Into the Obscuradrome #21
Hello. I’m Bob Pastorella, co-host of the This Is Horror podcast, website manager for This Is Horror, and writer. I’m the author of Mojo Rising, They’re Watching (with Michael David Wilson), and have numerous short-stories and non-fiction online and in print in various publications.
Give Me Someone to Believe In
As a life-long horror fan first and foremost, then as a writer, there are two factors that makes a story scary for me. Everyone is different, and what’s scary to some may not be scary to others, but these two factors are at the very top of ingredients needed for me to get scared.
Give me a character I give a damn about, and
Scare the hell outta the character.
Notice I didn’t say scare the reader. Most writers are incapable of scaring the reader without scaring characters we care about. I’m not talking about how gory the story is. I’m not talking about how creepy the setting is. I’m not talking about how disturbing some characters are. Of course you need a creepy factor. You might even need some gore—the ick factor. But those things aren’t scary, they are simply gory, or creepy, or disturbing.
I’m talking about a compelling character you can’t stop thinking about. They don’t have to be likable, but it helps. They don’t have to be relatable, but that definitely helps. They have to be compelling. Like Hannibal Lecter compelling. You probably wouldn't mind hanging out with the good Dr. as long as you knew you were on his good side. You’d probably let him prepare a meal for you as long as you could handpick the menu. But if you’re on his bad side, a member of the free-range rude, then you’re going to be questioning the selection of meat that looks so mouthwateringly appetizing on the plate he just put in front of you.
Considering his history, we know ultimately Lecter is going to do as he does, so he’s certainly not relatable, unless you’re a sociopath. He’s kinda likable, but only in the sense that you know if there’s a shitty person he has to deal with, Lecter’s going to have a field day with them. The reason we can’t get enough of him is because he’s compelling … so interesting and different that we must know everything we can about him.
Given you’ve created a compelling character, then you need to scare them. Dude’s not afraid of much, probably because he has a unique ability to take advantage of any situation he’s presented with. But he is scared of being locked up, and we know this because he tries so very hard to escape. Lecter’s an opportunist, but once he’s got a way out, there’s no turning him back. And when he gets out, that’s when we get scared, because now there’s a sociopath on the loose.
Clarice Starling is a better selection for the fear factor. She’s a compelling character we want to know more about, and she’s human enough to scare in ways that are relatable. Starling wants nothing more than to stop really bad people from harming or killing others. She knows she has to break Lecter’s puzzles to find out who Buffalo Bill is, and the clock is ticking. Her career forces her to face her fears every hour on the job, but we can’t help to feel scared for her when Lecter escapes. There’s a part of us that fears he’s going to come after her, especially since we know he will obviously do whatever it takes to remain free. Starling fears this as well … Lecter is capable of anything. Not only does she need to find Buffalo Bill, but she has worry about Lecter slinking around without supervision. And while we’re sidetracked with all this business, Starling manages to stumble right into Buffulo Bill’s lair, and that’s when the scary really kicks in. Once she realizes what’s happened, she gets scared … fearing for her life scared … and since she’s so relatable, the reader gets scared for her.
That’s what makes the story scary.
We care about Starling, we recognize her fears and empathize with her, therefore when she is scared, we get scared as well. No one is coming after us, Lecter is a fictional character, and the story isn’t real. Yet, we feel fear. We get scared because the character is scared. All of the things we’ve faced—the brutality of Buffalo Bill’s killings, Lecter’s willingness to escape by any means necessary, the brain-teasing puzzles, Starling coming to grips with her traumatic past, the realization Crawford basically threw her to the wolves just to get an edge on the case—all of these things help build the fear higher and higher, but if we didn’t care about Starling, then we wouldn’t care if something scared her, and we wouldn't feel fear at all.
Create a compelling character, scare the hell out of them, and if you’ve done it well, the reader will be scared as well. Create empathy with your characters. Readers ultimately want someone to believe in.
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Reading:
Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard
The Deluge by Stephen Markley
I’m going to revisit Steve Erickson’s (Zeroville) works again soon.
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due was great! One of the best books of 2023 I’ve read.
Listening:
I went into a prog-rock deep-dive, beginning with Rush, ending with Dream Theater. Listened to a lot of The Mars Volta. Next deep-dive is jazz. Especially free-jazz … Davis, Coleman, Coltrane, and more. And definitely some Connie Han.
Watching:
Ghost Hunters, True Detective (S3), and a lot of weird, creepy movies. I still haven’t started watching the Fargo series … one day.
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That about wraps this one up. Hopefully I won’t take so long for the next newsletter.
peace&love
Bob