That is not dead which can eternal lie, yet with stranger aeons, even Death may die.
H.P. Lovecraft
I firmly believe that this quote can be applied to horror in all its varied cloaks and disguises. True horror never really dies. It may lurk, recede from our collective consciousness from time to time, lying fallow, allowing fakes and charlatans to cloak themselves in its guise, and readying itself to come round again and blow our socks off.
It takes time for a horror author to craft a good horror story. It's not done in a day or a week or a month or even a year. True horror is a learned craft, like medicine or oil painting. It doesn't just happen and those who think they're writing "horror" all too often are writing something that touches upon horror, but is more realistically romance with trappings of things they think are horrible. Examples are Dark Shadows (the TV series, not the movies - the movie House of Dark Shadows is virtually a classic evil vampire movie full of vicious killer vampires and blood), Twilight, TruBlood, Kindred: The Embraced, and a few more. These programs and books attempt, rather openly, to disguise a classic romance soap opera by draping it with the trappings of a few hints of the horror genre. Note that all of the referenced works drape their offerings in vampirism as if vampires are the ultimate in horror.
They ain't.
In fact, Kindred: The Embraced and Twilight share so many features that I'd have a squad of lawyers chasing each other's tails if I was the designers of the original RPG or the author of the books (but we know which came first and who stole what from whom). But I digress...
Vampires are not horror anymore. They can be horrible, but the idea of vampires has so infested our cultural more's that we cannot even conceive of them as being all that horrible or "bad" anymore these days.
There are other things that affect our every day lives that are far more horrible.
The trick is to find and expand upon the genre and mythology in such a way so as to find a new way of presenting an ancient and undying idea and feeling to new readers.
We used to do it around a campfire. Then it was called a ghost story. Today we do it in books and in the theaters.
Usually badly.
Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vampires. Show all posts
Friday, July 02, 2010
Friday, August 14, 2009
Fight Scenes
Once again, a poster over at AW asked a question and I'm posting the question & my response over here because I think it's important.
The question was - "Anyone have any suggestions on how to work out battle sequences and fight scenes? I'm trying to work out a scene which is going to involve several fighters and half the village as audience, and I'm trying to figure out ways to keep track of who's doing what to whom and where.
My first thought is to draw it on a piece of paper. My second is to get out my Dungeons and Dragons figurines and play it through like a melee. Once I understand what happens, I can figure out what I need to write."
(posted by TheIT)
My response was as follows,
-----
Fight scenes need to flow, but unfortunately most of them don't. A real life fight usually occurs in a blaze of action, pause, action, pause as the combatants struggle to gain the upper hand on one another, etc. That really doesn't work in a story or novel because the pauses will have the reader wondering what happened in between the blazes of action and wandering off to do something other than turning the page.
So a fight scene has to flow smoothly.
That's not to say that there are not or will not be pauses within a fight scene. They just have to be strategically placed.
In real life, a fight is usually over in a matter of seconds. In a novel, the fight can go on for pages and minutes, at least, of reading. The trick is to translate what happens in real life into something that flows smoothly in the story. I'm currently reading Monster Hunters International by Larry Correia (Baen Books). The book opens somewhat slowly, but quickly develops into a fight scene which flows so quickly and naturally that I found myself wondering what had happened when it was over and having to go back and reread sections trying to figure out where I had missed the moves. It wasn't that the action was choppy or the writing was choppy, it was that the scene flowed.
D&D action doesn't flow. It isn't normal or real. However, using the figures to stage manage the action is something that can be easily done (you could do it with pennies and a hand-drawn map for all that matter). When you know that character A can move here and perform this action while character B is involved doing something else, you start to have the sequence for how the action must flow. You also begin to be able to see why character B might not be distracted by something else or where he might be distracted by something else that allows character A to make his move.
I think the Star Wars movies are another good area to watch for how to choreograph action scenes, especially between individual characters. The action flows between the characters because the director knows it must if the action is to be believable and realistic even when it's not even semi-realistic.
Use a "director's eye". Set your stage, position your characters, and have them move around the scene performing their actions. You don't need a map and a set of fancy figurines. You can see all this in your mind.
Flow is what happens when the scene runs naturally and without anything seeming out of place or silly (like "Why didn't Charlie hose the hallway that the Master Vampire charged down with the M60 in his hands before the Master Vampire got to him and tore the team to shreds?").
You're the director. You get to set the scenery, the stage, and position the actors - and if it doesn;t work the first time or the thirtieth time, it doesn;t cost you anything to run the scene a thousand times or more until it flows.
-----
BTW, I'm currently reading Monster Hunters International as stated above, but I just finished The Strain one of the authors of which is Guillermo del Toror. It's the first part of a trilogy and has an interesting take on the vampire legend and a plague upon Manhattan.
While it is reminiscent of a book a few years ago by Craig Skipp & John Spector titled The Light At The End (as I recall) and another that dealt with a plague of vampires overrunning Los Angeles whose title and author I don't currently recall (The Thirst?), the premise is entertaining and the follow-on books will be out in 2010 and 2011.
I did have a few problems with The Strain, the main one being that it is written by 2 authors who obviously didn;t see eye-to-eye on several things. There appeared to be a constant editorial argument occurring that raised it's head on several levels, the main one being regarding how much information to convey to the reader and when. In all too many cases the story is broken by a paragraph or more of unnecessary info-dumping which could just as easily have been relayed to the reader through casual conversation between the characters.
Regardless, it was a good book for the most part and I'll likely pick up the next two when they come out - but I am glad it was 20% off at B&N and I got an extra 10% due to my membership card.
The question was - "Anyone have any suggestions on how to work out battle sequences and fight scenes? I'm trying to work out a scene which is going to involve several fighters and half the village as audience, and I'm trying to figure out ways to keep track of who's doing what to whom and where.
My first thought is to draw it on a piece of paper. My second is to get out my Dungeons and Dragons figurines and play it through like a melee. Once I understand what happens, I can figure out what I need to write."
(posted by TheIT)
My response was as follows,
-----
Fight scenes need to flow, but unfortunately most of them don't. A real life fight usually occurs in a blaze of action, pause, action, pause as the combatants struggle to gain the upper hand on one another, etc. That really doesn't work in a story or novel because the pauses will have the reader wondering what happened in between the blazes of action and wandering off to do something other than turning the page.
So a fight scene has to flow smoothly.
That's not to say that there are not or will not be pauses within a fight scene. They just have to be strategically placed.
In real life, a fight is usually over in a matter of seconds. In a novel, the fight can go on for pages and minutes, at least, of reading. The trick is to translate what happens in real life into something that flows smoothly in the story. I'm currently reading Monster Hunters International by Larry Correia (Baen Books). The book opens somewhat slowly, but quickly develops into a fight scene which flows so quickly and naturally that I found myself wondering what had happened when it was over and having to go back and reread sections trying to figure out where I had missed the moves. It wasn't that the action was choppy or the writing was choppy, it was that the scene flowed.
D&D action doesn't flow. It isn't normal or real. However, using the figures to stage manage the action is something that can be easily done (you could do it with pennies and a hand-drawn map for all that matter). When you know that character A can move here and perform this action while character B is involved doing something else, you start to have the sequence for how the action must flow. You also begin to be able to see why character B might not be distracted by something else or where he might be distracted by something else that allows character A to make his move.
I think the Star Wars movies are another good area to watch for how to choreograph action scenes, especially between individual characters. The action flows between the characters because the director knows it must if the action is to be believable and realistic even when it's not even semi-realistic.
Use a "director's eye". Set your stage, position your characters, and have them move around the scene performing their actions. You don't need a map and a set of fancy figurines. You can see all this in your mind.
Flow is what happens when the scene runs naturally and without anything seeming out of place or silly (like "Why didn't Charlie hose the hallway that the Master Vampire charged down with the M60 in his hands before the Master Vampire got to him and tore the team to shreds?").
You're the director. You get to set the scenery, the stage, and position the actors - and if it doesn;t work the first time or the thirtieth time, it doesn;t cost you anything to run the scene a thousand times or more until it flows.
-----
BTW, I'm currently reading Monster Hunters International as stated above, but I just finished The Strain one of the authors of which is Guillermo del Toror. It's the first part of a trilogy and has an interesting take on the vampire legend and a plague upon Manhattan.
While it is reminiscent of a book a few years ago by Craig Skipp & John Spector titled The Light At The End (as I recall) and another that dealt with a plague of vampires overrunning Los Angeles whose title and author I don't currently recall (The Thirst?), the premise is entertaining and the follow-on books will be out in 2010 and 2011.
I did have a few problems with The Strain, the main one being that it is written by 2 authors who obviously didn;t see eye-to-eye on several things. There appeared to be a constant editorial argument occurring that raised it's head on several levels, the main one being regarding how much information to convey to the reader and when. In all too many cases the story is broken by a paragraph or more of unnecessary info-dumping which could just as easily have been relayed to the reader through casual conversation between the characters.
Regardless, it was a good book for the most part and I'll likely pick up the next two when they come out - but I am glad it was 20% off at B&N and I got an extra 10% due to my membership card.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
More On Horror Writing
I went over and read the blog post that the AW poster referred to yesterday and, quite frankly, I don't know precisely what the guy (Robert Dunbar) is bitching about. Maybe I'm outing him here, but he seems to be saying that horror writing should aspire to more literary traditions, but he makes a point of stating that his last book "ate" his life with TV and radio show interviews, readings, and more.
He does make a point of stating that he believes many horror writers are aiming at the gutter, what he calls "vampire bodice rippers, torture porn, and zombie sitcoms" and that he believes the critics of his book probably thought they were picking up a more traditional sort of horror novel and then found something completely different.
Now, I haven't read Dunbar's book, but it sounds interesting, being based on the legends of the Jersey Devil, but if he's being successful, and he obviously is, I don't see the need for him to bitch overly much. It's a little like the pot calling the kettle black. His main point seems to be that the vampire bodice rippers, torture porn, and zombie sitcoms are bringing literate works like his own and the entire genre down into a "gutter" level where he gets no respect.
Dude, stop being so full of yourself.
Horror should be fun, first and foremost. People like to be scared. Yeah, some authors have gotten rich writing at a particular level (Dunbar sees it as YA at best), but so what? They're not taking food from your plate or money out of your pocket so far as I can see. Who really cares if a lot of people out there are trying to write like Stephanie Meyers, Laurell Hamilton, or Max Brooks? Those people, by and large, are going to fall by the wayside with the next wave of whatever that occurs when someone produces a really good horror novel that finally gets published (I'd bet it's going to be someone here, eventually).
The real beef seems to be that of "literate" horror vs "YA" horror.
Well, to be honest, that's a false argument. All horror is, to some extent, YA by its very nature. People love to be scared. They love to feel like the little kid scared of what's under the bed or hiding in the closet or opening the attic door. It does not require great "literatary" ability to write a horror novel. That's been well-proven by the current wave of popularity of "vampire bodice rippers". Nobody's going to say that Stephanie Meyers is a great writer, but guess what - she sells books! Nobody's going to say that World War Z is the Frankenstein of its day, but guess what - I liked it!
It's not about literature, it's about entertainment.
Entertainment sells books and that's the bottom line with publishers and authors. That's the way publishers make their living and that's the way authors get paid.
It's not about literature, it's about entertainment.
My books aren't going to receive any awards for their literary contributions to society, but I hope, one day, to sell a few books and get paid. That's my bottom line. Getting paid means I have to entertain and in order to entertain I have to tell a ripping good story that not only catches a reader's imagination, it must first go through a whole series of agents, editors, and publishers before those readers will ever even see it.
So, if you don't like a particular book or a series or even a particular author, it seems to me that rather than bitching about the genre you write in and despairing about its literary value you might try upholding and motivating new authors in the genre to do the best they can and get themselves published. Nobody's holding anyone hostage to any genre. If you don't like the genre you're writing in, get out. Stop writing or try telling a different type of story.
As I said yesterday, it is within the capability of anyone writing today to produce a work that has the potential to change an entire genre.
All you have to do is stop bitching about everybody else and do it.
He does make a point of stating that he believes many horror writers are aiming at the gutter, what he calls "vampire bodice rippers, torture porn, and zombie sitcoms" and that he believes the critics of his book probably thought they were picking up a more traditional sort of horror novel and then found something completely different.
Now, I haven't read Dunbar's book, but it sounds interesting, being based on the legends of the Jersey Devil, but if he's being successful, and he obviously is, I don't see the need for him to bitch overly much. It's a little like the pot calling the kettle black. His main point seems to be that the vampire bodice rippers, torture porn, and zombie sitcoms are bringing literate works like his own and the entire genre down into a "gutter" level where he gets no respect.
Dude, stop being so full of yourself.
Horror should be fun, first and foremost. People like to be scared. Yeah, some authors have gotten rich writing at a particular level (Dunbar sees it as YA at best), but so what? They're not taking food from your plate or money out of your pocket so far as I can see. Who really cares if a lot of people out there are trying to write like Stephanie Meyers, Laurell Hamilton, or Max Brooks? Those people, by and large, are going to fall by the wayside with the next wave of whatever that occurs when someone produces a really good horror novel that finally gets published (I'd bet it's going to be someone here, eventually).
The real beef seems to be that of "literate" horror vs "YA" horror.
Well, to be honest, that's a false argument. All horror is, to some extent, YA by its very nature. People love to be scared. They love to feel like the little kid scared of what's under the bed or hiding in the closet or opening the attic door. It does not require great "literatary" ability to write a horror novel. That's been well-proven by the current wave of popularity of "vampire bodice rippers". Nobody's going to say that Stephanie Meyers is a great writer, but guess what - she sells books! Nobody's going to say that World War Z is the Frankenstein of its day, but guess what - I liked it!
It's not about literature, it's about entertainment.
Entertainment sells books and that's the bottom line with publishers and authors. That's the way publishers make their living and that's the way authors get paid.
It's not about literature, it's about entertainment.
My books aren't going to receive any awards for their literary contributions to society, but I hope, one day, to sell a few books and get paid. That's my bottom line. Getting paid means I have to entertain and in order to entertain I have to tell a ripping good story that not only catches a reader's imagination, it must first go through a whole series of agents, editors, and publishers before those readers will ever even see it.
So, if you don't like a particular book or a series or even a particular author, it seems to me that rather than bitching about the genre you write in and despairing about its literary value you might try upholding and motivating new authors in the genre to do the best they can and get themselves published. Nobody's holding anyone hostage to any genre. If you don't like the genre you're writing in, get out. Stop writing or try telling a different type of story.
As I said yesterday, it is within the capability of anyone writing today to produce a work that has the potential to change an entire genre.
All you have to do is stop bitching about everybody else and do it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)