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"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."
~Edgar Allan Poe~ |
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All good horror stories need elements, and here are some of the basic ones:
Fear
Fear is the driving force behind any horror story. Your story has to scare the ever-livin’ giblets out of a reader (yes, I made up a word, but go with it). If a story does not elicit fear in a reader, then it cannot fall into the horror genre. Fear is the element that sets apart horror from other genres because it evokes a human emotion.
Suspense
Some of the greatest stories are also the most suspenseful. Psycho, American Psycho, The Sixth Sense, Drag Me to Hell, Pet Semetary, Odd Thomas, Harry Potter, The Devil's Labyrinth, etc.
Some surprises come at the end of a long suspense. The best scenario consists of someone waiting for something to happen, and when it does it's completely unexpected. An expansion on the same scenario includes fear. We might even know what will happen to characters based on their fears, but there's still the anxiety of waiting.
Mystery
Unless it's in the form of a whodunnit, many readers have strayed away from mystery within different genres of literature. Rather than let it go, you should embrace a strong element of mystery in an eerie tale.
Whether small or large, we like not knowing a few things about a character. In general, horror stories featuring a group of innocents will wait until the mid-point or even the end to tell you what the main character - the leader in this case – fears.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is the sprinkling of bread crumbs throughout a book to prepare a reader for the impact of the climax or conclusion. Foreshadowing does not have to be direct “tell-all.” It can be small, slipped in where the reader thinks a reference or description is unintentional, leading up to an epic ending.
Example: Something will happen to a main character that involves squirrels. Little references of foreshadowing can be added to the story indicating that the character is terrified of the cute balls of fluff. Descriptions or situations can be added where the character refuses to go into pet stores or runs away screaming when they see a gray fur coat (even if it is faux fur).
It’s also helpful for the writer to know the difference between terror and horror. Both have their place in horror writing..According to the English Oxford Dictionary, to ‘terrorize’, means to use extreme fear to intimidate others. The word ‘horror’ means ‘an intense feeling of fear, shock or disgust’ Thus the word ‘horror’ describes not only extreme fear but also revulsion and a sense of surprise and the unexpected.
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This week’s question is: why do you think people like reading horror?
In my last Newsletter I asked: What makes a good horror character?
Linn Browning
On the subject of insanity vrs evil, there's a lot to be said for how insanity is handled. Mental illness is frequently thrown under the bus when it comes to horror writing (how many movies have we seen where the killer is shown popping some kind of scary "brain pills"?) but when it comes to reality, most people with mental illness are not dangerous to anyone but themselves. Schizophrenia does not cause people to hear voices that tell you to kill someone. Multiple personality disorder (or Disassociative Identity Disorder, more properly) doesn't usually manifest with a crazed killer as the alternative personality. Even the term "psycho" has been misappropriated away from talking about psychosis which is literally just an episode in which the person experiences or believes things which have no basis in reality.
If we want to use "insanity" as an explanation for the evil acts of a villain, sociopathy is the closest we can get and even that is defined by a lack of empathy for other people. There are plenty of high-functioning sociopaths who do marvelously in fields like technology and business without ever directly harming another person.
Obviously, I could go on about this at length, but it really is something to be careful with when writing horror and social drama.
Thanks,
Linn
smjones
I think you are right about this Linn Browning. 'it's both lazy writing and harmful to the millions of people who take medications for a million different disorders in order to be baseline "normal"
Santeven Quokklaus
Some-one normal put into a situation that is completely abnormal. As for a villain - whatever you want, but if the MC is an 'everyman' type, then it's all the more horrific because it might be you...
Beholden
Your letter from the Editor reminded me of a scene from Peckinpah's movie, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Billy has just managed to get out of his cell in the town jail; he emerges on to a balcony and sees the sheriff walking towards him in the street below. Billy shoots him instantly without a thought, without apparent malice or care.
It's the most horrifying scene in any movie I can remember - just the pure, cold, casualness of the deed.
Danger Mouse
"What makes a good horror character?"
The type of character whom scares me the most is one that has no control over their own actions. A being that can not be reasoned with, think Cujo, the Alien, or Michael Myers.
Cujo was infected by a disease that drove him to rage.
The Alien was brought from another world, it was just trying to survive. That it needed hosts for reproduction was not its fault.
Michael Myers was truly mad. He did not recognize humanity in others. Like the majority of humans can set aside their empathy and kill animals to satisfy a gluttony. Michael had no empathy for humans and saw no barrier to killing them to satisfy his needs.
ForeverDreamer
To quote Ray Bradbury: "Do you believe in genetic evil?". I believe that is the line. I think it is in Dandelion Wine. I remember that the line really struck me hard. The main character and his sister had picked up a hitchhiker. The dude just said that crazy or evil thing out of the blue. The idea of being stuck in a car with a stranger who just spits out something like that struck me as very scary.
BIG BAD WOLF is Merry
To borrow a phrase from the TV show "Castle", "There's two kinds of people who think about committing murder: Those who commit them, and those who write about them."
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Horror/Scary: July 31, 2019 Issue [#9685]
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