Hoo. Ray.
Sincerely.
When people ask me how I can tell whether or not something I have written is any good; my answer is always the same: If I absolutely, positively, no-holds-barred hate it, if I utterly loathe and despise it, if all I want to do is erase it from my hard drive and burn all manuscript pages and deny that the damn thing ever existed...then I know it’s probably okay.
It’s when I finish a story or book and like it that I know I’m screwed.
Indulge me a little on this.
It has been my experience that when I like a piece of my work upon its completion, odds are I’ve let my ego get in the way of the story; I have reveled in the land of “Look-Ma-Ain’t-I-Writing-Good?” that will sink you every time; I have taken the lazy way out, either by saddling the work with pat characters, by-the-book dialogue, an obvious denouement, or—the worst sin of all—liberally dousing it with unabashedly manipulative sentimentality in order to guarantee that the reader’s emotional reaction to the piece will be exactly what I want it to be (which, to my mind, inexcusably insults the reader’s intelligence).
That is why I have a filing cabinet that is filled to bursting with stories of mine that I liked.
That is why no one will ever see these stories of mine that I liked so well.
Because they don’t suck eggs…at least according to the Gary I was back-then.
If, on the other hand, the work fulfills its obligation to make me hate it, it’s because the story—and only the story—has been the primary force; I had what I felt was a good idea, and when I sat down to write it, I took myself and my desire to be acknowledged as a good writer out of the equation. As a result, the story (and not my ego) took the spotlight, which is the only way it should ever be.
For the record: The very moment I finished In Silent Graves I not only hated, loathed, and despised it so much that I would have sold my soul to expunge it from the Multiverse, I actually considered selling my computer and typewriter, breaking all the fingers of my right hand so I would never be able to take up pen or pencil again, and having my tongue surgically removed so I wouldn’t be tempted in a moment of weakness to use one of those voice-recognition programs should the desire to write ever bulldoze its way back into my psyche. I considered a career in cesspool cleaning. Or law school. If all of that failed, well, there was that well-thumbed copy of Final Exit that I keep within easy reach.
Yes, I overstate to make a point. One of my too-numerous-to-enumerate character flaws.
I tend to put myself through this with damn near everything I write. Judging from peoples’ reaction to my work, I gather that most of the time I succeed in hitting deep emotional chords, and for that I am grateful. For me, as both a writer and reader, the best stories are those that—even if their craftsmanship is a little clunky in places—leave you with a deep, deep emotional resonance that never quite goes away. Give me that, and I will forgive a lot.
To get back on track here: I try to instill my work with an extra layer or two of emotional depth because I like it as a reader. This is not to say that it’s something I am consciously aware of while I write; that invites self-indulgence and the horrible possibility that I’m actually going to like it when it’s finished; no, what I try to do (and this drives everyone around me crazy) is to decide before I even write the first word what the theme of the piece will be, then the subject in which I will explore the theme (and don’t let anyone try to convince you that subject and theme are interchangeable items, folks), and then lastly—but far from least—the single emotion which will dominate the tone of the piece, and from which all others will spring. Once I know that, I go sort of Zen or Method Acting and dredge up everything I know of, have observed, or experienced wherein said emotion is the overwhelming factor and, whenever possible, try to find within the story a central image with which that primary emotion will be associated. (This central image isn’t always evident at the start; sometimes it emerges while the story is unfolding—which is pretty cool, as well; it’s nice to surprise yourself as things progress—and sometimes the story rears back its head and announces that no, there isn’t going to be an associational central image, so get over yourself and let me finish, will you?)
In the case of In Silent Graves, the theme was loss, the subject was child abuse, and the single emotion from which everything else was to spring was, simply, grief. Grief, in my world, begets fear, which begets loneliness, which begets anger, which begets fury, which begets...on and on.
And grief would be associated with matryoshka dolls.
Hopefully you’re getting the idea by now.
Like all of you, I have experienced grief. In my lifetime I have held the hands of six people—one of them a child—at the moment of their death.
That is not something you are ever likely to forget.
I have also witnessed and experienced the act and aftermath of child abuse.
Another thing that sticks with you.
So, having decided that grief would be the core emotion of Graves, I did that Zen/Method Thang and dredged up every memory and emotional residue of the grief I have known, be it directly or indirectly. I looked at it, it looked at me, announced it wasn’t going anywhere for a while, and off we danced down the Yellow Brick Road.
I was an absolute emotional wreck during most of the time it took to write Graves, and if any of that managed to work its way onto the page, if somewhere in the course of the book you found yourself being taken a level or two deeper into the emotional core of the characters’ hearts, and if you came away from the story with at least a lingering sense of having experienced and not merely read a story, then it was worth it.
I’m not trying to make this process seem romantic, believe me; there were easily ten thousand other things I’d rather have done than spend ten-to-sixteen hours a day feeling sad and depressed and helpless and alone, losing sleep, being cranky, alienating every human being I came into contact with, breaking into tears for no discernable reason while watching re-runs of Green Acres, and re-awakening an ulcer that hadn’t given me trouble in nearly ten years. To make it a well-rounded unpleasant experience, I did a fair amount of research into child abuse and found myself in absolute, sick-making awe of the unspeakable brutality that we as a race will allow children to suffer—but the story demanded that I be locked into a certain emotional state throughout the writing, and I never question that. It’s just the way I Go About It. Be thankful you don’t have to live with me.
All right, then; I’ve been jumping from point to point like an electron without traversing the space between for long enough; now that you know the most important thing I do to prepare for writing a story, it’s time we got down to business.
Shifting gears and going into Jack-Webb mode, I’m going to give you Just the Facts on some things:
1) The act of physically writing the first draft of Graves took a scant two-and-a-half months. It had to be written quickly not only because the story demanded it, but also because the threads of the plot depended on momentum to keep everything from unraveling—and to not give you, the reader, too much time to spot the footprints in the snow, lest you figure out where things were going before we got there.
On a personal note, it had to be written quickly because there was no way I could sustain that level of emotional intensity within my core and not wind up a basket case or dead. No romance here, folks, just the good old ugly truth.
2) I did not write an outline for this novel. I never outline. It’s too much like following a road map. Whenever I sit down to begin a story, unless it emerges full-blown from my head like Athena, I’m careful to never over-think where I’m going. I usually only “plan” the events of a story to the half-way point, and ninety-nine percent of the time, when I reach the half-way point, things have already started to dictate to me where they’re going. I rarely know how something is going to end when I start writing. I like it like that.
Yes, I did plan out certain sequences for Graves in my head far in
advance of actually writing them, and a few times I even wrote down some notes on a slip of paper and taped it near the corner of my monitor’s screen—“Nurse #1's Statement, the Doctor’s, then Nurse #2, then Newspaper Article”—just to make sure the order remained consistent, but at no time during the two months and thirteen days between Word One and Final Draft did I ever create an outline. I had been living with this story in my head for so long (the better part of five years) that I knew almost every detail of it before I sat down in front of my keyboard.
3) Not to negate anything said previously, but there were two occasions when things took over and I was powerless to stop them (and believe me, I tried for a while before the story reminded me that it and not my ego was the important thing here).
I will detail these two happy occasions later on, so hang in there.
4) When I began writing, I was convinced that there was no way this story would go more than fifty of sixty thousand words—my short story bias showing there. Imagine my shock and the stunned silence which followed when I did the final word count and saw 120,000 words pop up on my screen. Graves is, at this writing, the longest thing I’ve written. (Hopefully, it didn’t seem 120,000 words long to you.)
5) Graves was written in sequence. I am not one of those writers who can jump from point “B” to “Q” and then back to “C” while writing a novel. Everything plays out in sequence in my head, so that is the way I have to write it.
I also never stopped in the middle of a sequence. I can’t. I’m always afraid that if I do, I’ll come back to it later and find that I’ve lost not only the momentum, but the rhythm of the section, as well. Not stopping was particularly difficult in several instances, because, as it turned out, Graves emerged as a series of set pieces. If one were to break it down by scenes, I think the novel in its entirety has something like only sixteen scenes.
These are just a few little tidbits I felt compelled to share with you before moving into the next section, which, as promised, presents one of the stories from which Graves sprang.
I say “one of” instead of “the story” because Graves was the result of combining two unpublished pieces—one a short story, the other a novella.
I had originally intended to include the novella, “Progeny,” with this bonus material, but upon re-reading the piece I realized that much of it is redundant; there are scenes in the novella which were used word for word in Graves, and I cannot in good conscious subject you to reading a piece that smacks of deja vu all over again. It seems a waste of time, mental energy, and paper.
What I will do, however, is give you a synopsis of “Progeny” so you’ll have some idea of what it was like and hopefully understand why I chose not to include it here.
Keep in mind that neither Ian, matryoshka dolls, Rael, Bill Emerson, nor the Children of Chiaroscuro appeared in the piece.
Breaking it down incident-by-incident, here’s the way “Progeny” unfolded:
The story opens with the scene in the movie theater. Robert is watching the movie, he’s hearing the litany on his head (“They’re dead...they’re dead...”), and he gets the nosebleed.
He stumbles into the lobby and finds his sister waiting there. Lynn chews him out in much the same way she did in the novel, and insists that he come home and stay with her on this night.
The story breaks here, going into the first of several flashbacks which detail—as did the first chapter of the book—the argument Denise and Robert had, and his fleeing to the park to pout and think about the importance of his career. Unlike the novel, Robert sees dim, fuzzy images from the movie screen instead of the parade of ghost-women. One of those images looks like a dead baby trying to claw its way out of a grave, he panics, and runs back to the house to find Denise lying on the floor.
Back in present time, Robert is trying to sleep in the guest room at Lynn’s house. He rolls over and sees himself and Denise reflected in the mirror. He rises, goes to the window, looks out, and sees a figure standing in the trees. Something about it looks familiar—looks, in fact, like one of the fuzzy images from the movie—but he cannot make it out, so he returns to bed and falls into a fitful sleep. He dreams of babies crawling out of graves.
The flashback sequences continue with Robert and Dr. Steinman. Robert signs the donor consent forms, and is allowed to see his wife and child after they have had their organs removed. Denise and the baby come alive. He holds his daughter and kisses his wife, all the while wondering in the back of his head why the lights seem to be flickering. He also cannot shake the sense that he’s being watched.
The funeral scene, which unfolds more or less as it does in the novel. Everyone leaves, and Robert shovels the dirt over the coffins of his wife and child.
Flashback: Steinman pulling open the curtain and seeing Robert kissing his dead wife, holding his dead child. The good doctor moves to subdue Robert as Robert starts to totally Lose It.
Present: Robert is climbing into the car with Lynn and Danny. He realizes that he left his gloves back at the gravesite. He excuses himself and walks back to retrieve them. The sky is flickering, and he hears an odd but persistent sound, somewhere between a click and a rattle. He reaches the grave, bends down for his gloves, and his child’s hand reaches up through the soil of its grave to grab his wrist. Denise crawls out of her grave, and Robert finds himself being pulled down into the soil with them. The last thing he sees before the dirt swallows him is a movie screen that has taken the place of the horizon; beyond the screen, he sees an audience watching the movie. He sees himself sitting in the audience, his nose starting to bleed.
END
At the time, I really liked it. (Screwed again.)
Looking it over, I saw that what I had was the basis for something longer and much better, but as it stood it was only a series of rather intense scenes with no real direction, and a finale which usurped the story’s tenuous ground rules for the sake of a cheap and obvious shock ending.
Yeech.
At the top of my game, I think I can be pretty decent; but I wrote this story before it was ready to be written, and the result was an ambitious mess with a solid idea hidden amongst the detritus and a few good scenes scattered throughout.
It would have been a grand waste of time and resources to include it. You’re not missing anything; trust me on this.
What I have chosen to include here is a short story entitled “In A Hand Or Face.”
It was at last printed in the final volume of J.N. Williamson’s Masques series, and was recently reprinted as a bonus story in the Limbus II limited edition.
Here goes:
In A Hand Or Face
A weary remnant of the young woman she once was, Fran McLachlan stood in the center of the midway holding her five-year-old son’s hand and trying not to think about the way her life had gone wrong.
“Mommy,” Eric said, “what’s wrong?”
Fran was glad that the massive bruises on his cheek and jaw looked far less discolored and painful today. If only she could say the same for her own abrasions—but, after all, wasn’t that why God created makeup and Tylenol?
“Mommy?”
“Wha—? Oh, I’m sorry, hon. What did you say?”
“Did that lady say something bad to you?”
“No, hon, she didn’t.”
“Then how come you look so sad?” He clutched his balloon-doll as if his very life depended on it.
Oh, Christ! How could she answer that question honestly now, after what Madame Ariadne had shown her? How could she tell her son—the only good thing she had—that she was thinking about abandoning him on a fairgrounds nearly a hundred miles from home because of a palm-reading?
You didn’t give her a definite answer, she thought. The group’s not going to head back to the shelter for another hour—you can at least make this time count. You can make sure he has so much fun that nothing will ever taint the memory for him, ever.
God, Eric, do you know how much I love you?
“Hey, yo
u,” she said, tugging on his hand and smiling.
“Hey, you!” he replied, grinning.
“We’ll have to...to be leaving soon, so what say until then we do whatever you want?”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. You pick.”
“Then I wanna go on the merry-go-round.”
This surprised her. “Why? We’ve been on it three times today.”
“‘Cause you laughed when the tiger started bouncing and it wasn’t a pretend-laugh like all the other ladies. I liked it.”
Oh for the love of God, kiddo—why’d you have to go and say something like that?
Fran kissed her son’s cheek and told herself She. Would. Not. Start. Crying.
“Okay,” she whispered. “The merry-go-round and then...then m-maybe we’ll meet your new friend and get some hot dogs.”
“Hot dogs!” shouted Eric, dragging her down the midway, his balloon-doll thrust in front of him as if it were flying.
For a moment there, Fran could’ve sworn that her son’s face actually shone with happiness.
And not pretend-happiness, either.
* * *
It began three hours before. Fran and Eric were having lunch at a long picnic table with several other women from the Cedar Hill Women’s Shelter and their children, the kids occupying themselves by pointing out all the sights to one another while the mothers took the time to regroup and count the money they had (or, in most cases, didn’t have) left.
“You look a lot better today, Fran,” said one of the women. “So does Eric.”
“Yeah,” Fran said. “We’re both feeling better.”
“Have you thought about, well...about Ted?”
In Silent Graves Page 38