PLOTS!

I’ve written two books so far, with a third waiting to be published. If you enjoyed ‘Thank you, Ellie,’ I hope you’ll want to see where the story leads in ‘Thank you, Grace.’ Mentioning that is less about plugging the follow-up and more about acknowledging my relative inexperience as a writer. But I believe I’ve learned much in that process and understand how better to construct a plot. Subtle clues and hints rather than a sledgehammer; it’s preferable if it’s not just my imagination at work.

From about the age of twelve, I was drawn to the Horror and Supernatural genre in films and books. From the early ‘Pan’ collections of stories to ‘Hammer House of Horror.’ Then almost 50 years ago, I discovered ‘Carrie’, and from that moment, I was hooked, following Stephen King like a stalker. He knows how to establish and develop plots and regularly does so by imaginatively using mundane objects.

I found myself thinking about this the other day when I settled down to watch ‘Poltergeist’ for the umpteenth time. It’s a great film, and I’m sure Stephen Speilberg had loads of fun making it. But in one significant way, it’s obviously dated by how it uses the Stephen King trick of investing an everyday object with unusual power. If you’re familiar with the plot, you’ll remember the film begins with a TV showing a closedown film accompanied by the playing of ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ In England in the 70s, we did something similar when ‘God save the Queen’ was played around 11.00pm most nights. I think a Test Card used to be displayed afterwards, but in the Freeling household, as the American anthem ends, the screen fills with white noise, and in due course, this becomes the conduit for the malevolent spirits to enter the family’s home.

So, of course, today, you couldn’t really make the film that way because it’s almost impossible to find a blank TV screen any time of day or night. When anyone under 30 watches’ Poltergeist’, I’m sure they’ll enjoy it, but they’ll also be a little puzzled about the abrupt end of the evening’s programmes. In another way, haven’t mobile phones irreversibly revolutionised how stories are constructed. Whether it’s because of the ease with which people can contact each other, the ability to record images and videos, or how locations and movements are tracked, it doesn’t just add to the plot; it now totally controls it. Any contemporary story simply has to take mobile phone technology into account. Stephen King’s ‘Cell’ was an early example, and more recently, in ‘Mr Harrigan’s Phone’, he introduces us to the idea of receiving text messages from a dead person!

Mind you, basing plots on real life is not a one-way street. In a nod to the disaster movie ‘Armageddon’, we’ve recently seen NASA successfully deflect an asteroid by crashing a rocket onto the surface. I guess imagination is a quality shared by writers, engineers and inventors.

I’ll leave the final word to Stephen King. He knows he is very good at what he does but freely admits that nothing he can make up is as horrible as real life. Now that’s a terrifying thought!

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