Yahoo Image Search
You know I tried to write a gory horror novella last year. Well, I realized a few things when I was done and accepting that I suck at it. Gore can only get you so far and tension/fear is a lot more enticing in a book. I can get why gore in a movie works because you see it without having to depend on your own mind. Shock value is definitely a more visual thing at times. With fear, you can build it with word usage and toy with a reader’s senses if you’re careful. I have an idea on how you can do this, but that’s a later post. Mostly, I’m curious about one question that I never fully understood:
WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE TO BE SCARED?
I was never really into the horror movies and would usually only try if there was a sci-fi or comedy aspect. I was definitely comedy, action, animated, and fantasy movies/books when I was kid. (I know animated books aren’t a thing.) The idea of seeing something that would make me wet myself and have nightmares never made sense because I didn’t like doing those things. Was it all about the adrenaline rush like what drives people to bungee jump or skydive? No idea. All I know is that accidentally catching Predator killing Carl Weathers and when a guy was turning into Wolfman in Monster Squad didn’t do wonders for my sleep patterns. I’m better now, but I’m still not oohing and aahing to see horror movies. My wife can snag a friend for that like I do when a raunchy comedy turns up. Though that is why I ended up seeing ‘Meet the Spartans’ and still regret that free rental to this day. I digress . . . as usual.
I will say that I do have experience reading a book that drew me and freaked me out. I loved Jurassic Park and I found the writing to have a mesmerizing affect on me. There was a sense of being hunted when the Velociraptors were on the prowl or suspense when the T-Rex was rampaging. Though this resulted in me not realizing my math class started and my teacher saw where I was because I read with my finger running along the lines. The Velociraptor pounced and my teacher shouted my last name behind me. The girl in front of me was quick to point out that I jumped, which is painful when you’re in one of those seats with the writing part over your knees. Anyway, I do get how a book can use suspense and tension to draw you in for a fright. I just don’t get why people love it more than any other type of genre. So as an author, I’m hoping for answers.
So, what is it about horror that appeals to the fans of the genre? To be fair, what is it that turns others away from the genre?
Legends of Windemere 
I struggled for awhile thinking of a good way to answer this and I’ve come to this conclusion: I don’t know why I like horror. I just do. It’s like asking why my favorite ice cream flavor is cookies n’ cream. I don’t know. It just is. Scary movies/books don’t have the same effect on me as they do on you. They don’t keep me up at night. They don’t give me nightmares. They don’t make me afraid to go into dark places. Maybe it’s the adrenaline rush of some ghastly creature chasing down an unlucky coed that makes it enjoyable, but maybe it’s something else entirely.
LikeLike
Really proves that everyone is wired differently. I get my adrenaline from action movies, but the fear-based stuff just doesn’t have the ‘right’ effect on me. I know watching my son, he seems to be easily scared while other kids his age aren’t phased by such things. Then again, I think he’s figured out that ‘being scared’ will get him out of doing stuff that he doesn’t want to.
I’m more of a Rocky Road guy. Ice cream and pizza toppings, the two things that very few people can agree on.
LikeLike
I’ve never been a fan of horror myself; I think my imagination is just too vivid! When people get ripped to shreds I can feel the terror and the pain or, even worse, feel the terror and pain of watching my loved ones getting ripped to shreds! Just not fun, in my opinion.
I DID once write a pretty disturbing short story for my English homework when I was about 15 from the POV of a killer who loved the colour red… my teacher came into class the morning after I had handed it in and she’d waited until finishing everyone else’s homework before reading mine because she liked my work. Her face was still pale and she said “What WERE you thinking???” I didn’t try that again! LOL!
LikeLike
Good point about the imagination. Some people get into that mindset of dreaming about it happening to them or a loved one, which sets off a different kind of fear. So the ability to distance our minds from the horror stuff might be a bigger factor than I initially thought.
My one attempt at horror was a novella last year and I’m sure I didn’t get it right. Tried my best and published it for 99 cents, but it was missing the heart that my fantasy stories have. So I’m impressed that you wrote a disturbing short story when you’re not a horror fan. Do you still have it?
LikeLike
I prefer psychological thrillers more than out and out gore. But I also prefer unexpected twists.
LikeLike
So it’s more mental tension than gross out for you. They don’t make many psychological thrillers any more, which is a shame.
LikeLike
Good horror is hard to find. Stephen King is a master (especially in his earlier books). I love it and find that the suspense and it keeping me on the edge of my seat makes me read faster and faster and longer and longer because I just gotta know what is going to happen. If a horror book has horror just for the sake of horror, then I hate it. And King’s horror never keeps me up at night because I think I know it isn’t going to happen.
LikeLike
You bring up an interesting point. I wonder if gore-based horror loses something when it’s in a book than on film. A book requires the reader to do a lot of the mental legwork for fear. A film doesn’t require as much because you see everything. Yet the psychological thriller is simply terrifying when done correctly on paper.
LikeLike
I can’t really explain why I like horror so much either. The movies and books don’t give me nightmares. I agree with Pam about Stephen King and it was his early books that really got me hooked, although I can remember first reading my first horror book at age 8. Maybe it has something to do with my overactive imagination, the unknown – like I said, can’t really explain it.
LikeLike
Kind of like why some people find certain movies funny and others find them stupid. I’m curious about people always saying Stephen King’s early books. What changed over the course of his career?
LikeLike
To me, it felt like some of his later books didn’t hit the heights of The Stand, The Shining, or Carrie. I wouldn’t expect a writer to him a homerun with every book, but the sheer volume of description in some of his later books just wore me down. I’ve gone back to reading his books and they feel more like the ‘old’ Stephen King. After reading some of the posts, I’d like to point out that not all horror is gore. The best horror, to me, is what the imagination creates.
LikeLike
True. I think gore comes up more often because it’s the big thing now. At least it’s what we’re faced with the most. Even action movies and some TV shows are upping the blood and body parts.
LikeLike
There’s a big difference between gory and scary. As it happens, I’m following Rayne Hall’s class on writing scary stories. The class is based on her book http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Scary-Scenes-Writers-Craft-ebook/dp/B008IEJTSE/ which is really good if you’re looking for ways to build up suspense, and a great resource.
One thing I’ve realised is that fear is all in our heads, and certain triggers have very specific results.
As for why we enjoy the feeling, I think it’s because we take subconscious pleasure in the knowledge that this terrible thing is happening to someone else, therefore we’re actually safe. In other words, it’s our safety that creates the glee. Some argue that the same mechanism lies behind humour – we enjoy the fact that someone else is suffering, but we’re safe (this explanation obviously accepts the Aristotelian axiom that all funny situations include someone who suffers).
LikeLike
And every person has different triggers, so it’s hard to do a catch-all horror story. That’s probably why gore and suspense don’t always go hand-in-hand.
So part of you feels safe, so it’s almost like it’s okay to be afraid. Kind of odd to think of it as enjoying the pain of others, but that’s how slapstick comedy works. What about movies or books that function off first person POV?
LikeLiked by 1 person
In my experience, first-person PoV is deeper, but that’s about it.
In other words, a reader will identify more easily and strongly with a first-person PoV, but if the story is well-written, even an omniscient PoV will work just as well.
LikeLike
Good to know. I’m thinking of doing a little brainstorming on an idea that might turn into my one and only foray into 1st Person POV. I’ve never tried it beyond a novella, so I’m unsure of what to do. Seems so strange to always have ‘I’ and ‘me’ in dialogue, but I might have to make a lot of it internal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Again, in my experience (since that’s all I’ve got! 😀 ), once you start writing in a PoV, it becomes fairly easy to continue, until you reach a point when it flows naturally. Is this going to be something outside the LoW universe?
LikeLike
Not really. It’s that intergalactic bounty hunter who is going to crash land on the planet with a few criminals. I’ve been toying with this character since high school and I’m just terrible at sci-fi, but I need her to be an alien for most of her origin to work. So I was thinking 1st Person POV to solidify the idea that she’s a stranger and has no idea what’s going on around her. Magic will be really confusing and I just realized that I’m not sure how she would interact with it. The character would actually be outside of Windemere’s aura-based magic system since she isn’t part of the ecosystem . . . total immunity for her and her villains would definitely up the tension.
LikeLike
I agree with Pamela. Horror can definitely be hit and miss, but on the whole I love the genre, whether it’s literature or film. It’s all about the suspense and being taken on a rollercoaster of emotions. Of always anticipating, but rarely actually being hit with whatever it is you’re anticipating. Good horror gets the adrenalin pumping in a way that other genres can’t.
LikeLike
I like how you mention ‘always anticipating, but rarely being hit’. Makes me think of horror movies that overdo jump scares and swiftly . . . I totally forgot the word that means getting used to something terrible like violence, gore, or sex. Dang it. It’s not immune or resistant. This is going to drive me nuts all day.
LikeLike
Desensitized! That was it.
LikeLike
haha that’s the one! Yeah, it is quite easy to get desensitised. I think I definitely am. But at least now I know if a book or film does scare me then is HAS to be good! Few and far between but totally worth it. 🙂
LikeLike
It seems a lot of current stuff fall into the same category. Almost like every studio or publishing company gets together at the end of the year to discuss the theme for the next year.
LikeLike
I can deal wit gore, but I cannot deal with psychological scares (The movie, The Ring, still freaks me out to this day!) 😀 Though maybe I’m not the one to answer this question, as I don’t do horror at all in any form!
LikeLike
I think I’m getting a little used to gore since I’ve been watching Supernatural for the last 5 years. I can distance myself from that. Still, that’s the extent of my horror experience.
LikeLike
I seriously can’t stand horror movies. I’ll read a book, but can’t stand that flashing gore scene on the screen, at least I can temper it a bit in a book. I love a good psychological thriller though, like Silence of the Lambs.
LikeLike
Silence of the Lambs is definitely one of the pinnacles of suspense horror. I wonder if gore fests are more for the teenage crew and that ends up leading them to mature into more psychological thriller types. At least some of them because I know some adults that refuse to a see a horror movie that makes you think.
LikeLike
That’s the only reason I watch them…to think through what’s happening. I love Criminal Minds and NCIS for the same reasons. (But I cringe with the gory shots.)
LikeLike
I don’t do crime shows any more. I got tired of figuring out the criminal before the end or the episode doing the ‘gotcha’ moment. I thought the fun was figuring out who was guilty, but it wasn’t fun when the characters gather evidence during the last commercial break and reveal the criminal was someone that wasn’t even in the episode beforehand.
LikeLike
I think it’s a matter of having a contrast to reality that makes reality a safe place.
LikeLike
Very wise and deep. 🙂
LikeLike
Hey Charles, I’ve nominated you for an award; the rules have been changed, so you don’t have to think up new stuff about yourself (unless you want to). You can lie magnificently instead!
LikeLike
Thanks. I don’t really do those awards. 🙂
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
‘I wonder if gore fests are more for the teenage crew and that ends up leading them to mature into more psychological thriller types.’
Charles, I’d agree with you there. I think for a lot of kids there’s a Rite of Passage, when they get to watch their first X-rated film. Possibly watching them is also a form of rebellion/attempt to shock their parents.
One thing I really don’t get is the popularity of the undead. I mean, zombies deep breathing while they walk towards chicken-wire fence, scattering body parts everywhere, what’s that all about?
LikeLike
Never even considered the X-Rated stuff. It really does have that sense of breaking a taboo that adults put on them. Though I only know of the boy mentality toward that since I’m routinely told by most women that girls don’t watch X-Rated movies.
Zombies are an odd one, but I think it’s a primal fear for some. Most people that are killed in those movies are taken down by a swarm, so it clicks with that sense of being prey. There’s also the whole thing about becoming a zombie after being bitten, so there’s the ‘fear’ that either you or a loved one can be turned. They also have a bigger establishment of once being normal people and lack the ‘beauty’ of vampires and the ‘power’ of werewolves. I’ll have to ask a friend who is really into that unless a certain zombie book author shows up. 🙂
LikeLike
To quote my mother, different people are different 🙂 I find the idea of ordering the spiciest wings you can find and then crying as your mouth burns to be ridiculous, but some people love doing it. Same with horror. As for gore in books — agree. The only time I like gore is if it’s necessary to convey a particular plot point — for example, your villain is a sicko and the hero stumbles into his lair, which is full of bloody body parts or whatever. Then you want some gore description, because it emphasizes the villain’s villainous nature. Otherwise, though, never much understood the appeal for horror/gore/etc.
LikeLike
The people that confuse me the most are those that laugh at the gory stuff. I’m sure that isn’t the intent (most of the time), but there are people who laugh as if they just saw a comedy. I wonder if that’s a sign that such a person should be given a wide berth.
LikeLike
I’m going to be honest, sometimes I laugh when someone get their head chopped off — but that’s usually because the movie’s really bad and by that point I’m laughing at literally everything because it’s all so terrible. But yes, people who go to gore movies and genuinely enjoy the violence and find it amusing are … concerning.
LikeLike
I guess terribly bad effects and plot can do that. I forgot about stuff like that. I was thinking more about people who laugh at stuff like the early SAW movies.
LikeLike
I’ve never seen SAW, but I know enough about it to realize that I would be absolutely horrified and probably have nightmares for weeks. Gore and all that don’t bother me that much — it’s the psychological horror that gets me. Especially since SAW is apparently all about some madman messing with people and tricking them into doing horrible things to themselves and others.
LikeLike
Same here. My wife is the horror fan, so I take her words for it. Though she no longer has a movie buddy for that stuff and I lost mine for stupid horror movies.
I’ve heard the early SAW stuff is a good combo of gore and psychological horror, but the gore takes over in the later movies.
LikeLike
I can’t do slasher horror or anything remotely gory. I do like suspense and scary, even the “startling” scary that makes you suddenly scream or jump out of your seat or whatever. A few of my kids also love to be scared. My theory is that it has to do with the adrenaline rush.
LikeLike
That’s probably it. Like a low level daredevil type of think. Jump scares are interesting since I see so many games and movies use them. Many go too far and you just predict them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love being scared, but cannot handle knowing before hand. Trick me into it, I guess.
LikeLike
Interesting. So you like to be surprised and get nervous when you know it’s coming?
LikeLike
Yes, I prefer to hit someone on the shoulder when I realize what I’ve gotten myself into, exactly. 🙂
LikeLike
Remind me to stay out of hitting range from you. 😉
LikeLike
For me, it has to be suspenseful, but it also has to stay plausible. Supernatural is okay, but isn’t a free license to do anything.
LikeLike
Plausible in reality or the rules of the movie world? I keep thinking of how Jason never dies, which is technically plausible for him.
LikeLike
Movie world.
LikeLike
Not quite sure what draws me to horror, to be honest. Though I do find a lot of the old-school slashers fun to watch. Writing in the genre’s pretty fun, as well. Thinking about it, with the villains in slasher films, it is kind of interesting trying to figure out just WHAT in the hell is wrong with them.
LikeLike
There was an odd ‘comedy’ about them too. Though I might just be thinking of Freddy Krueger. A friend of mine who is really into horror has said that the villains of the older ones had more personality even if they didn’t talk, so they were more interesting. Current ones typically seem to be an angry spirit, demon that is simply evil, or generic madman. This guy is currently groaning about the movie ‘Ouija’, so he might just be in a mood.
LikeLike
At the risk of being pretentious… As a writer, I’ve trained my mind to focus and absorb both literal and metaphorical meanings from any book or work of art such as a movie. I experience them intensely. Horror, for me, is just too much. It’s not fun.
LikeLike
I think I understand that. You get absorbed so much that the material has a harder impact than if you were simply sitting there watching the surface?
LikeLike