  Horror/Scary
This week: Horror ~ engaging the unknown Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Welcome to this week's edition of the WDC Horror/Scary Newsletter.
"Horror is that which cannot be made safe -- evolving, ever-changing -- because it is about our relentless need to confront the unknown, the unknowable, and the emotion we experience when in its thrall."
"Horror is not a genre...horror is an emotion."
Douglas E. Winter
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,"
H.P. Lovecraft
Writing horror opens a dialogue, interactive, between the writer and reader. And the dialogue is as varied as the writers and readers who embrace this otherworld, be it supernatural or mundane. |
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Greetings, readers and writers of horror tales in prose and verse. Have you ever considered what draws people to read horror stories, watch horror film, and tell their own tales of horror. Come on, you've been there, at a sleepover with the lights out, a campout where embers crackle reflections of stars above, or crawling along a dark expressway to the toll booth that appears to draw farther, not nearer, as each car passes through, tortoise paced. Whether alone or with others, haven't you pondered what could be just over the horizon, aware that you are there, a human of flesh and blood, hmm, blood. What's that noise overhead, bats? vampire bats? human harvesters? vampires? do they eat people?
Now that we've admitted it, think about it. What makes scary stories so popular? How ~ and why ~ does horror work?
Perhaps horror is ingrained into our genetic makeup. Consider days before movies, before books; when life-giving - or consuming - fire was an unknown entity. Consider those of our human ancestors who survived their encounter with the daily unknown by either confronting or running from it (be it lightning striking a tree afire, a charging beast to battle or flee, leaving a known, but played out campsite to find one all the way across the deep water so they could eat and thrive. Each day our ancestors confronted the unknown, sometimes pleasant, though often scary or downright malevolent. Now, though we've become rather complacent on the outside, we still seek to challenge ourselves, to explore the unknown and engage what may never happen, but one day might.
And how do we write the compelling tales in prose and verse to answer, if we accept the premise, this visceral need humans have to twist the familiar into an entity unknown?
Take away the familiar accoutrements of mundane society, remove your readers' comfort zone of how the world should function. Remove the rules of reality and twist the familiar into somethng unfamiliar. Showcase the differeces.
As writers, we have tools at hand, drawn from our own perception and imagination, to create a world outside the mundane; to shake up their preconceived reality and draw your readers into an otherworld of horror.
 Show them the unknown. Consider engaging this first, most primal fear, that seeds all the others to follow. Anything can happen; anything can emerge from the darkness just outside our range of vision. Natural laws can be suspended engaging the imagination. The unknown today, as in our kind's distant past, has limitless potential for growth as well as threat. Until we learn it, evrything is unknown, so it has incipient power to hold your readers' attention.
Give them the unexpected. Humans have a physical reaction to that which defies the expected outcome of their action. A key turns a lock opening a door; if the door, instead, turns hot, searing flesh off the hand turning the unyielding knob, that defies the preconceived, learned reaction. It's not rational and we instinctively see it as 'wrong.' How to make it right, find a rational solution, your characters and readers need to know.
Give them the unbelievable. We disregard that which does not fit into our pre-existing definition of reality. It may be a dangerous habit, one that brings sanity into question. Make your readers want to suspend disbelief and see recognize alternate realities.
Show them the unseen. Grab your readers' attention with something they normally do not see. Show them the guts of an eviscerated marauder. But make it necessary to the encounter, as repeated exposure to blood and gore makes it less effective; your readers will stop seeing it as an unknown. Consider as well revealing that which was hidden, introducing something new and strange; for example, ancient artifacts, creatures thought extinct or manufactured to cause havoc. Engage your readers' curiosity into finding and viewing that which was hidden.
Expose the unconscious, inner worlds we cannot control or escape. Expose the acts of characters who give in to their unnamed and undared (perhaps vile) desires and compulsions and engage the inner world of your readers which they are too civilized to set free. ,
It's unstoppable! Show them an entity or action that is powerful enough to not end, to go on, and on, in pursuit of his/her/its ultiamate goal. Consider 'The Blob' consuming and subsuming all it encounters, unaware or uncaring of the desires or even sentient reality, of anything outside itself. Something unstoppable instills terror in readers, and as it continues along its path, horror at its unbridled success in being completely self-absorbed.
So, consider engaging your own apprehension of the unknown, the challenges you peceive in your encounters, and allow imagination to show elements of that unknown to your characters, and readers.
If you've a story of the 'unknown' in one or more of its myriad guises that's seeking outlet in paid print, Shroud Magazine's reading period runs through July 31st ~ check the guidelines ~ http://shroudmagazine.com/info.html
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Explore unknown vistas with several members of our Community ~ let them know if they've made you lock the door and check the windows and, oh, that scratching on the roof ~ know what it is? no?
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A child's fear of the unknown becomes a reality on a cold, dark night...
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Okay, now you do it ~ see if this Midsummer's challenge incite your Muse Creative to explore or expose the 'unknown'
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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Thank you for this brief respite on the safety of our virtual home ~ I'd like to share some comments in response to our exploration last month ~ and invite you to pay the writers a visit for some intriguing reads
From: LJPC - the tortoise
Hi Kate! Great newsletter. Although I know it's important to include all the senses, I've never seen it explained so intelligently before. I have trouble remembering to include smell (unless I'm writing toilet humor comedy). Maybe I should put a post-it somewhere... Thanks for highlighting my story. -- Laura
Thanks for your encouragement ~ you know, you can't taste food 'less you smell it ~ and I look forward to some more good reading in your port ^_^ Write On!
From: billwilcox
Just an spectacular newsletter, Kate. Congrats!
Thanks for your encouragement ~ and good reads ^_^ Write On!
Until we next meet, my friends,
Write On!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Horror/Scary: July 07, 2010 Issue [#3794]
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