opera142 | (no subject)

Was reading Nihilistic_kid's 'Why everyone should love horror stories' article in The Writer. Most of it was good, entry-level meta about horror being a component of all stories. Fear motivates characters into action, and etc.

One comment irked me though. He was talking about Ramsey Campbell having to take a job in book store. NK pointed out that Horror (as a genre) must really be in the dumps, if someone like Campbell is forced to take a day job. While I feel sorry that someone has to work a 9-to-5 rather fulfill artistic desires, I'm also of the mind that maybe he should write books that other people want to read.

No, I'm not talking commercial over art. No, I'm not attacking Mr. Campbell specifically. The reason horror is in the dumps is because so many horror novels are awful.

Anne Rice? No thank you.

Dean R. Koontz? One Dean R. Koontz book is okay. A second is tolerable. By the 3rd, you realize that every single one of his books is going to feature a main character who is an orphan, the lady who will love the orphan into wholeness, a smarter-than-everyone else child/dog/whatever, bad guys with helicopters/spaceships/something that flies noisily/brightly. Bah.

99% of the rest of horror catalogue: Slutty vampires; Cthulthu rip-offs and ultra-lame and confusing "epics" in which "weirdness" is supposed to substitute for good writing. It cannot be scary if it makes no sense. Dread is not uncertainty or confusion. Dread is having the feeling that you know exactly how things are going to turn out.

I want to be a much bigger horror fan than I am. The blood and guts and gore and veins in the teeth that turn my stomach in movies don't bother me in text. I love being creeped out. I love popping out of story and realizing that I've curled into a tiny ball. I want to be scared.

Most horror isn't scary. It's more by-the-numbers than fan fiction. It's always the beautiful, divorced cop being stalked by a serial killer. Yawn. The Ultra-Beautiful Bisexual Vampire Chick finding out she's the one who has to save humanity, vampiranity, the little faeries who live the pansy forest. I'll pass on the MarySue, thanks. Everyone is psychic. Everyone lost a younger brother in a tragic accident. Everyone knows the town cop.

Other than Anne Rice's influence why are vampire books always set in warm, spicy locales? If I wrote a vampire tale, know where I'd set it? Iceland. The blood herd is attractive. There are great discos. And in the winter, Iceland is dark for 20 hours a day.

And why are vampires always written as irresistible? People who eat way too much red meat stink. Blood stinks. Therefore, shouldn't vampires stink? Especially the face vampire who only feed on criminals and the dregs of society. Their diet has the lowest quality McBlood-- full of narcotics and junk food elevated triglycerides.

I'm not trying to kick vampires in the fangs. I just think the reason horror is so bland, so unread is because most commercial horror writers are in the same rut as fan ficcers-- they re-write what came before them rather than tell deep stories.

By "deep", I don't mean vampires angsting over the meaning of life or the existence of God. I mean a deep, wide, 3-dimensional world. Do vampires have a culture other than hanging around, looking slinky in leather catsuits? Is there a vampire Emeril? Bamming out the blood recipes on the undead network? Why aren't vampires as interested in the blood they consume as humans are with the food they eat? Does it suck to always miss Letterman because you're out on a blood run? Do vampires ever get bored with a blood diet? Do they secretly laugh at humans assuming that they are a vamp's first pick-- maybe horse blood is tastier and a better nutritional choice. Why are vampires never bothered by immortality? Think of how annoyingly baby boomers revive the 60's. Why wouldn't vampires also get stuck in a era? Mortals only have to adjust to era-changes 4, maybe 5 times before they die. For vampires, it would be a 25-year cycle.

To wrap this back to my original gripe, horror as genre tries to be too "out there", when really, horror needs to hit a reader inside. Horror should be less concerned about the fantastic shit, and more concerned about what could be going on right in front of my face--- which is scarier Cthulthu or a much rah-rah'ed president who wants to legalize warrentless spying on America's citizens.

Horror shouldn't be about exploiting my fears. It should be about exploiting my beliefs.

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There's a fantastic passage in a Dr. Who book that happens to be about vampires and this group of vampires are talking about what they want to eat and it's all 'I fancy a Chinese,', 'no let's have an Indian instead'. I think it's called Goth Opera.

Now I have "Goth Opera" to the tune of "Rock Lobster" playing in my head.

This is one of the funniest (and actually thought-provoking) bits I've read in forever! You have such an amazing way with words and can turn even the most mundane of questions into a lyrical jaunt.

May I please metaquote the following:

"Do vampires have a culture other than hanging around, looking slinky in leather catsuits? Is there a vampire Emeril? Bamming out the blood recipes on the undead network?"

That made me snarf pink lemonade!

Feel free.

Done! (http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/4600786.html)

And in the winter, Iceland is dark for 20 hours a day.

Wow, that's really really true. Why warm and spicy? Because most people, conventionally speaking, associate heat with sensuality, and vampires are, of course, sensual.

because most commercial horror writers are in the same rut as fan ficcers

That's what frustrates me about the whole "you're not a REAL writer unless you're published" thing, because not even just horror, but a lot of published fiction, period, are recycled crap.

No kidding. And more and more fiction is featuring real people or recycled fictional characters. The 9 billion retellings of the Arthurian Legends are "good" because they're "original". My fan fiction is crap because even though I've invented new plots and new aspects of the characters it's not "original"

That's what frustrates me about the whole "you're not a REAL writer unless you're published" thing, because not even just horror, but a lot of published fiction, period, are recycled crap.

Sturgeon's Law, my friend; Sturgeon's Law.

To wrap this back to my original gripe, horror as genre tries to be too "out there", when really, horror needs to hit a reader inside. Horror should be less concerned about the fantastic shit, and more concerned about what could be going on right in front of my face--- which is scarier Cthulthu or a much rah-rah'ed president who wants to legalize warrentless spying on America's citizens.

Horror shouldn't be about exploiting my fears. It should be about exploiting my beliefs.

YES. AMEN.

And why are vampires always written as irresistible? People who eat way too much red meat stink. Blood stinks. Therefore, shouldn't vampires stink? Especially the face vampire who only feed on criminals and the dregs of society. Their diet has the lowest quality McBlood-- full of narcotics and junk food elevated triglycerides.

You might have liked a panel I suggested and moderated at WisCon (http://www.wiscon.info/) a few years back:
What could be more romantic than a cannibalistic, parasitic corpse, with breath like a fetid cesspool, masquerading as a human leech?
"Those few who actually go back and read the original source materials on vampirism, even if loosely defined to include Bram Stoker as 'source material,' find little to attract them in the amatory line; yet within a few decades of the already-ambiguous Dracula, this decaying folk monster, almost twin to the ghoul, was being recast in a more romantic image. Why? Is it the decline of orthodox religion; or does it actually relate to the rise of embalming, artificial light, and indoor plumbing among the literate classes?"

Is it the decline of orthodox religion; or does it actually relate to the rise of embalming, artificial light, and indoor plumbing among the literate classes?

Or perhaps, medical and nutritional advances boosted average lifespan. The only thing better than living longer is living forever in a youthful body.

Well, you see why we had a whole 1.5 hours' worth of stuff to talk about, and could have done more.

I know this is a super late comment (I'm going through the backlogs of metaquotes and stumbled upon someone who had meta'd you)but I can't resist!

You have put into words everything I hate about the horror genre! But you need to add sex. Every horror novel I have read has involved sex in some way. Sometimes there's just a bit of it but I'm finding that a lot of them are just porn masquerading as horror. Hell, one author slipped bestiality in!

I write horror in my spare time and my favourite setting is what is, to all intents and purposes, an abandoned mansion. The family that owns the mansion moved out because it was too big for only three people (the line, woe, was dying out). And you know what? People who've read it say it's creepy because we do not like places that have been abandoned. ANY places. As a general mass humanity finds abandoned places creepy because, shit, why were they abandoned?!

...and abandoned places creak. And groan. And fall apart on you.

I want to read a good haunted house novel! (With no sex, or only a very little, that is CHARACTER BUILDING.) As I haven't found it yet, I've resorted to writing it myself.

...and I have read The Haunting. It was bad. I also read the Shining. ...it was also bad. And the sex scene just made me go 'wah?' and 'why? WHY?!'. I was not happy.

...recommend me a horror novel!

>.> I have, unfortunately, decided that as I cannot find good horror I will read fantasy. Can someone explain to me why I am find better horror in fantasy than I am in the horror genre?!

I'm going to stop now.

Hello,

You might like Lost Echoes by Joe R Lansdale. The main character picks up psychic traces of previous events, so everywhere becomes a haunted house for him.

I'll have to look into it! I am always searching for good horror novels but we do, unfortunately, lack in truly inspired writing. Hell, it doesn't even have to be an original theme, it just needs to be written in such a way that even the author shudders.