Last week, writers in my ghost story workshop at the community college expressed an interest in characterization and pacing, so I’ve been pulling together exemplars of each (along with a quick detour into unsettling atmosphere) from two of my favorite storytellers – M.R. James and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both of whom I’ve already gone on about at length elsewhere. I wrote about James’ story “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” last week and about Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” way back in September, so I’m going to dive in here as if you’re familiar with both. If you’re not, you’ll find links to free online versions at the end of this post.

Three techniques to steal from M.R. James & Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Suck readers in with atmospheric quicksand.

TL;DR: “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”

A skeptical academic discovers an ancient whistle on a seaside holiday, unwittingly summoning a terrifying spectral entity.

In “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad,” M.R. James creates a haunted landscape that is 100% quicksand for ghost story enthuiasts. While the Templar ruin and a barren shoreline conjure mystery, it’s James’ rich sensory details that help us experience the setting as if we were in it.

Bleak and solemn was the view on which he took a last look before starting homeward. A faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on which a few figures moving towards the club-house were still visible, the squat martello tower, the lights of Aldsey village, the pale ribbon of sands intersected at intervals by black wooden groynes, the dim and murmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back when he set out for the Globe [Inn]. He quickly rattled and clashed through the shingle and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groynes which had to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. One last look behind, to measure the distance he had made since leaving the ruined Templars’ church, showed him a prospect of company on his walk, in the shape of a rather indistinct personage, who seemed to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but made little, if any, progress.

Choose your words carefully when developing characters in doomed scenarios.

TL;DR: “The Yellow Wallpaper”

A woman descends into psychosis, exacerbated by the confinement and oppressive patterns of the wallpaper in the room where she is forced to rest.

In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator Mary offers an intimate first-person account of her post-partum confinement that personally engages the reader in her troubles. In the following passage, she describes her husband John as a highly rational individual, offering a subtle critique that implies he may be practical to a fault. In the same short passage, Gilman, the writer, reveals the narrator’s feelings of helplessness and isolation through her emotionally-charged word choice, the rushed pacing of her narrative, and Mary’s anxious exclamations. That’s a lot of characterization in a few powerful sentences.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and perhaps—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

You see, he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do?

If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?

Make every sentence count when it comes to pacing short stories.

Methodical, contemplative descriptions in James’ work contrast with Gilman’s rapid-fire stream-of-consciousness narrative and abrupt sentences, and yet both are masterful at pacing their stories to create rhythm, to stir emotions, and to propel the plot forward. This seventeen-word, multi-tool of a sentence from “The Yellow Wallpaper” helps to establish a pace dependent on furtively borrowed time, creating a sense of urgency and evoking panic that stirs readers to worry about Mary’s well-being.

There comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.

It also reveals information about both the narrator and her husband, highlighting the restrictive control John has over the narrator. It emphasizes the theme of oppression and the stifling of Mary’s creative expression. It subtly propels the plot forward by showing the growing tension between the narrator’s need for self-expression and the constraints imposed by her husband. It even sets the stage for the story’s climax. In short stories, every sentence has to do a little more lifting, so make each one count like Gilman and James.

Links

You can read the full text of “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” here or listen to the story here.

Read the full text of “The Yellow Wallpaper” here or listen here.