another question....

Status
Not open for further replies.

Rhush

Slave to the metal
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 16, 2005
Messages
294
Reaction score
71
Location
The town that dreads sundown, Texas
Website
www.freewebs.com
Also, I was wondering how to go about it if I want things to occur "off the scene" without the characters noticing, but that the reader will pick up on. Subtle things. Like in movies when something creepy happens in the background that the audience catches, but the characters are oblivious to. But... I do not want to use the POV of the "evil", because it would spoil the suprise of what it really is, as well as, I believe, take away from the creepiness. Any suggestions?
 

alleycat

Still around
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
72,873
Reaction score
12,224
Location
Tennessee
Interesting question.

I can think of the old hackney ways of doing it.

"What was that?" she asked.
"What? I didn't see anything."
"It looked like . . . it looked like a woman. A woman in white."
"You're just seeing things."

Hmmmm...I'm going to have to put my little thinking cap on.

ac
 

Jenny

Who should be writing ...
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
1,741
Reaction score
341
Location
Australia
I'm trying to think of an example to quote, but my mind's blank - normal state, I guess. Um, I like the authors who drop the hints in the middle of ordinary description. You know, "the library was Old English: mahogany desk gleaming in the light of 30watt globular bulbs, crimson velvet curtains closed against the wailing night and insistent tap, tap, tap of skeletal fingers against the glass, a fire smouldering and hissing in the hearth." Ok, so the prose is a bit purple, but the idea's there. Later the character discovers there really is a skeleton prowling the outside of the house.

The other way, of course, is to have the characters mention the threat in their dialogue, but they haven't seen it as a threat yet. So, Tom says he saw Harry sharpening the knife, but Tom thinks Harry's planning to become a chef. The reader knows Harry is actually a cannibal.

Yeah, yeah, I'm shutting up.
 

preyer

excessively spartan
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
4,012
Reaction score
676
Location
feels like nashville
i'm really better when a few details are given. something like seeing eyes outside the window?

hard to convey it effectively sometimes, i think, the two mediums being based on different things. in this case, the woman in her bathroom would probably have the feeling she's being watched and turn around suddenly (or slowly, afraid what she might see). if a character walks into a room and there's something in the background that's important for the audience to see but the character is oblivious to, in writing you would have to work that detail in as subtely as possible, right? a casual observation or inside a laundry list of objects in the room, maybe. movies are just a lot easier like this: you can imply being watched simply by a camera angle or camera movement like you're hiding behind a curtain and seeing it from the villain's pov. i guess you could have the character catch a glimpse of the curtain moving. this probably why hitchcock did movies instead of writing novels, heh heh.

how do you place a presense in a room without blatantly stating it? most of it is the impression of the character, no? that the character *feels* something is amiss. or maybe the letter opener is suddenly gone when she could have sworn it was there a moment ago (perhaps setting that bit up earlier in the story where she uses the object and now it's mysteriously not there. i've done things like that but always try to make it a case of there being the possible, though improbable, means that someone else could have used it since then. if she was the only character, missing and misplaced objects are only the cause of a certain things, such as the villain moving it or she's going unsane. (personally, crazy characters don't have much of a punch for me.)
 

alleycat

Still around
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
72,873
Reaction score
12,224
Location
Tennessee
The “ideas” so far…

The characters “see” the occurrence, but don’t believe it; they misinterpret what they see, or write it off as nothing. (such as in my example of someone thinking they saw a women in white).

The characters “see” the occurrence but don’t realize the significance (such as in Jenny’s example of the knife).

The characters sense or feel something but it’s only a vague feeling and they can’t quite put a finger on what’s wrong (such as preyer mentioned). The reader will have an idea of what the feeling might mean however. If you write “I feel almost as if I’m being watched” the reader will think “she IS being watched, she just doesn’t know it.”

There would also be the case where a character sees the occurrence but are too “out of it” to give it full weight. Such as someone waking up during the night when they sense someone touching them; they jolt out of their sleep only to find nothing there. Someone could also be drunk, drugged, injured, traumatized, grieving, etc.

You could also “mix and match” these ideas.

I think any of these could work, but to be similar to what someone experiences in a movie it would have to be done very subtly; at the same time, you don’t want the reader to miss the suggested “lurking evil”. I like the idea of using a bit from two or more of these ideas. For example:

Just as a young woman is falling asleep, she sees the shadow of a man on her bedroom wall. She jolts upright. Nothing there. She then gets up and looks out the window on a moonlit night. There is a ancient tree in the backyard, the branches are making moving shadows on the wall; she assumes that’s what she saw. Silly me, she thinks. Perhaps earlier someone had told her the old, laughable (ghost) story of a man being hung from that tree long ago. She stares at the branches against the moon, the image conjures up all sorts of thoughts. The whole thing gives her a creepy feeling but, still, she writes the whole experience off to an over-active imagination and lack of sleep. The reader will start putting two and two together however…maybe it was a man’s shadow she saw, maybe there is something to the old story of the man being hung, perhaps it won't be the last time that something about the tree* enters the picture; and most of all, the woman doesn't realize what danger she could be in. (That's just a quick, simple example; not meant as a great storyline.)

ac

*It's amazing the number of times trees have been used in books and movies to hide some sort of secret or evil.
 
Last edited:

preyer

excessively spartan
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
4,012
Reaction score
676
Location
feels like nashville
'Just as a young woman is falling asleep, she sees the shadow of a man on her bedroom wall. She jolts upright. Nothing there. She then gets up and looks out the window on a moonlit night. There is a ancient tree in the backyard, the branches are making moving shadows on the wall; she assumes that’s what she saw. Silly me, she thinks. Perhaps earlier someone had told her the old, laughable (ghost) story of a man being hung from that tree long ago. She stares at the branches against the moon, the image conjures up all sorts of thoughts. The whole thing gives her a creepy feeling but, still, she writes the whole experience off to an over-active imagination and lack of sleep. The reader will start putting two and two together however…maybe it was a man’s shadow she saw, maybe there is something to the old story of the man being hung, perhaps it won't be the last time that something about the tree* enters the picture; and most of all, the woman doesn't realize what danger she could be in. (That's just a quick, simple example; not meant as a great storyline.)' ~ what this is missing is a flash of lightning as she's looking out the window, and in the last few strobe effects of the lightning there appears the hanging man. yep, stole that one partially from disney's haunted mansion ride. :)

i haven't written a horror story as such in a while, but for me a lot is derived out of the arrangement. i'm good for cliffhangers. books like 'dracula' are written entirely as in diary excerpts and newspaper clippings, etc.. one novel i was working on (lost due to computer malfunction) was set in two different times and bounced back and forth (something else i'm 'good' for doing): the modern parts were horror, the old part was mystery/suspense.
 

louisgodwin

Back from the dead
Poetry Book Collaborator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 11, 2005
Messages
1,610
Reaction score
548
I'm assuming the novel is being written in the first person, because in the third person you have an omniscient narrator. All the narrating voice would have to do is describe what little aside is taking place in the background. If the novel is being written in the first person, just drop little clues as the story progresses. I think in one of Stephen King's short stories, a homocidal maitre de (I think I spelled that right) at a french restaurant has a spot of blood on his cuff or somewhere.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.