Coming this August, Dragon Soul Press will release my short story “Cameron’s List” in their Apocolypse Collection.
Cameron hasn’t really enjoyed his life due to all the people who seem to make it their business to see him endure repeated and constant hardships. Then the zombie apocalypse begins, and Cameron seizes the opportunity for revenge.
See https://books2read.com/DSPApocalypse for an ebook copy in your country.
The short story format is probably one of the hardest to write well. There are some authors who do short stories beautifully (Joe Hill, Stephen King, Clive Barker for example). For me, the short story format sounds like a great idea. I have an idea for a story, I feel it’ll be an interesting little adventure for an afternoon read, and before I know it I’m 30,000 words into a novella or novel that I have no idea how it’ll end.
At least, that was how things went for me before I started writing outlines. Over the course of about ten years of practicing telling myself stories I’ve come to believe very deeply in Michael Crichton’s statement (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/57327-books-aren-t-written—they-re-rewritten-including-your-own-it) stories “aren’t written, they’re re-written.” This is true, and I’m sure even the best author in the world has phrases or scenes she wishes she could revise just once more to edit out that one word that doesn’t quite fit.
I started outlining because I wanted to write the ending of a story, but in order to get to that ending, I had to know how the ending came about. So I started writing outlines to tell myself the story from a high level. Then I began filling in the details of each outline, filling in each scene, again at a high level, and telling the story again. Then I told the story to myself again, this time adding more detail like people’s names, scene descriptions, lines of dialogue, until it became a really detailed map of the story, showing step by step how to get to the ending I wanted. Only then did I feel I was ready to begin writing.
The outlining process helped me take a good idea and turn it into good execution. Sometimes the stories are more successful than I expected, sometimes they take much more work than I had hoped. Either way, if I start writing an outline, I get a finished story instead of a story that starts off well but goes nowhere.
In a later article I’ll write about the software I use to write everything (including these blog articles).
Movies, TV shows, books, comics, graphic novels, and all other manner of content delivery seek to tell a story. Sometimes the story is uplifting, sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is just a train wreck you can’t look away from until it is ended. In any case, the story is what is most important about the experience, not the medium through which the story is carried.
I say this because I have friends who don’t watch any movies that aren’t in color. I have other friends who only watch films if they are in 4K HD. I have others who refuse to watch anything made prior to a specific year in their living memory. This is a philosophy of entertainment appreciation I’ve never understood. If a story is good, it’s worth enjoying in whatever medium you can get it.
For a long while, even into my adult life, I’d heard of certain movies, especially classics, that I had avoided. These were the kinds of movies the film historians would talk about on AMC, comparing some new classic with something truly classic. I wouldn’t pay much attention. I’ve never been good at following history like some. It wasn’t because I was avoiding the movies for any particular reason, I had just grown up where the words “classic movie” had come to mean long and boring. Maybe I’ll get into that later. But then I met my wife, and together we found our respective love for bad 80s sci-fi flicks (Arena, Robot Jox to name only a couple). This, in turn, led us to either share older films one of us loved with the other, or we journey through the adventure of a new story together.
For instance, my wife shared with me Sunset Boulevard. I’d heard of it. I’d seen clips of it. I knew of its importance as a movie in cinema history. I’d never seen it. With her insistence, I finally did and I must say, while it is no masterpiece, it is an amazing piece of film that anyone who calls themselves a film buff should definitely watch. The black and white film actually lends a charm to a story that would be at home in the modern era.
One of the things I like about this film is, while it can never be called timeless, and probably could never be modernized since it was such a product of the era in which it was made, it was very modern in tone and theme. The main character is unlikable in the beginning, and by the end we have grown with him, sharing his ambition and his regrets. The female lead, who is a sympathetic character throughout, shows us what it was like to be famous, wealthy, and desired, only to have it all stripped away by the marching of time and advances in technology.
These are all things we can understand as we see more and more jobs get automated, either through software or hardware or artificial intelligence. We see whole industries become outdated as the world that needed them has moved on and taken the need for their products with them. We can understand that what once was great can quickly become an antique, obsolete, and decrepit through no fault of its own. It just happens as the world moves on.
It is this ability to reflect back on things of the past and make better decisions for the future that makes humanity capable of so much, and our failure to do it that makes us terrifying creatures destroying things for no better reason than carelessness.
Movies like Sunset Boulevard are the kind that everyone should see, if for no better reason than that it is a good story about a time in the world where things are constantly in flux whether we want them to be or not. Simply put, no matter the medium, a story is always a story, and a powerful story will always be powerful for the right audience when it is experienced. If you’re ready for the story to affect you, explore it, whether it’s in 4K HD or black and white standard definition.
I think it’s only natural that for someone to want to write fiction they must enjoy reading it. From an early age my parents instilled in me the love of reading. Evenings after dinner were spent in the family room, each of us in our own little corner doing our own thing. The television was on to some movie or something Dad wanted to watch, but it was mostly just background noise.
Dad would sit in his chair or on his corner of the couch (depend on the year I’m imagining), reading Louis L’amour westerns, Mac Bolan adventure novels, post apocalyptic journeys like Endworld and Blade novels by David Robbins, or Deathlands by James Axler.
Mom would sit in similar fashion reading her own versions of adventures. Daniel Steele was a favorite, but so were John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Dean Koontz, and Sue Grafton.
My brother and I would naturally pick up these books in turn and read them ourselves. One of the best lines from my mother when it came to what we could read was the simple statement: “If you think you can understand it, read it.” She never censored our reading options, and she never questioned our choices. Sometimes my brother and I scared our parents with our reactions to some of the novels, but that’s only because we began to read things they didn’t. Stephen King was one of the loves my brother and I shared that our parents did not. So when we laughed at passages from a horror novel, they gave us weird looks.
Those early years growing up, learning in school, and at home, books were the ultimate escape. I loved movies and video games and playing outside as much as any child of the 80s, but books were where I always returned.
It is this love of reading that ultimately inspired me to write my own stories. I’ll admit, as an author, I’m late to the party compared to some writers. However, as a fan and writer of fiction, I started as early as I could with encouragement from my English instructors and librarians.
I wrote stories about kids my age doing amazing things. I wrote horror stories that I thought were absolutely frightening. I wrote stories about adults being badass like the action heroes from the movies. I wrote stories about my classmates (and boy did that turn out to be a bad idea). In the end, my junior high and high school writing career was all over the place, and none of what I wrote should ever see the light of day. The stories were hand written, mostly during downtime in classes or after school.
Most importantly, I was having fun. The fun of reading turned into the fun of writing, and that was really what I wanted more than anything else. I wanted to have fun and keep the stories going. That is what I learned from my first forays into writing, as instilled in me by my mother and father. Reading can be educational, and reading can be fun. A story that manages to combine the two is even more amazing (I’m hinting at you, Michael Crichton who wrote the ultimate dinosaur novel).
It is these books and stories and authors that have inspired me to try my hand at this writing thing. It’s taken me nearly twenty years to get good enough to start sending my own works out and, thankfully, see them get published. I can only hope that there are readers out there who find my stories and enjoy them as I intended. I fully recognize that once a story, or a character, or a concept is out in the world it is as much a part of the fans as it is the writer. I think that’s an awesome relationship to have between reader and writer.
So to anyone who has found anything I’ve written enjoyable, please keep it, share it, and try your hand at it yourself if you’re interested. There will never be enough stories in the world.
I’ve got a few new publications under my belt, all for short stories at various collections. I’m very proud of the latest short story to see the light of day.
It’s called The Unwanted Man, and will be available via Dragon Soul Press on October 30th, 2020. You can find more information about DSP in general here: https://dragonsoulpress.com/
In addition, pre-orders for All Dark Places 2 can be made here:
This weekend my wife and I had an interesting discussion on what we considered good couples as portrayed in cinema. I recognize that our definition of a good couple is of course going to be biased and based, at least loosely, on the relationship we have, but that doesn’t mean our points aren’t valid.
Our criteria for what makes a good on screen couple can be defined as a pair of characters who are in a romantic relationship where the on-screen relationship is either not part of the overarching story, or whose relationship builds as the story unfolds. In other words, these two characters getting together is not the intended end of the story.
At first our choices were pretty thin, because in most horror movies and adventure movies the love interest really isn’t that much of an interest for the audience. He or she (usually she but I’ll be a little PC here) is part of the story to distract the hero, get into trouble and be rescued, or provide a single A-ha moment of insight that gives the hero a much needed point in the right direction.
However, we came up with a few on-screen couples that met our criteria and helped us understand further why we liked these couples on screen and what set them apart from the more traditional pairings one typically sees in cinema.
In no particular order these couples are:
What do all of these couples have in common that makes me think they are examples of good couples? I’ll go into detail for each item below, but first let me make the list.
These may not be all the characteristics that make a good couple, but these are the ones that stuck me as important when making the initial list. Now, to break down and discuss the items as listed I’ll start with sexual tension. From the very first episode the sexual tension between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in The X-Files was palpable for all audiences. The questions were telegraphed throughout the entirety of the series. Were they going to get together, even if just for a single night? When would it happen? What would the consequences of such a union be? These are the questions that a romantically inclined drama wants the audience to ask. They are the questions that keep the audience coming back for more, reading the novelizations of the episodes, watching the Internet shorts, and discussing things the next day around the water cooler.
Sexual tension in drama is a good thing, but it is also distracting, especially if the story that is being told doesn’t require that sort of tension to keep people interested. Take The Mummy, for instance. While the first movie of the trilogy includes a hefty dose of sexual tension between Rick O’Connell and Evelyn Carnahan, once the story really gets going, that slides to the back burner and becomes less important as the two characters learn to do the most important things couples need to do: work together. Evelyn is an academic who can read and speak an ancient language. Rick O’Connell is a quick-thinking rogue who knows his treasure and isn’t afraid of a fight. When the real danger comes to light and they begin the quest to put Imhotep back in his coffin, the sexual tension between them is forgotten by the characters and the audience as well. The story becomes bigger than those two characters and seeing them learn to work together and trust each other to work in their collective best interests is what drives the story forward. They have a problem to solve and neither could do it alone. This is an on-screen couple whose differences enhance each other even as their common interests drew them together and accidentally caused the whole mess.
I think that takes care of points 1-3 and 5, leaving me to touch on 4, the actors’ chemistry. While I haven’t studied the behind the scenes events beyond reading IMDB’s movie trivia, watching Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz on screen is just fun. In all three films the actors really seem to be enjoying the roles and the relationship their characters have. The audience can easily believe these two very different people fell in love due to the initial attraction, common interests, and the dire circumstances that forced them to work together. After the end of the first movie we can see they are still in love and have formed a life together that includes raising a rambunctious and intelligent younger version of themselves, and are still able to work together despite the honeymoon phase being long over. Even when in great danger and Evelyn is having visions, Brendan doesn’t dismiss the visions as feminine hysteria, which would have been very easy to do given the era in which the stories are set. Rick trusts Evelyn, and she trusts him. It’s one of the core items that makes a relationship work on screen as well as off.
Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man series are an example of a couple who have gone through the honeymoon phase whole and intact and as in love with each other at the end of each movie as they are at the beginning. From the moment we see these two characters on screen, played to perfection by William Powell and Myrna Loy, we see that they have already had the arguments that put the initial tension in a relationship. They are comfortable with each other’s quirks, familiar with each other’s nuances, and trust one another implicitly. The on screen chemistry between these actors lends to the belief that the characters are truly in a relationship and any tension between the two will be worked out when they get home, grab a highball, and discuss the day’s events. This couple isn’t going to go to bed angry at each other, and they won’t be sleeping in separate beds either.
Darius and Sterling are a couple that we see frequently through the eyes of the protagonist, Jeffrey, and their relationship is one that appears complicated at first. It is through offhand remarks and the wonderful monologue from Darius when he talks to the audience that we learn they are still in a relationship, loving each other despite the hardship of Darius suffering the symptoms and ultimately death caused by AIDS. While it is important to them, the struggle against it doesn’t take away from them the right to the pleasures of living together with a partner who is loving and supportive.
This brings me to my two favorite cinematic couples of the films I’ve been watching over the last few years. First, the Warrens from The Conjuring series are the couple that started my wife and I on this conversation in the first place. These two individuals live in a world of the supernatural, dealing with situations that terrifies and sometimes completely ruins the people they are trying to help. It obvious from the first moment they appear on screen, during their lecture at the university, that they work together and support each other. This is continued throughout the film, especially as the supernatural items begin to get more harrowing and they do not bicker or argue. Together they have a single goal and they work to accomplish this goal for the good of the family they are helping.
The final couple is made up of Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn from Odd Thomas. These two appear to be made for each other. In fact, that is how Odd Thomas characterizes their relationship from the beginning, especially if you’ve read the novels but I will try to keep this article focused on the movie. Odd, played by the late Anton Yelchin, is a quirky guy with the power to see ghosts and the moral imperative to avenge them. He moves decisively and without second thought, often seeming reckless from the outside. Stormy, however, knows and understands and, most importantly, trusts Odd to do what he must do regardless of what she would prefer. The scene where she goes to work, afraid she might die so he can continue to do the good he does for others is proof that she not only believes him, she trusts him enough to put her life in his hands. This is the same decision that nearly crushes him in the end (and here I am alluding to the books again), but Odd has a family that supports him and helps him grieve, then move on. In this case, Odd and Stormy are the lovers, but in true Dean Koontz fashion, a family is a support structure that everyone needs no matter what their super power.
In conclusion, the point I’m trying to make is this: A romantic relationship between characters is a good thing, it doesn’t have to be the main thing to make the story interesting, and often should be either a sidecar or not a topic at all. Character drives the story, and the journey should be shared by the audience. Characters grow, as does the viewer.
Hello, audience members,
I must admit I don’t have much of a plan for this website. I’m not even sure what people want to read on a new blog for a struggling writer who spends as much time reading and watching horror as he does writing it. Some might not even say what I write is horror, at least not in the traditional sense. However, I leave opinions like that up to the reader. The bottom line is I write what I enjoy writing. If I have fun writing it, I hope you’ll have fun reading it, or making fun of it, or dislike it an move on to something more interesting to you.
I think the bottom line here is that I want this web site to become as much a creative outlet as the stories themselves. I’ve been working (yes, I have a day job) a lot lately so I’ve been struggling to be both creative and force enough knowledge into my head so I can continue to get paid. That being said, here are my goals for this website:
Thanks for reading and if you find anything interesting don’t hesitate to drop a comment. They may not all get published, but I’ll read as many as I can.
Daryl Marcus – Dec 4, 2016.
I’m not usually one to advertise or randomly link on my site, however I feel if you are studying horror fiction and wishing to get multiple takes on the genre, you have to read about horror as much as you should read and watch horror itself.
Take a look at Renee Asher Pickup’s brief analysis of From Dusk Till Dawn and you’ll get my meaning:
http://www.dirgemag.com/twenty-years-of-from-dusk-till-dawn/
It’s taken nearly two years of shopping it around but I finally have gotten one of my favorite short stories published. And what’s even more awesome is the cover art of the magazine is based on the story. That’s a first for me and I must admit I am totally ecstatic.
The magazine’s website can be found here: Cheap Jack Pulp Magazine.
Welcome to website and home of Daryl Marcus, the writer. This is my first, and probably the shortest-lived post of all that will be on this site. As an introduction to myself I’d like to simply say, I enjoy writing horror and fantasy as genres, but I try not limiting myself to either one. When I sit down to write I usually have an idea of what must be done, perhaps an outline, and an idea that resembles “wouldn’t it be interesting if…”
I’ve got a few things published in various magazines, and I will include links to those as time progresses and I figure out exactly how I want this site to look.
Until then, please enjoy and keep reading.