It’s time again for my Weekly Exercises. These flash fiction pieces are part opportunity to practice my craft, part sounding board to hear from readers what they think works and doesn’t work, and part shameless plug to get people interested in my published work. Remember, the Weekly Exercises rely on reader feedback, so whatever your thoughts, please let me know. I like feedback, positive or negative.
This week’s exercise is brought to you by Water. “Water: You need it, so why not take a dip?” It’s also brought to you by Fear. “Fear: the makers of ‘What was that?'”
Enjoy.
~~~
She’d been kidnapped on the way home from her last class. He’d taken her to his home, tied her up, done things to her. He said there’d been news reports about a missing co-ed from the local college, a pretty redhead whom nobody could think of why someone would want to hurt her. He’d laughed all the while he was hurting her.
Now he’d tied her up, put a gag in her mouth, and thrown her into the pit behind his house, naked as the day she was born. He said he was done and had had his fun. She screamed up to him through the gag, begging for mercy. He said he’d installed a drain in the pit that could only be opened from above. Then he closed it and snaked a hose in.
Cold water fell from above. She cried, begging for her life. She’d do anything for him. But all he did was laugh and watch and film it with his camera, like he’d filmed everything else he’d done to her. The water was up to her ankles. She tried to break her bonds, but they were too strong. The water was up to her waist now. There wasn’t room to move, and she couldn’t swim. Up to her neck now, very little moonlight left. She cried a tear, but it was lost in all the water.
Adam & Eve: the original sex story that’s been denounced as evil and immoral.
I’m actually kind of sick while I’m writing this post, so if it’s not up to my usual quality, I apologize. Also, if you want to make me matzo ball soup or something, please make sure it’s prepared in a manner that is acceptable under the laws of kashrut. For an easy guide to cooking kashrut, please contact your local rabbi or read a guidebook to Jewish cooking.
Okay, enough rambling that unfortunately we cannot blame my current condition on. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this, but the horror genre–whether it be books, movies, comic books, or TV shows on FX–has a lot of sex. It’s one of the draws of the genre, and it’s also one of the things horror authors are criticized for the most (besides the whole–you know–the fact that we write about scary, bloody things that often kill/maim/cover us in blood). Sometimes it seems that there’s more sex in a horror movie than there is horror.
The question is, why? Why is there so much sex in horror stories?
Well, I’m not exactly sure. Besides demons that use sex as a weapon in ancient legends and folklore, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of material on this subject before the 19th century. I do know that works by early horror writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Mary Shelley, who wrote around the same time, didn’t have a lot of sex in their work, and any that did was only subtly hinted at (for example, “The Fall of the House of Usher” hinted at an incestuous relationship between Usher and his sister, but never exactly came out and said it). However things started to change around the turn of the century. Dracula contained several themes about Victorian sexual mores, and theater productions of horror stories often used sex to draw crowds in. I’m not as familiar with the works of HP Lovecraft as I should be, but I bet there might be some naughtiness hinted at in those stories.
(And if I am wrong, I apologize and ask that you please notify me immediately of the fact)
“Bleh! I am so chaste! Bleh!”
Early horror films like the original Phantom of the Opera film with Lon Chaney, Nosferatu, the Universal horror films and some others skirted around sex (mostly because Hollywood had much more stringent censorship back then), but it was still present in books and comics of the time, which led to comic books being censored as well. However with the fifties and sixties came the sexual revolution, and mores surrounding sexuality loosened. This started being reflected in horror, with Stephen King in the seventies debuting with Carrie and Salem’s Lot, which had plenty of sex and sexual themes in them. Slasher films made use of sex as well, showing sex alongside blood and gore well into the late eighties and nineties. Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted in the late nineties, during which the connection between sex and horror was often explored and commented upon within the show and by its viewers.
Fast forward a little bit, and you have the Scream movies, which poked fun at the supposed “rules of horror movies” (see video below), the Friday the 13th remake which had so much sex, it kind of lost the point of the film till near the end (but still couldn’t salvage the story), and American Horror Story, which actually manages to use sex in an artful way without taking away from the terror of the show.
(If anyone feels my history lesson in horror and sex is lacking something, once again I apologize.)
But like I said, all this sex in the horror genre has its consequences. Some will say that horror is using sex to draw in its audiences, like when you have a pretty girl being tortured while in her underwear (I think that’s a new way of looking at torture porn). Others say that horror authors are making a morality statement when they say “sin” like sex, drugs or booze causes you to die horribly, and the sweet virgin is the only one who survives (albeit with severe trauma). Plenty of critics believe that all the sex, along with the gore and killing, are warping the minds of children and teenagers (I don’t believe that for one minute). And feminists criticize horror authors for objectifiying and sometimes demonizing women and their sexuality in their work.
For that last one, I have to admit, we’ve been guilty of that a few times. So has certain evangelists and nutcases and whatnot, but yeah, horror authors have done this a few times. The video below provides some examples on this.
But this still doesn’t explain how sex has gotten to be such a part of the genre of horror. Maybe it serves as a relief for audiences. After seeing something so scary, a little sex can actually serve to relax people. In some funeral parlors, they’ll actually have lewd statues or paintings in order to make the grieving feel a little better (not kidding). At the same time, sex could act as a way to ramp people up, show them a little nudity, and then when they’re excited, scare them silly with some blood and death.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that if there’s more sex in a horror movie than there is horror, it’s probably because the filmmakers realized they have a pretty weak story to begin with, and need something to draw the audiences in with. I don’t know if anyone else shares that opinion, but I definitely believe it. And it certainly would explain a lot.
And occasionally, sex serves as part of the plot, like how in AHS: Asylum Kit and Grace having sex is used to further certain elements of the story. So occasionally sex can be used in a good way in the horror genre, instead of just making us worry that the people behind the story you’re watching or reading about just needed something after a very bad dry spell.
Here’s another question to ask yourself: Is my story more likely to get this rating than an R or PG-13 rating if I use sex?
I’m still not sure why sex is so intrinsically a part of the horror genre. However, because it is, I think it should be used more wisely. If you write horror stories, unless you’re trying to use sex as part of your story in a tasteful way or as a tool to further character development, then you should probably leave the sex out. Ask yourself this: what does this story gain from me using sex in it?
If you can’t think of a valid reason, then don’t put the sex in. (You can also ask this question for gore, and I highly recommend that you do).
Boy, it’s been a crazy day. I was afraid I’d never have a chance to write this post. But I’m in front of my computer, my homework for tonight is done, and I’ve called back everyone who’s left me messages, so here’s the post to celebrate the two-month anniversary of The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, my collection of short stories and first published book.
So far, I’ve sold about 41 or 42 copies, which isn’t too bad given I’m still pretty new to the indie-publishing scene and this is my first book. In addition, I’ve got a 4-star average on Amazon at the moment based on four reviews, which makes me happy. I like to think that people like what I write, so the reviews are proof that at least some people like the book.
I’ve also gotten some interesting responses to my book. For instance, the first short story in the collection, “Addict”, has turned quite a few heads with its content. But it’s a story about a man with sex addiction, so I can see why that might attract some attention. I’ve also gotten some great feedback on some of the other short stories. My dad thought the titular short story, “The Quiet Game”, was very creepy and well-done, and coming from him that’s some really awesome praise. And of course Jason Haxton, author of the book The Dybbuk Box, loved my original dybbuk story, “Samson Weiss’s Curse”. He’s the one who gave me my sole five-star review.
If you’re interested in reading The Quiet Game, please check it out on Amazon and Smashwords, available in both paperback and e-book versions.
In addition to being the second-month anniversary of The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones (post to come later) this is also the day I do my weekly exercises. These flash fiction pieces are chances to practice my craft, chances to hear reader views, and shameless plugs to get you interested in my published fiction. And today’s the fifth one, meaning I can stick with this.
Remember, the exercises depend on reader feedback, so whatever you think, please let me know. I love hearing from you.
~~~
He had killed them all. A year ago, he and his wife had left a restaurant and they had jumped him, beaten him and given him a Glasgow smile, so now he always looked like he was smiling. He’d lived, but his wife hadn’t been so lucky. She had been raped and killed by the punks who’d cut his face open. The autopsy had revealed she was three weeks pregnant with their first child.
The police couldn’t find them. Didn’t have the time, with all the gang crimes in this city. But he hadn’t stopped looking for them. And he’d found them. And now they lay all around him, with eternal smiles full of blood on their faces. He looked at their pitiful faces, and then he left. He was going to put flowers on his wife’s grave.
Two reviews in one post. That’s a new one for me. But what do you expect from me? Two very interesting series having two significant events on the same night, one after the other? Of course I’m going to do a double review! So without further ado, let’s start the analysis and reviews:
Now that’s what I call graphics.
Sleepy Hollow Based on the famous short story by Washington Irving, Sleepy Hollow is an updated version of the classic tale, where Ichabod Crane is a Revolutionary War hero instead of a teacher. Get this: he’s the one who beheaded the famous Headless Horseman. Now the Horseman’s back, and Ichabod’s returned from the grave to stop him…and whoever’s controlling him. With some Biblical themes mixed in, some good ol’ fashioned American legend and folklore, and some superb acting, I think this could be the start of a great series.
So far I have only two complaints: one is that Ichabod, played by actor Tom Milson, seems not as culture-shocked as you’d expect for an 18th century man finding himself in the year 2013…or as torn up over the death of his wife Katrina, who appears to him in a ghostly dream. Also, I have a feeling that the series’ producers are trying to create a mythology from the first episode. While I admire that, let’s hope they don’t shove it down our throats. Give us the mythology too quickly and viewers may be turned off from it.
Other than that, the show seems really great. The characters seem very real to me, and the chemistry between Ichabod and Sheriff Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) is already strong, like Mulder and Scully in some ways. Also the cast is very diverse, which both brings a little humor to the show (Ichabod is surprised that Abbie, who is a woman and African American, isn’t a slave and is instead a lieutenant, making everyone rolls their eyes or laugh with a knowing smile) and makes me think we’re actually making some progress in terms of race relations. Not much, but some. And the show is filmed in the actual town of Sleepy Hollow, New York. Yes, there’s an actual Sleepy Hollow. It changed its name from Tarrytown a few years back to honor the original Irving story, in which Sleepy Hollow is a part of the Tarrytown township or district or whatever. Who knew!
All in all, I’m giving Sleepy Hollow a 4.6 out of 5. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season, and seeing whether this show can keep up the momentum or…you know what, I’m not even going to finish that sentence lest I jinx it. Let’s hope for the best.
Purists hate this show, but most seem to love it.
Under the Dome In so many ways this show, based on the uber-long novel by Stephen King, who executive produced the show, departs from the original story. And as we saw tonight, it can sometimes stay true to the original tale. In the meantime, we’ve seen an incredible season. I was skeptical when I saw the first episode this summer (see the review here), but the story got better and better with every episode, taking the story in new directions, developing very real characters, and throwing in as many mysteries as it could without overwhelming viewers.
In a way, it’s really amazing how the show weaves in so many ideas and subplots and characters in a coherent narrative. That’s something I’d like to be able to do someday, and do it with ease as well. In any case, I’m not surprised that Under the Dome will be returning next summer for a second season, especially based on that very strange cliff-hanger of a season finale. If you haven’t gotten into the show yet, I suggest you look it up. Dean Norris from Breaking Bad could easily win an Emmy for his work on the show as town councilman James “Big Jim” Rennie, especially now that Bad‘s over and done with (at least I think it is. The series ended, right?). And Dale “Barbie” Barbara, the show’s lead played by Mike Vogel, looks underdeveloped as a character at first glance, but you find this bad-ass charm, mystery, and kindness on the second. I think it’ll be interesting to see what they do with him in the second season.
For the season finale, I give UTD a well deserved 4.6 out of 5. And for the entire first season…I’m awarding it a 4.8 out of 5, for taking a complicated story and a not-so-good start and making it one of the TV events of the summer. Yeah, I said that. Weep, Miley Cyrus. Your little freak-out on MTV didn’t hit my radar.
Expect more TV show reviews as new and exciting series, like Dracula or Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. begin this fall, and a few movies such as Carrie and Catching Fire come out. Not to mention the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, comes out this November. I cannot wait!
Well, that’s all for now. Hope to do my weekly exercises tomorrow. Good night everybody!
It’s time for my weekly exercises. These pieces of flash fiction are part chance to practice my craft, part oppurtunity to get reader feedback on what’s scary and what’s not, and part shameless marketing ploy to get people interested in my published work. Remember, these exercises depend on reader feedback, so please give me your thoughts, good or bad, on the piece below.
The sky turned black as midnight. Everyone stared towards the heavens and the inky blackness. A moment ago the sky had been bright and blue, the sun still high above at four in the afternoon. But then it had turned pitch-black, like looking into an inkpot. No moon, no stars. Not a single source of light burned in the sky, and not even street lamps sensitive to changes in light could dispel away the darkness.
Family huddled together in fear. Lovers held each other, comforting each other in order to forget their disorientation and confusion. People left their offices, homes, and stores just to stare at the impossibly-black sky. For maybe five minutes, nothing changed and nobody moved, just looking at the sky in terrified wonderment.
And then a giant, skeletal hand appeared from the inky blackness and reached down as if to grab them all and take them away. Maybe that was its purpose. And the people who saw the hand and the long arm attached to it screamed.
I finally sat down this evening, after finishing a whole lot of biology homework, and I watched the movie Warm Bodies. It’s amazing when people can take a tired, old plot and make it seem fresh and new. If you don’t get what I’m talking about, just see the movie. You’ll get it.
But it put me in mind of a zombie story I’ve written myself. Well, it’s not exactly a zombie story. Zombie-like or zombie-ish. If I call it a zombie story, it seems like it gets categorized into a larger body of work that people see as overused these days…and increasingly getting as dumb as its main antagonist. But my short story, “Buried Alive”, actually features some zombie-story elements. And even though I’m satisfied with the ending, I feel…I feel like the story could continue after it finished. And, I realized, I kind of wanted it to continue.
Just one problem: I don’t want to make a bleeding novel out of this story. I’ve got enough on my plate without another novel at this point.
Looks like Sean Connery in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
But then I thought of an old high school memory: in some of my English classes, particularly the AP courses I took when I was an upperclassman, we read a lot of Ernest Hemingway. My teacher just had this thing for Ernest Hemingway. Don’t know why. I didn’t particularly care for him, but we read quite a bit of him. Indian Camp, I think we read twice in my four years of high school.
And I remember, there was a character in many of Hemingway’s stories, a guy by the name of Nick Adams. This guy appeared everywhere, sometimes a kid, sometimes a teenager, sometimes an adult. I once asked my teacher about this guy, and he replied that Nick Adams appeared in plenty of Hemingway’s stories. Two dozen, to be exact. What made Nick Adams so appealing to Hemingway? He was supposedly based on a lot of Hemingway’s personal experiences, so maybe that had a lot to do with it.
In any case, I thought, “Why can’t this short story be my Nick Adams?” It would be short stories I write every now and then, featuring the same world and the same protagonist, all originating from “Buried Alive”. I could even release them in a collection someday, far, far in the future. Who knows what could happen?
In any case, I’ll see what I come up with when I have the time and the energy to write some short stories. There are definitely possibilities here for a series of interconnected stories.
Have you ever written a short story and wished you could write a sequel/spin-off/related story to it? What happened?
Time for my weekly exercises again. These short little pieces of flash fiction are part practice of my craft, part chance to get some feedback on my work, and part shameless marketing ploy to get you to take an interest in my work. Remember, feedback is important, positive or negative, so whatever you think, please let me know if you like what you read.
Today’s exercise features a favorite of mine: the evil doll. Hope it chills you to the bone.
~~~
Danny had never been allowed in Grandmother’s room in his eight short years, but he supposed nobody would care since Grandmother was now dead. He walked around the room, staring at all the old photos and the ancient furniture. The room had a strange smell, the smell of forgotten things and things that had seen their day years ago. At the foot of Grandmother’s bed was a large wooden crate with big, metal clasps and a sign that said NEVER OPEN. Curious, Danny undid the clasps, opened up the crate, and looked inside.
Lying on the floor of the crate was a doll in a blue sailor’s dress. It was the same size as Danny, with long red hair and pale skin that looked so real Danny at first thought it was a real girl. He reached down to pick the doll up, but then it suddenly stood up on its own and threw its arms around Danny in a big bear hug. The doll whispered in his ear, “Play with me forever or I’ll kill you.”
I first heard about this film from my boss at work. Her fiancé apparently was a cop in Alaska back in the eighties, and a certain case he’d worked was being made into a movie. It was the story of Robert Hanson, a serial killer who had taken several girls up to the woods in his plane and then killed them. The girls he took were prostitutes, whom he raped and murdered, and then took trophies from. He’s now serving 461 years plus life for his crimes.
Did I mention that the movie stars John Cusack as the killer, Vanessa Hudgens as the prostitute who escapes him and later identifies him, and Nicholas Cage as the cop who takes him down? If I haven’t, than I think I just did.
This movie is only available through select theaters and on-demand, but it could be good enough for a national release. Watching it, I find it hard to tell what’s Hollywood BS to spice up the story and what’s actually happened. It’s done so convincingly. You see actual emotions, characters who feel so real to the point that you forget you’re watching actors. Hudgens especially pulls off the role of a prostitute with a hard life very well. As she says at one point to Cage’s character, “I’ve had things happen to me…things no little girl should have happen to them.” For many girls on the street, that’s how they start out. Bad things happen to them, and it warps them, putting them into a role they don’t want but can’t shake. And the whole instinct of survival at any cost drives a lot of their actions, which is why Hudgens’ character does a lot of what she does, even if it defies logic sometimes.
At least, the logic of you or me.
The Frozen Ground also gains points for its dark and realistic portrayal of the police process back in the eighties. It’s a tough job, with sometimes very few leads and several roadblocks to getting justice. You can feel the frustration mounting as at certain points, these cops find themselves blocked in trying to take down Hansen. It’s like Law & Order, but only deeper and with even less Hollywood crap.
My few complaints is that many of the characters are undeveloped. We don’t really get a chance to understand Hansen or Cage’s character, and many of the other characters, especially characters on the force, don’t get their names used once in the movie (so I could not tell which character was my boss’s fiancé, sadly). It’s a cop drama, so not a lot of room to get into character development when a killer’s out on the loose, but still, could you spend a few hundred dollars filming some scenes that show us what motivates some of the other characters in this story? The only other characters whose heads I can get into is the pimp character played by 50 Cent, and that’s such a stereotype, it’s not even funny. Because hey, the black pimp has been used so much it’s a cliché.
Anyway, I was going to give The Frozen Ground a 4.3 out of 5, but Hudgens’ performance and the realism of the movie elevate it to a 4.8. If you get a chance, do go check out the movie. And stick around after the closing shots. You’ll see the captions “This film is dedicated to all the victims, known and unknown”, followed by photos of some of the known victims of Hansen.
And one more thing before I wrap this review up. The next time you see a girl on the streets turning tricks or you hear some pundit make some comment about prostitution on TV or the radio, remember that these girls aren’t doing what they’re doing, with little or no legal protection, health insurance, retirement plan, or guarantee of safety, just for the fun of it or the money. Many are forced into it for a variety of reasons. The least you can actually do is show these girls some compassion, and remember they are real women too.
It’s time for my weekly exercise, partly to practice my craft, partly to see what works and what doesn’t, and partly as a shameless marketing ploy to get readers interested in my published or to-be published work. I rely on your feedback, so whatever you think, please let me know.
Also, this week’s exercise might be a little sexual, so if you’re under the age of 15 or have a really innocent outlook on life, I suggest you stop reading and instead go knit yourself a sweater or watch an episode of your favorite cartoons from when you’re a kid. If not, please read on.
He started and woke up as he felt a dainty, thin-fingered hand on his cock. He grinned, feeling his excitement from earlier coming back. He had thought that, being a church girl and the preacher’s daughter, she wouldn’t want anything to do with him after he had taken her special flower. Looks like all it took was a little wine and some sweet talk and he could make this girl crazy for him.
He turned over, ready for round two, but was surprised to see no one there. Then he heard a flush and saw her coming out of the bathroom wearing a pink robe. He stared at her, his eyes wide, before looking under the covers to see whose hand was still around his cock.
