What do YOU Want in a Horror Novel/Story?

Dom Perkins

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Pretty basic question: what do you want in a horror novel or story?

What do you, as a reader, want to read about when you pick up a piece of horror? Answer this out of your personal taste or what you think the general audience wants, your decision.

For me, personally, I don't really want to read anything different from what I would in other genre, which is good description, prose, and plot. Let me know what you think.
 

Girlsgottawrite

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This may sound stupid and obvious, but I want it to be scary.
Obviously, a book can't have the jump scares and such that a movie can so it's a much more difficult thing to pull off, but I want to be creeped out and books that can legitimately creep me out are pretty hard to find. Maybe I'm jaded or a hard sell, but it frustrates me that most "horror" books I've read just aren't that scary.
 

Auteur

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You have to care about the characters. Otherwise, you don't care if they get killed, which takes the horror out of it. Like if you had a horror story with Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey in a haunted house, many of the readers (such as myself) would be rooting for the ghosts. It would be more of a comedy than a scary story.
 

mselephant2015

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I want to be genuinely frightened. And that doesn't have to be hard! When I think of a time when a book properly freaked me out, I always come back to 'Her Fearful Symmetry' by Audrey Niffenegger. (Spoiler alert!) The book follows two girls living in an apartment that they inherited from a dead aunt, whose ghost still resides there, and them realising that the aunt has some sort of 'influence' now she is dead (moving objects, etc). She even manages to replace the spirit of a kitten that's recently died (as in, immediately). As the story goes on, one of the girls wants to get away from the other, and wants to pretend she is dead, so she and the ghost come up with a plan to fake her death, only for her spirit to return to her body later and so she can carry on with her life. And there's a point, when the spirit is returned to the girl's body when it is realised that, actually, the ghost has taken the place of the girl, her own niece, and left her to be dead so she can resume living. There's a line that refers to the fact that even though the ghost woman is now alive and functionally human again, a part of her (her kindness, compassion etc) was lost from being dead so long and she is less 'human' and more 'thing' and it just...it horrified me, it really did. Not the ghost, not the dead bodies, but the idea behind it. The 'loss' of basic humanity.

Sorry, I've totally derailed here. It's difficult, in this day and age of constant news, to be properly horrify somebody but, I think, if you can achieve that, you've mastered the horror genre. And it doesn't have to be with supernaturals and gore and terrible things. Sometimes just ideas or actions are enough.
 

Spy_on_the_Inside

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You'd be surprised how many supposed 'horror' writers don't actually write stories that are scary. They might write about creepy topics, like ghosts and serial killers, but it's quite another to actually scare the reader.

I heard this complaint a lot about the written version of Stephen King's Pet Semetary. It had a lot of creepy things within the story, but the story itself wasn't actually scary.
 
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-Riv-

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I heard this complaint a lot about the written version of Stephen King's Pet Semetary. It had a lot of creepy things within the story, but the story itself wasn't actually scary.
It scared the crap out of me way back in my 20s when it first came out. I threw the book as far as possible more than once. :greenie
 

Spy_on_the_Inside

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It scared the crap out of me way back in my 20s when it first came out. I threw the book as far as possible more than once. :greenie
I think it was the grieving element that distracted them. It's very hard to be terrified when you're bawling your eyes out. Kind of like how you can't sneeze and keep your eyes open at the same time.
 

-Riv-

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I think it was the grieving element that distracted them. It's very hard to be terrified when you're bawling your eyes out. Kind of like how you can't sneeze and keep your eyes open at the same time.
I guess I missed the grieving boat and went straight to the horror canoe. LOL
 

Feidb

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It's in my byline. The monster eats half the characters, they say fuck a lot and there's gratuitous sex that has nothing to do with the plot!

Seriously, for real, like any other story, I want to have a good time. I prefer creature features in the B-movie tradition. However, after 60+ years of reading, I have very specific requirements to make me happy.

First off, the hero (or heroes) have to survive in the end. If they don't not only has my money been wasted, but my time.

Second, the writing mustn't get in the way of the story. There are soooo many ways this happens, especially with creature feature horror because let's face it, this particular genre isn't a hot seller and never was. It's a select but rabid audience and unless King or maybe Koontz or one of those biggies decides to grace us with a one-off story, you're going to have a hard time finding them on a bookshelf. To tell the truth, I might read Koontz, but probably wouldn't read King anyway. Both are way too wordy and King is much worse. Back to my main point. So many of these writers can't seem to find a point of view. Even if they write in third-person, which is the only point of view I'll read, they refuse to write third-person limited (or controlled, as I call it), and head hop or write omniscient. That gives me no emotional investment in any of the characters. On top of that the prose is often so bad it's in self-publishing territory where spell-check is barely used. Or, they ramble way too much and obscure the fast pace under emotional ruminations I don't care about and sap all the tension right out of the story. The list goes on.

Third, I like a good creep-factor supernatural story if #2 is met, as long as the plot doesn't get too convoluted. This gets back to #1 and the biggest cliché of all. It all being a dream or the main character being dead from the beginning or bla bla bla. Please!


Fourth, I just don't get scared. Period. Therefore, make it fun. I want to have a good time, so in the end, I can close the book with a smile on my face. That ALSO gets back to number one. I don't want to be shocked. Surprised maybe, in a good way, but not shocked in a negative way where I walk away pissed off. That's why I always prefer to buy a book in the bookstore so I can peek at the ending to see if the protagonist makes it to the last page. If not, I put the book down and move on. I hate buying on line because that "peek inside" feature usually only gives you the beginning of the book. While it's great to see the beginning writing style of the author, it doesn't give the ending, nor does it show if the author decides to pull a fast one and shift point of view halfway through the story, which I also look for.


I know this is a long post, but I am very particular about what I read because I read a LOT and have had many decades to figure out what works and what doesn't. Not only that, but I've polled a LOT of people and got their feedback on what they like best in books. This all just didn't come out of the thin air. If course, not everyone is the same and there are fans of every style. However, for me and a lot of people, this is it.


I also review EVERY book I read. Period.

I believe every author deserves an opinion, good or bad.
 

S. Eli

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i agree with the i don't get scared thing--so i really don't care if the story is actually scary or not. I just want something fun, funny, or silly. I've had people say my mss were too scary and others say they aren't scary at all (the camp that i'm in), so i find that component unreliable.

I REALLY look for a bunch of death, and one moment where i'm like "Oh SHT! THIS is what we're doing?" u kno, like that first kill in Final Destination, or when house of leaves starts getting weird. It's ALSO why what everyone who didn't like Us very much was the very thing that made me love the movie lol
 
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CalRazor

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You'd be surprised how many supposed 'horror' writers don't actually write stories that are scary. They might write about creepy topics, like ghosts and serial killers, but it's quite another to actually scare the reader.

I heard this complaint a lot about the written version of Stephen King's Pet Semetary. It had a lot of creepy things within the story, but the story itself wasn't actually scary.

I'm not sure if I would've found the book Pet Sematary scary if I didn't have vivid memories of the movie as a kid. Regardless, it's the only horror book that's freaked me out really. The concept itself is great, and there are points when the writing becomes a great meditation on death. Actual "scary" moments are few and far between, but he nailed the atmosphere more than many of the other horror books IMO. People always cite "The Shining" and "It" as perfect examples of horror. They are good stories, sure, but they never grabbed me by the giblets the way Pet Sematary did.

Of course, everyone is different.
 
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Azdaphel

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What you want is also what you don't want. I want it to be scary like Girlsgottawrite said, but I don't want it to be disgusted. There is a difference between presenting something in a frightening way and in a disgusting way: the first will hook me, not the second. It may seems strange to many of you, but I despise gore in a horror story. I put a clean demarcation between gore and horror. I don't mind a few blood. When the cliché stupid teenager get slashed by the also cliché serial killer, you expect him to bleed. But I hate when it is just about people getting ripped appart alive just to see them suffer. And I hate this trend about zombies in movies, series and games. Zombies doesn't scare me, they disgust me when they don't bore me. They are mindless and have no other purpose than to eat people alive.

What I love are vampires, ghosts and lich lords. They have powers and purpose. Even a vengeful ghost has one. And the Night King in Game of Thrones felt more scary than his entire army. I must admit, I prefer undead in fantasy settings, even if they are zombies.
 

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When I pick up a horror book, I want it to be relatable, because that's what enables a story to get scary. I want it to get into my head. Question things about my life, family, friends, etc. Not let me sleep at night because I'm paranoid. That's what I look for in horror. Unfortunately, I haven't found much of that. The Saw movie series had some potential. It was a good idea, but the excessive cheesy gore and extremely dramatic scenes sort of ruined it for me.
 

williemeikle

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Horror is a broad church. I don't mind it not being 'scary' if it gives me a sense of wonder, shows me something I haven't seen before that disturbs me or makes me think. My horror reading covers (and has for more than 50 years now) the gamut of weird tales, scary, splatterpunk, ghost stories, sci-fi horror, body horror, creature features and others. As long as the characters don't do very dumb things just for the sake of the plot, I'm all in.
 

pharm

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I love the mystery of it. Fear of the unknowable and the utterly alien is what gets me most. The best kind is existentially threatening. It undermines everything I take for granted as good and comforting about existence. I typically don’t want detailed explanations for the horror; I’d rather only have fragmented hints of its true nature left as clues. If it’s going to be explained in detail, the explanation needs to be as terrifying a reveal as anything in my imagination. That’s hard to pull off, but when someone does — like Dan Simmons in Hyperion — the result keeps my skin crawling for weeks.
 

lorna_w

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great characters and a scary things that are almost believable for me, a rationalist and skeptic. King had me convinced vampires were real in 'Salem's Lot. It's one of my favorite horror books.
 

saltylasagna

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I also have a recommendation if anybody is looking to read a highly disturbing book: Bang by Barry Lyga. It's about a 14 year old kid dealing with something absolutely awful he did in his past. I'm not sure I would call it 100% horror because it's so sad, but it's definitely extremely disturbing.
 

MadAlice

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I don't want disgusting scary. I want the story to wiggle its way into my mind so that weeks, months, years later when it's dark and I'm alone, I'm like, Oh F*** what if it's x from Y book?

Someone mentioned Pet Sematary above. I read that as a child. A few years ago I was driving around a couple counties over. I don't remember exactly where this was, or even who I was with now. Somehow we ended up in a little clearing in some woods and found an old hole in the ground. Next to the hole was an old beauty/makeup box about the size of a Caboodles makeup box we all had in the 80s/90s or a tackle box, but the kind wrapped in fabric. It was laying open, had a few tiny beauty items like a little brush and whatnot. Also, in the box were what I have since convinced myself were chicken bones. I noped right out of that creepy Pet Sematary-ass sh!t and worked hard to convince myself someone left their picnic remains just laying there. Because that's what it had to be. RIGHT. RIGHT?
I mean, probably it was and I wouldn't have let my imagination go crazy if I hadn't read Pet Sematary and had that lurking in the back of my brain.

That's what I want from horror.
 

sweetshop

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I want to care about the characters. I don't want stereotypical american teens running around in the woods getting murdered for no reason or for revenge.
I want to be frightened, or at the very least creeped out
I want it to be plausible.
I want the evil (serial killer, ghost, demon, monster) to have a good motivation and reason beyond "it's just what he/she/it does".
I want an interesting plot with twist and turns.
I want atmosphere but not cliche
Themes to be explored

Hope this helped.
 

katfireblade

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Gotta caveat with...I think I'm far too picky about my horror. I read a decent amount (and watch and play it), but I find myself impressed with very little.

I look first for strong characters I actually care about, and time to care about them. Domino-type deaths where you have about two chapters to get invested don't really do it for me. Death in and of itself I don't find scary at all; that's merely a physiological function, like a bathroom break. Dying is often more scary than death, or the threat of death as a character claws for survival. The horror in death scenes, to me, is seeing a character I've genuinely come to care about threatened, trapped, struggling, then physically broken (if the survive) or just plain fail (if they don't). But, no matter how creative, unique, or painful the demise, if the character is little more than a cypher then I just couldn't care less. And domino deaths (where you have multiple characters being picked off one by one) just tend to cause me to disengage caring since I realize it's useless to invest my emotions in what are essentially walking corpses.

Of course, with a character I actually care about death is not a necessity to make the book scary. The threat of horrible things can keep a reader jumping if properly done.

Another common trope I often see is that deaths don't really matter; once dead a character just sort of...vanishes. Been friends with Billy since grade school? Welp, he's dead now so lets never bring him up or think on him again. ...Okay, maaaaybe we'll throw a token paragraph or two in somewhere, just for consistency's sake. Maybe. But don't bet the farm on it.

I mean, no one wants the plot derailed by too much in depth mourning (if there's even time in a fast-paced plot), but there has to be a happy medium between the remaining characters falling apart and having a death mean about as much as a broken sack of flour.

Another thing I'm tired of--in movies and books--is the "we didn't think this through" plotline. You know the one, things go from creepy to creepier, a whole lot of weird and random stuff happens, each more horrifying than the last, you find yourself on the edge of your seat waiting to see where all this is going and how it ties together, then...nothing. No resolution. Not even an inkling of explanation as to why everyone died.

You can almost see the creative process involved; "Man, I got all these great ideas but I can't think up an ending! *thinks* You know...if I just kill everyone I'll never have to explain anything! Yeah, lets do that!"

As you can tell, I like some explanations or at least worldbuilding foundations in my horror.

A monster or scary situation too deeply explained certainly runs the risk of not being scary, but one that's too little explained just feels like a ripoff. The most classic ones always had just enough explained--for instance, werewolves turn under a full moon, can be killed by silver, and if wounded in wolf form it will carry to their human form; a nice solid foundation without explaining everything. A more modern example (though slasher flicks don't scare me I know they can scare the bejeesus out of others) is Freddy Kreuger. We know he's a psychopath who murder children, got lynched by fire, his spirit found a way into dreams, and from there he continues his murder spree. How a man can physically transform to a wolf, how Freddy--a pretty normal murderer, all told--found the way into dreams and how he kills from there is never really touched on, nor do audiences really ask those questions. We know enough to make us feel grounded, which makes the scares even scarier and, more importantly, last long after we walk away from the story.

To me those are the best monsters, the best spooky situations (like haunted houses/asylums/whatevers), the best scares. I have never heard a noise in the middle of the night and thought back on the horrors with no real explanations for what's happening in the plot, but I have danged well found myself creeped out in a dim basement laundromat late at night because I feared werewolves leaping in through the windows. You get an irrational fear like that and you know some storyteller somewhere has properly scarred your psyche.

Speaking of scarring psyches--good psychological horror for the win. Play with my head, please.

I also like decent endings. I don't necessarily ask for everything to be resolved, nor for a happy ending (though the occasional one is a nice break and, used properly, can actually underscore the horror), but if the entire book/movie/whatever can be summed up with "zombies bite, everyone dies" I'm gonna feel cheated and not come back for seconds. Again, death by itself is not scary; the dead feel no pain. Only the living do. Take that away and all that's left is a chronicle of wasted effort ending in death. And that's not scary; it's just depressing.
 

Lcarver

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I want to see the best and worst in your characters. I think horror has a unique ability to show us a LOT about who a character is since we're putting them in the most extreme situations, often stressing them beyond their limits. What are they willing to do to survive? How clever can they be? How resourceful? How vicious? How amazingly pure and wonderful and how twisted? Horror is GREAT for character studies.

Can't sleep clown'll eat you? What do you do to stay awake? Someone around you possessed? How do you keep them under control? I love what some characters will come up with in a desperate situation.
 

CalRazor

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Great characters are a must, but there needs to be good atmosphere or I can't get immersed in the story.
 

Earthling

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I want to be scared. Nearly all the horror books I pick up fail to do that.

I want characters I care about. If I don't care whether they live or die, how am I going to be scared for them?

I want the characters to make sensible decisions, not do stupid stuff that helps the Big Bad. Think: the trope (more in horror film, to be fair) where the protagonist knocks the villain unconscious and then leaves without making damn sure the villain can't chase after them.
 

Azdaphel

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I want to care about the characters. I don't want stereotypical american teens running around in the woods getting murdered for no reason or for revenge.
I want to be frightened, or at the very least creeped out
I want it to be plausible.
I want the evil (serial killer, ghost, demon, monster) to have a good motivation and reason beyond "it's just what he/she/it does".
I want an interesting plot with twist and turns.
I want atmosphere but not cliche
Themes to be explored

Hope this helped.

You explained clearly what I couldn't. We have been discussing books but I have seen some movies that may interest you and others on this thread (unless you have already seen them): Epitaph (loved this one, it goes from twisted to very scary), Shutter (you may know this one), A Tale of Two Sisters, Alone (if you know Shutter, you may know this one to), The Twin Evil, Cello (the MC and the ghost knows each other and this gives depth to the story), Arang (perhaps not the best but I found the end very interesting), Ab-normal beauty (no supernatural but very disturbing).