Horror Factor - Horror Writing Tips for Writing Horror Fiction3.txt

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Horror Factor - Horror Writing Tips for Writing Horror Fiction

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No Bones About It: How to Write Today's Horror Part III: What Today's Readers Don't Want by David Taylor

An important part of writing successfully in any genre is learning what

not to do. Unfortunately, the path to publication is not straight andnarrow, nor without blind alleys and sloughs of despair. To avoid thepitfalls one must discover not only what a good horror story is, but alsowhat one isn't.

Just as these students were unanimous in what they wanted most from ahorror story (fast-paced suspense), they were equally adamant about whatruins their fun: anything that smacks of a "literary" treatment and slowsdown the pace. Eighty-one percent made comments like:



"Can't stand long, drawn-out stories which overkill with background anddetails about characters and about lifemakes for tiresome reading."

"I don't like stories that go into so much detail about everything thatI lose the plot and my head spins by the time I'm through reading."

"Detail upon detail, description upon description, bore upon bore!"

One student opined simply: "Literary horroryuck!"

On the surface, such comments seem to contradict the need for finely-drawn

characters and setting. But these students are actually displaying a solid

understanding of this genre and its uniqueness:

As readers of horror, they expect to be entertained by a suspenseful taleof dark fantasy. Their comments imply that while theme, realisticcharacters and settings are important props in the entertainment, thoseelements must be kept secondary.

Too much of a good thing blurs the boundary between the horror story (aliterature of fear and the fantastic) and the mainstream literary story (a

literature of character and theme) which they've come to associate withschool. As one student begged when we were about to discuss Stephen Kingfor the first time, "Please don't tell me he's good literature; I like him

too much."

Sadly, "lit-ra-ture" for many young readers has become associated solelywith the stories of mainstream realism chosen by authority figures fortextbooks. For years, students have had to analyze, take tests on andregurgitate teachers' interpretations of these storiesa useless anddemeaning experience at best. For these students, horrorwith its emphasison plot, suspense and extremesgives back to literature what schools havemanaged to strip away: its pleasure, entertainment, fun.

The Guessing Game

A lot of the fun in this genre comes from the important game that goes onbetween writer and reader, wherein the writer tries to stay always onestep ahead, doling out just enough information to keep the storyintriguing and coherent yet the reader still guessing and in suspense. The

horror writer must walk a tightrope, balancing between predictability andobscurity, telling neither too much nor too little.

Failure to avoid those extremes was the pitfall most frequently cited bythese students. Eighty-eight percent complained about predictability,

saying again and again: "I don't like authors who give away too much toosoon."

Their comments here also reaffirm the importance of the ending in thisgenre. Several students wrote:

"An obvious ending ruins the whole story."

One student made an impassioned plea to writers:



"To all horror authors: please don't give away the ending before I getthere. It makes me want my money back!"

These students also grew impatient with authors who withheld too muchinformation and left readers baffled about what really happened.Sixty-nine percent objected to "stories where everything is a confusedjumble of events." Their typical reaction was not one that bodes well forrepeat sales: "Too much confusion in a story and I just give up."

Some of these comments arose from our reading of several experimentalstories in which authors challenged the reader by violating one or moretraditional rules of narrative and attempting to let the form of the story

mirror a character's confused mental state or be a comment on the illusory

nature of reality.

The fact that only the English majors in the class enjoyed those storiesfurther underscores the expectations of the majority: A story that isentertaining does not make unusual, "literary" demands on its readers.Experimentation may be important for an artist's and a genre's growth, but

it won't necessarily do well in the bookstore. The student who wrote, "Ahorror story that loses me is boring. If I can't understand it, I can't

very well enjoy it," was also serving notice about his tolerance forliterary innovation.

One Man's Meat

These students were traditional in another way. A majority flatly rejected

gratuitous acts of sex and violence. They would agree with RamseyCampbell, author of The Influence, who once said: "In the worst horrorfiction, violence is a substitute for imagination and just abouteverything else one might look for in fiction." Campbell was drawing thesame distinction between sensationalism and the legitimate use of violence

as my students did:

"Stories that have no justification for their violence bore me."

"Blood and guts shouldn't be used unnecessarily, some writers don'tunderstand this."

"What ruins a story for me? Too much purposeless blood and gore."

I should add that Moravian College is church-afffliated in name only;thesi are typical students from a variety of religious and non-religiousbackgrounds. Their reaction is a typical one, and it helps answer aquestion posed by many social critics and parents about how far

explicitness can go in the media: Where will it end? What's the stoppingpoint? These eighteen- to twenty-year-olds, products of the sexualrevolution, suggest that explicitness contains its own antidote: boredom.

Be a Believer

These readers also strongly objected to what they called "unbelievable"writing: setting, characters, style, or story logic that failed to keepthem immersed in the tale, their skepticism on hold. They wrote:



"The horror has to be made believable. If not, then the story hasnothing for me."

"I have to be able to believe in the setting, characters and esp. themonsters etc."

Their comments touch on one of the paradoxes and challenges of darkfantasy: An author must write so convincingly, so realistically that thereader achieves a "willing suspension of disbelief" in the face of thepatently unreal. Most English professors, whose primary focus is the"slice of life" moralistic tale, would have a difficult time understanding

the pitfall that these students are pointing out.

Horror fans know that, in this genre, writing believably means more thanjust capturing everyday reality. It means using the same qualities ofprose found in the best mainstream writing to set up a quotidian reality,and then to move the reader beyond it into the realm of thefantasticwhile maintaining his belief in something that just isn't so. Toquote another grand pere of the modern horror story:

"Pound for pound, fantasy makes a tougher opponent for the creativeperson."Richard Matheson

Horror fans know that, even if their teachers don't.

Getting fresh

Robert Bloch, whose Psycho staked out fresh territory for thepsychological horror story, remarked in his introduction to How to WriteTales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction that:

" . . . in order for a writer to do his or her best, he must incorporateoriginality, a prime ingredient for success. If the theme is old, thetwist or payoff must be new."

My students couldn't agree more. They derided "stories that seem to becarbon copies of others." These readers demanded that "a plot should notseem even remotely familiar," and that "if the supernatural is used, itmust have a new twist."

Like Bloch, the students seemed to recognize that each genre places apremium on different writing talents: the extrapolative powers of the SFauthor, the observational skills of the mainstream realist, the plottingfinesse of the mystery writer.

The students were laying down an important caveat for aspiring horrorwriters: In a genre which attempts to entertain with suspense and darkfantasy, there is a keen demand for raw imaginative power and an

unorthodox daring-do of mind that can take writer and reader where othersfear to tread.

It's the End

Young readers have a genuine enthusiasm for this literature. Contemporaryhorror fiction taps an excitement for reading in them that is almostalways absent from a classroom dominated by the classics and the moderndarlings of English Departments. Anne Tyler, Saul Bellow, and John Fowlesare fine writers, but what truly excites these students' lust for story is



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