I'm like Batman... I prefer to share my fears to help me conquer them.
Only I wear my underwear on the inside.
I've heard that Rllgthunder doesn't wear any, but that's just a rumor. So far.
Why do you write horror?
- Thread starter williemeikle
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I've heard that Rllgthunder doesn't wear any, but that's just a rumor. So far.
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I just started writing horror. One short under my belt in the genre.
A friend told me about a horror anthology, I got an idea, and I couldn't rest until it had escaped through my fingertips. I wrote horror because that's the genre that inspired the story.
A friend told me about a horror anthology, I got an idea, and I couldn't rest until it had escaped through my fingertips. I wrote horror because that's the genre that inspired the story.
Ruv Draba
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I rarely have nightmares, but when I do, I always feel relieved and grateful. Our nightmares are harbingers of knowledge and insight.
We sometimes have enormous difficulties understanding and negotiating the world. We're forced to make a huge number of assumptions and simplifications just to get by. Many of these are created to make us feel safe, and to trust.
We don't know that our bus-driver is competent and diligent. We don't know that our doctor is well-trained and benign. We don't know that weather is predictable and survivable, that our parents truly love us, that the food we eat has been prepared properly. We don't know that justice is fair, that hard work is rewarded, that honesty is respected and valued. We don't know that the dead will stay dead, or that the wrongs we do others shall be forgiven or overlooked. We believe those things because they're reasonable beliefs and also because they're comfortable beliefs. But sometimes the weight of all these unquestioned assumptions gets just too heavy to bear. Especially for the imaginative...
Horror lets us explore the implausible and malignant and indifferent. It lets us confront what we daren't think about and realise that even at its worst, we can confront it bravely. It lets us face our fears with honesty, and share them. It brings us sanity and normality. It also lets us laugh at ourselves and how seriously we take the world, and how we shelter ourselves from its worst aspects. It lets us celebrate our good fortune to be alive and not victims of calamity.
Is horror necessary? Probably not for all people. But culturally, it's a benison far more than a curse. Horror presents us with ideas two steps beyond the acceptable. It brings our unknown into awareness if not into focus. At its best it opens our perceptions and brings us agility.
But the horror genre can also become a fetish, an indulgence, a vicarious and impotent attack on the constraints of our lives. A monotonous assault on sense and sensibility. A torrent of cheap shocks and predictable destruction of gratuitous effigies. A ritual of scapegoating, of narcissism, onanism, self-justification and complacency.
What's the difference? I think it's the author's bravery, along with self-honesty, wisdom and compassion. A willingness to depart from formula and cliché; a desire to explore the unexplored. A good horror writer is responsible wilderness guide who brings us along too - not safe, but cared-for. We know when we have read a good horror story because it grows us. We change for the better. And we are perhaps just a bit grateful that some author went there before we did.
We sometimes have enormous difficulties understanding and negotiating the world. We're forced to make a huge number of assumptions and simplifications just to get by. Many of these are created to make us feel safe, and to trust.
We don't know that our bus-driver is competent and diligent. We don't know that our doctor is well-trained and benign. We don't know that weather is predictable and survivable, that our parents truly love us, that the food we eat has been prepared properly. We don't know that justice is fair, that hard work is rewarded, that honesty is respected and valued. We don't know that the dead will stay dead, or that the wrongs we do others shall be forgiven or overlooked. We believe those things because they're reasonable beliefs and also because they're comfortable beliefs. But sometimes the weight of all these unquestioned assumptions gets just too heavy to bear. Especially for the imaginative...
Horror lets us explore the implausible and malignant and indifferent. It lets us confront what we daren't think about and realise that even at its worst, we can confront it bravely. It lets us face our fears with honesty, and share them. It brings us sanity and normality. It also lets us laugh at ourselves and how seriously we take the world, and how we shelter ourselves from its worst aspects. It lets us celebrate our good fortune to be alive and not victims of calamity.
Is horror necessary? Probably not for all people. But culturally, it's a benison far more than a curse. Horror presents us with ideas two steps beyond the acceptable. It brings our unknown into awareness if not into focus. At its best it opens our perceptions and brings us agility.
But the horror genre can also become a fetish, an indulgence, a vicarious and impotent attack on the constraints of our lives. A monotonous assault on sense and sensibility. A torrent of cheap shocks and predictable destruction of gratuitous effigies. A ritual of scapegoating, of narcissism, onanism, self-justification and complacency.
What's the difference? I think it's the author's bravery, along with self-honesty, wisdom and compassion. A willingness to depart from formula and cliché; a desire to explore the unexplored. A good horror writer is responsible wilderness guide who brings us along too - not safe, but cared-for. We know when we have read a good horror story because it grows us. We change for the better. And we are perhaps just a bit grateful that some author went there before we did.
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