So I'm going to try another question. Some people actually answered last time, and that was cool. We'll see how it goes this time. I was going to do a Friday question, but we've had some sleep issues with Zack this week, so Friday morning was simply a no go. He slept better last night, so we'll give it a whirl today.
But no, I'm not asking "what is horror" or trying to define "horror". That topic has been done to death. I want to know what brought people to horror in the first place - fans and writers alike. Folks are often surprised to discover that horror wasn't my first love.
There were certainly indications that I'd go that way someday: I loved those collections of "spooky" tales in the school libraries and I was obsessed with "movie monster" books in sixth grade. Plus (don't laugh, people) as a youngster I found a few of the Hardy Boys to be a "touch" spooky, and I liked that.
However in high school I was pretty much an "equal opportunity" kinda reader. I read everything I could get my hands on. Even a few (again - some of you, I KNOW where you live) teen romances when I'd exhausted our library's stores. BUT, toward the end of my high school career I discovered Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and it pretty much hooked me.
That same year Timothy Zahn wrote the first ever post-Return of the Jedi STAR WARS novel, Heir to the Empire. During this time, my parents also got me my first box set of Star Trek novels, and this coincided with the premier of Star Trek: TNG on television. So, for most my college career I considered myself a Sci Fi guy and devoured every science fiction novel I could find. Of course, I also planned on being the next Isaac Asimov and my greatest dream was to write a Star Wars novel ( that latter sorta still is, BTW).
My first completed novel manuscript - written senior year in high school, in a Mead spiral notebook - was a goofy teen basketball drama/romance. My second completed novel manuscript -part one of an epic science fiction trilogy that would stun the world with its bloated 178,000 words - I finished my senior year in college. I also sold my first science fiction story - for a grand total of $10 - to a long defunct magazine called Millennium Science Fiction & Fantasy, of which only this encyclopedic entry remains (sadly, I misplaced my contributor copy during several apartment moves).
This all extended to January 2000. Then, my life came to a screeching halt.
I ran into serious money and credit problems. Lived every day one step from eviction, and pretty much felt like a reprobate.
My personal life descended into a shambles. I can honestly admit I did a lot of things and went a lot of places I'd regret later.
I broke off my engagement to my then-fiance four months before the wedding. Even though it was the right thing to do - that's never fun. This, of course spurned me into several ill-advised relationships directly following.
I enlisted in the NAVY Reserves, went to Boot Camp, survived - and discovered what a BAD decision that was.
I had my driving privileges almost taken away, and was limited to a "work-restricted license".
After graduating from Binghamton University, being a teacher, Youth Director, administrator, and college basketball coach...I found myself working as an aide in a middle school for just barely over minimum wage. And I pretty much lived in a slum apartment.
AND, for a brief time, I believed I'd never write anything, ever again.
Enter horror. Enter Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Peter Straub and for a few novels, John Saul. On the faith side of things, enter Ted Dekker. Science fiction just didn't do it, anymore. Those stories didn't have that sense of "loss" that consumed my life for almost 5-6 years. Plus, I no longer cared about monsters from space. I'd seen - most powerfully in my mirror - what a monster a human being could be, and how people survived those things - even the monsters themselves - called to me in a way science fiction never has.
Soon after that, I met Abby and got married. Then, several years later, Madison was born... and then my sense of horror became even further defined. Now, loss of life and sanity or soul didn't seem so bad.
How about the loss of a wife? A child? Your entire family? Or loss of respect and pride before them? Ironically enough, during this period I also discovered what I still believe are seminal works in my development as a writer, Peter Straub's lost boy, lost girl and in the night room - and to me, Rio Youers is the modern contemporary to Peter. And of course recently I've been delighted to discover T.M. Wright, Norman Prentiss and Charles Grant, writers who epitomize "quiet horror".
So there. I love battles against monsters and demons and ghosts, but I'm only interested in them insofar as they reflect the monsters and demons within, and our battles against them. I'm into atmospheric, tension-filled, "quiet horror" - where any bloodshed is calculated and moderated.
So. How about you? Why horror? What type of horror is for you?
Good post. I don't think it was until the year I graduated high school that I *realized* I liked horror, but when I look back on my life, I see that that was always built in me. Like you, I devoured the spooky tales collections in my elementary/middle school years (like "The Hook", and the one where they tie the killer's hand in the closet and dare the nerd to go in...and when they open the door, he's been strangled by the hand! *shock**gasp*!!). That was, like, all I read, and when the book fair came to our school, I always wanted to see what ghost story collections they had. I was all about Ghostbusters and even formed a "Ghostbusters" club with some kids in 3rd grade. Eventually, I saw Nightmare on Elm Street on late night edited television and was SCARED TO DEATH. But, oddly what really scared me, was that teenagers were dying. I rode the bus, so I knew what the fabled "older kids" looked like. I could relate to them, and sometimes they sat right next to me! It became way more personal to me. Also, the scene that really, really, really bothered me was when Johnny Depp gets sucked in the bed and blood sprays everywhere...and his mother discovered him. I wondered what would happen if my mother discovered me killed by Freddy and how upset she would be and I got really upset. That's a pretty long, windy logic for a 10 or 11 year old, but after that, I vowed in my heart that I would stop Freddy Kreuger once and for all so no parents would have to go through that :p
ReplyDeleteThose things bothered me so much, that I started to side with the heroes. I started finding horror movies with strong heroes who fight back. As I've said a ka-billion times, "The Monster Squad" shaped my world when I was 11 or 12. These were kids like me and they fought back. I was hooked.
Then high school came around. The great equalizer. Monsters slipped away because I had more *ahem* "important" real life teen dramas to deal with. I was all brooding and scowling and pining over girls who "were too good for me". That was when I started writing stories, but they were about interdimensional teenagers taking out all my teenage aggression on "bad guys"--usually gang members. I kind of went through a hitman/gangster/assassin phase for awhile. I don't really have any idea why. I think they all had guns and guns symbolized power to me--which as a skinny teenage loner type, I had no power (I thought).
But, in 1996, the year I graduated, I saw a TV ad for a little movie called "Scream" and I heard it was directed by the guy who did Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, for the newbies), and I was excited, reminded of my childhood. So I went and sat spellbound. The audience laughed and screamed through the whole thing. That kind of interaction irks me these days and is one of the reasons I don't go to the theater so much anymore, but at the time, it was wonderful. And a revelation. I knew I wanted to write horror. I was sold-out to the genre from that point forward.
I'm not into every kind of horror, no. I like monsters--good, gnarly monsters. Universal Monsters. I like the classic 80s slashers, for all of their cheesiness. And I like some fun. I'm still that brooding scowling guy a lot of the time, and--like you--now that I've got kids, the thought of something happening to them is a kind of horror I can't even (or don't want to) conceive of. I want a horror story that's also a bit of fantasy. Something escapist, where the monsters are larger than life and good guys rise up to punch them in the snout with a tight fist. I like to enjoy and write horror that tackles evil and gives me hope--even on some subconscious level--that I can face the very real and less slimy horrors in my own life.
So, that's my story!
It's cool that you shared all that.
ReplyDeleteI think horror hooks you as child. You have no frame of reference for life. But you're fascinated by the dark, because it's the darkness reflected in you. So you look into the abyss.
You satisfy curiosity through words and pages. Along the way, experience finds you. Mistakes might be the downfall, but worse yet, the things that destroy your life could be the things that make your character -- integrity, honesty, courage. You do the right thing and still get burned. Worse yet, you have done nothing at all, and had everything taken from you, everything that made you human -- and be left with nothing but your life leftover to rebuild.
Suddenly, you realize that horror was with you always, in the crib, seeded in your parents, passed down to you. I think what hooks people into horror is not fear and disgust alone -- but all horror by definition must include an element of awe -- a by product of wonder.
Why horror?
Hard to know what the pivotal moment is when a person chooses horror -- I try to define it now only to realize I grew up with it so enmeshed in my life, it's impossible to pick a single moment. Was it my father's firm belief in the war with the alien race infesting earth? Was it the constant running, hiding, moving from government agents who were harmless folk trying to deliver summons and get him to pay his taxes? I think horror chose me. Not the other way around.
The best horror might be the sort of story that doesn't strike you as horror. It tricks you into a false security, a realistic setting. I'm a sucker for character-driven stories told from first person viewpoints, and the more psychological, the better. And the more crap a character goes through, the more I enjoy watching their evolution through the story. I found myself gaining a lot more insight from characters who were themselves monstrous, or were gray instead of strictly good/bad.
"I try to define it now only to realize I grew up with it so enmeshed in my life, it's impossible to pick a single moment."
ReplyDeleteI just finished William Peter Blatty's Exorcist and I'm a third way though Legion, and that's more and more what I realize - that horror of a very realistic kind is there, every single day of our existence. Sometimes just contemplating the questions of the universe are horrifying enough.
"The best horror might be the sort of story that doesn't strike you as horror. It tricks you into a false security, a realistic setting.
Yes! I am so there right now. I loved my Stephen King days and always go back to my favorites - IT, 'Salem's Lot, The Shining - but I love novels that do that to me, that creep into the supernaturally slow and sly. Charles Grant, T. M. Wright, Norman Prentiss and Norman Partridge really do that for me.
"I'm a sucker for character-driven stories told from first person viewpoints, and the more psychological, the better. And the more crap a character goes through, the more I enjoy watching their evolution through the story. I found myself gaining a lot more insight from characters who were themselves monstrous, or were gray instead of strictly good/bad.
YES! Repairman Jack. Harry Dresden. I still want heroes and heroics - but I want them to come from guys that struggle just as much as I do. From the Outsiders. The misfits. Norman Partridge posted something great about that recently: The Outside. His novel, Dark Harvest twisted the hero/bad guy formula in awesome ways.
Greg - Freddy and the Ghostbusters played a huge role in my formative years, also. And those were the SAME scary story collections I read! And you're right - I personally thought the Scream movies were brilliant.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Kevin! I started loving horror very early on with Stephen King and reading Salem's Lot around fourth grade. The mental twist of it was haunting: stuff starts getting weird in town including your brother hovering outside your window one night looking sick and begging to be let in.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I write more "quiet horror" where some disturbing things start taking place in normal life settings. I'm facinated by what lies beneath the surface of us as humans and what any of us could turn to or be capable of. Glad I found your blog!
Thanks for coming! Yes, I truly believe that 'Salem's Lot will someday - if not now - be considered a canonical work in the vision of American horror.
ReplyDeleteAnd for me, "quiet horror" can be so much more powerful. The whole concept of "less is more."
I remember an interview someone did with F. Paul Wilson on this matter. He was talking about how that can be so much more effective, referencing this one scene from a Repairman Jack novel:
"A bad guy who's kidnapped this woman's daughter is bound and gagged in a utilities truck. Angry, enraged and frightened out of her mind, she gets in carrying a bag from Lowe's Hardware. But I don't show the scene, because the reading instinctively understands: they DON'T want to be in that truck with that woman. At all."
"because the reader"
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