Back of the Envelope

Old Post: My earlier post addressed the question of "What is horror?"

Since I've already addressed the question of what is horror, the next question is "What is Christian horror?" To answer that, I first have to answer the question, "What is Christian fiction?" This is a topic I've addressed before, but I'll do so again here. There are several possible answers:

1. It's written by a Christian.
2. It's written for a Christian audience.
3. It incorporates a Christian worldview.

Now, I left out some variants, such as "presenting the gospel message," but while that would definitely make something Christian, I don't believe that it's a necessary condition. And what I'm looking for is what is necessary for something to be considered a Christian work of fiction. Often what we mean by Christian fiction is something that incorporates all three: it's written by Christians, for Christians, about Christian things. Can horror do that? Well horror can definitely be written by Christians, and there are Christians that read horror, so I suppose 1 and 2 are possible. Is three? Notice that I said that it incorporates a Christian worldview--not that it advocates it. It needs to acknowledge and address the Christian worldview, not necessarily preach it.

And herein, I believe, lies the essence of Christian horror. It lies in challenging the Christian worldview. Or more specifically, in challenging the safe, conventional beliefs of the Christian worldview which very often have weak theological foundations. It means asking the hard questions and rejecting the easy answers. You see, Christians believe all sorts of scary things. We believe in demons--dark supernatural powers who wish us harm. We believe in the possibility of eternal damnation. We believe in a God who does not shy away from judgment. And we tell ourselves that we are safe from these things. God loves us and saves us and protects us. And yet... why are we so certain? Anyone who's read the Bible knows that for every passage that offers reassurance, there's another that challenges and condemns us. Writing Christian horror is not Biblical exegesis. It is not the writer's job to explain why the world is not safe, why Christians still suffer and die, why not everyone is saved. It is his job to show that these things are so.

For the Christian, the universe is not meaningless. There is a God, and he has a purpose. But that purpose is unfathomable to us--too deep for us to fully understand in this lifetime (and there aren't any promises for the next). It is bigger than us, vast and unmeasurable, but it is aware of us. We are caught up in it whether we want to be or not.

This is rich material for the writer to mine, and the inability to write horror when you have this to work with is more a failure of imagination than anything else.

New Post: More on the subject here.

Labels: Christianity, Writing

On her blog, Kristin, who's just finished Coach's Midnight Diner: The Back from the Dead Edition, asks whether there's such a thing as Christian horror:

One thing that the anthology got me thinking about is whether there can even be such a thing as Christian horror. I’m not talking about the window dressing of horror, the zombies and demons and serial killers and such. What I mean is that many critics seem to be arguing that one of the essential features of horror fiction is, at its core, a sense that everything is meaningless. That there’s no underlying purpose to our lives, or to life in general; or if there is, then the mind behind that purpose (if there is such a mind) does not wish us well. Most Christians would agree, I think, that this worldview is antithetical to the essential doctrines of Christianity.

I realize that Coach’s Midnight Diner doesn’t limit itself to horror fiction. But having read the anthology didn’t do much to convince me that there is such a thing as Christian horror. Most of the best stories were neither horror, nor particularly Christian (I don’t mean that they were anti-Christian, just that Christianity wasn’t relevant to the story). Some were one, but not the other. Even stories with horrific or frightening elements often ended on too much of a redemptive note to seem true to the grim and hopeless horror aesthetic.

I think one of the reasons I especially liked “Flowers for Shelly”, though, is that it did a better job than any of the other stories at walking the line between Christian faith (the first person narrator who turns into a zombie is a devout Christian, and of course there’s the question of how God could allow a zombie apocalypse to happen to good people), and grim hopelessness (perhaps there’s a purpose, but the zombified protagonist isn’t going to find out what it is). It’s also a bleakly funny story.

The problem I have with this definition of horror, that everything is meaningless, is that it's simply not true for all, or even most, horror stories. Stephen King and Dean Koontz, two of the most popular horror writers, do not write stories set in a meaningless universe (Koontz should be self-evident, but read King's Dark Tower series for evidence of how he thinks). Nor is it true for classics of the genre, such as Frankenstein or Dracula. So if it's not true of the classics or the popular modern fiction, I think said critics are defining horror too narrowly. Horror is more than Lovecraft and his successors.

As a Christian and sometime horror writer myself, I have a somewhat different definition of horror, which I know I've expounded on in this blog, but I think it was lost in the transition. Horror should disturb us, not just scare us. It should undercut our assumptions, challenge our beliefs, question our certainties about the universe, and make us feel a little less safe. Notice that meaninglessness can be a part of this, but it's neither the beginning nor the end. In fact, I think meaninglessness can defeat the purpose of horror, leading to a kind of apathy. If nothing matters, why get so worked up about it? Once you decide that the universe is meaningless, what's the big deal about zombies or vampires or one more meaningless thing out to destroy meaningless you? The only reason that meaninglessness is horrifying to us is because we do have hope in a purpose, because it challenges and makes us question that hope. If it ever completely succeeds, it loses its power. So I think horror is most effective when it leaves us an out, when it allows for the possibility of hope, when it can challenge without completely destroying.

Notice that I focused on meaning, but my definition allows for attacks on other foundations of our universe. Our sense of safety and security, for instance. Our faith in God, reality, ourselves, or each other. Horror frightens us because it makes us less sure, and there are myriad ways it can do so. Those who think horror is only about meaninglessness are writing themselves into a box, and I invite them to see what they can do if they explore what else horror can do.

Labels: Writing

A recent critique of one of my stories in my writer's group got me thinking. "Show don't tell" is a mantra of writing instructors everywhere. It's also overly simplistic. When writers choose whether to narrate or dramatize, they have to keep more than "show don't tell" in mind, because there really are places where you need to tell. For example:

1. When it's boring. This is the first and foremost reason to tell rather than show. Sometimes what happens next in the story just isn't that interesting. Let's say your main character drives to the airport. You can say, "Roger drove to the airport." Or you can say, "Roger picked up his keys from the hutch on his way out the door. The ground was still damp from the afternoon's rain, and water clung to his shoes as he hurried through the grass. He pressed the key fob to unlock the door, listening for the audible click before pulling open the wet handle. He wiped his now damp hand on his khakis, and ducked into the car, cold droplets of water landing on his head." You get the picture. At this rate it'll take fifty pages to get to the stupid airport, and during all that time not a darn thing of any import to the story will happen. Which brings us to number 2...
2. When it causes the story to drag. This is a subtle distinction from 1. Usually when something drags, it's because it's boring. But even when what happens is interesting to show, it can still interfere with the pace of the story, and fail to contribute meaningfully to it.
   
3. When it's too long. Yeah, it doesn't seem very artistic to narrate just to keep the word count down. But don't fool yourself: word count always matters. Even when no one tells you what your word limit is, it still affects whether the story you're writing is a short story, a novella, a novel, a trilogy, an endless series... Whether someone will read it depends at least partly on how well you can manage your length.
4. When it's tangential. Not every plot point needs to be shown in detail. Some of the side stories can be relevant to the plot, but aren't worth dramatizing. This is especially true when it's the side characters whose role would be dramatized.
5. When giving the big picture. When you're talking about events that happen over days or weeks or even longer, or when you're describing events happening throughout a town or even a country, it's often most effective to step back and narrate. There are other techniques: vignettes, dialogue. Sometimes these work, and sometimes they're just contrived. Select the one that works best, but don't discount narration.
   
6. When it's painful. All right, here's one you have to be careful with. You don't want to shy away from difficult topics. If your story needs sex and violence, then by all means put it in there. But when you describe sex and violence in detail, then it changes the nature of your story. Be careful about doing that. If it's painful for your reader, he may just put the book down. And sometimes, simply saying what happened is more effective than wallowing in the details. Subtlety and understatement can get the point across where it most matters, in the reader's imagination, far more effectively than a clumsily written scene, or even a well-written one that turns the reader's stomach.

Now hopefully that's not just my way of justifying my own story.

Labels: Writing

And this time I delayed a month. On the bright side, it looks like it worked--I had plenty of stories after waiting. Here is this month's Storyblogging Carnival.

---

Glittering Void
by Robert Lew Terrell of The Reflected Moon
An 11 word brief story rated PG.

A haiku.

---

Miserly Limerick
by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Humor Blog
A under 100 word brief story rated PG.

A tale of a miser in limerick form.

---

First Impressions Matter
by Stephen Kavita of Self Improvement Tips
A 295 word brief story rated G.

His friend sits down on the dark oily wooden benches inside the dusty, unclean hotel and comfortably orders for a burger and a mug of tea. He calmly asked his friend, “Ah…my friend, is…is this the best hotel in Nairobi?” His friend answers confidently, “Well it is definitely the cheapest in town.” He then took his smartly dressed friend to ...

[I tend not to include stories on marketing web sites, which this admittedly is. You have to scroll down to get to the story. Once you do, though, it is a story, so I included it. -DSC]

---

Weekend Special
by Lovelyn of Nebulous Mooch
A 336 word brief story rated PG-13.

A car accident.

---

Cracks in my Heart
by Jean of Cherry Vomit | My Life in Tansition
A 530 word brief story rated PG.

A break-up.

---

Resolving Things Like Gentlemen
by Walter of Henry's Trashcan
A 834 word short story rated PG.

Two men are locked in a dungeon and hold a talent show to see who gets to eat a dead rat.

---

The Grandfather I Never Knew
by JHS of Writing My Life
A 1,088 word short story rated PG.

"He said very lit­tle. As I think back on those vis­its now, I have no rec­ol­lec­tion of him ever directly address­ing me, and yet I tell myself that he must have at least asked me how I was, how things were at school …"

---

Pure Joy
by Jenn of Mixed Metaphor.net
A 1,330 word short story rated PG-13.

"The past five days were just a bad nightmare now."

---

This concludes the one hundred and ninth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

NOTE: This is a repost, so I can't guarantee the links.

The latest Storyblogging Carnival is up at Dean's World. There are eight stories this time, from a variety of authors. Go have a look.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

NOTE: Once again this is a repost, so I can't guarantee the links.

The latest Storyblogging Carnival is up at The Skwib, Mark Rayner's place. There were only three entries this time, but we decided to go ahead anyway. We've had a couple of really low ones recently, but that may be blamed on the holidays we're just coming out of. If it continues, though, we may have to turn the carnival into a monthly, rather than a fortnightly, event. Let me know what you think.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

NOTE: This is a repost, so I can't guarantee the links.

The latest carnival is up at Dodgeblogium, hosted by Andrew Ian Dodge. There are eleven stories this time, but five of them are really short, so go have a look.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

Welcome to the sixty-first Storyblogging Carnival. We only had four entries this time, possibly due to the fact that we're just getting out of the Holidays. Hopefully we'll do better next time. On the bright side, it was a lot less work to put this carnival together than usual.

---

Stranger XI
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 100 word brief story rated R.

It was requested that I write a sporty Cthulhu tale and this my attempt.

---

Postcard #5: From the Shape-shifting Dreamplate
by Karen Hunting at Reason-and-Rhyme
An 511 word brief story rated PG.

"Shifting Dreamplate" might seem to be all fluffy words flowing, flowing -- answers to questions not asked nor cared about, but cried out in desperation nonetheless. But isn't it really more like the terror and wonder associated with the sealing in of consciousness when lying there before sleep... in sleep, before death... in death? Just maybe?

---

Being Marika
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 2000 word short story rated PG.

A quasi-autobiographical short travel fiction, about how I nearly married a Fijian princess.

---

The Transformation of PeeWee Witkin
by Charmaine Frost at Reason-and-Rhyme
An 8,237 word short story rated PG.

Little people face big challenges -- perhaps particularly over the holidays -- and without an ounce of sympathy these challenges may sometimes turn their hearts to stone.

---

This concludes the sixty-first Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

Welcome to the sixtieth Storyblogging Carnival. This time we have ten stories by nine authors, including one of my own which I never got around to submitting.

People have done better this time around sending me blurbs for their stories. Thanks, guys, and I apologize for being impolite about it earlier. Now, rather than wasting my time ranting, on to the stories.

---

Postcard #2 Spirit Antarctica
by Karyn Hunting of Reason-and-Rhyme
A 467 word brief story rated PG.

Echoes of memories of a last half of the last raisonette shared in Antarctica never sounded so delicious! And even the cold and the splash and the dive had to have been worth it!

---

Chew on This
by Laurence Simon of this blog is full of crap
A 500 word brief story rated R.

This is a twisted tale of the realities of modern Halloween ruination.

---

Adventures of an Unlikely Super Hero (Part One): Ambition — For a Woman?!
by Laura Young of Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life
The first 547 words of a story in progress rated PG.

This story was published in Become Your Own Great and Powerful. It's the tale of a woman and her relationship with power.

---

Apple
by Anna O. of Anna O.: The Talking Cure
A 613 word brief story rated G.

Short story about a young artist grappling with her neurosis' and her struggle to differentiate between dreams and waking life.

---

yellow pillow case
by Anna O. of Anna O.: The Talking Cure
A 618 word brief story rated PG.

A short story played out in the narrative of a young woman's mind about change vs. consistency in relationships and life. In a universal sense, it's about the constant readjustments we all have to continually make in order to keep moving forward.

---

A Squirrely Lesson
by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Humor Blog
A 739 word brief story rated PG.

Madeleine Kane's home is invaded by a squirrel, and the exterminator doesn't want to pay a house call. What's a poor feminist to do?

---

Mist Magic, Parts 15-20 (Beginning)
by Dave Gudeman of Doc Rampage
The latest 1,493 words of a 5,485 word story in progress rated PG.

This is the story I was told by the mystery-man about how magic entered the world in the early bronze age.

---

Untold Onward Drawn - Part 2 - The Departure (Beginning)
by The Rocketman of The Rocketman's Change For A Dollar
The next 1,583 words of a 3,345 word continuing story rated PG.

"Untold Onward Drawn" is the (fairy-tale?) story of two happenstance travelers and the result of their supernatural encounter during a bit of primitive mythological archaeology. Part 1 was posted in an earlier edition of Storyblogging. I originally had no further plans for the piece; however, I recently took to the idea of continuing it. Part 2 of this installment was written just as the first - extemporaneously. Any subsequent entries will be added in the same whimsical manner. It's been great fun to write. Enjoy.

---

Es ist Schwer
by Postmodern Sass of Postmodern Sass
A 1,700 word short story rated PG.

"This is the story of my grandfather, who died, and how a little piece of him came back to me, 25 years later."

---

This concludes the sixtieth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

NOTE: This is a re-post of an old post, so I can't guarantee the links.

Welcome to the fifty-ninth Storyblogging Carnival. This edition includes nine stories from eight authors.

Recently, I've been getting a lot of submissions from the Blog Carnival submission form. This is good, since it increases the number of submissions, but there are some drawbacks. First, because there's no filtering, I sometimes get submissions that don't even resemble stories, and I wonder whether the submitter even read what the Storyblogging Carnival is all about. (There's a description in our page on the site.) These are rejected, with an e-mail to the author explaining why and what we're looking for in the Storyblogging Carnival. The second drawback is that there doesn't seem to be any way to explain what we want in our carnival submissions, and there's no entry on the form for some of those things. I have a fairly lengthy list, including some things other carnivals don't look for: aside from author, post title and URL, and blog name and URL, we want a word count, a rating for adult content, and a blurb describing the story. These are important, but I'm willing to let the first slide, since it's easy enough for the host to perform a wordcount (although not all of them do). I'll even let slide the second, since the host is ultimately responsible for the rating anyway (although, admittedly, I myself sometimes only skim the entries when I don't have much time to work on the carnival, which makes it hard to be sure about the rating). However, what I'm not willing to let slide anymore is the blurb. The carnival entry form does have a section for a description of the post, and it seems to me that if you want to have people read your story, you have to at least tell them what it is about. I used to write the description myself for the one or two stories that lacked it, but this time we had six entries with no blurb for the story. I e-mailed the authors to ask for their blurbs. Those who got back to me are in this carnival, and those who didn't are not. This will be the new policy whenever I host from now on.

---

Shoeless
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A man's new habit proves dismaying to friends.

---

Size Matters
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

What's a few extra inches?

---

100 words on Horbgorble
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 100 word brief story rated G.

"The word of the week was Horbgorble. I thought it was something mispelled so I thought someone hearing it would definetely get the wrong end of the stick!"

---

Proving his religion — Dr. Tundra and the Noodly Norsemen
by Mark A. Rayner of The Skwib
A 350 word brief story rated PG-13.

Dr. Tundra proves scientifically that it is a lack of Vikings, not pirates, that causes global warming.

---

For Safe Keeping
by Rocket Barber of The Rocketman's Change For A Dollar
A 457 word brief story rated PG

A perspective on a sunrise.

---

Hunting Cows by Moonlight
by Chris Dolley of Author Chris Dolley's Page
A 618 word excerpt from a book rated PG.

"'Hunting Cows by Moonlight' is a self-contained and true story from my book, Nous Sommes Anglais - chronicling eight months in the life of a man who moved to France with one wife, two cats, two horses and a large puppy. Everyone except the horses feature in this story of animals turning their owner's lives upside down."

---

Secret Shopper
by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Humor Blog
A 704 word brief story rated PG.

Mad Kane tells the story of a rather unusual shopping expedition with her mom.

---

NaNoWriMo: The Path to Enlightenment?
by Laura Young of Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life
A 940 word brief story rated G.

How writing her live autobiography is changing one woman's life.

---

Where the Boys Are, Part II (The Beginning)
by Postmodern Sass of Postmodern Sass
The final 1,200 words of a 2,100 word short story rated PG.

Thanksgiving in Napa with a family of vegans and baby rock stars.

---

This concludes the fifty-ninth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

NOTE: This is a repost of an older post, so I can't guarantee that the links still work.

The latest Storyblogging Carnival is up at Reason and Rhyme. Nine stories this time, the majority of them submitted through the BlogCarnival form. Have a look.

Labels: Storyblogging Carnival

You may be wondering what happened to this month's Storyblogging Carnival. I apologize for not addressing it earlier... I sent a note to the e-mail list, but forgot to post something here. I'm afraid that I had to cancel May's carnival, since I only received two entries, even after copious amounts of begging on my part. This has me worried, since entries have been harder and harder to come by. Is it time to end the carnival entirely?

Even as I was wondering this, I received a ton of entries for the next one. So I suppose it won't end just yet.

Labels: Storyblogging Details

Headlines often don't match the story. It may be my imagination, but I think scientific stories are some of the most egregious offenders. I don't know if it's because the editor doesn't really understand the content, or what. For example, consider this one, "Virtual reality used to transfer men's minds into a woman's body." (h/t Instapundit) It's certainly eyecatching. So what does the actual story say:

In a study at Barcelona University, men donned a virtual reality (VR) headset that allowed them to see and hear the world as a female character. When they looked down they could even see their new body and clothes.

The "body-swapping" effect was so convincing that the men's sense of self was transferred into the virtual woman, causing them to react reflexively to events in the virtual world in which they were immersed.

That sounds promising. What's the data they base their conclusion on?

Men who took part in the experiment reported feeling as though they occupied the woman's body and even gasped and flinched when she was slapped by another character in the virtual world.
...
Later in the study, the second character lashed out and slapped the face of the character the men were playing. "Their reaction was immediate," said Slater. "They would take in a quick breath and maybe move their head to one side. Some moved their whole bodies. The more people reported being in the girl's body, the stronger physical reaction they had."

Wait. What?

The first is subjective. It's hard to make any definite conclusions about what it means, since it's hard to say what they meant when they said they "felt they were in the woman's body." That was definitely their perspective, and to that degree they were.

As for the second, that may be more scientific, but it's less interesting. It's the simple realization that the first person perspective makes things appear to happen to you. Any player of a first person shooter could have told you that. When I first played Doom, I'd flinch from incoming attacks, crane my neck to peer over windows in my very two-dimensional computer screen, shift my weight to reflect my movement. It has very little to do with whether the avatar is male or female, but rather with the fact that I identify with first-person events as if they're happening to me. In doing so, I more projected myself in the avatar's place, than projected the avatar on to me.

So the experiment was hardly revolutionary in its discoveries, and I'm afraid that it's a long way from justifying the headline.

Labels: Science, Technology

I may be embarrassing her by doing this, but my girlfriend, Kristin, has just started a blog. Like me, she's a writer, typically science fiction and fantasy. Don't expect her to put any of her work online--she's way too serious about publishing--but check out her credits.

Labels: blogging