Illustration by Boris Dolgov, who deserved a better story.
Things I have learned by reading garbage in WEIRD TALES, Lesson Three.
Never hunt for the single right verb or noun. Instead, bloat entire paragraphs with fumbling abstractions and needless qualifications:
"Being older than either of my two guests, I had, possibly, learned to be diplomatic; sufficiently so, at least, not to have thrust myself unnecessarily into a situation à deux where my tactful absence would have been better appreciated than my presence. I had seen nothing, after all, but Peter's restraining hand on Hank's restive shoulder, and the disappearing swirl of a girl's abbreviated skirts and long cloak into a part of the woods where the low undergrowth was not yet entirely denuded of foliage. All I had heard had been Hank's exclamation, coming almost directly upon the girl's scream. Peter must have been quick in his reaction.
"'Take your hand off me, you damned young cub!' had shouted Hank, with uncontrolled passion for which I did not at the moment entirely blame him. No man relishes the admonishing restraint of a youngster, in front of a woman particularly, no matter how much he may have deserved it."
You can darken this narrative smog by avoiding the simple past tense or even useful infinitives, and by gumming up the prose with present participles:
"We three men were hugging the open fire closely. The raw chill of that November night had closed in around us and the blazing logs yielded grateful warmth.
"Peter Murray was leaning forward in his chair, looking absent-mindedly into the leaping flames that sent flickering shadows to dancing on the walls behind us. Hank Walters was staring at Peter and I was watching both my guests with curious speculation that had risen in me since that afternoon’s encounter."
Never use a clear, simple verb like "to say," when you can type anything else along with an adverb:
"'She's done it! I knew she would!' cried out Peter frantically, and that gripping hand of his began to draw me forward through the woods recklessly."
. . .
"'Poppycock!' I retorted tartly."
. . .
"'You know perfectly well he didn't mean it,' I objected lamely."
Lamely, yes, but remember -- if one adverb is good, then two or even more can be just dandy:
"That reddish luminosity was bobbing unevenly up and down, as if it came from a lamp borne upon the head of a person walking rapidly, swimmingly, across uneven ground."
Did you notice that awkward repetition, that almost-end-rhyme? Stylistic gold!
Above all, avoid any straightforward account of a story's narrative. Complicate, complexify, discombobulate:
"Knowing Hank's proclivities, I could reconstruct the scene fairly well. He must have come upon the girl before she realized his proximity, and mischievously pulled off her pointed cap with the tassel that hung to her shoulder, confidently relying upon his vaunted masculine charm to smooth over the situation if it should unexpectedly tend toward the unpleasant.
"The girl had sprung to her feet, snatched for her cap, which Hank had thrust tormentingly behind him. Whereupon she had let out that eldritch scream. And the scream brought Knight-Errant Peter tearing out of the woods behind them, to remonstrate with Hank, who had naturally resented the interference. The girl had taken advantage of Hank’s momentary unguardedness to snatch, vainly, for her pointed cap, then had fled incontinently without it.
"With dismayed astonishment I had heard her scream, for it was not a scream of surprise; it was a cry of pure anger, of such depth and intensity that it started shivers running up and down my backbone. It was almost un-human in its expression of thwarted fury; arousing in me a powerful curiosity to see this girl who was so capable of such a strength of emotion. At the same time, I felt a dread of seeing her, as if she might prove to be more than my old eyes would care to take in."
Be your eyes old or be they young, may they soak up our lesson of WEIRD TALES garbage to the dregs.
-- Quotations from
"Death Has Red Hair," by Greye La Spina.
WEIRD TALES, September 1942.
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