When Scott Bradley and I finished writing
The Dark, we were thrilled. We're even more thrilled now that the book has been published by Ravenous Shadows, but we were tickled nonetheless. For a couple of friends who met in the fourth grade and grew up reading horror novels, writing this one together was a dream come true.
The Dark is a novel with an interesting backstory, both in terms of how it came into Scott Bradley's life and how it eventually came into mine. So Scott and I wrote
separate Afterwords that told these stories behind the story.
Sadly, the Afterwords didn't make it into the book. Thanks to my trusty blog, however, we're ready to share those stories with you here.
Don't worry, these Afterwords contain no spoilers.
Enjoy!
AFTERWORDS
I’m
taking point here and gonna say that if we’ve done our job well—or even if we
haven’t—The Dark isn’t the kind of
novel that would normally require an afterword, let alone two.
Except,
this novel does require some
afterwords because there is a “story behind the story” that should be told of
how this novel came to be thanks to our editor at Ravenous Shadows, John Skipp,
and how Pete Giglio and I ended up writing it.
If
you’re even a casual fan of horror fiction, Skipp needs no introduction. From
splatterpunk poster boy in the eighties to beloved genre elder statesman today,
he does it all, solo and in collaboration.
He’s
the kind of guy who has many, many
ideas, creatively cross-breeding many genres. For instance, how many other
people do you know who have written
(A) several classic horror novels (The
Light at the End and many more.); (B) a butchered draft of a Nightmare on Elm Street movie (number
five, The Dream Child); and (C) the screenplay and songs for an award-winning musical
porn film (Misty Beethoven: The Musical!)?
I
actually have a brief dialogue role in that last one (fully clothed, mind
you!).
Skipp
has so many ideas that he just doesn’t get around to some of them, even with
his boundless enthusiasm, tireless work ethic, and various talented
collaborators.
The Dark was one of those ideas. And he
gave it to me. Here’s how it happened.
One
night in the unbearably hot Los Angeles summer of 2007, Skipp and I were
hanging out and watching a lot of movies on DVD. One of them was a little item
from 1979 called The Dark, which
bears absolutely no relation to the novel you just read.
I
can’t resist a small digression about this film. Apparently it started life as
your basic hulking-psycho-decapitating-people drive-in fodder. How great was
this movie seemingly destined to be? The fact that the killer’s first victim is
played by one Kathy Richards (these days better known as Paris Hilton’s mother)
should be all the answer you need.
Tobe
Hooper, hot off the original Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, was directing; the cast featured such seventies stalwarts
as William Devane, Cathy Lee Crosby, Richard Jaeckel, Keenan Wynn, and—I shit
you not—Casey Kasem as a police pathologist (no doubt cast because he was
buddies with the film’s producer—Dick Clark; yes, that Dick Clark).
How
could this go wrong?
Alas,
that’s when the clusterfuck began. First, Hooper departed the production
something like two days into shooting for reasons that remain obscure. He was
replaced by actor/stuntman/director John ‘Bud’ Cardos, who had previously
helmed the William Shatner-versus-arachnids epic, Kingdom of the Spiders.
In
myriad ways, this was not exactly Stanley Kubrick taking over from Anthony Mann
on Spartacus.
And
it’s not a turn of events that usually bodes well for a movie. For recent
examples of this phenomenon, see John Frankenheimer replacing Richard Stanley
on The Island of Dr. Moreau and Renny
Harlin replacing Paul Schrader on the Exorcist
prequel.
But
it gets better, ’cause someone involved in this debacle noticed that the
success of movies like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had
completely changed the game. Science
fiction was hot. Very. Lasers and aliens and none of that artsy-fartsy 2001: A Space Odyssey kinda stuff to
confuse people.
I
have no idea how exactly what happened next transpired, even after listening to
the DVD commentary twice, but I picture it going something like this:
PRODUCER-TYPE
#1: Hey! Sci-Fi’s big, y’know, with the
kids! Why don’t we make it an alien killer instead of just a human killer?
PRODUCER-TYPE
#2: But we already got all this footage that’s not sci-fi. It’s just the killer
stalking and the cops trying to catch him.
PRODUCER-TYPE
#1: Let’s have the killer guy shoot lasers out of his eyes. That’s alien
enough. And we’ll put a crawl at the beginning of the movie, like in that “A
long time ago in a Galaxy Far-Far Away” thing!
I
have a feeling the reality was even better than my speculations, possibly
featuring copious lines of cocaine, but I don’t want to be responsible for any
scurrilous rumors that substance abuse might have been involved in the making
of this film.
Anyway,
to end the digression and segue back to the point—and speaking of substance
abuse—Skipp and I were pretty hammered as we hooted and hollered and gawked at The Dark. A great time was had by all,
especially when one of us (can’t remember which) noted how completely generic
and unrelated the title The Dark was
to the film itself.
Like
one of the aforementioned Producer-Types suggested, “Let’s just call it The Dark! That sounds scary!”
As we
considered that, Skipp said: “Did I ever tell you about the idea I had for a
story called The Dark?”
Well,
no, he hadn’t. I knew the shitty movie we had just watched, and I was aware
that there was a James Herbert novel called The
Dark, which I hadn’t read. But he’d never told me any idea of his using
that title.
So
Skipp told me. He sketched out the basic premise (the Dark becomes sentient and
malevolent) and a chunk of the narrative (single mom overseeing slumber party
as the shit hits the fan). Then we parted ways for the night.
And
I went to bed. Sitting in the dark and thinking about The Dark (the John Skipp version). The story, for lack of a better
word, haunted me.
What
a great idea, both viscerally and metaphorically!
I
found myself obsessing on it, so—a couple of days later over lunch—I flat out
asked Skipp: “That story you told me, The
Dark. You gonna write that?”
Skipp
said no. He had a new solo novel (The Long Last Call) about to come out
and was brewing various other fiction and film projects, and just being
generally Skipptastically busy (as he usually is).
So
I admitted that I was kinda interested in taking a crack at the story, and,
hey, would he mind if…?
No.
Skipp didn’t mind at all.
Then
he helped me plot out the whole thing on a few hundred note cards. When we
couldn’t figure something out – a plot point or a character or an idea - we’d
make a card for that too. This is the way Skipp works.
I
was collaborating with one of the greatest horror writers of our time, except
he wasn’t plotting this out as my co-author. He was doing it as a friend and
mentor and the big brother I never had (I have two awesome sisters, but never
had a big brother to kick my ass when it needed kicking and cheer me on when I
needed cheering—Skipp has filled that role very ably on both counts).
We
got The Dark plotted. I started
making exploratory jabs at writing it. Then Fate stepped in.
Ironically,
not Fate in a bad way, but rather a good way.
Because,
my girlfriend Amy Wallace (bestselling author of many books, fiction and
non-fiction) and our friend Del Howison (award-winning genre editor, esteemed
fiction writer, and proprietor of the great horror bookstore, Dark Delicacies,
in Burbank, California) had been discussing doing a horror-focused spin-off of
the bestselling The Book of Lists (a
series launched in 1977, originally conceived and executed by Amy, her brother
David Wallechinsky, and their father Irving Wallace).
Well,
you’re not gonna believe what happened next – it’s hard for me to believe – but
big time publishers HarperCollins bought our proposal for The Book of Lists Horror.
Naturally,
The Dark – and everything else - went
wayyyyyy on the back burner.
Skipp
understood. He even threw in massive amounts of hard work and moral support on The Book of Lists Horror as our “Fifth
Beatle.”
Flash-forward
a couple of years. Skipp edited his fourth successful anthology of zombie
fiction. So successful that he was asked by its publisher to do a follow-up
called Werewolves and Shapeshifters: Encounters
with the Beast Within.
Skipp
invited me to contribute. I was killing myself to conceive something, anything,
but the best I could come up with was “C.I.A. werewolves” (don’t ask).
Around
that time I was catching up with my friend Pete Giglio, with whom I went to
elementary, junior high, and high school. We’d gotten back in touch via the
magic of the Internet; Pete had been reading and writing and pursuing his own
creative endeavors.
So
I said to Pete: “Should we take a crack at this shapeshifter thing for Skipp’s
anthology together?”
Pete—always
up for a challenge (and ask anyone, especially
Pete – working with me is always a
challenge)—was in. We worked out a story, inspired by the twisty-turny novels
of William Goldman (we even have Skipp to thank for that, when he asked me, “Wonder what a shapeshifter story by
Goldman would be like?”).
Wrote
it. Sent it to Skipp. I didn’t think we had a chance of getting accepted, any
more than I thought Amy, Del, and I would sell The Book of Lists Horror.
Needless
to say, I’ve learned the power of negative thinking, ‘cause our tale, “The
Better Half: A Love Story”, was accepted for Werewolves and Shapeshifters (I was in Hanoi, Vietnam, with my Dad
when I got the email that Skipp dug the story; how cool is THAT?)
Call
it a life-changer or a game-changer or…
…just
call it two dumbasses from Springfield, Missouri, ending up in an anthology
with the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and Angela Carter and Chuck Palahniuk and Joe
R. Lansdale and George R.R. Martin and the proverbial “many, many more.”
Bottom
line: John Skipp pulled the trigger on our careers as fiction writers.
So—one
more flash-forward (this is getting to be like a Nicolas Roeg movie or
something, isn’t it?)—in 2011 Skipp was named Editor Maximus of Ravenous
Shadows, the horror/suspense/mystery/thriller wing of Ravenous Romance.
After
delivering this news, Skipp asked, “So what are you thinking about The Dark?”
I
knew he’d been disappointed with me on the project, though - bless him - he
never actually said it to me. Even with the extenuating circumstances of Book of Lists Horror, I’d done zero with
The Dark. As in nothing.
Sometimes
the fat manila envelope marked “The Dark
Cards” would catch my eye; I’d turn away guiltily and start farting around on
the Internet.
But
now there was a new player in the game, and formidable one—Peter Giglio, who’s
that rare combination of prolific and
talented. In addition to being my oldest and dearest friend, he’s also the
dream collaborator: Hard-working and dedicated to Getting It Right. Ready to
concede a point or ready to argue, whatever it takes. Always without anger or
ego; always in aid of solving the problem on any project he’s involved in.
“I was thinking about The Dark,” I said, “and wondering if I should do it with Pete.”
“You
should definitely do it with Pete,”
Skipp replied with an excited grin. “That way you might actually write it!”
And
that’s how the novel you just read happened.
—Scott Bradley
Los
Angeles, CA
December
22, 2011 (Winter Solstice)
In
2007, not long after Scott and Skipp’s initial plotting of The Dark, I had the pleasure of getting back in touch with Scott.
We’d met in the fourth grade, stayed friends through high school, and then gone
our separate ways, as people often do when the time comes for higher education.
We
reconnected on MySpace.
Ah,
social media. Say what you will about it, but let me say this first: Without
it, I never would have been reunited with my dear friend. And the novel that
you just read or are getting ready to read…well…it might not exist at all.
Over
the last four years, Scott and I have had many conversations. In them, Scott
spoke of The Dark from time to time.
He even laid out the plot a few times. And I listened to each telling like it
was the first, because I dug the story.
No.
I didn’t just dig it. I loved it! Still do!
But
I had no illusions that I’d ever be part of it.
The Dark was a sacred gift to Scott
Bradley from none other than horror legend John Skipp. I’m very fond of Skipp
and his work, and I’m proud to call him a friend. But he’s more than that to
Scott.
To
Scott, he’s a brother, much the same way Scott’s a brother to me. And, as I’m
sure you can understand, Scott was very protective of The Dark.
So,
in the summer of 2011, when Scott asked me to write The Dark with him, I asked, “Are you sure?” He said something to
the effect of, “If you’re sure you’re up it.” I was all-too-pleased to respond,
“Hell yes!”
We
set up a work schedule, had a few discussions, wrote a proposal, and the deal
was set.
The Dark was going to be a novel by Scott
Bradley & Peter Giglio, edited by John Skipp.
I
was thrilled.
Scott,
before flying to Southeast Asia on one of his fantastic Father-Son trips, sent
me the note cards that he and Skipp had written four years earlier.
They
were out of order.
But
that wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, had they not been out of order, I might have
shuffled them anyway. Putting the cards in order, trying to make sense out of
them—for instance, a card would say “DARK D.J.,” the next card would say
“Minefield,” then the next would say “Claire struggles with her inner-Dark,”
and…you get the idea—was an important part of the process. It connected me to
that long-ago night in the summer of 2007. I even had a few beers as I worked
through the cards, just to get into the spirit of the whole thing.
I
was part of The Dark.
Once
the cards were in order—or as close to “in order” as I was going to get them—I
started filling in the blanks. I pieced together a pretty strong outline (5,000
words) and sent it off to Scott. He made changes, and we had discussions, but
that outline, for the most part, represents the structure of the novel we ended
up writing. Much of it came from the cards. Much of it came from me. Ain’t
collaboration a beautiful thing? I think so!
I’m
pretty damned proud of that outline. Proud that I got it. And happy that I
could be part of putting the story together. This wasn’t just going to be a
paint-by-numbers assignment where I got to take part in writing someone else’s
book. Trust me, I’d have been okay with that considering the story behind the
story.
But
I was elated it was going to be more. Positively giddy that I got to take
chances, create characters and scenes, and have some fun.
I
won’t bore you with a lot of stories from the writing process.
In
short…
We
had good days.
We
had bad days (Scott actually spent one day in the ER and two days in the ICU
due to complications from Type 1 Diabetes during the writing of this novel).
We
had arguments (No, Scott, you don’t land a joke right after a beloved character
dies).
And
we, since we were never in the same room (or, for that matter, the same state)
during the writing of The Dark, gave
each other several virtual high-fives—again, thanks to the miracle of social
media (though we’ve both, happily, upgraded to Facebook).
That’s
my story of The Dark. And I’m
sticking to it!
—Peter
Giglio
Lincoln,
NE
January
2, 2012
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