 Horror/Scary: April 20, 2011 Issue [#4346] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: No Blaming the Victim Edited by: Satuawany  
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When I told my husband I was going to do a guest spot editing the Horror/Scary newsletter, he said, “But you don’t even write horror.”
It’s true. But I read it and, for years, it made up the majority of what I read. It’s my hope that writers of the genre would like to hear what this reader looks for in a horror story. I’m going to focus on those stories meant to scare readers, rather than the broader field of “horror.” That way, I should be able to write a “letter from the editor” rather than a novella.
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First, I’m going to let you in on an element that makes a scary story stick to me and rewire my brain. Then I’ll tell you the thing that has ruined more scary stories than anything else, at least for this reader. They’re two sides of the same coin.
Some of the best stories feature a character doing something I would normally think despicable. Except that, in this case, the circumstances make me wonder, “Would I do that? Is this me? I hope this isn’t me. Please don’t let this be me.”
For example, the burying of a son in the cemetery that brings the dead back to a semblance of life. The semblance of life is dark and twisted, but it is still something other than death. Stephen King’s Pet Cemetery had me afraid of what I’d do in the same situation long before I ever had a child.
How about the majority of shorts Edgar Allan Poe wrote? “The Cask of Amontillado” has ever been my favorite; it makes me ask, “What sort of insult would I have to receive that would drive me to Montresor’s actions?” Then I worry about myself for actually contemplating such a thing, which leads to a spiral that leads me back to read that story again and again.
Flip the coin. There is one thing you must never do, if you want to keep me scared: Never let me blame the victim.
As soon as the reader can say, “Psh, well I know I’d never do that,” the fear is gone. Let’s go with, quite possibly, the most well known cliché. The victim runs right past the front door just to go up the stairs. The idea of being trapped on some top floor doesn’t affect me when I know I would have busted through a window before I went up any stairs.
Your character can remedy this kind of thing by having a driving force. That creates tension, which propels a reader through your story. There may be a loved one up there. I would also go up the stairs if there were an object I needed---something to drive away the demon, complete a spell, or defeat the intruder. I wouldn’t go up there for my favorite teddy bear. That bear’s on his own.
There must be a driving force behind everything the character does, or it’s not believable. If it’s not believable, it’s not scary. “Scary” is thinking, “Oh, dude, this could so happen to me!”
A lot of stories have scared me up until I found out the reason the character was terrorized was because he or she did something or is something that I would never do or be. A group of friends got together and performed some elaborate we-all-know-it’s-bad-news ritual or evil act. The story is about them getting punished. It can be a good and effective story, but it doesn’t scare me. I get to blame the victims, see.
If it’s something I would do---open the lid on an old box in an antique store, rub the dust off an old book---it gets personal. Extra points when it’s something I would feel bad for doing, like driving by a stranded motorist. Maybe he winds up being in the middle of things I can’t possibly understand and finds me later, angry that the only person who might have helped ignored him.
The possibilities for involving the reader on a personal level are endless. It’s a shame so many fall back on something that’s specific to the character. For example, I’ve read stories where some element the protagonist inherited (that I can’t relate to) caused all the problems. This might be an ability to see ghosts, attract evil, or whatever else may be the item of horror in the story. This makes me safe; this certainly isn’t me.
They can be very good stories, mind you, but they’re not scary.
Involving the reader with a believable and driven character is key to any story, but even more so when the intent is to frighten. Fear is personal, visceral, and the kind of things that pop up to cause it in stories are often not the kind of things we’ll see in everyday life. Your character has to make us believe it would. And your character has to react to it in ways that make us sympathetic.
Scare me,
 Satuawany
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Try out your scary skills in this contest:
How about some ideas for sinister elements?
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And now for some stories that struck a chord with me:
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This being my first experience editing an issue of an official site newsletter, I have no previous feedback to share.
This being my first experience editing an issue of an official site newsletter, I would love to hear your thoughts on how I did (as well as anything else the subject matter might have conjured).
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