Horror writer Stephen Graham Jones invites his readers to graft their own nightmares onto his monsters.
Alina Art/Tor Publishing Group
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Alina Art/Tor Publishing Group
Stephen Graham Jones never intended to become a writer.
“I only planned to drive a tractor and become a farmer,” he says.
Jones, a member of the Blackfeet Nation from Midland, Texas, saw either oil fields or corn fields in his future. But he always knew he had the skills to tell a good story.
“I was always spilling Kool-Aid on the couch and telling my mom a story that my little brother did it,” he says. “It was a matter of self-preservation, of course, but to tell you the truth, I had been reading novels since third or fourth grade and I would get to the end of those novels and think, ‘I can do that, I can finish a story like that.'”
All month, Weekend Edition has explored why people are drawn to scary stories, how horror became big business, and now Jones, an English professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, shares with us how to create a good thrill.
It ends
“I think craft can get you through 95 percent of a novel,” Jones says. “The craft is the mechanics. It’s the little techniques you use to achieve this or that, and to situate the story and the reader. It’s a whole manufacturing technique.”
Jones says the actual art of writing a good story doesn’t really emerge until you get to the conclusion.
“I always think the story takes place on top of a flat mesa, and it’s dark, and 95 percent of the story takes place on an even keel. But at the very end, you jump into the night, into the darkness, and you trust that there’s going to be another toe there,” he says.
Experts study fear having theorized that one of the main reasons people are flocking to horror experiences these days – whether it’s theme parks, novels or films – is that the world seems so uncertain. Jones agrees and says “whether that end is up or down, that end is why we’re here.”
“Because if this long, dark tunnel of a story has a light at the end, whether it’s a train or daylight, that means the long, dark tunnel we’re in in this world will probably also have an end.”
Remember the past
Although Jones agrees that a frightening present can serve as a gateway to horror, the genre also gives writers – and readers – a special opportunity to explore the past.
“Right now, there are a lot of efforts to…cleanse the past of any wrongdoing,” he says. “And so I think we need to continually remind ourselves that our steps to get here are all bloody,” and that our history includes such dark moments as violence against indigenous peoples and Indian boarding schools.
Jones has been publishing novels, short stories and short stories for decades, but his signature work was “The Only Good Indians.” His latest is a sequel to that 2020 hit, titled “Off the Reservation.” Both novels follow characters who attempt to reconcile their heritage and history with hauntings and possessions.
Jones says he was initially reluctant to use titles like these because he didn’t want to “surrender this damaging phrase to the world”, but an editor said it would help the stories “expand” and Jones says he was eventually convinced by a friend that the title was appropriate based on the characters’ identity struggles.
“I reread the novel and each character asked himself: ‘Am I a good Indian in the contemporary world or not?’ » So I think the novel deserved this title. »
Invite Reader Demons
Stephen Graham Jones says that writing monsters, ghouls or… his favorite – slashers It’s about creating characters that are unique enough to be interesting, but with just enough blank space to give readers space to graft their own demons into them.
“Then the story matters to them in a completely different way,” he says. “Once the reader imagines it in their mind without you having to say it, that’s when the fear can really be effective.”
“You build the monster out of a bad coach you had, a parent you’re having trouble with, a bully at school, a teacher who doesn’t like you. You build them out of those you’re afraid of.”
Jones says that to write a good story, you have to have something to say. This doesn’t mean you’re preaching; just write honestly and the rest will fall into place, whether you’re writing for 15 people or 15 million.
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