A Look at Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth

[Scififan]

He also had a fear of doctors and hospitals which would eventually cause his death as h was deathly ill but didn't seek medical help until it was too late.

[Ikiry0]

My bigger issue is that the protagonists in the stories I've read are colorless and virtually indistinguishable, and the action of the plot tends to be "long-windedly recounted" rather than shown.

Look, if there is one thing that scares Lovecraft, it's everything. If there is two things, it's everything and colour.

[Kinky Vorlon]

Hence the Colour out of SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

[phantom000]

I feel like Lovecraft had some interesting ideas, he just did not know what to do with them. I listened to In the Mountains of Madness thanks to HorrorBabble on YouTube, and while the premise is interesting, the story itself is kinda disappointing.

You have two man exploring a vast city, older than the dinosaurs, and yet it is so bland its hard to keep interested in the story. How do you take something that interesting and make it boring?

[chaos42]

I feel like Lovecraft had some interesting ideas, he just did not know what to do with them. I listened to In the Mountains of Madness thanks to HorrorBabble on YouTube, and while the premise is interesting, the story itself is kinda disappointing.

You have two man exploring a vast city, older than the dinosaurs, and yet it is so bland its hard to keep interested in the story. How do you take something that interesting and make it boring?

jokingly i want to say that it takes real talent to make something interesting boring but it can also be the opposite a complete and utter lack of talent can make a something interesting boring.

Personally i like that this story is were a scholar is the hero as only knowledge can defeat these creatures. Though i do find it interesting that the yog and his ilk want the earth but can't survive on it and must create and agent to take it for them. plus if they can't survive here that means they aren't nearly as powerful as some of the people claim they are. Its frequently said that the great old ones are so alien and powerful we can't beat them but this is contrary to their use of agents and i think it means that we can fight them but we just have to figure it out. I kind think an interesting way to explore that might be to borrow a page from ghostbusters as they use science to defeat and ancient being not magic, i think a combination of both would make for a compelling story with the lovecraft mythos as a setting.

[phantom000]

I feel like Lovecraft had some interesting ideas, he just did not know what to do with them. I listened to In the Mountains of Madness thanks to HorrorBabble on YouTube, and while the premise is interesting, the story itself is kinda disappointing.

You have two man exploring a vast city, older than the dinosaurs, and yet it is so bland its hard to keep interested in the story. How do you take something that interesting and make it boring?

jokingly i want to say that it takes real talent to make something interesting boring but it can also be the opposite a complete and utter lack of talent can make a something interesting boring.

Personally i like that this story is were a scholar is the hero as only knowledge can defeat these creatures. Though i do find it interesting that the yog and his ilk want the earth but can't survive on it and must create and agent to take it for them. plus if they can't survive here that means they aren't nearly as powerful as some of the people claim they are. Its frequently said that the great old ones are so alien and powerful we can't beat them but this is contrary to their use of agents and i think it means that we can fight them but we just have to figure it out. I kind think an interesting way to explore that might be to borrow a page from ghostbusters as they use science to defeat and ancient being not magic, i think a combination of both would make for a compelling story with the lovecraft mythos as a setting.

That is just my opinion about a lot of Lovecraft's work, interesting idea but a boring story. There are a couple exceptions, The Shadow over Innsmouth being one, The Curse of Yig being another.

I can see why the mythos has been used and reinvented over the years, from Ghostbusters to World of Warcraft. I myself am running a table top RPG with some friends that borrows a lot of Lovecraft's ideas, thought I am taking them in a very different direction. For me its a case of the premise being more interesting then the story itself.

[CrypticMirror]

I feel like Lovecraft had some interesting ideas, he just did not know what to do with them. I listened to In the Mountains of Madness thanks to HorrorBabble on YouTube, and while the premise is interesting, the story itself is kinda disappointing.

You have two man exploring a vast city, older than the dinosaurs, and yet it is so bland its hard to keep interested in the story. How do you take something that interesting and make it boring?

Changing tastes in fiction marketing, writing things in such a dry way was the in thing a hundred years ago. It resonated with the audience back then, but we lack the cultural context to appreciate it in the same way today.

[Rocketboy1313]

Different writers have different strengths.
Lovecraft was great with theme and premise. But weak on action, lots of "telling" without "showing".

I do have good news for you: all of his works are public domain.

If you like a story premise written by him but feel the need to make it more modern in presentation, you can just rewrite the story (or in the case of many, write the story for the first time as lots of his stuff would be best described as "outlines") and you can even publish them.

I've done this a couple times.
https://rocketboy1313.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-terrible-old-man-by-hp-lovecraft.html

[Deledrius]

I feel like Lovecraft had some interesting ideas, he just did not know what to do with them. I listened to In the Mountains of Madness thanks to HorrorBabble on YouTube, and while the premise is interesting, the story itself is kinda disappointing.

You have two man exploring a vast city, older than the dinosaurs, and yet it is so bland its hard to keep interested in the story. How do you take something that interesting and make it boring?

One thing that gets overlooked in talking about his works, in my opinion, is his specific diction.

He has an interesting way with words that tends to contribute to the sensations. They have a very unique rhythm and the word choice is often a strong element in setting tone.

Adaptations often lose this element, for obvious reasons.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I've seen a lot of Lovecraft fans say that his prose is harder for modern readers because it's dated, a product of its time, etc., but I'm not really buying it. There are plenty of authors working before or during Lovecraft's active period who have tremendously entertaining and engaging prose. There are early 19th century writers who I find much easier to read than Lovecraft. I'd say Poe's Prose is more immediately penetrable.

I'd agree with Deledrius that it has more to do with his particular diction. It's not a product of his time, it's his own specific voice. How much of his unique style was intentional and/or actual good writing, well that's open to debate. If I remember correctly, Lovecraft himself admitted that he was uncomfortable writing action scenes, so I tend to credit his strangely detached perspective as resulting from his limitations as a writer.