The Lighter Side of Absolute Zero: To Emulate or Not to Emulate Lovecraft <link rel="prev" href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/2006/09/of_consequences_and_sin.html" title="Of Consequences and Sin" /> <link rel="next" href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/2006/09/finding_good_horror_stories.html" title="Finding Good Horror Stories" />   <script type="text/javascript" src="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/mt-site.js"></script> </head> <body class="layout-one-column" onload="individualArchivesOnLoad(commenter_name)"> <div id="container"> <div id="container-inner" class="pkg"> <div id="banner"> <div id="banner-inner" class="pkg"> <h1 id="banner-header"><a href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/" accesskey="1">The Lighter Side of Absolute Zero</a></h1> <h2 id="banner-description"></h2> </div> </div> <div id="pagebody"> <div id="pagebody-inner" class="pkg"> <div id="alpha"> <div id="alpha-inner" class="pkg"> <p class="content-nav"> <a href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/2006/09/of_consequences_and_sin.html">« Of Consequences and Sin</a> | <a href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/">Main</a> | <a href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/2006/09/finding_good_horror_stories.html">Finding Good Horror Stories »</a> </p> <a id="a001063"></a> <div class="entry" id="entry-1063"> <h3 class="entry-header">To Emulate or Not to Emulate Lovecraft</h3> <div class="entry-meta"><span class="entry-category">{Perplexity}</span> <span class="entry-topics">Topics: <a href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=5&tag=Horror&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=5" rel="tag">Horror</a> <a href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=5&tag=Writing&limit=20&IncludeBlogs=5" rel="tag">Writing</a> </span></div> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry-body"> <p> I’m in a bit of a quandary and I’m a bit discouraged and bummed out. It’s no secret that I enjoy H. P. Lovecraft’s stories; his stories scratch and itch of mine like no other author has. We tend to emulate the people we look up to, those we admire, and in my case I’ve given this some thought. So imagine my dismay when the aspect of his stories I want to emulate were maligned on a Lovecraft mailing list. </p><p> In particular the author of the post accused that Lovecraft fell into a stylistic rut of having a lone survivor present his testimony after the fact, and then meet some horrific end. These are exactly the stories that excite me and scratch that aforementioned itch; likewise this is the type of story I want to write. From my perspective these kind of stories make perfect sense, so allow me to defend them. </p><p> In my opinion a first person narrative carries more emotion, more immersion, more atmosphere, and more identity than a third person account. A first person account is personal; it’s easier to believe the account was left behind just for you, and no one else, and that alone can add weight to the tale. A first person account is just like sitting down with a friend and having him recount some grizzly tale, and it’s always more frightening when he’s telling his own tale and not someone else’s: it’s easy to distance yourself from and dismiss a story that is in the third person. </p><p> I’ve thought about first person narratives and it seems to me the only tense that makes sense is aorist, or perhaps a perfect tense (one year of Greek and already I’m erudite). The events have to have taken place in the past; it would make sense if they were currently happening; if that were the case there would be no story and you would be there in person witnessing it all firsthand. So now it seems the only way to tell a first person story is if you lived through the events long enough to write about them, hence you will be reading the accounts of a survivor (possibly lone). You could mix it up and have a ghost tell the story, but that’s just a gimmick and one I dismiss as weak. </p><p> For me these are the kinds of stories that really strike my fancy. They are the only things that have come close to creeping me out. Maybe I’m alone in this, but any writer who does not write for himself is missing out on the joy writing can bring. In the end I’ll probably not feel comfortable widely sharing my stories that emulate this style. Too bad too because I wonder what Lovecraft would have said. </p> </div> <div id="more" class="entry-more"> </div> </div> <p class="entry-footer"> <span class="post-footers">Posted by Seth Croston Barber on September 22, 2006 2:38 PM</span> <span class="separator">|</span> <a class="permalink" href="http://blog.0kelvin.net/lite/2006/09/to_emulate_or_not_to_emulate_l.html">Permalink</a> </p> </div> <div class="trackbacks"> <h3 id="trackback" class="trackbacks-header">TrackBack</h3> <div id="trackbacks-info"> <p>TrackBack URL for this entry:<br />http://blog.0kelvin.net/mt-tb.cgi/474</p> </div> <div class="trackbacks-content"> </div> </div> <div id="comments" class="comments"> <div class="comments-content"> <h3 class="comments-header">Comments</h3> <a id="c000550"></a> <div class="comment" id="comment-550"> <div class="comment-content"> <p>As an amateur fan of fiction (and a neophyte fan of horror), I have to say that the first person narrative form of Lovecraft's is the single most interesting aspect of his writing that will keep me reading more. I can imagine commenter on the mailing list get tired of the theme after reading a number of stories in a row, but it's not a sentiment I share.</p> <p>As far as not sharing your stories: if every author ceased writing a style that some twit had critiqued on a mailing list, we wouldn't have any writing left at all.</p> </div> <p class="comment-footer"> Posted by: <a title="http://jdhuntington.com" href="http://jdhuntington.com" rel="nofollow">JD</a> | <a href="#comment-550">September 22, 2006 2:49 PM</a> </p> </div> <a id="c000551"></a> <div class="comment" id="comment-551"> <div class="comment-content"> <p>One person's opinion shouldn't really affect you so much.</p> <p>Having said that, here is my opinion. First person accounts are more personal, and have<br /> been a very affective story telling method for macabre fiction, mystery fiction, and every thing in between. Both in written and verbal forms, the first person account is a classic storytelling method. One could say Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fell into a rut of having a witness account of a super human detective who always solved the crime. Such silly comments do not belittle the likes of Doyle or Lovecraft, they point to the ignorance of the wanna be who makes the claim.</p> <p>And lest I forget, one of the most beloved horror fictions of all time use the first person account to amazing affect. I refer to Bram Stoker's _Dracula_<br /> </p> </div> <p class="comment-footer"> Posted by: Dwight McDowell | <a href="#comment-551">September 22, 2006 2:49 PM</a> </p> </div> <a id="c000552"></a> <div class="comment" id="comment-552"> <div class="comment-content"> <p>I'm notorious for having a thin skin when it comes to my writing, and since it's a hobby and a passion of mine I don't particularly care to weather the criticism of other people. I'm sure it's something I need to get over, but still . . . it always sucks to find someone who is against you rather than with you.</p> <p>And in defense of the mailing list poster he wasn't maligning the use of first person narrative, rather the fact that there are quite a few stories in which it is told from the point of view of the only man who survived the horror and now he writes about it, which again is the only kind of story that makes sense and will have the greatest impact (in my opinion anyway).</p> </div> <p class="comment-footer"> Posted by: <a title="http://0kelvin.net/~seth/" href="http://0kelvin.net/~seth/">Seth Croston Barber</a> <a class="commenter-profile" href="http://0kelvin.net/~seth/"><img alt="Author Profile Page" src="http://blog.0kelvin.net/mt-static/images/comment/typekey_logo.png" width="16" height="16" /></a> | <a href="#comment-552">September 22, 2006 3:05 PM</a> </p> </div> <a id="c000591"></a> <div class="comment" id="comment-591"> <div class="comment-content"> <p>You could update it... multiple single points of view.</p> <p>Dracula is mentioned above. It's not all one person. It's multiple single persons. <br /> This works on a character level. Different people see different things in the same picture, why not the same place and time.</p> <p>Using the Blair witch as an example, they didn't survive, but their account did.<br /> You only need the account to survive.</p> <p>E.g. E-mails from the edge. Messages from the same source. IM records. Recording transcripts. Blog entries from all concerned, news reports mixed in. Collecting the accounts of the people there. The final ones are the survivors, but you have the others along the way. An account from someone who doesn't make it can hurt more than an account about someone that didn't make it.</p> <p>Scrap books from the edge. It might get you in to a position that works.</p> </div> <p class="comment-footer"> Posted by: <a title="http://cork-host.blogspot.com" href="http://cork-host.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Will</a> | <a href="#comment-591">September 27, 2006 6:52 AM</a> </p> </div> </div> <form method="post" action="http://blog.0kelvin.net/mt-comments.cgi" name="comments_form" onsubmit="if (this.bakecookie.checked) rememberMe(this)"> <input type="hidden" name="static" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="1063" /> <div class="comments-open" id="comments-open"> <h2 class="comments-open-header">Post a comment</h2> <div class="comments-open-content"> <script type="text/javascript">  </script> <p class="comments-open-moderated"> (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. 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