I might have mentioned (once or twice) how much I love the
Nightstalker series. I grew up watching it on broadcast TV,
sometimes on the big set in my parents room, sometimes in my own room
with the lights off and the bedsheets in my hand ready to be pulled
over my head if things got too intense. I think a person gets a lot
out of a childhood with the right amount of fear of the boogyman.
Now that technology has progressed to the point where a person can
have more movies and shows available than would have fit in an entire
house of VHS tapes, I like to indulge myself once in a while. The
short, single season of Carl Kolchak's exploration of his own dark
world is one of those indulgences.
There's one episode, Chopper, that I saw recently. An updated
version of the story of the headless horseman, its first death comes
with the roar of a motorcycle engine and the cold chime of polished
steel. Highlander fans take note of the type of sword used to
collect heads and its distinctive white grip. This was more than a
decade before anyone heard of Connor MacLeod.
But we don't see the blood. The engine sound cuts out and we hear
the sword ring. We get a brief, frame-frozen shot of the blade and
the neck, and an instant later we see and hear the anguish of an
innocent bystander who bore witness.
We don't see the blood, but we believe in it. The same part of our
brains that helped small children watch painted herd animals come
alive on cave walls lit by flickering firelight gives us the
experience of seeing blood everywhere when we don't see it with our
eyes. We have faith in the blood. Can I get an Amen?
Remember Psycho? Marion Crane, nude and oblivious, taking a nice,
relaxing shower to ease the sting of realizing that love doesn't
really conquer all? Just as she's about to settle into a life
containing a little less faith, dear Mother arrives to provide a
religious conversion on the edge of a butcher knife. After that
movie was shown, there were people that swore Hitchcock had pulled a
Wizard of Oz style effect and filmed the blood in color. People were
as certain they saw crimson running down that shower drain as they
were of their own names. In their heart of hearts, they believed it.
Hitchcock used chocolate syrup for that scene, liking the way it
looked on film. Children all across the U.S. add the blood of Marion
Crane to milk every day, and they guzzle it down with smiles on their
sweet, innocent faces. I have some in my refrigerator right now.
I've known that scene used chocolate syrup for a while now, and a
short time ago I had the pleasure of introducing my two nephews to
Psycho. (You want a challenge? Try keeping a straight face while
people you know are debating whether the killer is Norman or his
mother) Sitting there and seeing a story play out that I already
knew, it didn't make a difference. When I looked at watery chocolate
syrup, I could feel Marion Crane dying, right there in front of me in
black and white.
Now suppose someone is working with words and not pictures, and they
want to make believers out of their readers . How do they cast that
same spell?
Well, let's look at the tools we have, and at what we need to do. We
need to convey a set of sensations, and we have every word in the
English language and its competitors, and we also have all those
fears our readers carry around with them. We have their dreads, as
Mister Barker once put it. Those special kinds of fears that people
think about and plan to avoid even when there's no source for them
around. Most of those comes from old instincts that are buried so
deep they're written in the language of nerve endings, sounds, and
smells.
Feel: something sharp drags across the skin of your throat, and then
the front of your shirt is wet.
Hear: the voice of a strong person who you respect for their
intelligence, babbling in that tired, frustrated way that we
automatically connect with someone suffering from Alzheimer's, or a
non-fatal head wound.
Smell: that thick, wet, sweetness that sticks on someone's skin and
hair when they get near a dead body lying out in the hot sun. That
smell you can taste and feel.
Back to puppies and kittens. Please take your barf bags with you
when you leave.
Important point: this medicine, like all others, only works when
given in the correct dosage. Too much and we overload the system,
numbing the reader. Too little and defensive reactions kick in, like
denial. We end up with an audience that we've vaccinated against us.
Curses, foiled again.
That's a rather complicated set of circumstances. How do we keep
track of everything? By keeping our goal in mind. We want to tell a
good story.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's good to be back, writing.
