Notes from Maine - 2025/08/31

What was your last nightmare?

Mom was just joking with me a few minutes ago in the kitchen. She said that her ice cream last night gave her nightmares.

“What were they about!?” I asked with wide eyes.

I really wanted to know. People are always terrible at describing nightmares. I am too. Words can’t capture the terror that makes you freeze—makes you unable to run or scream. A few nights ago I had a nightmare. The details elude me now, but I remember thinking that I couldn’t possibly risk getting up and going to the bathroom. It was going to get me. As I shuffled across the floor I realized that I had already forgotten what it was. The fear was already washing away as I stepped over Albert and went to the hall. There wasn’t even a whiff of fright by the time I returned to bed. 

When I wake, I can sometimes recall the details of the monster, but never why it was frightening. Cloaked figures slowly emerging from the path behind the barn made me think I was going to suffocate. I couldn’t draw a breath. But why were they so terrifying? Maybe it was just because they represented the unknown. They didn’t belong—shouldn’t have been there. 

In books, the scariest foes are often normal, everyday subjects who are secretly evil. The dog from Cujo should have been a big, fluffy friend. Jame Gumb should have just been the weird guy next door, and not a monster who collected skin to make a “woman suit.” A “wolf in sheep’s clothing” is a good monster, but I’ve never experienced one in a nightmare.

Another good antagonist is the big, hellish monster. Nobody needs to tell you that the Xenomorph from Alien is going to be trouble. Every shiny, dripping tooth is a flashing neon billboard—trouble is coming. When Kane finds the big, wet eggs in Alien, he has to cross through a plane of lasers to get down to the lower level where the eggs are arranged. I always wondered who would do that. Who would break a visible plane of light in a crashed, alien vessel? Wouldn’t you assume that the beam was some kind of alarm system, or even defensive measure? By the end of Alien, we know that the Xenomorph is unstoppable. You can’t kill it. You can only survive by running. The terror in that movie is watching the characters come to that fatal discovery one at a time. 

The third kind of monster is horrifying because it’s so unknown and unknowable. My worst (best?) nightmares feature these kinds of bad guys. There’s something drastically wrong and I don’t know why. Lovecraft was good at describing a twisted world where everything was off. The scare comes from inside, as you realize that reality has come unhinged. Clive Barker is good at writing those types of stories too. The risk is that their view of reality is so bizarre that it can be unrecognizable. If you can’t relate to the characters and scenarios, they might fall flat. I like The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It shows the progress from control to chaos so well. You feel like you’re living it. That book hits home particularly well because the characters have opted in to the madness. That adds an extra layer of regret.

When I’m writing a horror story, I like to keep within the bounds of an internal logic. There are rules to the world I’m describing, even if I don’t lay them out for the reader. Sometimes the clues are too subtle and I get emails just filled with question marks. In Hunting Tree, it’s important (to me, at least) that the monster was a real person a couple thousand years ago. He is hunting his descendants because they carry a genetic defect that could wipe out Homo sapiens. My logic was this: if such a defect occurred, it might be accompanied by a corresponding instinct for self-destruction. If it wasn’t, then the defect might have already wiped out people. So, the monster creeps through the night, trying to wipe out anyone who shares his blood. I’m not sure how scary that book turned out. It has been a long time since I reread it. I remember an early agent reading the first chapter and saying, “I get it, but it’s just not scary.” They were right. That first draft was expositional, but it wasn’t scary. I was trying to frame the story with a fairy tale, and it just didn’t work. I had to rewrite the whole first part.

I’d love to be able to capture the terror of a really good nightmare. Those types of bizarre, unrecognizable monsters are difficult for me though. They defy my desire for logic. Maybe I’ll write a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” book. I’ve tried a couple of times. I guess Kill Cycle was the closest I’ve come to that Thomas-Harris-style villain. Maybe I’ll get inspiration from another bad dream. Feels like I’m due.