Learning from the King Part I

Much of the horror submissions we get at Electric Spec don't make it past the slush pile. A major reason why they don't get very far is that they are simplistic and, well, boring. Psycho killer chasing the protagonist? Yawn. Date turns out to be a vampire? Pass the No-doze. A horrible monster is on the loose and killing innocent people? Nap time. Although none of these by themselves make good stories, they can be a part of a good story. It goes back to what I and my fellow editors have written about before: making the story about more than one thing.

Let's take a look at how Stephen King transforms ho-um into wow by examining "The Gingerbread Girl" (found in the collection Just After Sunset--review forthcoming). First, start with the ho-hum: psycho killer chases woman. By itself, it is reject pile material. But he adds on. The woman is a runner. The woman is a runner because she's running away from something. The woman is running literally and figuratively. She runs as a coping mechanism to try to get over the crib death of her daughter. Despite all her training, it turns out she can't outrun her past--or the killer. She has to face both, and when she does she is transformed.

Now that's a horror story. Sure there's trope stuff--pain, blood, knives, people breaking through doors and jumping through windows--but it the story isn't about the trope stuff. 

More on this tomorrow . . .