How important is 'realism' to you in horror writing?

BarbaraKE · Oct 16, 2008

Maybe I'm just too logical but I simply don't find supernatural horror scary. I suspect it's because I can't suspect my disbelief long enough to actually get into the story.

(Don't get me wrong - I love reading about werewolves, vampires, etc. I simply find the concepts interesting, not scary.)

But horror that involves (realistic) serial killers or hordes of bugs engulfing someone can really bother me. (Especially the hordes of bugs - ugh!!)

How important is realism to you?

rsmccoy · Oct 16, 2008

In writing and reading horror, it is important to me that the story remains as real as possible. The recent novel Terror, had a mythical creature killing people, and yet it felt plausable because of the skill in which the story was told. THe circumstances were horrific enough without a supernatural creature, but with one, it made it a fantastic and very scary story.

A lot of vamp or werewolf stories read more like fantasy, and I agree I don't find most scary. Salems Lot scared me, but I was young. Even now, I suspect I would get chills because it was writen so well and made to seem more believable.

When I write a story with a supernatural element, I try to make it more plausable, ot at least not full blown fantastical (is that a word?). I regular person faced with something out of his or her scope of expeirience.

I actually find serial killers mundane, probably because men are rarely the targets and I have a deep seated belief (perhaps self delusion), that the killer would end up dead, not me.

Jcomp · Oct 16, 2008

I like injecting some realism into supernatural plots, exploring how I think people would realistically behave and respond to certain fantastic situations, and bringing up real topics that are seldom mentioned in most supernatural stories.

When people read a haunted house story and invariably ask, "Why doesn't the family just move?" I tend to think, "What about the mortgage?" And I still wonder about the impact of the Poltergeist house on the neighborhood. Damn near every neighbor who could afford it would move, even if they didn't witness the whole spectacle, just based on the fact that a house disappeared overnight and a bunch of corpses turned up in the back yard. That neighborhood would fall into all sorts of disrepair, maybe get abandoned altogether or (more interestingly) become a low-income housing area. What of the lingering spirits who don't follow Carol Anne? They remain to haunt new residents who might have concerns too pressing to even care that the house is haunted. So what extra steps do the spirits take to terrorize the neighborhood? How do the residents respond?

That's the story I want to read about...

DeeCaudill · Oct 16, 2008

Maybe it's a story to write, Jcomp?

ManyAk · Oct 16, 2008

I think that it's your characters who bring realism to a story, even if you're writing fantasy. If your characters are interesting, logic and developped, your story will feel real by itself. It's just that usually when there's a monster, people act like idiots, and that's when you start asking yourself ''Why don't they just run away?''.

virtue_summer · Oct 16, 2008

To me it's never been about whether or not the threat is supernatural or natural. Realism to me comes in how the characters behave. Do they read like real people? That's what matters to me. And although I wouldn't call my own work straight out horror, it does share a lot of elements with supernatural horror and one of the things that I try to do is to make sure that the supernatural is entwined with the natural. My characters are real people. The only thing I think I really change is to give them a wider canvas via the supernatural on which to act out their very human emotions. The truth is that I often find supernatural horror stories expressing greater truths to me than serial killer ones. I mean Pet Sematary scared me because I felt it was so true to the desperation of loss and I had the chilling thought that despite the obvious objections I and most people I know might very well react in the same fashion were we given the chance. To me what's horrifying isn't the idea of a physical threat assaulting me. It's getting those views into human nature that make you realize just how thin the line between good and evil can be.

HoraceJames · Oct 16, 2008

"Reality" is subjective. An entomologist might say that the likelihood of being engulfed in a bug overcoat (at least while alive) is about the same as being sucked dry by a vamp.

It's more about building a world that you can fall into, that may not be "realistic" but is consistent within itself.

Also, if the world is designed to scare, it doesn't work so well. Better to build your Weirdsville and then find the back alleys and basements within the whole. For example, carnival haunted houses are not as scary as a subdivision of "normal" houses built on a death camp.

Aschenbach · Oct 16, 2008

Horrific things like rape, incest, child abuse, murder, genocide, happen all the time. And even though horror is supposed to confront this dark side of humanity, most of the time it deals with imaginary horrors like ghosts and vampires and werewolves. The whole point of horror, it seems to me, is to touch on these subjects without ever getting too close to the truth.

If horror really does act like some kind of safety valve that allows us to deal with real anxieties (death being the most basic) without confronting them head on, then it has to be realistic, but not too realistic.

Sorry for rambling :Sun:

Rabe · Oct 16, 2008

I believe that to make story come across as horror and horrific, then it needs to be very, very realistic.

The horror then stands out and becomes even more horrific by comparison.

So, when I write horror, I try to make everything but the supernatural elements grounded completely in boring, mundane reality. Otherwise the fantastic makes the horror less significant and therefore less horrific and more fantastical.

Rabe...

BarbaraKE · Oct 18, 2008

rsmccoy said:
In writing and reading horror, it is important to me that the story remains as real as possible. The recent novel Terror, had a mythical creature killing people, and yet it felt plausable because of the skill in which the story was told. THe circumstances were horrific enough without a supernatural creature, but with one, it made it a fantastic and very scary story.

I'll have to look for that one.

rsmccoy said:
A lot of vamp or werewolf stories read more like fantasy, and I agree I don't find most scary. Salems Lot scared me, but I was young. Even now, I suspect I would get chills because it was writen so well and made to seem more believable.

I was a teenager when I first read it but I remember the vampires propagating so quickly bothered me. Heck, they would take over the world in about three weeks flat at that rate.

rsmccoy said:
I actually find serial killers mundane, probably because men are rarely the targets and I have a deep seated belief (perhaps self delusion), that the killer would end up dead, not me.

I'm a woman, I suspect that makes a difference. But my absolute biggest fear has always been something happening to my children.

BarbaraKE · Oct 18, 2008

virtue_summer said:
I mean Pet Sematary scared me because I felt it was so true to the desperation of loss and I had the chilling thought that despite the obvious objections I and most people I know might very well react in the same fashion were we given the chance.

That's a good point. I know I (as a parent) would have done anything to get my son back also.

But I remember asking myself why the pets and people 'brought back' always came back as 'evil'. If someone brought me back from the dead, wouldn't I be grateful to them?

The only way that whole scenario works is if you accept that there is some sort of generalized 'evil' that 1) has power in the physical world and 2) is in control once you 'die'. But I don't believe in that type of 'evil' so I had problems with the story's basic premise.

BarbaraKE · Oct 18, 2008

HoraceJames said:
"Reality" is subjective. An entomologist might say that the likelihood of being engulfed in a bug overcoat (at least while alive) is about the same as being sucked dry by a vamp.

But I've seen animal bodies covered with insects. And I have a phobia about certain bugs. So that would bother me. I've never seen a vampire.

HoraceJames said:
Also, if the world is designed to scare, it doesn't work so well. Better to build your Weirdsville and then find the back alleys and basements within the whole. For example, carnival haunted houses are not as scary as a subdivision of "normal" houses built on a death camp.

Very good point.

That could make a great story - houses built on top of a concentration camp. Hmmm...

HeronW · Oct 18, 2008

If it's a monster give me something new/old that hasn't been used as much. If it's human be accurate in the hack 'n slash department. Consistency goes a long way in believability. 'Just happening' without a motive is meaningless. Animals/monsters need to eat, or want revenge, or are protecting offspring or a mate, humans kill for even more reasons (if for less logic).

How important is 'realism' to you in horror writing?

BarbaraKE

rsmccoy

A sphincter says what?

Jcomp

DeeCaudill

Nightmare Recycler

ManyAk

virtue_summer

Always learning

HoraceJames

Aschenbach

Moral Marjorie

Rabe

the living dead

BarbaraKE

BarbaraKE

BarbaraKE

HeronW

Down Under Fan