| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
My brand new shiny blog, if anyone's interested: http://www.gary-fry.com/ Provocative waffle shall be regularly nailed up there. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Excellent, Gary. I've just bookmarked it. FWIW, I've begun a nascent blog of my own. You can find it here: http://johnnyshiv.wordpress.com/ Perhaps one day I'll post something there that isn't meaningless drivel. Nah, who am I kidding? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.179 |
So, you're Johnny Shiv... | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 81.129.143.153 |
Gary: Zombie novel, eh? Good stuff! Can't have enough zombie fiction (or films) in my view. I'm into chapter five of a Nazi-Zombie novel of my own which is (yep, here comes my phrase of the day) completely bonkers and over-the-top. Mark S. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Des: Is that bad?  | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Oh wait. Now I know why you're asking that. Yes, I'm him. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.74 |
Looking good, Gary. As to your question on your blog, are you not presupposing that the stated intention on setting out with a piece is to cause disquiet? As a semi-related aside, speaking on Talking Books yesterday, Ian McEwan said his thematic stuff came out of the detail and characters he was following in a piece. Everything follows the characters. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Ian McEwan said his thematic stuff came out of the detail and characters he was following in a piece. Everything follows the characters That sound about right to me, Mark. It echoes my own experience with the novel I'm writing now. These damned characters keep suprising me - two of them have just fucked, and I had no idea they would until the seduction began. As usual, I'm the last to know.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
First to suspect, though. Mark, yeah, maybe I did. But I'm writing in the context of weird fiction there, so I guess that's what I meant. Chris M: I'll keep an eye on your musings, too! I enjoy reading blogs. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Theme can work in many ways, really. George Bernard Shaw used to make his characters dance to his theme. It depends what you're up to with your stuff. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
I like the question on your blog, Gary. When writers like Aickman aim for a certain type of obfuscation, do they themselves actually know what they're obscuring? Probably it's like a magician's trick: the magician must understand the mechnanics of the trick, not of the illusion. He must know only enough to instill a certain degree of awe and wonder in his audience. The audience provides the rest. Besides, meanings are shifty things anyway. Even if you aim for a specific meaning, readers won't want it or will reject it as being too superficial: they'll want one of their own. My own view is that the surface of things usually suffices. If you supply a believable enough surface, readers will supply their own motives, meanings, and subtext. Mind you, not that this makes it easy to do ... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Lacan points out that the subconscious is structured like a language, and he's so right. If the author's imagery is gibberish - scary ideas wedded together with little coherent sense, even in the context of dream-logic - then I sincerely believe it's fraudulent. In other words, nobody ever wrote a masterpiece of weird fiction by accident. More pertinently, nobody ever faked one. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
I'm a firm believer that the supporting structure for weird stories must be as believable as possible. If you don't get reality right, I'll never believe you about the supernatural. But supernatural elements themselves are improved by incoherence, no? I always balk, for instance, when authors provide clear logical frameworks for their supernatural creations. The supernatural, were it to truly exist, would surely be as chaotic and inexplicable as any other element in the world. Explaining it to me only makes me mistrust you. There's probably a fine line here, though, between the mysterious sublime supernatural effects of Campbell or Aickman and the "gibberish" you mention above. One works and the other doesn't. I wonder why? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Yes, Chris, it's the fine line I'm alluding to. A skill or ability that separates the Aickmans from the rest. Neither too much for us to assimilate (thus robbing reality of its inherent mysteriousness) nor too little to make intuitive sense to us (rendering mysterious reality simply 'gibberish'). I need an aspirin. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
>>>One works and the other doesn't. I wonder why? I think it based on how we as humans know our lived experience. It's more than we can ever say, yet nonetheless untuited in a way that resonates with our non-reflexive perception. This kind of fiction 'sings' to that part of us which knows-without-words, which can recognise the feeling of, say, grief or shame or whatever and simply knows when it just isn't right: in fiction, in a peer, in any representation which purports to capture that. Too much exactitude in the representation and we smell a rat; too little, likewise. Ah, but just enough . . . and bingo. Albie once called me the master of twaddle. I aim to please. | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 81.129.143.153 |
In weird fiction I think it important to almost know what's going on. Rather like being in a nightmare, or rather, like being in a waking nightmare. Or in a universe that's become a nightmare. Or someone mad in a sane universe. Or...well, you get the point. Mark S. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.151.35.154 |
Nice post, Gary, Ive added a link to you from my site. Good news with PS too. As for the zombie novels, that must be something going around! | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.151.35.154 |
That'd be "I've", of course! | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.72 |
'As usual, I'm the last to know.' Strangest bloody thing, isn't it, Zed? And yet, when you look back, you'll see your characters had always been going to do that. I just hope one of them isn't an animal... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.72 |
Oh, what a horror I am. Gary, I completely forgot to say: congratulations on finishing a new novel. I have total respect for anyone who commits to and can produce a hundred thousand words of coherent, well written prose. Well done, fella. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.72 |
Even if it's a zombie novel... ;-) | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Congrats my friend - glad to hear you're being so productive! Your blog looks nice on my computer at home. On computers in work however all I get is a white background that flashes black at me regularly. I would have watched for longer but I was worried my head would turn into a pumpkin and explode like in Halloween III | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Yeah, Mark Samuels, that's what I'm driving at. Cheers, guys. And Mark Lynch, I was wondering what to do with zombies which hadn't been done before and I believe I have a new twist. I'll reveal more on the blog in the fullness of time. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Gary: From your post above ("Lacan points out that the subconscious is structured like a language, and he's so right.") -- I'd like to read more about this. Can you direct me to some good material about Lacan's perspective on this? (I'd look up some of Lacan's own writings at the library, but I keep reading that his work is impenetrable. Probably I'd be better off reading someone else's interpretation, eh?) | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.6.244.111 |
'Ian McEwan said his thematic stuff came out of the detail and characters he was following in a piece.' - the book on PKD I'm reading describes Dick doing this, having his heroine take showers, go shopping, waiting for the plot to be drawn to her. I like this idea. 'Wondering what to do with zombies which hadn't been done before and I believe I have a new twist' - yeah, I don't think any stock horror character's life is finite. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I tend to need to know the beginning, middle and end of any story I write. Is that something that stops as you get more experienced as a writer? The one exception to this was a one act play I wrote where I knew what would happen up to two thirds of the way through where a sudden violent event would shatter the fun, breezy mood that I'd been busy cultivating up till that point. I had no idea how the characters would react until I wrote the last 7 or 8 pages - which I still think are some of the best pages of script I've ever written. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Hi Chris, sorry just seen this: I just picked up bits of Lacan over the years, though have read the original stuff, which is supposed to be impenetrable. But the ideas are intuitive enough - I like his approach a lot. Weber, some writers work that way, others work on intuition. There are no rules; you just develop your own technique through years of ceaseless practice. A new blog entry if anyone's interested: http://www.gary-fry.com/ | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
For what it's worth - to return to the early discussion on this thread - for a very long time (certainly since seeing Last Year in Marienbad in my mid-teens) I've preferred enigmas to explanations. And Chris, I was intrigued to see you listing Bartleby as one of your major influences. I first enountered it in Best Horror Stories when I was eleven, and I didn't think it was in the least out of place. I'm sure it helped shape my view of the field. I cited it just yesterday in a talk to the northern chapter of the Society of Authors. I'll admit I was delighted at the end when, having heard me read from Poe and Le Fanu and Blackwood and M. R. James and Machen, several people came up to say they hadn't thought they liked horror fiction but were now going to give it a chance. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Glad to know you're a fan, too, Ramsey. Never thought of Bartleby as a horror story before, although I agree it wouldn't be out of place in such a collection. Makes me want to read it again. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Bartleby is great. I consider it a horror story, too: one of the best ever written. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Yes, chilling. And very relevant to read now. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.10.8 |
I don't want everything explained either. That is probably why Lisa Tuttle is one of my favourite writers. Her work lingers longer in my mind that most. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.10.8 |
....than most. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Well, the original debate wasn't about explanations versus enigmas. It was about enigmas which have a psychological coherence versus those which are just random and wilfully obscure. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.10.8 |
What I should have said is that I agree with Ramsey on his point. 'For what it's worth - to return to the early discussion on this thread - for a very long time (certainly since seeing Last Year in Marienbad in my mid-teens) I've preferred enigmas to explanations.' | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 81.129.143.153 |
I could comment. But I would prefer not to. Mark S. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Ah, then we're in agreement, Gary (and Ally too, I suspect)! | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 81.129.143.153 |
Have you seen the 1972 film with John McEnery and Paul Scofield, Ramsey? I think it's only available on Region 1, but I picked one up while overseas. Shame they updated it, but it still holds up. Mark S. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.29.110.205 |
Hurrah! An Internet first, perhaps!  | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.10.8 |
Yes, Ramsey and Gary. | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 81.129.143.153 |
Doesn't Peter Straub's "Mr Clubb and Mr Cuff" have some relationship to "Bartleby"? Another "Bartleby" like tale is Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Wakefield", which was one of Borges' favourite tales. Mark S. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Wakefield is very scary. almost as bad as Wigan... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Mark, a friend recently gave me the Bartleby DVD. I shall watch it forthwith. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
I'd prefer not to. (Little joke.) |