Ok now I am confused

[americandemon]

I just got a rejection on a story. It asked me about my spelling. Which is fine. I get that. But the second thing asked if it had violence or snuff or abused characters. My story is Erotic Horror. Horror from what I remember is like the friday the 13th movies or Nightmare on elm street series or any type of monster movie. Is there violence in these movies......YES! Are the characters abused in them......YES THEY ARE! So what the heck is erotic "HORROR"? from what I gather it is just Erotic with NO horror. So why have this category? And don't tell me there are no horror movies with rape in them. There are. Evil Dead, Reanimator, there are others. So what is up with this category? Or are they trying to tell me to make it more so the main girl in the story loves what is happening to her? I can do this I guess. It will be odd but I can do it. HELP!!! LOL
Demon

 

[KillerMuffin]

Horror means fear, not slasher flicks. Check the dictionary, not IMDB.

Erotic Horror was not meant to be a dumping ground for snuff, brutal rape, necrophilia, or content too extreme to be placed elsewhere, etc. There must be an element of fear FOR THE READER involved. Not just the characters, but the reader. The reader does not have to be afraid, but the story must effectively communicate the elements that make a good horror story. This is not a defineable quality other than you-know-it-when-you-see-it. Rather like you know a good horror movie when you see one. Hence, you will find stories with the content you were rejected for in the Erotic Horror category. It doesn't matter how many orgasms she has or doesn't have.

Read Poe and skip Freddy v. Jason.

Please bear in mind that this is a publication as well as a story archive and as a publication, the editor will publish or reject stories that meet/fail to meet the editor's criteria.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Sometime in the 1970's Hollywood found that people were willing to accept being nauseated as a form of entertainment, and so began the confusion between fear and digust that persists to this day. Most of the slasher and gratuitous violence films achieve their effect by loving depictions of the kind of gore and dismemberment that no one is their right mind would willingly choose to witness, and the new test of a film's effectiveness is to make the auience look away in rightful disgust.

Classic horror really doesn't depend on this kind of butcher-shop approach, and the scariest stuff always did and still does rely on the reader to supply the details from their imagination.


---dr.M.

 

[bridgeburner]

The Manson Family killed Sharon Tate in 1969 and changed the face of horror forever. Enter authors like Mendel Johnson and Jack Ketchum who write (wrote in the case of Johnson) non-supernatural horror. One of my current faves is the late Richard Laymon, but I have to shamefully admit that it isn't the horror of his books that got me hooked. It's their prurience.

I wouldn't call these horror authors, though, if it were left up to me.

I think it's undertandable that people might be confused -- particularly if they're under 30, but I have to agree with KM and Dr. M that when I hear "horror" I think "supernatural" not just terrifying or painful or bloody. Not that something has to be supernatural to be terrifying or horrific, but we're talking genre here, not philosophy.

Arguably, torture and death at the hands of a psychopath is MORE terrifying since it's within the realm of possibility. However, at root, what is terrifying about the supernatural is that we have no way to know or prepare ourselves against it since it is outside our reality. I suppose it all depends on what kind of fear is more your bugaboo.


-B

on edit: I can't believe I wrote MG for MathGirl instead of KM for Killer Muffin. I really truly do know the difference. sheesh.

 

[americandemon]

If it's supposed

to be a catagory about ghosts and demons. Why not just put them in the non human catagory? I've seen some in there...so why create the erotic horror catagory? It makes no sense. Oh well, I deleted my erotic horror story anyway. I thought a zombie story would make the cut....LOL but I was wrong. Jesus, I've now destroyed 2 stories I've tried to put in here. Not counting the series I wrote for one of them which had 4 chapters. I got 2 more stories left on paper. I guess I'll try and get them in. If these also get rejected......I think someone in here is trying to tell me something. Hell why not just tell me not to write anymore and get it over with?
Demon

 

[KillerMuffin]

No one is trying to tell you anything other than what they have specifically stated.

Literotica is not telling you to stop writing. Literotica just defines what is or what is not acceptable to publish on the site. Just because you are not getting published by Literotica doesn't mean you should quit. It means that you either tailor your writing to fit the site's rather broad requirements or you find a place that will publish the content you write about.

 

[Guest]

What is horror?

This is one of the most hotly debated issues in the world of horror fiction. Some say is has to include an element of the supernatural, others say it should terrify and repulse the readers, still more say: provided it is shocking and disturbing, it is classified as horror.

I'm of the ilk that likes a good psychological horror; something that gets inside my head and taps into my innermost fears. All out violence and gore alone just don't do it for me. I find that kind of thing repugnant; gratuitous violence for the sake of it. It will only get a positive reaction from me if I know why a character is doing such a thing; what drove him to slit the throat of his assailant.

Bridgeburner, kudos for mentioning Richard Laymon, he was a great author. I agree, his style wasn't classic horror, but he had such a great style of writing that I get dragged into the action every single time. I'm a very active member on his official message board, and have gleaned a lot of wisdom and good writing techniques from people who are experienced writers, and also others that knew him personally.

I write both horror and erotic horror, and rarely include the supernatural in my stories. Yes, some of them do include rape, most include violence, but there are reasons why the characters are led to do certain actions. The violence is never gratuitous, and a rape victim has never succumbed to her aggressor. In horror I like the protagonists to be strong in character, but also display their vulnerabilities. That way I root for them to overcome any adversity thrown their way, but also live through their fright and terror with them.

I have one erotic horror story on Lit. It was accepted into that category first time, without any amendments needed. It is very erotic, but also pretty horrific, and doesn't contain any elements of the supernatural. There is violence and even cruelty, but it is clear why this is happening, it is by no means an all out gore fest. Most of the horror comes from within the mind, and it taps into the fears of the reader's imagination.

Lou

 

[bridgeburner]

Lou,

I'll check out the Laymon boards. I've only recently discovered him and I'm in the process of getting my grubby little hands on every single title in the backlist that I come across. I'm glad he's being re-released now. It means I can pick him up at B&N rather than combing the web and ordering from used book stores overseas. I'm sure I'll do that anyway since I read a lot faster than the books are released.

I feel like such a sicko, but at least I know I'm in good company!

 

[bridgeburner]

Demon,

If you can't get your stories accepted by Literotica you can always make your own page and have it linked from your profile. The author Powerone has a lot of stories that didn't pass the litmus test here but you can get to his website from his profile if you want to read his other works.

For people who enjoy reading/writing extreme stories that seems to be the best option.


-B

 

[Seattle Zack]

In his Danse Macabre collection, Stephen King had a pretty good quote about his approach to writing horror:

"I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud."

He goes on to relate a few examples where his own scenes were nixed by editors (most notably, at Doubleday) for being too extreme.

--Zack

 

[bridgeburner]

I love King. I've always loved King. Even when he makes me roll my eyes at him I love King.

but good christ he beats the crap out of his characters. Broken bones and chipped teeth and ripped off fingernails and gouged eyes and trick knees and twisted, explosive bowels.

Sometimes I have to fist my hands or grit my teeth against the empathetic pain.


While I could do without the physical pain, it does remind me that no one is safe in King's books even when the good guys win. If that's not terrifying I don't know what is.


-B

 

[americandemon]

It doesn't matter

A guy at work said he knows a place I can put stories where they don't "censor" the authors works like in here. He told me of some pretty brutal stuff that goes WAY beyond my writting. So I should be ok there. I think Lit should remove that top header about supporting the National Coalition Against Censorship. THEY DO CENSOR HERE! But like I said...it doesn't matter. I can write more romance stuff or one of the other light catagories.
Take Care and thanks for replying to me.
Demon

 

[dr_mabeuse]

While I could do without the physical pain, it does remind me that no one is safe in King's books even when the good guys win. If that's not terrifying I don't know what is.
-B

That's an interesting idea for a working definition of horror fiction: being able to frighten a reader without depicting physical pain.


---dr.M.

 

[bridgeburner]

I wonder if it's a product of our modern lives. Our superstitions aren't about ghouls and goblins anymore, they're about serial killers and government conspiracies. We tell ourselves that we're far more grounded in reality than our ancestors who left milk on their doorsteps for the faeries, but with the vast number of people who fall for urban legends and internet hoaxes I tend to doubt it.

Horror, to me is being faced with the incomprehensible and knowing that it not only has power over you but also has malevolent intent.

In ages past it used to be horrific enough to just face death or perhaps even have the protagonist die cleanly of fright at the end of a story. Nowadays we expect blood and pain. I wonder if that is because we are more or less aware of our own mortality than our forebearers. Perhaps it has nothing to do with that. I don't know, but I find the question intriguing.


-B

 

[Seattle Zack]

I've read some interesting theories about this, mainly relating to films. In the old Castle days, the 'traditional' Wolfman/Dracula monsters were the scary things; the advent of the A-bomb (which was much scarier than any mummy or wolfman) led to the proliferation of 50's horror films about alien invasion (Communists?).

The modern-day serial killer truly developed, in part, as a result of the interstate highway system, and this was much scarier than alien attacks. Hitchcock virtually invented the slasher film with 'Psycho,' and the maverick independent filmmakers of the time like Herschel Gordon Lewis took it further with graphic blood-n-guts and the 'slasher' genre was born.

Even so, I still am impressed by how effective the writings of Lovecraft or Poe are today. Truly, the most frightening evil is that which lurks inside us.

--Zack

 

[americandemon]

I have just

gotten a pm from Laurel. Explaining to me the cersorship thing. Which was nice of her. Thank you Laurel. I asked her to do a favor for me about my horror story. hopefully she will go for it. Anyway, I am out of here. Bye all.
Demon