I’ve been reading the 1980 Arkham House anthology “New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos,” in which 9 Lovecraft-lovin’ fiction authors were given the opportunity to trifle in the late horror master’s occult, cosmic sandbox, and it’s made me realize how easy it is to reduce Lovecraft’s time- and dimension-spanning vision to a stock set of props. That’s not a shot at the book, the contributors to which are, generally speaking, immensely imaginative in their takes on all things eldritch, stygian and squamish (if you can find it online, check out Basil Copper’s moody and frightening entry, “Shaft Number 247”).

Aside from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lovecraft is probably the inspiration behind the largest quantity of published fanfic. It just occurs to me that, given the current uptick in Lovecraft’s cultural stock value – Cthulhu plush dolls consorting among the superhero maquettes in so many comic stores, the continuous rumors surrounding Guillermo Del Toro’s never-gonna-happen “At The Mountains of Madness” adaptation, the recent DVD release of the documentary “Strange Tales – The Weird Life of H. P. Lovecraft” – it’s easy to get caught up in the physical landmarks of the author’s fiction while still ignoring their path, and that path’s downward trajectory into an insanity that transcends the clichéd jabbering symptoms of the stock lunatic, and defies the single crisp snap of the mind that is too often ascribed to the boundary between lucidity and madness.

Devil’s advocate, though – if you’re intent on adding to the bevy of lazy Lovecraft-inspired tales that, together, read like the Taco Bell menu, with each uniquely named product comprising the same dependable set of tired ingredients, here’s what you might want to include:

Giant, Really, Really Old Books of the Occult

The tomes are always heavy and dusty, with brittle, yellowed pages and a voluminous quantity of forbidden information regarding alchemy and the summoning of ancient powers. Sometimes they are written in archaic, forgotten languages, but, for the multilingual late bloomer, the library at Miskatonic University usually has the last existing translation. Someone’s always searching for these volumes so they can discover wild, pseudo-scientific secrets, but then they just end up summoning Nyarlathotep or a bunch of Shoggoths. Note to Hollywood: Please make a “NeverEnding Story” remake in which the kindly book dealer gives Bastian the Necronomicon. Lots of times, these books are owned by…

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Nutty Cult Members

These guys are crazy, but also crazy dedicated to one of the Elder Gods. Sometimes they’re bookish, lonely, quietly sinister and waiting patiently for the inevitable return of their sacred destroyer. These ones are usually old white guys. Other times, they’re crazy, and naked and killing people and actively trying to call an Old One down out of the void. These ones are usually young, black guys. (I would like to note that, despite Lovecraft’s well-documented racial prejudices, it hardly seems offensive to suggest that black people are proactive.) Either they’ll meet a main character and pull him into their twisted sacrificial and/or library-smelling web, or just sort of wander through the background, serving as silent portents of the Old One-fueled madness to come. Some of these cult guys have…

Ancient Stones/Statuettes/Obelisks/Pendants Covered with Frightening, Cryptic, Yet Macabrely Curious, Etchings/Pictographs/Runes

Lovecraft’s works are replete with bizarre monoliths, mysterious carved stones and horrific figurines, all of which tend to be rendered from some indestructible, unearthly and usually kinda green rock substance. Generally, they hold dark sway over the mind of their owners and, as such, lead hapless beachcombers, archaeologists, artists and everymen to dark, mind destroying dreams and revelations about the Old Ones and the ultimate fate of humanity. A great way to start even the palest Lovecraft imitation is to have someone find one of these objects. Ancient cave, ocean floor, paleontological dig, a bowl of Wendy’s chili (actually, that’d be a good idea for a combo corporate lawsuit drama, cosmic horror epic)… it doesn’t really matter where a character finds the evil chunk of crazy, just so long as it perverts mortal souls and molests reader expectations. Usually, these relics depict the Old Ones, which are…

Crazy, Indescribable Monsters That Make You Go Insane If You Even Just Look At Them

This is the easiest element to execute poorly because you don’t actually have to describe them. Just talk about tentacles and giant eyes and lobster claws and snouts, maybe a hoof here or a creepy ear way over there, all glanced fleetingly through black fog, a patina of fear and the swiftly descending venetian blind of insanity. Personally, I like to picture a half-zebra, two-thirds praying mantis with an anus where its everything should be. These guys appear around…

Cosmic/Dimensional Thin Spots

The Elder Gods are like the velociraptors in “Jurassic Park.” They’re testing our universe systematically for weakness. They remember. There are places where the border between the horrific parallel cosmos of the Old Ones and our Team Edward-rooting home sweet home is rubbing thin, and where, at times, the two co-mingle. This device is always a great way to explain why the nutty cult members are sacrificing folks at [remote location], or to explain why [miscellaneous creepiness] is occurring in [otherwise peaceful small town]. Probably a main character ends up travelling along the borders of two realities. Familiar things become monstrous. The sky darkens. The streets fill with unrecognizable refuse and eerie biological waste. Crazy, giant cathedrals appear in the distance. McDonald’s is called G’trn-ekny’s. One mark of the Old Things’ world is…

Wild, Geometrically Impossible Architecture

Like the creatures themselves, this Lovecraftian standby is great for the amateur scribe because, by definition, one can’t describe the indescribable. Ultimately, you probably just end up talking about how all the angles are impossible and how the sky is a color that isn’t actually a color. Probably also the sun is black and there are staircases set at impossible angles and the buildings have an infinite number of sides. Maybe the toilet seats are square. Definitely there aren’t any wheelchair ramps.

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