Blog Archives

Pardon Me, but Have You Seen My Eyeball?

10/29/2013

Tactful Juxtaposition in Horror

When you think about what scares you most in a horror story, what is the quickest to come to mind? Chances are, your mind’s eye will impose images of what should, under any normal circumstances, be the most unlikely of suspects. Children giggling, clowns smiling, dignified noblemen, perfectly sculpted topiary …the list goes on when it comes to imagery that, with just the right touch, goes from innocent or distinguished to downright terrifying. Place the giggling children in an otherwise empty haunted house; put a bit of blood on the clown’s suit; give the nobleman fangs; see the topiary move behind the protagonist’s back. It’s the dissonance between expectation and realization that creates the best kind of horror.

This holds true just as much with use of language as it does with use of imagery, which is why Gothic horror is (in my humble opinion) especially thrilling. While the necessary components—stormy/foggy weather, a castle or castle-like structure, a supernatural element, a maze (either literal or metaphorical) and a protagonist being pursued by some kind of monster—are dark and atmospheric in and of themselves, it is the language that seals the deal. The mesh of high literary form and supernatural evil works against a person’s sensibilities in the same way the giggle of a child possessed by pure evil might; it works much like dramatic irony, so effective because of the incongruence of elements.

Consider any of a number of passages written by the master of Gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe. For an example, I’ve pulled a random stanza from his timeless classic, “The Raven”:

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
‘Wretch,’ I cried, ‘thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!’
Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’

Look carefully at the language here. It is simple yet elegant, while uncommon and still fluid. Poe uses “Seraphim” and “angels” to raise (ironic) demonic imagery. He uses “nepenthe,” legendary and illusory, instead of using “forget” alone. Consider his use of alliteration: “swung” and “Seraphim”; “foot-falls” and “tufted floor”; “hath lent thee” and “has sent thee”; “nepenthe and thy”; “quaff” and “quoth.” These careful choices add an elegance to Poe’s words that make them all the more chilling.

I once conversed with another horror writer who insisted Gothic horror was, in his own language, “pretentious.” That word has stuck with me ever since. Pretentious. I must beg to differ. Gothic horror is sophisticated. It is complex. It contains a level of brilliance that might not be appreciable to fans of superficial horror—slash and dash, blood and guts, and such—and that’s okay. Literary is not everyone’s cup of oleander tea. With that said, I’ll take Gothic over gore any day.

It’s just scarier—in my humble opinion.

This blog post is part of Coffin Hop’s countdown to Halloween. There are tons of prizes up for grabs, so make sure to check out the many other participating authors’ blogs by going to www.coffinhop.com.

Also be sure to take a look at Coffin Hop’s benefit anthology, Death by Drive-In, the proceeds of which will go to the literacy program, Lit World.

What is your favorite kind or horror? Leave a comment for your chance to win a signed paperback copy of my Poe-inspired Gothic horror, Finding Poe, or an electronic copy of Death by Drive-In. Winners will be announced precisely at the stroke of the witching hour on Halloween ... unless the evil clown gets me. *insert evil laugh*

8 Comments

Love the Atmosphere!

10/23/2013

11 Comments

One of the aspects I love so much about Halloween is the ambiance that comes with it. I adore the cotton spider webs, the glow of Jack-o-lanterns, the witches, the goblins, and everything else that makes my favorite holiday so dark and spooky. It goes without saying that this is the time of year when horror authors shine their brightest.

I remember going all out one year in my outdoor decorations, making gravestones out of floral foam, buying dry ice to put in a cauldron on the porch, covering the entire front of the house with spider webs and plastic spiders, carving terrifying faces on the pumpkins, and compiling a track of midi horror songs. The display was so scary I answered the door to more than one parent who had to come to the porch in place of his or her child, who watched from a safer distance with friends or other family members.

When it comes to my choice in Halloween movies, I want just as much atmosphere. Give me Gothic castles, full moons, rolling fog obscuring dark nights, creepy music, and supernatural monsters. There’s something about watching Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein, or a good, old-fashioned Hammer film that really sets the mood. I also enjoy the themed episodes of my favorite television shows and the spirit of the horror authors’ community coming together to supply the unsuspecting reader with thrilling new stories to read.

This year, I’m happy to help Coffin Hop Press promote its Halloween benefit anthology, Death by Drive-In, the proceeds of which will be donated to the literacy program Lit World.

While I’m not a contributing author, I support the cause and am happy to be a part of this year’s Coffin Hop. Nearly a hundred horror authors are banning together to support Death by Drive-In and make your Halloween especially creepy, giving away books and other goodies—and giving you all sorts of chances to win. Go to www.coffinhop.com for a list of other participating authors.

For my part, I’m offering one reader a signed copy of my Gothic horror novel, Finding Poe, and another an electronic copy of Death by Drive-In, so make sure to leave a comment for your chance to win. I chose Finding Poe because I feel it's the embodiment of all I love about Halloween: it’s atmospheric, dark, creepy, and twisted. Inspired by the best works of Edgar Allan Poe, the story speculates how his own writing—most notably, his unfinished, untitled short story most of us know as "The Lighthouse"—may have contributed to his untimely death.

More about Finding Poe:

When reality and fiction collide, there's no telling what horrors might ensue.

In the wake of her husband's haunted death, Karina must sift through the cryptic clues left behind in order to solve the mystery behind his suicide—all of which point back to the elusive author, Edgar Allan Poe.

Karina soon finds that reality, dream, and nightmare have become fused into one as she journeys from a haunted lighthouse in New England to Baltimore, where the only man who might know the answers to her many questions resides.

But will she find her answers before insanity rips her grip on reality for good? Might a man she's never met hold the only key to a truth more shocking than even she could have imagined?

Finding Poe was a 2013 EPIC Awards finalist in Horror.

What do you enjoy most about Halloween? What are your favorite movies to watch and books to read during the spookiest month of the year?

11 Comments

THE UNHOLY By Paul DeBlassie III

10/11/2013

6 Comments

Today, guest author Paul DeBassie III is here to talk about his new release, The Unholy, a supernatural thriller that examines religion and the abuses that can ensue when the actions of religious leaders go unchecked. Those of you who follow my blog and my own works will know this is a topic of great importance to me, as explored in my dark allegory, Myths of Gods. Mr. DeBlassie will be giving away a $50 Amazon gift card via Rafflecopter (you'll receive an entry by leaving a comment here and at other stops during this tour), so make sure to leave a comment and check out the Rafflecopter options for additional entries! Without any further adieu, I present to you the musings of Paul DeBassie:

The story comes out of over thirty years of treating patients in psychotherapy who are survivors of the dark side of religion…have been used and abused and cast to the side. I’ve seen that when this happens people, those around the victim, to include family and friends, often turn a blind eye and deny what has happened. Rather than writing a self help book I decided to approach this realm of human suffering in fiction. To tell a story moves the reader into a deep and unconscious dimension that bypasses conscious defenses, leaving us open to truths that otherwise would be blocked.

So, dramatizing the dark side of religion, pulling what can be the most vile and evil, and pivoting it against an innocent and sincerely searching soul leaves the reader on edge, hopeful, but unsure as to what will happen and who in the end will survive…a truth conveyed symbolically and dramatically. To have written out a list of what to do or not to do in the midst of religious abuse might have helped some individuals, but would have left many people stone cold because there is no emotion is such guidance. In The Unholy, the story is pure emotion, fear and rage and hope and challenge, that inspires and frightens and causes us to stay up late at night in order to finish the story. Dream and chronic nightmares plagues people who’ve gone through the horror of being abused within a religious system. It could be emotional, spiritual, physical, or sexual torment---or all of the above---a true encounter with the unholy---that people undergo during childhood or adolescence or adulthood. They become anxious, depressed, or suffer a terrible emotional breakdown. I’ve treated them, helped them, and they helped to inspire the story of The Unholy!

About the Novel:

A young curandera, a medicine woman, intent on uncovering the secrets of her past is forced into a life-and-death battle against an evil Archbishop. Set in the mystic land of Aztlan, The Unholy is a novel of destiny as healer and slayer. Native lore of dreams and visions, shape changing, and natural magic work to spin a neo-gothic web in which sadness and mystery lure the unsuspecting into a twilight realm of discovery and decision.

Excerpt:

Lightning streaked across a midnight dark sky, making the neck hairs of a five-year-old girl crouched beneath a cluster of twenty-foot pines in the Turquoise Mountains of Aztlan stand on end. The long wavy strands of her auburn mane floated outward with the static charge. It felt as though the world was about to end.

Seconds later, lightning struck a lone tree nearby and a crash of thunder shook the ground. Her body rocked back and forth, trembling with terror. She lost her footing, sandstone crumbling beneath her feet, and then regained it; still, she did not feel safe. There appeared to be reddish eyes watching from behind scrub oaks and mountain pines, scanning her every movement and watching her quick breaths. Then everything became silent.

The girl leaned against the trunk of the nearest tree. The night air wrapped its frigid arms tightly around her, and she wondered if she would freeze to death or, even worse, stay there through the night and by morning be nothing but the blood and bones left by hungry animals. Her breaths became quicker and were so shallow that no air seemed to reach her lungs. The dusty earth gave up quick bursts of sand from gusts of northerly winds that blew so fiercely into her nostrils that she coughed but tried to stifle the sounds because she didn’t want to be noticed.

About the author:

Paul DeBlassie III, Ph.D., is a psychologist and writer living in Albuquerque who has treated survivors of the dark side of religion for more than 30 years. His professional consultation practice — SoulCare — is devoted to the tending of the soul. Dr. DeBlassie writes fiction with a healing emphasis. He has been deeply influenced by the mestizo myth of Aztlan, its surreal beauty and natural magic. He is a member of the Depth Psychology Alliance, the Transpersonal Psychology Association and the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.

One randomly drawn commenter will receive the choice of a $50 Amazon/BN gift card. Use this Rafflecopter form to confirm your comment and add more entries. For even more chances to win, follow the rest of this tour here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

6 Comments

The Maelstrom and Finding Poe

10/2/2013

0 Comments

Since its publication in early 2012, Finding Poe has been the subject of much speculation. It was a 2013 EPIC finalist in horror, won Indie Book of the Day, and placed 2nd in the 2012 Predators and Editors Readers’ Choice Polls. While it has been well received, some readers have questioned the repetition of Karina’s nightmare of the maelstrom. Since there have been more questions on this matter than actual debate, I thought I’d shed some light on the matter.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

For those not familiar with Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelström,” it is a story within a story, told by one of the author’s tell-tale unreliable narrators, about a massive whirlpool that swallows his ship. He claims to be the only survivor, and he also claims that the event was horrifying enough to turn his hair white overnight. The story’s theme, as subtle as it may be, revolves around the appreciation for that which is greater than oneself. The narrator helplessly watches his brothers die, the enormous waves taking one before the vortex takes another with the entire ship—but he finds himself in a moment of clarity, awed over such a powerful force of nature and humbled by his own tiny presence in comparison.

The maelstrom plays an important role in Finding Poe, serving multiple purposes:

The parallel between its narrator and Karina strengthens the notion that she is an unreliable narrator. We don’t know who either really is. Is Poe’s narrator actually a fisherman who lost two brothers during a fishing trip? (Or is it more likely that either he’s covering up a murder—or just simply insane?) Is Karina a “Lady of Norland” as she claims, or is she also something far more chilling?

The story within a story hints as something much deeper than merely an unreliable narrator. Karina’s recurring nightmare—and sometimes seemingly hallucinogenic shift into an alternate reality—of the maelstrom, suggests that her perceptions might not be sound enough for the reader to trust. Even when she believes she is being sincere, her own senses betray her. She is not living in the world she thinks she’s living in. One might even go so far as to question whether anything she experiences—or claims to experience—is real.

Karina’s recurring experience parallels the cyclical nature of the maelstrom. Just as Poe’s narrator perceives an awesome greatness in the vortex, one that, in its cyclical nature, might represent the cyclical nature of life and death, Karina’s repeated experience—the cyclical nature of the story itself—offers a marriage of form and content that hints at information lying far below the text’s surface. Is Karina even alive? If not, what is her real story? Is she reliving her own death—or does her personal descent into the maelstrom represent something even more profound?

I invite those of you who have read Finding Poe to offer your own insights on this—but just don’t spoil Karina’s true identity if you’ve already figured it out. Piecing together the puzzle within the story is half the fun, you know. Her place, what she really means to Poe and his work, is what the story is really all about….

Excerpt—Karina’s descent into the maelstrom:

I turned back to the window, and it took a moment for me to process the strange sight. An enormous black bird kicked and flapped its wings against the glass, somehow keeping in perfect time with the moving train.

“I think it’s trying to get in, but it can’t … can it?” the woman asked, shying back in her seat.

I watched, silent. The bird’s wild, angry moves were hypnotic. I thought about my nightmare, about the impending doom promised to me, and I wondered if perhaps Death himself had been commissioned to track me down. No earthly bird would behave such a way, and I knew, given all I had recently seen, that was a personal omen if nothing else.

The woman frantically waved at the window, yelling for the bird to go away, but I watched silently, feeling quite assured that the bird was merely the harbinger of doom and not the actual purveyor of it. The woman’s shrieks—not to mention the reactions of other nearby passengers—began to come across as comical overreactions to a threat that existed in their thoughts alone. The bird continued to harass the window, but clearly it had no way in. I sat back and watched the different reactions, wondering how many people the bird would alarm before it finally ducked away to carry its grim message to the next sorry soul on its list.

“Someone needs to scare it away,” the old woman beside me finally suggested.

“It’s attracted to something inside here,” said someone else nearby.

“Or someone,” said the old woman.

“What would a crow want with any of us?” I asked, my voice trembling despite me.

“That there is a raven,” said the old woman.

“Whatever it is, what would it want with any of us?” I asked.

“Or we would ask, more specifically, what would it want with you?” the old woman asked. I realized that everyone in the car was staring at me. The raven continued to bat wildly against the glass. I tried to remain calm, but everyone began to move in toward me, giving me little room to shift. I felt a burst of nervous energy as the other passengers crowded all around me and suddenly I had no room to move at all.

Desperate for fresh air, the hot crowd leaving everything around me warm and stale, I attempted to push my way through. I could not see the door leading out, but I knew it was near. Each person I passed seemed to do his or her best to slow me down, grabbing at my clothes and blocking me with their bodies. After much grappling and groping, I finally made it to the door, only to find it locked.

The ride became unsteady, as if the train were suddenly traveling over heaps of rocks, then everyone screamed as we began to tilt to the left. I grabbed the nearest seat, doing my best to brace for the worst, when water broke through one of the windows. I watched a group of passengers fight the locked door while others attempted to flee through broken windows.

“Maelström!” one person cried.

Out here? I tried to make sense of it, realizing that it made no sense at all. I thought about a story I had read some time ago about a man who had thought he had awakened from a nightmare, only to realize that he was still dreaming. There was no other explanation in my mind that fit what I now witnessed, and I closed my eyes and allowed the water to rise over me, knowing very well that the dream would not be able to last much longer. I held my breath and shut my eyes as the current snatched my body and flung it into the sea. I felt my body float deep into the abyss below, bubbles rushing past me as they escaped the folds of my dress, my long curls tangling across my face.

The pressure against my lungs became great and the urge to exhale overcame me, but I couldn’t even see the surface from where I was and I had nowhere to take a breath. Unable to hold the air any longer, I expelled it, which provided a fleeting moment of relief. Immediately following that, however, there came the sudden and overwhelming urge to take in another breath, one I could not ignore. Left with no other choice, I took a thick, lung-flooding breath of water. To my surprise, I felt no pain, nor the reflex to cough; I merely had the urge to exhale again. A rush of water left my lungs, and then again, I took a breath.

I felt a warm, peaceful feeling take over me, relaxing my limbs and easing my fearful thoughts. My eyes closed and the sea went silent, and it occurred to me that I had drowned.

What a shame, I thought. Had I only known life was so short….

Finding Poe is available in paperback and Kindle.

0 Comments

Pardon Me, but Have You Seen My Eyeball?

Love the Atmosphere!

THE UNHOLY By Paul DeBlassie III

The Maelstrom and Finding Poe

Archives

Categories