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Book club discussion guide

The Room Between Blinks

A horror short story by C.R. Lang · 5 min read

Read the story Printable guide (PDF, 110 KB)

About the story

A wedding photographer catches a hidden room in the split second of a blink. Every photo shows the room a little differently, and something in it is getting closer to the lens.

This guide assumes everyone has finished the story, so it discusses the ending.

Character map

Character map for The Room Between Blinksfirst revealsphotographslearns to findtests withapproaches throughIris CallowayProtagonistThe roomThe place betweenThe pale shapeThe presenceThe mannequinThe experimentThe bride's grandmotherFirst subject
The main character is in the highlighted box. Arrows show who acts on whom. Scroll sideways to see the whole map.
  • The bride's grandmother first reveals The room
  • Iris Calloway photographs The room
  • The pale shape learns to find Iris Calloway
  • Iris Calloway tests with The mannequin
  • The pale shape approaches through The room

Who’s who

Iris Calloway · Protagonist
A wedding photographer of nine years whose curiosity turns into obsession.
The room · The place between
Narrow, low, with a bare bulb and a worn circle on the floor. Everyone passes through it with each blink.
The pale shape · The presence
Too thin, with a slit that blinks. It has learned to keep its eyes open.
The bride's grandmother · First subject
Her blink at a wedding reveals the room for the first time.
The mannequin · The experiment
A subject that ‘could not be harmed,’ used to record the shape’s approach.

Themes to look for

  • Looking and being looked at

    ‘She had been taking pictures of the room, but the room had been taking pictures of her.’

  • Curiosity

    Iris keeps going long after she should stop. Is curiosity her flaw or her nature?

  • The unavoidable

    No one can stop blinking. The horror comes from something everyone does.

  • Hidden worlds

    For a third of a second, the whole world goes somewhere and never notices.

Discussion questions

  1. What first draws Iris back to the room after she deletes the frame?
  2. The room changes in each print: the bulb lower, a crack spreading, a doorway forming. What is the story telling us through these small changes?
  3. Why does photographing herself in the mirror change everything?
  4. Iris uses a mannequin so no one gets hurt. What does that choice say about her?
  5. What do you make of the shape’s ‘blinking’ slit, which opens onto another room?
  6. The story says Iris ‘spent two months teaching it where to look.’ Is she responsible for what happens?
  7. The ending stops before the final blink. Why might the author leave it there?
  8. How does the story turn something as small as a third of a second into something huge?

Craft corner

For writers in the group. Each term links to the writer’s glossary.

  • Pacing: The twelve-frame sequence reads like a flip book. How do short paragraphs change the speed of reading?
  • Open ending: What happens after the last sentence? Does the story need to say?

Try this together

Pick a single frame from the sequence of twelve and draw or describe it in detail. Put the group’s frames in order and read the sequence aloud as one scene.