Horror.
It’s arguably the oldest genre in fiction and mythology. Before humans told stories purely for entertainment, terrifying tales were conjured to scare us straight. We used fear to warn about predators, natural disasters, and taboo behaviors.
When horror was introduced to books and movies, audiences consumed it to know what it’s like to be hunted or haunted. Many would tell you the objective of a horror story is to scare you. But is that the only way to enjoy horror? No, obviously. Die-hard horror fans enjoy the morbid genre for its tropes and themes, the unapologetic exploration of all things gothic and macabre. Once you’ve seen so much horror, that drug of fear becomes less and less potent.
You’d think horror stories that aren’t scary wouldn’t do well with audiences, but slasher movies, corny ghost flicks, and creature features continue to double their budgets in box office returns every year. Sure, they’re incredibly cheap and consumable, but it somewhat proves that fear in the audience is not always the objective of a story labelled as “horror.” Knowing this fact is key to marketing your story to the correct audience and avoiding disappointment.
Not all about the scares
Believe it or not, horror is as much of an aesthetic and theme as a feeling to invoke in the audience.
The Evil Dead is a good example of movies that fall into horror, but aren’t often movies people flock to to get scared. For someone’s first time, they can be terrifying, but for those accustomed to horror, they’re dark comedies. Evil Dead started as a classic haunted cabin story, but it always had elements of twisted humor (save for Army of Darkness, which was straight comedy). The demons, known as the Deadites, toyed with the protagonists for amusement. They mocked them. Sam Raimi leaned heavily into this, and the franchise has taken it as its identity ever since. Albeit the characters may express extreme fear as they’re being used as fleshpuppet playthings by eldritch entities, the audience is watching a story that dances on the border between horror and comedy.
There is a saying for this, coined by Jordan Peele, and it’s that the only difference between comedy and horror is what kind of music is playing in the scene.
So, fear in the audience is not required to be a good horror story. However, what if that’s your goal?
Diverse Fears
This is where some new writers may stumble. Using the common iconography and aesthetics of horror isn’t enough to spawn nightmares in the audience’s mind. Humans have diverse psychology, and not everyone is afraid of the same thing, even when talking about subjects you’d think would be universally scary, like death.
My friend, a fellow goth, fears humans more than ghosts and monsters. Supernatural creatures do nothing for her because they aren’t real (from her perspective). Humans and their natural behavior will always be disturbing to her because it’s something she may actually experience in the real world. Given that she is a psychologist in training, I respect that viewpoint.
However, for people who do believe in ghosts, especially religious folk, a story like Stephen King’s IT, or William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) would absolutely shudder them to their bones. What someone believes is real undoubtedly influences how someone perceives a horror story and whether they still feel safe when they put down the book or walk out of the theater.
Heck, someone may fear something that horror movies hardly tap into. Take social anxiety, which can feel like everyone hates you, even when it isn’t true. It’s a horrible feeling to be trapped in your own mind with demons you created.
No right way to horror
As they say in writing, there are no rules, only guidelines. The same is generally true for genres, and especially horror.
How-to videos and articles on writing horror may tell you it needs to be slow and quiet. The protagonist shouldn’t have the power to stop the “monster.” This is misleading. Sure, you would want to make sure the action doesn’t overtake the horror in your story, but there is an audience who prefer monsters and killing taking center stage.
The zombie genre is popular for this very reason, and a huge component of it is fighting or running away from the undead. Star Wars: Death Troopers, a novel by Joe Schrieber, excels at action-horror. There is a brooding atmosphere that throws in the ingredients of foreshadowing and dread, until it reaches a boiling point when all hell breaks loose. The fear rises from desperation, the unknown rules of the virus, and the imbalance of power between the humans and the undead.
Don’t go believing that your protagonist has to be powerless, but they should be weaker compared to the threat they’re facing, whether physical or conceptual. That’s where the horror is created, the feeling of helplessness against insurmountable odds.
To sum things up
Horror stories have all kinds of flavors, but one ingredient they all have in common is that they’re entertaining in one way or another. Whether it’s compelling characters, a great story with thoughtful themes, or spectacular kills.
About
Joshua D. Martin, callsign Redplicant, is an author, editor, and lyricist who loves action-horror and retrofuturism. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Full Sail University and was a Creative Writing Club Officer until he graduated. Joshua’s morbid work has been published in Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder. He writes blogs for Tern Systems and Seven Story Publishing to feel productive, but still finds time to spawn horrific worlds from his imagination. When not ruining his characters’ lives, he enjoys weightlifting, posting fan-speculations on YouTube, and slaying eldritch hordes. If you ask him his favorite genre of music, his answer is yes.
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