What intrigues me are possibilities of ecstasy and delight, come upon through that tingling veil of anticipation and, maybe, fear:
-
The unknown beyond the door.
-
The fraught with potent possibility.
-
The potentials stored within the latent.
I play with these things when I write, dwelling in realms far removed from standard consideration.
What do I care whether a modern behemoth Jones, muscle-bound gadget-man, slaughters malicious bad guys toting AK47s who want to steal the world and enslave the pretty girls? That’s been written. And, by and large, it’s pretty boring.
What do I care if Melinda, a nice, hot-looking slip of a girl, pines after Jack Handsome, a rich playboy whose abiding interest is getting laid? I don’t.
There are a million-million bad guys born, just as there are a million-million horny women wishing to belong to some gallant they feature as their hero inside their fancies. Writers write about them, dwelling in teenage fantasies of being The One To Save The Day or The Girl Who Gets Her Man. Who cares? Well, certainly a lot of people do, but I’m not one of them. Books a la Cartland or Clancy don’t do more than make my mind go dry.
But what of that little gleam — that one sitting right there — twinkling from within that darkened thicket…or that face leering at you from just beneath the wall plaster? How about those twining appendages slithering toward you, grasping at your feet, intent upon taking you beneath? Beneath to where?
Recently:
- Writing Pedagogues
- They Work Very Hard
- Treading the Dangers of Fiction
- Infighting About Grammar & Punctuation
- Scary Writers
- New Novel, Chapter Two
- To the Book Store
- New Novel Amid Chaos
- Raw Gore, Explicit Cruelty, Debased Sex in Novels
- Back from Summer Hiatus
Comments
This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under The Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
But what of that little gleam — that one sitting right there — twinkling from within that darkened thicket…or that face leering at you from just beneath the wall plaster? How about those twining appendages slithering toward you, grasping at your feet, intent upon taking you beneath? Beneath to where?
This is what keeps me reading, in the main, when stuck into a novel or a short story: the delicious curiosity that had Pandora opening that fateful box. Though I do enjoy the mystery of human relationship entwined with the surreality of such a Twilight Zone type situation. I like to see how characters interact when under duress — does stress bring them together, or tear them apart? Will they form a long-term relationship (if both survive the plot) or will the next morning find one trying to sidle away from the other before their bodily fluids have even cooled to room temperature?
Heh.
Most of all I like to bash the he-man and toughen up the simpering female. Lol.
My females never simper…unless they’re the bad “guys.”
But what do you mean by “Twilight Zone” situations? I don’t write Twilight Zone situations. At least I don’t think I do. Do I?
(Yes, that’s a question.)
To me, Twilight Zone situations are the ones where the enigma is never addressed and a resolution doesn’t happen. It leaves a dangling enigma. I’m not building dangling enigmas, but completely (I hope) startling the reader with unearthed revelations about reality…right?
But what do you mean by “Twilight Zone” situations? I don’t write Twilight Zone situations. At least I don’t think I do. Do I?
I suppose I was merely listening to the music in my head. Whenever anything strikes us as ‘out there’ in ordinary day to day goings on, that theme tune has a habit of making itself heard. To me, a face leering from just beneath the wall plaster would warrant a little of that tune.
As far as dangling enigmas, no, you most certainly are not building them. And as you know, I love truths, revelations. This is one reason why I enjoy reading your books.