My issue with many horror movies and novels is when the characters do something that is so utterly stupid that it beggars belief. For example, in the novel Salem's Lot, the character Susan Norton, having learned that Mr. Barlow might be a vampire, decides to go and investigate the creepy mansion armed with a flimsy stake. Despite having the assistance of Badass Kid Mark Petrie, she promptly gets herself captured and vampirised. Obviously, I'm not a person living in smalltown USA that's slowly being taken over by vampires, and has suffered a number of mysterious deaths and disappearances lately, but it would seem to me that the first thing one does NOT do is to go marching straight to the creepy mansion. Most movies suffer from this, and many novels do too. But thinking about it, I'm not so sure if these things are quite as stupid as they first seem. So here's a scenario. You're driving along alone at night, on an unlit country road. Suddenly, your headlights illuminate what appears to be a young girl holding out her hand, standing stock still with her head down, her hair almost covering her face. You stop, and ask her if she needs a lift. The pale girl says nothing. On the contrary, she almost seems unresponsive. Do you: a) Drive on, perhaps put some country & western on the radio, and forget about the whole creepy encounter b) Help her into your car and try and find out where she wants to go, perhaps if she needs some medical attention? I would say a), but in a horror movie, the character is almost certain to do b) (of course, choosing a) rarely goes well). This would, at first glance, seem like a terminal case of the stupids when the girl transforms into some kind of eldritch horror and eats your face, or vanishes into thin air only to appear later at the foot of your bed staring at you. But is it really a stupid or unnatural move? Wouldn't someone naturally feel compelled to help someone who might be in distress (or maybe even get her into their car for some other nefarious purpose, which can be an entire plot point on its own)?
The pale girl says nothing. On the contrary, she almost seems unresponsive. Do you: Begin to think I might've walked into a book plot involving a decoy and ambush. Without further ado, I drive on, call 911, and report an individual at such and such a location who appears to be chemically or otherwise impaired.
Without the terminal stupidity, there would be less story. At least that's the way I take it. Choosing option a makes the horror something completely different and probably takes the writer is a direction they don't want to go. Neither option goes well though, as you noticed. Maybe the better option is to pick up a different book... just a thought
Being an adult male in the USA who reads the news on occasion, my view is that any male who stops for a female (or anyone, for that matter, but especially for a female) at night is certifiably insane. If you think she needs help, call 9-1-1. If you have no cell service -- drive on until you get a signal. I used to be a real Boy Scout type -- I picked up hitch hikers, I stopped to help other motorists who were broken down, all that stuff. But that was then and this is now. Potential horror stories aside, there's too much chance that a female will turn out to be a nutcase who will accept a ride and then claim you raped her in the car.
It's definitely more compelling when the characters are smart or resourceful and still lose. Ideally the character would think like Catriona or SapereAude, but still end up being a victim. That said, people do stupid things all the time. In the case of the boogie-girl road stop, I think it depends on the character's personality. Some people are less world-weary than others. There's also just... sense. Even really smart people can be intellectually remiss in glaring ways. We can't all be Muldoon.
With certain genres - like horror, the audience willingly suspend disbelief... they want to be sat there saying don't do it,don't do it.
I could be wrong, but I thought Susan Norton went to the Barlow house because she thought Mark Petrie was there and didn't want him to go there alone.
What if the girl runs out in front of the car and does a good imitation of being chased by someone before ensuring you hit her? Then she lies there unresponsive. Then your choices are: a) Leave a girl you ran over and is being chased lying in the middle of the road possibly dying b) Get the presumably defenceless girl into your car and take her to a hospital I think that (a) quickly becomes the best choice
Characters in fiction always take the most interesting or exciting action rather than the logical one. OF COURSE it's a better shout to just call the cops (or stop at a distance and call out, then maybe dial 911 saying there's a crazy person in the road), but there's no tension or story in that. The "stupid" action itself isn't the problem -- it's the failure to properly characterise them as someone who would take the riskier action. For example, after all the excitement of episode 1, Breaking Bad really slows down in episodes 2 and 3 and goes to great lengths to characterise Walter White as someone who, given the oppertunity to take money from his rich friends to save his own life, chooses to start a drug empire instead. It's the same sort of decision -- logical and easy, or stupid and dangerous -- just sufficiently characterised. Just on the subject of 'taking the fight to the vampires', it doesn't seem so stupid when a similar thing happens in The Lost Boys. This is because the Frog brothers are chracterised as exactly the kinda delinquant kids who would do something that crazy, and it's cleanly established the cops and adults won't believe them. Dunno the context for Salem's Lot, but it seems like a less significant plot point. And maybe Susan really is just stupid.
I think the action has to seem natural and plausible: we can bamboozle readers into missing obvious logical flaws, but it's better not to. This snippet:- You're driving along alone at night, on an unlit country road. Suddenly, your headlights illuminate what appears to be a young girl holding out her hand, standing stock still with her head down, her hair almost covering her face. You stop, and ask her if she needs a lift. The pale girl says nothing. On the contrary, she almost seems unresponsive. I think does the opposite of bamboozling. It's being as ominous as possible to the reader but this glaringly highlights that the character isn't doing anything illogical at all. The problem is simply that the POV has been lost. These aren't the words the (2nd-P?) character putting the girl in the car would use. If the POV character lives in our world, that's a world with definitely no vampires, so they see a rape victim, or someone who has survived a car crash. Is there blood? Is anyone else hurt? Is the perpetrator coming? Is this a plot to get me out of the car so I can be mugged? If I put her in the car will her parents press charges? There would be a lot of fear I think: about anything but vampires (or whatever the applicable monsters are for this story). There is telling-not-showing (of the sort that aims to steer reader interpretation) in "what appears to be" and "seems unresponsive" which would be iffy style even in a video game pop-up. The hair almost covering the face wouldn't get noticed before the car passes her: we'd drive past thinking "wtf did I just see?" and then we'd reverse back in case it was a lost child. We'd realise it was a crazy place to hitchhike. Is it a prank. And then the body language would scare the heck out of us - has she escaped from some cannibals? The questioning would start off trying to be calm, but probably escalate to frantic: are you okay, what's happened to you. Plain+polite Do you need a lift? might get missed. It's an intense moment for the character - so I'd suggest to put both feet squarely in their POV and rip out anything they wouldn't think of: like the road's being unlit. Of course it's unlit, they drive down it every Tuesday. It's a country road. It would be weirder if it was lit.
It's not a snippet of writing. It's a scenario - the question was, how would an average, rational person react?
It's writing. If anyone doesn't believe me they can scroll up and read it. My point is that the scenario (inevitably?) won't tell us the reaction of an average, rational person - because (inevitably?) it's somewhat suggestive and imparts value judgements and interpretative angles to the reader. In this case we can't avoid knowing it's about horror stories, so we parse the girl with the hair almost covering her face as a Sadako, or an Eli. To gauge the reaction of a rational character, or any character, I'm saying the scenario has to be written from their POV. Then it will be halfway to answering its own question.
It is, but it was not posted here for a critique. I don't mind if that's the take you want to apply to it, but it wasn't my intent.
I was going to offer you a critique, but I doubt you're interested. If I'm driving down a country road in the dark, the only thing I'm thinking about is which direction the highway is. I wouldn't stop for hitchhikers. So the answer is "a."
The reason I'm not looking for a critique is that, if I was writing the above scene in an actual story, I would do it differently. The little scenario is just a hypothetical one for this thread, it's much too cliché for me to really want to use it in a story. It's the typical "ghostly hitchhiker" scenario. Although that gives me an idea...
It's not so much a fake scenario as a highly cliché and tropey scenario, the kind that you see very often in movies. I chose it for exactly that reason. The underlying question is, would people really act that way in real life? You have to bear in mind that the characters in a movie would, presumably, live in a world where ghosts or monsters don't exist (as far as they know). So perhaps the "stupid" act isn't so stupid after all. But going back to the example of Susan Norton, she has just had a close encounter with a vampire - she was downstairs in Matt Burke's (the Wise Old Man) house when he went upstairs to confront a vampire. Although she didn't see the vampire herself, she felt the fear it emanated, and Matt is so frightened after seeing it that he has a heart attack. She was supposed to have met up with her boyfriend, the protagonist Ben Mears to go to the house, but he was put in hospital by her ex-boyfriend (who was also halfway to becoming a vampire). So she decided to go alone. Now, bear in mind, the town had been suffering some mysterious deaths and disappearances. Even assuming Mr. Barlow was NOT some kind of supernatural being, it's still possible he's a criminal, murderer or child-abductor. Susan, for the most part, is a level-headed girl, and at this point, is unsure whether she believes in vampires or not. That's why it seems like her going to the creepy house alone is a terminal case of the stupids.
