Structure in paranormal thrillers

I went looking for a decent monster movie.

That's a tall order, unfortunately. A lot of monster movies are action- and horror-formula killfests with precious little introspection. To make matters worse, I didn't want alien monsters or scientifically created monsters. I wanted magical ones. Cryptozoology, if you prefer. Which shortened the list even further.

I wanted something to prod me into thinking about how people react when confronted with something they've long believed was mythical. Aside from reaching for a weapon, that is.

Out of necessity, I started moving toward what might be more accurately called paranormal thrillers. They were more thoughtful and more focused on the characters. I also started to notice structural similarities.

1. Gadgetry & denial: The main character arrives in a state of denial. Science is called in to explain the initial situation. Gadgets are deployed, tech-speak is thrown around, and surely science will save the day. 
2. Facile solution: Spooky things happen. A rational answer is found. The question seems to be resolved. We're done here, right?
3. The hook: No, we're not done. Something inexplicable happens that touches on the character's tragic past. More on this later.
4. Confrontation/Acceptance: Science and logic are abandoned. The main character starts reacting emotionally and/or intuitively, and the paranormal reveals itself. As a result, the character relives the past trauma and changes internally.
5. Fallout: Objective reached, the paranormal withdraws or is conquered. The main character has to deal with the emotional and practical consequences. 

Best of the three, IMO

The one thing I particularly noticed about the three pretty-good paranormal thrillers that I watched -- The Awakening, The Mothman Prophecies, and Oculus -- is that the main character in each is wrestling with the death of a loved one(s). Central to the paranormal revelation is the ending of the grieving process in which the character has been "stuck" for however long.

Interesting that being touched by death seems to be a prerequisite for being able to properly confront the paranormal. Having to face our helplessness against death preps us, perhaps, to face something else that's outside our control and understanding: the paranormal. Something which science can only do so much to stop. So in a way, stories about the paranormal are be stories about helplessness... which can be terrifying.

Naturally, having seen a pattern in these stories, I want to mess with the pattern. My character has already faced the death of a loved one (this is a sequel story) so he already partly fits the mold. I had not thought about this story in terms of his grieving process, though.

So maybe I succeeded in prodding my brain despite the deck being stacked with awful B-movie fodder.

Seen any good paranormal thrillers recently?

Problematic horrors

Innocence and isolation
I've heard it said that the cornerstones of horror are innocence and isolation. The innocence aspect is supposed to encourage audience sympathy, but personally? I know I'm no innocent and I'm not invested in protecting innocence the way, say, a parent might be.

It seems to me the "innocence" aspect leads to a tendency of horror being inflicted on somebody just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time: they moved into a haunted house, their car broke down in the boonies, etc. I have never found that particularly compelling because the story is not about the characters, it's about a series of horrible things that happened.

Isolation can be physical, social, or psychological and ensures that the hero/ine faces the enemy alone. Often, they are outgunned by the villain(s) as well. This can lead to Bambi vs Godzilla syndrome, in my opinion, and solutions being handed down by the god in the machine (the author). Those aren't satisfying endings, since the heroine did not "earn" anything in the story.

This may be why I'm not a fan of horror -- on top of any additional writing problems manifesting in bad dialogue, illogical plot lines, and cardboard characters. Horror is as prone to those problems as any genre. Or perhaps it would be more fair to say that any genre is as prone to that as horror is.

A proverbial virgin being chased by a serial killer, or haunted by the angry ghost of some old house? That's just a cosmic misunderstanding. An oversized pain in the ass.

Darkness
In my opinion, a dab of gore will do ya in most situations. If you've read my stories you know I'm willing to get explicit and horrible when the characters are willing to do that. Horror as a genre is a different beast, though. I'm treading closer to it than usual in my current WIP, which is turning out to be a dark fantasy.

What makes the story dark, in my opinion, is not the gruesome things that happen but why those gruesome things happen. It's also the hero's temptation to let those whys infiltrate him and lead him to begin inflicting horrors himself. The drama of resisting corruption has a particular attraction to me.

If you were going to write a horror story, how would you make it compelling to yourself? What makes you shudder?

Power of Tension Blogfest

Check out the Power of Tension Blogfest at Cally Jackson Writes and Rachel Morgan Writes! I'm entering an excerpt from the middle of my hard SF/horror short story "The Rookery":


Danika pointed to something in the wall, looking at me pointedly over her shoulder. I recognized the crescent shape, the smooth bit of dome. Portion of an eye socket and skull. Human. And then we heard the noise and she snapped the bolt rifle up, ready.

I know. Hard vacuum. Sound’s impossible. Past the end of the wall and the opening it created, a hallway led off the great room toward a lonely emergency light by the airlock. Then a shadow moved in the light cast by the opening, and the noise started again.

A series of clicks, followed by a chorus of soft, crooning calls. Kee-ah, kee-ah. Two clicks, and the crooning stopped. Danika touched the stone with one hand and glided slowly toward the end of the wall. Her toes dragged, bringing her to a stop as she peeked around the corner, over the rifle’s sights.

“Payge,” she whispered over the intercom, “see where the hall is, there?” Indicated the next emergency light. “Gap’s about two meters. Come up here and on my mark, go. Don’t look, just go.”

Claire shot me a wide-eyed look. I crept alongside Danika and gathered up my feet underneath me, waited. When her hand moved, I kicked hard and shot across the gap between the brown wall and the stone hallway the ‘steaders had cut. I couldn’t help it, I looked as I went.

Too much to see in the second I saw it: a mass of slithering limbs, three small bat-winged flyers eagerly hopping and flapping, their reptilian, toothed jaws open in anticipation. Their tentacled master held a treat just out of their reach: a human arm, torn off at the shoulder.

Feedback welcome!

Got the Made of Awesome blogfest starting Friday too!

Book report: Quest for Cthulhu by August Derleth

Linky: The Quest for Cthulhu (Carroll & Graf Science Fiction)

This was a homework assignment, for me, for the short story I recently finished. The volume contains both Mask of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu. I had been reading Robert Bloch's Mysteries of the Worm when this book arrived, and the first few stories were more of the "my friend/relative got himself into trouble and by trying to help I got sucked in" variety (very prevalent in Bloch's stories too) so I cut straight to the second half where the info I was looking for (on byakhee) was.

Some people don't like the direction that Derleth took the Mythos in. I don't know what their exact objections are, but I think I can guess a few. He puts the struggle of the Great Old Ones and the Elder gods on a direct parallel to Satan and God, which is... simple. Kinda obvious. The idea of infighting among the Great Old Ones and their followers works, though I'm not clear on why Hastur would be preferable over Cthulhu.

And then there's all the work his characters put into destroying various portals and otherwise thwarting plans. I'm generally in favor of fighting back rather than lying around in the grips of despair, but is any of this supposed to seriously impede a being like Cthulhu?

Although it's grouped into two "books" this is really a single anthology of short stories. And because they were written and published as shorts, there is a lot of reiteration of exposition in each story. A lot. The stories also are generally short on characterization and coming up with new things to do.

That being said, I think "The Keeper of the Key" was the best of the lot, insofar as going to new places and doing new things. It's a book to eat in small bites, with a long break between stories.

Last night I wrote a dark scene. The last in a series of dark scenes.

I write to self-medicate. Maybe self-therapy would be more accurate. Some people say they write because they can't find stories they like on the bookstore shelves; I am not one of these people. I write to vent. Though I suppose it's an obscure and complicated way to vent.

I inflict my suffering on others. It's okay, though -- they don't exist. Can't file charges.

What's different about this time is that I tied the story to an established set of anxieties rather than letting the anxieties force out the story. Important shift, mentally.

Either way, I'm glad the story is done. It's my first attempt at horror, and it wasn't fun to spend so much time in a dark place.