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    Black Static #36 Horror Magazine (Sep-Oct 2013)
    Black Static #36 Horror Magazine (Sep-Oct 2013)
    Black Static #36 Horror Magazine (Sep-Oct 2013)
    Ebook231 pages2 hours

    Black Static #36 Horror Magazine (Sep-Oct 2013)

    By TTA Press

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    About this ebook

    Stories this issue:

    No Kill, No Pay by Jacob A. Boyd
    Apports by Stephen Bacon
    Day 12 by Tim Waggoner
    The Scent of Roses by Christopher Fowler
    Namesake by V.H. Leslie
    The Festering by Ray Cluley

    Cover art and interior illustrations by Vincent Sammy, Tara Bush, David Gentry, Joachim Luetke, Richard Wagner

    Features this issue:

    Coffinmaker's Blues by Stephen Volk (comment)
    Blood Pudding by Lynda E. Rucker (comment)
    Reviews this issue:

    Case Notes by Peter Tennant, including books by Nina Allan (with an in-depth author interview), Stephen J. Clarke, George Berguño, Alison Littlewood, Gary McMahon, Simon Bestwick, Arthur Machen + M.P. Shiel, Rosanne Rabinowitz, Ilsa J. Bick, Michael G. Preston, Alice Thompson, Stephen McGeagh, Chris Butler, Daniel Mills, Martin Jones, D.F. Lewis
    Blood Spectrum by Tony Lee, including DVDs and Blu-rays The Car, The Returned (2004), Escape, Possession, Dark Skies, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, Evil Dead (2013), The Moth Diaries, Dead Sushi, The Fall of the House of Usher, Apocalypse Z, A Field in England, Little Deaths, The Seasoning House, Deranged, Into the Dark, The Dyatlov Pass Incident

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTTA Press
    Release dateSep 26, 2013
    ISBN9781301125630
    Black Static #36 Horror Magazine (Sep-Oct 2013)
    Author

    TTA Press

    TTA Press is the publisher of the magazines Interzone (science fiction/fantasy) and Black Static (horror/dark fantasy), the Crimewave anthology series, TTA Novellas, plus the occasional story collection and novel.

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      Book preview

      Black Static #36 Horror Magazine (Sep-Oct 2013) - TTA Press

      BS36e-cover(high)

      BLACK STATIC ISSUE #36

      SEP–OCT 2013

      © 2013 Black Static and its contributors

      Publisher

      ttalogosmash

      TTA Press

      5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, UK

      w: ttapress.com

      e: blackstatic@ttapress.com

      f: facebook.com/TTAPress

      t: @TTApress

      Editor

      Andy Cox

      andy@ttapress.com

      Books

      Peter Tennant

      whitenoise@ttapress.com

      Films

      Tony Lee

      tony@ttapress.com

      Events

      Roy Gray

      roy@ttapress.com

      Social Media

      Marc-Anthony Taylor

      Unsolicited submissions of short stories are always very welcome, but please follow the basic guidelines on our website

      ibotenicor.tif

      cover art

      Vincent Sammy

      sopranos.tif

      comment

      Coffinmaker’s Blues

      Stephen Volk

      the-returned.tif

      comment

      Blood Pudding

      Lynda E. Rucker

      nokillnopay-3bw2.tif

      story illustrated by Vincent Sammy

      No Kill, No Pay

      Jacob A. Boyd

      Apports.tif

      story illustrated by Tara Bush

      Apports

      Stephen Bacon

      zombietim.tif

      story

      Day 12

      Tim Waggoner

      the scent of roses (2).tif

      story illustrated by Richard Wagner

      The Scent of Roses

      Christopher Fowler

      Namesake.tif

      story illustrated by David Gentry

      Namesake

      V.H. Leslie

      The_Festering.tif

      story illustrated by Joachim Luetke

      The Festering

      Ray Cluley

      IMG_3437.tif

      dvd/blu-ray reviews

      Blood Spectrum

      Tony Lee

      dogs-with-their-eyes-shut-2.tif

      book reviews

      Case Notes

      Peter Tennant

      Coffinmaker’s Blues

      Stephen Volk

      robert-mckee_fmt

      WHAT WE LEARN WHEN WE LEARN ABOUT WRITING

      When Mark Gatiss held his Masterclass at FantasyCon 2012, he said I’m just one of you battling with the same problems you are every day, and, believe me, it feels no different. Absolutely. Novice or veteran, we are all grunts in the same trenches doing the same battles.

      So what kind of advice about writing is useful, ever?

      Arcane wisdom is dispensed by a pantheon of screenwriting gurus, the likes of Syd Field (of the three-act structure) or Robert McKee [above], whose legendary Story workshops waver between elucidation and brainwashing. Latest to join this professorial elite is John Yorke (former Channel Four Head of Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production) who has written Into the Woods, the USP of which is that all narratives have a simple unifying structure: literally the same old same old (as one-time exec on EastEnders, he should know). All of which is very interesting, I suspect, but frankly bugger all use when you are facing the blank page. Charlie Brooker put it more eloquently than I can: All this stuff about myths and heroes and inciting incidents can be fascinating from a detached, diagnostic perspective, but ultimately it’s a bit like a thesis explaining why ‘Yellow Submarine’ is a catchy tune: analyse the components all you like, but you’ll never actually become a musician unless you close the book and start mucking about on the guitar.

      You could say, what does it matter, this blind leading the blind phenomenon? The sharpened pencils hovering over notebooks? The sparkly-eyed students hanging on their every word? But it does. Because it has infected the industry of storytelling like an insidious plague. There used to be two people in a meeting and now there’s eight, says Larry (It’s Alive, Phone Booth) Cohen. And most of them took Robert McKee’s class … and they can’t judge anything that’s original or different. They insist, this has to happen by page thirty, and it has screwed up everything.

      It amounts to a shared delusion that these experts impart the secret of success. There is no Secret. There’s mostly the Obvious. Like Paddy (Network, Altered States) Chayefsky’s oft-quoted maxim: Don’t think of it as art, think of it as work. Which is why, by and large, rather than look to the script manuals, I get far more inspiration and insight from the words of screenwriters who have been there, done that and got the scars to prove it. They give me strength. They reassure me I’m not alone. I’m not going crazy.

      A great book of interviews I’ve just read is called Tales From the Script and I urge aspiring screenwriters to devour it. These are some of the gems therein: People reject you nicely. They will nice you to death; "Self doubt is the great enemy of the artist. My partner and I talk about this. We always wanted to put out a mock issue of Variety that’s called Anxiety; What’s hard to internalise is that just because someone doesn’t like something, or doesn’t get what you wrote, that doesn’t mean they’re smarter or better or know more than you do; I was on the second floor of a bungalow at Warner Bros., and unbeknownst to me Bob (Towne) was in the room beneath me writing on the same script; You’re required to put all your passion into it and at the end of the day, you’re standing over a trapdoor; About 50% of the job is how well you write; It’s okay. You’ll survive. You’ll do another one. Don’t worry about it. Because if you worry, you’re gonna eat yourself up, and then you become an enemy of yourself; This is a last-laugh business. If you can survive as people are kicking you in the head, eventually their leg will get tired…"

      But probably the best depiction of the gurus’ ludicrous hold on the young and the naïve is in an episode of The Sopranos. Christopher Moltisanti says: I don’t wanna just survive. It says in these movie writing books that every character has an arc. Like everybody starts out somewhere. And they do something, something gets done to them and it changes their life. That’s called an arc. Where’s my arc? Big Pussy Bonpensiero: You know who had an arc? Noah.

      My own arc is that of someone who has learned a certain number of things along the path of my heroic journey. Here, for what it’s worth, are some of them:

      Character-based should never be an apologia for nothing happens.

      A walk to the bus can be as dramatic as a nuclear war: it depends on what matters to the character.

      Remember Aristotle’s unity of time and space – but then again, fuck it.

      Don’t use the supernatural or magic to get your hero out of a hole. Use it to get themintoa hole.

      Fill your stories with authenticity: the more unreal the subject, the more you need it.

      Don’t think you can learn the rules of a genre like you can learn the rules of Scrabble. To write it, first love it. Don’t fake liking it. We will sniff you out in an instant.

      To set up a prop in act one and pay it off in act three is a thing of beauty.

      Always have another story idea at your elbow, so that when this idea isn’t working, you can thinkthatidea is perfect.

      Never use the word ‘Wind’ in a title.

      If you think one line is the complete distillation of the theme, think about losing it.

      Two characters meet, and behave completely in character, yet they are in complete contradiction – and we empathise equally with them both – is excellent writing.

      Have dialogue express character, not tell you what they feel.

      If you must have exposition, do it in a way that’s mesmerising.

      Reveal character through behaviour and choices.

      Melodrama is under-motivated action. Sentimentality is under-motivated emotion.

      A good writer doesn’t need to be super-intelligent or clever, but they do need to have a sense about what makes a good story. What is interesting and what isn’t. If you don’t have this, there is no point in thinking of being a storyteller, however good you were at English.

      There are no rules, except if you make a table with two legs, it’ll fall over.

      If you cannot name a dozen screenwriters, shame on you for saying you are writing a screenplay.

      Think of the actor reading the script, and making the role impossible to resist.

      Never use parenthesis unless the natural reading of the line would not convey the intention without it. (Don’t tell actors how to act.)

      Also, don’t tell readers what to emote – they like to work it out for themselves. As Billy Wilder said: Give them 2 plus 2 and let them make 5, and they’ll love you for it.

      If you don’t hate every movie with your name on, you’re either inordinately easy to please or ludicrously lucky.

      There is no scale of importance of people who give you notes. Your babysitter can give you a good note, and the head of Sony a lousy one.

      Don’t accelerate conflict. Here’s a tip: say you love their work, you love them. Then it’s a good deal harder for them to pick a fight with you. After all, you are truthful and have immaculate taste.

      Remember when you pitch to an exec, your pitch doesn’t count. It’s their pitch totheirboss that counts.

      If you receive flowers and champagne from your director, send them back. There was a mistake at the office. They were meant for his lawyer.

      Genre lies. But we like it.

      And finally… The theories of McKee and Field and Co are the sticks they beat us with. But get to know the stick. So that at least when it’s heading for your skull, you can say: Ah. It’s a stick.

      www.stephenvolk.net

      Blood Pudding

      Lynda E. Rucker

      the-returned_fmt1

      PUTTING AWAY CHILDISH THINGS (2/2)

      Let’s briefly recap part one for those of you just joining Blood Pudding for the first time: Genre readers often seem to fall into one of two camps, one that insists that reading and watching should consist purely of escapism and that the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror have abandoned the goal of entertainment in favour of chasing after greater cultural capital (imagining perhaps a reality in which writers sit down and say to themselves Time to write something boring and obscure that won’t sell well but will win me loads of awards!) and another that seems embarrassed by the pulpy origins of much modern genre fiction and seems to feel that anyone reading or watching for entertainment is some sort of drooling Morlock. Certainly these are broad exaggerations, but for the most part all of us can locate ourselves somewhere along this continuum. So, does horror storytelling, and genre storytelling in general, need to grow up? Or are we doing just fine as it is?

      Or can the two approaches exist side by side? I used to think the ultimate achievement in film and fiction was something that worked on different levels for different audiences. Those who are looking to be entertained can get their entertainment; those who want to ponder something with more depth can find that, too. But with the increasing popularity of cultural studies, everything has become meaningful, and meaning has really ceased to be a useful rubric for measuring quality. It’s true that we can coax all kinds of profound observations about a society’s fears and preoccupations and neuroses from watching, say, all the commercials aired in a random 24-hour block on a given network, but that doesn’t make those commercials art.

      Yes, I said it – that word, art. I know it’s a controversial word in some circles. Owing, again, probably to its pulp origins, there’s a working-class ethos among genre practitioners that fears getting too high-faluting, that insists writing is no different from plumbing or bricklaying except that it’s a damn sight easier physically; it’s all technique, it’s all just about putting the right tab A into the right slot B. No lofty ideas here, oh no, nothing to see, move right along. I like the down-to-earthiness of this approach; it appeals to the side of me that delights in watching pretensions popped. But in truth, it doesn’t adequately describe the process for me. Writing needs more than technique to succeed.

      I’ve made a point to defend the sheer entertainment side of things because I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t. Most of us work hard and have lives that are less than perfect, and sometimes we need nothing more than to switch off our brains and lose ourselves in stories that don’t make a lot of demands on us. And I wanted to make sure that what I wrote here wasn’t misunderstood as a blanket condemnation of that.

      But entertainment isn’t going anywhere; it doesn’t need my defence. It’s not going to stop being produced or consumed anytime soon, and despite some rather odd notions in some people’s heads, there is not an army of academics coming to shut down the fun of your favourite genre with their jargon-laden post-post structuralist semiotic Marxist Lacanian musings.

      Fiction and film that demands a bit more of its audience, however, is a little more endangered, because it doesn’t always go down as easily and (most significantly) it doesn’t usually make as much money. But one of the things I love most is a challenge. I like dense prose, difficult characters, uncomfortable truths, have-to-read-it-twice-or-more-to-get-it stories. Tell me a tale that will make me look at the world differently once you’re done, not because you’ve taken me out of the world, but because you have located me more firmly within it even as you’ve infused it with the supernatural, the numinous, the impossible.

      I believe that horror has to strive for this because maybe more than any other genre, it’s susceptible to a tired old formula, particularly at novel length: nice people come along, bad things happen, nice people come to a bad end. Occasionally, the formula is tweaked by making nice people into bad people (this often gets the novel breathlessly labelled transgressive and seen as a breath of fresh air, but it’s really not). Sometimes people talk about transcending the genre but I don’t think that’s necessary either, partly because genres are simply useful but artificial ways of categorising fiction and partly because I think horror is broad enough and has a rich enough tradition to achieve greatness while still being itself.

      Here are a few examples of the type of substance within genre that I’m talking about. For film Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth or the Korean fairy tale A Tale of Two Sisters and for fiction M. John Harrison’s The Course of the Heart (to my mind, very much a horror novel), or Caitlin R. Kiernan’s The Red Tree.

      The films are all, at their cores, stories about people, people suffering unbearable real-life horrors; the characters and their stories are grounded in humanity long before the supernatural arrives on the scene, and this is what makes that intrusion all the more horrifying.

      Both of the books I mention perform an astonishing high-wire act in which they interrogate the genres in which they are working without diluting the emotional impact or the downright scariness of the events they describe, with Harrison exploring and ultimately refusing both the reader and his characters the fantastical catharsis that they seek while Kiernan examines the very act of telling stories, how and why we tell them and what the truth in them is, if there is any truth at all. Ultimately, I love these works more than the sheer thrill-rides because they keep me more fully engaged – not just viscerally, but both intellectually and emotionally.

      More recently, I’ve been watching the French television series The Returned [above], the premise of which did not appeal to me in the slightest (The dead return to a small Alpine village? Oh, God, not another zombie story, please). What engaged me from the very first episode was its humanity, the way in which it was fully exploring the implications of that premise and its impact on people. Humanity is, I believe, a big part of what I’m in search of here. There are exceptions, particularly when it comes to short fiction: I’m thinking of works by Lovecraft and Ligotti whose strengths lie in their weird inhumanity, and occasionally a short horror novel can also sustain that bleak mood – Dagon, Fred Chappell’s classic 1968 novel of Lovecraftian horror relocated from New England to a sweltering, fecund North Carolina farm is the prime example that springs to my mind. But I can’t and don’t want a steady diet of that stuff. Even at their best – and I love all three of those writers – those stories serve as piquant accents to the feast that is horror, not the main course.

      I left off last column with a number of questions, several of them centring around What business is it of mine what other people want to read and write? Well, as a fan and writer of horror, it’s actually quite a bit my business. If nobody likes the same stuff

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