Mark Fuller Dillon's Blog, page 34

Antistrophe cheats!

Antistrophe ("I'm the Mistress of Rhyme!")
Has a paradigm for the method of rhyme
Unripe, unsublime, unbecoming a rhyme:
She cheats every time with her terminal rhyme.

The Twist: From Gimmick to Method

Few techniques in fiction are more dangerous than a twist ending.

All too often, writers lean on the twist to make a story interesting, but in doing this, can shift essential focus away from those other, more important elements of the story.

Writers might also hope to surprise readers, but readers are almost impossible to catch off-guard; instead, they predict the writer's ending long before the writer can spring any surprise. A writer out-guessed can seem unimaginative at best, foolish at worst.

On the other hand, a twist can be useful, not at the end of a story, but right at the centre. Putting a twist at the heart of a story allows a writer to maintain interest, while offering enough time to explore the implications of the twist: implications that transform the twist from a mere gimmick into a major component of plot, character, theme.

Another method is often effective. William Sansom provides my favourite example in "A Wedding," but Eric Frank Russell takes the same approach here. The idea is to present the story in retrospect, long after events have taken place, and then, in the final sentence, to provide one piece of information that shifts the entire story into a new perspective. This information is not a twist, but a fact -- a small detail -- that was not revealed in the course of the story, because the narrator was too engrossed in telling the tale to consider this one small detail important. The narrator takes it for granted, but for the reader, it becomes not a twist, but a bluntly dramatic explanation, an insight into context, a lens that puts the entire story into focus. It does not change the story; it justifies the story.

- - - - - - - - - -
Illustration by Matt Fox. Weird Tales, July 1950.

Anaphora

Although the world is choked by mental cages,
Anaphora, your strictures cause no fear.
Anaphora, bring pattern to these pages.
Anaphora, remember: life was here.

No Effect

So much of what I write has no effect,
And I have seen my failures rise and fall:
Too often have I sat up at the call,
Then slumped again, when failure to detect
A reigning purpose, or a phrase elect,
Or any spark of imagery at all,
Has blinded me to splendour and to gall,
To night, and to the moonlight I neglect.

When wisdom fails, I pick a while at scabs;
I contemplate my stumbles and my flops,
The scattered wreckage of the stillborn years.
Then suddenly the dead quake on their slabs,
The wastelands ring with howlings and with yawps,
The verbal gnats crawl, whining, through my ears.

Hendiadys

Deny the bliss, Hendiadys:
May black and woe force you to go
Through dust and waste where final taste
Of salt and sweat and heat beget
Your shame, your end, as I portend.
Then die of this, Hendiadys.

Diacope, You See, Diacope Keeps Haunting Me

Diacope, you see,
Diacope keeps haunting me,
Indeed, keeps haunting me,
And never sets me free, no,
Never sets me free to go,
Or leaves me room, I fear,
Or leaves me room, you hear,
Or leaves me room to say:
Diacope, please go, today,
Please go, Diacope, please go away.

Anadiplosis Diplodocus

They reconstruct from neck to torso,
The torso down to hips, and more so;
And more so do they plan, but fail:
They fail to budget space for tail.

Hyperbaton Breakup

Was I deep in my bones bereft
When me my lady chose to heft
No more, when me she up and left,
And my door slammed with timing deft.

Her Many Cases of Punishment by Polyptoton

She cast away the castaways who begged upon the shore.
She wrecked the shipwrecked wreckers, in ways that we deplore.
She keelhauled every hauler of the barges on the barge.
Of all her bulging virtues, largesse was never large.

Monster Movie Vibe

David Longhorn, the editor of Supernatural Tales:

Many moons ago I wrote a review of a collection of stories by Mark Fuller Dillon. These stories are still excellent, and they're still out there, available as an ebook. In a Season of Dead Weather is well worth your time. The same can be said for his unusual 'alien invasion' novella All Roads Lead to Winter. Oh, and they're both free! So, if you've got an e-reader, there's no excuse.

Mark has now produced another story, and it's just as good as those 2013 publications... If you want an entertaining read with a slight Twilight Zone/Fifties monster movie vibe, this is for you.