Has anyone dismissed your affinity for horror offhand and say something like, "I don't like gore." It has happened to me more than once and always leads me to wonder what their idea of horror is. My definition is fairly broad and I use it as an umbrella term, thanks in part to Stephen King's book Danse Macabre in which he lays out horror's basic aesthetics.
In short, I think horror is the literature of fear and the macabre. Macabre was Harlan Ellison's preferred label for horror fiction and that seems a good fit for stories that are gruesome if not scary. To merely call horror "scary stories" evokes a glib answer from people who say, "Horror doesn't scare me." Good for them. Most of the time horror don't scare me either but it's still fascinating and entertaining for me. You don't have to read horror to just get a scare. Reading for scares is a convenient justification to give to people who just don't get it.
Horror comes in many forms and subgenres, and can be inserted into any genre. Why? Douglas Winter said it best by writing, "Horror isn't a genre, it's an emotion." Horror can fit almost anywhere. Romance? Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. Western? Dead in the West by Joe Lansdale. Fantasy? The Kane stories by Karl Edward Wagner which he referred to as "acid gothics". Mystery? The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr. It looks like a cozy mystery on the surface but since it's by Carr it is unsettling. Science Fiction? The Quatermass screenplays by Nigel Kneale. This only scratches the surface. Horror doesn't necessarily need to be gory although violence helps.
I've come across a lot of high-minded folks who avoid horror because they think it's garbage, completely ignoring the fact that elements of horror have inhabited literature (even the "literary" stuff) from the earliest writings like Gilgamesh, down to Greek and Norse mythology, to Dante's Inferno, to even John Milton's Paradise Lost. It also depends on the individual's lens to determine what is "literary" quality and normally takes decades for opinions about something objectionable to change into opinions of high regard. Lovecraft writing was pulp fiction and now his works are subject to serious and thoughtful criticism. Thomas Ligotti has been regarded as a niche writer but give or take 30 years and his works are published as Penguin Classics.
Even with all these thoughts, the most important thing to take away is the fact that "genre" is a nice, high-faluting way to give books a label to make them easier to sell, including horror. Golding's novel Lord of the Flies and Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun are mainstream books but they are also horror because both reveal some decidedly nasty things about humanity that freak me out when I think about it. Several of Kafka's works are horrific because they convey a nightmarish dream-logic in which his characters are helpless pawns subject to a world of cruel fates. These are just a few of my thoughts that have crossed my mind over the years and I could keep going on so now is good a time as any to stop. Food for thought.
Written by Nicholas Montelongo
In short, I think horror is the literature of fear and the macabre. Macabre was Harlan Ellison's preferred label for horror fiction and that seems a good fit for stories that are gruesome if not scary. To merely call horror "scary stories" evokes a glib answer from people who say, "Horror doesn't scare me." Good for them. Most of the time horror don't scare me either but it's still fascinating and entertaining for me. You don't have to read horror to just get a scare. Reading for scares is a convenient justification to give to people who just don't get it.
Horror comes in many forms and subgenres, and can be inserted into any genre. Why? Douglas Winter said it best by writing, "Horror isn't a genre, it's an emotion." Horror can fit almost anywhere. Romance? Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. Western? Dead in the West by Joe Lansdale. Fantasy? The Kane stories by Karl Edward Wagner which he referred to as "acid gothics". Mystery? The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr. It looks like a cozy mystery on the surface but since it's by Carr it is unsettling. Science Fiction? The Quatermass screenplays by Nigel Kneale. This only scratches the surface. Horror doesn't necessarily need to be gory although violence helps.I've come across a lot of high-minded folks who avoid horror because they think it's garbage, completely ignoring the fact that elements of horror have inhabited literature (even the "literary" stuff) from the earliest writings like Gilgamesh, down to Greek and Norse mythology, to Dante's Inferno, to even John Milton's Paradise Lost. It also depends on the individual's lens to determine what is "literary" quality and normally takes decades for opinions about something objectionable to change into opinions of high regard. Lovecraft writing was pulp fiction and now his works are subject to serious and thoughtful criticism. Thomas Ligotti has been regarded as a niche writer but give or take 30 years and his works are published as Penguin Classics.
Even with all these thoughts, the most important thing to take away is the fact that "genre" is a nice, high-faluting way to give books a label to make them easier to sell, including horror. Golding's novel Lord of the Flies and Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun are mainstream books but they are also horror because both reveal some decidedly nasty things about humanity that freak me out when I think about it. Several of Kafka's works are horrific because they convey a nightmarish dream-logic in which his characters are helpless pawns subject to a world of cruel fates. These are just a few of my thoughts that have crossed my mind over the years and I could keep going on so now is good a time as any to stop. Food for thought.Written by Nicholas Montelongo
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