Tag Archives: Simon Dillon

Why the Best Tragedies Are Funny

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Image by Kellie Nicholson from Pixabay

NOTE: The following is a revised version of an article originally published on Medium, where I’ve published a number of writing advice pieces.

Warning: Contains spoilers for Legends of the Fall, The Godfather Part II, Oedipus Rex, The Remains of the Day, The Illusionist, The Empire Strikes Back, and Blackadder Goes Forth.

Several years ago, I went to see Legends of the Fall. The film featured fine direction from Edward Zwick, an A-list cast that included Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, Julia Ormond, and Henry Thomas, and gorgeous, Oscar-winning cinematography courtesy of John Toll. I hoped for a sweeping, epic tear-jerker, but it turned out to be one of the most unsuccessful attempts at tragedy I have ever seen on film. The screenplay features poorly motivated, unconvincing characters, who then have tragedy upon tragedy piled upon them. The ludicrous escalation of misfortune becomes numbing, and eventually even funny.

Throughout the film, I was acutely aware of the audience’s emotional response. The first great tragedy occurs with the death of Henry Thomas’s character in World War I. Audience reaction: Sombre silence, but no-one was particularly upset, as we didn’t have a handle on who he was enough to miss him.

This was merely the first act. Another tragedy occurred shortly afterward. Then another, and another, until I heard disgruntled snorts from fellow patrons. Towards the end, when the character played by Anthony Hopkins has a debilitating stroke, the audience finally erupted with derisive laughter. Why? Because we’d been bludgeoned over the head with an unrelenting stream of big tragic events, to the point where it was absurd to expect us to be upset any longer.

Legends of the Fall contained none of the counterpoint vital to generating a satisfying tragic tale, comedic or otherwise. Before explaining how and why such counterpoint works, I am going to explore two different tragedies, and why counterpoint is essential to the success of all tragic writing. This applies whether they are based on irony, fatal character flaws, circumstantial disaster, or other traditional English literature definitions.

The Tragedy Spectrum

“I used to be partial to tragedy in my youth, until experience taught me life was tragic enough without my having to write about it.” — Amon, Clash of the Titans.

I cite the above quotation not because I agree with it (although I share the sentiment to a degree), but because it hints at the two kinds of tragedy, we invariably encounter in stories. If it is your ambition to write impactful, meaningful, convincing tragic drama, whether for stage, television, film or in prose, you must first decide what kind of tragedy you wish to write. I have devised what I term the Tragedy Spectrum.

Melodramatic Tragedy

At one end of the spectrum, we have what I loosely term “melodramatic tragedy”. This deals with the accidentally killing-one’s-father, marrying-one’s-mother, and gouging-one’s-eyes-out kind of tragedy. It is big, melodramatic, and often overheated. Not that it can’t be interesting, convincing, and moving. Sometimes a blunt instrument is the most effective tool, but it has to be well deployed. With Legends of the Fall, it was not.

However, with Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex (flippantly alluded to above), it works. It also works in everything from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, to great novels including Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, and Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Many films also feature successful uses of melodramatic tragedy, including Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II and Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.

These narratives feature large-scale tragedies that wear their hearts on their sleeves, attempting to make the biggest potential impact on the audience. Whether Hamlet’s bloody vengeance, resulting in the deaths of most of the key characters, or King Arthur’s tragic fall at the hands of his bastard son Mordred, or Michael Corleone deciding to murder his own brother, these stories exist squarely at the melodramatic end of the scale.

This kind of tragedy we are mercifully unlikely to experience. Most of us aren’t destined to unknowingly murder our fathers, sleep with our mothers, and gouge our eyes out. Nor are we likely to discover our uncle has murdered our father, undertaking procrastinating vengeance that winds up with the deaths of our entire family, whilst others around us go insane and commit suicide for good measure. Nor are we likely to become the head of a mafia organisation and commit fratricide to consolidate our power. These kinds of tragedies, when well-written, make for a gripping, dramatic story we can enjoy from a safe distance, knowing it is exceptionally unlikely we will one day find ourselves in the protagonist’s shoes.

Private Tragedy

At the other end of the spectrum, we have what I call “private tragedy”. This deals with more intimate, everyday, small-scale heartbreak and loss. As Henry David Thoreau famously put it: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation”. These tragedies rarely involve lurid sexual sins, gruesome revenge, and Grand Guignol body counts. But they are quietly devastating to those concerned. This kind of tragedy we are likelier to or inevitably will experience; the tragedy of small, mundane, seemingly insignificant events that only spell despair for the person or people directly involved.

Quiet desperation narratives include Susan Hill’s sublime collection of short stories A Bit of Singing and Dancing. Or novels such as Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, David Nicholl’s One Day, and films including Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, Yojiro Takita’s Departures, Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, and Marc Foster’s Finding Neverland.

The Remains of the Day is about the tragedy of wasted lives. Butler Stevens misses his opportunity for happiness with housekeeper Miss Kenton, out of misguided loyalty to an equally misguided Nazi appeasing master. The gradual realisation of the appalling personal cost to himself unfolds throughout the narrative, which is told in flashback.

The Illusionist is interesting because it taps into tragedy all inevitably experience: Wistful nostalgia at the passing of an era. The music hall magician in that film finds himself increasingly upstaged by the rise of rock bands in the late 1950s. Along with other music hall acts, he gradually becomes obsolete. An achingly sad tale.

Counterpoint and Humour

One of the most important narrative techniques when writing any fiction is to use counterpoint. The best writing emphasises conflict, contrast, differing views, and opposing ideas. To write tragedy convincingly, there must be something tugging against it. Some optimism. A note of hope. Regardless of how relentless and miserable real life may be, it often contains moments of absurd humour. To deny humour a place in a tragedy is to deny reality, which is why a story like Legends of the Fall rings hollow.

The Illusionist works because the magician is accompanied by a naïve assistant girl who believes his magic is real. Her innocent beliefs are destined to be shattered, but her own coming-of-age, culminating in her attracting the attention of a young man, shows a happy future. This subplot provides an undercurrent of optimism amid the melancholia of the main plot.

The devastating heartbreak at the core of The Remains of the Day would be too much to bear if it weren’t for the gentle humour in the story, regarding Stevens’s hilarious fastidious, uptight character. One moment where he is instructed to convey the facts of life to his master’s godson is hilarious. Yet throughout the narrative, audience response to the absurd repression of Stevens’s character gradually moves from laughter to tears.

Hamlet has several amusing and witty subplots; for instance, the bumbling pompousness of Polonius, who seems unable to take his own advice (“Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice”). Wuthering Heights gains much tragic power because it is told through the eyes of the unreliable narrator Mr. Lockwood, whose slightly comical emotional timidity stands in stark contrast to the raging passions of the main protagonists. F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby pulls off a similar trick.

Baz Luhrmann drenches Moulin Rouge in surreal, outrageous humour, making the final tragic loss even more potent. The Godfather Part II is a sombre, brooding film, but it finds time for upbeat and comedic moments, particularly in the flashback sections to the young Vito Corleone in early 20th Century New York (the carpet theft, for instance).

The Empire Strikes Back is generally regarded as the finest Star Wars film, yet it is also one of the darkest and most downbeat. Luke Skywalker struggles not just against external evil, but the evil in himself, as revealed in the terrible secret of the Skywalker family line. Han Solo ends up frozen in carbonite, with possibilities of unfreezing parole looking increasingly unlikely as he’s spirited off to Jabba the Hutt. Our heroes don’t win. They merely survive, by the skin of their teeth, to fight another day. All of which is leavened by the hilarious, screwball comedy of the Han/Leia romance (“Would it help if I got out and pushed?”).

Even something as serious as Schindler’s List has funny moments peppered amid the horrific events. Scenes such as Schindler’s secretary montage, to his darkly comic asides with Nazi bureaucrats (“I think I can guarantee you’ll both be in Southern Russia before the end of the week”), makes the appalling tragedy even more believable and powerful. No one would be foolish enough to describe Schindler’s List as funny, but these tiny moments provide important glimmers of humanity amid one of the darkest chapters in humanity’s history.

A superb example of comedy as a counterpoint to tragedy occurs in the TV series Blackadder Goes Forth. After six hilarious episodes satirising the absurdity of the trenches of World War I, the principal characters meet their deaths in a hail of machine-gun bullets after they are ordered to advance. Their slow-motion, doomed attempt to cross no-man’s-land dissolves into a quiet field of poppies; one of the most shattering television finales I have ever seen. As a testament to the horrifying tragedy of the First World War, it leaves Legends of the Fall in the dust.

Conclusion

I expect some of you are thinking tragedy in life isn’t funny. I don’t wish to argue with anyone’s personal experience, but rendering tragedy in a satisfying narrative is a different matter. Besides, my experience is that even the most tragic real-life situations can contain moments of dark comedy. For example, at my father’s funeral, I experienced a farcical “shoe malfunction” that would have had my father in stitches. Such real-life experiences have only underlined my belief in the storytelling counterpoint principle.

Deliberately omitting humour from tragedy makes for a one-note tale that is depressing for all the wrong reasons, especially if said tale comprises little more than the repetition of endless tragedy. Such stories actually end up becoming unintentionally comic because they are so absurd, as the audience reaction I witnessed to Legends of the Fall shows. A tragic story that uses counterpoint judiciously and wisely, especially comedic counterpoint, will win over even the most tragedy-averse viewer or reader. My point boils down to this simple takeaway: If you make an audience laugh at your character, they will like them. Therefore, they will feel for them when you place them in tragic situations.

Writing Major Plot Twists

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NOTE: The following is a revised version of an article originally published on Medium, where I’ve published a number of writing advice pieces.

Warning: Contains spoilers for Planet of the Apes, One Day, Dead Poets Society, Rebecca, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 24 series 2, Death on the Nile, and The Sixth Sense.

Big story twists can be brilliant or dreadful, depending on the skill of the writer. Many a budding screenwriter or novelist would love to pull off a gasp-inducing twist of The Sixth Sense proportions, but doing so in a manner that feels organic, plausible, and above all inevitable is extremely difficult. However, it is not impossible.

Successful big twists can be intellectually thrilling and emotionally exhilarating; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Usual Suspects, and Memento are examples of the former, Rebecca, Jane Eyre, and The Empire Strikes Back the latter. Some are a combination: Snape’s true allegiance in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for instance. The big reveals at the end of Les Diaboliques, Planet of the Apes, and The Sixth Sense generate tremendous cerebral and emotional pleasure, whilst the latter even operates on a spiritual level.

Conversely, a bad plot twist feels bolted on, gratuitous, and irritating. How many times have you encountered a film or novel with a promising plot, only to be sideswiped by a random, contrived plot twist that seems to have gate-crashed from another story? Ambushing an audience with ill-conceived, implausible, shock tactic twists only serve to undermine intellectual or emotional engagement. The big twist ending cannot seem tacked-on as an afterthought. It must be an essential final component.

Twist versus Unexpected Plot Turn

To avoid confusion, it is important to define a plot twist. I do not mean an unexpected plot turn, which is slightly different. In an unexpected plot turn, the story may veer off in a new and unforeseen direction, but it does not mean earlier events are viewed in a different light. A plot twist is a reversal; a revelation that turns the entire story on its head, provoking a rush of insight and causing the audience to see the entire narrative from a completely new angle. The tragic death near the end of One Day, the suicide at the climax of act two in Dead Poets Society, or the aftermath of the sucker-punch received by Hilary Swank’s character in Million Dollar Baby are examples of unexpected plot turns rather than twists.

Most great, narrative-defining twists occur towards or at the end because that’s the natural place for them. Withholding the most essential facts from the audience for as long as possible creates the immensely satisfying thrill of delayed gratification. However, there are rare occasions when revealing the major twist earlier adds depth to the work. The Crying Game and Reservoir Dogs are both good examples.

The major bombshell central to the mystery in Hitchcock’s Vertigo occurs at one hour and fifteen minutes in. This surprised me the first time I saw it, but every subsequent viewing has underlined why screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor made this unconventional choice. Audience knowledge regarding Kim Novak’s character creates a sense of impending dread and despair, as we watch James Stewart’s character spiral into ever increasing obsession over the remaining forty-five minutes. How will he react when he finds out the truth?

Know your ending

I know this won’t appeal to “pantser” writers, but if your ambition is to craft a story with a major twist ending, simply seeing where a character takes you will almost certainly lead to far more agonised rewriting than if you work from a well-planned outline. I always prefer to start with an ending that completely blows me away, then work backwards, discovering how the characters ended up at that point. As I’ve already noted, twists of plot-defining magnitude typically occur in the latter stages, so with this kind of story, it really pays to plan.

It is also worth asking, does my story need a big twist ending? It might not. However, as an aside, every story should at least feature crisis in the climax. If the final act of a heist thriller features everything going precisely to plan during the heist, how boring would that be?

The most obvious skill in writing a major plot twist is the ability to conceal it from the audience. In some genres, such as the murder mystery, the author must summon an arsenal of misdirection weaponry, because the reader is already on the alert to expect the unexpected. Here are some examples of tactics that can be deployed in whodunit type narratives.

Red Herrings

The use of red herrings — seemingly important plot points that prove irrelevant — is an obvious genre trope, but they should be deployed sparingly. Too many will lead to frustration and confusion in the reader. However, slipping one in now and again can work wonders for plot misdirection.

Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories provide a masterclass in red herrings. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Holmes himself turns out to be one, as he is latterly identified as the mysterious figure Watson observed on the moors. That same novel includes many other false trails, including a subplot involving an escaped convict.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling deploys multiple red herrings concerning the identity of the heir of Slytherin. Everyone from Hagrid to Draco Malfoy is suspected. At one point, Rowling even cast a suspicious eye at Percy Weasley (when he is seen reading about “Prefects that gained power”). There is also a monstrous red herring in the form of giant spider Aragog.

Incidentally, red herrings aren’t necessarily confined to detective fiction. Romantic stories can contain emotional red herrings. These take the form of misunderstandings, or secondary characters attempting to win the affections of our protagonist in their quest for true love. There are often plenty of red herring dalliances before the reveal of who the protagonist ends up with. Jane Austen’s novels, such as Pride & Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, indulge in such romantic red herrings, as do latter romantic comedies following the Austen template, like Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Multiple Suspects

When writing any story featuring a mysterious, perhaps murderous unidentified figure manipulating events behind the scenes, I incorporate at least three suspect characters into the narrative. The first is the individual to whom all evidence points, and they are suspected by characters or investigators in the story. Since the audience invariably considers themselves smarter than the protagonist, it is vital to feed them a second character, not suspected by anyone in the plot, over whom clouds of suspicions can gradually form. There can be more than one of these second suspects, as required. The final suspect is the genuine culprit or manipulator, who is considered by both reader and protagonist to be above suspicion. Yet when unmasked, the solution must appear obvious and make complete narrative sense.

Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile features a particularly clever example of this technique, with multiple suspects, all of whom have means, motive, and opportunity for the murder. Yet the two characters with cast-iron alibies, who are emphatically above suspicion, prove to be the killers. What’s more, their scheme is convincing, plausible, and fiendishly clever.

In TV series 24, agent Jack Bauer suspects young Muslim Reza of being involved in a terrorist plot. Reza protests, and we believe him. But we’re not so sure about his shifty father-in-law to be, who has secretly worked for the CIA and clearly has some dark secrets. Yet the real snake in the grass turns out to be Reza’s seemingly sweet and innocent wife-to-be, Marie. She was completely above suspicion, yet she has been brainwashed into murderous fundamentalism.

Hiding in plain sight

The final misdirection device, and one of the most effective, is the hiding-in-plain-sight technique. The Sixth Sense is a case in point. Everything you need to figure out the big twist is contained within the opening scene, which in retrospect ought to be obvious. Yet the audience doesn’t see it coming. Why? Clever screenwriting sleight of hand, from M Night Shyamalan. The subsequent scenes with Bruce Willis’s character Malcolm interacting with his estranged wife Anna, and with his young patient Cole, appear to be straightforward. Yet the final reveal points to the elephant in the room, so to speak, in every one of those sequences. It was there, the entire time, yet we failed to spot it.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is another example of hiding in plain sight. It features a phenomenally cunning twist that works best on the page rather than in onscreen adaptations, for reasons that will be clear to anyone that has read it. Whenever I encounter snobby dismissals of Agatha Christie, I point to that novel as one of the finest examples of hiding in plain sight misdirection ever written.

Daphne Du Maurier’s gothic mystery Rebecca features my all-time favorite hiding in plain sight twist. The young, nameless protagonist marries widower Maxim de Winter in a whirlwind romance, but once back at ancestral family home Manderley, finds herself endlessly and unfavorably compared to Maxim’s first wife Rebecca. She is torn apart over the belief that Maxim adored Rebecca, whose wit, intelligence, sophistication, and beauty is remarked upon by all around her. Sinister housekeeper Danvers seems particularly determined to torment the new Mrs de Winter, and she does so with devilish cruelty.

Yet eventually, a dramatic turn of events forces Maxim to confess his true feelings regarding Rebecca to his new bride: “I hated her.” Those three words reverberate in the reader’s mind, as a shocking rush of insight. Maxim’s subsequent explanation, concerning how their marriage had been a sham, forces the reader to re-evaluate everything they thought they knew about Maxim up to that point. Every time a memory of Rebecca was triggered, he wasn’t upset because he had loved her. He was upset because he had hated her. More importantly, he had been indirectly responsible for her death, and had made it look like an accident.

Inevitability

There is one other major factor in creating a twist ending that genuinely wrong-foots the audience: It must seem inevitable. If the audience instantly imagines an alternative scenario, or a better plot twist, the writer has failed. The reader or viewer needs to experience the big twist in such a way that it not only makes complete sense, but that the plot could not have unfolded any other way.

In the original 1968 Planet of the Apes film, Charlton Heston’s character Taylor is an astronaut on a mission to explore the far reaches of the universe. After years in suspended animation, his spaceship crashes on a strange world where apes seemingly evolved from men. With ape the master and mankind their mute slaves, Taylor spends the entire film trying to validate his existence as intelligent being rather than savage. In the process he upsets the religious, theocratic apes, who don’t believe in evolution, but stubbornly cling to their religious texts which warn man is dangerous and must be suppressed. They also want to suppress recent archaeological evidence of a society of intelligent men predating apes.

Taylor exposes this conspiracy, and leaves the apes feeling rather pleased with himself. But then he has to confront the appalling truth when he discovers the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, revealing the planet to have been Earth all along. Taylor pounds the sand in despair, cursing the men who pushed the button of (presumably) nuclear annihilation that turned evolution upside down. It’s an astonishingly dramatic, powerful reveal, which answers all the questions of the film in a rush of insight, through a single devastating image. Impossible to see coming, but also, in retrospect, inevitable.

Conclusion

With good planning, and by factoring in some or all of the above disciplines, in my experience it is possible to write a convincing, thrilling, unexpected twist ending. I have crafted a few in some of my own novels, which I believe fulfill the criteria of being organic, plausible, and inevitable. I hope the above advice is useful to anyone with similar ambition.

New Short Story: Trigger Warning

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My latest short story, Trigger Warning, is now being serialised in Fictions on Medium, and also on Substack, if you are subscriber. Here’s a “friend link” to the first part on Medium, so you can get past the paywall and enjoy a free sample of this four part satirical tale.

Trigger Warning concerns a future where a small but growing minority of people are being offended to death when reading contentious novels. The protagonist, a novelist who unrepentantly writes controversial material, finds their persective challenged when they become romantically involved with someone whose close relative died reading one of the author’s books.

If you enjoy what you read so far, why not subscribe to me on Substack? In addition to full access to my film review archive, you also get access to all the other articles I syndicate from Medium (film analysis, top tens, classic cinema retrospectives, etc) plus many short stories. It’s well worth the $5 per month, I think, so why not at least give it a free trial? Subsequent instalments of Trigger Warning will appear each Friday over the coming weeks.

Alternatively, for Medium subscribers, the story will also be revealed in full over the next three weeks. I hope you enjoy Trigger Warning, wherever you read it.

New Short Stories Directory

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If you click “Short Stories” on the menu, you’ll now find a handy directory of all my published short stories and novellas to date, and where you can read them. These are mostly on Medium, with some syndicated to Substack (more will gradually follow), and a few are exclusives to anthologies available on ebook or in paperback. I plan to add to this list as and when new short stories are published. In the future, I may revise the order or categorise them better, but at this point I rather like how they’re presented.

I enjoy writing short stories and novellas, because they provide a chance to let rip with some of my narrative ideas that don’t warrant fleshing out to novel length. Typically, the short stories are between 10,000 and 15,000 words each, and the novellas are between 15,000 and 25,000 words. I hope you dip in and enjoy what’s there, either on Medium, Substack, or by picking up one of my anthologies, which are themed by genre.

There are a lot of stories (plus others waiting in the wings that I’ve yet to publish), so where to start? Well, here are half a dozen I’m particularly pleased with: For a spine-chilling horror tale involving a ghost ship, check out Vindicta. Or perhaps you fancy a bit of romantic fantasy, in which case try Papercut. For something with a bit of satirical bite, Call the Number on Your Screen involves a televangelist being blackmailed. For sci-fi dystopia, Sweet Dreams concerns a conspiracy involving nanotech nightmare suppressing technology for children. And if you want something outside of traditional genre fiction, why not read Aftermath, about a young woman returning to her estranged mother after leaving a cult. One story quite personal to me is In-Between, a supernatural satire about a recently deceased man harassed by ghostly political campaigners whilst attempting to haunt his family.

For links and other stories, click here to see the full list.

A Christmas Present Suggestion: Death Nest

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Seldom-seen relatives one only catches up with at Christmas can be difficult to buy presents for. However, most people love a nail-biting, page-turning mystery thriller. To that end, I humbly suggest my recently released novel Death Nest.

I’ve written about this novel a little on Medium, principally in this Orson Welles-ish faux-interview prank designed to intrigue readers (I interview one of the supporting characters). I’ve also written a lot about it here, for example in this piece, which is probably as close as I’m ever going to get to a baring-my-soul, personal essay-type article. In it, I discuss the real-life fears and traumas that metaphorically and emotionally informed the novel.

But if that makes it all sound heavy and depressing, don’t be put off! Death Nest is first and foremost a gripping thriller with a touch of romance, a smidgen of coming-of-age drama, and the odd moment of supernaturally tinged horror. There are also a few funny bits, and that’s important in any novel if you ask me, purely to provide contrast.

Here’s the blurb from the back of the book to give you an idea of the plot:

From the author of Spectre of Springwell Forest and The Irresistible Summons…

A nail-biting new mystery.

After his young son Ben writes a disturbing story about murdering a boy in a forest, widower Nick Unwin is alarmed by eerie parallels between his son’s behaviour and that of his younger brother Jason, prior to his inexplicable disappearance twenty years previously. This tragic past returns to haunt Nick when he sees an image of his long-lost brother in a newly released film.

Fearing history will repeat itself, Nick decides to investigate, along with Tanith, an old flame from his early teenage years, with dark secrets of her own connected to Jason’s disappearance. But as they delve deeper into the labyrinthine mysteries of their past, long-buried memories resurface. Nick is forced to face the terrible fear that has plagued him for decades: Was he responsible for the death of his brother?

A riveting coming-of-age thriller exploring traumatic sibling relationships, parental fears, and the misleading nature of memory, Death Nest is Simon Dillon’s most gripping novel yet.

If you want to try before you buy, the first three chapters of Death Nest are available to read on Medium in Fictions. Here’s chapter one.

Of course, Death Nest isn’t the only novel I have available for potential Christmas presents. I’ve also written other mystery horror thrillers, children’s adventure stories, dystopian sci-fi tales, and one or two other things. For a full list of my published novels, click here.

Death Nest is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon here (in the US) and here (in the UK). It is also available via Smashwords and its various outlets (click here).

Read My Short Stories on Substack!

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As you are no doubt aware, all my film reviews have now moved to Substack or Medium. I syndicate them to both sites, with Medium available only to those with a Medium account. However, those with a Substack account can access my film reviews for FREE – for four weeks, before they disappear behind a paywall.

This FREE option isn’t the only thing I’m up to on Substack. I’m also creating a mirror of my Medium account, which means for just $5 per month, you also have access to short stories, including horror stories like Crockern’s Curse or Once in a Lifetime, poignant dramas including Aftermath, satirical fantasy such as In-Between, satirical thrillers like Call the Number on Your Screen, and many others as I release them. For example, my dark fairy tale Window of the Soul will be serialised there over the next eight weeks, and new subscription-only material is added constantly (for one thing, I’m gradually transferring my entire Medium back catalogue, as well as releasing new stuff).

Your monthly subscription also gets you access to all the film essays, top tens, and other cinema analysis I write on Medium, along with access to the full film review archive, which doesn’t disappear after four weeks behind a paywall (unlike the FREE option). There’s also a try-before-you-buy option, so why not take a free trial of Dillon Empire on Substack? Click here and sign up today, as they say in commercial speak.

Thank you to everyone who has supported my writing by signing up so far.

(Dillon Empire image created by author in Canva.)

New Short Story: Crockern’s Curse

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In October, I published a new short story. Crockern’s Curse concerns a young couple investigating a childhood mystery on Dartmoor are menaced by supernatural forces linked to local folklore. A spine-freezing tale of supernatural horror, this proved very popular with readers of the Fictions publication on Medium (where it was published). It’s in five parts, but there are links to every subsequent part at the end of each instalment.

Check out the first part on Medium here. Alternatively, if you are a subscriber to Dillon Empire on Substack, check out all five parts there, starting with part one here (again, there are links at the end of each segment to the next part). I’ll explain more about what I’m up to on Substack soon, but the short verison is you can get all my film reviews there for free (they disappear behind a paywall after four weeks), or else take up the paid option of $5 per month and in addition to unlimited access to the film review archive, enjoy all my other articles syndicated from Medium, including top tens, classic film analysis, and of course, short stories.

Enjoy!

Death Nest: Summary of Recent Articles

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My new mystery thriller novel Death Nest is out now. I’ve been writing a lot about it recently, from many different angles. Here’s a summary of what I’ve been discussing, with links to the articles in question. First though, here’s a brief idea of what the novel is about.

A widower fears his young son is cursed when he shows disturbing behaviour akin to that of his younger brother, before he vanished without a trace twenty years previously. Gnawing dread that history will repeat itself is inherent throughout this modern gothic mystery novel. It’s also a coming-of-age romance with hints of the supernatural, exploring traumatic sibling relationships, parental worries, and the misleading nature of memory. 

After his young son Ben writes a disturbing story about murdering a boy in a forest, widower Nick Unwin is alarmed by eerie parallels between his son’s behaviour and that of Nick’s younger brother Jason, prior to his inexplicable disappearance twenty years previously. This tragic past returns to haunt Nick when he sees an image of his long-lost brother in a newly released film.

Fearing a repeat of history, Nick decides to investigate, along with Tanith, an old flame from his early teenage years, with dark secrets of her own connected to Jason’s disappearance. But as they delve deeper into the labyrinthine mysteries of their past, long-buried memories resurface. Nick is forced to face the terrible fear that has plagued him for decades: Was he responsible for the death of his brother?

The following articles explore different aspects of the novel and the making of it. I have worded them carefully to avoid plot spoilers.

Death Nest: Reflections on Writing My Most Personal Novel

This story is quite personal for me, as it has been informed (in broad metaphorical terms) by the sectioning of my youngest brother following drug abuse, as well as my own fears about the future of my autistic youngest son. The article above was slightly written through gritted teeth, as I’ve revealed a lot more of my personal life than I’m normally accustomed to, but I hope this provides some valuable insights.

Death Nest: Chapter 1 Excerpt

According to readers so far, this is an opening that immediately grips the reader. As an author that’s all very encouraging to hear.

Death Nest: Chapter 7 Excerpt

A second clip, this time from a flashback chapter, introducing a key supporting character.

Death Nest: Settings, Research, Revisions

Various locations in southwest England, as well as my home city of Oxford, were chosen as a setting. This article also touches on other research aspects, and some of the ways in which the novel was rewritten.

Death Nest: Inspiration and Influences

Here I discuss the initial idea for the novel, and how it evolved, including an abandoning of almost all the original premise, and the switching of the protagonist’s gender from female to male (my horror-thriller novel protagonists are usually female). I also mention other novels and a few films that informed the story.

Death Nest: Initial Reviews

The five-star raves are starting to trickle in! Check out some reader feedback here.

Death Nest is in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and its various outlets.

(All images designed by author in Canva.)

Death Nest: Initial Reviews

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Image created by author in Canva.

The first reviews for my latest novel, mystery thriller Death Nest, are starting to trickle in. I’m thrilled to tell you they are five-star raves! I’m extremely pleased readers are finding this book as gripping and entertaining as I had hoped. My fears that the story would prove too painfully personal (for reasons discussed here) seem to have been unfounded. I’m glad.

Let’s take a look at what people are saying.

“Once I started reading this, I couldn’t put it down. The mystique of the storyline drew me in and held my attention until the very end.” – Joseph M Zobel, Amazon.

“I couldn’t put it down because the twists and turns kept me on my toes. Dillon’s deep dives into characters, narrative, mystery, and intrigue kept me totally engaged. There were no lulls… I was sorry when it ended.” – Annabelle Colbert, Amazon.

“The perfect pre-Halloween read. A wonderful combination of dark and supernatural forces with moral dilemmas in life that we can all relate to, and a thread of romance that runs right through the story… Thoroughly enjoyable (if deeply disturbing at times) and hard to put down from start to finish.” – Saltram, Amazon.

The above reviews can be read in full here.

If you’ve read and enjoyed Death Nest, please do add a review to Amazon or Goodreads (or ideally both). It doesn’t have to be long or eloquent. A one-liner saying you enjoyed it is fine. I seek reviews not to massage my ego (though obviously good reviews are encouraging) but because they are absolutely vital for independent writers like yours truly. Reviews mean the algorithms show my books to more people who potentially buy them. As such, reviews literally put food on my table, so a huge thank you to all of you who take the time to write them. It is so, so appreciated.

If you’ve not read Death Nest, here’s the blurb from the back of the book to whet your appetite.

From the author of Spectre of Springwell Forest and The Irresistible Summons…

A nail-biting new mystery.

After his young son Ben writes a disturbing story about murdering a boy in a forest, widower Nick Unwin is alarmed by eerie parallels between his son’s behaviour and that of his younger brother Jason, prior to his inexplicable disappearance twenty years previously. This tragic past returns to haunt Nick when he sees an image of his long-lost brother in a newly released film.

Fearing history will repeat itself, Nick decides to investigate, along with Tanith, an old flame from his early teenage years, with dark secrets of her own connected to Jason’s disappearance. But as they delve deeper into the labyrinthine mysteries of their past, long buried memories resurface. Nick is forced to face the terrible fear that has plagued him for decades: Was he responsible for the death of his brother?

A riveting coming-of-age thriller exploring traumatic sibling relationships, parental fears, and the misleading nature of memory, Death Nest is Simon Dillon’s most gripping novel yet.

Death Nest is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and its various outlets.

Death Nest: Settings, Research, Revisions

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My latest novel, the mystery thriller Death Nest, has recently been released. Lately, I’ve been exploring different aspects of this novel, which as well as dealing in page-turning suspense also features coming-of-age elements, a touch of romance, and the odd horror moment (especially in the latter stages). It’s also possibly my most “personal” novel to date (as I’ve discussed elsewhere), with a variety of influences and inspirations informing the book.

Here, I want to share a few insights into the settings, research, and revisions that went into the creation of the novel. Beginning with the settings, I should point out that the town of Corthpothan in the novel is fictional, but slightly based on the real Cornish village Porthcothan. I visited this lovely area on the north Cornwall coast a few years ago with the family, at the height of summer. 

Porthcothan beach. Photo by Zara Dillon.

If you drive past, it looks deceptively uninteresting, but if you walk the short distance along the sand of the small inlet next to the village, it widens out into a vast sandy beach. The sea has phenomenal waves, so it is great for surfers. The area is bordered by a spectacular rugged coastline that boasts caves and gorgeous rock pools. Some of the latter are great for children to swim in (if one is concerned about the ferociousness of the sea waves and strong currents).

We had a fantastic time here, but at the same time, the details of the area were carefully logged away in my mind, knowing they might one day make their way into a novel. As for other settings that wound up appearing in the novel, these include the lovely Bagley Woods on Boars Hill, Oxford. In fact, the opening movement of the novel features a variety of Oxford locations, including the King’s Arms pub; a real place, which used to be a regular watering hole of mine. The story also includes scenes in the Magdalen Street cinema (now sadly closed), and Port Meadow, which is another fabulous place to go for walks if you ever visit Oxford, especially if you’re a keen birdwatcher.

Beyond that, the sinister Darkfire Forest is inspired by a few different woodland areas in and around where I live in Devon. Of course, eerie, possibly haunted forests have cropped up before in my novels Spectre of Springwell Forest, but what takes place in Death Nest is a little different. Here’s a photograph I took a while ago that sets the tone for the Darkfire Forest.

Photo by author.

Much of my research for this novel came about from simply checking details about places I already knew, making sure I either rendered them accurately, or deliberately changed them (as was the case with the name Porthcothan). The novel also dealt with certain subjects with which I am already greatly familiar (film production, for instance). However, some more in-depth research took place into dark subjects like human trafficking and brainwashing. I also had to research pagan folklore quite a bit, which is where I discovered and adopted the name Damara for the ancient spirit that may (or may not) influence events in the story. But I also made up a great deal too.

The initial draft had a lot more overtly supernatural stuff included. I cut or greatly reduced much of this, deciding a greater ambiguity over such incidents was preferable. There are still plenty of spooky edges in the final text, and one can read the supernatural into the events. But at the same time, there are enough doubts and questions to leave such matters up to the reader, rather than forcing them into a particular perspective.

Death Nest is available in paperback or on Kindle from Amazon (click here for the UK, and here for the US). It’s also available from Smashwords and its various outlets.