When the machines are stilled and the afternoon air tastes of salt, you can slice through the silence and swim deep, into the deeper silence of the sea, provided you have the necessary books!

You will need two books that feel as soft as well worn coins, with the story bobbing up in between. You will need to squat on your haunches and forget where you were; soon your mind will paddle forth into an experience that is like sea water in your mouth; your hair redolent of ocean…

I thought I had begun to tire of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, old master writer that he is. I had read too much of him and could not shake the feeling off between one book and the next.

 He writes too much and always of love I felt. There was only so much I could consume of the rich platters of sensuous prose, mostly revolving around sensual lives. Nobel Laureate that Marquez is, he has mostly if not only, written about love, the physical aspects of love. But this was before I drifted into a Landmark Bookstore, because that is the only place in a Mall I can tolerate being for longer than an hour. This was before I nibbled on the back covers and random pages of books that I would not buy at that store and chanced upon a slim volume, “GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ – The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor.

One hundred and six pages long. As much a novella as another Nobel laureate – Earnest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Both books had a sailing man pitted against the sea, a tough protagonist. Both had fish in it, big fish. Both had despair and hope; both had the men fighting with the last of their strength. Both ended on the shore. Both were written in tight journalistic prose. And both were such differently eclectic reading experiences!

In The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, Marquez moves away from his usual lush and luscious prose; he adopts a more a clipped journalistic style, as if he wanted to cut away everything but the sailor’s most stark experience of the sea. The story line is straight forward, like the writing. In this story Marquez takes the true life experience of a shipwrecked sailor and makes it his own.

 A sailor, Velasco, falls into the ocean during a bad storm. He does not realise that he has fallen until he tries to surface and finds nothing but ocean all around him and then in the distance he sees the destroyer plunge into an abyss. The cargo from the destroyer float up and Velasco tries to keep himself afloat by grabbing one after the other. Bobbing in the ocean he sees the two rafts that have also fallen over board or been thrown overboard. He sees three of his colleagues struggling in the ocean; none of them can board either of the rafts. Velasco finally hauls himself into one of the rafts and thus manages to save himself. The ship is no longer visible.  The waves are choppy and despite his best efforts he cannot save his friends. Velasco finds himself  completely alone in the raft; alone with his possessions – his watch which keeps perfect time, a gold ring on his finger, a chain with a medallion of the Virgin of Carmen, his keys to his locker in the destroyer, three business cards that a shop had given him in Mobile (the place from where he got his destroyer assignment) and the clothes on his back and shoes. Thus begins Velasco’s ten day adventure in the Caribbean Sea, during which time he almost starves to death, tries to catch fish, is encircled by sharks, tries to catch and eat an albatross and does all he can not to let his body die. His ordeal ends when he is finally washed ashore in a coastal village in Colombia, rescued and becomes a celebrity.   The story moves like an epic, the lone warrior’s battle with the ocean shimmering against a great wall of sea water. Marquez is at his poetic best in this sparsely worded yet loaded with imagery novella.

The same is exactly true about Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Except that we expect Hemingway to write sparse journalistic prose. Except that in this less than hundred pages long, almost like a long story, novella Hemingway scaled poetic heights never reached before by him.  Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, The Old Man and the Sea tells the epic ordeal of Santiago and his battle with an unusually large Marlin, the little boy who does not lose faith in him, the unrelenting sea, sharks and of course the Marlin that puts up a fight like a true warrior.  From the very first line of this story – ” He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.” – right up to the concluding sentences - ” Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.” – Hemingway’s prose keeps his readers’ hearts taut, and when you finally emerge from it, it takes you a few minutes to get a bearing of your physical surroundings.

When I first read The Old Man and the Sea, I was convinced that should I ever live a castaway’s life (and in those days I mostly dreamed of living like Robinson Crusoe) I would cast myself away with a few chosen books and Hemingway’s book would be the first in my satchel bound library, to be read and read for the rest of my castaway life! Now of course I know that Marquez’s book Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor is an equal contender!

Previously published at Rumjhum Biswas’ blog,  Writers & Writerisms

 

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Rumjhum Biswas lives at the edge of the sun toasted city of Chennai, in a corner where migratory birds cruise the sky above the din of a burgeoning IT hub and an ancient temple dips its toes into a not so ancient mini lake. Her writing life will hibernate while she gets used to this new life.

As a Suffolk County Police Officer for more than two decades, I am used to writing “just the facts.” When I retired to spend more time with my family after having survived breast cancer, I wanted to pursue my dream of writing full-time. In addition to writing a true crime memoir, I have tried my hand at hint fiction, flash fiction, essays, short stories, and blog writing. I joined the NY/TriState chapter of Sisters in Crime and the Public Safety Writers Association and have attended several writing conferences. 

 Since retiring, I’ve read extensively, attended classes and workshops to learn more about writing. Along the way, I’ve picked up some tidbits from the masters. 

 P.D. James believes, “There could be no better apprenticeship for an aspiring novelist than a classical detective story, with its technical problems of balancing a credible mystery with believable characters and a setting which both complements and integrates the action.”

She also said,  “The construction of a detective story might be formulaic — the writing need not be.” On P.D. James’ website, she offers “Mystery Writing Lessons.”

Earlier this year, I joined the Short Mystery Fiction Society, an e-mail discussion group, consisting of “writers, readers, fans, editors and publishers of mystery and crime fiction from all around the globe.” The e-mail discussion is filled with solid advice.  Another helpful group, of course, is the Mystery Writers of America.

Robert B. Parker’s advice on writing and submitting a mystery novel? “Write it and send it in.” 

In the craft of writing a mystery, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote in 1936 that detectives must “display their clues to the readers as soon as they have picked them up,” and not saving them until the finale. It has been the test of quality for the modern detective story. 

Mickey Spillane said, “Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it’s a letdown, they won’t buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.” For a list of works on writing mysteries, check out thrillingdetective.com.

James Lincoln Warren offers craft advice in “The Art of the Short Story” on Criminal Brief: The Mystery Short Story Weblog Project.

Hopefully it won’t take as long, but Sue Grafton said, “I spent the first twenty years of my writing career preparing for the mystery genre, which is my favorite literary form.” 

I can compress the two biggest pieces of advice Stephen King offers in his memoir, On Writing: “Read and write.”

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Kathleen A. Ryan‘s, “Playing with Matches” appears in the forthcoming W.W. Norton’s Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, edited by Robert Swartwood. She has won Flash Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction Awards from the Public Safety Writers Association. She blogs at Women of Mystery and http://www.kathleenaryan.com. Her fiction has appeared online at: A Twist of Noir, Nanoism, Six Sentences, Six Word Stories, Misfit Salon, and 50-to-1 blogspot. Follow her on Twitter @katcop13.

You set writing goals for yourself at the beginning of each year, right? Right? Me, too. We’re more than halfway through 2010. How are you doing with your goals? Uh huh. That’s what I thought. This may be a good time to revisit and revise your writing goals, even if you are on track.

According to everything I’ve read, for goals to be effective they must meet three criteria. They must be measurable, meaningful, and attainable.

A good goal for me is “to write and submit two short stories each month.” It’s easily measured. It has meaning and is attainable. A bad goal is “to become a better writer.” How does one measure that? A better way to approach this is to set a series of goals that, if completed, will make one a better writer; such as “reading three articles or one book on writing each month,” or “completing two writing courses during the year,” or “write four days a week for a minimum of thirty minutes each day.” These goals are measurable, meaningful, and attainable.

An additional criteria might be that the goal must be realistic. “Write every day” is an example. What if I find this impossible to do because of work and family commitments? Does such a goal help me, or does it hinder my progress? If my goal isn’t realistic for me, I could waste more time obsessing over not reaching it than I spend with my butt in the chair pounding out a series of words.

Goals need to motivate writers and help keep them on track. If a writer finds he is unable to meet a goal, maybe it’s a poor goal. The writer may be better off reevaluating the goal and changing it to something that is attainable. Otherwise, he may find himself giving up on writing altogether.

So revisit your writing goals and make adjustments to any you find difficult to achieve, or perhaps eliminate some. There’s nothing that says you need a specific number of goals. Mine fit on a 3×5 index card that sits next to my computer. And remember, in order to meet your goals they must be measurable, meaningful, attainable — and realistic.

Here are three articles on setting writing goals that you might find helpful.

Setting Effective Writing Goals by Moira Allen
How to Get There from Here: The Magic of Goals by Holly Lisle
Setting Your Writing Goals by Sharon Hurley Hall

** If you’d like, share one of your writing goals that you believe meets the criteria discussed above.

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Jim Harrington discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His Six Questions For blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” In his spare time, he serves as the flash fiction editor for Apollo’s Lyre .

Ragged, putrid, with rotted and swollen flesh, reeking of decay and hungry for blood, the vampire of myth is a far cry from that which we picture today.

Nosferatu is often mistakenly given as the original name for this creature, quoted by 19th-century British author and speaker Emily Gerard as being Romanian (or Transylvanian) for Undead. This actually seems to have been a joke by Ms Gerard, that was unwittingly picked up on by Bram Stoker in his novel Dracula. Romanian for Undead is actually “Nu este mort” or for not alive is “Nu viaţă.”

“No fora tu” in Romanian actually literally translates as “This will not bore you.”

However there is a real word for the undead in Romania and it is Strigoi.

Hardly surprising because the Vampire/undead blood feaster exist in almost every mythology in the world. For example the undead blood drinker is:

  • Marhaban in Arabia
  • Asanbosam in Africa
  • Soucouyant in The West indies
  • Mapuche in South America
  • Jiang Shi in China
  • Mandurugo in The Philippines
  • Nukekubi in Japan

In Literature the two real progenitors of the modern vampire are:

“Das Vampyre” – is a short story written by John William Polidori though originally published under the name of his patron Lord Byron in 1819. It features a very Byronesques Vampire called Lord Ruthven, a noble man of foreign extraction who despoils seduces and either kills or drives to suicide women. Ruthven also kills and corrupts men with equal careless and cruel abandon.
Thus is laid down the character and look of the classic Gothic Vampire from that point on. His hunting style and much of his mythological lore come from the second major source …

Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood (1847) by James Malcolm Rymer (alternatively attributed to Thomas Preskett Prest)
Originally published in serial form two years earlier and probably contributed to by many staff writers, Varney achieved (Penny Dredful) novel status in 1847 under the authorships and editorship of J.M. Rymer. It is in “Varney” that we first find the wall crawling, bedroom invading, charming monster with a taste for virgins in nightgowns with heaving bosoms. Varney is also the first Vampire to steal wealth from his victims to set himself up as a gentleman throughout his immortal existence.

Abraham “Bram” Stoker took these elements, combined them and turned out his 1897 novel “Dracula”. Stoker laid down the basics of what might be term Vampire Lore and the basic format for every “gothic” vampire novel to come after him.

  • The Vampire is immortal
  • The Vampire is from a bygone age
  • The Vampire is foreign (it would be a long time before home grown Vampires began to emerge)
  • The Vampire in “Life” has gained a motivation to defy death (hatred of God, revenge, the search for a lost love etc.)
  • Vampires can not stand sunlight (in Dracula it is mild intolerance over the years it would grow to a fatal aversion)
  • Vampires respond badly to symbols of holiness
  • Vampire cast no reflection in a mirror (Silver is a holy metal and only reflects what “should” be there in God’s law.) 

Vampires can be killed only by:

  • Piercing their heart, preferably with a wooden stake
  • Decapitation
  •  Fire

Over the years of course these rules have evolved and changed and in some cases have been abandoned.

Stoker’s other massive contribution to the legend was to give the Vampire a nemesis and a weakness for that nemesis to exploit.
Stoker turned the vampire in to a tragic hero.

After Centuries of solitary immortality, the vampire is lonely, his need to be part of society, to find a mate and to experience ‘Life’ this is his fatal flaw.

Stoker’s vision of his Vampire was as typhoid Mary, a carrier of infectious evil, and a disease requires a Physician.
Stoker gives us two

Dr. Seward a practitioner of the modern science of Psychiatry and Prof. Van Helsing, the heroic academic medical doctor who has devoted his life to the eradication of Vampiric evil.

To assist these two, we have London city gent Jonathon Harker, Arthur Holmewood a minor aristocrat and Quincy Morris a six gun toting, Stetson wearing all American cowboy. Stoker even throws in telepathic half-vampire Mina, he was determined his troop of slayers would appeal to the widest possible demographic, and this to has become a generic convention.

Van Helsing, who incidentally shares Stoker’s first name, is now viewed by literary history as the hero of the story, but it is actually Quincy Morris who kills Dracula with a Bowie knife through the heart. (Good Marketing for the American edition of the book)

For almost sixty years this was the template for all vampires stories, until in the back end of the twentieth century the genre split in to five distinct sub genres.

1) The Gothic Vampire story:  as above this was an evolution of the Victorian story, using the Vampire as an allegorical device for the evils of plague and infection.
2) The Female Vampire story:  In 1872 Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, wrote Camilla, a story of a female Vampire, and there the genre stayed. Stoker was influence by this in so far as both stories are in part narrated by Doctors, but the female vampires in Dracula are weak, ineffective and obedient servants of the Count. By the 1960′s Camilla had been reinvented and the underlying sexual themes of the original were expanded out in to blatant lesbianism and female predatory tendencies. Camilla and the true life historical Countess Elizabeth Bathory became the foundation of a generic vampire that symbolised men’s growing fear of woman in an age of emancipation and the pill. The Female vampire does not need men to reproduce, is stronger than a man, and is not subject to his whims or intimidation. Terrifying to men of the war time generation.
3) The Vampire Hunter:  In these stories the vampire becomes secondary, a victim, the hunter become the hunted. Vampire hunters now have the tools to fight vampires effectively, they hunt in teams, usually lead by a slayer. A specialist appointed and trained by either the government, the church or more often than not some ancient and mysterious order dedicated to protecting the human race since time immemorial. The most well know example of this generic form is the increasingly ludicrous “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” TV series and it’s literary, comic book and other TV spin offs.
4) The Modern Vampire:  In this for the vampire has become something else all together. He or she is up to date, politically correct, astute and savvy. The modern vampire is a symbol for organised crime. They live in the underground, they exploit the living and use them as cattle and for income and in some cases is even an accepted or essential part of society. The first appearance of this sort of Vampire was in the novels of Robert Lory, in the 1960′s who had a team of slayers resurrect Dracula, and press him in to service to destroy a world now run by modern techno vampires. A theme later revisited in “Blade Trinity” (2004).   Dracula himself founded such a criminal empire in the Satanic Rites of Dracula a 1974 Hammer Horror film directed by Alan Gibson and written by Don Houghton
5) The Vampire Apocalypse:  Richard Matheson again shifted generic boundaries with the 1954 novel I Am Legend.
Matheson took the simple premise that if vampirism spreads like an actual disease but in a geometric sequence, from one vampire founding a colony the whole world could be infected in a matter of days. This is the situation at the opening of I am Legend, with one single human survivor who is immune to the vampire infection waging a day time war on the new superior species of the earth.
The idea has been used on a greater or lesser scale ever since, for example in They Thirst (1981) by Robert R. McCammon, in which Los Angeles falls to Vampirism and most famously in Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot (1975) which charts in detail the spread of vampirism throughout a small community which refuses to believe what is happening to it.

In recent times the Anne Rice has given the Gothic vampire novel a twist in her “Vampire Chronicles” series of novels. Anne Rice has them immune to modt traditional methods of slaying and uses vampires as radical sexually and religiously liberated creatures, but then Ms Rice has in the last twenty years completely redifined Vampire lore in her novels. Rice vampires are a genre unto themselves.

Terry Pratchett has spoofed the genre with his take on Vampirism as an allegory for Alcoholism in the Discworld books. Many of his vampires are “balck ribboners” vampires who have sworn off blood infavour of other obcessions, notably photography, coffee, tea and buns or in the case of Count and countess Notofaroutu running the Black ribon organistation itself.

The latest emerging sub genre is The Vampire as Superhero.

Unlike the Blade franchise, where a half Human/vampire hybrid turns slayer, this new generic form has the full vampire choosing to use his “powers” for good, and usually for the benefit of one special member of the opposite sex.  The closest to a sucessful attempt was the first “Hannibal King” a Marvel comics character in the Doctor Strange stories, a young vampire who by pure will has never given in to “The Thirst” in the ten years since his “turning” by Dracula himself.

It is a generic form yet to be defined and done well, though Anne Rice has Steered her “LeStat” books in this direction, LeStat remains an anti-hero where as “Edward” of the “Twilight” books is a fully fledged Hero.

“Twilight” (2005)has been badly received by many critics and die hard horror fans, but has returned to the Gothic Romance audience at which Dracula was originally aimed. Interestingly “Twilight” does give a new allegorical symbolism to the vampire. Author Stephenie Meyer is a devoted and evangelical member of the Mormon faith and so endows her vampires with the neo-religious feel of being religious outsiders the rest of the world misunderstands and feels the need to suppress. These vampires have been the victim of bad press and smear campaigns. For instance they do not go out in the sun not because it will kill them, but because it shows them up as angelic sparkling beings.

Which ever direction the vampire genre moves next, it certainly shows not sign of going away.

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Len Hazell is 46 years old from the north east of England, holds a degree in Media, and is majoring in writing for the print and broadcast media.  He has published in various magazines in the UK, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and has had several plays produced throughout England.  He is currently working on his own musical adaptation of Arsenic and old Lace which he hope to stage in 2011. Len can be contacted at Bonniefans@hotmail.com. His music is available at http://www.nuzic.net/members/2565

If you’re like most writers, you can never have too many writing guides. The problem with some of them is that they are often for the novices, and you become bored while searching for the gems that you haven’t read in the other hundred or so books that you own. They say the same thing in a hundred different ways, and you think that you are reading something fresh and new only to realize that you already OWN this book, except it was written by someone else. Between the how-tos, how-NOT-tos, and the zens, the muses and sparks and flames, the daybooks, handbooks, and notebooks, you have read a million ways to approach craft and end up bewildered and frustrated.

Or better put by Raymond Chandler:

“Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.”

However, there are some that are very instructive AND necessary, and they give you insight and solid footing so you can walk your own path.

Now here is my list of must-have books.

Narrative Design by Madison Smartt Bell:

I love this book because Bell does what one basically does in workshop – reads a story and critiques it for each element, and THEN takes it apart line by line to discuss it in very detailed notes. It has about twenty stories in it and you will be blown away by the introduction alone; he talks about writing fiction similar to the way Robert Boswell did in his dazzling lecture – with lines and graphs so you almost have a scientific and literary approach. The stories in this book include everyone from Mary Gaitskill and Peter Taylor to those of his former students. Get it from Amazon Marketplace very cheap.

Alone with All that could Happen by David Jauss:

One of the best essay collections I have ever read about the craft of fiction alongside of Robert Boswell (The Half-Known World), Charles Baxter (Burning Down the House) and John Gardner. If you are an AWP member, you can access some of the essays in this book from the Writer’s Chronicle archives for a taste.

179 Ways to Save a Novel by Peter Selgin:

Though it says to save a NOVEL, I have found especially helpful for stories because each of the ways he describes applies to both and the book is written in easily digestible chunks of information that you can refer to again easily. This is the book I take to work with me because of that; I call it my portable guerrilla workshop.

The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide by Becky Levine:

I love this one because it IS very helpful with creating thoughtful critiques, and it is worth reading even if you are not in a class or a workshop, especially if you will be interacting with other writers online through Zoetrope, etc.

 The Tin House Writer’s Notebook:

This is excellent because it takes many of the extraordinary craft lectures from the workshop and compiles them into this book and it includes audio from some of the lectures and panels. Since I was just at Tin House last month, I can vouch for how fulfilling an experience it was and the workshops were led by the top, most acclaimed writers in the country. This book costs a hundred times less and will tide you over until you get the sense to apply, like it did for me the year before. 

Turning Life into Fiction by Robin Hemley:

Now THIS one? Is probably my FAVORITE. I think it’s because I write from life almost exclusively and this book made me see where I was faltering – in trying to write from memory instead of using vivid detail and emotional truth to convey what I wanted to say. It’s been a while since I read it so I am reading it again, especially after receiving such extraordinary feedback from you all. Robin Hemley is also the director of the nonfiction program at Iowa. ‘Nuff said.

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 Rashena Wilson lives in New York and is at work on a short story collection and a book of essays.

Take an altar to a strange, ancient god, the dead rising from their graves, a small group of scientists using fantastic machines to fight supernatural forces, and throw in a giant marshmallow man and you have the ingredients for one of the most popular examples of “weird” fiction in the last thirty years. I grew up with the movie Ghostbusters, and it is still one of my all-time favorites, a blend of oddball science fiction, horror, and strange mythologies.  In short, what H.P. Lovecraft might have called “weird fiction”.  My indoctrination to Lovecraft’s work was still years away, but Ghostbusters had something special, something different. 

In his essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” Lovecraft defines the genre:

The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain–a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.

(you can read the entire long essay here)

What does that mean, in plain English?  For one, we’re not dealing with crime fiction, ghosts, or ordinary ghouls here, folks. We’ve stepped beyond the gothic ghost tale into something stranger.  The weird involves that which is infinitely stranger—perhaps even unknowable—and yes, includes a strong element of horror or dread.  What we know as the natural world, and natural laws, no longer have the same meaning or hold on reality.  Think of secondary worlds, parallel timelines, civilizations or sentient beings from elsewhere in space and time, and the infinite possibilities these elements imply. Lovecraft’s own work was littered with strange, ancient gods, dangerous wisdom trapped in odd books, and visits from the nether regions of space.  Some might argue such stories died with the pulp magazines of the 1930s, but take a closer look at what we call “slipstream” fiction today: a weird blending of science fiction, fantasy, and horror into something doesn’t always fit neatly in a genre box.  Even Ghostbusters, while clearly a comedy, had elements which were utterly terrifying and plenty of quirky science that skirted the fringes of “real” psychology and neurology.     

Weird fiction is still alive and well, properly evolved for a modern world in which our ignorance of the natural world reveals itself with ever miniscule bit of scientific knowledge we gain.  The more we examine outer space—or inner space—the more opportunity for weird stories to thrill our imaginations about what is out there.

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Aaron Polson currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a tattooed rabbit.  To pay the bills, Aaron attempts to teach high school students the difference between irony and coincidence.  His stories have featured magic goldfish, monstrous beetles, and a book of lullabies for baby vampires.  The Saints are Dead, a collection of weird fiction, dark magical realism, and the kitchen sink, is due from Aqueous Press in 2011.  You can visit Aaron and learn about his writing on the web at http://aaronpolson.blogspot.com.

Horror fiction as a genre is all about provoking horror or terror in the reader. It accomplishes this by touching the subconscious of the reader and activating primal fears by means of symbolism. Horror makes use of monsters to do this. The monster is the literary personification one or more of these primeval fears.

There are eight classic symbolic monsters representing the eight primal fears.

They are:

  1. The fear of Inescapable Death as expressed in fiction by The Killer
    Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Norman Bates etc are the most famous modern examples of this in modern times. However in the Final Destination films Death itself has remerged as a monster, though now invisible rather than as the black hooded skeleton with a scythe as in days of yore.
  2. The fear of Pain as expressed in fiction by The Torturer
    The torturer can appear in many forms, but always as someone who inflicts merciless, unfeeling, ruthless pain and anguish for no other reason than that he or she enjoys it, or is sexually aroused by it (the sadist). Historical and literary figures such as The protagonists of the Hostel films, Jigsaw in the Saw movie franchise, Matthew Hokin in reality and fiction, the Cenobites of Clive Barkers Hellraiser books and of course the classical works of the Marquis DeSade all provide examples
  3. The fear of The Controller as expressed in fiction by The Witch
    The Witch, particularly the female witch (if you are male), robbing you of control and will, is still a great fear though less so than it was in the 17th and 18th centuries when the idea of a woman not susceptible to male chastisement was an anathema. Witches in this sense include King Arthurs evil half sister Morgan Le Fay, The wicked Witch of the west (in Frank L Baums Oz Stories),Belatrix LeStrange from the Harry Potter books and the formidable Granny Weatherwax of the Discworld who no man dare ever cross.
  4. The fear of The Responsibility For That, which has been created as expressed in fiction by such as Frankenstein’s Monster
    The fear of responsibilities for ones own actions of course stems from fear of unwanted pregnancy. So almost always in literature “man’s dabbling in things forbidden” leads to consequences that destroy life. A huge amount of HP Lovecraft’s stories revolve around this theme, but in particular his anti-hero Herbert West: the reanimator. Other examples include DF Jones’ Collosus, whose “baby” enslaves the world, David Ambrose’s “Mother of God”, the classic Golem myth and of course Mary Shelly’s Frankenstien.
  5. The fear of The Beast Within as expressed in fiction by The Werewolf
    The “werewolf” or “wolfman”, is one of the oldest and most enduring horror stories. This is because for as long as man has been civilised he has known secretly that it is a façade, and that if ever the monster inside could get loose, watch out.
    The most famous of such stories is of course The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stephenson (1886) The twist here being of course that Jekyll wants to release the beast within, but in an unrecognisable form so he can go on incognito hedonistic rampages. However when he becomes addicted to the drug he has invented and Hyde (his alter ego released by it) becomes, as is inevitable, homicidal, the true horror begins.
    Other Literary stories include “Altered States”  the Lamia myths  and ironically Forbes Bramble’s  “The Strange Case of Deacon Brodie” an adaptation from a factual case which was the initial inspiration for Stephenson’s novel.
  6. The fear of The Predator as expressed in fiction by the Vampire
    The predator is distinct from The Killer in that the predator does not just want to kill you he wants to consume you, feed on you body and soul and this is somehow much worse than just simple death.
    The Vampire and his variations are the most enduring of all horror monsters for this reason. In time the simple voracious feeding predator has become intermingled with the sexual predator and has further become a symbol for pestilence and disease, which also consumes you alive.
    Dracula is the most famous Vampire of course, conceived by Bram stoker as an allegory for the Syphilis which was destroying him. The Count has become the international symbol for the predatory destroyer, consumer and corrupter.
  7. The fear of Past Actions And Guilty Secrets as expressed in fiction by The Ghost
    “Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that’s what.”— Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses). But in Horror a ghost is unfinished business that will not stay buried.
    In short The Ghost is fear of ones own guilt, it is the basis for all blackmail stories and Paranoia stories. Arguably the best Ghost story horror ever written is  Henry James “A turn of the screw” (1898) another highly recommended novel is Peter Straub’s simply titled “Ghost Story” (1979)
  8. The fear of Loss as expressed in fiction by The Thief in the Night
    The Fear of Loss comes in many guises; it is mainly a fear of having taken away from you, that which defines you.
    Classically the Djinn, Changling or Doppleganger, steals your face and place in society, literal identity theft. Until recently with the rise of cyber crime this version of the thief fell from literary popularity with perhaps the exception of the prolific Graham Masterton’s (1977) novel “The Djinn.” And the film “The man who Haunted himself” based on Anthony Armstrong’s short story ” The Case of Mr. Pelham”
    More often the Thief will steal your wife, daughter, most precious possession.
    However the most popular variation of the Thief is the “Possessing Demon” who actually steals YOU. William Peter Blatty provided us with the most popular version of this monster in this novel “The Exorcist “(1971) based on the real life case of Robbie Mannheim in 1949

There are of course infinite variations and combinations on and of each monster but all horror stories basically come down to these eight basic themes.

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Len Hazell is 46 years old from the north east of England, holds a degree in Media, and is majoring in writing for the print and broadcast media.  He has published in various magazines in the UK, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and has had several plays produced throughout England.  He is currently working on his own musical adaptation of Arsenic and old Lace which he hope to stage in 2011. Len can be contacted at Bonniefans@hotmail.com. His music is available at http://www.nuzic.net/members/2565

I watched a summer TV show earlier this week that opened with the bad guy kidnapping and threatening to kill THE STAR of the show. It was at this point that I fetched my copy of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and started reading a new story.

How gullible do these writers think we viewers are? It’s the fourth week of a six to eight week run and their killing off THE STAR? Not going to happen (unless THE STAR is leaving the show, but we’d have read about that in People weeks before the show aired). This plotline is used often in TV shows, and maybe this recycling of story lines is another reason why people are turning off their televisions. In addition, to rephrase an old commercial, where’s the suspense?

Steve Almond, in This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, provides an excellent example of what suspense is in his chapter “Suspense Vs Surprise.” Yes, I’m stealing Steve’s idea, but he claims to have stolen it from Bruce Machart, whom Steve assumes stole it from someone else. Anyway, here’s a paraphrase of Steve’s idea of a surprise.

Steve walks into his class, gives his lecture, and at the end of the class, pulls a gun from his briefcase and shoots one of the students.

I would say that qualifies as a surprise. Here’s his example of suspense.

Steve walks into his class, removes a Colt Python .357 Magnum Revolver from his briefcase, lays it on the desk, and begins his lecture.

“Umm… Mr. Almond?” I say, raising the hand of the person sitting next to me. “May I be excused to go to the bathroom?” Oh yea, that’s suspense.

Mr. Almond (I always address men with big guns “Mr.” You don’t?) ends the chapter with this wonderful quote.

“What brings us to stories, the ultimate source of suspense, isn’t what happens, but how and why it happens.”

And our character must be in a believable situation for the suspense to work.

Hmm, I wonder if the quote works if I substitute “tension” for “suspense.” What do you think?

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Jim discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His Six Questions For blog provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.” In his spare time, he serves as the flash fiction editor for Apollo’s Lyre .

Over the last few years, I’ve come to realize what a huge impact my old gran had on my writing. With that in mind, I thought I’d share some of her quaint little sayings and explain how they’ve influenced my work.

10 Things My Old Gran Taught Me About Writing.

1. ‘You only get one chance to make a first impression, so don’t bugger it up, you pillock!’

Pull the reader into the story from the very first line. It’s no good having an amazing plot twist or a stellar ending if the reader gave up on the story because the first three pages put them to sleep.

2. ‘I don’t know, CAN you?’

Using the right words is important. A wrong word or careless grammar can kick the reader right out of the story.

3. ‘Don’t make me come up there!’

Ever found yourself yelling, ‘Get on with it!’ at a slow-paced book? If we think something might bore the reader, maybe we should leave it out.

4. ‘Can’t you see I’m watching the telly? Bugger off!’

Chances are, your readers have plenty of things demanding their attention. We need to make sure our stories are enticing enough to first hook them, then keep them reading.

5. ‘What are you looking at, fish-face?’

We want our readers to experience our stories with all their senses, but we need to make sure they always know where the character is and what (or who) they see.

6. ‘Who’s ‘she,’ the cat’s mother?’

Make sure the reader never has to stop to figure out which character spoke, or who just did what to whom.

7. ‘Touch that again and I’m fetching the cattle-prod!’

The stakes have to be high enough to make our readers worry about the consequences should our protagonist fail. The suffering has to be bad enough for them to empathize with our characters and keep reading in the hope that things turn out okay.

8. ‘I don’t like any of you.’ [in answer to my (then) four-year-old brother, who’d asked which of her many grandchildren was her favorite].

Gran’s unique approach to diplomacy taught me that honesty might hurt, but it’s better to recognize when a whole chunk of a WiP stinks (and then try to fix the problem), than to delude ourselves that a story’s perfect, when it really isn’t.

9. ‘It weren’t me it were the dog’ [For a long time, this particular phrase confused me, since my old gran never had a dog]

Misdirection is a great tool. As readers, we love to guess the who, the why and the what’s going to happen next, but even more than that, don’t we love to be outwitted fair and square (please note: surprise telegrams proving that innocent-looking Character A, who has no possible motive for murder, is in fact, character H – the illegitimate half-brother of the deceased who stands to inherit a fortune now he’s the sole heir of Character B, does NOT qualify as ‘fair and square’)?

10. ‘For crying out loud. You’re nearly five years old. Get your own damn dinner!’

We don’t have to do everything for our readers. In fact, they’ll probably enjoy the story more if we let them work some things out for themselves. Of course, the tricky bit is deciding what those things are.

If I had to choose, I’d say I struggle with #2 and #10 more than any other.

How about you? What (if anything) on the list do you struggle with?

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Jon Gibbs was born in England, but moved to New Jersey in the USA in 2004 with with wife and three children. When he’s not writing or chasing after the kids, he likes to read, play Sudoku and watch the telly; sometimes all three at once.

I find that keeping the structure of essays in mind when I write short stories  helps me to decide what should remain in the story and what should come out.  Asking same kinds of questions I ask myself when writing an essay keeps me focused when I’m writing a piece of fiction.  Two of those techniques and the questions they bring with them  include outlining and the thesis statement.  Here’s how.

I have this back and forth concept of the writing process for both essays and fiction. Back and forth between notes, drafts, and outlines. Nothing is cast in stone until I’m ready to press the print button. You see, I don’t believe in absolutes. I believe in adjusting to the work at hand and what level of creativity I happen to be blessed with at the time.

For my personal process, I find that writing an outline AFTER I’ve written my content draft can help me see what my story is about, what my point-of-view is–not from a story standpoint, but from a personal belief standpoint, and this in turn, gives me a tool to use to decide what serves the story and what does not.

Occasionally I’ll sketch a quick outline before I begin a story or an essay–what I oh-so-cleverly call a “sketch-outline”–but in either case, sketch or after-the-rough-draft outline, I keep my outlines loose. No A, B, C’s no i,ii,iii. These constraints and conventions are distracting to me because I worry too much about the outline itself: consistency of levels, what it looks like on the page, is it sloppy?  I had to decide outlines are tools to the final story, the completed essay, and dashes and asterisks work just fine

When I outline, I focus on topic sentences. Topic sentences are mini-thesis statements and dictate what goes inside the paragraph even in fiction.  It’s more organic perhaps in a short story, but when thinking about your story, rather than writing the story, it’s important to keep in mind how each paragraph serves the whole.  What is my intent for each paragraph?  What does it do?

First, I identify what I actually WROTE as topic sentences in that first draft. List them on lined paper with spaces between them.

Next I write down the who-what-when-where-why-and-how of each paragraph as I’ve written them in the draft. This alerts me to missing information.

Note: Don’t obsess about any/all of these Ws-and-H every time. They are a tool, a trigger to get you thinking about what is needed in each particular segment.

Not every paragraph will contain them all. I use them as a starting point to make certain everything I need to communicate to the reader is actually in the paragraph. If there’s no “when” every time and there won’t be, so what? It’s somewhere in the writing. But the “who” and “what,” the “how” should probably be there.

I don’t write down full sentences in these outlines except for the topic sentence. Topic sentences are “road-maps” to the paragraphs. They show me where I’m supposed to go in that paragraph, what I should include.

In an essay, the thesis statement is the controlling force behind your essay.  In fiction, the story question controls the story.  What do I mean by story question?  What is your story really about?  You have an idea of this from your first draft, your content draft.  Is it about being lonely?  The main character lives with cats.  She wants human companionship and decides to take in a homeless girl.  How does that work out for her?  What is does the story seem to be telling the reader about isolation?  What is your viewpoint about isolation?  In an essay the thesis statement might be “Isolation leads people to take unnecessary risks so love, nurture, and forgive those you have.”  OH!  That might just work for the cat lady’s story , “Will the cat lady’s loneliness lead her into a dangerous situation and will she survive?”  Story questions, thesis statements, they are all about the writer’s intent.

Purpose and thesis are the same and they dictate what goes into the story or essay.  However, as the boss of the essay or story, you can change anything you want. You can change the thesis or your story question at any time if your intent changes, but once you decide what the story is about, what that intention is, you will write a stronger story if you use intention as your guide.

With the idea that you are in control and can change your mind at any time, you can decide what is essential to your story.  That’s how an essay works.  That’s how a story works.  It’s your journey. When you write your thesis statement or ask your story question, you are planning what the piece will contain, what your reader will be able to “see.” You give him that, and only that, and ignore what doesn’t apply.

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Gay Degani has published in journals and anthologies including two The Best of Every Day Fiction editions and her own collection, Pomegranate Stories.  Her stories online can be read at Smokelong Quarterly, The Battered Suitcase, Night Train, 10 Flash, Short Story America, Emprise Review, as well as other publications. Nominated for a Pushcart, she edits EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles and blogs at Words in Place.

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