What is a ‘classic’ horror story? Today we’ve picked out six tales which are both old-style and yet more intriguing than some of the usual fare, each with its own sense of dread. They’re not especially rare or unknown (except possibly for the Barry Pain story), but each conjures a sense of dread from quite different circumstances.
vernon lee, by sargent (1881)
They might be said to form part of our set of ‘Tales Which Linger’, from which we offered twelve examples last year – and one even makes a repeat appearance. We offer no apologies. Your statutory consumer rights are not affected, but please note that the value of your dread may go up or down. Terms and conditions apply. Continue reading Six Dark Tales of Dread→
Again with the troubling questions. Is author Adam Nevill secretly part of a warped cult, here to dissuade us from taking out-of-body adventures? Does he hold hidden knowledge, transmitted to him telepathically by an ancient Tibetan horror fan? Or is he a guy who writes stuff, like any mortal shell? One day we hope to interview him and find out (though possibly not, after he’s read this)…
We’re back for our latest look at the trials and tribulations of what happens when you submit a story to a magazine or an anthology. Come with us into the murky world of editing, where we shall reveal… something vaguely relevant, maybe. And very little of what follows will do you any permanent damage. So that’s good.
a typical day’s submissions
We’ve looked at hundreds of submissions in the last few months alone, many for Occult Detective Quarterly, some for an anthology, Their Coats All Red, and even a few for other mysterious projects and private critiques. Today’s reflections are based on all of these, but mostly on the experience of editing Occult Detective Quarterly – a matter of sheer numbers.
Last time on ‘So You Want to Submit a Story…’ we mentioned three areas – Lovecraftian horror, Victorian & Edwardian period stories, and Clive Cussler Syndrome, aka the art of over-description. This time we’re raising a few more issues you might want to consider when you submit a story to any magazine, anthology or similar creature.
What follows isn’t really aimed at the seasoned writer. Unless you’re so seasoned that you fear you’re fossilising. Nor do we pretend to be authorities on this sort of thing. We merely offer a few observations, which are meant to be helpful (that’s what they all say), and let you decide what you want to do. That way we end up in fewer court cases.
Firstly, we must raise an over-arching problem, the bane of many editors’ lives…
The Mystery Parcel
People do not follow the guidelines when it comes to the subject line of submission e-mails. Why is this important? With hundreds of emails, they have to be assigned to the right folders. If the subject line doesn’t say whether it’s a story, art or non-fiction, each email has to be opened to assign it. If there isn’t a title given in the subject line, then the editors and subs readers have to search and match the story to the name of the e-mail sender.
So we might get an email from hellkitten47 at aol.com, with no subject other than (maybe) the project name. We don’t know what’s attached, and if it’s a story, we don’t know what the story is called. There might be a story called The Lecherous Leprechaun by Amelia Susan Standish (Mrs). Or maybe a charcoal sketch of Sherlock Holmes eating a radish. It may even be cunningly disguised spam. Who knows? The temptation, which we try to resist, is to bin it.
Put simply, when you submit a story, absolute adherence to guidelines like this is the way to make sure that you at least end up in the correct folder.
That’s out of the way, then. So here are two other topics – The Strange Incident, and The Distressed Dame. These both relate to stories that we’ve had to reject. The first is general; the second is rather specific. If you disagree, feel free to comment – you may well know more than we do.
The Strange Incident
This is when you submit a story that doesn’t really have anything to it in terms of plot and internal drive. Typically, a Strange Incident story describes an event which may be unusual or unexpected, or an encounter where the sense of the weird predominates. It’s more of a situation report or an observation than a structured tale. ODQ receives a number of these, some of them really interesting. But…
You may have produced an unusual mood piece, but you have to be a pretty good writer, able to deliver high quality characterisation and atmosphere, to get away with it for publication. Some of what you might call the New Weird writers can do it. But we’re not all them.
And the longer the story you submit, the more any weakness here become apparent. Sometimes a short story can get away with sheer atmosphere. Sometimes.
We’re not against vignettes and slices of the strange, of mood pieces and almost poetic fragment. We love some of them, but this isn’t about individual taste. It’s about getting published.
On the whole, most magazines and anthologies are looking for something which does have a certain drive to it, which will satisfy the broad range of readers. They might take tales which are stylish meditations on the weird, but you have to research the market to know that it’s what they particularly want.
So if you must explore the strange incident, it has to be impressively done. Something odd which happens down the road is… just that, usually. Think about whether your submission is more of an exemplar of style rather than a story for which someone would pay. Because that’s the bottom line in many markets.
We had to decline a number of stories, even though they revolved around a weird concept which was different from the usual. We were actively looking for this sort of thing, and were always disappointed when we had to let one go. The point is that almost invariably in these cases, the concept was more interesting than the story. And that’s a hard one.
We wouldn’t want to discourage the flow of new ideas and approaches in weird literature. All we can ask is that when it comes to formal submissions, you consider aspects such as:
Is this particular story the right vehicle for your concept?
Do other people have any chance of grasping what you’re trying to express?
Is it paced so that readers don’t merely drift away?
Have you honed your writing skills enough yet to do your ideas justice?
If you submit a story which demonstrates a Yes to the above, you’re motoring, and in with a chance.
The Distressed Dame
submit a story 1949 style
Raymond Chandler is dead. Here’s one which hits ODQ a lot, but will happen when you submit a story to pulp, crime and mystery magazines as well. Whilst Pulp and New Pulp are popular, in a broader magazine there will only be room for one or two classic-style stories. The Private Investigator of the 30s, 40s and 50s is an iconic figure, and much loved, but he or she can also be a tired cliché.
This is a hard one. It can be done. With humour, or with a cunning twist or two, new life can be brought to the trope of the client turning up, and the PI getting drawn into a dangerous game. However, without twists, the world cannot bear many more strange women walking into offices unannounced, seedy offices which have ‘seen better days’, or PIs whose best friend is their Colts and their bottle of Jack Daniels.
That striking woman turning up can be a story killer to editors. It’s an image beloved of Bogartian cinema, and is so over-used that it easily becomes ludicrous. Here’s a quick checklist:
Legs of an unfeasible length
Breasts akin to geological promontories
Dress or outfit which is tight, expensive, or both
Hair which only comes in raven black, gleaming blonde or red
Eyes which pierce or captivate rather than look at you
We get it. The approach is used to signal that we’re in that Pulp-y place, but it’s getting harder to cut it with that these days. Every so often a story will be satisfying enough, and the familiarity of an old trope will be pleasing. But are you sure you can carry it off?
If you’re not, adapt and invent. If you must have ‘a dick and a dame’ (excuse our language), entangle them in a new way. Revive old Chandler to do something different.
You can find other greydogtales musings on writing for publication kicking around the site, as in the How to be a Bestselling Author series. Some of them may not be entirely serious, of course…
Occult Detective Quarterly will be open for submissions again on February 1st, which will be flagged up in the ODQ section on this site and on the Facebook Group (no more subs until then, please).
Their Coats All Red, a very specific concept anthology, has its own Facebook Group, Imperial Weird, and guidelines which can be found here:
We’ll return, dear listener, in a couple of days with more of the weird, in one form or another. And we’re delighted to say that Issue One of Occult Detective Quarterly is even now winging it’s way around the world. There’s a link on the right hand side bar, as usual.
Yes, for all the horror fans out there it’s our least comprehensible headline yet. Hurrah! There’s a lot going on, and we need to catch up, so here are a few things you might like. We’re enjoying a new South American illustrated project by Matias Zanetti, starting to read Turn to Ash Issue 2 with Jonathan Raab, and updating you on Sheridan Le Fanu. So we’d better get on with it, backwards as usual…
weird fiction explained
The Irish Weird
A few days ago we were talking about styles of dark fiction, and drifted across H P Lovecraft, M R James, and the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (see sneerwell and verjuice – the school for weird fiction). As you do. Not long after, Brian J Showers, that erudite owner of Ireland’s most excellent Swan River Press, called in to mention that Jim Rockhill’s essay on Le Fanu and HPL was included in the anthology Reflections in a Glass Darkly. This volume also reproduces M R James’s entire lecture on Le Fanu.
Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu, by Gary William Crawford (Editor), Jim Rockhill (Editor), Brian J. Showers (Editor) was a Bram Stoker Award nominee –
“In this volume, the first collection of essays about Le Fanu, three distinguished scholars have amassed a wealth of material on every aspect of the author’s life, work, and influence.”
Enthusiasts of early supernatural writers, Le Fanu, and those interested in Le Fanu’s influence on the development of weird and supernatural fiction, can still get hold of a copy here:
Our own current read from Swan River is The Dark Return of Time, by R B Russell, which is apparently being filmed right now, with Eric Roberts, Adrian Paul and Matthew Ziff, amongst others.
“Flavian Bennett is trying to leave his troubled past behind when he goes to work in his father’s British bookshop in Paris. Soon after he arrives he witnesses a violent crime in which a mysterious customer, Reginald Hopper, may be implicated. Hopper involves Flavian in his search for The Dark Return of Time, a rare and strange book which he thinks will provide the key to unlock his past.”
imdb
…and the film
Given our known Jamesian interests, Brian added this:
“…On the topic of Le Fanu and James, did you know that Le Fanu originally coined the phrase “pleasing terror”? You’ll find it in, if memory serves, ‘All in the Dark’.”
Which we didn’t know, having failed to click with the novel in question. All in the Dark (1866) is not one of Le Fanu’s best works, sadly, and was poorly rated by both Lovecraft and James.
MRJ, as we said before, did have some Le Fanu favourites; HPL seems not to have got on well with the Irishman’s work, though may not have read some of his best stuff. James had to confess on this one:
“Weakest of all the novels is All in the Dark – a domestic story with a sham ghost: an offence hard to forgive in any writer but much harder in Le Fanu’s case, seeing that he could deal so magnificently with realness without incurring any more expense.”
Royal Institution of Great Britain, March 16th, 1923
On the plus side for Le Fanu, he wrote many far better works, some of which we should cover here at some point. Given our involvement with Occult Detective Quarterly, we should especially talk more about his ‘occult detective’, Dr Hesselius.
In the meantime, why not take a break and listen to his Madam Crowl’s Ghost instead.
Incidentally, ‘A Pleasing Terror’ is also the title of the collection from Ash Tree Press, which includes:
“…all of M. R. James’s writings on the supernatural. In addition to the thirty-three stories from the COLLECTED GHOST STORIES, this volume includes a further three stories, seven story drafts left amongst his papers, all of his introductions and prefaces to his various collections, and his article ‘Stories I Have Tried to Write’. In addition, there are the texts of the twelve medieval ghost stories discovered and published by James, all of his articles about the ghost story, and his various writings on J. Sheridan Le Fanu.”
Turning to something completely different, this week we received an early copy of Issue 2 of Turn to Ash, a new magazine of dark fiction and horror. We mentioned Issues 0 (yes, really) and 1 in our interview with its presiding genius Benjamin Holesapple last Autumn (see the name’s benjamin…). This time it’s a themed issue, with the stories based around callers to Chuck Leek, a radio show host. As the original guidelines said:
“Charles “Chuck” Leek hosts The Late Night Leak – AM radio’s home for conspiracy theorists, monster hunters, spirit mediums, aliens, demons, angels, black-eyed children, shadow people, lizard people, time travelers, and anyone else who may go bump in the very darkest hour of the night. Tonight, Chuck is hosting an open lines show, and he wants his listeners to call in and tell him about their strangest, most terrifying, unexplainable experiences. Broadcasting from WORN 1600 AM in Orion, deep inside the haunted Ohio valley, Chuck wants to hear from YOU!”
Whilst the bulk of the fiction in Turn To Ash 2 follows this device of those who ring in to Leek’s show, the issue is anchored by a somewhat different perspective from Jonathan Raab. Jonathan Raab is the editor-in-chief of Muzzleland Press and the author of The Lesser Swamp Gods of Little Dixie, The Hillbilly Moonshine Massacre, and Flight of the Blue Falcon.
Probably not without relevance, the protagonist of Lesser Swamp Gods is a conspiracy theory radio show host turned county sheriff, Cecil Kotto, who finds himself thrust into the depths of a horrifying occult mystery.
Raab’s contribution here is a story about Chuck Leek which weaves its way through the issue, and provides a neat contrast to the other tales. Here’s what you’ll find within:
Cold Call Part I — Jonathan Raab The Sun Screams in Retrograde — Rebecca J. Allred The White Factory — Kurt Fawver A Room with Two Views — Joanna Michal Hoyt Lullabies from the Formicary — Betty Rocksteady Cold Call Part II — Jonathan Raab Rails — Thomas C. Mavroudis Midnight in the Desert — Joseph Pastula Cold Call Part III — Jonathan Raab All that Moves Us — Evan Dicken When the Trees Sing — S. L. Edwards Cold Call Part IV — Jonathan Raab OGRE — Joseph Bouthiette Jr The Merger — A.P. Sessler Death Run — Martin Rose Cold Call Part V — Jonathan Raab
In addition there’s an interview with the talented Matthew M Bartlett, who we also talked to last Autumn, and some interesting essays on horror, the media and radio. A fine package, basically.
Finally, we return to one of our favourite places, South America, where as far as weird, dark comics and art stand, you can’t go wrong. Argentina in particular is a hot-bed of talent, and many of our friends such as Diego Arandojo, Sebastian Cabrol and Pablo Burman (to name only a few) have been on greydogtales before.
We often ask if English language editions of their work are available, and that nice chap Matias Zanetti contacted us to say that his new project is indeed on-line and readable either in Spanish or English. So we had to have a look.
Camino Royal, or the Royal Road, is a new comic linked loosely to the Tarot and readings. The first issue offers a speculative, dystopian tale, set in a world where an infection has spread throughout humanity, and the survivors struggle to stop themselves degenerating. There’s something wrong with the water – or is there?
Fear of the Modified outside their walls is rife. One protagonist believes that the Modified may represent a new future; the majority of people want to ignore them or cure them. El Camino Real was the Inca road system’s backbone, as the Spanish colonial powers of South America named it, but here it refers (we think) more to a route or journey of discovery.
As Matias says in his introduction:
“Each episode’s narrative structure, its characters, even the genre they belong to are created through the interpretation of three Major Arcana cards, chosen through fate and guided through our intentions.”
The striking cover is by Hugo Emmanuel Figueroa, and the interior full colour art is by German Genga.
Camino Real 1 is available from Holograma Comics on-line, on the basis that you pay what you think is appropriate. It’s interesting and enjoyable, and we definitely want to know what happens next.
We’re nearly out of time. Issue 1 of Occult Detective Quarterly is shipping in the next few days, and we need to update you soon on plans for the next few issues.
Not Quite Award Winning
Plus, as there’s a couple of days left, we’ll once again nag you to vote for greydogtales in the Preditors & Editors Awards under Best Review Site. Why should you do such a mad thing? Because little bits of such recognition allow us more access to the cool stuff and cool creators we drag on board. That way everybody wins, so every vote really does count. Click that link for a feel-good moment…
