In an age of genre-hopping and -mixing, how do we understand the root genres of speculative fiction? How do we identify a story belonging to the horror genre, or simply elements of a cross-genre story that retain the bite-marks of the sire of horror genre? What traditions mark a story as horror? Are any elements essential for a story to qualify as horror? How do you understand this genre? _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:00 am
For a story to belong to the horror genre is has to have a supernatural element. A story, no matter how horrific, is a thriller if there is no supernatural element.
I saved my response from the old forums. But, since I refer to other posts in the old thread, I'll have to edit this.
I don't think we use terms like "scare" and "horrify" as the defining elements in horror.
Serial killers and cannibals scare and horrify a lot of people but I wouldn't call Ed Gein and Silence of the Lambs "horror". I don't consider such elements as "horror" because they are not supernatural. Such creatures really do exist.
Even I, who read horror on a fairly regular basis (and not so much in sci-fi, fantasy, dark fantasy), find it difficult to define it. I will state that when I choose a horror book, it must have at least two ingredients: a supernatural element and an evil intention on the part of the villain (be it an being, a place, an object).
I'd also like to add that horror, more often than not, tends to have a realistic setting. However, cosmic settings are not unheard of in horror. For example, as much as I admire Lovecraft's work for his prose, his worlds, and his ancient gods, I'm more disturbed by stories about the upstairs neighbour and that lonely kid who always sits at the back of the room watching. That being said, it doesn't necessarily have to be set in a present time. In those cases, I consider the story a successful horror story if it results, even for a fraction of a second, in my second-guessing my neighbour's intention the next time she invites me for a cup of tea.
If you haven't guessed already, I'm trying to piece something together here. For one, the definitions seem to change based on our understanding of the world around us. And marketing, of course. Yes, Frankenstein would have been considered horror in Shelley's day because the idea of bringing dead tissue to life would have been frightening. Such a creature would be considered a supernatural monster. Now we know that this is not possible, at least, not to the extent that Victor Frankenstein succeeded. Now, we would consider Frankenstein more a science fiction story.
I would say that, in short, a horror story is one in which supernatural forces attempt to interfere with the world to bring about an evil purpose and which results in altering our perception of the world or a part of it, even if only temporarily.
That's not to say that the various genres don't or shouldn't intermingle. Crossing-over often creates some of the most interesting fiction.
I can't really define "Dark Fantasy", having had very little experience of it. Although, I would agree that the two genres can overlap to a very large extent.
So it doesn't have to scare you? It just has to be supernatural? I guess that explains why horror always gets grouped with sf&f, but not something like crime or thriller fiction _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
Well, yes, it should be scary. Or, at least, attempt to be. That's where the "evil" part comes in. Evil is generally scary in any form: a ghost, a muderer, or a terrorist attack. I'm pretty desensitized to what most would consider horror, so I can't say that I always find horror stories scary.
I'm saying that we can't define horror simply as "a scary story". Earlier this year, I read Ray Garton's The Loveliest Dead. It didn't scare me (I'm sure it scared somebody) but it is horror. George Orwell's 1984 is a scary story (or is it more than a story?) But that doesn't make it horror.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You can vote in polls in this forum
Alternative Reality Web Zine: ISSN# 1559-3037
All materials on these pages (including fiction, poetry, essays, articles, interviews and opinion pieces) are copyrighted to the original authors and may not be reproduced without permission.
