{"id":8178,"date":"2011-05-17T14:00:47","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T18:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8178"},"modified":"2011-05-17T14:01:12","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T18:01:12","slug":"from-the-dark-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/from-the-dark-side\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Dark Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve written before (here<\/a> and elsewhere) about the writing workshop I participated in, fifteen-some years ago.<\/p>\n

An odd cast of characters, maybe: three writers of poetry and literary fiction then seeking their graduate degrees in English, with an emphasis on creative writing; one writer of comic action stories (think Carl Hiaasen, maybe with a touch of Elmore Leonard); one writer of horror and science fiction…<\/p>\n

…and I.<\/p>\n

I was the only one who’d published a book to that point, my mystery Crossed Wires<\/em>. But I didn’t think of myself as a “mystery writer.” (Crossed Wires<\/em>‘s prose and structure, I think, suggests the crooked posture of a writer in a genre he knows he’s not suited for.)<\/p>\n

I didn’t know how to classify myself. My reading tastes were all over the map. I’d read a great deal of science fiction while growing up; liked reading mysteries and thrillers; had been bowled over by the caliber of the romances published by friends*; was moved and challenged by fiction I read in The New Yorker<\/em> and similar magazines.<\/p>\n

Horror? Well, I’d read a lot of horror comics when I was a kid. I didn’t mind “scary movies,” but didn’t get many chances to see them (other than classics from the ’30s). When I got older, I read some King and Koontz, and — on the strength of the paperbacks’ striking covers — I read some of Brian Lumley’s Necroscope<\/em><\/a> series. But for the most part, horror fiction didn’t interest me. Beyond what seemed a core of authors with wider aspirations and deeper, more complex psychologies, y’know, It Was All Just Blood.<\/p>\n

But the SF\/horror writer in our workshop kept bringing to us his inventive little fantasias of things gone frighteningly wrong. And this got me thinking: I wonder what it’s like to write<\/em> horror? So I tried it. Once.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My objectives: I wanted to write a horror story featuring a monster, but not a monster of a type readers would recognize — I didn’t want them to use a familiar noun<\/em> for my monster. I wanted to write the story from the monster’s point of view. I figured there’d have to be a certain amount of blood, but it didn’t need to be onstage (so to speak). I didn’t want to make the monster sympathetic, tragic, or misunderstood: I wanted him to be unrepentant. And one night, in that twilight mental state between waking and sleep, a title came to me.<\/p>\n

“In the Ruins on Borphyr Road” started out as a fairly tight story which the workshop’s readers liked. But they kept wanting to know more. Where the heck had this guy come from? How the heck did he even, well, work<\/em>? (The anatomy and physics seemed impossible.)<\/p>\n

I was pleased enough with the result, after several drafts, to submit the story to maybe two or three horror markets. I got some interest, although not enough to encourage me. And then the coup de gr\u00e2ce<\/em>: a popular movie came out a few years later, whose monster was not identical but way too similar to my own protagonist. Working on and\/or submitting the story further seemed pointless, and it went into the virtual file cabinet.<\/p>\n

Having re-read it now, fifteen years later, I almost certainly would not have written some of this in exactly this way. Nevertheless, here’s an excerpt — the first two sections<\/a> of “In the Ruins on Borphyr Road.” (If prompted for a password**, it’s that one oddball word in the story’s title, entered exactly as spelled — capital B<\/em>, and so on.)<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

* We all are snobs about something — especially those things which we’ve never experienced… right up until we experience it ourselves. (Of course, it betters the odds if we start at a good point. Sturgeon’s Law<\/a> and all that.)<\/p>\n

** “Password?!?” you wonder. I know, I know. Humor me for now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before (here and elsewhere) about the writing workshop I participated in, fifteen-some years ago. An odd cast of characters, maybe: three writers of poetry and literary fiction then seeking their graduate degrees in English, with an emphasis on creative writing; one writer of comic action stories (think Carl Hiaasen, maybe with a touch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,53,5,105,372,470],"tags":[140,463,2365,2366,2367],"class_list":{"0":"post-8178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-movies-media","8":"category-06_writing","9":"category-short-fiction","10":"category-style-and-craft","11":"category-crossed-wires-writing_cat","12":"tag-genres","13":"tag-writers-workshop","14":"tag-horror-fiction","15":"tag-monsters","16":"tag-in-the-ruins-on-borphyr-road","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-27U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8180,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8178\/revisions\/8180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}