least expected, and it will seem pleasant and beneficial.
I was talking with my sweet little missus last night, inundating her with all kinds of conjecture, ideas, and much conversation. I fear the poor little woman couldn’t get a word in edgewise (note to self: refuse all future “energy drinks”). Somewhere in the middle of the rabbit-trail like conversation I hit upon a series of “What if” questions that sparked my writer’s imagination.
What if there was a genie who granted his master some wishes, in return for praise and public acknowledgment? What if there was a succubus who visited a young man in the night and granted his desires (though maybe not herself, but just arranged it). What if there were supernatural beings who desired worship and adoration and had it within their power to perform “miracles” (i.e. demons)?
What if the seminal genie was a demon? In exchange for some wishes he got praise and it has lasted the test of time, we still talk about genies. What if a great number of these type of mythical beings are based off of some pact made with the devil or a demon? Seems plausible enough to me for at least one or two stories.
I love living on the West Coast of the good ‘ol U. S. of A. I especially love living in the western part of Oregon where the weather is mild and the Pacific Ocean is just an hour’s drive away. If I were an anthropologist or a sociologist I might be able to give some sort of authoritative treatise on how the West Coast is different from the rest of the nation, and from the rest of the world (though it would be even more interesting to know what areas of the globe the West Coast culture is like). Alas I am but a poor Bible scholar cum author (seasoned with computer programming) so I’ll have to just conjecture and blather on.
Recently I’ve decided to try my hand at writing a gothic tale. Think Walpole meets Poe and you’ve got an idea of the tone I’m aiming for. I think I’ll have a good time with it, and I might actually write a story I would love to read. There is a bit of a problem though … I don’t have exposure to anything approaching gothic. Out here if a building is more than 100 years old its either a dilapidated barn or a farmhouse, and I don’t find those particularly haunting, chilling, nor gothic (though how odd would it be to have a barn with flying buttresses and gargoyles?).
I went “back East” once, when I was a child, to tour some of our great American points of interest, namely Revolutionary War locations, Civil War locations, and D.C. I didn’t go there on a writer’s holiday, so I fear my impressions are biased and skewed based on the historical nature of the visit. However, I do know there were a number of buildings, locations, and narrow streets that are a result of the original colonies. There are features of the landscape and architecture that are impacted from 200 years past. I know this is even more true in Europe.
So I’m trying to write a gothic story, and to get the feel and flavor I want I can’t just take a stroll downtown like Poe or Lovecraft might have been able to do. I’ll have to dig around picture books, troll the Internet for pictures and videos, and generally rely on not being there and creating a composite world for my story. So, can an Oregonian write a gothic tale that doesn’t involve a haunted barn? We’ll see.