Scary stories
I’ve recently written a horror story for an anthology, The New Abject, that will be published by Comma Press on 29th October and it has set me thinking about my favourite scary stories. It is the measure of a good one that it lingers in the mind for years after you have read it. I have to admit that the story that has terrified me most – I was only nine or ten when I read it – was not a ghost story. It was a Sherlock Holmes story: ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band.’ Unfortunately I had a ventilator in my bed-room and though the chances of a swamp adder (‘the deadliest snake in India’) slithering through it in the middle of the night were extremely small, the thought of it disturbed me for many, many nights to come. A few years later ‘W. S.’ by L. P. Hartley, about a writer who is haunted by a character from one of his own novels, gave me the creeps, so much so that I recognised it instantly when I came across it a few years ago, even though I’d long forgotten both title and author.
To my mind the short story or the long short story (such as Henry James ‘The Turn of the Screw’) is the most appropriate form for horror and 1880-1930 is for me the golden age of the ghost story. M. R. James is the master here and I love the way his stories often have such deceptively cosy openings: dons bickering at high table in ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, my Lad’; poor Mr Anstruther being hen-pecked over the breakfast table by his formidable wife in ‘The Rose Garden.’ You are lulled into a false sense of security, all the while knowing that something nasty is about to happen.
And that is why the sub-genre of the haunted house is so effective. Houses are just where we should be safest and yet . . . ‘The Empty House’ by Algernon Blackwood has stuck in my mind. I have just skimmed through it again and I felt a chill on the back of my neck. It is masterly. Edith Wharton’s ‘Afterward’ and D. K. Broster’s ‘The Pestering’ are also the stories of haunted houses, though very different in tone from Algernon Blackwood. I could go on listing favourites: ‘Man-Sized in Marble’ by E. Nesbit, ‘The Open Door’ by Mrs Oliphant, ‘A Story of Don Juan’ by V. S. Pritchett . . .
But I’d better stop here, because – what’s that sound? Footsteps on the stairs? Oh, it must be the cat – but, wait, didn’t I put the cat out . . .
10 Comments
C'rysta Winter
October 9, 2020I remember that this snake story by Doyle also occupied me for a long time. I have a snake phobia. Reason enough to finally deal with it in my crime thriller “Mitternachts Soirée”, I thought, and to include a blue Indian cobra. But oh horror, the research alone brought me to the edge of the tolerable. For it was the very idea that made me fearful at the thought of a snake.
But how great that it is possible to play with these fearful imaginings when it comes to giving readers that feeling. It’s a little bit mean. Isn’t it? 😉
Christine Poulson
October 9, 2020Yes, I think we are sometimes drawn to writing about the things that frighten us most and if you are writing a horror story, it is your job to frighten your readers!
Margot Kinberg
October 9, 2020I heard the sound, too, Christine! Could that be a hand tapping at the window? …
Seriously, though, I think you make a strong point about the short story format. It’s very well-suited for a good horror story. I’ve read some novellas, too, that were the right length for the horror stories they told. Perhaps it’s just more difficult to sustain the back-of-the-neck prickling that makes a good horror story irresistible? Either way, I’m very happy for you about your story being included.
Christine Poulson
October 9, 2020Yes, Margot, I think that is it. Of course, Stephen King’s novels have been hugely successful, but I do prefer the short form. There is something about being able to read a horror story at a sitting – preferable at night before a log fire, with the wind howling round the house . . .
Susan in Toronto
October 13, 2020The cat, eh? Funny how the most nerve-wracking times in my house have been caused by Something The Cat Did. Like the time I woke up one morning, showered, dressed, went downstairs, let the cat in…. Wait! Let the cat in? The last thing I remembered from the night before was going off to sleep with the cat snuggled up against me….
Christine Poulson
October 14, 2020The other night I was woken up at 5.30 in the morning by a scratching at my bedroom door. I distinctly remembered shutting the cats in the kitchen, where they have access to the catflap, but can’t bring small dead creatures into the rest of the house. Of course it turned out, I hadn’t quite latched the door and the wily cat had managed to open it.
Wonder what had happened in your case. An open window, maybe? There can be something a little bit uncanny about cats.
Susan D
October 15, 2020Yes, I did figure it out. An open second story window with the screen temporarily removed. She had to have jumped out the window down to the the awning over the front door, then to the verandah from there. That would account for one of her nine lives.
Christine Poulson
October 16, 2020Cats sometimes manage to do things that you wouldn’t quite think were possible.
Moira@Clothes in Books
October 19, 2020Look forward to your story.
I love MR James – Whistle and I’ll come to you, and also The Mezzotint. I am very compelled by the idea of a picture that changes, it is such a simple, clean idea, and yet suitably terrifying…
Christine Poulson
October 19, 2020Hard actually to pick a favourite story, there are so many good ones. When I want to write something suspenseful, I sometimes turn to M R James to remind myself how it’s done.