Dread on the Page

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Paul Whybrow

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Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
There's a difference between fear and dread—it's subtle—but, as writers, we should use dread to create an atmosphere of unease...a pervasive foreshadowing that coats our characters.

To me, dread implies fearful expectation or anticipation, whereas fear is a response to a threat that's appeared.

These days, in Thriller and Crime writing and film adaptations, there's too much instant gratification—BOOM!—big explosions, courtesy of CGI that the hero is immune to, calmly walking away from them, as if shock waves, heat and debris don't exist. If our hero is injured, it's usually a designer cut on his cheek, that won't leave a scar. No one ever receives a wound that makes them weak and insecure and vulnerable...which could crank up the tension, rather than detract from their powers.

I've just finished reading Michelle Paver's Wakenhyrst, in which she creates a cumulative sense of dread from seemingly unconnected incidents, skilfully using all of the senses, including smell and touch. Nice to come across a hardback book so well-designed with the use of colophons depicting reeds, ivy leaves, a magpie, carved devil heads, bulrushes and leafy vegetation to mark chapter and section breaks. I was delighted to see an eel slither onto the corner of page 165 out to make mischief. Good too, that there's a red ribbon bookmark attached to the spine. Such features make a book feel special, that it's worth the asking price. Michelle Paver is represented by our own @AgentPete.



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The dread-full atmosphere of Wakenhyrst put me in mind of the Fantasy and Ghost stories penned by M.R. James in which he created a creepy atmosphere, where nothing was quite what it seemed to be, leading to a satisfying crescendo.

Several of these tales were adapted by the BBC, in a strand of short films under the banner A Ghost Story For Christmas. Shown from 1971-1978, with a one-off in 2005, they were eagerly anticipated by viewers and much-discussed afterwards.

A Ghost Story for Christmas - Wikipedia

I vividly recall several scenes, including one from the first shown The Stalls of Barchester, based on M.R. James' story The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, in which a scholar is haunted by a ghostly cat, as he investigates the mysterious death of his predecessor. What made me jump, was a scene where the doomed protagonist is sitting in the darkened cathedral, with only a candle for illumination, nervous of an unseen cat yowling nearby, grasping the arm of his chair for reassurance—which suddenly turns from wood into black cat fur!

The whole film is available on YouTube.



In my own writing, I try to create a sense of dread in my Cornish Detective series, sometimes by letting the reader know things that the coppers don't, meaning they blunder into dangerous situations. Judging how well I've made the reader uneasy, is as tricky as deciding how funny a listener will find a joke I'm telling.

Books I've enjoyed for the way that the author instils apprehension, include William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist, Susan Hill's The Woman In Black and Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men.

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How about you?

Are your stories tinged with dread?

Which authors make you afraid to turn the page?

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Illustration by James McBryde for M. R. James's story 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'
 
In my opinion, Dark Matter (M Paver) is superior to Wakenhyrst. The section in DM where the narrator finds himself, by his own choice, completely alone is a master class in sustained terror. I read a lot of ghost stories (I write them) and it is my all-time favourite, displacing The Woman in Black (perfect plot, great atmosphere). The night I read DM, I went to bed with the light on.

I agree with a lot of what you say about Wakenhyrst. It repays careful reading right to the end, as plot details continue to be revealed right to the last twist.

MR James's plots are good, but time has not dealt kindly with his style. Consequently dramatisations of his work are much better than the books. There have been at least two TV versions of the one pictured above. I have a problem with the title, though, since it is a Burns' song, a well-known love lyric, and nothing to do with the theme of the story.
 
"...the title, though, since it is a Burns' song, a well-known love lyric, and nothing to do with the theme of the story."

From memory, one of the TV dramatisations changed it to 'Whistle and I'll come to You'. More gravitas, less flirtatious.
 
Are your stories tinged with dread?
Not so much, but it's something I'm keen to try. I'm also a fan of Michelle Paver, and Dark Matter really was a master class.

Which authors make you afraid to turn the page?
Jeff VanderMeer is a particular favourite of mine if I'm in the mood for a bit of spine-chilling dread. His Southern Reach Trilogy is excellent.

From goodreads:

Area X—a remote and lush terrain—has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
This is the twelfth expedition.

But that only gives you an inkling of what's to come. The books concern alien contact, the nature of consciousness and communication, and pose the interesting question of whether we'd even recognise an alien consciousness as such if we met it. It's also hairs-on-end disturbing and grimacingly weird.
 
Not so much, but it's something I'm keen to try. I'm also a fan of Michelle Paver, and Dark Matter really was a master class.


Jeff VanderMeer is a particular favourite of mine if I'm in the mood for a bit of spine-chilling dread. His Southern Reach Trilogy is excellent.

From goodreads:

Area X—a remote and lush terrain—has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.
This is the twelfth expedition.

But that only gives you an inkling of what's to come. The books concern alien contact, the nature of consciousness and communication, and pose the interesting question of whether we'd even recognise an alien consciousness as such if we met it. It's also hairs-on-end disturbing and grimacingly weird.


Was this the book that inspired Netflix's Annihilation?
 
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