Horrific or Shocking?

I remember when horror used to be suspenseful. The kind of stuff where you didn’t want to read too late into the night so you wouldn’t have nightmares or suffer from paranoia. It used to be where you’d read a book, wanting to put it down, but you couldn’t look away. I miss those days because this newer stuff seems to be heavy on the shock value but light on actual horror.

There’s a fine line between repulsive and horrific. I think some of the new writers have tilted a bit into trying to shock their audiences versus building upon the suspense to something thrilling. We don’t need gratuitous, graphic sexual assault, gore, or incest. Some of us just want a good, old-fashioned ghost story or serial killer. I know some authors may find that hard to believe, or dare I say, boring, but if the details are fleshed out, then it’ll do the job keeping me up at night.

You’d think that some of the scariest books would come directly from fiction, being easier to create something wild and otherworldly than taking from reality, but you’d be wrong. Some of the best horror I’ve read has come straight from true crime books and biographies where serial killers reminisce over their murders or ghost hunters talk about their spookiest encounters. With how imaginative people are, we could draw inspiration from the truth and turn it into something truly scary.

I take a lot of inspiration from real life events, mythology, and history. I try to turn it into something fantastical and I think this is the type of stuff horror writers should be doing as well. There are plenty of ghost stories, urban legends, and abandoned, places with dark history to draw from. All the content is right there, we just have to know where to look and how to incorporate it into our stories.

There are a few books that I’ve heard of where TikTokers have reviewed them and labeled them as books you might not be able to stomach, let alone finish. I’m not sure that’s exactly a compliment if you’re the writer of the aforementioned book. I wouldn’t want to create something so disgusting that readers felt the need to DNF my story. Horror isn’t about being so vile, that people won’t or physically can’t finish your book. If that’s your goal, then are you really trying to scare people? Or are you attempting to be like one of those haunted houses that’ll give you a cash prize if you can actually make it through, but no one ever does?

That’s gimmicky, not scary.

If you’re going to attempt to write horror, the best place to start would be to read the classics and find horror stories that scare you. Everyone is going to have opinions on what horror should be, but if something scares you, that would be where I’d start. I’m not saying that horror has to be tame. There’s no harm in having content that may be shocking, but to have that as your only source of horror in the story, doesn’t mean it equates to a good horror.

We have to take into account the tone, the setting, the atmosphere, the feelings behind the characters, and, of course, the motives of the monster. All these things play a role in how your horror will be felt by others. Does it make your heart race? Does it make you paranoid at the shadows during the night? Does it make you want to sleep with the lights or TV on? And, perhaps most importantly, does it scare you while writing it?

These are a few things to think about before and after your writing. Sometimes, all it takes is a strange noise on a staircase or the creaking of a hinge to get the blood going. Spooky season is coming so get out there and write that horror story or next urban legend. Happy writing!