What is Horror?

Horror is.

It's all the things you worry about... everything you fear... all those small, insignificant things you put out of your mind till later because you assume that tomorrow is given fact and not just a possibility. It's everything you hope to never have to face. Real, preternatural, imagined, delusional... horror is.

It's everywhere... in everything. All it takes is a little imagination.

I can only say what horror is to me. IMHO
The things that make me go ewwwww.
That make the hair on my arms stand up.
That cause a chill to run through my body. (Even on a hot day.)
Things that make my tummy do an involuntary roll.
Things that cause my dreams to turn into nightmares.
Things that touch upon my inner, deepest fears, and toy with them.
Things that do such a twist at the end that it causes me to gulp or gasp out loud.
Things that are written that come alive in my imagination and cause me to look over my shoulder or turn on all the lights.

If someone can do that with the written word I believe they have achieved a true horror story. To me, it makes the difference between scary and horror. I love both. Funny thing is this does not require blood and guts. The anticipation or execution of the work is what really makes it horror for me.

Horror is a state of mind and a genre of writing that brings to mind certain states of mind and emotional experience.

That's probably the best clinical description or definition I can come with on the fly.

But more than that, horror is that deep, buried portion of our reptile brain that still fears the things that go bump in the night. It's the breath of wind that stirs through the leaves and the grass that leaves us wondering what might be out there - or worse what might already be in herewith us.

It's lying awake at night listening for the baby's next breath and fearing it might not come. It's doing something we're ashamed of and wondering when someone's going to find us out.

It's seeing the red and blue lights come on behind us when we've been out too late and had a couple too many. It's watching a parent or loved one with a horrible disease descend into pain-ridden madness and rage at the doctors and nurses and disown their children because they can't or won't end the suffering.

It's waiting on the flight line knowing you're carrying the bomb that could end the war, but will kill tens of thousands in a single blast.

It's looking at the kitchen garbage disposal and wondering what it would feel like to stick your hand down there when it's switched on.

Horror is a thousand little things that we see and do every day which we know can suddenly turn around and bite us.

You know I'm starting to wonder on that. Since I read my share of horror, not much scares me anymore. Also, when I go to the horror isle in the bookstores I see vampires, zombies, other unknown monters.

DeleyanLee said:

Someone mentioned the Twilight books and such, but those seem to be shelved in YA and, honestly, generally discussed as YA.

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I don't know that I'd call Twilight horror, only because my impression of it is that it's more paranormal YA romance with some horror elements (though admittedly, I haven't read it, so it's possible my understanding is off-base).

But I think YA is a tricky thing in general because it can have subgenres. I would think that a horror novel written for a YA audience would be shelved with the YA books. Just like mystery books written for kids are housed in the kid's section rather than the mystery section.

As for what horror is, to me it's about fear and terror. Facing horrible things (or mysterious things that seem horrible). I also think a lot of horror stories try to elicit fear and suspense in the reader.

Twilight IS NOT HORROR!

Twilight is a thinly disguised romance with hints of "the bad boy" disguised as a vampire story. IT IS NOT HORROR!!!

Stephen King's Under The Dome is not horror (it's psychological suspense). Stephen King's Pet Sematary, From A Buick 8, and Cell are horror.

Brian Keene's The Rising and The Conqueror Worms are horror.

Dean Koontz's The Taking and Midnight are horror. His books Watchers, Lightning, and Dark Rivers of the Heart are not.

People think they're reading horror when what they're actually reading is psychological suspense or a thinly-disguised piece of romance in many, many cases (most these days it seems). Readers like what they like and I'm not faulting either them or the authors who feed them for that. I AM absolutely faulting the publishers who publish an author's work as horror when it clearly is not and the publisher clearly does not have Clue #1 as to what horror really is. They pollute the genre, decrease the genre's value as a genre in and of itself, and lower the effort it takes to create a true horror story in order to push a book out into a genre that it ordinarily would be laughed out of.

FOTSGreg said:

Twilight IS NOT HORROR!

Twilight is a thinly disguised romance with hints of "the bad boy" disguised as a vampire story. IT IS NOT HORROR!!!

Stephen King's Under The Dome is not horror (it's psychological suspense). Stephen King's Pet Sematary, From A Buick 8, and Cell are horror.

Brian Keene's The Rising and The Conqueror Worms are horror.

Dean Koontz's The Taking and Midnight are horror. His books Watchers, Lightning, and Dark Rivers of the Heart are not.

People think they're reading horror when what they're actually reading is psychological suspense or a thinly-disguised piece of romance in many, many cases (most these days it seems). Readers like what they like and I'm not faulting either them or the authors who feed them for that. I AM absolutely faulting the publishers who publish an author's work as horror when it clearly is not and the publisher clearly does not have Clue #1 as to what horror really is. They pollute the genre, decrease the genre's value as a genre in and of itself, and lower the effort it takes to create a true horror story in order to push a book out into a genre that it ordinarily would be laughed out of.

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What he said.

FOTSGreg said:

Horror is a state of mind and a genre of writing that brings to mind certain states of mind and emotional experience.

That's probably the best clinical description or definition I can come with on the fly.

But more than that, horror is that deep, buried portion of our reptile brain that still fears the things that go bump in the night. It's the breath of wind that stirs through the leaves and the grass that leaves us wondering what might be out there - or worse what might already be in herewith us.

It's lying awake at night listening for the baby's next breath and fearing it might not come. It's doing something we're ashamed of and wondering when someone's going to find us out.

It's seeing the red and blue lights come on behind us when we've been out too late and had a couple too many. It's watching a parent or loved one with a horrible disease descend into pain-ridden madness and rage at the doctors and nurses and disown their children because they can't or won't end the suffering.

It's waiting on the flight line knowing you're carrying the bomb that could end the war, but will kill tens of thousands in a single blast.

It's looking at the kitchen garbage disposal and wondering what it would feel like to stick your hand down there when it's switched on.

Horror is a thousand little things that we see and do every day which we know can suddenly turn around and bite us.

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Well put!

In my opinion, the horror genre has an incredible variety. Psychological suspense, flesh-eating zombies, ghost stories, among others, all fall under the horror umbrella. I don't see the variety as a pollution of the genre (Sorry, Greg.) but as an expansion. The classic horror mold has been shattered, opening doorways for new flavors and new styles of dark fiction. 'Modern' horror wears many faces.

You guys rock and these response are perfect!


Horror is the genre that opens the hidden door to reveal things and ideas that scare the piss out of you.

Horror is upon reading a book,you get the urge to check all your locks and peep under your bed to make sure nothing's there.

Horror is a feeling that after reading a horror writer's words,you've taken a trip into utter madness. Even worse,you quite like it.

Horror is the genre that awakens fears you didn't know you had. It repulses,terrifies,and causes uncertainty in the reader. But much like a moth to the flame,the temptation is too strong to resist. Here there be madness and terror,but you must read.

No need to apologize, DG. Opinions differ, that's all. Psychological suspense, done correctly, can be great horror. It's not that I see everything as a pollution of the genre it's that things get labeled as horror that clearly are not and should not be promoted as horror.

I'm a cranky, contentious, opinionated old geezer who doesn't consider half the stuff on the shelves that's labeled horror as truly belonging to the genre. That doesn't mean it doesn;t have intrinsic worth in and of itself, just that the publishers, in an effort to pigeonhole something they know little or nothing about choose horror as a catch-all for really badly-written stuff of stuff that has so little resemblance to horror that it borders on stupidity for it to be labeled as such (or crass commercialism).

I just don't think Twilight is horror. Harry Potter isn't horror either. But I've seen both shelved in the horror section of the book stores. Charlaine Harris and Laurel K. Hamilton get shelved there too and from what I hear there's not much horror in those authors books either (well, except for some rather horrible writing that is).

It's perfectly okay to disagree with me. I'd rather doubt the sanity of most anyone who actually agrees with me most of the time.

I got this helpful rejection on a story on mine, a couple years back.

...while I find (antagonist's) ability is terrifying and strange, I must admit that I never really felt it. I had an idea of the impact you were going for, but I was just unable to get into (protagonist's) fear and experience it for myself. That most of all is what the rejection is based on. In horror the writer's main goal is help the reader put on the protagonist's skin and know every nuance of that character's fear. Though I understand his terror, it never quite sank in enough to create terror in me.

I've said this before but I'll throw it in again. Horror to me has to have an icky bug (monster) that eats half the characters, they say "f...k" a lot, and there are plenty of gratuitous sex scenes that have nothing to do with the story LOL.

That being said, I agree with FotsGreg for the most part. To me, phsychological suspense it not what I consider horror. And don't even mention vampires 99% of the time. Bloody romances.

When humans are doing the terrorizing, to me, it's either thriller or suspense. When ghosts are doing the terrorizing, it's supernatural suspense and many times horror. When it's icky bugs doing the terrorizing, it's horror.

To me, just because it may be horrifying or scary, it is not necessarily horror. A story about 9/11 is horrifying but not horror. It has to have some supernatural or unnatural element to be horror. Not reality or human.

Just a different take.

I have seen a lot of sub-genre-izing lately. I think it all should be simplified again to speculative fiction. Horror's name was badly damaged by the slashers, but before the rise of blood-n-gore, horror was the dark side of speculative fiction: Frankenstein = Sci-Fi; Dracula = Fantasy/Mythology; Lovercraft's Dream Realms/Ancient Gods = Fantasy/Mythology.

Stephen King's (Horror's best seller) earlier works were all either Fantasy/Mythology or Sci-Fi when you think about it (Of course Misery was an example of his penchant for Crime Fiction, like John D. McDonald's books--which he used "Alexis Machine" in The Dark Half from). Carrie was about a girl with telekinesis (what could be sub-genre-ized as "Magic Realism"), magic to anyone who's seen Star Wars.It was about an alien (Sci-Fi) that landed in prehistoric times. The Tommyknockers was straight out Sci-Fi.

IA, we agree to disagree.

Ultimately, as someone way above my pay grade put it, horror is ultimately romance.

However, Tommyknockers is horror because a)there is a romance in there, b) it's ultimately about a haunted house, and c) it has zombies. Frankenstein is horror because it is essentially about a man's attempt to achieve godhood by doing something only God has done before. Dracula is almost pure romance. It has all the elements of a classic gkthicromance and, in fact, birthed the genre imnsho.

Lovecraft is widely misunderstood by those who have only a casual relationship with his writings. He was not suggesting that humans were involved in any way with his ancient alien gods. He was saying that as much as humans might have wanted to be involved with them that those ancient alien gods simply didn't care, period. The humans might supplicate and sacrifice and assume all they wanted and in hey end the ancient alien ids would just eat their brains anyway.

Okay,there's a problem with the iPad's keyboard...No goddamned scroll capability...No goddamned scroll capability...

FOTSGreg said:

IA, we agree to disagree.

Ultimately, as someone way above my lay grade put it, horror is ultimately romance.

However, Tommyknockers is horror because a)there is a romance in there, b) it's ultimately about a haunted house, and c) it has zombies. Frankenstein is horror because it is essentially about a man's attempt to achieve godhood by doing something only God has done before. Dracula is almost pure romance. It has all the elements of a classic gkthicromance and, in fact, birthed the genre imnsho.

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As you say. We'll have to agree to disagree. Stephen King once said all stories are romance--not specifically horror.

Tommyknockers is about powering up an alien ship, using humans as batteries--and changing those compatible into aliens able to fly said ship. What about that is NOT Sci-Fi? Alien, the movie, was Sci-Fi, but who will tell me it's not also horror? Really.

Frankenstein is the definition of Sci-Fi: Take away the science, there is no story. Marry Shelley witnessed advancements in science, at the World's Fair, and she extrapolated on the "darker" possibilities. Take away the word "darker," and it is straight out Sci-Fi. The motivation behind the character's action doesn't change that.

Dracula is a Dark Romance, but, is built on old Romanian legend/mythology about Vlad Tepes II of Wallachia and the more popular accounts in Serbia and Oltenia of "Vampir Killing," which were widely spread between 1725 and 1732. The Vampyre by John Polidory came out in 1819--as part of the Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Polidory at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland in the summer of 1816 (in which Frankenstein was born), and but one of the predecessor's to the Bram Stoker book. Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 Carmilla, was not only a predecessor, but an influence on Stoker (her story, for those who don't know, is about a lesbian vampire who preys on a lonely young woman). The mythology of the Vampire has a clearly formed magic system: power fueled by blood--which makes it fantasy (by definition)

Oh, my. Someone who's risen to the challenge of debate.

I find myself intrigued and shall respond on the morrow (should I remember).

Feidb said:

When humans are doing the terrorizing, to me, it's either thriller or suspense.

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I agree ... and disagree. There are exceptions, I think at least. I consider Jack Ketchum HORROR and he writes about humans--Girl Next Door, Right to Life, Off Season.

One of my good friends told me supernatural monsters, ghosts and the like do not frighten her in the least because she knows it's imposable, but crazy people do because she knows they are out there. So, I gave her a copy of Off Season to read and she was never the same.