I want to talk a little about balance. Primarily, the balance between gore and quality of storylines in books. As the 7th Saw movie has just come out in 3D, I have some reserves about seeing it or not. An employee at work tells me the effects are gruesome, awful, right-up-in-your-face, puke-worthy, but the story line didn’t get a mention. After seeing Saw 4 and 5, and watching several people leave the theatre, I’ve come to a general understanding that Saw is more about gore and torture devices, and less about story. This isn’t news to anyone, I know. It’s become a shtick into itself. A parody of a parody. People go to see Saw because they want to see the messed up traps and watch people mutilate themselves for freedom. After some digging around I found a web comic that portrayed the prequel of the Saw franchise, you see Jigsaw before all the mess. There’s a lot more narrative and plot building and reasoning, and virtually no blood at all. I found myself getting into the mind of Jigsaw, understanding more as to what he was trying to do and his motive behind all the blood spill.
If, say the Saw franchise decided to do a dialogue driven story line, would anyone go? If they were to film the prequel with no blood or tearing flesh or broken bones, would it be a box office fail? Saw fans would walk out and demand their money back, and I would be able to sit and watch it without feeling queasy and uncomfortable.
I don’t want to bash Saw too much, it was started by two Australians, but I find the same theory can be placed into books. Take Chuck Palahniuk for example. Some might know his book/film Fight Club, but others might not know his other works. Palahniuk is now known as a Gore writer. We’ve come to expect explicit, detailed scenes of unnerving sexual and violent encounters. With his book ‘Snuff’ I felt like he was working around the graphic scenes and just adding words to string it together. His novel ‘Haunt’ was a series of stories with gory endings, one in particular ‘Guts’ was even known to make people faint at readings. Chuck Palahniuk is a genius at minimalistic writing, (his chapters hardly last four or five pages on average). His views on sexuality, God and perceptions of what’s expected of us are nihilistic and stripped bare for all to see. They are unique and appeal to those who may have a different view on the world. Or at least it was.
I’ll continue buying Chuck Palahniuk’s books in hope that one day he returns to his attitudes on life and his unique philosophical views on the world, but for know I’ll just settle for the gore.
As an aspiring writer, both in Children’s books and in Horror, I feel the balance is important. Children’s story’s walk that fine line between action scenes and story building. You don’t want to lose your audience by boring them to death with minor details and exaggerated plot descriptions, you want to get in and get out as quick as possible and get on with the action. With horror books, it’s almost the opposite, you don’t want to tip the scales into the blood pool, writing purely for the gore-aholics. You want to show a deeper side to your characters and plot ideas, have all the twists and turns lined up, making the reader read for the quality of the plot and not for the impending graphic scene where someone gets decapitated.
Stephen King is a prime example of an equal balance. His characters are deep, multi-layered, they are smart (and dumb) and they are enticing. He really brings you into their world and makes you feel a part of their lives. With Stephen King you know the gore is coming, but you don’t know when. You can be reading quite happily one minute and be sickened to your stomach the next. He has the balance right. I read somewhere that his editor told him he was going to be typecast if he released another horror themed book after ‘Carrie’, but he did anyway. I believe his success is attributed to having an equal balance of action, blood and story.
Labels, I feel can contribute to the way your story unfolds. If you’re a horror writer, are you then compelled to live up to your title? If you’re a fantasy writer, will you be forever compared to JRR Tolkien? Or J K Rowling? Nobody is going to pick up a Clive Barker book and not be creeped out by what they read, it’s his reputation and therefore his pigeon hole. I enjoy reading Clive Barker, but when I pick up one of his books I know I’ll be thrust into a journey that I can’t possibly turn away from. Even his children’s books have that hint of sinister terror. You know he’s just holding back the reigns a little so as to not frighten and terrify too much. As much as he writes for both adults and children, he will always tap into that horror/fantasy vein. If it’s his desire to do so, or just the way he writes, the home ground is always an advantage.
I had written a short story once with the sole intention of telling a story, it so happened to have ended gory. The comments I got back were entirely about the end scene and how ridiculous the whole gore was. When I posted a comment asking what they thought about the story, they told me it didn’t matter because the blood was too much and overshadowed the contents. This is not what I want to become – an obvious writer. I want to find the balance and use it to my advantage. Pigeon holes or labels or scales, whatever you want to call it, I guess people will hang you on any hook they recognise.
– Mitchell Tierney