A Writer's Tale

Structurally, it seems to be a mystery novel. A crime is committed at the beginning of the book and much of the action involves the police trying to figure out who did the dirty deed. The structure also, however, brands it as a horror novel. Almost from the very start, we are being led toward a climactic Halloween party at an old, creepy, abandoned house.

Someone has been fixing it up. Someone has put bars on the windows on the inside.

Inevitably, all hell is going to break loose when everyone is gathered there for the big party.

Re-reading the book yesterday, I actually got the creeps, myself, when I encountered a scene near the end of the book.

A scene involving monkey suits suspended from the window bars.

My overall reaction was a mixture of delight and regret.

Allhallows Eve has a lot going on in it. And that is an understatement. I found myself fascinated by many of the characters and scenes. And by several twists in the plot. I particularly like the ironies. My favorite irony has to do with who “saves the day” to the extent that the day does get saved.

My main regret is that the story is too fast-paced. Every scene shoots by so fast that, if your mind strays for a moment, you might miss something vital. I was an equal opportunity writer; I wrote every scene as if it were just as important as every other scene.

They all seem to have about the same weight.

Why did I write that way? For one thing, I believed (and perhaps still do) in a “deadpan”

approach. I’m just a writer telling what happened. Let the readers decide where the emphasis should go.

Also, however, I was dead-set against boring my readers. I hated to read books in which the writer lingered on detailed descriptions. I wanted them to get on with it.

So I got on with it.

Excessively.

Part of it was the result of self-doubt. I felt that I would lose the interest of my readers if I devoted a little time to character development or if I used more than about one sentence to describe anything.

Dean Koontz pointed this out to me several times during my early years. He told me that I needed more confidence in myself, that I was a good enough writer that I didn’t need to have constant breakneck action, that I should slow down and linger and broaden the scope of my stories.

He was, of course, right.

In Allhallow’s Eve, I plunged forward like a sprinter. But I should’ve strolled. I should’ve lingered with so many of the characters and scenes. Dean always talks about “ringing all the bells.” In this book, I left far too many of the bells unrung.

If I’d written it ten years later, it would’ve been two or three times as long, and possibly twice as good.

But I didn’t.

Allhallow’sEve is what it is, for better or for worse.

In an interview, I once stated that I would like to do a major revision of Allhallow’s Eve and develop it into the novel it should be.

But I’ve changed my mind about that.

It almost seems as if novels are living creatures. A major revision of an old novel often kills it. Like the critters in Pet Sematary, the resurrected, changed novel doesn’t come back quite right. It comes back without its soul.

If I should ever have an opportunity to rewrite Allhallow’s Eve, I would make very few changes. I might add an extra page here or there to clarify a couple of matters. I would want to get rid of half a dozen printing errors, if possible. (Sam’s name turns into Sun at one point, and years become gears.)

I would definitely omit about a thousand commas. Apparently, in those days, I was comma crazy.

But I wouldn’t tamper with the big stuff.

Allhallow’sEve has its faults, but it also has its charms. I’d hate to risk killing those.

Whatever charms it might possess, they weren’t apparent to my editors at Warner Books. I shipped the book off to Jay Garon on January 24, 1981. It was supposed to be the third book of my three-book contract, but my editor at Warner rejected it.

It would be published by New English Library in 1991. A year later, a British small press named Kennel would publish a limited edition hardbound without my knowledge or consent but apparently with the blessings of NEL. An oddity of the Kennel edition is that its dust jacket illustration depicts the “Cadillac Desert.” My book has nothing to do with the Cadillac Desert, but I believe that Kennel was also involved with publishing Joe Lansdale, author of the short story, “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks.” Maybe a dust jacket designed for Joe ended up on my novel.

Allhallow’sEve would be reissued by NEL with a new cover in 1992, and bought by Headline in 1993.

BEWARE!

I started working on Beware! on March 13, 1981 less than two months after finishing Allhallow’s Eve. I finished the first draft approximately three months later, on June 19.

Warner Books rejected it.