Tales to Astonish!

Actually, I don’t know how annual it really is, since I wasn’t even blogging at this time last year. Anyway, I’ve got a good one this time — maybe even better than the last (and only) contest! Why is it so good this time around, you ask? It’s so good because I stole the idea in its entirety from an old horror blog I used to visit prior to it being interred in the Dead Blog Cemetery. Thanks, Dark But Shining!

Their contest went a little something like this: readers were presented with the opening few paragraphs of a decidedly non-horrific novel, and the brave writers in the crowd were challenged to use them as a starting point for the best damn horror story they could come up with. The three winning entries were published on the three days leading to Halloween, and the writers all went on to become famous novelists and a millionaires. Except the first-place winner, of course, who was cursed to spend the rest of his days writing about Coney Island and punk shows. Them’s the breaks!

The editors over in that fog-enshrouded part of the blogosphere offered up the opening to Kate Douglas Wiggin’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, but I felt like going with something a little closer to my own cold little heart: the first three paragraphs of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. I love horror, and I love pulp, and together I bet they make a beautiful sound — but that part’s up to you!

Here’s how it works: you’ve all got from now until October 25th to get your entries emailed to me at retropolitan at nineteenthirtynine dot net. Ideally, I’m looking for around 500-1000 words (not including Chandler’s UNEDITED excerpts at the start of your tale), but go wild if you feel you must, and try to keep it in the hard-boiled pulp style. Just don’t forget that you’re turning this into a horror story, gang, so make it as ghoulish and creepy as you can! Since I have fewer regular readers than DBS (probably even after they shut it down), I’ll only be picking one big winner from the entries, unless I have an unexpected surplus of submissions. Winner gets a MYSTERY PRIZE, and in case you’re worried, I will clearly label the nude photos of me so that you don’t accidentally open them in front of your children. Everybody got that? Good! Go be creative and have some fun, and let me know in the comments if you’re going to participate!

The first three paragraphs of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep are after the break.

“IT WAS ABOUT ELEVEN O’CLOCK in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the visor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn’t seem to be really trying.

There were french doors at the back of the hall, beyond them a wide sweep of emerald grass to a white garage, in front of which a slim dark young chauffeur in shiny black leggings was dusting a maroon Packard convertible. Beyond the garage were some decorative trees trimmed as carefully as poodle dogs. Beyond them a large green house with a domed roof. Then more trees and beyond everything the solid, uneven, comfortable line of the foothills.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Halloween!, Words!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.