Scary Things

 By Thomas Kies

Halloween is tomorrow so you know I’ve got to talk about scary things.  Things that go bump in the night.  Sounds in the attic, doors that open and close by themselves, children laughing in the darkness…where there are no children.

Things that make the hair on the back of your neck bristle and wake you up in the middle of the night. 

I cut our cable service years ago.  We still get our internet through that same company because they have a monopoly in our market and that’s REALLY scary.  Those bloodsucking ghouls raise the price every six months or so.  Why?  Because they can. 

So, we have a Roku stick and we stream everything.  Since the beginning of October, all the streaming services have been serving up a panoply of horror movies.  Some are classics, like Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead, Alien, Rosemary’s Baby, the Shining, Carrie, Halloween, and Nosferatu. 

I’ve been watching some newer horror that includes a limited series on Netflix called the Fall of the House of Usher. It’s an interesting blend of Succession and King Lear with a mashup of many of the works of Edgar Allan Poe.  

Why do we love scary movies, television shows, and books so much?  When faced with danger, we experience the “fight or flight” response, an autonomic physiological reaction to being exposed to something that is perceived as being stressful or frightening.  It’s a dose of adrenaline. It’s a rush.  It’s exciting if you know the danger isn’t real.  

There’s a safety net. If it becomes too much for you, you know that you can leave the theater, turn off the television or change the channel, or you can close the book.  

Part of the allure of scary films and literature is human curiosity.  We want to know what lurks in that cave, the basement, the attic, or the abandoned insane asylum. We want to follow a character as he or she goes somewhere that you’re secretly shouting in your head, “Don’t go down there, you fool!.  Damn, you’re too stupid to live.”

But we can go down there, because we know it’s not real.  Or is it?

Since this is a writing blog, let me give you some of my favorite scary books:

Of course, there’s nobody who writes horror the way Stephen King does.  And it’s difficult to just name a couple of his novels but my favorites are It, the Stand, and Salem’s Lot.  That last book?  After reading it, I couldn’t go into our basement for months.  Shudder.

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice, a modern classic.  It was a brilliant slant on the overwritten vampire trope. 

Speaking of which, the original and still the best—Dracula by Bram Stoker.  Sheer Gothic terror that’s been written, rewritten, and retold innumerable times.  But the best is still the original. 

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.  Sure, you’ve seen the movie, and yes, it’s one of the most frightening films of all time.  But scarier still?  Read the novel. 

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.  Two young boys meet the malevolent Mr. Dark at a carnival.  This was more significant for me because one of my jobs when I was in college was working as a carnie.  Scary, weird, and ironically comical.  Someday I may incorporate all of that into my own book. 

By the way, another excellent book set in a carnival is Stephen King’s Joyland.  The blurb on the cover reads, “Who dares enter the Funhouse of Fear?”

Who indeed? Happy Halloween everyone!  www.thomaskiesauthor.com

The importance of advance readers’ questions

How do we know if a story will work?

Isn’t that the central question, the one that keeps writers up at night? Will my story hold water? Will the story present a unified, play-fair plot that satisfies readers?

I know these questions keep me up at night.

Have I given readers a satisfying plot that at once challenges yet is logical in its base premise?

Edgar Allan Poe, in 1841, wrote “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the first mystery, and as the introduction, which goes on for two pages (get to the hook, man!), states, it will offer a new genre, a “chess game,” a “mental discourse.” Scholars Deane Mansfield-Kelley and Lois Marchino write that the story also provides the “Five Rules of Detective Fiction” (Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction):

1. There must be a crime, preferably murder, because it fascinates readers more than any other crime and offers multiple ways to be committed.
2. There must be a detective, someone with superior powers of inductive and deductive reasoning, who is capable of solving a crime that baffles the official police system.
3. The police must be seen as incompetent or incapable of solving such a complex crime.
4. Readers must be given all necessary clues/information to solve the crime, if the information is properly interpreted.
5. The detective must explain who the criminal is and the motive, means, and opportunity by the conclusion of the story.

And, of course, Raymond Chandler, in his list of “Ten Commandments,” reminds us that the story “must be credibly motivated, both as to the original situation and the dénouement,” “the solution must seem inevitable once revealed,” according to The Book of Literary Lists (QTD in The Thrilling Detective).

Both Poe and Chandler were concerned with plot, albeit a century apart.

I’m receiving feedback on a novel this week, all of it valuable. But the questions advance readers ask always provide essential feedback because it leads me back to plot and/or clarity. In these questions, I see how the readers experienced the book. Their questions are never yes/no, even when they are. By that, I mean the answer to the question is rarely as important for me, the writer, as my personal follow-up question is: Why did they ask that question? I evaluate the reader’s experience of the book and try to deduce what led to the question.

I am lucky to have some close friends who will read anything I write. They approach the books from different career backgrounds and varied perspectives. What they have in common is that each is a serious reader. And the questions they ask give me pause and take me back to my overarching goal: to write a story that is complex without being confusing, that leaves readers satisfied. That means plot.

And, in the end, it means asking myself why readers asked the questions they did.

Christmas Lights and Second Drafts

Christmas is upon us –– the season of good cheer, good food and drink, and time spent with close friends and family. For me, it’s also a time to regroup: I’m between semesters and chipping away on the second draft of a novel.

No two writers work the same way, and finding one’s process is like discovering how to tie a tie: You can hear about how to do it, even see it done, but until you actually finish a novel, you might as well stand before the mirror and try to do it backwards. Some writers outline. (Jeffery Deaver gave a keynote address I heard saying he spends eight months writing the outline, three writing the book.) Others say writing is like driving at night –– you can see only as far as your headlights, writing and plotting as you go. Other writers fall somewhere in between.

Part of developing a writing process is knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I do well to focus on character and dialogue, aspects that have always come easily. I’m never going to plot like Dan Brown. It’s simply not in my DNA. Moreover, I believe all writers, to some degree, write what we read. I grew up on series novels –– Parker, MacDonald, Chandler, Grafton, Paretsky, Burke (both Jan and James Lee) –– and I have no real interest in writing one-and-dones, stand-alones. Character interests me. I want to learn more about their lives in the vein Michael Connelly describes in his essay “The Mystery of Mystery Writing”: “The mystery has evolved in recent decades to be as much an investigation of the investigator as an inquiry of the crime at hand. Investigators now look inward for the solutions and means of restoring order. In the content of their own character, they find the clues” (Walden Book Report, September, 1998). I like to have a large canvas when I’m creating the arc of a character, a canvas that might span several books. I enjoy following a character, see her grow and develop and take on new challenges, and I enjoy books whose ill deeds expose moral ambiguity. All of this means the human condition is front and center in my plots: people do things, then, for relatively simple reasons.

So as I near the halfway point in draft No. 2, I’m taking inventory. The characters have come to life and are, fingers crossed, consistent and believable. Ditto the setting. The plot, though, has to be reeled in, simplified. I’m always looking for a way to find a twist at the end while honoring Poe’s and Chandler’s mandates that a mystery not only play fair with readers but also conclude with all necessary clues being front and center, unlike real-world crimes where aspects of the case always go unexplained. But much like the box marked “Christmas Lights” in my garage, this storyline needs someone to untangle it, and like that box in the garage, no amount of money will get my kids to do it for me. That means cutting and adding –– eliminating some red herrings, punching up other characters’ roles.

In the end, all I really want for Christmas is to not face draft No. 3.

Happy holidays!

WHO NEEDS RULES?

“There are three rules for writing a novel," W. Somerset Maugham once quipped. “Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” Anyone who's set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) knows this to be true. However, that's never stopped members of the literati from offering advice in the form of "rules" to writers of crime fiction.

In 1841, with the publication of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allan Poe launched the detective fiction genre and established what is known as "Poe's Five Rules of Detective Fiction":

1. There must be a crime, preferably murder, because it fascinates readers more than any other crime and there appears to be an unlimited number of ways in which people can die.

2. There must be a detective, someone with superior inductive and deductive reasoning, who is capable of solving the crime that baffles the official police system.

3. The police must be seen as either incompetent or as incapable of solving a certain type of complex crime.

4. The reader must be given all the information or "clues" to be able to solve the crime if the "clues" are properly interpreted.

5. The detective must explain who the criminal is and the motive, means, and opportunity by the conclusion of the story.

It's interesting to consider works of crime-fiction, past and present -- both literary and cinematic presentations -- and discover most honor Poe's list, give or take a rule or two. When we think of literary adages that have withstood the test of time, the final lines of Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" stands out: "...down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man." You know the passage. You've read it before. You've probably even recited it to someone. I would argue, though, that, given the state of the contemporary crime-fiction novel where sleuths are more diverse and complex than ever, Poe's rules are more relevant than Chandler's musings.

Following Poe, in 1928, S.S. Van Dine offered his "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories" in the American Magazine. His advice includes, "There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better" (rule 7) and compared the genre to "a sporting event." I can't imagine what Poe would have thought of Van Dine's flippant portrayal of the genre. Several decades later, as part of the New York Times "Writers on Writing" series in 2001, Elmore Leonard wrote "Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle," his own list of ten rules that any writer is smart to follow. Where Van Dine is didactic and antiquated, Leonard is helpful and offers gems for contemplation.

However, for the contemporary writer of crime fiction (and our modern-day readers), Raymond Chandler's "Ten Commandments For the Detective Novel" remain helpful, interesting, and like all of Chandler's work, sparse enough to offer writers room to maneuver within his list and readers leeway to argue for or against the merits of any contemporary favorite.

1. It must be credibly motivated, both as to the original situation and the dénouement.
2. It must be technically sound as to the methods of murder and detection.
3. It must be realistic in character, setting and atmosphere. It must be about real people in a real world.
4. It must have a sound story value apart from the mystery element: i.e., the investigation itself must be an adventure worth reading.
5. It must have enough essential simplicity to be explained easily when the time comes.
6. It must baffle a reasonably intelligent reader.
7. The solution must seem inevitable once revealed.
8. It must not try to do everything at once. If it is a puzzle story operating in a rather cool, reasonable atmosphere, it cannot also be a violent adventure or a passionate romance.
9. It must punish the criminal in one way or another, not necessarily by operation of the law....If the detective fails to resolve the consequences of the crime, the story is an unresolved chord and leaves irritation behind it.
10. It must be honest with the reader.

Like everything Chandler wrote, this list is direct, thoughtful, and provides excellent fodder, most of it pertaining to plot and authorial credibility. Which rules still hold up? Take the last novel you read and see. I'd argue most rules will apply. It's an interesting list to view as an author. Admittedly, I have sinned against some of Chandler's commandments in my own works, but I like to think of Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, which, novel after novel, seems to uphold these "commandments" with the dedication of Mother Teresa.

In the end, what are we to make of lists and rules? Some argue rules only hold a genre back, imposing unnecessary (and/or antiquated) limitations to what the genre can achieve. Parker, after all, insisted he didn't write genre fiction and listed The Great Gatsby as the greatest crime novel. I say that where excellent literary criticism has the power to make a text more accessible for a larger reader base, our genre's lists and rules challenge us (as readers and writers) to examine works more closely while asking our best authors to at once write within these boundaries -- and to also stretch them to new limits.

*Originally appeared in The Strand, May 5, 2016

Genre-Sliding with Margaret Atwood in nEvermore! Tales of Murder, Mystery and the Macabre

Please welcome this weekend's guest blogger,  Caro Soles, a mystery maven of incomparable energy and talent. Caro is the founder of Bloody Words, Canada's biggest mystery convention, which finally closed in 2014. Her work includes four mysteries (one of which was short listed for a Lambda Literary Award), the sf series, THE MERCULIANS plus two short story collections and four novels under a nom de plume. She has edited several anthologies, the latest nEvermore! Tales of Murder, Mayhem and the Macabre, co-edited with Nancy Kilpatrick.

Learn more about Caro at http://www.carosoles.com

__________________

Every good story has a mystery curled up at its centre. This is not to say that every story is a mystery. I remember being impressed while reading an essay by Nicola Griffith who said that writing a genre novel, whether science fiction, fantasy, or mystery, distorts the shape of the story, unbalancing one or two of the elements to such an extent that the whole is literally pulled out of shape. Of course she said this far more elegantly than I, but that is the gist of how I remember it. I promptly imagined a beautiful round orange being squished and shoved until it literally went pear-shaped, as the Brits say. It went from being one thing to being another.

This calls to mind what one astute reviewer wrote about my first mystery novel, The Tangled Boy. If you take the murder out of the story, he wrote, you still have a story, only now it is a coming-of-age/coming out story. Although at the time I was, of course, outraged, gradually I saw that he was right. Now I see it is all about genre. What he meant was that I had not written a genre mystery. And he was right. Genre is all about emphasis. Are you concentrating on the crime? Is everything else secondary to this? The crime provides the main story line, and this shoves other elements out of alignment. Genre is also labeling, which is imperative in our current market-place. There is no label for just “good story”, and if there is no label, the publisher/bookseller, etc. has no idea how to sell the thing. Genre stories have to be pear-shaped.

Back in the days of Edgar Allan Poe, and to a lesser extent the days of my childhood, (Note: These were not the same days) there was no such concept as genre. Poe wrote everything. And that was what Nancy Kilpatrick and I were looking for in stories for nEvermore!, our Poe-inspired anthology. To get what we wanted, we contacted writers well known in different genres, from literary to fantasy, to mystery, to outright horror, and invited them to genre-slide. Could they do it? They all professed enthusiasm for the idea. For Margaret Atwood it was easy. She does this all the time. Others could reflect the Poe influence by writing pretty much in their familiar arena. The mystery crew, all from different categories of crime writing, took a bit of nudging to slide out of the more rigid structure needed for mysteries but they all came through in the end with flying colours. All of the stories are inspired in some way by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Some authors came through with a modern take on a familiar story, sometimes obvious, sometimes more subtle. Other writers went with atmosphere and themes. Still others played with style. No matter how they did it, they all went a little pear-shaped for nEvermore! Tales of Mystery, Murder and the Macabre.

How successful were they? Publishers' Weekly has already called the anthology "Eclectic and delightful...a cache of worthy tributes...". The ebook is already out on Amazon, and will be available in October from all other ebook dealers. In Canada, the print version of nEvermore! hits the bookshelves in September. Pick up your copy and slide along with us! Try it. You'll like it! If you are in any of these places, drop by and say hello! 

Sellers & Newel - Toronto- Sept 24, 6 - 8
Sleuth of Baker Street - Toronto - Sept 26, at 2 - 4
Word on the Street -Toronto - Sept 27
Edgar Allan Poe Museum -Richmond, VA - Oct 7, at 6 - 9pm
Bouchercon - Raleigh, NC - Oct 8 - 11
Horror-rama - Toronto - Oct 17 - 18
Paragraphe - Montreal - Nov. 3, at 6 pm
World Fantasy Con - Saratoga Springs, N.Y. - Nov 5 - 8
Dark Delicacies Bookstore, Los Angeles, CA - Dec 5

Been There, Going Where?

Frankie, here. Finally, getting a chance to sit down at the keyboard. This week has been busy, and that brings me to my topic for today's post.

Yesterday, I was a guest lecturer for a series on genre fiction being offered at a local college. The attendees were all adults who were there because they were interested in the topic. I had two hours, and I decided to focus on the evolution of crime fiction and how that overlapped with the evolution of the criminal justice system. I started with our friend Edgar -- Poe, that is -- the "father of the mystery short story". I talked about his contributions to crime fiction as a genre -- from the brilliant, but eccentric, detective and his narrator to "hide in plain sight".  I told them about "The Mystery of Marie Roget," his fictional detective's investigation of the real-life murder of Mary Rogers, "the beautiful cigar girl" using accounts found in the "penny press".

I followed the evolution of crime fiction from Poe to Doyle to the "Golden Age" writers. I used Chandler's The Simple Art of Murder to move from country houses to "mean streets." I paused to discuss the real-life Ruth Snyder-Judd Gray murder case and what James M. Cain did with that case in Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice and how that influenced film noir. I moved on to the birth of police procedurals, and then to the impact of the Civil Rights movement and women's rights movement on crime fiction in the 1960s and after. I ended with the rise of the thriller. Along the way, I talked about crime fiction and theories of crime, the FBI, and modern forensics.

I packed a lot into those two hours. After my whirlwind tour through the evolution of crime fiction, I turned to writers and the changing industry. We've talked about the challenges here on Type-M and they come up during panel discussions at any writers conference. The challenges include finding an agent, finding a publisher, keeping a publisher. With new technology, we have to decide whether to continue with our efforts to traditionally publish or consider self/independent publishing or maybe become a hybrid. We worry about creating our "writer's platform" and then how much time to devote to maintaining it and making sure that all of our parts (website, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are all working together to ensure we reach a maximum audience. We worry about the time social media takes away from our writing. We think about how diversity and multiculturalism -- now being discussed -- affects us and the characters we create.

My audience was make up of people who read mysteries. They recognized the writers and titles I mentioned. And -- in case you're interested -- when I asked about use of social media, only 3 or 4 people out of an audience of around 50 said they use Twitter. On the other hand, I know some readers have found me on Twitter when a reviewer tweeted a link or a blogger mentioned my guest post. Something to ponder.

But, right now, I've got to run.