Horror & Porn

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm in the midst of writing my 2nd horror story (for real vs practice). The new story includes a rape scene and a brief reference to other erotica. Non-consentual is new for me, and I wanted to see if I could do it tastefully (given that horror is never in good taste). I think I succeeded and am thinking that maybe I'll weave some erotica into the fabric of other stories.

I read tons of horror books, most arent scary. They fail as horror for the same reason that jokes without punchlines fail or fuck books without coitus fail or mysteries without puzzles fail.

I've read tons of articles about how to write horror, but none of the major players seem to know how to demonstrate & duplicate what they do. So I figured the formula out for myself. Real horror has one plot, any deviation from it isnt horror.

So I understand why many horror books fail, but what I dont get is why anyone buys the crap...unless they dont wanna be scared.

 

[Boota]

It seems a near impossibility to be scared by the written word. I love horror and always wanted to be a horror writer, but I have NEVER been scared by a book or movie. I think the draw must be the creepiness factor. Maybe the skin crawl that comes with later thoughts after reading something particularly nasty. Erotic horror seems even tougher, mixing the two different emotions without compromising either one. Because of the challenge I have plans to try an erotic horror novel next. As soon as I can get back to work and finish my current project - a childrens book.

I suppose the real draw has to be the same as everything non-horror. It's all really about the story and the characters.

 

[loganforester]

I can't say as I ever get scared from reading horror, which is my favorite genre, but I do get creeped out when it's written effectively. The biggest thing I find is getting people to identify with the characters, the same as any genre, and then doing things to them that if you were in that position would be truly horrifying.

Without well fleshed out characters the story feels hollow and fails. The horror elements need to be both believable and surreal enough that it generates an OMG reaction to it. It's also better when the events are heavily foreshadowed and still fresh enough that the reader knows something will happen but not exactly what it will be.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Boota

The trick to it, in my opinion, is to create a character readers love, then toss her ass into the pit with the monster and load her down with every obstacle I can think of so the monster has the advantages. That is, kick her every time she's down and tie one hand behind her back. Manipulate the reader to see his own trials & ordeals & defeats in her.

Turgenev's story MUMU does this masterfully. A deaf peasant has one joy in life, a dog named Mumu. But his master dislikes the dog and orders him to destroy it. So he takes the dog to a tavern, feeds her a tasty feast, then drowns her in the river.

The trick to laughter or orgasm or fright or a brawl is a great punchline.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Well, it depends on what your idea of horror is. Horror and fear aren't the same things. A graphic description of an appendectomy might do it for some people but would probably leave most people cold. Waves of killer jellyfish might set some people to screaming but make others laugh. Horror is very tricky business, and when it fails, it fails mightily, falling right into farce. There's nothing as ludicrous as a monster who fails to horrify, or as pitiful as an author who has to splash gore around his pages to make up for any real fear or tension in his story.

I don't know what the scariest book I ever read was, but it was probably one of two types of stories: either the kind that changes your vision of the world and makes it into a place you think you no longer know. (Jaws did that for a lot of people, making the beach a place of horor, and so did The Exorcist, bringing terror to the suburban home.) Or one that taps into deep, primal fears about what we are and what we're capable of, which is what modern horror movies do.

The modern trend in horror as exemplified in the slasher picture is simply to get a bunch of people together and torture and terrify them, but this isn't classic horror. This is Grand Guignol, the Theater of the Butcher Shop that was popular in fin de siecle Paris, where lovers would stab each other and hack off each other's limbs on stage to can-can music and the delight of the crowds, who would smear the stage blood on each other's faces. Horror should strike a deeper note than fear of torture at another human's hands. Horror is about the unknown and the unkowable, not about the disturbed teenager in the goalie mask.

Fear is tension. Horror is revulsion. In good horror, you have to get to that point of making the reader look through his fingers at what you want to show him. That takes some doing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DOC

Different things overwhelm different people, but the process to create horror is the same. The innocent is tossed into the pit with the monster, the monster manifests itself during sporadic eruptions that terrorize everyone, the trail to the monster's lair is filled with obstacles, which culminates in a collosal trial of good vs evil.

Think Osama bin Laden.

Horror could be your dog humping your grandmothers leg.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

DOC

Different things overwhelm different people, but the process to create horror is the same. The innocent is tossed into the pit with the monster, the monster manifests itself during sporadic eruptions that terrorize everyone, the trail to the monster's lair is filled with obstacles, which culminates in a collosal trial of good vs evil.

Think Osama bin Laden.

Horror could be your dog humping your grandmothers leg.

So you're saying the formula hasn't changed since Frankenstein and Dracula? (Not to mention the fine work of Lon Cheney Jr. in The Wolf Man)

 

[Selena_Kitt]

So you're saying the formula hasn't changed since Frankenstein and Dracula? (Not to mention the fine work of Lon Cheney Jr. in The Wolf Man)

There's always an archetype underlying it... the good ones, anyway.

Look at Lovecraft and the Cthulu tradition. It's so not my thing, but a lot of people really get the shivers about primordial evil.

Me, I like the unusual happening to normal people in every day situations. Hence my love for Stephen King.

The last horror book that scared me - to the point of pulling my feet up off the floor (so nothing underneath could grab them ) and turning on a brighter light next to me - was Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box. He builds an unrelenting suspense right up to the end. I wasn't happy with the end, but hey... until then, I was hooked.

And it is, indeed, a very hard thing to do. Formulas only work if you have a good writer employing them (consciously or not.)

 

[xssve]

Don't neglect suspense along with fear and horror - I'm a huge Hitchcock fan, he had a real eye for suspense - there is kind of an art to making the most ordinary things seem terrifying.

Ruth Rendel is another good writer, whom Hitchcock would have loved - her stories are technically thriller/mysteries, but they're character driven with protagonists that border on madness, and often end up crossing that line - there's a sick fascination with watching someones personality disintegrate.

I think good horror takes advantage of all these things, fear is about tweaking peoples subconscious and unconscious fears, i.e., unseen, horror is when it becomes manifest and palpable, whereas suspense is more of a technique to magnify the impact of whatever the object of horror is.

Then there is just sheer gross out, Stephen Kings Thinner (as Richard Bachman) really icked me out bad, and the Zombie cat in Pet Semetary (the book) was pretty disgusting to me personally - but then I couldn't even watch the cat dissection scene in The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, I got some sort of a dead cat neurosis.

The zombie cat in Pet Semetary the movie, and the one Re-animator weren't so bad, but that may reflect a less adept application the technique of suspense.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DOC

I'm saying that plenty of people write what they think horror is, but real horror follows the plot I illustrated. It doesnt matter if its Dracula or Osama or IT or Carrie, the structure of the tale is identical. In the end the monster gets a stake thru his heart.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

XSSVE

Yep. Show them some leg and cleavage to cultivate their interest before you rip your bodice off.

I add confusion to the mix and populate my stories with strange people who really existed. Theyre really out there! And your daughter is probably trading spit with one of them right now.

I harpooned King for PET SEMATARY. He pissed away a wonderful opportunity. It woulda been a masterpiece if he had the zombie cat infect all the kiddies in Whoville by scratching them. The REAL horror in that story is when the kid spills the beans on the neighbor's sexual appetites. I mean, it woulda been great if the kid told mommy's Bible study group that she likes it in the ass.

 

[xssve]

I don't even remember any of the rest of it.

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I cant get into Lovecraft.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Lovecraft is the only writer that ever creeps me out regularly. I can't say that I'm not "creepable", but I think fear is born of a different part of my brain (at least) that the part that reads.

I remember watching the horrible movie C.H.U.D. aboard ship back in the 80s. I remember all of us cutting on it, ripping it's bad plot and horrid acting. Then I went topside for a late watch. Suddenly, the movie wasn't so bland. I spent from midnight to four am creeped out by it.

Hubbie loves any and all things Lovecraft. Me? Meh. It doesn't do anything for me.

I just watched a "Fear Itself" episode on Fearnet last night that was creepy as hell. "Skin and Bones" (alternate titles: The Last Winter and Wendigo) Actually had dreams about it. Great makeup - really good acting from the creepy guy Loved it 'til the end... but I won't give away spoilers, just in case.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Here's a question: HOW WOULD SATAN BARGAIN WITH A MORTAL?

 

[serpentmoon]

For me when it comes to the written word horror has to be psychological, something like 1984 when you see the mind get fucked over and it seems inevitable, hopeless to resist. Pain is bad but it is what it puts in your head that is really scary. I guess that makes it something that could be caught up with other emotions, lust, desire, love etc.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think everyone has their own ideas about what horror means to them AND I think most people accept the traditional forms of horror, too.

I mean, to a few people 'horror' is not being able to afford a Cuban pool boy. A book about the loss of your pool boy might sell 5 copies, though, so not many writers do pool boys.

Guys like ROB, their idea of soul chilling terror is mom moving out of the house, or losing his autographed Rod McKuen poetry book.

 

[CharleyH]

I've read tons of articles about how to write horror, but none of the major players seem to know how to demonstrate & duplicate what they do. So I figured the formula out for myself. Real horror has one plot, any deviation from it isnt horror.

So I understand why many horror books fail, but what I dont get is why anyone buys the crap...unless they dont wanna be scared.

I think that when you base any written work on a formula, then you are bound to fail. Horror and any other genre has multiple levels and there is no "formula" for writing it. There are certain conventions used that make one story a horror and another a thriller or a crime drama or film noir or even a romance, but outside of that? There is no formula for any genre unless cliche' is something you're after.

What horrifies one generation is not what horrifies another. So, what you have today are writers writing what they know of horror (what they have read or seen in movies) instead of exploring what truly horrifies. What horrifies people? Rape? Sure. Look at Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971). That horrified me. Max Baer Jr's Ode to Billie Joe horrified me on a subtler level, Kaplan's The Accused (1988), Peirce's, Boys Don't Cry (1999). All rape stories (not horror by convention) but horrifying nonetheless. But horror stories are more than stories about a particular thing that is horrifying. It's deeper. Its greatest meaning is nearly always a reflexion on society, on what scares everybody. Freddy Krugar and Nightmare on Elm Street for example. It wasn't so much horrifying because Freddy got into the pleasant dreamworld of all teenagers and killed them. It was terrifying because every teenager could relate to the a parent reading their diary (dreams/ fantasies) and feel the dread/embarrassment/beratement and ultimate death of their fantasy.

Times have changed.

Interesting discussion.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sorry CHARLEY there really is a formula for horror. I'll schematize it for you.

1. The contestant (my term) is tossed in the arena with the monster.
2. The monster erupts, then erupts again at various times and places.
3. The contestant endeavors to deal/cope with the monster but encounters numerous obstacles that prevent a resolution.
4. The contestant and the monster confront each other at the climax.
5. The Wizard of Oz or mayor or President awards the contestant with a citation and medal
6. The contestant goes home to Kansas.

 

[DeeZire]

What's missing from your list is when the contestant's dress gets ripped off by the monster. If I was a monster, that's the first thing I'd do, but you very rarely see that in film horror. Why is that, I wonder? Are the producers of film horror that concerned about not offending women?

It's so hard to find good gratuitous T&A these days. It's either full-on porn or R rated blood and guts minus boobs and butts. What's an old pervert to do?

So, my suggestion to you JBJ is to make sure the lady at least loses her top.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hubbie loves any and all things Lovecraft. Me? Meh. It doesn't do anything for me.

I just watched a "Fear Itself" episode on Fearnet last night that was creepy as hell. "Skin and Bones" (alternate titles: The Last Winter and Wendigo) Actually had dreams about it. Great makeup - really good acting from the creepy guy Loved it 'til the end... but I won't give away spoilers, just in case.

Is the fear in a scary movie the same as the fear in a scary book? Are they achieved the same way?

I think they're totally different.

I think scary radio is different too. In fact, I think radio might be the scariest medium of them all.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Sorry CHARLEY there really is a formula for horror. I'll schematize it for you.

1. The contestant (my term) is tossed in the arena with the monster.
2. The monster erupts, then erupts again at various times and places.
3. The contestant endeavors to deal/cope with the monster but encounters numerous obstacles that prevent a resolution.
4. The contestant and the monster confront each other at the climax.
5. The Wizard of Oz or mayor or President awards the contestant with a citation and medal
6. The contestant goes home to Kansas.

That's the formula for a monster movie. Not all horror movies are monster movies.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

The question is whether you want to put people on a rollercoaster or hit them in the face with a hammer.

One is entertainment. The other is grabbing someone by the back of the neck and rubbing their face in a pile of squirming entrails while you scream 'Look, this is how bad it really gets!' in their ear. You might scare the shit out of them, but nobody's really having any fun.

I got fed up of the kitchen sink type horror stories. They were supposedly scary because THEY COULD REALLY HAPPEN, but they were also deathly dull because there was absolutely no escapism. I might as well watch an episode of Eastenders (a truly miserable British soap for those fortunate enough to not know what I'm talking about). Give me a monster movie any day (but preferably one that doesn't have any vampires).

 

[loganforester]

The question is whether you want to put people on a rollercoaster or hit them in the face with a hammer.

One is entertainment. The other is grabbing someone by the back of the neck and rubbing their face in a pile of squirming entrails while you scream 'Look, this is how bad it really gets!' in their ear. You might scare the shit out of them, but nobody's really having any fun.

I got fed up of the kitchen sink type horror stories. They were supposedly scary because THEY COULD REALLY HAPPEN, but they were also deathly dull because there was absolutely no escapism. I might as well watch an episode of Eastenders (a truly miserable British soap for those fortunate enough to not know what I'm talking about). Give me a monster movie any day (but preferably one that doesn't have any vampires).

I think there's a major distinction to be made between going for horror or just trying to gross out your audience. Anybody call fill a page with lurid descriptions of rape and torture but if they are just random characters it doesn't make me feel a damn thing.

I find the psychological component of horror to be the most terrifying. Making people believe that these things could happen to any ordinary person and that they have little control of the situation. Part of the allure of horror, is the same for non-consent, the loss of control.

I like monsters as much as the next person, but they are only a device to deliver the horror. The monsters themselves shouldn't be the focus of the story and too often that's the case. Writers can get a little too attached to their own creations, and lose sight of the overall story.