Down & Dirty Horror

[NOIRTRASH]

Humor is reputed to be harder to write than horror but both are kissing cousins if you recognize their basic operations. For now, tho, here's how to write horror. Take notes.


Drama includes 3 roles: Victim, villain, and rescuer. Horror features victim and persecutor but no rescuer. No cavalry or Dudley Doright is in the script. That said, its not against the law to add a white knight if you want one in your horror story. Got that? Victim and Villain. No Saint George with horse and lance.

Then you wanna put the victim in a situation she cant escape from on her own. She requires help that aint never gonna come or the help cant get to her. Like...Uncle Fester chains Sweet Nellie down in the basement and dies of heart attack. No one knows where Nellie is. John Fowles' book THE COLLECTOR uses this plot. A man kidnaps a pretty girl, cages her at a secret location, then she gets deathly ill and dies in her cage. Got that? PUT HER IN A FIX SHE CANT ESCAPE FROM ON HER OWN.

 

[lovecraft68]

Like Misery where the author-can never remember his name-has to escape from Kathy Bates on his own.

But horror does have rescuer themes, many books have that hero-or group of-that are closing in on the antagonist as they perform their horrors.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Like Misery where the author-can never remember his name-has to escape from Kathy Bates on his own.

But horror does have rescuer themes, many books have that hero-or group of-that are closing in on the antagonist as they perform their horrors.

Uh huh, re-read what I posted. Its not illegal to add Prince Charming to the script BUT pure horror has no rescuer. Note: Many of Stephen Kings books forfeit white knights, and in one, DOLANS CADILLAC, the victim becomes the white knight.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

If you wanna become a humor writer master sarcasm. Confounding is the soul of sarcasm and humor, the alternative meaning (confound) is the punch line. In a law its the loop hole.

 

[lovecraft68]

If you wanna become a humor writer master sarcasm. Confounding is the soul of sarcasm and humor, the alternative meaning (confound) is the punch line. In a law its the loop hole.

I grew up on the east coast. Sarcasm is in our blood.

My wife and I took a trip to the mid west with my sister and brother in law for a wedding and at the reception we're all making fun of each other-as usual- and the people at the table thought we were really being 'hurtful' to each other as one woman put it.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I grew up on the east coast. Sarcasm is in our blood.

My wife and I took a trip to the mid west with my sister and brother in law for a wedding and at the reception we're all making fun of each other-as usual- and the people at the table thought we were really being 'hurtful' to each other as one woman put it.

Most humor is abrasive.

 

[sr71plt]

Stories can include elements of horror before being resolved with a rescue, and if a preponderance of space is given to the horror, I think it's legitimate to classify the story as horror even if there's a rescue at the end.

 

[sr71plt]

Most humor is abrasive.

Humor can be ironic just as well. You seem to be stuck on very limiting definitions of this and that. I don't buy it.

 

[Everyday_Man]

Humor is reputed to be harder to write than horror but both are kissing cousins if you recognize their basic operations. For now, tho, here's how to write horror. Take notes.


Drama includes 3 roles: Victim, villain, and rescuer. Horror features victim and persecutor but no rescuer. No cavalry or Dudley Doright is in the script. That said, its not against the law to add a white knight if you want one in your horror story. Got that? Victim and Villain. No Saint George with horse and lance.

Then you wanna put the victim in a situation she cant escape from on her own. She requires help that aint never gonna come or the help cant get to her. Like...Uncle Fester chains Sweet Nellie down in the basement and dies of heart attack. No one knows where Nellie is. John Fowles' book THE COLLECTOR uses this plot. A man kidnaps a pretty girl, cages her at a secret location, then she gets deathly ill and dies in her cage. Got that? PUT HER IN A FIX SHE CANT ESCAPE FROM ON HER OWN.

You think highly of yourself, which is the wrong way to think.

Edit:
Kill your ego.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

You think highly of yourself, which is the wrong way to think.

Edit:
Kill your ego.

I'm self sufficient and my tutorial happens to be right. There exist whole fuggin books that don't explain it so well.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Uh huh, re-read what I posted. Its not illegal to add Prince Charming to the script BUT pure horror has no rescuer. Note: Many of Stephen Kings books forfeit white knights, and in one, DOLANS CADILLAC, the victim becomes the white knight.

I like the twists where the white knight is in fact the unintentional villain - I'm doing this for your own good, dear, or I'm doing it for science, or whatever. The best bad guys barely realise they're on the edge, no matter far past the edge they go.

And a real prince charming is fine as long as he proves to be a false hope, a failure, and ideally is crushed in some hideous way. Horror should be bleak. Multiple victims just add to the inevitably of it all.

I like my own Toymaker series, not because it's erotic - it rides an edge in that regard - but because the main character, even at the end, only dimly grasps how horrendous he's become.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Look at the replies.

 

[DreamCloud]

I don't think genre writing should be of any pattern. Patterns are for those that wish to recreate the wheel.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I don't think genre writing should be of any pattern. Patterns are for those that wish to recreate the wheel.

I always understood GENRE to be the exception, not the rule.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Horror and Porn

I find writing horror's a lot like writing decent porn, and that is you can do one you can probably do the other.

Both have their set-ups, both have a very clear dramatic arc, both should be moody and atmospheric. Once the action starts, both depend greatly on Concrete Sensual Detail to get their emotional force across, but show humans in extremis.

And of course, a lot of horror is just like negative erotica.

 

[sr71plt]

Nice to know that Dr. M. is still checking into the forum from time to time. A master writer of tension sustaining and the mood of horror.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I find writing horror's a lot like writing decent porn, and that is you can do one you can probably do the other.

Both have their set-ups, both have a very clear dramatic arc, both should be moody and atmospheric. Once the action starts, both depend greatly on Concrete Sensual Detail to get their emotional force across, but show humans in extremis.

And of course, a lot of horror is just like negative erotica.

Sure. Reading your comment I imagined Joe Blow taking his wife to a Halloween party where she encounters Dracula and comes home with puncture wounds close to her gash. It satisfies your criteria and mine (the victim must pass thru a door marked NEVER MORE).

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I finished my horror story. Its 2500 words. Its not scary but it meets the criteria for erotic horror tho I plan to put it in Loving Wives.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Sure. Reading your comment I imagined Joe Blow taking his wife to a Halloween party where she encounters Dracula and comes home with puncture wounds close to her gash. It satisfies your criteria and mine (the victim must pass thru a door marked NEVER MORE).

No. The horror would come when they finds wounds close to her gash and are trying to figure out where they came from, and the wounds start to fester.

Every summary of a horror plot should end in ellipses.


Hey Sr, good to see you're still at it. Mutual admiration society, btw.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

No. The horror would come when they finds wounds close to her gash and are trying to figure out where they came from, and the wounds start to fester.

Every summary of a horror plot should end in ellipses.


Hey Sr, good to see you're still at it. Mutual admiration society, btw.

Elliott, the affect and the writing formula are different things.

 

[sr71plt]

affect?

We could use more of your discussion around here, Dr. M.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

affect?

We could use more of your discussion around here, Dr. M.

Its a common term amongst learned psychological professionals.

Horror is an affect, a story category, and a delicious breath mint made for old cock suckers.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Elliott, the affect and the writing formula are different things.

Well, that's very true and I thank you for pointing that out. But the kind of horror I myself favor is the stuff that makes the experience of everyday terrifying, and maybe that's done by changing the affect.

I decided I'm an affect writer, or what i called a descriptive writer. I suck at plots and story, but I'm good with spinning things in a novel way, and that's where I get my stories from. So you know, you can have two people lying in bed thinking about how much they love one another, or you can have one of them realizing that they just swapped bodily fluids with this stranger they hardly know who might be thinking anything, or nothing at all.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Well, that's very true and I thank you for pointing that out. But the kind of horror I myself favor is the stuff that makes the experience of everyday terrifying, and maybe that's done by changing the affect.

I decided I'm an affect writer, or what i called a descriptive writer. I suck at plots and story, but I'm good with spinning things in a novel way, and that's where I get my stories from. So you know, you can have two people lying in bed thinking about how much they love one another, or you can have one of them realizing that they just swapped bodily fluids with this stranger they hardly know who might be thinking anything, or nothing at all.

I don't question your results or methods or nuthin. It works for you. I'm after what works for Lenny and Squiggy who wanna roll their own.

Well, Fritz Perls said THERES ME, THERES YOU, AND THERES ALL THIS SHIT BETWEEN US CALLED IMAGINATION. I agree, but I was trained by Perls disciples.