The English and the classics departments at my undergrad alma mater hold an annual Halloween event where students and faculty can sign up and read scary stories. A majority of the things people read are famous and well-regarded literary works. M.R. James, Shirley Jackson, oftentimes ancient literary works, like an expert from Homer’s The Odyssey. A minority of students read pieces they wrote themselves. The most mermorable one was about, of all things, a killer clown.
Last year, one student walked up the podium, laptop in hand, and proudly delivered a work that was none of that. Not an original work, not a well-regarded piece of literature, and not good in any sense of the word. Their delivery was painful in how sincere and unironic it was. The piece’s familirity added to the pain of the situation. Not familiar in some vague or general way. The piece was specifically familiar and immediately recognizable. It was one of those god-awful spooky stories that pre-teens passed around Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, and the like back in the early to mid 2010s. I knew and read this story in particualr at some point…one about some kids and a babysitter home alone, and a killer clown hiding in a room and posing at a statue. Here is a version of the story that closely matches the one read, for reference.
It was evident that others in the room recognized the story, or at least the kind of story it was. Even if they didn’t, I could still tell they felt the same visceral pain. I can only imagine what the professors present thought. One of my professors was especially chagrined, as he shared in class the following day, behind thinly veiled sarcasm. He decided to bring his young children to the event, the only audience that felt the intended effect of the story, and he had to suffer the consequences. Not only did the poor man have to sit through the painful delivery, but he had to watch their faces drain of color. They boys did not sleep in their own beds the following nights.
The story stuck with me a good while after as well. I found myself stuck on it during the rest of the event and in the days following. It was a profoundly frustrating story. I kept thinking about how much of an abject failure of a piece of writing it was. I didn’t even care about the cliched nature of the premises (killer clowns, living humanoid objects, babysitters, etc.) Though there are some obviously offensive tropes and language in the story that were extremely off putting in their own right . Not much commentary or dissecting is needed to point out how atrocious it is to describe the villain as a “mentally disturbed midget.” Ouch. Aside from that, what lingered and frustrated me the most was the structure. So, while there are plot holes and plot elements that are also maddening, I will try and stick to structure problems alone.
Obviously, the prose is not masterful, but set that aside, if you can. Everything is par for the course for the genre. With all that in mind, let me break apart the progression. We get a typical setting: kids and babysitter home alone at night, parents gone. Check. There is a spooky, scary clown statue that gives off bad vibes. Clowns and scary statues? Again. cliche, but check. Then, we reach the height of tension: the phone call. The parents don’t know what clown statue she’s referring to. More tension. The father says, “We don’t have a clown statue.” Boom. A good ending point. The tension isn’t released and the audience is left in suspense. Interesting structure? No. But acceptable and semi-effective for what it is. However, the story goes on.
The kids are out of the house, and all are safe. The police come and we see the killer clown peeking from behind the curtains, then it dips back into darkness. Okay, but at this point, so what? There is no tension or danger. They are out of the house. The police go up and find the clown has a knife. So what? What good is the information now that it’s not a threat? Finally, after all of that, we get the backstory. Turns out, it wasn’t a clown statue but a deranged killer who escaped. The children have been complaining about it for weeks (why are we just hearing this from them now?) Once again, why are we getting this information now? Since there is no tension, the inforation effectively failts to do anything.
Having a denouement is fine and common. It is okay to have a story and plot continue after tension is released. But here, instead of a denomuet, we get an attempt at more rising tention and stakes, after the writer has elinated the only threat and source of tension. There is an expectation that the information alone is scary. I mentioned it before and said it didn’t need much commentary, but I think it’s something worth pointing out here. What is the information that we are expected to find scary by its own right? The alleged mental illness and physical disability of the villain (to be fair to the person who delivered the story at the event, they did ignore the word “midget”. However, the same can’t be said for them regarding “mentally deranged” ).
The structural failures of the story are illuminating. They are a good example of what not to do when writing a story. Recoginze when tension is building and when it realeses. Don’t throw on rising information during or after falling action. The list could go on.
But the problems highlight something deeper than simple writing advice. There are attributes and qualities of people that we are expected to find scary, such as disability. The structural failures bring assumption to the surface. The details presented do not have structural tension to back them up, so they must rest on their own laurels to provide any scare. But in stories without the blaring structural failures, the fact that the horror is an assumption can be better hidden. If details like this were put in places of rising tension, then the structure and tension they’re built into can mask the assumption of horror in the information. It flows with the pace. Anyone familar with the horror genre knows it’s spotty record with ableism (and all the other isms). If you know about the tropes, they’re easy to spot, even amidst surrounding structural tension.
