Why do you write horror?

I write horror to share some of the disgraceful things I see at times.
Share them, take away their power.
Horror makes us feel very humble.
We have the power to make people feel something other than bored or perhaps complacent.
A well placed shock or piece of visceral horror goes over with far more impact than a movie. It makes the reader the owner of their fear and the author of the destruction of their own sleep.

I love horror.
I write horror.
I always will.

When I was a tiny kid, I always loved reading horror stories, I used to love writing them too. Growing up, I still liked to read horror, and like you, loved Stephen King, but writing it didn't interest me anymore.
Where I'm middle-aged, I still like horror, but horror that is believable in some ways, like Interview with the Vampire. The Vampires seem like real 'people' lol. Well, maybe not like real people, but they are believable because they have personalities now, they don't feel like horror stories anymore. To be honest, I don't really read a lot of horror these days, but do still love a good horror film, they make me laugh more than anything though.

These days I find things, like the film Irreversible, much more frightening than any horror film, life-like things are definitely more scary than fictional horror to me.
I think people read and write horror because they like to feel scared, sort of like a primeval feeling of being afraid of the dark and the unknown.


Elodie

Why?

I go along with I write horror because I enjoy reading horror. For me, there's nothing special about horror fiction. It's just another way of tell a story about the human condition. I like a good story, well told, and I don't care what label is placed on it.

I write horror because I think it's a strong way of expressing what is wrong with this society and with that, we can better understand how to change it.

Of course, I didn't start writing with that goal - I used to just like a dark kind of story - but I guess my understanding and my personal angle on the genre has changed along with me as I became a political activist.

For me, it's the puzzle. I like trying to solve the unsolvable-- such as why do people act in horrid ways, specifically when it's deliberate. I like the twists, turns, and surprises-- both in the terrifying moments and the unexpected calming ones. I like juxtaposing emotions in a variety of ways-- horror mixed with laughter slammed with terror ending with a type of bittersweetness.

I write horror because I like reading it. Mostly though, I like scaring the snot out of myself and while movies, books, etc. can do it for me. I know myself better than anybody so I can find my innermost fears through my writing better than anyone else.

Now that I think of it, the emotion of fear has never been my main concern. What I write falls into the "horror" genre, but my reason for writing it is to capture a sense of the supernatural.

My family are all fantasy fans, but epic fantasy has never been my bag. When I was a kid they gave me The Hobbit; I didn't read it. They gave me Brian Jacques; I didn't read it. They gave me Robin McKinley (my grandmother adding the curious disclaimer: "She's kind of stuck-up in person, but she writes great books."); still I didn't read it.

"Sara just isn't a fantasy person," they said.

But I ate up the Goosebumps books. I loved Stephen King. And when I discovered Heinlein, I loved him too.

Heinlein? Yeah. It's all of a piece.

All of these books show the wonderful and marvellous happening in what is recognizably this world, this universe. Whatever crazy things are going on in never-never land, they can't compare to what might be going on here and now.

And that's where fear comes into it. When they happen remote histories, in distant, unfathomable futures, or in realities so different from our own that they have no temporal relation to it, wonderful and marvellous things are basically safe. They happen, after all, only to the people of that other world, that world that is not ours.

But when that possessed mask is just like one you passed up in the Halloween store last week -- when that vampire-ridden Maine town is just like one your mother visited in the '80s -- when that sentient computer is only so much more sophisticated than your own ---

Why, it's enough to keep you up every night for the rest of your life. Yeah, it hits close to home.

For me, it's not a matter of seeing everyday horrors and making fantasies of them, but of making everyday fantasies and seeing horrors in them.

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Great OP, by the way.

I love horror because it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. (I watched a lot of it with my mom as a kid, and loved having her as my date to go see the new slasher movie, it was so much fun)

I've always been attracted to horror, without a very concrete sense of why. I saw my first (real) horror movie when I was five--it was an over-the-top, intentionally campy flick called House--and I kept thinking about it for a long time afterward. I was most fascinated by the supernatural aspect of it, but the very human vendetta component was interesting too. After that, I watched a lot of horror movies, even the bad ones. I started checking out books from the adult section of the library and reading production accounts and explanations of how they did the effects in The Exorcist. I couldn't get enough; I wanted to know about every aspect.

I don't know that I actually write horror, despite the fact that some of it has indeed been published as horror. I write dark fiction, although in real life, I certainly don't seem like a dark person. To myself, I don't feel like a dark person. I just like dark things. I also like Pop Rocks. I suppose on some level, it's just a matter of taste.

A new person joined my 'home' critique group. This week when we got together she handed my chapter back and said, "I didn't know you wrote horror - you certainly don't look the type!"
Uh, what type is that I really wonder. . . LOL!

I write supernatural horror, and like may others, use today's world. I guess if you really wanted to get down to brass tacks - you could say I write speculative fiction or a blend of sci-fi, fantasy and horror with the focus on 'what if this was real'. I label myself 'Dark fiction' writer.

Why I write it? I think it provides an outlet for people. I always say "you think you had a bad day? That's nothing compared to what my character was faced with!"

Why write horror?

Fun.

I enjoy reading it, too.

Nice place to start

Summonere said:

Why write horror?

Fun.

I enjoy reading it, too.

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I don't set out to write horror, but I often find myself entering a horror atmosphere in terms of going through the glimpses that the characters get of the situations evolving around them. I assume they are all trained in "horror perception" (since they are "modern people" like you or me) and that they are interpreting what they perceive and suspect in terms of horror...I suppose it lets me put the reader and the characters in roughly the same place: instinctive dread and mesmerized anticipation.

But I never quite reach the horror plateau, though this new story that I'm working on is apparently going to spend quite a while asymptotically approaching the horror level. But there's going to be some twists and we aren't going to quite make it all the way to horror, I don't think.

Because when I was little, a woman came up to my mother and said that something had followed her from Jamaica and it was angry with her. (And my mother didn't know the lady but had in fact just been to Jamaica). Because my father said he saw a little girl go into the loo in our old house, thought it was one of us, but then there was no-one there. Because I once woke up in my sister's new flat and felt someone patting my face as if she (felt like a 'she') was blind and trying to see what I looked like; I thought it was my sister, who often had sleepwalk-ish episodes, but when I opened my eyes, she wasn't there and the patting was still happening, and although I know I must have been asleep, I really, really don't think I was. But I must have been. But I don't think so. But...etc.

I read mostly horror so I just happens that I write mostly horror. I started mostly that I would write stuff that I had always wanted to read about, but could never find it in a book. So i said to myself, Why don't I just write about this stuff instead of trying to find a book that doesn't exsist.

I read horror because I like to be scared.

I write horror, and fantasy with horror elements, because I'm fascinated by what scares people, not just in the "holy crud THERE'S A MONKEY ON MY BACK AND HE'S GOT A KNIFE!" sense but in the "This is going to serioulsy disturb me. After this, I'll never be the same" sense.

I write horror because I don't want to keep that stuff in my head.

I read horror because it stalks me, jumps on my back, tackles me, attacks me with fang and claw, and forces me to wrestle with it for hours. Days...sometimes.

Jaycinth said:

I read horror because it stalks me, jumps on my back, tackles me, attacks me with fang and claw, and forces me to wrestle with it for hours. Days...sometimes.

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That wasn't Horror, Jay. That was Rllgthunder.

Well, hmm all the good answers are taken. But that's not really why I like to write horror.

I do agree with the real life stuff not being in there. Although King makes some of that into his, there is still the supernatural element that takes it a notch up (Lisey's Story had a form of child abuse from the past, but also had the boo-yah moon thing happening).

Anyway, it's all well and good that I like to read horror, actually, I like fantasy more.

My real reason for writing horror, and trying to perfect what I do...I want to scare people. I want to make them uncomfortable, squirm in their seats, make them actually wish they'd never read my story but not able to put it down. I want to disturb the reader. I want them looking over their shoulder after they put the story/book down.

I want them afraid to turn off the lights.

I want them to actually feel the fingers clawing at their necks as they turn out the basement light to come upstairs. Like the alligator, I want to take them down low in the water, turn them around and around to cause the panic, and then just settle down into the bottom sand of the river like a smothering blanket.

Yeah...that's why I write horror.

Hey, where else can you get away with murder? Maiming, torturing, brutaly beating innocent people? What, don't you get off on that?

Yeah, I get that same attitude from people, trying to predict when I plan on beheading my entire family. They can't figure what intrigues me, and sometimes I don't know. Maybe through fear I feel more alive. So, by experiencing another's fear, I gain clarity in my existence. Or I'm just plain depraved.

Haggis said:

That wasn't Horror, Jay. That was Rllgthunder.

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Hmmmm .... I thought there was something not quite 'ripe' about it.

That's one soccer mom with a mean kick!

A co-worker surprised me the other day. She discovered that I write horror and wanted to take a peak at my work. I handed her the first couple chapter of my novel that starts out with a pedophile getting his head twisted off before he can do the deed. Personally, I can't write about children getting abused in that way, in fact, thsoe creeps really tick me off so that's kind of why I started my novel with one getting whacked. She came back and said that after two pages she was embarrassed and couldn't read any more, all the while eyeballing me like I was some kind of fruitloop.

It's great getting judged by your work.

Pike