5.9.24

Weezel sent me two horror novels by this, her favorite horror writer just as soon as she heard I might finally get to come up for air for a few weeks. I read them both quicky; this is the first.

The Devil Crept in by Ania Ahlborn

There’s a young pre-teen boy and his best friend cousin type disappears! But then he is found, but when he comes back, the isn’t quite right because… He was abducted by this eeeevil house in the woods! Where an old lady looks after her demonic offspring who has been kidnapping and glamoring (and sometimes eating) cats and dogs and is ready to move on to bigger prey. Which he does! Wickedness ensues.

The Bird Eater by Ania Ahlborn

Upset by the death of his son a guy returns to his childhood home in Wherever, Arkansas. But it’s an eeeevil haunted house! The Bird Eater lives there! And the man tries to wrestle with some psychological and substance abuse demons while hanging out in a haunted house, as you do. Wickedness ensues!

 

Thanks for the two fun horror novels, Weezel! They were a great palate cleanser and a good reminder that as tempting as it might be, you really don’t need to overly complicate a scary story to make it work.

One of the things I found myself contemplating while thinking about these two was about cliché, and how and why they work so well in storytelling. It’s often very tempting to want to defy cliché and steer far clear of it, and yet… When an audience wants popcorn, when they WANT to understand what is happening and digest it quickly to feel smart or in the know – (“Get out of the house, you fool!!!”) – you don’t do them any favors by going in a different direction or subverting their expectations.

How should we think about creativity and breaking new ground for narrative structures where the audience wants to get what they expect?

Makes me remember guidance from an old mentor of mine, Steve Barcia, a great game maker. He once told me, “Every game should be 80% familiar, only 20% fresh. More than that and the players are disappointed by not getting what they expect.”

And, of course, over time, as audiences consume more and develop a greater repertoire of story arcs and characters they immediately grok, presumably the 20% for each work that is truly fresh can ever widen, as our 80% lake of familiar grows ever deeper.

Makes me think of a conversation yesterday with a friend who had just read Hesse’s Siddhartha for the first time. We agreed that while the idea of someone turning away from the cultural sicknesses of the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe and seeking spiritual enlightenment in the Far East may have been fresh and influential in 1920, by now it’s so beyond cliché that a Nolan Batman film need devote more than about 20 seconds to the montage in which, “Then Bruce Wayne goes to India and becomes a spiritual badass.” (Or was that Dr. Stephen Strange? No matter.)

Audiences love cliché because they get to be in the know, and it helps them shortcut complex ideas that have already become part of the 80% Lake of Familiarity.