From a tale one expects a bit of wildness, of exaggeration and dramatic effect. The tale has no inherent concern with decorum, balance or harmony. ... A tale may not display a great deal of structural, psychological, or narrative sophistication, though it might possess all three, but it seldom takes its eye off its primary goal, the creation of a particular emotional state in its reader. Depending on the tale, that state could be wonder, amazement, shock, terror, anger, anxiety, melancholia, or the momentary frisson of horror.
fantastique genre horror writing
Human beings across every culture I know about require such stories, stories with cool winds and wood smoke. They speak to something deep within us, the capacity to conceptualize, objectify and find patterns, thereby to create the flow of events and perceptions that find perfect expression in fiction. We are built this way, we create stories by reflex, unstoppably. But this elegant system really works best when the elements of the emerging story, whether is is being written or being read, are taken as literal fact. Almost always, to respond to the particulars of the fantastic as if they were metaphorical or allegorical is to drain them of vitality.
fantastique genre horror storytelling writing
What would be frightening about me jumping out of the bush wearing a pig mask is not the sudden surprise, not me, and not the pig mask, but that the ordinary world had split open for a moment to reveal some possibility never previously considered.
bushes fear night pig-mask
He did not recognize himself either. He was a totally new being, bald, covered with grease and blood, pink and blue eyed: he was his own baby...He was a great fat chuckling baby, and he shat and peed in his filthy trousers and kept driving.
disgusting metaphor murder
Intellectual labor is a common technique for the avoidance of thinking.
intellectualism peter-straub thinking
It is as though some old part of yourself wakes up in you, terrified, useless in the life you have, its skills and habits destructive but intact, and what is left of the present you, the person you have become, wilts and shrivels in sadness or despair: the person you have become is only a thin shell over this other, more electric and endangered self. The strongest, the least digested parts of your experience can rise up and put you back where you were when they occurred; all the rest of you stands back and weeps.
ptsd terror
The actual Blue Rose murders, which lie at the core of the three novels, yield various incorrect solutions which assume the status of truth.
truth
My first real breakthrough collided with the last months of Callaghan's Labour government, which had every intention of enjoying my success as much as I did.
government success
An average working day begins at 8 or 9 am, includes an hour for lunch, and ends at 5 or 6 pm.
theend
I instantly chucked my academic ambitions and began writing fiction full-time.
ambition thetimes time
These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.
thetimes time
There have been times when I reread - or at least leafed through - something because I'd sent a copy to a friend, and what usually happened was that I noticed dozens and dozens of clumsy phrases I wished I could rewrite.
I believe I encountered death, which was a bit too much for a seven-year-old.
death
However, I think I managed to reach a new level with Koko, and I will always be grateful for the experience.
experience
Nobody is surprised that women writers accurately represent male characters over and over again, no doubt because everybody knows that women understand men much better than vice-versa.
character doubt men vices women
When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.
information man manners
As soon as I started writing Julia, by which I mean while writing its first sentence, I felt a sudden, reassuring charge of excitement. I knew it was going to work.
work
Many fiction writers eventually want to feel that their work forms a single, unified entity.
I generally wade in blind and trust to fate and instinct to see me through.
fate trust
Fear and I were old buddies, despite my best efforts to the contrary.
effort
Each new book is a tremendous challenge.
challenge
There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.
adventure mystery