Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 19:19:13 EDT
Subject: EXERCISE: Don't Open The Door!
[based on Chapter 5 in How To Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan]
(Behind that locked door, so rumor goes, lie the remains of...)
Suspense!
"_Anticipation_ is the key to suspense. You are leading your reader
towards what he or she _knows_ is going to result in a dangerous
confrontation with evil. You do it in careful stages, encouraging the
reader to anticipate the horror, but holding it back, layering in other
sequences that move your story forward but delay the actual climax the
reader _knows_ is coming."
(no, no, it was years ago, and the key was lost. It was almost a work
of art, that key, and...yes, that's it! Where did you get...you can't
be the long lost son of the family, sent away in hopes that the
curse...oh, nothing, nothing...)
"If you have done the proper job of characterization, of making your
reader _care_ about the protagonist, then they will emotionally identify
with the upcoming danger."
"The descriptive words and phrases you use to build suspense are
extremely important. They set the proper mood for the upcoming
encounter."
"The reader never knows when or under what circumstances this horrible
transformation will occur--a guarantee of reader anticipation."
(I remember the night when it first happened...the dark clouds rolled
over the waning moon, and the ocean seemed to moan against the rocks,
grinding, battering, roaring defiance of the fates...)
1. Set up your threat early. Right in the beginning, have someone else
die, let a rumor ramble past, refer to the mystery...
2. build and deepen suspense by bringing the menace closer. a near
encounter, destruction of the means of escape/rescue, loss of
protection...
(We thought the priest could save us...and then we discovered him
crouched outside the church, frothing at the mouth, with his own hands
holding the stake in his chest...)
3. separation/isolation are excellent aids in building the suspense.
Start with a busload of happy travellers, then whittle them down, down,
down to the final desperate survivors, standing off the hordes of
genetically exercised cockroaches with a bowie knife and a can of
beans...
"Your readers will stick with you as long as the outcome is uncertain.
They will be trying to guess what's going to happen, so your job is to
give the narrative a sudden twist that misleads. This creates surprise
and continues the process of building suspense."
"The threat cannot be false. It must pay off, and this means you must
show your monster _in action_. Chewing up minor characters, for
instance..."
1. The Principle -- Don't Open That Door! And the hero(ine) walks down
the long, dark hallway, takes a deep breath, and slowly, slowly turns
the handle...
2. Isolation, vulnerability -- put your characters at the mercy of the
incoming menace with nowhere to run, no one to help...and feel the
suspense rise!
3. Darkness. The primal fear of the night, of what may be lurking in
the shadows, of that sound from behind the black shield...
4. Is the Monster Real? Often, characters start out not believing,
then slowly give ground, until they finally believe completely in the
monster, just as they finally reach the limits of their attempts to deal
with it...often while the people at the 911 desk are still chuckling
about the nut with their crazy story...
Okay? So, pick a number from one to six...
1. napkin
2. telephone
3. empty vase
4. broken light
5. wastebasket
6. painting
and again?
1. A door
2. A cave
3. A car trunk (or the bonnet, for those of you who speak the queen's own)
4. A locked suitcase
5. A closet
6. A long-unused boat house
and one more time?
1. the family curse
2. the monster from...
3. the marching dead
4. a zombie snake
5. a doctor who doesn't know when to say "no more cutting and
stitching!"
6. your own pet fear, magnified and manifested out there, waiting for
us...
Take the object, put it in the place, and think about how finding a
napkin in a locked suitcase could be the clue that makes (in time,
once we've fought our way past the disbelief, past the fear that
clutches our stomach, past all that...until, at last) your protagonist
rock and roll with the marching dead, streaming past on their way
to...
Short starter?
"I don't want to go in there," she said.
But you and I know that she will, almost certainly, because she has to
face her terrors...and those terrors will grow, will encircle her, and
will make her shake in agony...
shiver!
tink
(and if you're still wondering what's behind the door...open it, go
ahead, turn the latch, pull on the handle and...now tell us what you
found there!)
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