No idea why the last post has such oddball font.

Last night at the writer’s group I attend, I asked the others what story scared them so much that it has stayed with them. It started an interesting discussion that I wanted to continue here.

We listed those stories that still scare us, like ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King (he made it so believable), ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allen Poe, (the rhythm of the heartbeat in the words), ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ by Shirley Jackson (as Stephen King has said, she can terrorize without yelling).

What was interesting was that none of the stories that scared us and still haunt us, had anything to do with blood and gore, but with pacing, tension, word use, the slow escalation, the unexpected. By unexpected I don’t mean the creature under the bed. If you’ve read Shirley Jackson’s book there’s a scene with a terrified young woman holding tight to her friend’s hand in a dark bedroom while something pounds on the door. The reader is directed to that ghostly terror outside the room trying to get in, until the light comes back on and the totally unexpected, totally creepy part, is inside the room. It’s a great example of directing the reader’s attention unobtrusively in one direction, while the author sneaks up behind the reader.

Of course you’d expect writers to focus on the craft of the scary story, but I think they have pinpointed what scares us  in these kinds of books, whether you’re a writer or not. A character to care about. That niggling faint feeling that something is about to happen, the sense of doom rushing toward you.

In all fiction though, there are moments in our stories where we need to accomplish the same thing. Tiny moments of pushing our reader to the edge of the seat, whether that’s in a romance, a western, or a mystery. I think we could learn how to make those tiny pieces of our plots more breathless by studying the structure of those scary masterpieces.

Besides, Halloween is coming. It’s time for me to dust off Shirley Jackson’s book and read it again.

Oh, and by the way, photos can be terrifying, too…for a parent!

I am posting Mary Mackey's poem here as the sidebar is getting crowded but I don't want to remove the poem from the blog as it is such an integral part of the interview that follows. If you are intrigued by this poem please read the three part interview with its author. 
'The Drowning Boys'  (From 'Sugar Zone' by Mary Mackey)

Down to the Farol do Barra on the Bay of All Saints
out to the raw sugar beaches of Jaguaribe and Itapuã
stomachs empty as charity
bare feet coated with salt and the mud of melted hills
Eles estão chegando here they come
the drowning boys/as moleques da rua
from Susuranna, Favela de Alagados,
Maciel/Pelourinho coming in packs
like dancing saints their faces bright as the mirror
Iemanjá holds when she walks on the waves

as crianças sem esperança     the boys without hope

how gently they will touch our wrists
as they unstrap our watches
how carefully they will turn us over
as they empty our pockets & push us under

these children who don’t fear death
children who in another life
we might have loved

Reproduced here with permission from Mary Mackey.  Please respect the author's work and do not copy, print, or reproduce without her permission.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a small local writer’s workshop.  One very excellent seminar was taught by Priscilla Long and I was impressed enough that I purchased her book, The Writer’s Portable Mentor.  That in itself says a lot because lately I have become rather jaded about books on writing.  This book, however, has not disappointed.

Rather than this being a book review, however, I have been musing on Priscilla’s comments on the music of words.  She talks about how some vowels are higher on the note scale; some lower.  The example she used was ‘eek!’ vs. ‘doom’.  Not being a musician I had never thought about this before.

One thing Priscilla said that has me wanting to dig into my writing, is how you can use structure and sound to compliment sentences, pace, tension, etc.  For instance, we know that during high pace scenes, most people write with short sentences.  She suggests things like removing commas in order to make the sentence flow along with flowing narrative.  But the comments on music have really piqued my interest.

In a tense scene, wouldn’t it be fun to play with vowel sounds?  Priscilla also points out all the other sounds you can play with, such as slant rhyming, where the words almost rhyme but don’t quite, words that begin with the same letter, and so on.  As she says, most writers do this without even being aware of what they are doing.  Her challenge is to bring that awareness out, to have an ear tuned to the musical sound of the words and how that sound can be used to enhance and emphasize.

It makes perfect sense.  I love reading out loud something that is lyrical and flows, but I never thought to analyze it and pull out what makes it flow.  Not just the structure of the sentence, not just the words, but the individual letters.  I never thought about what creates that music in the words.  I know that sometimes I absolutely love the flow of something I’ve written, and sometimes it stinks.  Now, when I’m editing, I’ll have another layer to delve into when trying to find out why something isn’t working.

Isn’t it great when something is put into words that you might know subconsciously, but now see concretely?  I love it when I find a new tool to put in my writer’s craft box.