Which ones do you think are hooey?
More important, why do you think so?
Even more important, how can you avoid these writers’ mistakes and make your fiction seem more “real”?
I’ve been reading them every year for well over a decade. I can’t conclusively prove any story is fake. The editors and writers rarely suppose or reveal a fake story. The very idea of “fake” presupposes the events did not occur. It is possible the events are “true”, but the process of writing and editing the story, embellishing or rearranging those events, made the stories more traditionally compelling, but too pat, and not seem “real”.
Every year I eagerly go to Jezebel, read these, and grumble “fake, fake, fake…” Then “ooh that might have happened. Why do I think this one happened?”
This is what makes a story seem more “real” to me:
Avoiding traditional plot beats. Some of the Jezebel stories start out with small creepy events, build to disturbing occurrences, to finally burst into a decidedly frightful outcome. You know, just like a fictional spooky story. Reality seldom follows a beginning, escalate, climax. Reality is most often in media res: something’s been going on for a while, then the observer becomes involved. Or the events are disparate. Scattered. Happening to different people at different locales with the information of those events not being brought together until much later.
Mundane “cinematography”. Real life does not translate well into art. Few dramatic images. And real life never uses director tricks found in student films. Take the Jezebel story where the nurse is watching a surveillance monitor switching through camera feeds, or the story where the spooky thing gets closer each time the protagonist looks away. I know I’ve seen a movie with the feeds, and three movies with that spooky thing getting closer when you look away.
Avoiding conclusions or convenient supporting info. “Much later, I was told that a serial killer had lived in that apartment.”
Having emotional impact. Remember that story with the nurse and the cameras? She had been told about a priest coming to bless Room Four, but she didn’t know why. So a patient was put in this room. She saw a shadowy figure on the camera. The patient died of “heart attack”. She quit her job. No mention of that dead patient, though. Shruggy emoticon!
All of this year’s Jezebel stories, with the slight exception of the attempted kidnapping one, end with “shruggy emoticon.” No long term trauma or guilt because the characters have no life outside the story. There is no effort to create a sense of loss carried outside the story.
Let’s look at a found footage movie that I think gets it right, “Hell House LLC.” Writer/director Cognetti starts the movie “documentary” by telling the characters the Abaddon Hotel is haunted. Almost the first third of the movie is spent establishing characters. The prankster friend-cameraman finds the first weird events, but everyone believes his footage is faked. Tension builds due to the tight, twisting halls and stairs, not camera tricks. The climax builds due to the occult influences counting down to Halloween night. Look for this movie. No gore. No cheating. Just suspense. At the end, things get implausible but by then you’re hooked.
A traditional movie that seems “real” is “Session Nine”. At the end of the story, not a single character fully understands what has happened to them. The viewer does and it’s chilling. I wish I could write something like this.
I’ve seen short stories which eschew three-beat plots and get their chills from plausibility. Author Gemma Files seems to be making this style her niche and I encourage you to find her work online.
I’ll point out others who do really well whenever I can.
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