Jamesaritchie said:
It's the opposite for me. The only reason I believe horror fiction touches me is because I really have lived through horrors. I've been terrifed, and was very early on. I grew up in a back country house that had real horrors try to break in, had real horrors assault a couple of the women who lived there, etc. And I've stood at the top of the basement stairs while something on the other side of the door tried its best to break the door down.
I've seen many people killed, I've been shot at, and have shot back. I've had a face to face encounter with a bear, I've been in the kind of fight where the other person has every intention of killing you, on and on.
This is all what makes horror fiction real to me.
Sounds a lot like me. Although, my bear was a big mean dog but when you are small I imagine the effects are similar. When something nearly as big as you tries to get at you tooth and claw it doesn't much matter what species it is. And had I had a gun when I was shot at I would have shot back but being unarmed I just ran...very fast. For never having gone to war I've seen my fair share of death, my dad for one, nearly decapitated. It is remarkable the amount of blood a body can spill. That is a lingering post-event thought from that night, a Friday the 13th no less.
But my greatest horror is that many of these dead were just children. Do you know how to tell someone died instantly? Because the deep gashes in her pretty face never bled. Almost a dozen dead haunt my sleep, half of them children, three were friends of mine, riding bikes and run down by a drunk. The other children were strangers that I just had the misfortune of reaching the scene first. One was a bloody and broken 2 year old girl that didn't die right away. She wasn't awake but the fact that she lingered somehow makes it worse. Even though that was over 25 years ago she can still make me cry some nights. Every time I hear a crash I relive a dozen others. I went two years imagining blood spots on highways. How the brain can give that red hue to a puddle of water I can't say but it is disturbing. I imagine it stemed from the incredibly long blood sreaks when those three where drug under that guys car.
I've had my share of 4 legged frights, being a country dweller most of my life but the biggest monsters I've encountered have been bipedal and possessed rational reasoning ability.
I'm angry for most of this. I try to write it into my stories but I'm a passivist at heart and have spent my life running away rather than taking a stand. This is probably why I can't get that PUNCH into what I write. My characters tend not to resolve issues but (like in my own life) issues tend to resolve around them. A stroke of luck, as it were.
Lots of things frighten me often, just not when I read. I get more out of a story while I am writing it. I see what I write much more vividly than what I read.
Still, I love a good monster story and I hope mine turn out that way. Most of mine are canine related (big foot, wolf hybrid, mutant puppies)...Hmmm...(thinks of that big mean dog) But, unless I figure out what I lack, any success will be in another genre.
