masters – Page 14 – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

Fascinating Habits of Writers of Horror

Some writers have interesting habits.

I have always found one of the most interesting aspects of studying the lives of famous writers to be the personal habits they have while writing. The habits show the writer’s personal side and perhaps give an insight into how their creativity is ingrained in their natures. Following are some examples of the better known habits of mainstream authors (the few examples I have collected of “horror habits” follow these).

Hemingway said that he, at least in his Paris years, wrote for four hours each day before going to work at the Kansas City Star office, he wrote using pencils and a spiral bound notebook, and he started each days writing by sharpening twenty pencis.

F. Scott Fitzgerald never rewrote anything less than nine times.

Thomas Mann was very disciplined and rose and dressed in a suit each day as if he were going to work at a bank (even though he was going only so far as his living room), started each day at the same time (I think 8:00 a.m.), wrote for four hours, broke for lunch for an hour, wrote for another four hours, and then ended his day, by going back to his bedroom and taking off his suit.

Hunter Thompson and Henry Miller were at the opposite end of the discipline scale and might write for days, then not write again for days or weeks, before going on another binge of writing. Thompson might write some lines on a napkin while having lunch at a restaurant, then take the napkin and force it through a fax to get the work to his editors at Rolling Stone.

Here are the tidbits on writing habits by authors of horror.

Thomas Cotterill, another WordPress member, wrote this interesting article on the habits of Stephen King. I have read elsewhere that Stephen King normally writes a first draft, which he runs past his wife, Tabitha, makes some changes and then sends it out to friends for their inputs, and then writes a final draft, which he sends to the publisher.

I have yet to find anything detailed about Poe’s habits, but I did find this general description on the website of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore.

“Edgar A. Poe, one of the Editors of the Broadway Journal. He never rests. There is a small steam-engine in his brain, which not only sets the cerebral mass in motion, but keeps the owner in hot water. His face is a fine one, and well gifted with intellectual beauty. Ideality, with the power of analysis, is shown in his very broad, high and massive forehead — a forehead which would have delighted Gall beyond measure. He would have have [[sic]] made a capital lawyer — not a very good advocate, perhaps, but a famous unraveller of all subtleties. He can thread his way through a labyrinth of absurdities, and pick out the sound thread of sense from the tangled skein with which it is connected. He means to be candid, and labours under the strange hallucination that he is so; but he has strong prejudices, and, without the least intention of irreverence, would wage war with the Deity, if the divine canons militated against his notions. His sarcasm is subtle and searching. He can do nothing in the common way; and buttons his coat after a fashion peculiarly his own. If we ever caught him doing a thing like any body else, or found him reading a book any other way than upside down, we should implore his friends to send for a straitjacket, and a Bedlam doctor. He were mad, then, to a certtainty.” — (Thomas Dunn English, “Notes About Men of Note,” The Aristidean, April 1845, p. 153. At this time, Poe and English were still friends, and the tone of this item is happy and jocular. In reviewing this issue of the Aristidean in his own Broadway Journal, for May 3, 1845, Poe comments “. . . the ‘Notes about Men of Note’ are amusing” (BJ, 1845, p. 285, col. 1).)

Dean Koontz says this about his own writing habits on his website:

“I work 10- and 11-hour days because in long sessions I fall away more completely into story and characters than I would in, say, a six-hour day. On good days, I might wind up with five or six pages of finished work; on bad days, a third of a page. Even five or six is not a high rate of production for a 10- or 11-hour day, but there are more good days than bad. And the secret is doing it day after day, committing to it and avoiding distractions. A month–perhaps 22 to 25 work days–goes by and, as a slow drip of water can fill a huge cauldron in a month, so you discover that you have 75 polished pages. The process is slow, but that’s a good thing. Because I don’t do a quick first draft and then revise it, I have plenty of time to let the subconscious work; therefore, I am led to surprise after surprise that enriches story and deepens character. I have a low boredom threshold, and in part I suspect I fell into this method of working in order to keep myself mystified about the direction of the piece–and therefore entertained. A very long novel, like FROM THE CORNER OF HIS EYE can take a year. A book like THE GOOD GUY, six months.”

Here is an interesting interview by M.R. Hunter with Richard Matheson in Lastheplace.com. Apparently, Mr. Matheson does not have a computer, but writes everything in longhand and then has it typed up.

I have yet to find anything on Lovecraft’s writing habits, but here is a link to HPLovecraft.com that details his personal interests including his unusual dietary habits.

Lord Dunsany had the most eccentric habits of which I have heard. The Wikipedia article on Lord Dunsany states:

“Dunsany’s writing habits were considered peculiar by some. Lady Beatrice said that “He always sat on a crumpled old hat while composing his tales.” (The hat was eventually stolen by a visitor to Dunsany Castle.) Dunsany almost never rewrote anything; everything he ever published was a first draft.^[7] Much of his work was penned with quill pens, which he made himself; Lady Beatrice was usually the first to see the writings, and would help type them. It has been said that Lord Dunsany would sometimes conceive stories while hunting, and would return to the Castle and draw in his family and servants to re-enact his visions before he set them on paper.^{[citation needed]”}

If you know of a source for information on the work habits of one or more horror writers, please share it. If you are searching for a topic of an article to write, I would like to suggest writing on the work habits (or interests) of horror writers. It would be fascinating to see if there is a common thread among them or if they vary from the habits of mainstream authors. For example, I have found out that Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, and Bram Stoker were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Anyway, I am now officially rambling.

If you have any thoughts or comments on this article, please share them.

Algernon Blackwood

Illustration by Ianus

Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) was a prolific writer and is probably one of the forgotten masters of the horror genre. He was a favorite of H.P. Lovecraft as the three quotes below (from www.hplovecraft.com) illustrate:

“Aside from Poe, I think Algernon Blackwood touches me most closely—& this in spite of the oceans of unrelieved puerility which he so frequently pours forth. I am dogmatic enough to call The Willows the finest weird story I have ever read, & I find in the Incredible Adventures & John Silence material a serious & sympathetic understanding of the human illusion-weaving process which makes Blackwood rate far higher as a creative artist than many another craftsman of mountainously superior word-mastery & general technical ability…” (to Vincent Starrett, 6 December 1927)

“He actually analyses and reproduces faithfully the details of the persistent human illusion of—and out-reaching toward—a misty world of vari-coloured wonders, transcended natural laws, limitless possibilities, delighted discoveries, and ceaseless adventurous expentancy…. Of all Blackwood’s voluminous output, only a golden minimum represents him at his best—but that is such a marvellous best that we can well forgive him all his slush and prattle. It is my firm opinion that his longish short story The Willows is the greatest weird tale ever written. (with Machen’s The White People as a good second.) Little is said—everything is suggested!” (to Fritz Leiber, 9 November 1936)

“It is safe to say that Blackwood is the greatest living weirdist despite unevenness and a poor prose style.” (to Willis Conover, 10 January 1937)

Blackwood pursued a variety of jobs and careers during his lifetime, but based on the current Wikipedia article about him, his two main passions seem to have been writing and mysticism. According to this article, Blackwood once wrote to Peter Penzoldt:

“My fundamental interest, I suppose, is signs and proofs of other powers that lie hidden in us all; the extension, in other words, of human faculty. So many of my stories, therefore, deal with extension of consciousness; speculative and imaginative treatment of possibilities outside our normal range of consciousness. … Also, all that happens in our universe is natural; under Law; but an extension of our so limited normal consciousness can reveal new, extra-ordinary powers etc., and the word “supernatural” seems the best word for treating these in fiction. I believe it possible for our consciousness to change and grow, and that with this change we may become aware of a new universe. A “change” in consciousness, in its type, I mean, is something more than a mere extension of what we already possess and know.”

His two best known stories are The Willows and The Wendigo. I have not read The Wendigo yet, but I started The Willows two days ago and am into Chapter II currently. So far, it is very well written with a beautiful description of a canoe trip down the Danube. Towards the end of Chapter I, Blackwood begins to slowly bring out some eerie aspects of an island on which the narrator and his Swedish traveling companion have pitched camp for the night. With the beginning of Chapter II, the supernatural element begins to build ominously in a way that somehow reminds me of Mussorgsky’s symphony “Night on Bald Mountain”. If you are familiar with Mussorgsky’s opus, you know how I suspect the story will develop. I look forward to finishing The Willows as soon as possible and beginning The Wendigo shortly thereafter.

Thoughts? Comments?

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu

1814-1873

Over lunch, I was reading the Wikipedia article on horror fiction and came across a reference to Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, of whom I had never heard. I went to the article and found out some interesting things (granted, Wikipedia is not the most respected source, but if even half of this article is accurate, Le Fanu bears some investigating by avid horror aficionados).

Le Fanu was a respected writer of ghost stories and Gothic tales in the 19th century. I read his “The Ghost and the Bonesetter” (1838), which Wikipedia describes as “his first-published and jocular story”. For our generation, this is more humor than horror, but Le Fanu’s talent is patently obvious from this work. I look forward to reading more.

It fascinates me that, as well-read as I am, I have never heard of Le Fanu, but then I have only recently begun to delve into the horror genre to any great degree. Based on the Wikipedia article, he was very well-known in his time and influenced 19th and 20th century writers such as M.R. James, Bram Stoker, and James Joyce. His best known works are the vampire novella Carmilla and The Purcell Papers (a collection of short stories). Apparently, he has also had something of an influence on modern cinema, with movies still being made of his work occasionally (Le Fanu’s mystery novel “Uncle Silas” was made into a movie in 1947, and then remade, starring Peter O’Toole, as The Dark Angel in 1987).

Here is a paragraph from the Wikipedia article to whet your appetite for further investigation of his work:

“Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his mystery and horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman and frequently reworked plots and ideas from his earlier writing in subsequent pieces. Many of his novels, for example, are expansions and refinements of earlier short stories. He specialised in tone and effect rather than “shock horror”, and liked to leave important details unexplained and mysterious. He avoided overt supernatural effects: in most of his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a “natural” explanation is also possible. The demonic monkey in “Green Tea” could be a delusion of the story’s protagonist, who is the only person to see it; in “The Familiar”, Captain Barton’s death seems to be supernatural, but is not actually witnessed, and the ghostly owl may be a real bird. This technique influenced later horror artists, both in print and on film (see, for example, the film producer Val Lewton‘s principle of “indirect horror”). Though other writers have since chosen less subtle techniques, Le Fanu’s best tales, such as the vampire novella “Carmilla“, remain some of the most powerful in the genre. He had enormous influence on the 20th century’s most important ghost story writer, M. R. James, and although his work fell out of favour in the early part of the 20th century, towards the end of the century interest in his work increased and remains comparatively strong.^[1]“

Thoughts? Comments?

“The Terror” from the Wen Fu

Here is an interesting section/stanza from the ancient Chinese work Wen Fu (The Art of Writing). It is entitled “The Terror”.

I worry that my ink well will run dry, that right words cannot be found ; I want to respond to the moment’s inspiration.

I work with what is given ; that which passes cannot be detained.

Things move into shadows & they vanish ; things return in the shape of an echo.

When Spring arrives, we understand that Nature has its own reason.

Thoughts are lifted from the heart on breezes, and language finds its speaker.

Yesterday’s buds are this morning’s blossoms which we draw with a brush on silk.

Every eye knows a pattern, every ear hears a distant music.

Wen Fu was written by Lu Chi (261 AD – 300 AD), who was a scholar, a military leader, and the the Literary Secretary in the the Emperor’s court. It is very short and may take an average reader 15-20 minutes to complete. The hardcopy translation I have was written by Sam Hamill and published by Breitenbush Books in 1987. A far more poetic version can be found at http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/LuChi.htm.

I like to peruse Wen Fu occasionally, because the language is simple yet mystical while the ideas are straightforward yet metaphorical. What fascinates me most about the work is that the principles it expresses are eternal and universal. The underlying principles that guided Lu Chi’s art are the same ones that underlie ours nearly two thousand years later and in a society (and language!) that would have been completely alien to Lu Chi. What’s more, Lu Chi describes the experience of writing from a very intimate standpoint to which any author who is passionate about his art could relate.

What are your thoughts? What principles of writing are eternal and universal? What do you see in the stanza above?

The Unrecognized Masters of Horror

If they tried really hard, the majority of the public could perhaps name only four writers of horror: Stephen King, H.P.Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and Clive Barker. Fans of the horror genre could doubtlessly name many more with the number of the authors they could name reflecting the intensity of their interest. For example, a person who can name fifteen authors of horror most likely has a more intense interest in the genre than someone who can name only five.

I would say that it is a safe bet that one or more of these authors are the topics in least 75% of all the conversations about horror literature going on at any one moment. While we amateurs can improve our skills from studying these four, I think we have a lot to learn from studying authors other than these four.

I recently read a compilation of stories that Lovecraft cites in his work “Supernatural Horror in Literature”. Of course, only Poe appears among his cited predecessors. Most of his influences are writers probably most of the modern public has never heard of (Lord Dunsany, Edward Lucas White, Arthur Machen, etc.) though they were as well known in their time as Dean Koontz and Peter Straub are today.

My question to you is: who are the unrecognized masters of horror that the modern public should know but in all likelihood do not? Whose name does not usually make it into any top ten list of masters of horror but should?