Visions of the Dark

Not only do I dabble in writing and visual art, I also compose and play music. I have been playing guitar since high school (that would be the 80’s). I’ve also studied composition for many years and have had pieces performed by classical guitarists and string quartets. My latest undertaking has been composing and arranging a cinematic album of dark music about Abdul Alhazred’s life and his life’s work – the dreaded Necronomicon (originally called Al Azif in his native tongue).

It’s difficult to point to any one influence that was the seed of my horror interest. There were movies, T.V., music, books, stories, even games like Dungeons and Dragons. Whatever the case, I gravitated to short horror and weird stories as a staple in my reading. The earliest story that sticks in my mind is a story called All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury. I read this story in 6th grade as part of a reading program in our school. While I probably read dozens of short stories that year as part of this program, this is the only story that I remember. It is a story about a class of school children who have grown up on Venus where it has rained continuously their entire lives. But one day the scientists predict that the sun will come out. The kids are excited to the extreme because they have never experienced the sun before. But there is one little girl who is unpopular and the children play a prank on the girl by locking her in the closet. The teacher comes in and tells the children that it’s time to hurry up and go outside so they can enjoy the brief time the sun will be out. The children, in their excitement, forget about the girl in the closet and go out to enjoy an hour’s worth of sunshine. When they return to the classroom they remember the girl in the closet. This story, while not really a true horror story, possesses an element of cruelty and sadness that had a lasting effect on me.

My dad had the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe and it was this book that was the real cause for me to start writing short horror stories. It wasn’t just Poe’s stories, either. I also became fascinated with his life as well. From Poe I gravitated to Lovecraft and then on to all the staples of the short horror genre. I must mention that I am a voracious bibliophile and my reading interests include: eastern and western philosophy, history, science, martial arts, music, eastern and western religion, poetry, classic literature, fantasy, as well as horror. Well, I used to read short horror rather haphazardly until it got to the point where I couldn’t keep track of whether or not I had read a story. So, about two or three years ago I started re-reading all the short horror in my collection and logging the titles along with a rating of the story. So far I have logged over 1200 stories from every name you can think of (although, I have to say that the majority comprise established authors). From this list my obvious favorites are: Bierce, Blackwood, Poe, Lovecraft, M.R. James, E.F. Benson, F. Marion Crawford, H.G. Wells, Bradbury, Robert Bloch, King, and William Hope Hodgson.

My own writing is directly influenced by the writing of these authors although I do bring my own style and ideas to the genre. For example, just like the majority of King and Lovecraft stories take place in the New England environs they were accustomed to, many of my stories take place in Alabama. One of the things I have “invented” comes from a standard classical music theme – the sonata. The typical sonata has evolved into a three-part composition that has a pattern of: moderately fast – slow – fast. This works great in music and the slow part serves to balance the fast parts on both sides. But a horror story has a different dynamic altogether. A short horror story should steadily build in tension until it ends with a Bang! So I developed the three-part short horror story. Its parts go: mild tension – moderate tension – maximum tension. Here is an example of this device from my story The Sacred Burial Ground. In part one, the mild tension part, the two main characters attend a Native American festival where an old storyteller relates the story of an old burial ground and this triggers one of the characters into remembering their grandfather telling the same story except he told of the burial ground being disturbed and releasing a curse. He thinks he knows where the place is and so the two decide to go and see if they can find it. The second part finds the two guys venturing into the sacred burial ground by the light of day and something happens that frightens them to the point of fleeing the place. After returning to safety they muse what the place must be like at night and agree that it is something they swear will never happen. The third part builds to maximum tension by placing the two back in the burial ground, not just at night, but also in the middle of a thunderstorm (I only outlined the sketchiest of details of this story so as not to spoil the plot). I have used this device in several stories and it seems to be a good formula for both plot development and length of story.

For Christmas my wife got me a three-book set by S.T. Joshi – The Weird Tale, The Modern Weird Tale, and The Evolution of the Weird Tale. I haven’t gotten very far in The Weird Tale but I’ve read enough to spur my thinking about a couple of topics. The first is about the term weird tale to describe a type of short story. I’ve always had a problem with the term. One reason is because of the eponymous magazine where many of the authors who are identified with the genre published their stories. By calling a story a weird tale it automatically makes me think of the magazine. Another reason that I don’t really care for it is because it seems to be such a huge umbrella term. For me, I like short stories that aim to convey horror and think that horror short stories belong in a different category than stories that aim to convey fantastic or strange worlds. For example, Lovecraft wrote many stories that are sometimes referred to as his “dream cycle” stories and I really don’t like them. I think they are very different in style from his horror stories. So as I’m reading about Lord Dunsany I’m wondering if his being classified as a weird tale writer makes him a writer of horror or a writer of fantasy. I get the impression that his aim was for fantasy and not horror. But the usage of weird tale has been co-opted to be synonymous with short horror story. At least I believe that to be the case.

The other thing that got me thinking was that Joshi says that by understanding an authors philosophy, you can understand their writing. This may be true for some but not for all. When I write a short horror story I’m not trying to make a philosophical statement. I’m a pantheist who detests religion and believes that there is no God or Satan as depicted in Western Religion. But I use the archetypes to portray a battle of Good vs. Evil in my stories. I don’t believe in ghosts but I’ll write ghost stories. I suppose that if I were to try and express my philosophy in a horror story it would be similar to Lovecraft’s portrayal of a world where humans encounter alien forces that either perceive them as minor beings (as we would a bug) or they don’t even perceive them at all. Except where Lovecraft was atheist, I would try and show that there is no true good or evil from the global perspective. God – or the Universe – evolves as it wills without any concern for kindness or compassion to the tiny beings that are spawned within.

Then I started thinking that if someone were to try and psychoanalyze me based on my horror stories, what sort of themes run through them? This is very telling in way I never noticed till I did this. There are two main themes that I explore in my stories: possession and curse. Virtually every one of my stories involves some type of curse or some sort of possession by malevolent force. I’ll refrain for now from delving too deep into the meaning of these two themes.

Inevitably, when people find out just how deep my interest in reading and writing short horror stories goes, they ask, “Why are you so interested in short horror stories?”

The underlying message usually being that it is 1) a bit abnormal to be so fascinated with something that has a stigma of the darker side of human nature, and 2) that short horror stories are an inferior and baser form than, say, horror movies and horror novels.

Of course, I would like to explain and hopefully dispel these misconceptions a bit.  More importantly, I would hope to expand the reader’s understanding of the many intriguing facets of the art of crafting a truly good short horror story.  Call it “Short Horror Appreciation 101”.  Who knows, maybe the reader will even look at short horror stories in a new light and appreciate them the way I do.

I must first address the issue of the sinister, dark, ugly, and evil side of our world and just why it is that the subject matter of so much horror stories explores this taboo region of our reality.  For the dark is, in the end, a natural part of our reality no matter our level of disdain or fascination.

In philosophy and religion the debate rages on concerning the fundamental nature of good and evil and how they influence our morals and lives.  The view that good and evil exists as independent forces outside of any sentient, intelligent being is the foundation of many beliefs and belief systems.  It provides the backbone of religion and the existence of the moral law.  However, the arguments against such an independent existence of these forces are much stronger and closer to what science has revealed about the inner workings of nature.

My personal belief is that good and evil are largely creations of the relationships of individuals and societies and rests in the nature of intelligent beings struggling to understand their place in the cosmos.  No person is wholly good or wholly evil.  Every person possesses the capacity of both within their nature just as the cosmos possesses the potential of both to arise within itself.  We are mirrors of the cosmos and express the same processes on a more microscopic level.

Therefore, it is completely natural for humans to explore their nature and since the dark nature is a part of that, it follows that humans will always be compelled to explore their darker nature just as they shall always explore the good.  This is evident everywhere in society and expresses itself on many levels across a broad spectrum.  Our curiosity is bent in this direction through the media, our entertainment, in businesses, in sports, in our religions, and on and on.  After all, most great stories are incomplete without the tension created by the villain.

Many religious people warn that such explorations lead, inexorably, to a possession by evil forces.  While they are entitled to their beliefs, I find these beliefs childish and ignorant.  Arguments as to how I can prove this would entail a whole other essay.  Let me just say that I don’t believe in Heaven, Hell, Satan, the God of the Bible, angels, demons, or any such similar fanciful mythologies.

I do believe that there are dangers in being wholly obsessed with just evil and leading or justifying a decadent and immoral life.  But reading and writing short horror stories is just an outlet for the expression of the darker side of our nature.  It is the same as listening to music, watching movies, or playing video games where you temporarily escape into a fantasy realm.

If these things really caused people to be evil then we would expect to see everyone who played Doom to be gun wielding maniacs, everyone who had read Misery to be crazed torturers, and everyone who listened to Black Sabbath to be swelling the ranks of Satanic churches across the globe.  These things may be influences on people bent on doing evil but they are definitely not causes of evil.  Conversely, if exposure to goodness and religion were guarantees of a person being good then we wouldn’t see priests raping young boys or evangelists lying about their sexual deviance.

As to the view that short horror stories are a lesser art form than other styles of writing or other forms of horror, I hold the opinion that it is a very unique art form when executed well.  Unfortunately, in the current marketplace, it is neither popular nor frequently executed well.

Most authors feel and succumb to the pressure to write novel length works in order to gain attention.  There just isn’t a market for anthologies of short horror stories by individual authors, so the publishers push authors to write novels.

This is fine but another problem has arisen in the pulp style, trade magazines because of this.  It used to be that magazines were the place that featured short stories as the ends and means of themselves.  But now, the magazines are just a place to prostitute the author trying to sell their novel.  The authors generally churn out a sub-par short story so they can market their novel in the introductory blurb to the story.

Judged on the merits of the short story alone, they fall far short of the benchmark set by such luminaries as Poe, Lovecraft, Bierce, Blackwood, and James.  Oft times the most horrible thing about their story is the plot.

Horror’s goal is to elicit feelings of fear in the reader.  Fear is a very powerful emotion that causes very tangible physiological and psychological reactions.  It is this goal that must be in the forefront of the author’s mind as he or she writes.

Of course, there are many tools at the author’s disposal with which to accomplish this task:  atmosphere, plot, language, word usage, imagery, tempo, situation, character development, the list goes on and on.

What makes the short horror story unique, however, is that it is a perfect vehicle for tension that rises and rises until the end of the story – whether or not the end releases the tension or only serves to leave the tension unresolved.  Usually, the story can be read at one or two sittings whereas a novel has a tougher time sustaining this type of continually rising tension (although there are some exceptions).

A novel is generally better suited for character development because there is more space and time to create a bond with the character.  Horror movies share the shortness of the short horror story and have an added benefit of direct imagery.  Some think this to be better but it isn’t always the case.  Many readers have quite inventive imaginations and their interpretations are varied and more terrifying than a movie might portray.

The area where a short horror story is better than a movie is in the psychological realm.  Movies just can’t relay the thoughts in a character’s head as well as a first or third person narrator.  A movie draws the viewer’s attention primarily to visual things and reading draws the reader’s attention to primarily whatever the author deems necessary at the time to making the story successful.

All of my preaching from atop my soapbox is fine and good but the real proof is in the pudding.  After quite extensive reading of hundreds and hundreds of short horror stories I can point to a whole slew of stories where the author fully grasped the keys to creating a truly successful short horror story that can stand alone as a true work of art that both explores the dark side of our nature and creates a very real sense of fear in the reader.