Vincent’s Mirror
(ADMIN NOTE: – This post was published years ago by best-selling author Richard Steinberg. Since we are waiting for details on filling the slots on the 2nd and 3rd of the month, I’m choosing some old classics to fill the void. Enjoy!)
By
Richard Steinberg
“Eddie was truth. He more preferred living without rules than living with them, liked women, enjoyed (but was not particularly skilled at) physical sex, was frightened of emotional sex, wanted to be in control while seldom accomplishing the feat, and blindly attacked anything he feared. Henry was the lie, the façade adopted so that society might never glimpse the truth beneath. Why then is Eddie, for eternity, viewed as the monster? It was nothing personal, I’m certain. Mirrors are often called “monster,” Robert Louis Stevenson on his novel: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
I was at East Los Angeles College many years back, and while wandering through the art gallery there (a spectacular collection for a school of any size) I saw a familiar face . . . Vincent Price. I had met Vincent a couple of times while working security at Hollywood studios – I was still fighting to become a writer back then – and of course knew him from his films. He was standing in front of a painting (I’m not sure, but I think it was The Cat by Rafael Coronel, but I have been back so many times the paintings and the memories sort of swim together) studying it intensely.
I reintroduced myself and was pleasantly surprised when he not only remembered me, but recalled the last time we’d met.
“Are you a student here now,” he asked as he turned back to his review of the painting.
“No,” I answered. “I just come here for my soul.”
“Then you’ll enjoy our hall of mirrors,” he said with just a touch of a smile that was somewhere between mischievous and demonic.
Vincent believed that the essence of great art – and trust me on this, he knew great art – and perhaps of all art (great or not) was in that art work’s ability to serve as a mirror held up to the world to reflect back some horror, some beauty, some disfigurement, some perfection, some element of the world around us. And he believed that all art failed when, regardless of how it might succeed in other ways, it failed in its role as a mirror.
This is especially true in horror, speculative fiction, and dark fantasy.
To work in fiction is to be a juggler; trying desperately to keep all but one of the balls in the air, while grasping and concentrating on the one in your hand. There is storytelling, characterization, tonal color, setting, judgment, reader comfort, and a myriad of other critical things which must reach a careful mix for the piece to be a success.
And I am not saying that if you exclude “Vincent’s Mirror” as one of your elements that your story can not be a success.
But if your goal – as it is mine – is to not only write a commercially successful story but also one that does something to impact the quality of the world around you, then you can not exclude that world from that mix. It isn’t easy, but it is vital.
A friend of mine can’t start one of their books until they know the favorite ice cream of their lead character. Another writes elaborate character sketches involving how the character dresses, walks, talks, eats etc. A third has to decide on the amount of hair the lead character has before beginning. And since these are three very successful writers, their techniques certainly have validity. But that kind of forethought – while sometimes important – is not what I’m talking about now.
I’m talking abut the world of your story, of your lead characters; the world whose influence for good or evil is seminal in the reactions of that character.
Most modern horror writers – amateur and professional – are white, middle to upper middle class, suburban dwellers. And as such, most modern horror reflects this sensibility.
Zombies in shopping malls.
Knife wielders in bedroom communities.
Converted New England Carriage Houses haunted by demonic creatures.
Fine . . . as far is it goes.
But that’s landscape, not reflection.
Reflection is how your characters came to those suburbs or middle class idylls. Reflection is painting (with words) that “how” in such a way as to subliminally lead your reader to their first judgments. And first judgments, like first impressions, tend to last the longest.
So seriously consider your story’s reflective point – which will color everything else – before starting out.
Mary Shelly didn’t write about physical reanimation or monsters on a rampage, but reflected her world where – in the mirror of her eyes – she saw technological advancements outstripping man’s ability to understand the consequences of them
This was the mirror of Frankenstein.
Curt Siodmak didn’t write about throat tearing beasts or gypsy curses, but reflected his world where – in the mirror of his heart – he saw racism being accepted and not opposed, so long as the discriminated against could be properly demonized.
This was the mirror of The Wolf Man.
Robert Louis Stevenson didn’t write about good versus evil or man’s need to improve himself (these themes were added by commentarians years later) but reflected his world where – in the mirror of his soul – he saw Victorian and post Victorian societies ignoring the ugly (and what caused that ugliness) in hopes that it would just go away.
It didn’t go away – either in literature or London – and in fact brutally fought back against that judgmental beauty . . . much as Edward Hyde did in the mirror of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Set your mirror, and take a good look at the world around you. And when you see something that you think is wrong, is right, needs attention, make that your canvas for your piece. The canvas – the background, the thing subliminally there, if possibly never directly stated – which colors everything else laid on top of it.
This has nothing to do with your technical ability as a writer, even less to do with your professional or other experiences as a writer. On the contrary, this is the thing we ALL have the ability and the experience for. If you have lived, you can reflect.
And if you reflect what you see in the mirror of your eyes, heart, or soul, you have:
John Steinbeck’s: Cannery Row
Vladimir Nabakov’s: Lolita
Harlan Ellison’s: “Repent Harlequin,” said the Tick Tock Man
Isaac Asimov’s: Foundation
Stephen King’s: Carrie
Rod Serling’s: Night Gallery
But there’s an interesting thing about mirror reflections, all mirrors’ reflections. They don’t actually reflect the images that are in front of them.
They only reflect light.
And the more highly polished, the more carefully engineered and constructed they are, the less light that is lost in that reflection, and therefore the more true the reflection. But, invariably – in the most sophisticated mirrors in the most advanced spy satellites – some light is lost.
And some alteration in reality occurs.
So as I ask you to seriously consider standing up and being mirrors for (and perhaps of) your readers, I ask you to be imperfect mirrors. Reflect those aspects of the real world (in your unreal fiction) that you think deserve attention; deserve the light to be shined upon. And as you reflect that glory or hideousness, feel free to play with the light.
Playing with light is at the heart of all true mirrors.
At the heart of all true writers.
There’s a line in Norman Steinberg & Dennis Palumbo’s film, My Favorite Year, which I think best describes this. It happens near the end of the film, when Alan Swan – the Errol Flynnesqe character (played by Peter O’Toole) confronts a young man who idolizes the film persona that Swan projects. In desperate pain, Swan calls out to the young man: “This is me, life sized, no larger!”
To which the young man replies simply and from the heart: “I can’t use you life sized. I need Alan Swan’s as big as I can get them!”
Be a mirror, but be an imperfect mirror; one that reflects reality, but colors or exaggerates or minimizes that reality to better make your point. Be a mirror on which the monster or beasties or regular people or sprites live and play and die and prosper in the light reflected there. Let the reality of that imperfect light tinge everything in your story so that instead of writing another dead teenager story, you write one where we understand why the teenagers die.
Look into the mirror yourself – as painful and horrific as that can often be – and share with us what you see there.
Which brings me back to Vincent.
“How does the painting make you feel,” he asked me after a time.
“Uncomfortable,” I replied honestly, having been unable to come up with a convincing sounding erudite lie.
“Good,” he replied. “That’s what mirrors are supposed to do.”
That’s what we all are supposed to do.
“Vampires are not cursed; they are blessed in that they cannot see themselves in mirrors. Humanity is not so blessed, but cursed in that if we leave our eyes open, we are compelled to see ourselves,” Vincent Price
Reflect on this for a bit.
Believe!
