They Need Your Vote, Josh

If you're new to this blog, or just to this particular topic I am writing a blog called On Dark Rhoads™. It is the fictional account of Joshua Rhoads and the haunting of his house. It is more than that though. One aspect of the fictional world Joshua lives in is a fictional political party running the country. Another aspect to consider is Joshua is psychic and does not know it yet. Now, this is what I'm dealing with...

Another decision point has come up in the Joshua's journey. I essentially have to make the decision before the fork in the road appears. Some interesting links have been brought to my attention that afforded some new tweaks to the still forming setting. Some of them have come up in TechStop™ and others may make their way into there. They are not a part of the horror, but at the same time they do add to it and certainly many of them are not nice for people like Joshua. There is nothing to stop me from doing one thing in Joshua's stories and another in the game, but I would like to have that cohesion. So here is the decision to be made. There is the aforementioned political party with sinister intentions. Is it more compelling for Joshua to be aligned with them and learn of the dark side and reject it or to be opposed to them in the first place?

It may be something of a cliché to be party to the party and then learn the error of his ways. They can only be visibly sinister to a small degree or otherwise they would not have the power and influence that they do. At the same time I do not believe there is some dark core pulling the strings but that it is more a matter of an overall dark outlook. Furthermore I intend for them to be the way they are for the good of others. It's not an intentional malevolence and they are not aware of the amount of harm they are creating or the hatred they foster. It's not about any particularly bigotry either--except for political party opposition bigotry where one party despises the other so thoroughly and thoughtlessly--at least not initially until events of other natures start them down that path. It is not a matter then for Joshua to just be readily aware of their malevolence.

At the same time this party is hard line on a number of subjects, which draws a certain amount of ire from different factions, and a general disgruntlement from people who align themselves with the other parties. The drama is a little less starting on the side of right and removes added dimensions such as guilt over Joshua's former affiliations, and anger at first having indirectly been duped and then becoming victim to their burgeoning malice. There is nothing to stop Joshua's affiliation with the opposition party from having its own turmoil, including the party siding with the malevolent one on the topic of people like Joshua. Here what seemed right is no better, but has the option of it being possible to sway their opinion to a more moderate stance and embrace the approaching sea change for everyone's benefit.

Mood: harried.
Music: Trumpets Of Jericho by Bruce Dickinson and Death on Two Legs by Queen.

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Witnesses or Lack Thereof For Hauntings

Most people when they have to deal with a haunting can simply spend a day or night away from the haunted location. They can even move out and leave it behind forever. What happens when you are the one haunted and the disturbances occur wherever you go? That was the situation I hinted at last week. Since then I see two different scenarios. In one the haunting manifests itself physically and anyone may witness it. In the second only the person who is haunted sees the ghost. The physical scenario may have an apparition or not and the ghost seer's ghost may affect physical objects or not. There are a lot of options these open up for a character and its growth. With either scenario the haunted person is in for a terrible time and the haunting will take its toll. Each scenario has its advantages though.

A haunting involving moving objects that can be witnessed by anyone is likely the more desirable of the two scenarios, if there is anything to be desired about the situation at all. It has the benefit of being verifiable by some at least. There may still be the ridicule of the uninitiated until they are affected by it directly. The degree of directness is variable and can be, in all cases, either finding objects moved when there was no one around to move them, or out of reach and no evidence of trickery to be found, up to actually seeing the object in transit. The disadvantage of course is that objects become misplaced, the phenomena seriously freaks people out, and it can be a case where people are injured by the haunting. The frequency and insistence can really wear on the subject of the haunting, and no amount of frustration, anger, or curses will dissuade a persistent poltergeist.

People who are the only ones to see an apparition can hold themselves together and keep it a secret with a little practice. That in and of itself is a benefit to these kinds of occurrences, if they can pull it off. That is as long as there is no physical component to the haunting otherwise it is much as above except for the addition of the visual manifestation. There are the usual cliché responses to seeing a ghost that others do not see such as seeming crazy for reacting or worse interacting with nothing there. The ghost may be friendly or it may be wicked either in line with or at odds with its appearance. It's sudden appearance and activities may be just as dangerous as objects flying around. Consider the ghost appearing with a menacing shout at the top of the stairs or appearing in the middle of the road while driving. At least additional witnesses to a physical assault can step in and lend a hand.

Mood: driven.
Music: Timelessness by Fear Factory and Basket Case by Green Day.

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Your Own Personal Residual Haunting

I finally got my hands on Paranormal Activity 2 and watched it the night before last. Fear not, no spoilers, but for those on the fence, it is a prequel, not a sequel. That means it happens before the first movie. One last thing about the movie itself. I like the way that it works to lead into the events in the first movie. That's part of a topic for another day. The following has nothing to do with the movie in particular.

Last time the discussion involved in part two different types of haunting, one of which was unintelligent and repetitious. Apparitions that are an echo of the past or simply repeating events in their life after their death are generally limited to a single location. It is an interesting question to ask, what if they could be attached to an object, or in a real twist, a person. I'm sure there is likely real life lore somewhere about haunted objects with only a residual haunting rather than an intelligent force. As to the other...

One of the theories of repeat hauntings or echoes is that the nature and or structure of a location allows it to retain events and play them back when certain conditions are met. If a residual haunting was due to an anomalous energy source instead that energy might be attracted, like magnetism of a sort, to a living being of a compatible "polarity" such as any human. Such a person would then be haunted. This might not necessarily be enough for a haunting disturbance, whether poltergeist-like or with a looping apparition. It might be that only someone sensitive to the world beyond might witness the ghost or be plagued by moving objects. In a sense psychic energy from the human might be needed to fuel the haunting. It could make the difference between wispy half seen figures and ones indistinguishable from the living, or objects moved slowly in time versus hurtling through the air.

Whether the residual haunting "works" when no one is around is another matter regardless off its attachment to a place or object. The old question of "if a tree falls in a wood, does it make a sound" comes to mind. As far as physics go, the answer is yes that the tree makes a sound. These witness only hauntings may be different at your discretion, especially when speaking of visual apparitions. A ghost might not appear without someone to witness it. It might be something that happens entirely in the mind of the viewer, in which case the ghost will not appear in pictures or on video. Likewise with no human presence objects will not move around. This would separate poltergeist phenomena into being the product of an intelligent haunting or as the RSPK/psychic phenomena. Of course there is always leeway on these ideas and multiple mix and match options are open to the writer.

Mood: amused.
Music: The Game Never Ends by Stratovarius and by Let Me Hear You Scream by Ozzy Osbourne.

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Of Friends Not There

I was watching a video series of ghost stories told partly by a narrator and partly by witness interviews. One of those fine shows complete with creepy recreations and lots of mood inducing music. I think I had known about a couple of the cases. As often happens some of the cases involve families with children. In some of these tales, before the phenomena becomes too frightening and out of hand one parent, or both, will hear one of their young children talking to their new imaginary friend. Imaginary friends are a somewhat common experience in the grand scheme of parenting. At least we are led to believe this is true. I cannot say for certain if it is a reality. All children anthropomorphise their toys. They pretend that they have all sorts of adventures with those physical if inanimate friends. What then of those children that go the step further to a completely unreal playmate?

I never had an imaginary friend of the non-corporeal type. I wouldn't want to say it was due to any lack of imagination. Real was real and imaginary was imaginary, but still better with something you could hang onto. Not to mention a friend that would not steer you into doing wrong and getting in trouble, because with that foreknowledge that pretend was only pretend you knew you were responsible for what if anything you imagined any particular toy saying. Now, you know this isn't a parenting blog, and not even really a nostalgia blog. The first line today also tells you where this is going. The child will have given their imaginary friend a name, and they tell bits of this friend's history to anyone who will listen. What comes as a surprise to the parents is that often the imaginary friend is significantly older than the child. This is the first warning bell.

The ghostly phenomena will become more and more apparent. The parents fear will get worse and worse. It takes a lot though to push a family out of it's home because it is a massive financial burden otherwise and it effectively always has been. That means people will put up with a lot because the other option is to live on the street or have two mortgages until you can offload the haunted house on some other unsuspecting person. Remember, don't get publicity for having a haunted home then turn around and try to sell the house without disclosing the haunting or the law will get you. Invariably, in researching the house's history it will be discovered that a former occupant that died in the house has the exact name and details as the child's imaginary friend. Cue very natural and expected freak out...

Mood: relaxed
Music: Slick Black Cadillac by Quiet Riot and When The Wild Wind Blows by Iron Maiden.

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They're Not as Scared, Josh

I talked a bit more about the On Dark Rhoads blog over at Inchoate with "Gearing Up for the Rhoad" and got into some technical and non-writing aspects like commenting and general blog shoptalk.

Last time here we talked about pace and tension. What does it really mean in regard to the scare factor of the tale though? For that matter what does the format do to the scare? Certainly as much as horror is known for it scares, for leaving the audience creeped out if only for a little while, it is about the horrific too, obviously, but as a kind of milieu it is about the situations, beings, and the like that are horrific or monstrous. As such it doesn't always have to scare or horrify at least on the small scale--nor constantly either.

A story about a haunting is a horror story even if you are not scared by it. Stories with monsters are likewise horror as well by virtue of the monsters, though this might require it not additionally being say a medieval fantasy story. It is a matter of degrees and a question of intensity. It is the outlook that matters. Monster heroes in a city will be urban fantasy for instance rather than horror if it lacks horror. It's all shades of grey as far as the presentation goes. Often what distinguishes horror from the other similar genres in this no man's land is how the unnatural elements affect the characters. This is especially true of horror role-playing games. The game need not scare or horrify the players per se, but the setting, the conflict, and the scenarios had certainly better present the characters with fear and horror or a sense of dread.

I see the same delineation in horror fiction even as others insist the product, whatever it is, book, movie, or game, must frighten them or affect them personally to be successful and therefore count. As an example consider the movie Paranormal Activity. I don't mean to compare my haunting tale to it for either its admirers or detractors, but it is a good example from an illustrative viewpoint. Some who live with an actual haunting were dismissive of the bulk of the phenomena as not being scary enough to carry the horror. Others cannot fathom staying anywhere haunted and are floored by these kinds of movies. To bring it back to the original questions I would like the scare factor to be there. I would like nothing more that to have people, well, haunted, by the events, and suspicious of their own surroundings. Was that book where they left it? Wasn't that water glass on the right a moment ago where now it's on the left? At the same time it's okay if they don't do that, as long as the experience through reading the entries was enjoyable.

Come back next week for a special post (instead of my usual day off) regarding a forthcoming role-playing game called Amaranthine from David A. Hill Jr. of Machine Age Productions makers of Maschine Zeit. David is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the print run of Amaranthine right now.

Mood: relaxed.
Music: Hotel California by the Eagles and Someone Else? by Queensryche.

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Don't Wear Us Out, Josh

Last week I talked about the new Umbral Intentions fiction blog starring and written by Josh Rhoads. There was a couple of spoilers, one worse than the other. Just check back, I won't mention the worst one again if you want to know about it. There was a different discussion about the project over at Inchoate Ascendant titled "Don't Jump the Gun, Pants Kicker" about the actual name of the blog. Since I may want to reference it here today you get to be the first to learn that the blog will be titled "On Dark Rhoads" and not Umbral Intentions--to confuse things worse, as also mentioned last week, the blog is for the This Mental Eventide RPG. Now with that out of the way...

The topic of merit today--and this is the lesser spoiler from last time repeated--is pacing the haunting, or how to parcel out the ghostly events. Being a blog places constraints on the story I will be telling that have less to do with the story that they do with how blogging works. This is of course only on some levels. On others it doesn't impact the story itself. Here again I'm giving things away prematurely. The first order of business is setting up Josh. Who is he on the blog? This is something different than who he is in actuality. He could just jump right in with details on the haunting. That doesn't exactly establish him as someone the blog reading public should believe. So, he begins with an introduction followed by a couple normal slice of life style posts. From there he begins to tell his past encounters and then get into posting about them shortly after the fact.

This second stage of story telling is where the issues begin to crop up. First, the blog is scheduled for Saturdays. Obviously all of the haunting incidents will not happen on just Friday or Saturday. This brings about issues of immediacy, and plays into tension. This is a matter intrinsic to blogging versus real-time interactions like Twitter and Facebook streams. It's just like news reporting where you chose an in-depth look versus greater timeliness. The length of each blog post is a further limit--they tend toward the shorter, especially shorter than full scenes in a short story or novel. There is a certain concision and economy. Another issue is that not every post should be about the haunting. This is important to avoid overload or desensitisation to the creepy goings-on. It also plays into the other important factor.

There is also the matter of pacing the haunting itself. It will progress, it will get worse, and more harrowing as time passes. The haunting must escalate. It will have its highs and its lows as far as the amount of activity. It may be cyclical, or it may be dependant on outside factors such as witnesses. Both will be true actually. Then at the same time the lows will be less frequent and less of a reprieve. Likewise the high activity occasions will be more frequent and more extreme.

The idea that witnesses impact the haunting is typical of real cases, especially when said witnesses are intrusive paranormal investigators who come along and disrupt the haunting either with their equipment, their presence, and most often because the entities responsible for the haunting are shy and do not wish to perform for strangers. There are however different new witnesses who can be brought into the situation who have no detrimental effect on the haunting and in fact encourage it as much or more as the original target. That's all I'll say for now.

Mood: teasing.
Music: Catcher In The Rye by Guns N' Roses and Ghost of Perdition by Opeth.

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It's Not What They Think, Josh

If you didn’t know already I’ve been gearing up to unleash a fiction blog. Not just any fiction blog, but one tied to a work in progress role-playing game. There are several issues involved in creating this blog on many levels. The issue I am interested in discussing now has to do with going against expectation. I can't help but spoiler some things. Sorry. Let me start with the basic premise behind the role-playing game. The game is called "This Mental Eventide" and revolves around the emergence of a large number of psychics. A man named Joshua Gavin Rhoads is the author of the blog. He initially hints that he has a secret that he wants to tell everyone but has to build up to it. The secret is the haunting. From there he begins to detail the various happenings. Here's the catch--and the worst spoiler of all. Josh is not haunted. Rather he is being plagued by his own burgeoning psychic abilities.

One of the elements to this setting is that there are no ghosts or earthbound spirits. There are hauntings sure enough, but they are residual hauntings--those are the echoes or events repeating on a loop--or the work of psychics. All in all this makes for a protracted scenario in which nothing is what it seems. There is the possibility that an abrupt turn of face would be off-putting to some. The haunting has to fall within the extent of Josh's psychic abilities. Since he is the cause of all of the phenomena it has to have some meaning to him or otherwise be in character for him. The incidents must be something he subconsciously wants or they happen in reaction to what he feels toward different people and events. Some will be very obvious, but others may seem particularly inexplicable, or at least unfathomable at first blush.

At this stage only one power is evident. Josh must have telekinesis. It covers a myriad of ghostly phenomena that are poltergeist-like in nature. I have an inkling of one of his other powers, but I won't mention it. The development of the game is incomplete so I do not know how many psychic abilities he should manifest, when they will do so, and what if any progression there is between them. Likewise Josh is a bit of a blank canvas. I have certain traits squarely in mind and the rest is open. I do not even know what his profession is yet. One of the keys to a setting like this, and especially these kinds of scenarios involving adults, is that these people have real lives first before the emergence of the fantastical or the horrific. These unanswered questions play into the next topic I want to write about with regard to this project.

Mood: secretive.
Music: Can't Stop Rockin' by ZZ Top and Black Dragon by Luca Turilli.

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13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2010: Night #13 The Haunting In Connecticut

Ah! It's Hallowe'en! I hope it's red 'n' black, and slimy green for you. As always I have left the best movie for last. The Haunting InConnecticut is another movie based on a true story. Up until the haunting really shifts into high gear the story is fairly close to the original incidents. I was thrilled when I found out they were making this movie, and even more so when I watched the movie and saw what they had done. Let's start with our star Kyle Gallner. You may have seen him in Jennifer's Body and the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. He just makes this movie so much more. I wouldn't sneeze at Virginia Madsen either. She's been in Candyman, The Haunting, and The Prophecy. The rest of the notable actors in the movie's family include Amanda Crew from Final Destination 3 and Martin Donovan from Insomnia (2002) or on TV in Ghost Whisperer or Masters of Horror (2007).

A last mention on cast is the helpful reverend played by Elias Koteas who was also in The Prophecy with Madsen; otherwise you mightrecall him from Lost Souls, The Fourth Kind, Shutter Island or Let Me In (2010), or if you're really sharp in a small role in Apt Pupil. There is something I have to gush about in Haunting In Connecticut and it is one word... ectoplasm! It's right there on the cover. We're not talking green slime here, we're talking something much more textbook, and I for one love it. It's the icing on a very cool cake. Now, for those of you who don't know, this is a movie about a mother who moves her family into a house that was formerly a mortuary because the house is close to the hospital where her one son is undergoing an experimental cancer treatment. The place is haunted, but the how and why is all of the fun. Enjoy, and Happy Hallowe'en!

Mood: festive.

Music: This Is Halloween by Danny Elfman. MP3s

13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2010: Night #12 The Shining (1980)

The night before Hallowe'en, Devil's Night. Can you feel the excitement? Are you ready? Well if not then you should be aftertonight's movie. In a list of movies with infamously haunted places there is one name that towers over the others. It is called The Overlook Hotel, and it is not real, but most people will know the name nonetheless, even if they don't recall from where. The Overlook is based for the most part on a real hotel called The Stanley Hotel and is the creation of Stephen King in his novel The Shining. This is the first movie adaptation of that novel. The mastermind behind it is none other than Stanley Kubrick. Mind you some people aren't so sure on the mastermind part. This movie deviates from the novel on several levels. To me this makes for the more interesting of the two kind of novel to movie adaptations.

Kubrick had his own vision for the story. It is both familiar and divergent. Starting off we have the cast. The movie stars Jack Nicholson,Shelley Duvall, and young Danny Lloyd as a family maintaining The Overlook Hotel during the long and harsh winter. This is the same as King's story. It's not a spoiler, but the only thing I'll say here about the differences is that in Kubrick's movie the hotel has a hedge maze, and the novel--and remake mini-series--has hedge animals that come to life. As one might expect from a Kubrick movie there is a great attention to detail from sets to locations to the acting, and of course the direction. As for the haunting, the Shining has it in spades. Also, if you don't know, the shining is actually psychic ability, exemplified by Danny Lloyd's character and the cook played by Scatman Crothers.

Mood: stoked.

Music: Halloween by Helloween. MP3s