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The Right To Live

 

Death in horror, is like sex in romance – it happens all the time, few experiences are satisfying. The issue at hand though is when you’ve figured out who your characters are in your story, and who survives the nigthmare you are going to put them through?

More important, do they have the right to live? Just because the main character is the main character, doesnt mean they should live. There are plenty of examples of stupid main characters that “survive” in the world of cinema.

I’m using movies as examples as oppossed to stories because  I deal with visual more than verbal.

In 2006 the film Silent Hill was released, and this is the perfect example of a stupid main character. Rose (Radha Mitchel) is the quintisental clusterfuck of this story.

Her adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) is dying from some illness (this is only mentioned once, before being forgotton entirely) and is sleep walking and screaming Silent Hill because it is convinient.

In this case Rose does the only thing she can think of: she kidnaps her daughter, tries to outrun a highway patrol cop Cybil Bennett (Laurie Holden)and ends up crashing her vehicle killing herself, her daughter, and the Cybil.

Yes, this is our hero. Because she was “pushed” to the edge ona leap of faith she’s now resposible for her own death, her daughter’s death, and the cop’s death. Rose herself manages to obtain a knife for a weapon, then looses it one scene later. She herself does nothing but run from everything and depends on Cybil  to take care of everything. In the end of the movie Rose’s spirit survives the ordeal of Silent Hill and returns to her home a ghost. Cybil who did all the work in the film ends up getting roasted like a marshmellow after the exposition scene from hell.

The main character in thise case does nothing but get her daughter killed, run from all the monsters, let the demon kill everyone in church and then drive home and presumably haunt her miserable husband for the rest of his life.

This was not a character that deserved to live through this experience, in all honesty her ass should have been split down the middle by Pyramid head in the films opening scene.

While in the end its up to the author to decide who lives and who dies, here are some questions I ask myself about the main character:

Are they strong?
Stronger characters are easier to focus on, and they themselves will meet a challenge head on.
Are they human? Do they have problems? Are the problems real?
No one is perfect, and no one is always happy. Depression, loss & anger – these are emotions we all sympathize with and help us get closer to the characters as the story progresses.
Do you like them?
Sometimes the main character of the story can be unlikable. Usually when the main character is unlikable they go through a personal transformation throughout the story. This is not always the case though. Generally its a good idea to have your character likable; lets face it, if we wanted to read a story about an asshole who got lucky, we’d watch the news.

You’ll notice one question I didn’t leave up here was ‘”is your character a hero?”.  A hero isnt a normal human being. They represent the best of us and they are the best of us. They can be beaten, burned, and blown up. But they’re always there.

Heroes do die yes, but usually in that case they pass the mantle onto someone esle. But Heroes are their own catagory, yes Heros are human, but its their endurance that sets them apart from regular people.

A character who is not a hero, but posesses heroic qualities is in all honesty, a normal person. Normal people usually make the best characters in horror stories, primarily because they are us. 

The fact that they are us can make the experience more terrifying because at any moment they can die, and so can we.

So when determining if your main character ‘has the right to live’, remember that every character you write is an extension of yourself.

Whatever you’re going to put them through, try to mentally put yourself though it first and see how you’d react in a given scary scenario. Would you survive unscathed? Would you survive? Would you surive only if you’re thinking like a specific character?

These are some of the ramblings I go over with myself on characters in stories. But again, it ultimatelly is up to you who lives and who dies in your stories.

Surviving a nightmare should be a reward earned, not given.

Possible Replacement Found

Well, I might have located a new computer to replace my dying laptop. It’s not too expensive and its portable too; so after going over some more information I might purchase it and get back on my feet by either Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week.

I hope to have a favorable update this Monday.

The Unknown

The Unknown is something I really have to say is one of the most amazing parts of horror. When I say “the unknown” I mean tossing out hints of what might be happening. Implying that something supernatural is happening, when really something psychological is happening instead is one of the more common tricks used.

The Visual Novel/Anime series Higurashi no Naku Koro ni by Ryukishi07 is the perfect example of the unknown. There are so many things implied in this series about what’s really going on in a small Japanese town I wont ruin it by mentioning them. If you’re seriously interested in horror watch the anime, or play the visual novels.

This is a two season TV series and the second season explains what’s actually been happening, the first season is horror/mystery the second season is mystery/exposition. I highly recommend watching the first season.

We have a habit of explaining the unknown here in the US, and once you explain the unknown it loses its power and becomes just another “sparkling vampire”. If you want to establish the unknown properly, drop hints as to what’s going on rather that flat out tell the audience how to stay safe.

How the unknown works is simple, your audience has no idea what the hell is going on other than the hints you as the author drop. If you imply that what’s going on is supernatural, then your audience will assume what’s going on is supernatural, but if you drop hints that there is a murderer as well then they will assume that what’s going on is a murderer using the supernatural against the audience.

Yes what I described above is very generic, but it all depends on what hints you as the author drop. Sometimes the hints themselves are ambiguous enough to imply many different scenarios.

Depending on what hints you want to use I recommend you read up on the supernatural, curses, strange events, cryptozoology,  and folklore. These are all wonderful areas to read about as they have amazing stories that will give you ideas.

Here are a few links to help you out.

Ghosts
http://www.theshadowlands.net/ghost/
Strange creatures
Cryptozoology.com
Japanese Folklore
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_folklore

When you plan a horror story around the unknown always make sure you never tell too much about what’s going on and have the characters themselves speculate on what’s going on rather than telling the audience what’s going on. You want the audience themselves to speculate as much as your characters. This is how you use the unknown to your advantage, and create a proper mystery.

Horror Blogging

When I first made the choice to become a film student back in 2002 it was after I saw Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil, the film cost roughly $40 million to make, made about sixty five million at the US box office and has managed to spawn three sequels.

As I sat there watching this so called adaption of a video game, I was livid. I grew up playing the games, I knew what the series was about, and what made it special. The movie a poor combination of Alice in WonderlandThe MatrixThe Long Kiss GoodnightDawn of the Dead (original), Aliens,  and one or two nods of the actual video games.

There was no Chris, Jill, Wesker, Sencer Mansion, Tyrant, Hunters, or even mention of the cannibalistic murders in Raccoon City. The movie had the T-Virus, zombies, zombie dogs, and the Lickers.

Instead of the STARS team, we got Milla Jovovich staring like a clueless mannequin performing uninteresting poorly conceived Matrixstunts, Michelle Rodriguez scowling at the camera for seventy five minutes hoping you don’t notice she forgot her lines, a supporting cast of characters that are about as smart as a peice of shit with a pair of glasses, and unconvincingly flat special effects.

This was listed as a horror movie. There wasn’t any horror here, or suspense or anything. Then I noticed a pattern that has been repeated in US horror movies, the “generic horror” rule is that in the first thirty minutes of a movie you have one cheap thrill that involves the killer/monster, and two cheap thrills that are fake outs by the comic relief character, and then there are at least two other cheap thrills from the killer/monster, two or three short suspense scenes, and a chase scene or two before the monster/killer dies, comes back for a second and is killed again, happy ending which turns out to be a cheap twist that just creates a headache. Rinse, lather, repeat. This is the formula we’ve been watching forever.

There is more to horror that what I’ve listed even though its all there is on the market, its 2010 and Hollywood is just now barely starting to ditch this dead formula. But since it always generates a profit, it still lingers.

I’ve come to terms that as a writer and a very abstract person, that my ideas for what makes horror, horror are simple, but they aren’t bad.

Rather than keeping all my ideas to myself I figured I might as well share them (not all of them, but most) as well as my theories of what makes horror work.

A lot of these ideas are what created the animated Two Minutes of Terror series I did in 2009, and I managed to prove that most of my concepts do indeed work.

Many of my ideas and concepts are a combination of American and Asian horror. Both are unique in their own ways, combining certain elements of the two can indeed create a unique and terrifying experience.

If you have any questions feel free to just post a response here.

Horror Blog Moving From Pages to the Blog Proper

After a bit of discussion with John, I am moving his horror writing theory pages into the blog proper. As it stands, pages don’t offer the syndication benefits that blog posts do, so expect to see them popping up in the blog over the next several days.

You can find them at http://outsideboxproductions.com/category/horror-writing/.

The Laptop Situation

Problem: Video card is fucked.

Solution: New video card.

Problem: Replacement video card is $300.

So I’m going to have to shell out $300 for a replacement card it looks like. Found out what caused the problem though, my cooling fans got screwed up by hair and dust, so my being negligent on cleaning the laptop is the cause of the problem.

Lesson learned, I will try to order the new part soon. Until then I won’t have too much news to post here as I have to go easy on my laptop’s current video card so I’m not expecting to make too much progress, but I will keep you all informed.

See you on Friday.

UPDATE: I’m seriosuly considering just getting a new desktop instead. Laptops are great but have the lifespan of a rodent. I need a good sturdy computer, not something that will die again in 8 months.

I’ll get this figured out shortly.

In the meantime I’ve uploaded “Tankmen: Tankbusters” on the YouTube channel. Have a look if you’d like.

Laptop Down

Bad news on this update, the other day about this time I picked up a Trojan horse that has fucked my laptop up. So its down for now. If I’m lucky my brother in law will be able to fix it tonight, but there is a chance that it may take longer.

Here’s hoping for good news.

Update:

The problem hasn’t been fixed 100% yet. I’m quite frustrated. What I thought might have been a Trojan may actually be a hardware issue.

I’ll have it looked into further on Sunday.

Ghost’n'Evil Posted

Originally I was going to wait another day, but what the hell, here is the new Pixel Perfect.  See you on Friday, hope you enjoy.

Playing With Pixels

I’ve had to take a break from working on my bigger animation projects, something I hate doing but I find myself being more cautious  as an artist recently as I don’t want to permanently damage my wrist. I very much wish I was more cautious in the past so I wouldn’t be paying for it now.

So as a result of being more cautious I’ve been playing with pixels as I don’t have to spend hours drawing 2-3 shots a day, its been kind of fun… little too addicting though. I’ve been thinking it over and am going to have a short little series of animated toon’s using NES sprites.

The wonderful thing about doing these toons is they only take about a week or so to do, I don’t have to draw much and its really all about making the sprites move around like they did on the Nes.

The little series will be called Pixel Perfect, and just focus on me fucking around with the sprites for weird little 1-2 minute shorts.

I’m looking at doing at least 6 episodes using sprites from Castlevania, Zelda 2, and Mortal Kombat II to name a few titles. The first episode is almost finished and is a jab at CAPCOM for ruining the Resident Evil series with RE5. I’ll post it up in a few days.

This week I’ll be returning to “Left 4 LOL: Survive This”, still trying to finish up the 3rd segment. I have about 28 seconds left to animate before its finished and I get to start on the grand finale.

See you on Friday.

New section added

Well I added a new section here on the site called ‘The Horror Blog’ this is where I’ll be posting some of  my rules on how to write horror, as well as some horror movie reviews. These are the rules I use myself and have had good luck with. Granted I haven’t used all the rules and ideas I’ve thought up but I’ve used a decent amount of them.

I’ll try to update the Horror section at least twice a month.

I’ve had a little more pain in my wrist from working too much on my animated projects that I’ve had to take a little bit of a breather from Left4lol:survive this and Resident Evlol. I don’t like not working on my animated projects for more than a day but I do have to consider my own health too.

We’ve also finally updated the website some more, tossed on some new graphics and things are looking good. I’m hoping to have good news regarding my animated projects soon, so I’ll keep you updated on that.

See you on Monday.