hell – Page 7 – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

“Dark Fairytales” from Horroraddicts.net

Follow the link to Horroraddicts.net for an interesting perspective on the dark side of fairytales and how they continue to exist in today’s dark literature, using Japan’s Hell Girl as a prime example.

I find this a fascinating article with a lot of excellent points, however there is one point that seems a bit superficial:

“Stories like this have taught us how to treat each other for centuries, but they have also taught us some very dangerous ideas:

The evil always get their comeuppance.
Wait long enough (or suffer bad enough) and your prince will come.
There are secret pots of gold or riches granted you when you out-smart evil beings.

Well…as we know living in the real world is not so easy…”

While these are the obvious lessons that fairy tales instill in children, and we, as adults, know the world is not so easy, it is important to look at their origins in history. Fairy tales arose a few centuries ago when survival was much more difficult than today. Medicine was primitive. Laws were essentially the will of the emperor/king/local despot or the accepted religion (e.g. the Inquisition) enforced by his soldiers or officials. No professional organizations or entities existed to investigate even the most mundane crimes, or if they did, the investigators were rank amateurs or hobbyists by today’s standards. No organizations existed to ensure the quality of food or of water or the safe disposal of wastes. Duels and violent, personal retribution for offenses were not uncommon. Life was often, as someone once said, “brutal, nasty, and short”.

In this type of environment, fairy tales gave hope to children and adults alike that they could survive the trials, tribulations, and horrors that existed beyond their doorstep and that some form of justice was woven into the ethereal fabric of the universe, that would right the wrongs they experienced or saw being done to others.

Today, the need to believe in fairy tales no longer exists, though it, no doubt, does among the very young and, by our modern standards, the very desperate. The ancient fairy tales have not changed, though the times and environment have. New ones have arisen reflecting the mentality, for better or worse, of our modern world.

Thoughts? Comments?

Publication Announcement: “A Tale of Hell”

With Iced Tea, Farmington, New Mexico, March 20, 2015

On May 24, my short story “A Tale of Hell” was published by Fiction on the Web. Please visit them to check it out. Many thanks to Charlie Fish and his staff. Be forewarned: the subject matter is intense and so is the language.

I have already received four very gracious comments on it:

“An intense and well paced story, cleverly leading the reader up a number of garden paths before Jack’s reality finally clarifies and appears in all its horror. The writing is focused and spare as Jack’s malevolent characteristics and idiosyncrasies manifest themselves. Theresa remains a little underdeveloped, but this makes sense in the context as she is only bit player in comparison with Jacks dominant ego which throbs through the piece. Overall a strong tale that lingers in the imagination. Thank you,
Ceinwen”

“brilliantly descriptive piece on man´s apparently unstoppable descent, literally into hell,

very well written

well done

Mike McC”

“Crikey, this is enough to sending me running to the nearest church to repent!! Well written. Your one character’s use of repeition was very effective and added to the build-up of terror even more compellingly than your descriptive passages. Theresa must be one dumb broad to have teamed up with this psychopath. A chilling read. I’d reach for the brandy bottle to calm my nerves …. but see where it landed Jack!
Beryl”

“Enjoyed this story. I thought it was nicely written. Started with a familiar vision of hell, but added several unique treatments; kept me interested in how it all would end. Thanks
rlhoste”

Slattery’s Digital Horror

Death%20calls%20the%20tune — Death Calls the Tune

For a change of pace I thought that for tonight’s blog, I would simply post a few digital images I created from photos using Photoshop a few

years back One is called “Death Calls the Tune”. I made it from a photo I took of a fiddler at a Renaissance fair. The second is called “Dancing Through Hell” and I took the photo on which it is based at the same fair. If I ever get the time again, I may make some more.

The last is more suspense than horror, though I can imagine it could be the setting for something horrible going on inside the bar. It is derived from a photo I took of a bar in Tokyo in 1995. The woman is a silhouette of a statue into which I inserted a public doman photo of a woman’s face, reversed it, and then did some more Photoshop magic.

I am selling these on a few products you can find in the Little Shop of Horror, but I don’t mind if you use these downloaded from this site so long as I get credit for the original image, and, if you would be so kind, please tell me where you use it. I just like to see what uses people put my works to and how they are received.

Comments? Thoughts?

Ginsberg’s Breath Units

Allen Ginsberg, 1978

Photo by Ludwig Urning

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…

So run the opening lines of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl“, considered by many to be one greatest works of American literature. One aspect of the poem that has always fascinated me is that Ginsberg wrote it in what are often called “breath units”, i.e. each line comprises the amount of words that should be spoken with one breath. I have experimented with breath units or something similar in both prose and poetry. One example is my poem “Faust“, which was published by the Hollins Critic in 1992.

I have found that when used in prose, breath units can be effective in breaking up rhythm in order to emphasize a point. For example, imagine a sentence as equivalent to a breath unit. Write a very long sentence and try saying it in one breath. It is as if you are trying to say something in a hurry. Use that long sentence to describe fast-moving but extended action, such as a martial arts masters exchanging blows in a match. To me, it seems as if I am in the fight while trying to describe it. Now use three to four of these sentences to describe the entire match. Then use a very short, indicative sentence to describe the final blow dropping the defeated master to the mat.

Here is an example of the use of my use of breath units in my story “A Tale of Hell” (published by Midnighttimes.com in 2006). Note that here I start with two short sentences, then follow them with three long sentences, and then conclude with one short one for emphasis.

He wanted to make love. He did not want just sex. He was not interested in his own orgasm as much as he felt an overpowering desire for the smooth texture of Theresa’s skin; the velvety brush of her nipples across his face; the sight of the light playing upon the delicate, minute hair covering the back of her neck; the tickle of her breath as it flowed around the contours of his ear. Above all else, he wanted to hear her voice, that voice that sometimes changed into a shrill nag when he wasn’t paying attention to what she said, or when he forgot to pick up something at the store, or when he neglected to call and tell her he would be late for supper. Now it dawned on him: over the years she had put up with a lot more crap than she should have. He wanted to apologize.

I have no doubt there are other technical names for this technique when used in prose, but I do not know them. It is a technique use occasionally. To my mind, prose breath units should be used sparingly or they lose their impact. I think they have a great potential in horror literature if used properly, because they can lead a reader very fast to a point that is suddenly emphasized by an unexpectedly abrupt hall–sort of like sprinting around a corner only to run face first into a brick wall.

So, I guess the question for tonight is: are you familiar with this technique and do you know it by another name?

By the way, I had never thought of it before, but isn’t that first line of “Howl” very much in the horror vein? I am wondering if “Howl” couldn’t be used as an example of horror in many ways, though it was almost certainly never intended to be viewed as a work of horror.