Mentor Text: Dead Voices
Tis the season for some screamin’
This week, I wanted to share a fun book with the Poetry Friday group. This middle grade book is an excellent step up from Goosebumps but not too scary. This book has lots of great learnings in it so let’s get to it.
For those not familiar, my Mentor Text series is where I take a book and explore what I learned about writing from it. Other Mentor Texts that I’ve explored that fit in this Halloween spirit are The Bone Houses and The Dark Tower Series. Check them out.
Dead Voices
by Katherine Arden
For a quick overview, there is a TON of great learnings here for an aspiring horror writer. No matter who you are writing for, Arden’s story construction, pacing and execution is exceptional.
Now, let’s hit some specifics…
A different approach to Gore
One of the things I’ve struggled with is what level of detail is the border between gorey for gorey’s sake and what is going to make the scene really hit. I think of gore in horror like heat in spicy food. If you make something hot just to be hot, it doesn’t taste great and you will only remember how hot it was but nothing else. Sure people might tell someone else how hot the food was but that’s it. Gore is the same to me.
When I say “gore”, I am going with the Merriam-Webster definition:
“gruesomeness depicted in vivid detail”
Arden does a good job depicting the effects of long term exposure to frost bite (which isn’t pretty) while not going overboard. She nails the “ewwww” moment and moves on. The gorey-ness was in the description but the creepy factor came in when the characters realized this horrific frost bite was their future if they weren’t careful. By using the gore like a bit of hot sauce, Arden made the scenes memorable for more than how gross they were.
Further, the frost bite scenes were often used for an immediate impact with great build up around them. Sometimes the frost bite was a distraction for another shock to come. Another great tool for any literary belt.
Lesson Learned: Gore is a tool not a goal. In some of the recent horror I’ve read, I think other people might need to hear this lesson as well.
Parallel Stories Done Right
I’m going to try to do this without any spoilers. There is part of the story where the characters are separated but interacting with each other. You can think of it like the movie “The Others”. The separated characters have their own goals and go on their own journey.
Arden bounces between the characters in a very engaging way. She leverages cliff hangers and tension builders to leave one character in a bind while you’re following the other. There are also gaps where you follow one character for a while which makes the tension for the other character grow. If I go back and sketch how the characters move through their storylines and how they intersect, I get a picture of two lines weaving together, diverging in some areas, colliding in others and eventually ending up becoming one at the end.
I like to write stories from multiple perspectives. This interweaving of perspectives was really helpful for me in my latest story (tentatively called: BIBLIOPHILE).
Lesson Learned: Think about how shifting perspectives can enhance tension in the story as well as how the interweaving of those characters & storylines can keep the action moving.
Stand Alone Sequel
I was a few chapters into the book before I realized this book is a sequel. I didn’t read the first book and didn’t feel like I missed a beat jumping into the second book. I’ve read many times that each book in a series should be able to stand alone but I rarely encounter a series that does it well. Or perhaps, I know it is a series and always start with the first book?
Arden does an excellent job at introducing you to where the characters are now. I didn’t have questions like “what happened in the first book”. BUT, I did want to read the first book immediately after finishing Dead Voices (note: the first book is called SMALL SPACES).
I’ve been mapping a series for quite a while and have drafted a few of the books. Inspired by Dead Voices, I’ll be returning to the later books and see if the reader can jump in at the middle or even second book AND be inspired to read the first books after finishing the one they start with.
Lesson Learned: Don’t just have a sequel stand on its own. Inspire the reader to WANT to read the previous books.
Overall
Dead Voices is an excellent book for middle grade readers to jump into the “cabin in the woods”, “isolated by a storm” horror novel. I found it a quick read with great cliff hanger transitions between chapters. This should be in your school library and in the hands of anyone who wants something a little more intense than Goosebumps but isn’t quite ready for Fear Street.
Being Poetry Friday, I wanted to add a quick poem to match the season. I hope you enjoy:
The Midnight Pets
The Midnight Pets
begin to arrive
bearing their gifts.
They gather at her feet,
in her lap,
purring,
panting,
nuzzling,
kneading.
Black cats
of all breed,
Black dogs
of all sizes
come to her.
She sits on her throne
and patiently accepts the
gifts they bear.
Every Midnight Pet is black.
Every Midnight Pet glares at me
with those glowing green eyes.
They watch me through
the cemetery gates
wondering…
Will I step into the
graveyard?
Do I bare gifts
or just
another humiliation
for her?
I know better.
The Midnight Pets
gather around her
because she isn’t
a statue.
She is Grief.
Some people
taunt her,
graffiti her,
tell spooky stories
dare each other to sit
in her lap.
Hijinks. Humiliations.
Those who see her only as a thrill
have never needed her services.
She is Grief.
The Midnight Pets
come to her with gifts,
she accepts the gifts
and sends the pets off
at dawn.
Each morning
the Midnight Pets
find those who need them
and purr
and pant
and nuzzle
and knead
to gather the grief of others
and return it to her
each night.
The Midnight Pets
are the shepherds of grief
leaving hope as they depart.
A black cat comes to me.
Its green eyes fixed on my heart
as it rubs against my leg.
I bend down to pet it
and it sniffs my fingers.
The cat curls its head against my hand.
I smile
feeling lighter
as the cat trots back
to her bearing a new gift.
She is Grief.
Walking home
the stars are brighter
the sky is lighter
and hope fills my heart.
I’m thankful
The Midnight Pets
came to me
tonight.
Behind the Scenes of The Midnight Pets: I’ve been thinking about this story for a while. I have two all black pets and always chuckled about our “midnight pets”. Earlier this week I read a book about the ghost stories of Baltimore and one of those stories was the story of Black Aggie. I thought mixing the two and telling a ghost story about processing grief (a topic of many ghost stories) would be good this week.
I know a lot of people processing grief right now. That grief might be for the loss of a loved one or the loss of “normal”. Remember, there are always Midnight Pets around and some of them look like people. Don’t bear your grief alone.
Final Note
My new book BLOTS just came out and I’d appreciate you checking it out. Share it with others if you like what you see. It is a collection of short stories, most in verse some in prose.
Thanks to Jama for hosting Poetry Friday this week. Check out her blog and the amazing photos on it. Beautiful and story inspiring!
Special thanks for the Cover Photo by Tobias Bjørkli from Pexels