When my friend suggested that I should focus on writing horror, it bothered me (see my previous post). I wondered what I did in life to make a friend associate me with things that most people see as sinister or unnerving. This drove me to review my life and compare it with my writing. It turns out, he is not the first to make the suggestion.
Years ago, I belonged to a very productive writers’ group. The group lasted eleven years and I joined in its third month. During that time, I learned much about writing and managed to turn out quite a bit. I believed at the time that my main area of writing would probably be science fiction or fantasy. That was laziness on my part; if I could make up my own world I wouldn’t have to spend much time learning all the facts about the real one.
A Request
One day, a friend from the writers’ group asked me for some help. She was writing a short story involving a mother and daughter arguing over the daughter’s choice of music. The mother hated that the daughter listened to a song about a female serial killer. My friend said she didn’t know any such song and asked if I did. I didn’t even know where to start looking for one, so my friend asked if I could write one. Five minutes later, I handed over the lyrics to a song called Surgeon Sally.
There are three relevant things to this story. First, my friend assumed that I would be the one to know about serial killer songs. Second, when I didn’t know, she assumed that I could write the lyrics to one. Third, and probably most disturbing, is that I actually did and it took me no time at all. I have since rewritten the lyrics and am planning to set them to music.
A Challenge
Remembering this occurrence, I looked for others. I found them. One night in my writers’ group, we had all the core members, many of the peripheral members, and a couple of new people attend. The crowd numbered around forty. Unfortunately, our stack of things to critique had run dry and we needed something to discuss. This usually meant someone would offer up a poem they could read for the group. One of the new people took the challenge.
This poor girl, probably about fifteen, presented her poem. It was a standard, teenage angst, death poem in the standard dirge style. I felt sorry for her because she received a very thorough, constructive critique from a large crowd of people who were genuinely interested in helping her.
The members asked the general questions. Could you tell us more? Everyone knows that death is sad, but what was particularly sad about this one? What made this death worthy of a poem? Why pick a dirge style instead of some other poetic style?
The topic of styles got many of the writers to suggest different poetic styles and their various merits and applicability to death poetry. Then someone said the name Dr. Seuss.
The entire group went quiet and turned to look at me.
I was not the one who said it.
Over the next few minutes, they delivered to me a challenge. Write a death poem in the style of Dr. Seuss. It needed to address all the questions they had directed to that poor teenaged girl. How did the death happen? What were its details? Why was it important? Tell us about the decedent.
The meeting ended that night at midnight and I finished the poem around two in the morning. The title of the poem is Bernie the Bhoozel Kicks the Can. Crowds who’ve heard me read it aloud start with smiles and end with looks of horror and disgust. I’m very proud of it.
This incident follows the same pattern as the serial killer one, but with a slight twist. In this case, the idea of death was a generic thing among the group. It wasn’t until someone added something inappropriate to the topic that the group turned to me. Still, the turning was universal and instantaneous. It was naturally assumed that I could generate this happy, sing-song abomination. Like in the earlier situation, I did and without any great effort.
Over Analysis
These two situations, and I could probably find others, mixed with the comments from my friend, seem to suggest a pattern that people pick up in my personality. Without getting too heavy into my entirely subjective take on my psychology, I have to assume that I say or do things that help people associate this darkness with me. Somehow, they think, “I need a morbid, twisted, death thing. I should talk to Bob.”
It doesn’t bother me if they do this. What bothers me is that I cannot see it well enough to be able to use it profitably. It is always a good idea to minimize one’s weaknesses and capitalize on one’s strengths. If this perception is something that comes to me naturally, I need to find a way to channel it constructively.
To that end, I’ve changed some of my reading. I’m putting more emphasis on horror and suspense: magazines such as Cemetery Dance, and authors more in the vein of Stephen King. I’ve also been reading a bit about the mechanics of suspense and horror. We will have to see how that goes.
One thing that worries me a little is the tone of my writing. Even when I write about horrible things, it usually has an upbeat quality to it. There may be monsters, but they are bubbly, excited monsters. After all, a well-fed monster is a happy monster.