As research for A Voracious Grief I am reading and analyzing a collection of short stories by the masters of scary stuff, including H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Actually, the truth is I was in a bookstore and added the anthology Chilling Horror Short Stories to my purchasing pile because… can a person really resist buying MORE books than they came for while shopping in a bookstore?

The foreward to this collection is an overview by Dr. Dale Townshend, an authority on Gothic, which I found to be extremely useful. It outlines the subtle difference between terror and horror in literature. This outline gave me a simple paradigm for analyzing the stories the volume contained. Basically, terror is a suspenseful, vague hinting at a mystery, requiring the reader to exercise their imagination to fill in the gaps and puzzle out an explanation for whatever weird events are being described, ultimately leading up to the big reveal at the end. Horror has a much greater sense of immediacy. There is graphic, often violent, corporeal damage being done. In horror, suspense is present primarily to build up to moments that, in a movie, make us jump and afterwards elicit feelings of dread and disgust. Personally, I do not have any tolerance for horror, either in books or film. But terror, or more precisely, suspense, is something I enjoy a great deal when it is pulled off by a masterful writer.

Some of the additions in Chilling Horror Short Stories are beautifully crafted. As a writer, I appreciate the forethought and intentionality required in planting clues throughout the piece which pay off in the reveal, giving the reader the satisfaction of seeing something truly stirring unfold.

In the classic Nathaniel Hawthorne story, Young Goodman Brown, the story itself isn’t so terrifying as the ending. Poor Goodman Brown courageously resists evil, only to live ever afterward in constant crippling cynicism and despair, because he believes all those around him to belong to Satan. The choice of purity ends up costing him peace. He dies more miserable for having resisted the devil than if he’d lived as a holy hypocrite all his life. At least, that seems to be Hawthorne’s point. I enjoyed reading it, because it is a cautionary tale for saint and sinner alike. It makes me think, and reminds me that not everything is as it seems.

Another favorite was The Leather Funnel by Arthur Conan Doyle. In this story, he lays out the details like a breadcrumb trail for the reader to pick up: a strange implement, the initials of someone connected to it, the eccentric obsession of its owner… The fact that this implement has a horrifying past is hinted at with enough clues to keep you guessing, while a good deal of information is hidden in plain sight. This type of reveal is always immensely satisfying for me as a reader, because once I finish the story I see every clue in a new light, the story comes full circle, and all that was mysterious becomes crystal clear.

H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror follows a similar strategy for cluing in the reader on the horrifying elements of mystery that are later unveiled at the end. The final plot twist was so satisfying that I wanted to laugh out loud. A writer that can elicit such a response in their reader is certainly good at what they do. I can say, from experience, Lovecraft lives up to the hype. And all the stories I appreciated, especially the ones I’ve mentioned in this post, fall into the terror category, not horror (which is ironic for an anthology titled Chilling Horror Short Stories).

What I have taken away from my—ahem—research, is that I will really need to stick to a tight outline with A Voracious Grief. It’s supposed to be a sad, cautionary tale somewhat along the lines of Goodman Brown—that’s where the themes of grief will come in. But it’s also a suspenseful mystery, and I want every scene to add to the tension, building poignantly toward that ultimate moment of either victory or despair, which every good thriller has.

Sometimes I think of writing as being a lot like gymnastics. You put in hours and hours and hours of practice, preparation, and personal growth. All so that in your final moment… you can stick the landing. What do I mean by that? If you’ve ever read a story that makes your nerves tingle when you close the book—that’s a perfect landing.