Gingerbread

My brain is a radio. Not the digital ones we all have in our cars and bedrooms, but one of those brown boxes with the loose dials and bent antennas that need to sit on top of a pile of unread books to catch the staticky station between 91.1 and 93.7 FM. The sort that works best in the darkest spot of a cold attic. I really have no better way of expressing what it’s like in here, other than it's dusty and confusing.

Writing makes me feel as close to normal as I'm capable of reaching. It tunes the radio station. A big problem I have is that nothing I write is “written” until it has a cover and is sitting on a shelf. I need the finality, the closure. Validation through accomplishment. Every tiny adjustment of the dial makes the station clearer, but not every station comes in perfect.

As loudly as my brain screams for perfection, sometimes impatience wins. The station comes in clear enough, and I settle for okay.

Full disclosure: I miss the imperfections in the analog world that we’ve wiped away with digital rags. Poltergeist wouldn’t be the same in a 21st century context.

Not your grandma's horror story

What did I write?

Gingerbread is a three-star book. No more, no less. The best thing about this book is the cover. Well, the cover and the antagonist, Tabitha. Here’s some background.

I wrote this story in college. It was a screenplay originally titled The Path Through the Woods. Alexandra Redding, the protagonist, was meant to be a sort of twisted Little Red Riding Hood (hence “Redding”) who goes into camping with her friends and finds a haunted Victorian mansion in the middle of the Northern Minnesota forests. Said mansion is haunted by skinless children (to give readers the ick), surrounded by mysterious fog (to keep the group isolated), guarded by demonic werewolves in that fog (because scary), and ruled over by supernatural witch who systematically kills everyone except Ally, who discovers that she’s the witch’s stepdaughter (because evil stepmother).

Blood, guts, shitty one-liners, and a banal love story contained within an academically formulaic three-act structure.

In the end, Ally was sucked into Hell by the antagonist and would need to fight her way out. There would be three movies in total. Pure, beautiful B-movie schlock I desperately wished would be produced by one of the many small Canadian horror movie studios.

It sat alone in a blue folder for nearly twelve years.

Why, after a decade, did I decide to turn this into a novella? Two words: Tabitha Blanchette, the Arrowhead Skinner. Okay, that’s five words, but you get what I’m saying. 

To paraphrase Gillian Flynn, I love a woman who is practical in her evil. However, I wish these women were more brutally violent in their approach without being judged harshly by the masses. While I love a jilted lover with a sinister plan and a well-honed length of carbon steel, there’s just something about a brilliant madwoman with a shotgun, a sick sense of humor, and a vendetta against the world that gets me all dewy.

I really thought I could pull something off with Tabitha. I still do, despite how easily I can criticize the book.

Hisssssss, fsssssst, kshhhhhsh

Where did I go wrong?

Tabitha Blanchette isn’t much different than the great ones she’s modeled after—by whom I mean Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and other supernatural killers from the 80s and 90s. (Ah, the Golden Age.) However, where those boys were metaphors for id-driven bloodlust, Tabitha has actively chosen to be evil for the power it provides. There’s no madness in her. Power demands a price, and that price is pain. She’s a human capable of feeling love and pain and betrayal, but her indifference for the suffering of others is what makes her monstrous. She has no empathy for anyone outside of those she chooses to love.

Is this made clear in the book? Nope. Why? I got too eager to pad my back catalog, got blinding by excitement, and swung wide for that 80s and 90s horror icon nostalgia and fucking whiffed. Essentially, I let the plot get in the way of the story, because the most interesting character didn’t have room to breathe.

For everything she could have been, I did Tabitha dirty in Gingerbread by not giving her a goal beyond getting free of this esoteric “family curse” keeping her trapped. Sure, the kills are fun, but the narrative balance isn’t there. As much as I liked Ally, she was a poor foil for Tabitha. The rest of the characters are entirely too one-dimensional to really bring her to life, and the prose isn’t good enough to give the story the strength it wants. Tabitha, the Arrowhead Skinner, is the most interesting character in the book, and there’s entirely too much static surrounding her.

If you can hear this picture, you're my people

“Jesus, dude! Why are you shit-talking your own book? Aren’t you trying to sell copies?”

Listen, fictional dialogue I invented purely to keep this conversation on the rails, the stuff I publish isn’t about making money. John Gardner made a good point: If you want to be a novelist, marry well or be independently wealthy. Otherwise, you’re going to be more marketer than writer.

I work in marketing. I don't want to live in it.

Agents aren't calling. Small presses are already overwhelmed by an increasingly saturated market. Writing to said market for a contract, satisfying an audience for a handful of pennies, and spending more time shilling on social media than writing are not in the cards. I’ll never be without a day job, so I've leaned into the next best thing: I’m having fun.

I’ve always fantasized about being the "money." The fabulously wealthy joint-owner of a sports team or an insanely lucrative opera house in the Rockies or the Alps. The silent partner who is the true power behind the throne but doesn’t want to participate in the day-to-day activities of running the business because I’m too busy tucked away in my snow-covered cabin just outside Lake Louise—but close enough to walk into town for a burger and diet pop—writing about women with chainsaws and brass knuckles.

Since that life is a pipe dream, I’ll talk shit about my books if I want. Especially when it's warranted. "Having fun" isn't license to ignore artistic or professional discipline for the sake of getting something done. Besides, when did taking personal accountability and holding one's self to an established set of standards become something to disparage?

2016, maybe?

Dialing it back in

Gingerbread could have, and should have, been much better than it is. Then again, I’m convinced the headstones of every book I write will read "Would’ve been brilliant in the hands of a better writer." Gingerbread is a weak book but isn’t a bad story. It’s just very middle of the road, the way Final Destination 5 is. Of course, hindsight being 20/20, I thought it was fucking amazing when writing it.

So, if you’re in the mood for something to tickle your inner direct-to-video nostalgia, give it a shot. Ray and Shane are treated unfairly. Kara does a fine job of being the mean girl. Michelle and Maddy reveal some of Tabitha’s humanity while losing theirs. Nic gets what he deserves. Both Ally and Tabitha should’ve been more.

Maybe they’ll get their chance. I’ve just started drafting Gingerbread 2, but I’m not sure how dark I want to be with it. Hot Demon Bitches Near You has a tongue-in-cheek feel pressed up against the gore that tips it into the dark comedy-horror subgenre more than horror with comedy elements. While the first 50 pages of Gingerbread 2 are veering the same way, I’m personally feeling a little darker than usual. More Clive Barker than John Carpenter, if you know what I mean. For you TTRPG folks, more Kult: Divinity Lost than Call of Cthulhu.

I guess we’ll see how things shake out. My heart has been in a heroic contemporary fantasy love story for the past couple of years. Now that it’s drafted and being edited, the static around it is starting to get louder, the demand for me to stop messing with it more insistent. Shadows are beginning to gather and they’re looking for blood.

Maybe I’ll give the dial a little twist and see what voices break through the sibilance.