Are You Afraid of the Dark?
By Jay Stoeckl, MAT, OFS, March 20, 2026
As a child growing up, were you ever afraid of the dark?
Monsters under the bed?
A ghost inside the closet?
When I was in like the third grade, I heard the following Halloween tale:
(Enter ghostly voice for effect)
There once was a dark, dark forest.
And in that dark, dark forest, was a dark, dark gate.
And in that dark, dark gate, was a dark, dark path.
And in that dark, dark path, was a dark, dark house.
And in that dark, dark house, was a dark, dark porch.
And in that dark, dark porch, was a dark, dark door.
And in that dark, dark door, was a dark, dark room.
And in that dark, dark room, was a dark, dark cupboard.
And in that dark, dark cupboard…
…was a cookie.
As Jennifer and I are continuing the editing and… MORE editing of Abbot and the Stone, this childhood memory came up, but for reasons that run deeper than that it had some sort of impact on me.
When I discovered writing as an art form, so many doors were opened up. I could see a myriad of ways a story comes together that were never, ever taught to me. They just became clear.
One way is in the power of deception. Not deception in a sinister sort of way. But entertaining a reader is all about the ride, making a sequence unpredictable, leading you to believe the tale will go one way when in fact it leads you to another, unexpected pathway.
The surprise turn can be like an unexpected spiral on an amusement park ride.
The unexpected makes it fun.
In the Halloween tale, of course, the writer knows that every child, in one way or another, has been afraid of the dark. Out of that dark, dark cupboard, the child would expect something scary—a ghost perhaps, or that same ol’ monster under the bed.
And that same ol’ monster the child was certain was under his bed the night before, turned out to be the old tennis shoes he hadn’t seen in a week.
Nothing scary about a cookie in a cupboard, so, like me, the child reacts to the unexpected ending by laughing.
This writing art form only works if the writer keeps the unexpected plausible.
There is nothing plausible when, in a thriller, a woman bashes the psychotic criminal over the head, runs with her two young children to escape, then she RETURNS into the house to retrieve something she forgot.
Ugh!
In my upcoming novel, Abbot and the Stone, there are several unexpected pieces that, as we edit through the story, even I feel impressed by.
Who are the ghosts who chase Valencio, our main character, from the outset of the book?
Is his nemesis, Dr. Edgar Cumberland, really the antagonist or is that all in Valencio’s mind?
Out of the two young women, which one is most worthy of Valencio’s affections?
And who is the Man-in-Black?
I know, I know, this final question seems a bit like a trope.
Too much a stereotype.
Don’t judge this book by its cover just yet, however.
Use of a trope can also have its unexpected ride.
And when you read this book for the first time, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
When an author places the unexpected in a novel, that unexpected aspect deserves to follow a theme, a pattern, a rhythm.
And it will circle back on itself to remind the reader where and when it all started.
Valencio has one major flaw.
He is afraid of ghosts.
He is afraid of the dark.
And there are no cookies awaiting him when he is final able to open that dark, dark cupboard.
Other, most clever unexpected turns occur in my other novels:
Pursuit of the Keepers, Jacob Lake Book 1
Pursuit of the Petras, Jacob Lake Book 2
Pursuit of the Cryptics, Jacob Lake Book 3
Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.