Angela Slatter's Blog, page 80

Get Your Fight Scenes Here: Top Five Tips for Tip Top Fights

One of the things I find most challenging in writing is fight scenes – not a huge number occur in my work, but just enough to cause me annoyance and frustration. Lucky for me I’ve got Alan Baxter, International Master of Kung Fu and, coincidentally, award-winning author of dark fantasy, horror and sci-fi on speed dial. I figured all writers could benefit from a few tips from an expert in the field of punching people in the face (but not in a psychopathic manner), so I asked him to write a post about it. Take it away, Al!

Top Five Tips for Tip Top Fights

So you want to write a fight scene. Even if you don’t now, you probably will at some point. After all, stories are powered by conflict and that can mean unrequited love, an obstructionist boss, a broken down car or a million other things. But it often means actual, genuine, drag-out fisticuffs. People love a bit of ultraviolence in their fiction and it’s usually the safest place to find it.

The trouble is, most writers haven’t had many, if any, fights. And that’s a good thing. Fighting is not a great experience for most, unless you train in the martial arts and enjoy combat sports. Or you’re a psycho who beats people in the street, but if that’s you, you should be in jail. Go and hand yourself in, you animal.

And that’s where I come in. I’m not a psycho (go ahead, try to prove it!), but I’m a writer and a martial artist. I’ve trained for over 30 years and fought in a variety of environments, so I can draw on my knowledge to write good fight scenes. In fact, I started to get a bit of a reputation for it and was asked to run some workshops on the subject. Following that, I even wrote a short ebook on the subject called Write The Fight Right. It’s a very short book, but it’s designed as a reference guide for writers to make their fight scenes as authentic and exciting as possible.

Recently, Angela asked me to write her a guest post on the subject of fight scenes, so I said “How about a Top Five Things To Consider When Writing Fights?” She said “Sounds perfect!”

So, here are my five top tips to make a fight scene in your story as realistic and visceral as  possible:

Your book is not a movie. Most people, without any other point of reference, simply transcribe a movie-style fight scene onto the page when writing. Movie fights are (most of the time) incredibly unrealistic and designed for that medium. In a movie, we have to watch from the outside, we need to see what’s going on, so combatants take turns and use big, clear attacks and blocks. Real fighting is nothing like that. With writing, we can get inside the action and inside the characters’ heads and make everything more exciting and gritty and downright brutal.


Less is more! A fight scene should be the fastest, most visceral scene in a story,  but so often they’re slow and cumbersome when authors try to describe everything that’s going on, all the complexities of attacks and blocks and so on. It’s boring! Short, sharp and pared back is the way to go.


The five senses. Movies are a visual medium with added sound. When we write, we can use touch, taste and smell to great effect as well. What does it feel like to get punched in the face? Can you smell the sweat and fear? Can you taste the blood? (The answers to these questions are: pretty horrible, yes, and yes.) Using these things along with sight and sound adds enormous impact to your fight scenes.


Adrenaline and emotion. Anyone in a fight who isn’t scared is a psychopath. Even the best fighters are afraid and they have to deal with massive dumps of adrenaline, they have anger, shock, pain to deal with. The better a fighter you are, the more you’ve trained to deal with these things. The less experience you have, the more these things will fuck you up.


The knockout myth. You know in movies when people are knocked out for long enough for other characters to do all kinds of stuff, then they wake up and carry on like normal? Such bullshit. When a person is knocked out, that’s brain damage. If they’re only out for a few seconds, they’ll come around groggy and almost certainly concussed, but hopefully not too badly off. If a person is out for several minutes, they have suffered serious brain injury and absolutely will not be able to function normally for a long time after they wake up. If ever! This fact isn’t much use in stories when you need someone to be out of action for a while, but if you’re looking for realism, the KO is not it.

Hopefully these points will give you some food for thought in your next fight scene. Of course, (shameless self-promotion ahead!) all these things and more are dealt with in much greater detail in my ebook, Write The Fight Right. Now go forth and write great fights!

Alan Baxter is an award-winning author of dark fantasy, horror and sci-fi and an International Master of Kung Fu. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website – http://www.warriorscribe.com – and find him on Twitter @AlanBaxter and Facebook.

 

Once upon a time …

By Michael Hutter

… Simon Marshall-Jones of Spectral Press sent me this gorgeous piece of art and said, ‘Don’t suppose you fancy writing a novella for me with this as the cover? It’s called “The Witch’s Scale”.’ Faster than the speed of light (figuratively not literally, pedants), I said ‘Yea, verily yea.’ Equally quickly I wrote a novella … two and a half years before the deadline.

As a working writer, I can’t afford to have stories sitting around that long, so I said to a very understanding Simon, ‘I’ll write you another.’ That first novella, renamed “Ripper”, went off to live with Stephen Jones in his Horrorology anthology, which is coming out from Jo Fletcher Books in October this year.

So, I wrote another novella (in between writing a novel, three short story collections, and about fifteen short stories). It was set in the Sourdough world … and it was one and a half years ahead of the deadline. Again, Simon was understanding when I withdrew it and renamed it and sent if elsewhere. That novella, now known as “Of Sorrow and Such”, will be published by Tor.com, also in October of this year, as part of their new novella series.

But never fear, I always had another idea for “The Witch’s Scale”, and I’ve spent the last several months making notes and plotting things out; last week it all came together and the story demanded to be written. So, I’m taking time off between the other novels I’m supposed to be writing, and getting a Real and True “The Witch’s Scale” down on paper … well, screen.

What I do like is that there are now three of my novellas with lines in them about the witch’s scale and where women appear on it. I’ve always liked putting little links between my books and stories, whether it’s simply reusing a street name or a repeated motif as a kind of Easter egg, and I really love the fact that this cover has inspired and informed several works.

Having started “The Witch’s Scale”, I’m happy to say it’s coming in nicely. It’s set in the Sourdough world, it’s in a town unofficially ruled by the Briars, a family of witches. The matriarch Gisela has brought up her great-granddaughters, Audra and viewpoint character Ani, to take over when she dies: Audra, the most powerful witch of the new generation, as the new head of the family; and Ani, who alone of the Briars has no eldritch skills at all, as the administrator. But when Gisela does pass away, Ani unexpectedly comes into a power not seen in the Briars for hundreds of years: the ability to speak to the dead.

 

Extract from The Witch’s Scale

‘How are you, Deirdre?’ I speak softly so as not to startle her, but she gives no sign at all of having heard.

The girl still faces the wall. All I can see is the back of her head, the dirty blonde, dishevelled hair she’s neither washed nor brushed since she gave birth to the stillborn boy seven days ago. She’s not bathed though I know her mother has tried to talk her into it. The room smells of old blood and dried excrement, stale body odour and some fresh vomit. She’s not keeping down the small amount of food Beres gets her to eat; I suspect she eats while watched just to get the woman to go away. Then Deirdre puts her fingers down her throat and brings it up again into the chamber pot. She’s not too fussy how much gets in and how much misses the receptacle; I notice that too.

The baby’s not yet been buried; it’s still summer so he’s in one of the cellars dug into the bank of the river where some folks store their fruit and vegetables to keep them fresh and cool. Beres has swaddled him and put him there, between the bottled preserves and the wheels of cheese, just until her daughter can be persuaded to name him. We do not consign our dead to the earth without a name; without their names they are not whole, they are lost, they wander.

Gingerly, I sit on the bed and put a hand on her shoulder, which has grown thin, the bones more pronounced as if trying to escape her skin. She shivers, the movement going through her like a ripple through water. It’s the first sign of life I’ve seen in her since the baby came too early.

‘Deirdre. Deirdre, you need to talk to me. Please.’ There’s a long frozen moment that’s broken only when she turns, a slow rolling from her side to her back, and I reminded of a dead fish sinking into the depths, rolling, belly up, then down, then up, then down, a terrible spiral that can end only one way. ‘Deirdre, I know it hurts.’

‘How can you know anything?’

***

Happy dance!

This morning the lovely Irene Gallo posted this on Twitter – galleys for my Tor.com novella Of Sorrow and Such!

The cover art is by the astonishing Anna and Elena Balbusso, who did the cover for Nicola Griffith’s Hild, among other things.

It’s a real book!!

Chatting with the Lovecraft eZine

This morning I had a lovely chat with the gents at the Lovecraft eZine. Thanks to Mike Davis, Matthew Carpenter, Rick Lai and Peter Rawlik, and especial thanks for being kind, chaps: I’d got my times mixed up and realised I only had 15mins between rolling out of bed and getting on-line. Apologies to my poor David who was pushed out the door without breakfast, and any of the neighbours who may have heard loud profanities while I attempted to tame my hair and put on some face-paint in a less-than-clownish fashion.

Also, I totally did this podcast BEFORE I had my coffee AND without swearing. Those who know me will be looking out their windows for the other signs of the Apocalypse. My sister’s comment was “Ah, my sister, the 8th Wonder of the World.” She’ll be dealt with later.

The casting of the pod can be listened to here.

So we talked about a lot of stuff including: being Accidentally Lovecraftian; fairy tales and their influence; advice for new writers; how reading Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan’s work is like drinking a wonderfully strange alcoholic beverage; and the Tale of the Plushy Badgers.

And! Richard Luong was the other guest – he’s the illustrator for Cthulhu Wars and OMG check out his artwork!

The Sourdough Posts: Sourdough

This was the story that started the Sourdough and Other Stories collection, but in a strange and wandering way. At the end of my MA, I was sending off queries letters to small publishers to see if I could interest anyone in a short story collection. What I know now is that very few publishers, large or small, will take a chance on a no-name newbie, and that’s understandable.

Fortunately for me, one of the publishers I sent a letter and a few sample stories to was Tartarus Press. Even more fortunately for me, the divine Rosalie Parker read the letter and the stories. She said ‘no’ to the collection, but asked if I would mind if she took the short story “Sourdough” for the next Tartarus anthology, Strange Tales II. As if I’d mind! So, my first accidental sale. That was in 2006.

In 2009 when I was writing more and the Sourdough collection was starting to take shape in my mind, I wrote to Rosalie again and asked if she’d be interested in seeing a collection of stories in that world (she’d also taken another tale for Strange Tales III, “Sister, Sister”). She was indeed interested!

So, “Sourdough the Short” was the start of it all. I had an idea about a girl who made bread into works of art; I thought about the fairy tale “Donkeyskin”, where the princess puts her jewellery into food baked for the prince and I thought about what a silly, dangerous act that was. I’d read Margo Lanagan’s tale “Wooden Bride” and the city she described there gave me an oblique inspiration for Lodellan. I chose the name Emmeline for my protagonist because it means labourer and she does indeed labour over the making and baking of her bread creations, and I chose Peregrine as the name for her lover, because it means both a pilgrim and a wanderer, and in this story he does indeed wander for a time. And Sourdough is the story I chose as a project with Kathleen Jennings, to turn the tale into a graphic story.

Sourdough [extract]

Art by Kathleen Jennings

My father did not know that my mother knew about his other wives, but she did.

It didn’t seem to bother her, perhaps because, of them all, she had the greater independence and a measure of prosperity that was all her own. Perhaps that’s why he loved her best. Mother baked very fine bread, black and brown for the poor and shining white for the affluent. We were by no means rich, but we had more than those around us, and there was enough money spare for occasional gifts: a book for George, a toy train for Artor, and a thin silver ring for me, engraved with flowers and vines.

The sight of other children in other squares, with Father’s uniquely gleaming red hair, did not bother Mother at all. After he died, I think she found it comforting, to be reminded of him by all those bright little heads.

Our home was in one of the squares at the edge of the merchants’ quarter – the town was divided into ‘quarters’ that weren’t really quarters. Seen from above, the town.

It was a large square, made up of groups of much smaller squares (tall houses built around a common courtyard); in the centre of the town was the Cathedral, high up on a hill, then spreading around it in an orderly fashion were rows and rows of city blocks, the richest ones nearest the Cathedral, then the further out you got, the poorer the blocks. We sat just before the poorest houses, not quite good enough to be in the middle of the merchants’ rows, but still not in among the places were rats shared cradles with babies. We had several large rooms mid-way up one of the tall houses, and Mother leased out the big ground-floor kitchen for her business.

From the time I could walk I would follow Mother around the kitchen, learning her art. For a while she was simply annoyed by my constant presence, as I got under foot, but when I learnt to sit on the bench next to the huge wooden table on which she kneaded the bread, and be quiet, she decided to share her knowledge. I was her firstborn, after all, and her only daughter.

When I could see over the top of the table, I started to help her. Baking tiny child’s loaves at first for practice, much to Mother’s amusement, then making the dark, ‘poor’ bread for those who could not afford refined flour. Finally, I was allowed to create white bread to grace the tables of the rich: those born to wealth and knowing nothing else, the higher merchants, the bishop and his like. I began to create complicated twists of dough to look like artworks. At first Mother laughed, but the orders kept coming for them, so she watched and imitated me.

One morning, after we’d finished baking for the day, I began to play with the leftover dough on the board in front of me. Soon a child formed, a baby perfectly copied to the life, with tiny hands and feet, an angel’s smile and a sculpted lick of hair on its forehead.

Mother came up behind me and stared. She reached past me and squashed her fists down on the dough-child, pushing and kneading until it was once again a featureless lump.

‘Never do that. Never make an image of a person or a child. They bring bad luck, Emmeline, or things you don’t want. We don’t need any of that.’

I should have remembered the dough-child, but memory is a traitor to good sense.

*

Art by Kathleen Jennings

There was to be a wedding, arranged, a fine society ‘do’ and we were to supply the bread.

The parents of the groom – or rather, his mother – insisted on being involved in every decision pertaining to the wedding, so there was a power struggle in train between her and the bride’s mother (two titans in boned bodices). Things were getting tense, apparently – this information we had from Madame Fifine (about as French as Yorkshire pudding), the confectioner who was to supply the bonbons for the wedding feast. We were to appear at the groom’s parents’ house, goods in tow, to show our wares.

Mother and I tidied ourselves as well as we could, pulling flour-free dresses from chests and piling our hair high. Artor and George were press-ganged into carrying the wooden trays of our finest white breads to the big house near the Cathedral. We were shown into a drawing room almost as big as our ground-floor kitchen.

As soon as the boys gingerly laid the trays on the big table, Mother shooed them out. I knew they’d be in the stableyard, bumming cigarillos from the stable and kitchen lads, eyeing the horses longingly, waiting for the day when Mother could afford a horse and carriage (that day was a long way off, but they hoped the proceeds from the wedding would speed up the process).

The drawing room was awash with boredom. The parents sat stiffly across from each other on heavily embroidered chairs whose legs were so finely carved it seemed that they should not be able to support the weight of anyone, let alone these four who almost dripped with the fat of their prosperity. The bride, conversely, was thin as a twig, nervous and sallow, but pretty, with darting dark eyes and tightly pulled hair sitting in a thick, dark red bun at the base of her neck. The groom did not face the room: he had removed himself to the large French window and was staring at the courtyard below (probably watching my brothers watching his horses). He had dark hair, curly, that kissed the collar of his jacket, and he was tall but that was all I could tell. Madame Fifine had said he was called Peregrine.

Mother nodded to me and I took the first loaf from one of the trays, showed it to the clients so they could observe its clever shape (a church bell with bows), then placed it on a platter and cut six slices for them to taste. The two mothers, the two fathers, the bride all took their slices and the room was silent but for their well-bred chewing. I crossed the room and offered the groom the last slice. He didn’t turn, merely raised his hand in a ‘no’ and shook his head. I noticed his hand bore the stain of a port-wine birthmark.

‘It would be a shame, sir, to waste something so fine.’

Perhaps struck by the fact that I spoke to him, he looked at me and broke into a smile.

‘Yes. You’re right. It would be a shame.’ He took the bread, green eyes bright. ‘What hair you have, miss.’

I blushed.

‘Emmeline.’ Mother called me and I began my task over again: now the loaf shaped like a flower, now the one like an angel, now all the animal shapes (rabbits, doves, kittens, a horse), the one like a church. Each time I saved his slice until last and we spoke in low voices, he asked me about my life and laughed at my pert answers. When the tasting was finished, the mothers began to argue; the design to choose was the cause of combat. Finally, they turned to the girl, Sylvia, and made her decide. She had the look of a trapped animal and I felt sorry for her.

‘Perhaps…’ I began and all eyes turned to me, the mothers’ brimming with affront, the fathers’ with boredom, the groom’s with amusement, my own mother’s with something like dread, and the bride’s with hope of rescue. ‘Perhaps Miss Sylvia has a favourite animal or flower. We could make the bread to her choice if she does not like what we have brought today.’

‘A fox!’ she cried, clapping her hands to her mouth as if she had said something a-wrong or too bold. I smiled and she said more firmly. ‘Yes, a fox. That would please me.’

‘As you wish, Miss Sylvia.’ Mother’s voice was a relieved breeze. ‘My Emmeline can make anything with her hands; she has great skill.’

So it was settled. The bride had spoken, and defied both her mother and future mother-in-law. Mother and I hefted the wooden trays scattered with the remains of butchered loaves and made for the door. The groom was there before the footman and ushered us through. He smiled and I felt as warm as bread fresh from the oven.

***

?

 

In which the Dance of Happiness is Done

Lisa’s photo

So I woke to a text from my dearest Brain, Lisa L. Hannett, sent while she was exploring far-flung Lindisfarne on her Great Viking Adventure Time, saying “WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP, MY BRAIN, YOU’RE ON THE WFA SHORTLIST!”

And so, All of the Dancing was Done. It’s lovely that my first and second WFA noms were both for Tartarus Books!

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings – from my lovely publisher Tartarus Press and with illustrations by the wonderful Kathleen Jennings – is shortlisted for Best Collection along with (and yes, gasp with amazement as these are truly awesome collections):

Mercy and Other Stories, Rebecca Lloyd (Tartarus)
Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Helen Marshall (ChiZine)
They Do the Same Things Different There, Robert Shearman (ChiZine)
The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, Angela Slatter (Tartarus)
Death at the Blue Elephant, Janeen Webb (Ticonderoga)

The rest of the shortlists are here and include the likes of the superb Kaaron Warren, Jeff VanderMeer, Scott Nicolay, Ellen Datlow, Galen Dara, Kelly Link … I’ll stop before I just everyone.

The Way to Wolf Creek: Aaron Sterns

The disarmingly delightful Aaron Sterns, horror writer extraordinaire, took some time out to answer a few questions for me about writing Wolf Creek (film and novel), giant crocodiles, stalking John Jarratt, and the future of horror.

What do readers need to know about Aaron Sterns?



I’m unashamedly a horror writer. It seems to be fashionable for authors to distance themselves from the genre once they’ve had their start — to instead proclaim themselves exponents of dark fantasy, or weird fiction, or supernatural romance or whatever. Even Barker qualified himself as a writer of the ‘fantastique’. But I’m of the school of thought that horror is a largely-inclusive realm (beneath the overall huge banner of fantasy) that encompasses any example of fiction or film that addresses the dark side of experience (thanks Douglas E. Winter). With the slipstreaming of genres post-postmodernism I’m not sure how people can easily ghettoise certain works anyway. Is Game of Thrones epic fantasy, or does it use so many elements of horror and is so nihilistic in its view of human nature and life that it’s more attuned to the more maligned genre? And who cares anyway, except that it has an impact on you, which should be the inspiration of all art. Not being ashamed of the label, I’ve been fairly singular in my pursuit of horror since I started to seriously pursue fiction in my teens — some thirty years ago now — in an effort to understand (or tackle) some of the existential fears I was feeling (and still feel). Fears that only seemed to be overtly addressed in the dark fiction I was reading at the time — novels such as Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell’s 1984, most of Ballard, etc. I’ve been lucky enough to pursue this search in many fields too, beginning in academic study to round out my understanding, then moving into short fiction and novels, and on to screenwriting as well. I’m now in the fortunate position of working both as a novelist and screenwriter, something that is a rarity in Australia (though it’s taken decades of work to achieve).

Tell us about your involvement with the Wolf Creek films.



Greg McLean and I met through a friend of mine from uni and I ended up sharing their writing office space. I was the horror fiction/ theory guy, our friend Dan was the artist, and Greg was the film-maker. We’d pass work back and forth to critique and eventually Greg enticed me to put some of my outspoken theories into practice and write some screenplays with him (including a ‘fast zombie’ idea that was unfortunately squashed by the Dawn of the Dead remake a year later). I guess I was an unofficial consultant on the first Wolf Creek, and I also have a fun little cameo in it (as I have in most of Greg’s films, actually). During post on the film there was a lot of talk about sequel ideas, and at one stage Greg and I came up with something we thought was pretty cool and could actually be a worthy sequel and not just a safe, cynical rehash (as lots of people were seriously suggesting the sequel should be). We wanted something that set itself up as repeating events, only for it to take a tangent and venture into new territory. Great, Greg said, you’re the horror guy. Go write it.

How did that translate to the novel Wolf Creek: Origin?



Initially, I was acting more as a curator for a potential series of Wolf Creek novels. Greg had been approached by Penguin for six novels, so we sat down in our trusty haunt Mario’s in Fitzroy one day and blocked out the entire series on napkins. The first was to be the juiciest: Mick’s tortured upbringing and first stumbling attempts at killing. As my background’s fiction and I’d already co-written the film sequel, Greg argued I was the obvious choice to write Mick’s origin story. I was busy with my own novel at that stage, so said no a couple of times. But I eventually realized I’d never again have the chance to develop the mythology of perhaps Australia’s most iconic villain again. And I’d always wanted to write a serial killer novel — a subject that’s disturbed me since I was a teenager because the psychology is so foreign to me, and still is. The deadline was so tight from conception to submission (about three months) that I didn’t have time to second-guess myself or be overawed by the opportunity. I mapped out the story during a lightning research trip to Queensland (to visit John Jarratt’s birthplace, and check out a cattle station nearby), then launched straight into it.

Does collaboration come naturally to you after working on film scripts such as Rogue, with Greg McLean?



Starting out as a fiction writer I was no doubt as precious about my golden words as anyone. A publication rejection would send me into a spiral of self-doubt. But film is all about collaboration and taking notes and not taking anything personally. You have to have a clear vision and faith in yourself, but you also have to be objective enough to know when you’re wrong. It’s not easy to both believe in something and simultaneously be open to its destruction. Critiquing and reading others’ works (as a script-editor for instance) also helps in this, I think, because it’s always easier to tear someone else’s work apart than your own. You just need to divorce yourself from your own work enough to see it as someone else’s. So I’m becoming quite comfortable with working with others — at least in screenwriting — and am now even inviting co-writers to work on me with my own material I’ve been developing for some years, because I recognize the value another point of view brings. Fiction’s a whole different matter though. I think prose really needs to be filtered through one vision, but you never know.

What draws you to writing horror?



That’s such a huge question, it’s almost hard to quantify. I’ve always had a dark sensibility, and I struggled with existential issues quite young (and still do). I think I turned to horror because it was raising questions I myself was struggling with (the purpose of life — or lack of it, the terror of random violence, the senselessness of death, the lie of an afterlife). For me, it’s the one field that asks the big questions, and isn’t necessarily required (at least in its best examples) to provide safe and comforting answers. Cosmic horror for instance, such as the H.P. Lovecraft stories I devoured as a kid, serves only to disrupt and question existence. There are no answers, only awe. I’ve never subscribed to the whole ‘rollercoaster’ theory of horror, in which it’s supposed to provide a safe and thrilling experience of fear, before ejecting the viewer out into the bright light of the real world. The definition of horror is of a “lasting dread” — not a momentary sensation of terror or suspense, but a long-lingering emotion. The works that had most impact on me wormed their way inside my head and changed my view of the world forever (such as American Psycho, Crash, etc.). Then a fellow writer once read one of my stories and said later she couldn’t see her own family the same way ever again (it’s okay, she’s still with them). That’s my aim — to not be a safe flash-in-the-pan thrill for the reader/ viewer, but to change their perspective, perhaps permanently. To educate, if you will.

Who were/are your literary heroes/influences?



Cormac McCarthy, J G Ballard, Bret Easton Ellis and William Faulkner probably had the most effect on me along the way — all of which I would either consider Modernist or Postmodernist writers. Specifically in the horror field I’d say Jack Ketchum, Clive Barker, early King. And then there are screenwriters such as Andrew Kevin Walker, Eric Red, Paul Schrader, and filmmakers such as David Cronenberg. I unfortunately don’t get much time to read anymore, and I don’t have the patience or the… forgiveness I once used to have, so tend to half-finish things a lot, but if there’s a new Ketchum available I’ll devour that piece of beauty in a heartbeat.

What is your favourite horror film and why?



Although I love a lot of Cronenberg’s films (Videodrome was one of those very works that changed my view of the world), my absolute favourite film would be a toss-up between Jacob’s Ladder and Carpenter’s The Thing. Jacob’s Ladder is a very emotional, existential work that affects me every time I watch it. And the grounding of its supernatural qualities in the gritty world of New York has been very influential on my own writing. My first short story ‘The Third Rail’ was set in New York, for instance. But The Thing is possibly the perfect horror film, in that it expertly oscillates between character-driven suspense and paranoia, and boasts some of the most imaginative and visceral special effects ever created. Some of the visuals were so imaginative and iconic — such as the spiderhead — that it eclipsed anything else I’d seen. Yet despite this the film’s themes are cerebral, striking to the heart of what it means to be human (much like the ’70s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, another film that shifted my worldview). I also love that the horror is shown in full, and isn’t held back by any of the usual “don’t show anything, it’s much better in the imagination” guff. I’ve always been of the opinion that if it happened you show it. The characters can’t escape what’s happening, so why should the viewer?

How does it differ: writing prose to writing a film script? Do you need to consciously change how you approach the project?



The writing skills are completely diametric in many ways. Screenplays require short sharp sentences, can have no internal description, and must adhere to a very formalized structure on the page which can get in the way of the flow of the actual writing process. Fiction in many ways is much more demanding, because it requires so much more description and ‘presence’ in that world. You have to know every detail intimately (even if you don’t describe it). And on top of that it has to read beautifully and have variances in pace and length and all the thousand other things a fiction writer has to be aware of at any one time. There are certainly some stories I feel are more attuned to one medium — a small, sharp idea might be more appropriate for a short story, something epic and convoluted for a novel series, a punchy, visceral idea for a film. Of course, sometimes you can get added currency by developing an idea across several platforms, but often a novel or short story won’t translate to film — it’s a too-complex or too-simple idea, or it’s not right for the current marketplace, or it doesn’t have a strong enough hook, or something else has just been released that steals its thunder. It’s possibly a matter of choosing your battles wisely.

The future of horror is …?



It’s hard to pick for the genre itself. I can really only speak to where I hope it goes. I hope it’s honest, challenging, prepared to still push boundaries in these politically correct times, just as it’s always striven for. I think social commentary via culture — whether visual/ performance art, or fiction, or film — is more important now than ever, considering how fractured and downward-spiraling the world seems to be, at least to a pessimist (nee realist) such as myself. The metaphor of art can sometimes glean the most truth. Suppression of expression benefits no one.

What’s next for Aaron Sterns?



It’s going to be a busy, busy year. I’m attached as a writer to no less than six films in development. Some are paying jobs and hopefully stand good chances of getting made. Others are spec scripts, some of which I’ve been developing myself for years now and believe are strong. In fact, I’m contracted to turn in three scripts in the next three months. It’s going to be hellish (I tend to write quite slowly, agonizing over every line, dammit), but I just have to push through one a month, and then collapse in a heap in September — although I’ve just been offered another two more gigs in the past week, so I’m not sure I’ll even get much time off when these three are done. I’ve just resecured a fiction agent and she’s sent out my next novel Vilka?i. I have plans for two more works in that world if I get the chance. Plus there’s nonfiction articles coming out, a couple of short stories under consideration, things like that. And I hope to rekindle my involvement with my old university, Deakin. They’ve asked me to return as a Conjoint Senior Lecturer to mentor the new crop of film and literature students. Not sure where I’m going to get the time for that on top of everything (including a hilarious three-year old vying for my attention), but I’d love the opportunity to help out enthusiastic new creatives. It’s all quite overwhelming, but I never lose the sight of the fact I’ve worked hard for these opportunities, and nothing is a given in this life. You make your own luck, and it’s now up to me to work even harder to bring some of these things to fruition. We’ll see how successful I am in another year, I guess.

 

 

 

Aaaaaannnnd!

The lovely Belinda Jane Morris has finished her artwork inspired by my story “A Good Husband” in Sourdough and Other Stories!! I love it!

The Sourdough Posts: The Bones Remember Everything

Rackham’s Maid Maleen

This was a really challenging story to write because I’d had the scene of spinning hair and making a tapestry from a body in my head for a couple of years before I wrote the full tale. I’d done a very early version of it when I was still a very new writer (at the start of my MA) and knew that it was, at that stage, beyond the reach of my talent. So, I had to hang onto it until I was a much better writer, until I could do it justice.

The title came from a line of a poem I’d heard read ages ago at a VoiceWorks event; a poem about immigration and memory. I thought it an exquisite phrase and have also used it for the name of this blog.

Of course, when I finally got around to writing the story to fit into the Sourdough mosaic, it was still difficult to write. I was pleased with myself at the end: I’d managed to work in both the fate of Dibblespin’s sister Ingrid, and the back story of Rilka, a nun and the Marshall of a Battle Abbey of the Church Militant who appears later in “Sister, Sister”, and allowed Ella from “The Shadow Tree” to ghost through like a dark presence, and referenced the tower from “Little Radish”. I’d woven in the tale of the great and terrible making of the bodily tapestry. I was pleased … but I wasn’t entirely sure it worked; it felt untidy, ragged at its edges.

Feedback from Lisa confirmed my suspicions, and resulted in one of the biggest eviscerations I’ve ever done of a story. A terrifying and ambitious process, to cast aside all preconceptions of what you think the story was/is/should be and remake it, turning the tale into a kind of wordish Frankenstein’s monster. And at the end of it all, the gratifying response from my alpha reader that now, all was well.

It’s a tale about blood and families, sisters and loss, about stories within stories, about bones and babies and the prick of a thorn.

 

The Bones Remember Everything

I walked for three days.

I had not left a note for Rilka, left her no clue; I had not thought of my lover when I entered the woods. The wolves were shadows and did not bother me. Need for neither food nor drink slowed my progress. There was only the voice, which no longer simply inhabited my dreams, but hummed through the waking hours like a daylight lullaby. I kept going until I reached the place where I was told I needed to be. Ingrid, welcome home.

The path ended abruptly at a prickly barrier; a hide of thorns so thickly grown and woven that I couldn’t make out what lay beyond. The bushes stretched as far as I could see. Left and right, the briars had melded with the usual flora, and there was no way past to be found. I reached up in frustration, to touch one of the branches, but I misjudged and snagged a finger on a long barb.

I put the digit in my mouth and sucked away the welling fluid, tasting its metallic tang. In front of me, though, the drop of blood remaining on the tip of the spike gleamed then began to eat away the brambles just as acid attacks metal. Soon, there was a wound in the wall, big enough for me to walk through. I gave one final look back to see the obstacle continuing to be erased as if it had never been.

Ravens hopped across an untamed lawn and a grey stone tower rose up in the middle of the clearing. Lining the crenellations were statues – not gargoyles but cats. A single door at the base stood ajar. I did not hesitate; the voice urged me on.

Inside, at the bottom was a disused kitchen; then halfway up, a library with shelf-lined

Original art by Stephen J. Clark

walls; finally at the very top of a spiral of age-smoothed stairs a circular room waited. Four arched windows, set across from each other, to the four compass points, let in light. In one area was a spinning wheel covered in cobwebs; a stool was placed in front of it. A four-poster bed crumbled quietly, its hangings all decayed, and bookshelves had been picked bare by birds and mice looking to cushion nests. Only a tiny cat and raven, cleverly carved in stone, lay over-turned on the splintered wood. Against another part of the wall hung a frame made of bones; stretched across it was a covering of skin. At its foot stood a rough-hewn table and on that table were thread, a needle, a quill and a very large jar – almost a glass pail, really. At first, I thought it filled with ink, but closer inspection showed it to be a sluggish dark red, uncongealed. The lid came away with surprising ease. The scent of iron made me dizzy.

The very air seemed to be waiting

The quill was sharp, and when I picked it up, I felt a tingle in my hand that thrummed up my arm and made my shoulder ache. I dipped the nib into the ichor-ink and stood in front of the strange canvas. I swiftly sketched a woman, the one whose voice sang from my dreams. Without knowledge I understood that she shared my blood. The liquid soaked straight into the surface, did not run or smear; it knew where it was to stay.

When the drawing was done, I waited for the outline of the face and body to dry. I picked about the chamber, trying to find a trail, a story in the leftovers of a life. There was little enough and I realised that the only truth was that of the bones.

I closed my eyes and saw a girl sitting by a window, the north-facing window of that very tower, spinning. The thread her efforts produced was long and fine, flax entwined with strands of her own dark hair—she had been at the work for some time. Every so often she pricked her finger and the crimson welled, then was absorbed into the filaments as she caressed them with something like love, something like hate. The pain didn’t bother her, for she was spinning her own life, making herself into a tale, her own tale of blood and flesh and bone, and she would endure for the bones remember everything. And they will call.

I shook myself and opened my eyes. The fine silver needle was surprisingly easy to thread. As I sewed and embroidered, the fibres took on the required colour: ebony for hair, white as new snow for skin, red as a ripe apple for lips. I stitched and stitched, and wondered what would happen when I finished.

Still I did not sleep; day and night no longer mattered. I did not mind, though, for the voice called me by my name and told me its story.

 

***

 

 

QWC / Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program 2015

This highly useful program is open once again, so if your novel is ready (i.e. edited and proofread and carefully plotted with well-rounded, believable characters), then enter!

WHAT IS THE PROGRAM?

Up to 10 emerging fiction and non-fiction writers will work with editors from Hachette Australia to develop high-quality manuscripts.

The program will run for four days in Brisbane, Queensland. Participants will each have an individual consultation with editors from Hachette Australia to receive feedback on their manuscript.  During the four days, participants will also meet other publishing industry professionals such as literary agents, booksellers and established authors, and work on their manuscripts. The program will run 23–26 October 2015.

Hachette Australia does not guarantee publication of manuscripts selected for the program but reserves the first right to publish the selected manuscripts. Please read the full terms and conditions in the Application Form.

More info is here.