I have a question...

Well...

Vuligora said:

...when you write horror is the purpose to scare the bejeebers out of people or to use scaryness to express a theme or is there a lot of action involved that's purpose is to excite the reader. Is it to explore previously unexplored ideas about freaky scary stuff.

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For me, it is definitely the former. Everything I write in the horror genre is primarily focused on scaring the hell out of my audience, and everything else is secondary. If I can explore and express other themes through the story as well, bonus, and I don't overlook those things, but I never lose focus on the fact that the person reading probably is looking to get scared. I feel it is my obligation to satisfy that expectation foremost.

Vuligora said:

In addition, what exactly makes horror, well, horror. I write scary stuff, but I usually consider it more fantasy than horror. Does horror always have to have a sad ending or involve lots of gore. I now very little about the genre and would like to know more.

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To me, again, anything that has a primary focus of scaring the reader is horror. Things that don't have that as the primary focus may or may not be horror (I tend not to endorse exclusion regarding this) depending on the complete body of the work. I don't think gore or sad endings are necessary, although, given the nature of the beast, genuinely "happy" endings are pretty hard to come by. Gore/grotesquery can be effective/useful, but too many people use it as a crutch instead of letting it compliment a story's already frightening elements (which happens largely because their stories don't already have said elements).

For me, horror is about atmosphere: Black nights; thunder and lightning; fog; distant animal noises; absolute, encroaching silence.

There are countless novels out there in the horror genre, full of ghouls, ghosts and all manner of Hammer regulars, that simply aren't scary. Some lack the right atmosphere (James Herbert's Once...) while others have the atmos, but read more like crime thrillers (Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series).

'Horror' has become quite a generic term and encompasses anything that has a certain type of charcter in it (i.e. vampires, ghosts, werewolves, etc). It's very rare you'll find a horror novel that's actually scary.

I tend to find the scary horror stories are those that centre around a perfectly normal charcter and build a sense of tension with just the right pace, then hit you with something when you least expect it (like the punchline of a well timed joke). The best example of this I can think of off hand is the opening to James Herbert's Ghosts of Sleath. A perfectly normal scene is being described, but there's an underlying sense of something not being right, which builds right up until the scene's climax. The story then moves on as if nothing's happened.

Bebbet said:

I tend to find the scary horror stories are those that centre around a perfectly normal charcter and build a sense of tension with just the right pace, then hit you with something when you least expect it (like the punchline of a well timed joke).

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Which is exactly why I like both humor and horror. It's almost irrelevant whether the creature that sneaks up behind you gnaws your throat out or shoves a banana cream pie in your face.

Haggis said:

Which is exactly why I like both humor and horror. It's almost irrelevant whether the creature that sneaks up behind you gnaws your throat out or shoves a banana cream pie in your face.

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I'm always reminded of girl being hit by bus in Final Destination. I haven't seen comic timing like that since Chuck Jones last directed a Road Runner cartoon and I have never laughed so hard in my life

I don't know whether I can be called a horror writer (I've published just one story), but here's my two bits: I write horror because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of death, disease and desolation. Since I can't write about these things, I write about the hairy hulking shadow in the corner of the attic, because I know it is only make-believe: I can always turn on the lights and breath a sigh of relief.

MMmmm, I agree with Bebbet and Haggis as well. If I read something that really gets me, I am fascinated with HOW the author did that. I've yet to try humor writing but it does intrigue me.

Why can't you write about death, disease, and desolation? Those are some pretty frightening things. Is it internal, you can't face them or a matter of not having a story that fits them?

Birol said:

Why can't you write about death, disease, and desolation? Those are some pretty frightening things. Is it internal, you can't face them or a matter of not having a story that fits them?

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They scare the hell out of me. So I have to project those fears somewhere else. Where I can say: "Oh, it's only make-believe."

For example, a death by a wasting disease is a possibility (God forbid!): death by vampire-bite is not. So when I write about somebody being slowly drained by a vampire, I am somehow exorcising my own death-fears.

Is it to explore previously unexplored ideas about freaky scary stuff?

Yes. And then to purge them.

nandu said:

They scare the hell out of me. So I have to project those fears somewhere else. Where I can say: "Oh, it's only make-believe."

For example, a death by a wasting disease is a possibility (God forbid!): death by vampire-bite is not. So when I write about somebody being slowly drained by a vampire, I am somehow exorcising my own death-fears.

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The things that scare you tehe most will probably also be the things you can write about that will also scare readers the most.

Vuligora said:

I am not a horror writer, so I'm curious...when you write horror is the purpose to scare the bejeebers out of people or to use scaryness to express a theme or is there a lot of action involved that's purpose is to excite the reader. Is it to explore previously unexplored ideas about freaky scary stuff. In addition, what exactly makes horror, well, horror. I write scary stuff, but I usually consider it more fantasy than horror. Does horror always have to have a sad ending or involve lots of gore. I now very little about the genre and would like to know more.

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I don't write horror. Apparently, it's "Dark Fantasy" now.

Gore isn't frightening. Someone needs to tell James Herbert and Shaun Hutson this.

Gore is gore. We've all been desensitized to that. But with horror, I find that I write about things that bother and/ or scare me. It's kind of a therapy tool, helping me deal with the stresses of my life. If it's something that the reader associates with, then it will scare the crap out of them. If not, then it's words on a paper. Them's the breaks.

Hey, and on the earlier post about Final Destination, interesting how one person laughs and another cringes from a scene like that. I'll have to admit that I chuckled because it screamed Warner Bros. to me as well. You can't get that out of fiction unless the writer adds their own hyteria and the reader is willing to let go of reality for a while. Then the real scares start a comin'.

Vuligora said:

I am not a horror writer, so I'm curious...when you write horror is the purpose to scare the bejeebers out of people or to use scaryness to express a theme or is there a lot of action involved that's purpose is to excite the reader. Is it to explore previously unexplored ideas about freaky scary stuff.

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I saw a documentary a while back about famous horror film-makers. One of the directors put it well when he said the horror is a "bootcamp for the psyche". I think it might have been Wes Craven who said that. I suppose horror in literature or film should force the reader or viewer to confront things that they really wouldn't want to face up to. Hence the desensitization to gore, death, violence, and all the other unpleasantness that goes on in this world.

Horror is is a helluva paradoyx. You can desensitize an audience to any amount of gore, but you can never desensitize that same audience from the "unseen boogeyman." I guess I'm a prime example. I'll hang onto the arm of the chair waiting to see the critter lurking beneath the bed, and wondering what it will do next. Yet, once I get a glimpse of the critter, the suspense is over and so is the delightful sense of fear.

Here, here!

John Carpenter's In The Mouth Of Madness had a fine combination of both. There was plenty of things lurking out of the scene that had me cringing at every corner. It's the imagination that preys upon our psyche, feeding us shovel full after shovel full of fear when we know we shouldn't be afraid, I mean, there isn't anything there, right?

I saw a documentary a while back about famous horror film-makers. One of the directors put it well when he said the horror is a "bootcamp for the psyche". I think it might have been Wes Craven who said that. I suppose horror in literature or film should force the reader or viewer to confront things that they really wouldn't want to face up to. Hence the desensitization to gore, death, violence, and all the other unpleasantness that goes on in this world.

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I definitely agree about the bit about Horror making people face what they normaly don't want to face up to. I don't know if what I write is strictly considered 'Horror', but I write more to disturb than to terrify. It's like, here's what you thought people were capable of, and way down there? That's where I write. It's that twisting feeling in the gut that keeps me coming back, at any rate.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub is a classic.

Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub is pretty nifty.

Bag of Bones by King is pretty good.

The Cellar by Richard Layman has a horror fan cult following. Good stuff.

Dark Feasts by Ramsey Campbell. A collection, and a damn fine one at that.

For starters.