h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Mares of Diomedes - A28562330
Author: Tibley Bobley - U170471

This is another one of my attempts at scary horses. My last effort went down like the proverbial lead balloon. If these horses remind anyone of Terry Pratchett's Bincky, my nightmares are beyond hope. Sorry it's a bit long. Thank you to anyone who reads it and double thanks for any helpful suggestions

This reads more or less like an outline of the story idea.

It's a fine story idea, especially the part where you link horror to Greek mythology.

But it's impenetrable. The characters aren't there: yeah, the guy's ruthless, but what does he *look* like? Sound like?

(He died too fast, too.)

I think what you need to do is to figure out which part of the story you want us to see, hear, feel...what do you want to scare us with?

And then go back and figure out how to get the backstory out of the way, and how to let us catch on, gradually, to the growing horror of the situation...

Wonder about its import...

Be on tenterhooks...will he enter the stall? (Of course he will, silly, haven't you ever seen one of those movies?)

For what my two cents are worth, I think the idea of scary horses is a good one. It reminds me of Stephen King's 'Cujo', where a St Bernard, I think it was, went rabid.

Thanks Dmitri. I've been thinking about this all afternoon and the more I think about it the more I don't know where to start. Perhaps another rewrite.

I hadn't intended to give the characters any depth. I see Baxter as a medium sized, violent misanthrope of about 40, with thinning, light brown hair and an "estuary-English" accent. Would it improve the story if I put that in? I don't think I could put across what he sounds like by adding dialogue because I'm useless at dialogue. It all comes out stilted and unnatural. I considered trying to do it all from inside Baxter's mind. Do you think that would be better?

What I had in mind was the sort of short horror story where the events are recounted by an anonymous narrator in a tone that gradually gets across an atmosphere of unease. Of course I'd like to scare the reader rigid but I don't think there's much chance of that in this age of films like 'The Evil Dead' If I could generate a slight shiver I'd be satisfied.

Finally had an idea of how to do it differently. It happened when I stopped thinking and worrying about it. Don't know if you'll like it any better, but it should at least be mercifully shorter .... I hope. Probably have it finished some time Wednesday evening

Looking forward to it.

Stories like this remind me of the old Hitchcock magazine (dunno if it's still around). Evil and ironic.

A hard style to achieve, perhaps.

But a good thing to be working on around Halloween.

On this day of darkness ....

It does seem an appropriate sort of subject for this particular evening, doesn't it?

Well, I've almost completely rewritten it. You should now have a more intimate knowledge of Baxter's personality and what he looks like. He now dies quite horribly and slowly. If such a scene was shown on a film, I couldn't watch it. I've tried to do all the things you suggested.

Hope you find it an improvement. No doubt further adjustments will be needed. And after all that, it's not much shorter

This is really good now.

It is macabre, frightening and keeps the links with Greek mythology without being constrained by them.

Okay. You're getting there.

Now go back and tighten it up. Don't explain things theoretically. Get the narrative part dry and terse, so the horror will stand out in stark relief.

Don't say 'the men looked athletic'. Say 'their athletic muscles rippled under their tight t-shirts' or something.

You could be the next Stephen King...

The killing is nasty. And well done.

Thank you very much mVpoet and Dmitri

You do make me happy! I've done this story 3 times now - all different. I'm so glad it works now

I'll have a go at drying it out and tightening it up.

I don't think Stephen King has much to worry about though

I've tightened, tweaked and primped - in line with suggestions. So it's quite a bit shorter.

Now off to have a look at your Emma Hamilton link

'Three darkly handsome men approached like hunting lions - graceful, rippling, deliberate.'

YES YES YES YES YES!!!!

That's got it. It's brill.

One minor quibble, , yes, I've got the bit between my teeth, ouch, bad pun, sorry...

The first time, you say, 'They killed him and ate him.' Too dry. How do horses kill someone? They trampled him to death, and then devoured his flesh? They, er, knocked him down and danced on his helpless form until he lay broken and bleeding, and then dined on the corpse, tearing at the still-warm flesh with their strong, sharp, unequine teeth, as Baxter looked on in horrified fascination? (Only takes a sentence or two, but would make a big difference.)

You won't do it in purple. You have restraint, unlike me.

Otherwise, this is a knock-your-socks-off horror story.

Btw, have you seen 'Peeping Tom' and 'Strange Days'? I'm beginning to think these two films might be helpful to our own EA Poe.

Ah, that's a relief

A new gory paragraph now describes the demise of the unfortunate trainer. It's horrible - but is it horrible enough?

No, I haven't seen 'Peeping Tom' or 'Strange Days'. Horrors I guess? Bearing in mind that I can't actually watch gore, even if I can describe it, should I look out for them?

Ed Al Poe must be turning it his grave

Yes, it is horrible enough. Especially the words 'in thrall'. I love it.

'Strange Days' is about five years old, 'Peeping Tom' from 1961, and neither is really gory. They are psychological horror films, I suppose.

The reason I think they're useful for writers is the subject matter - the problem of victim and perpetrator, point of view, and the complicity of the observer, be it director or audience, in what is happening. (And watching them beats reading Jacques Lacan by miles.)

Martin Scorsese said that 'Peeping Tom' was one of two films a director needed to see to learn his craft.

You can rent either film, I suspect.

Poe would be proud of you.

This is good, but it's not as good as dmg is suggesting.
Horror is a difficult genre, prone to banality, and also prone to a gross-out that switches the reader off. A very challenging genre to start out in. Good luck with it.
The obvious defect here, though, is structural. Baxter starts out as the first person narrator, and turns into a third person victim. This reads awkwardly, and smacks of a cop out.
You either have to find out a way to recount the backstory from the point of view of someone who then gets eaten alive (quite a challenge, but an interesting one to try if you want the stretch), or tell it all as 3rd person. To get the impact in a 3rd person voice you will probably need a narrator/observer character whose character is well developed and whose horror and disgust draws out the reader's.
A very good discipline for development is to write the same piece in different character's voices and using different parts of speech. You are doing OK here, because you've already torn one draft up and started over on a new tack. Not everyone can bring themselves to do that.
If you want to be as good as you can be (and it's worth it because you have innate ability) then you shouldn't stop here. You might try being Baxter describing what it feels like having his extremeties chewed off. You might try the voice of a hellhorse describing what it's like to do the chewing.
By working all the angles, you might well find the answer. I have a hunch with this one that the effective telling is waiting on a rationalisation of revenge. The psyche of the horses is too remote at the moment. It's a truism of dramatic writing that you have to show the protagonists' motivation, but that's maybe the weakness here. You tell us why these animals are displeased enough to resort to torture, but they don't say so themselves. It's all a bit too second-hand, just how nasty these beasts are.
Keep at it. I'm afraid you're not Poe yet, but you're pretty good all the same, and you'll know yourself when you get it right.
Pin

Pinniped, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions I can see I have plenty more work to do before I crack this. My ignorance is huge. I'm quite confused about what you say regarding the first/third person narration. I thought I had the narration in the third person throughout - right from start to finish. All references to Baxter are as "Baxter", "he", "him", "his", "himself" - right from the first reference to him in the third sentence. Am I badly misunderstanding you here? If so, I'm sorry - but please do tell me how I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

It's a literal 3rd person throughout, yes, but an effective 1st person at the beginning. You describe Baxter's thoughts and feelings at this point, so you put the reader inside him. But you come out of there and observe events remotely when things get nasty. That's why it reads like a cop out, for me anyway.

You don't need to keep that first voice up right until Death, not if you don't want to and not if you don't feel ready to pull it off just yet in your writing development. If you read the genre analytically, though, you'll realise that that's why, say, Steven King is so compelling. He holds you where you don't want to be, and (IMO anyway) at his best he writes as if he's in a place where even he doesn't want to be.

I butted in because the last thing a budding horror writer needs is sycophancy. Let's say once again, you've chosen a difficult genre, perhaps the most difficult. Your writing shows lots of promise, like maybe only a couple of dozen round here have shown before. You're also saying often that you want to learn, so that's why you're getting postings like this one.

AWW can be a gentle stretch or a genuine critical forum. It's your choice. I don't think anyone round here does horror as a main line, but several dabblers would surely help.

Let us know what you think. Is this as far as this story goes?

There's a great big hole in my education that makes me feel very inadequate on the one hand - but on the other hand, I'm astonished that 2 or 3 of my stories have gone down quite so well under the circumstances. I do need help Pinniped. That must be obvious I suppose. I haven't seen anything of sycophancy here - only friendly helpfulness and kindness. And if it had been anything else to start with, it would have been very easy to chase me away. Now that kindness and help has built up my confidence from somewhere just below sea level to a few inches above ground level and I can take a bit more harsh criticism as a result. So thank you yes, I would welcome your help and I'll try to brace myself for a bit of a buffeting.

It'll come as no surprise then that I've never heard of an 'effective 1st person', but it seems an obvious concept now you put a name to it. It wasn't my intention to cop out. I see what you mean though. It ceases to come directly out of Baxter's head at about the point Baxter's mind goes. I'll have a go at remedying that. And after that I'll give some thought to your idea of doing the story from different points of view. Another good idea for which, thank you

That's good. Maybe the sycophancy remark was a bit unfair, but dmg can take it too and he can give me a cuff back when ever he likes

We've never really tried proper coaching round here. The people who want to write tend to turn up pretty fully formed. It will be fun for us too, if you're willing.

Another though then: there are a couple of interesting challenges here, and imagining and relating what Baxter felt is only the first. The other is an issue of narrative plausibility.

In a short story, you'll find you often need a device to make the narration plausible. The narrator of a story is unnatural, unless he or she is a participant in every scene. If you think about it, having the same person, conscious, objective and observant in every scene is a bit restrictive. Baxter doesn't cut it here, because he goes mad, and in the end he isn't going to provide a helpful commentary to his own ingestion.

So instead you have to think of a device through which the reader can share an experience which can't normally be shared. The reason that it's hardest in short stories is that suspension of disbelief can be built up gradually in a novel; you have time. In a short story, plausibility has to be negotiated in at most a few sentences.

Can you think of a way to do it here, to report what being eaten feels like, without the commentary seeming ridiculous? If you can, and if you can imagine and describe such a horrible thing, then you will have a fine horror story.

Take your time, and ask for advice and opinion when you need it.

This is very good I've been sort of kind of aware of the problems you're stating in nice precise terms. It's like doing away with the dimmer switch and shining a 150 Watt bulb on the blighters when you can set them out and look them straight in the face.

I think I've hit on a solution. I'd hoped to present the modified version tonight but it's taking longer than I anticipated. There are little adjustments and additions to make throughout the story for this to work. I hope it'll work. Should have a result by Wednesday, or possibly sooner.

Entry updated

The 'effective 1st person' lasts right to the end now. It's probably a bit rough in places but my eyes refuse to focus any longer without a rest. So I'll do the proof reading and editing later. Is it an improvement at all?