From Zombos Closet

JM Cozzoli

A horror and movie fan with a blog. Scary.

Whispering Corridors (1998)

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Whipsering corridors
Zombos Says: Very Good

Of all the places to die, why choose school?

Ki-hyeong Park’s Whispering Corridors (Yeogo Goedam)  balances commentary on the psychological and physical abuse found in South Korean girls’ schools, sympathy for a lost spirit dwelling equally in daylight and black of night, and a symbolic use of pouring blood to tell a story of loss, brief redemption, and continued loss.

It opens with the ghost prowling school grounds at night, seeking vengeance on a teacher who mistreated her.  The discovery of the teacher’s hanging body the next day is seen first in the surprised face of the student who finds it, then next from behind her as she views it, but her head blocks our view. Finally, a step to her left and we see the entire body in the farground with the back of the student in the foreground, side by side. Other student’s reactions are then shown in still shots as they come upon the body.

Muted, somber colors inside and out lend starkness to the secrecy unfolding to discovery in the school, toned by the callous mistreatment of the students and the teachers’ indifference to their emotional needs. Male teachers in the school are chauvinistic and condenscending, and become violent with little provocation. Mr. Oh (Mad Dog, as the students call him), with his stick and sarcastic temperament, reminded me of a math teacher I suffered through one semester in grade school. He also carried a stick and whacked us on the head with it at little provocation. It is in this restrictive, competitive, and individuality-stifling environment the ghost haunts day and night: by day, as one of the students blending into class for years without any teacher realizing she’s hung around year after year, and by night as a vengeance spirit, murdering those teachers who mistreated her or mistreat other girls.

It isn’t impossible for a student to attend classes for years and not be noticed: I sat in two college classes, back to back, with the same boring professor and he didn’t remember my name or that I had taken another class with him the previous semester. And I sat in the second row, directly in front of him all that time. Park is simply emphasizing how teachers are more involved with keeping authority and class order instead of attending to students’ individual needs.

The ghost just wants to be normal, to relive her classroom life again and again in hopes of getting it right. She doesn’t want to harm anyone, but vindictive and sadistic teachers keep mistreating the students, bringing on her vengeance-side. While it appears only three times, each occurrence is heralded by supernatural events, leading to a bloody attack, but without gore. Blood isn’t used for shock value, especially at the end when a classroom becomes inundated with it, but to convey the flow of life can be either positive or negative, given the ghost of a chance either way.

How to Write Well
By Scott M. Baker

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Old-Typewriter-Keyboard-101853 So all I have to do is write a page a day and in a year I’ll have a novel good enough to be published?

Not necessarily. You’ll have a novel. Whether it’s good enough to be published is another matter. Remember, writing is an art, much like figure skating, singing, acting, or painting. You have to practice at your craft to become good at it.

I used to write espionage/techno thrillers. I don’t even admit to the first book because, in retrospect, it was crap. The second book was better, but still not quite publishable. By the third book I had found my style. The plot dealt with North Korea acquiring nuclear weapons and planting four of them in cities in the United States to blackmail the government. I quickly picked up an agent who presented it to several publishers, all of whom liked the book. Unfortunately, this occurred right after 11 September, and the market for those books had dried up. So I switched genres. It had taken me ten years to get to that point in my career, and then I had to start all over. Rather than viewing it as a setback, however, I saw this only as a slight detour. That decade of experience well prepared me for writing in the horror genre.

So get out there and write. And just as important, submit you work.

But what if my work isn’t good enough and it gets rejected?

Don’t get depressed if it gets rejected – that’s the nature of the game. It happens to all authors. And not all rejections are bad. Occasionally an editor/publisher sends you feedback; if they do, consider yourself fortunate. Most editors/publishers reject stories and manuscripts with a simple form letter, if they even respond at all. If one takes the time to offer you feedback means he/she sees potential in you work, and is taking the time to help you hone your skills. Take advantage of that opportunity.

The best way to hone your skills is to get readers who will provide critical feedback. Your mother and significant other do not count – chances are they’ll say it’s good, even if it isn’t. My suggestion is to find a good writer’s group with published authors or aspiring authors who are also interested in improving their craft. I’m a member of The Washington Fiction Writer’s League and the League of Extraordinary Authors, and the feedback they provide has been invaluable to improving what I’ve eventually published.

If you do go this route, remember two very important things.

First, find critique groups that will provide honest feedback. I’ve seen too many groups where the members will tear someone else’s work to shreds, but become indignant if you provide any critical feedback on their material. Avoid those groups like you would a horde of ravenous zombies. They’re filled with people who think ripping apart your work will somehow make them better writers. Trust me, it doesn’t work that way.

Second, and this is the hardest thing, is lock away your ego in a dark room during feedback sessions. As long as the feedback isn’t personal, listen to it and adopt it where appropriate. Every author is wedded to his/her work and hates to here that it is not quite as good as he/she thought it was. Get over yourself. I did. 

Remember, no matter how well you write, there is always room for improvement. Your goal is not to write the best book ever written. Your goal is to write the best book you possibly can. Every work has flaws. But if a reader can overlook the occasional grammatical error or plot flaw because the rest of the story is so entertaining it keeps them glued to the edge of their seat, then you’ve succeeded as a writer.