What is Horror?

ristow · **Posted:** Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:59 am

Something I've been reading and thinking about lately on my blog (in terms of drafts of unposted material that I'm about to revise and post)...

So, I'm curious. I have my ideas. What are yours? What makes a horror story a horror story? What differentiates writing, as Lovecraft puts it, "Cosmic terror" and fantasy and/or speculative fiction?

Raven Bower · **Posted:** Thu Apr 19, 2007 8:53 am

Good timing Ristow. A few of us were just lamenting how many of what we'd term horror authors are shunning the horror genre.

Here's my ideas:

Fantasy - is a story set in a different world or our world twisted beyond what we could consider modern reality. Sometimes, but not always, it involves fantastic creatures.

Dark Fantasy - the same as Fantasy only with a dark, horrorish tint.

Horror - any story in which author tries to instill or focuses on the feelings linked to horror (note...horror is a feeling...it is not splatterpunk gross out stuff *mutters*). These would include - fear, terror, fright, revolt, shudders, shivers, creepy, abhorance or the like. Horror is a chill...it's suspense...it's what causes readers to think twice about the world as we know it.

Matt Cowan · **Posted:** Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:37 pm

I personally don't count stories that lack supernatural things going on as horror. Stories about tracking serial killers, without any sort of supernatural things going on are murder mysteries or crime dramas to me (and I subsequently don't read them. I'll watch a movie about them but I won't read them.).
I tend to think of speculative fiction as twilight zone type of tales and I still would put them in the horror feild (I could be 100 percent wrong on this, but that is what I think of when I hear the term).
I think that it is all subjective anyways. The horror novel that I wrote when I was taking the Writers Digest Novel Writing Course, was one that I considered full blooded horror. I was matched up with author, John DeChancie (who I really enjoyed getting responses from, he's a a really good guy), and he said that it didn't fall into any one catagory, and that that could make marketing it difficult. So who knows.

Raven Bower · **Posted:** Thu Apr 19, 2007 2:24 pm

I think most good stories do fall into several catagories and trancend boundaries. But when you look at the story objectively there are always one or two genres that each story fits under better than the others.

I had that issue with Apparitions as it could be any of...*counts* 7 genres. Once I sat down with it and objectively compared its qualities to each of the genres and judged its elements seperately there were only 2 genres it could honestly fit under while pleasing the readers of the genres. The others it has tastes of but not enough of to make it solidly fit in the other genres. (Ie - it would have disappointed the readers as it didn't have enough of the elements they'd want). So I marketed it under the two most fitting genres and it was easy to place.

I think in the end it's YOU that has to know your story well enough to show the publishers what genre(s) it can go under and state it solidly and up front. If you can do that I don't think you'd have any issue selling it.

Monty Grue · **Posted:** Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:28 pm

Hellstorm · **Joined:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 7:59 am **Posts:** 165

Raven Bower · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 9:50 am

Good articles. I like the link to horror and humor in the King article.

Hellstorm · **Joined:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 7:59 am **Posts:** 165

ristow · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:34 pm

ristow · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:36 pm

Matt Cowan · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:39 pm

Raven Bower · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:50 pm

Matt Cowan · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:53 pm

ristow · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 12:56 pm

ristow · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:01 pm

Raven Bower · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:03 pm

Raven Bower · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:06 pm

ristow · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 1:12 pm

Raven Bower · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 2:19 pm

Matt Cowan · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2007 5:25 pm

I did see Dead Alive but I wasn't as big of a fan. I think it has more to do with the fact that I just can't get into the zombie stuff. I've seen a few zombie movies but I really haven't liked any of them and they all seem to kind of blur together in my mind. It may be more the thing that in all the movies its the whole world is being overrun, and there are only a few people who haven't been transformed that turns me off. I rented a movie recently that I think was called The Vibe or something like that. It was the same sort of thing only it was everyone being turned into ghosts instead of zombies. I didn't like it either and I love ghost stories. I tend to like it when the evil force has intellect and effects a small group of people rather than nearly everyone. Just a personal preferance I guess.

Kreep · **Joined:** Fri Jan 26, 2007 1:19 pm **Posts:** 237

Hellstorm · **Joined:** Fri Oct 13, 2006 7:59 am **Posts:** 165

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