Disquieting Visions – paranormal and fantasy realms

by K.L. Nappier

Does “elegant horror” seem like an oxymoron to you? It shouldn’t. There was a time when horror shared the same literary and theatrical heights as classical romances or tragedies. Then somewhere on the timeline of entertainment history, mainstream horror veered. It went not so much the way of erotica as porn, if you will.

Now, for me, particularly cinematically speaking, one of the great harbingers of elegant horror’s return was actually billed as a sci-fi flick. Bet you know which one I mean: Ridley Scott’s Alien. Some may argue that The Exorcist holds the honor of beginning the rebirth, but I see that classic as being a hallowed outlier, a rebel in a rising age of schlocky living deads, shocky chainsaw massacres and scream-queening slasher nightmares that still, of course, rule a considerable kingdom of gruesome.

Is it weird, then, that I -an author often billed as a horror writer- never learned to love the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween or Saw? Well, not really, when you consider that my early influences were Edgar Allan Poe and Rod Serling. It’s true that the morés of Poe’s and Serling’s times repressed the grotesque. But I believe, even if that were not the case, Poe and Serling would have still insisted that the gore serve the story. Not the other way around.

Which brings me back to our modern times and why I feel we are enjoying a new age of elegant horror. Literarily speaking, it’s been coming for a while now. Consider Guillermo del Toro (whether in books or movies, dude kicks elegant horror ass), Thomas Harris, Anne Rice and Peter Straub. Now, don’t be snippy because I didn’t include Stephen King. I am a great admirer of Stephen King. He is legendary. But I don’t believe his work can be defined as elegant horror, even though some very elegant horror movies have been made based on his novels.

Cinematically speaking, today’s return to elegant horror occurs more often on the small screen (if you can call today’s t.v. screens small) than the great, silver one: The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Penny Dreadful, my personal favorite Hannibal and even the Netflix yawner Hemlock Grove fits the mold. Were you a fan of Dexter? I can see that.

And it should come to no one’s surprise that many of the above mentioned are riffs off elegant horror tomes. The film industry has mined the best and brightest from literature for decades, and we have all benefited.

So. What’s my point? My point is that there is, and always has been, a large audience enthralled with the kind of horror that cuts deeper than a meat clever or a chainsaw; that probes softer, more vulnerable parts of our humanity than mere muscle tissue and organs. The old masters understood how to do that. So do the contemporary masters. And I am in absolute, chilled-to-the-bone heaven to see the literary and cinematic worlds return to their senses and re-embrace them.

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Think you might be a closet elegant horror fan? Here’s some of my favorites to cut your teeth on…or deeply into your soul:

Movies: The Exorcist, Alien, The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, Pumpkin Head (much ignored and underrated), Let the Right One In (the original Swedish flick), Let Me In (the British/American version of Let the Right One In), The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, The Others

TV series: Hannibal, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Penny Dreadful

Authors: Thomas Harris, Anne Rice (her earlier works), Peter Straub

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K.L. Nappier is the author of “The Full Wolf Moon Trilogy”, “Voyagers”, “Strange Eight” and other supernatural thrillers and dark fiction. For more information, go to www.KLNappier.com

1. What’s your favorite part of writing a new book or story? What do you like the least?

My favorite part of writing a new book is learning the rules of the world. Figuring out what the rules of society or, in the case of The Tethering, the rules of magic are is fascinating to me. I love finding a problem and creating a whole new way to solve it while getting to know my characters better.

My least favorite part is teaching my fingers to type a new protagonist’s name. I’m not the best typist, and teaching my fingers to type Margret quickly was terrible.

For The Tethering I did a lot of research on old fables of magic. I also climbed a mountain to make sure it would work for the story and did a lot of research on Latin roots of words with my husband, who is chief spell linguist for The Tethering.

2. Who are your favorite fictional characters—your own, and from other books, TV shows and movies?

My favorite fictional character of my own would have to be Jacob Evans of The Tethering Series. He is the heart of the story. However, Claire is another favorite just for her snarky sense of humor. She is from The Tethering and featured in my short story At the Corner of the Garden Wall in Athena’s Daughters 2.

As for favorites in others works, I love Lucy in The Chronicles of Narnia. I adore Septimus and Niko in the Septimus Heap series. And I really love Balthazar Blake in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Hiccup and Toothless in How to Train Your Dragon.

3. What do you read for fun?

I usually read fantasy and mystery, but I really love a good sci-fi or romance as well. It’s really just whatever catches my interest at the moment. Right now, I’m reading a novel from the Star Trek Universe.

4. Was there a book you read in your childhood or teen years that changed your world? Tell us which book and how it made a difference for you.

I would have to say The Chronicles of Narnia. I read them every few years and gain something new from them every time. Seeing how much a book can affect someone made me want to write, and I find new wonder in the series every time I go back to it. Further up and further in. Let the world grow with each step forward.

Click here to listen to a reading of The Tethering on our sister site.

What is the title of your newest book or short story? What’s it about? Where can readers find it?

My newest short story is At the Corner of the Garden Wall, which is a part of the Athena’s Daughters 2 anthology, currently up for preorder on Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/103879051/athenas-daughters-volume-2/description

How did you choose to become a writer?

I really didn’t. I’m an actor by trade, so I spend all my time living in imaginary worlds. During a not so artistically-fulfilling production, I began to write a story. It was about a boy who was all alone, waiting for a girl to come back. Finding out who that boy was and helping him became The Tethering. The same sort of thing has happened with all my projects. I write because I want to tell a story.

What inspired your new book or story?

When I found out about the open submissions for Athena’s Daughters 2, I knew I wanted to write something from the world of The Tethering. Figuring out who to write about was a challenge. I was afraid of creating spoilers in the series, and that left me with very few choices. My favorite character in the series is Claire, a twelve-year-old witch who is sarcastic, funny, and loves all things pink. I was afraid that she wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the characters in Athena’s Daughters 2, but a good friend encouraged me to write about her anyway. I did, and At the Corner of the Garden Wall was born. All about Claire, and a pink cat.

Where can readers find you on social media? (Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Library Thing, Redd It, etc.)

On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ORussellauthor

On Twitter https://twitter.com/MeganORussell

My website and blog MeganORussell.com

On TSU https://www.tsu.co/MeganORussell

And on goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8061709.Megan_O_Russell

What advice would you give to an aspiring writer?

Sit down and write. Don’t worry about commas or where in the room the couch is. Just tell your story. Get it all out. Then either you’ll feel finished (getting a whole story out is a huge accomplishment), or you’ll want your characters to go out into the world. If you want your story read, then you begin revisions and edits. But that’s a problem for another day. First, just write.

Click here to listen to a reading from Megan on our sister site.

What is the title of your short story?  What’s it about?  Where can readers find it?

My new short story, Crow Bait and Switch, is part of the Athena’s Daughters, Volume 2 anthology to be published by Silence in the Library Publishing.  Athena’s Daughters, Volume 2 is a collection of short works of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction written by women, edited by women, illustrated by women, and about women and girls.  The diverse stories, written by very diverse authors, celebrate women and girls of all ages and races, abilities and physical attributes.

Athena’s Daughters, Volume 2 is being funded via Kickstarter.  We are at the end of the campaign and we really hope that you will support this fantastic anthology that gives under-represented characters a voice in exciting stories.  Our Kickstarter page is here.

What inspired Crow Bait and Switch?

My last published fiction was in Star Wars Gamer over ten years ago with my awesome co-author, Chris Cassidy. Though I have written lots (and lots and lots) of derivative work for 20 years, my last original story was for a writers’ workshop with the late Aaron Allston. Aaron was very much on everyone’s mind at Origins 2014 and, while there, I summoned his positive spirit (and my courage) and participated in a writing seminar with Mike Stackpole and Tim Zahn, who had both been so supportive when I was writing and working with them in Star Wars.  Also at Origins, Janine Spendlove, one of the editors of Athena’s Daughters, Volume 2, told me that Silence in the Library Publishing had an open call for short stories for the anthology and encouraged me to submit something.

With this collective encouragement, I began Crow Bait and Switch by dusting off the story I had written for Aaron’s workshop. The USDA Beagle inspector with a nose for maggots and rotten Sicilian cheese became a bossy, genetically engineered Border Collie. In addition to loving dogs and enjoying giving a literal voice to them in my writing, I am also very fond of the family corvidae, to which crows, magpies, and other canny birds belong. I have seen these advanced tool users steal car keys and flashing lights. As such, it was not surprising that, in the tradition of her astonishingly clever forbears, Morgana, the Jurassic Park-quoting, talking crow, flew into Crow Bait and Switch and stole it from everyone else.

Who are your favorite fictional characters—your own, and from other books, TV shows and movies?

Although I have many favorites, across many genres, examples of some of my favorite fictional characters are on display in Crow Bait and Switch.  I love talking sentient animals, like the dragons in Temeraire and Dragonriders of Pern, the Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny, the talking dogs in 101 Dalmatians, and the birds and beasts in the Chronicles of Narnia.  Science fiction also gives us genetically modified, fully sentient animals in stories like the Planet of the Apes, the Island of Dr. Moreau, and Startide Rising.  In Crow Bait and Switch, the animal tricksters of folklore, like Coyote, Reynard, Anansi, and Brer Rabbit,  are as much Morgana’s forbears as the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

With these many favorites and inspirations, what I especially wanted to do in Crow Bait and Switch was to write characters like Morgana, not as a human with feathers, but as a real bird who also happens to be fully sentient.  In the story, the main protagonist, Dr. Jesse Harris, will realize that though Morgana speaks like a human, nothing about her is the least bit human. Morgana is a bird, truly alien, and far closer to dinosaurs than to any humans.  Morgana will prompt a crisis of conscience that will force Jesse to decide whether she stands with the Pan-Laurasian Fleet or with those who don’t have opposable thumbs.

Thank you again and I hope you’ll support the Athena’s Daughters, Volume 2 Kickstarter!

Listen to a special reading of Crow Bait and Switch on our sister site by clicking here.

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Tish E. Pahl is a principal in a law firm.  At her day job, she advises on the federal regulation of drugs, dietary supplements, cosmetics, foods, and medical devices and regularly teaches a crash course in drug law.  With Chris Cassidy, Tish wrote for Star Wars, with stories published in the Tales from the New Republic and Star Wars Gamer magazine.  Tish is also a prolific producer of derivative genre, fantasy, and science fiction content.  She lives in the Washington, D.C. area with her husband, son, and two demanding dogs.