Dark Stories--Reading them; Writing them; Understanding them.

[jomar]

I've lurked on this thread a bit and it is intriguing. VarianP made some comments about how, in her opinion, horror has supernatural elements, though the scariest darkness is what humans can do to each other.

So I'll toss in my effort at the genre, if I may. I wrote a story titled Horror in which a family moves into a new home. There's no dialog and the story is narrated/told by someone who has lived in the house and who may be considered evil. The husband and wife are mentally fragile and the underlying current involves whether the house itself may be haunted and corrupts its occupants, or if the evil that has happened there lives on and corrupts.

Basically it involves the intersection between psychological/personality issues, supernatural and psychopathy as evil. Don't get me wrong, it's short (2500 words) and I didn't delve too deep. But I hope that the multiple elements show through.

 

[Black Tulip]

Okay to go back to the reader's reaction instead of to the story itself?

I'm mindful of your OP, Pure, in which you mentioned approvingly of Poe. Perhaps you've read his "Philosophy of Composition" (if I have the right one in mind) in which he talks about how he theoretically wrote "The Raven."

In it he talks about choosing every word (e.g., "Nevermore") and the raven itself because the sounds and associations of the words and rhythms would excite "awe" or "horror" in the reader. (He used the words as virtual synonyms, iirc.)

I think that notion still controls fiction that deals with the "dark" side, though horror (in the sense of the formula you mention) is probably too narrow -- perhaps the notion of what makes a story "dark" is still what he said -- it's anything at all (words or images) that excite the reader's sense of awe, or of being at the imagined mercy, of malevolent forces.

I mean: it's not what happens to the characters but what happens to us as we read/watch.

Does that makes sense to anyone else?

ST

Yes, it does to me.

To answer Pure, horror for me is the traditional story with lots of gore and bloody details as some mummy or mutant goes on a killing spree.
Dark stories deal with things much closer to home. Evil in its broadest form and therefore more realistic.
They should have the effect of making the reader look over his shoulder or wonder about his shy co-worker the next day. LOL And perhaps wonder about his own thoughts.



ETA: after reading the rest of the thread, I think Varian expressed it better than me.

 

[Softouch911]

Dark stories deal with things much closer to home. Evil in its broadest form and therefore more realistic.
They should have the effect of making the reader look over his shoulder or wonder about his shy co-worker the next day. LOL And perhaps wonder about his own thoughts.



ETA: after reading the rest of the thread, I think Varian expressed it better than me.

I agree -- I think Varian has expressed it better than me, too. And following on the last reflection V. made, putting it together with the link to the Rosewood materials that Pure so kindly provided, I wonder if "hate," especially the inexplicable, explosive kind that lurks under the surface, shouldn't be part of this "dark" think we're trying to get a grasp on.

I thought of this thread twice this weekend.

The first time was when I was watching an old horror film of the psychological variety in b/w yesterday night with a 15 y o who is more of the slash and gore persuasion. I thought she would be bored, but she was terrified and said it was much scarier than the movies she usually watches as "horror" flicks. (Yeah, I was glad to hear her say that. It wasn't even in color -- do you know "The Haunting"?)

The second time was at coffee today with a friend of mine who happens to be lesbian. She was telling the story of how she once upon a time told a good male friend of hers (of several years) about herself. "I'm a lesbian," she told him. He exploded. He spit in her face and hit her with his closed fist, cutting her lip and knocking her down. He turned and walked away and, later, apologized and felt awful for what he'd done and how he'd exploded in what we now call homophobia. He'd surprised not only her but himself.

It brought me back to that anger that goes beyond the rational and is present in hate.

I mean to add that to the discussion, not to take away anything from what has been said.

ST

 

[Black Tulip]

I agree -- I think Varian has expressed it better than me, too. And following on the last reflection V. made, putting it together with the link to the Rosewood materials that Pure so kindly provided, I wonder if "hate," especially the inexplicable, explosive kind that lurks under the surface, shouldn't be part of this "dark" think we're trying to get a grasp on.

...


The second time was at coffee today with a friend of mine who happens to be lesbian. She was telling the story of how she once upon a time told a good male friend of hers (of several years) about herself. "I'm a lesbian," she told him. He exploded. He spit in her face and hit her with his closed fist, cutting her lip and knocking her down. He turned and walked away and, later, apologized and felt awful for what he'd done and how he'd exploded in what we now call homophobia. He'd surprised not only her but himself.

It brought me back to that anger that goes beyond the rational and is present in hate.

I mean to add that to the discussion, not to take away anything from what has been said.

ST

This in turn brings me back to my first statement - about fear. Isn't hate motivated by fear? The scene your friend experienced is a perfect example of one's "shadow" coming out of the closet.

 

[Pure]

very interesting, soft touch and black tulip. you put me in mind of a couple stories, with your talk of the evil within.

'the lottery' by jackson.

in getting the url, i became aware of something i hadn't known: that
when people read the story, upon its publication in 1948, they FREAKED!

story at:
http://www.americanliterature.com/SS/SS16.HTML

wikipedia comment:

[The story first appeared in The New Yorker, in June 1948]

The magazine and Jackson herself were surprised by the highly negative reader response. Many readers cancelled their subscriptions, and hate mail continued to arrive throughout the summer. In South Africa the story was banned. [...]

Controversy surrounding the story brought an overwhelming amount of mail plus phone calls and hundreds of cancelled subscriptions. In Private Demons, Jackson's biographer, Judy Oppenheimer, wrote, "Nothing in the magazine before or since would provoke such a huge outpouring of fury, horror, rage, disgust and intense fascination."

Amid the optimism of the post-WWII years, many readers of family magazines were shocked or confused to find the traditions and values of small town America twisted into violence. Some believed Jackson had based the short story on true events that had happened or were still happening in a real American town.

[Shirley Jackson wrote, about that summer:]

It had simply never occurred to me that these the millions and millions of people might be so far from being uplifted that they would sit down and write me letters I was downright scared to open; of the three-hundred-odd letters that I received that summer I can count only thirteen that spoke kindly to me, and they were mostly from friends. Even my mother scolded me:

-------

almost as much a classic:


'the screwfly solution' by sheldon

http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/sheldon/sheldon1.html


the later is a brilliant working out of the 'hatred of women' theme.

 

[Softouch911]

Pure, I've taught Shirley Jackson's story at every level from 6th grade into graduate school courses -- of course grad students in lit are old hands with the story, but when it is someone's first contact with the story, even now the reactions aren't so different.

I thought of the story when I first read the thread but then it slipped my mind. At first I wasn't sure it would be relevant because the "mood" and "tone" she uses is so objective, and the characters are so nonchalant ....

but now, yes it's a tremendous example of this part of the "dark side."

Thanks,
ST

 

[Black Tulip]

I'm not familiar with "modern" American literature, so the story of Jackson was new to me. I think it's a perfect example of dark, yet not horror in the sense of blood and gore. I wouldn't call it evil either, but it is horrible.

Pure, the link to that fly story isn't working. At least, the page kept loading forever.

 

[Verdad]

I thought of the story when I first read the thread but then it slipped my mind. At first I wasn't sure it would be relevant because the "mood" and "tone" she uses is so objective, and the characters are so nonchalant ....

I'm glad you mentioned this, ST. That's what made me, too, insecure as to where to take this topic. I asked Pure if he considered The Screwfly Solution dark simply because it was the first story that came to my mind which meant 'dark' to me but lacked some elements traditionally considered as such.

It seems to me that dark label gets most commonly assigned to stories that feature a dark or gothic iconography, in addition to the themes mentioned in this thread. While we stay with classics in which mood, style, and setting correspond with the darkness of the theme, I guess it doesn't matter, but as we move forward in time, the theme and the presentation seem to be connected much more loosely.

The dark iconography appears to be alive and well in genres of supernatural horror and dark fantasy, but from what I know of them (which is, admittedly not too much), they're more likely to drip with eyeliner, pathos, and blood than to address anything that's been defined as truly dark in this thread. Rightly or wrongly, I shy away from stories with these elements, as I perceive them, in contemporary fiction, as purely cosmetic more often than not.

By contrast, the kind of darkness Varian mentioned and most of us agreed to find truly disturbing, seems not to need these 'special effects' and in fact often impresses us more strongly for being hidden beneath the surface of perfectly quotidian. The Lottery strikes me as a perfect example, for, rather than despite, the discrepancy between what it shows and how it shows it.

I wonder if there's some relevant tendency to be found in that—something about the face of our fears changing with time—but perhaps not. It could just as well be a matter of our reading tastes changing, or simply of unfairness of comparing works of unequal quality. (E.g. Poe vs. a mediocre dark fantasy writer.)

The Black Cat, as an example we've had in this thread, certainly works as well as ever, but it's also true that it wouldn't lose any of its darkness (the guy's descent into alcohol induced madness) were it stripped of the melodramatic elements that marked Poe's era.

I'm not sure this has been too coherent, but I thought to just get it out here in case someone has further thoughts to offer.

 

[Pure]

i find the link proposed, for screwfly, does work,


http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/sheldon/sheldon1.html


it is annoying that the background of half the page is rather dark. but the whole text is there.

 

[Black Tulip]

Pure, the link is working fine. Firefox was the trouble.
I read the story just now. It's scary as hell.

To me the two stories have in common that there's not much out of the ordinary.
The language is almost dry, no bells or cymbals to set the mood. The weird behavior remains more or less without explanation in both stories.

Perhaps that is one of the tricks for dark stories?
There's no need for blood and gore, because the seeming reality of the story is scary enough.

That would tie in with Varian's comments: reality can be more frightening than fantasy. So you present something out of the ordinary as if it's nothing special.



ETA: is dark the same as destructive?

 

[Pure]

Hi Black T,

the best i could do is still:

from first posting "Themes or topics in the stories often have to do with death, violence, corruption, decay, and chaos, although violence alone does not do the trick. Suffering, besides being poignant, is often excessive, and sometimes utterly pointless [non redemptive]."

as you and others have said, it's best if A. the impulses towards the above come from within, either a normal character or a virtuous one. it is less usual to have the forces embodied in a monster, who enters the scene and devours nice people and kids, after dicing them. in any case, we have to say that bloody violence is largely icing [to the basic narrative]. it doesn't work on its own.

sometimes B. the forces toward the above come from a vague source, outside. but with ties to, even origins in the 'good people.'

it's worth noting that in Frankestein, the monster is a creation of a basically good, if arrogant and promethean person.

---
Screwfly seems like B., but as the title suggests, the implication is that something/someone is treating humans like the screwfly, which was led to extinguish itself as a species. yet there is a connection to what's within 'normal' people. however, as i've raised in the thread on honor killing, lots of males pretty casually kill for a variety of reasons, sometimes major (adultery), sometimes not (in my favorite exemplary, evil case, the man dreamed of being disrespected by his wife and kids, so he killed them).

It's also worth noting that efforts to subject women, fascist style, [kinder, kirche, küche] are deadly in their own way, as illustrated in the fine novel "The Handmaid's Tale."

 

[Pure]

Time for "Scolds Bridle"

i would like to discuss this story, by BlackShanglan, as originally planned.

http://www.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=221415

 

[manyeyedhydra]

thanks for pointing that one out, a top notch horror story I probably wouldn't have found otherwise.

The only thing i wasn't sure of was whether the supernatural element gave the story an extra kick or was superfluous. The man's obsession and the reminder of the truly awful things that people used to do to each other was powerful enough on it's own. I quite like a bit of the supernatural in my horror though, especially when it comes in under the radar.

If anyone has the chance to visit either Prague or Amsterdam both have quite good torture museums that display scold's bridles and other equally unpleasant artifacts of history.

 

[Penelope Street]

i would like to discuss this story, by BlackShanglan, as originally planned.

Me too! Why not discuss the story in a thread of its own where it'll probably get more attention?

 

[Pure]

See separate thread for Scold's Bridle

I have taken Penny's suggestion to start a new thread for Black Shanglan's story.

This thread continues to be open for discussion of 'dark stories,' and other specific examples you find appealing or working talking about.

 

[Northsider]

I think that a dark story doesn't nessesarily have to be based on the traditional view of "evil". I have always enjoyed stories with imperfect characters, and non-Hollywood endings, especially when the story illuminates the realities of human behavior. The complexity within the conduct of an ordinary person, placed in extraordinary circumstances; warfare, violence or coersion, for example, can expose traits that could never be predicted within the framework of day to day life. Conversely, the percieved appearance of those who's lives are primarily a construct of appearances, designed to distract those around them from seeing their true selves, can make for an interesting study of behavior in itself. The warm smile and firm handshake of a con artist, the intense homophobia of a self loathing man in terror of being outed, the web of lies surrounding the life of those hell-bent on proving the deceit of of those around them, these things can make for interesting characters in a story.

A year ago, I wrote a story that revolved around a character whom, in real life I truly loath, and who since has been paroled for some very ugly crimes. In an effort to quell some of the disgust and rage that had been an ongoing distraction, I wrote the story as a narrative, putting myself in his shoes, as it were, using his style of making himself look like he was getting a bad deal, somehow, the victim. It was admittedly, an ugly story about ugly circumstances. It garnered some of the most negative feedback I've ever read. But, somehow, at this point in time, it has been viewed over thirty thousand times, over double the views recieved by my first story, which is currently has a rating average over 4.5.

Evil? in my opinion, the purest cultural evil I've witnessed is the current hit TV show, "Moment of Truth". I would like to be able to say that it couldnt get worse than that, but, like Bill Cosby said on that old record he put out years ago, "Oh, man, things can ALWAYS get worse............."