Everyone Who Reads, Reads Horror:
The DarkEcho Interview
Interviewed by
Chris Kemp
Paula Guran--who sometimes goes by the name, DarkEcho--expressed a little
reluctance at being interviewed for our site. Among other things, she doubted
that what she had to say would be of sufficient interest or relevance to our
readers.
I beg to differ, of course. Though it's hard to gather what she does under a single umbrella, it's definitely relevant. In fact, I might venture to say she helps give form and substance to a style of writing that can be downright…well, ethereal. And if that doesn't do it for you, a partial list of her accomplishments to date shows that she:
As impressive as that partial list is, it neglects her most major accomplishment--well, to me, at least. Paula helped get me writing after a 16-year layoff. While it's true that membership in FWOMP has spurred me to semi-lofty heights and my own smallish body of work, back in 1994, when I was devouring her DarkEcho newsletter, I noticed she was sponsoring a writing contest. Stories had to be Halloween-themed and include a ghost. Duly inspired, I began writing, and even though I missed her deadline by about a year, the story that emerged, "Rooted," became the first piece I had finished since college. On its way to being rejected by three or four fine periodicals (g-r-r-r-!), it managed to pick up an "Honorable Mention" in the L. Ron Hubbard "Writers of the Future" competition. Algys Burdys, in his wonderful rejection letter, said it ended up in the top .03 percent of finalists. Damn! Just missed!
But enough about me. You're here for Paula. Though her insights are most acute in regard to the horror market--whatever that happens to be today--what she has to say should hold interest for any writer engaged in honing his or her craft and trying to make a few pennies in the process. Feel free to visit her absolutely first-class Web site--and writer's resource--at www.darkecho.com. It's full of information, opinion, reviews, art and more background on Paula, because believe me, I didn't do her justice.
-- Chris KempFWOMP: Your online biography is filled with information about what you've done since you've established yourself. But let's take it back a few steps. When you were "little", did you know writing and editing would be your avocation?
Paula Guran: Actually, I wanted to be an Egyptologist or an international spy,
but those career choices didn't work out. I was one of those kids who read
everything in sight. When I was going into seventh or eighth grade, when the
school system decided that all boys did not have to take "shop" and all girls
did not have to take home economics, I leapt at the chance to take a
journalism class. From the time I was in ninth grade all through high school I
edited the school newspaper and wrote a column. I think I won awards, but at
one point the Veterans of Foreign Wars called for my expulsion. Those were,
shall we say, dramatic times.
I also went through the usual adolescent angst-filled poetry thing, except
when I was entered by someone in a contest, a poem of mine actually turned
into a play at the local artistic-weirdo theatre. I fit right in, of course,
and got into theatre in college. My creativity got channeled into theatre,
specifically the technical end of it. I didn't write anything after that for
about 20 years.
FWOMP: How did your attraction to horror come about?
PG: I got online in 1993 or 1994 at one of those "change" times in my life. I was thinking about writing. What I wrote was dark. I wound up discovering modern horror in 1994. I had no idea there was so much great stuff being written or that had been written. It was tremendously exciting to discover. I wanted to proselytize about its possibilities. [It was approximately at this time that Paula started her seminal DarkEcho newsletter, which is how Chris Kemp first became familiar with her. --Ed.]
FWOMP: What did you like to read when you were growing up?
PG: Did I mention I was a prodigious reader? I tackled everything. I read my way through a couple of children's sections at two libraries by the time I was in sixth grade and got permission to check out "adult books." I had a subscription to a children's magazine, Jack & Jill, that had serialized fiction and I loved the Baba Yaga stories. My favorites at about age 11 were Mara, Daughter of the Nile and The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. (Told you I wanted to be an Egyptologist!) When I was 11 or 12 my older cousin gave me a copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars and I read all the Mars books and some Tarzan and started reading more SF.
FWOMP: Did educational experiences factor into any of this? Did they work against you, for you, or were they neutral?
PG: Grammar school got me into writing and college got me out of it. The most beneficial thing about writing as an adolescent was that I was encouraged to write and write creatively--I wasn't forced into the standard set, measurable style most schools force on kids today. In college, because of the theatre connection, I got into Cocteau, Sartre, Ionesco, Antonin Artaud, the Symbolists, and the Decadents...lots of dramatic and literary stuff.
FWOMP: What were your first few paying gigs in the market, and how did you get them?
PG: The first thing I ever got paid for was for an interview with Del James that appeared in a Cleveland weekly entertainment/alternative sort of newspaper in February 1995. The first genre article was on "online horror" for Mike Baker's Afraid May 1995 issue. (Michael O'Rourke recommended me and maybe some other folks had mentioned me, too.) My first big "break" was with OMNI later that year and Ellen Datlow was responsible for that. [Datlow is an anthologist, editor and writer. Among a ton of other things, she co-edits The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and has done so for many years running. Check her out at www.datlow.com. --Ed.]
FWOMP: How did you come to represent John Shirley?
PG: I thought his novel Wetbones should be available in paperback. He told me to sell it. At the time he was working pretty exclusively in film and TV so he hadn't needed a literary rep for a while. I also was willing to rep him to small press. (Most "real agents" won't deal with that. Nor should they, there's not enough money in it.)
FWOMP: Is there any reason your fiction output lags behind your other work?
PG: I don't write fiction because I don't have the imagination for it. I can re-write, I can ghostwrite, I understand technique, and am, I hope, a decent teacher and editor--but that's not generating your own story ideas or plotting. Also, you hear people talk about being born to write--if I have any natural ability, it would be toward editing and writing nonfiction, not fiction. Finally, I have no patience and don't like rejection. Those are two attributes fiction writers must have.
FWOMP: What part of what you do is most enjoyable? Least enjoyable?
PG: An editor I called the other day answered the phone with, "Hello, Paula, what hat are you wearing today?" He knew me as an agent, a reviewer, and--to a much lesser extent (since this person is more SF-oriented than horror)--as a minor editor and former newletterist. I happened to be wearing a new hat that day as a reporter. There are people in "the business" who know me as only one thing or another and, as time goes on, it's getting harder and harder to explain myself in toto, so I tend to wear one hat at a time--and that's not representative. Damned hard to put into a resume, too.
So, to answer your question, what I enjoy least is not being able to "be" primarily "something." At the same time, I enjoy the variety of different "somethings"!
FWOMP: What is a typical working day in the life of Paula Guran?
PG: I still have two children at home so during the school year, like now, I'm up at 6:45 a.m. I start working by 8 a.m. and work pretty intensely at least until 3 p.m. (when one or both of my children usually gets home). During that time, of course, I can be flexible. (I'm the family arranger, errand runner, and conveyer.) But I try to keep that time fairly free of distraction. After that, it just depends on the day and the project. Depending on what or with whom I'm working and what time zone they are in, phone calls can be as late as 9 p.m. or so.
FWOMP: Your column in Cemetery Dance gives you considerable visibility as a reviewer. Talk about your reviewing philosophy. Do you ever worry about the reaction of a writer when you write a negative review? How do you deal with that?
PG: For the Cemetery Dance column, even though I have room to review with some thoroughness, it's usually still positive. (That may be changing. I did a column last month in which I was constructive, but I wasn't too positive.) In general, I have done "positive reviewing" no matter what the venue. There's only so much time and so much space. Why waste it on the crap? I try to keep in mind that there are different audiences for different books and try to be conscientious about that. If you can't keep that attitude, you probably should avoid reviewing books that you can't fathom why anyone would read. I don't see me ever reviewing Tom Clancy, for instance, I just don't understand the appeal. On the other hand, even though I may not normally read "Chick Lit," I can put myself into that "audience mode."
In most other review venues I am confined by length, but I do try to convey a general impression of the book. If I am picking the books, I keep that particular reading audience in mind to some extent.
For an assigned book, like for Publishers Weekly, it's a different thing. I feel even more responsible. Since I am reviewing whatever I get, I sometimes get a book that doesn't deserve a positive review. If I feel I should mention something negative, I have to know why I feel that way and support it--all in 250-300 words. And I get edited, so the result isn't always exactly what I wrote.
Professional writers, or writers with a professional attitude, understand reviewing. If they are displeased with a review, they are at least gracious enough not to take it personally. Since I do mostly positive reviews, I think I get more anger directed at me because I don't review something. Get real, folks. There are books that I love that I never wind up reviewing due to circumstances, there are books I don't feel strongly about one way or another that don't get reviewed, there are miserable books that are best left unmentioned, there are a few books that I "wrestle" with and just never manage to produce a review.
FWOMP: Why do you think there is a tendency to look down on so much of what is termed "genre fiction" (although I think SF gets a break here)? It strikes me that there is good and bad fiction of every type, but the prejudice remains. Is it warranted?
PG: I'm not sure that's as true as it once was. At least some SF/F/H is now reviewed by "legitimate" publications. But maybe the question should be: Does it matter? Let's face it; books as a whole are not very important in our culture any more. Plus publishing has changed and financial success is, really, the only measure of success, so literary value doesn't matter in the industry. I only wish distinction of quality mattered more within SF/F/H.
Otherwise, the short answer is: there has always been a division between "literary" literature and "popular" literature. For the purposes of this interview, let's discuss only the 20th century. Earlier in the century, science fiction, fantasy, and horror, as well as a lot of mystery and detection, were, for the most part, published in short form in the pulps. The pulp magazines were supposed to be titillating and entertaining; they weren't supposed to be "high art." SF/F/H then moved into "paperback originals" in the 1950s--a time when "real books" were considered to be hardcovers (and, mostly, still are).
If you can say that SF first "jelled" as a category in the 30s and started
getting academic respect in the 70s, that's about 40 years. Tolkien didn't
catch on till the late 60s/early 70s and he's just now getting academic
respect. Horror's different; it was mass culture (maybe the first mass
culture) in 1765. But if you want to count from the most recent "flowering" of
the 70s/80s then maybe you should wait another 10-20 years. Don't hold your
breath, though, academia is already entranced with horror film and the
literature is being, for the most part, overlooked (that's a story for another
time).
FWOMP: What do you think attracts you to horror? Do you think it draws a certain "type" of reader or writer? What makes it appealing?
PG: Right now, literature as a whole is so permeated with motifs and themes once considered "horror" territory that you can scarce avoid it. Let's see secret religious societies, ancient cover-ups, savage vengeance, and blaspheme is the #1 bestseller right now (The Da Vinci Code). Brutal rape, murder and a human monster bent on revenge (The Last Juror) is #2. Child rape and murder, communication between the living and the dead? The Lovely Bones, last year's biggie…
Everyone who reads, reads horror.
Personally, the good stuff makes me feel, the best stuff makes me feel and think, and the great stuff makes me feel, think, and seek.
FWOMP: When a horror story or novel works, why does it work? Who are some of your favorite writers, past or present?
PG: Assuming the mechanics that make writing "work" are present, it's hard to say. Horror is an emotion and emotions are personal. What scares or delights you is different than what scares or delights me. As we change in our own lives, what affects us emotionally changes, too. Plus horror itself is constantly evolving and changing to reflect what we, as a culture, feel.
It may sound like a cop-out, but I think you have to realize that what works for you may not work for me. At the same time, that doesn't mean that a writer should aim for the lowest common denominator.
I think the best horror is grounded in emotional authenticity, an author's ability to tap into his/her emotions or into the emotional Zeitgeist and convey that to the reader. That doesn't mean that you have to be afraid of ghosts, to write a good ghost story, but you have to tap into some form of personal fear. If you are working with societal fears, you have to have real feeling. You can't be completely emotionally detached.
As far as writers I admire--my laundry list is far too lengthy to even think about detailing./p>
FWOMP: What are the worst trends you see in the current market as far as writing goes? What common mistakes do you see authors making in terms of craft?
PG: If you are trying to sell a novel, I'm not sure it matters anymore if you write "well." Yes, you need to have sentences and basic grammar and structure, but beyond that, I think marketability is the major issue. Good prose is a bonus. Originality counts, but it's no guarantee.
If you are trying to sell short stories? My opinion doesn't matter. I don't edit anymore. If I did, I wouldn't publish a great deal of what I see in "second tier" anthologies and most of what I see in semi-pro magazines. So, obviously, I don't know.
What I used to see in submissions and elsewhere is a lack of understanding of what a story is and its structure, the skeleton of the beast. Horror is like jazz. Nothing else is as open to possibility and the musician/writer's talent-- but the structure of the music is always there.
As far as novels go, I sometimes see people who don't have the skills to write a grocery list attempting to write them. I think the utter lack of objectivity is a little disconcerting.
FWOMP: Give us a no-punches-pulled synopsis of the horror market today in terms of publishing opportunities. With that perspective in mind, what advice would you give to the fledgling horror writer?
PG: First off, don't think of yourself as a "horror writer." You are a writer. Use the category of horror, but don't restrict yourself to it. You may write horror, but don't confuse it with your lifestyle.
Secondly, realize that there's not a lot of money in writing for most people. It's not an "easy way to make a living" and it is getting harder. Just be realistic.
As far as short fiction goes, my previous comments speak to how clueless I feel evaluating it these days, but if you want to attract professional, top-level attention, work on quality over quantity. Make sure every story is a gem. Don't get caught in the "I must be published!" trap. Too many people are in denial about their abilities and think "being published" by Zombie Zest Ezine or Egomaniacal Magazine is some sort of validation.
And, please, don't publish a collection until you can fill it with good to great stories. Maybe you are an exception and have a bunch of great short stories, but let someone else decide that--like a reputable small publisher--not your friends or you.
In regards to novels, there is an extremely limited market for "genre" horror--the formula stuff. For the most part, it is confined to paperbacks and there are very few slots for new work and those slots are low-advance spots. Horror seems to have settled in to where it needs to be as far as filling mass market paperback slots--better than it was a few years back, but not growing (nor should it grow without demand). Exclude the mass market paperbacks of bestsellers, exclude the reprints of older books and recent hardcovers, exclude a few originals from established writers, exclude all of the movie and gaming tie-ins and you have very few slots left for new books by new people per year. How many people are trying for the same spot? 1,000? 10,000? Don't be discouraged, but, again, be realistic.
Some exciting and well-written, non-formula horror got published in mass-market paperback form back in the 80s and early 90s. So much crap was being published, some good stuff sneaked in, too. But it's different now. I'm not saying all mass-market paperback originals are formula fiction, but most are, and the market for it just isn't huge.
If you are serious about writing fiction, write something new, different, and original, then pray to be picked up by either a major publisher that doesn't necessarily publish "horror," but still, of course, publishes horror, or to be picked up by a small press that can act as a base from which you can garner good reviews. Right now it may actually be easier to get a first novel of any kind published, than to be an established writer. New writers are cheap, eager, and disposable. But you'd better make some sort of showing with that first or second novel. Publishing is all about money now, remember? Perform or die.
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Revision Date: 29 Jun 2004