(Find Macy’s story, Turkey Joe in Campfire Publishing’s After Dark, Volume 2)
On Writing:
Q: Academic writing operates within the scope of evidence and argument. Fiction, however, gives one license to entire worlds. Having done both, what suggestions or advice could you offer to fiction writers who are interested in crossing over into a non-fiction style of writing but are hesitant or ‘stuck’?
A: “Even when writing fiction one has to maintain a certain degree of logic and understand cause and effect—unless we’re talking about all-out absurdism. The evidence-argument relationship works the same as the cause-and-effect relationship: I must first establish this one thing in order to understand this other thing. With fiction, it’s easier to intuit that relationship since all the action begins and ends in the writer’s head. With non-fiction, all the beats, so to speak, are pre-existing, and it’s the writer’s job to use both intuition and logic to fill in the blanks. This happened and I can deduce that from it. Like Stephen Crane’s castaways at the end of The Open Boat, the nonfiction writer can’t change what has happened, but can interpret what has happened and explicate its significance.
The best defense against getting stuck, be the subject fictional or factual, is to have a plan. By no means do you have to stick the plan; but it’s helpful to start off with a clear vision and purpose that you can fall back on when times get tough. For nonfiction especially, research is key to defining and refining purpose. Knowledge builds confidence, and confidence makes it much, much easier to produce quality writing.“
On Horror:
Q: Horror has a long-time history of using the uncanny and monstrous to explore what society fears most, (example: Spring-heeled Jack and Victorian era). What do you feel contemporary horror is most afraid of right now? Have you seen it show up in your own writing?
A: “One subgenre I’ve seen get a lot of mileage lately, and in which I have certainly dabbled, is cosmic horror. I think one of the big reasons there’s been a resurgence of interest in cosmic horror, especially Lovecraft’s works, is that it speaks to the fear that our lives are at the mercy of incomprehensible and uncaring forces that are too powerful and too indefinite for us puny humans to overcome. Ask any person on the street how they feel about government institutions or the billionaire class, and they would likely express a similar fear. When the threat feels like it’s everywhere, it breeds anxiety and paranoia—hallmarks of the fiction of Machen, Lovecraft, R.W. Chambers, and so many others.
We also (not coincidentally) live in a social media-obsessed age that encourages people to judge one another for anything and everything. Avoiding accusation requires constant scrutiny. Anxiety and paranoia get funneled inwards as people feel forced to police themselves, just as Michel Foucalt describes in his analysis of the panopticon. That’s why I think there’s been so much horror fiction lately that asks what if I’m the real monster, after all? A lot of Stephen Graham Jones’ work deals with this question, as does Paul Tremblay’s last novel, Horror Movie.
In my own work, I definitely tend more towards monsters that can’t always be overcome, and who operate by rules that are incomprehensible to the human characters. That being said, the human characters are often scarier than the supernatural ones, and their motives can be just as inscrutable, like the cruelly apathetic teenagers in my short story “Star-Dust Eyes.” So, I’ve certainly written my share of what if I’m the real monster characters, too.“
Into the Darkness:
Describe your relationship with Horror:
“I’ve always been attracted to the scary stuff. As a ‘90s kid, I loved Goosebumps, and my parents still get a kick out of reminiscing how they finally had to forbid me from watching it because the nightmares and sleepless nights it caused were not enough to dissuade me from tuning in. Growing up in the Bible Belt, it wasn’t always easy being a horror fan, and plenty of teachers thought there was something wrong with me; they did not, apparently, appreciate the irony that their hellfire and brimstone version of religion was far scarier than anything in a Stephen King novel. I suppose a psychoanalyst could do a lot with that.
More than just a means to rebel, or experience cathartic release, horror provided a different way of looking at the world from the binary one I’d been raised to believe in. This alternate worldview presented a much more complicated scheme of things, and didn’t try to paint the world as being better than it is, or humans as nobler than they are. Horror lets it all hang loose. There is something viscerally appealing in admitting that sometimes we are the monsters, the monsters are us, especially in this age of social media affectation.”
Author/Bio/Story Specific Curiosities:
Q: In your experiences teaching college literature, has a student ever offered feedback or a critique of a text that has completely reframed how your thoughts on it?
A: “Whenever I teach Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (a short story that certainly dips its toes into the horrific) I give students the opportunity to argue for whether they agree with O’Connor’s interpretation that the grandmother experiences a “moment of grace” and receives last-minute salvation, or whether they think the story is entirely pessimistic with salvation being impossible. You’d think the responses would be split down the middle, but the vast majority interpret the story as pessimistic, even nihilistic. In a class of twenty-five, usually only a couple will vote for the optimistic reading. The numbers always surprise me, even though I’m familiar with the pattern by now. Most students agree with the Misfit that the grandmother’s final act of goodness is merely reflexive, a last-ditch effort to appeal to the deeply-buried goodness she feels he must possess given his polite demeanor and her faith in surfaces. What this has made me see is that, by giving the Misfit the last word, the story is giving us every opportunity to believe him; is egging us on, even, to buy his nihilism. The point isn’t that we should—in no reality do I believe O’Connor would want us to do that. Rather, the story invites us to have the faith the Misfit lacks, and, in so doing, holds a mirror up to the reader.“
More About Macy Harrison:
“When I teach composition, I like to share this quote from Stephen King’s On Writing: “Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.” The point here (and of On Writing overall) is to demystify the writing process, much like Edgar Allen Poe tries to do in The Philosophy of Composition. Writing is a skill, not a magical power. Sure, some may pick it up faster than others; but even the greats got where they got through study and practice.
Remembering this advice has helped me a lot lately as I’ve been busy working on longer works. Completing a novel that doesn’t grow legs and try to run away from you can be quite a daunting experience. Currently, I’m editing a novella I hope to place with a publisher later this year, and I’m working on finishing a first draft of a novel, something I hope to complete by the end of summer. The best way to find information on my publications, both past and upcoming, is my website: macyharrison1.wordpress.com “