Subliminal blood, sublime blood

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.