Jesse P. Hiltz - Not by Needs nor Nature

Today there are two new posts. I'm posting part III of Persistence, the hot new story recently rejected by Gaspereau Press. If you've been reading along and wondering about where all this supposed 'horror' is at, this section of the story will hopefully satisfy; it's where things really start picking up speed. You'll find Part III: Stories directly below this post.

But before I get to that, I also want to recommend something else for you to read. This is the work of my good friend Jesse P. Hiltz, which you can find at his writing blog, Not by Needs nor Nature.

Jesse is a man well-versed in the philosophical critical approach, and this knowledge finds its way into everything he writes (it is also the reason why my review of his work won't be nearly as far-reaching as his review of mine, which is an interesting little essay in its own right on the essence of horror). Never satisfied with a simple approach, Jesse evaluates all things from all sides, drawing out and often tearing down our inherent assumptions- assumptions about what it means to read, assumptions about what the real purpose of story-telling is, and (perhaps the greatest fiction of all) the assumption that there is an absolute and inviolable barrier between reader and thing-read.

His latest and (I think) most impressive fictional(?) work is now being posted in sections on his blog. This story, The Split, is a fascinating study of the idea of motivation and guilt, framed within the hazy bounds of a horror story that often seems more like a dream. As we read, we begin to realize that the story is not merely an isolated report of events but the actual product of those events and maybe even the motivator for future events not recorded in the story itself. This is the reason for the question mark above. In the story's process of drawing itself into itself, it also causes itself to go beyond its fictional barriers; as the real story is drawn into the fictional event, the fictional event becomes bound up against the real story and acquires a realness of its own. In the end we are left with the question of what exactly we mean when we say that a thing "has happened."

The Split was written at about the same time as my story, Persistence, and both are the result of hours and hours of frantic discussion between Jesse and I regarding the nature and purpose of horror. This includes the how-and-why of being 'horrified' by things, and the oft-overlooked distinction between 'horror' and 'fright'; ignorance of which leads certain writers (to name no names) to think that merely injecting a stock monster into an otherwise mundane situation is cause enough to label the resulting product a work of horror. In the end, I think that these two stories, the result of that discussion, are complimentary manifestations of a shared outlook; as the one argues that the reality of horror is essentially fear of one's own self, the other takes this one step further, adds the social element, and explains how this fear of self can be spread to or shared by others; although- crucially- the result is not fear of the other, but rather a sense of shared guilt, and an acknowledgment of the fact that all human motivations are essentially entwined.

Take a look at his stuff and I'm sure you'll be impressed. If you've been reading Persistence, I'd suggest you get caught up on The Split, and read the two side-by-side as we post them; they were written side-by-side and they are brothers.