 Horror/Scary: November 06, 2012 Issue [#5347] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Scare me again please! Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week: We are fascinated by the darkness in ourselves, we are fascinated by the shadow, we are fascinated by the boogeyman." ~Anthony Hopkins
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Hello! I am Arakun the twisted raccoon and I am your guest editor for this issue of the horror newsletter.
Some people don't understand why anyone would want to read a story that scares the daylights out of them. Since you are reading a horror newsletter, you are probably not one of those people! Like me, you probably love reading a story that scares you out of your wits. But why do we enjoy being scared?
According to dictionary.com, fear is a distressing emotion caused by impending danger, harm, or pain, whether the threat is real or not. Fear is a normal reaction that may save our lives. Primitive humans lived in a world with danger over every hill and around every corner. The adrenaline rush caused by fear helped them avoid and escape predators or enemies. Our primitive ancestors lived in the moment, reacting instinctively to the dangers around them.
For most of us, the modern world is not so dangerous. We no longer need to always live in the moment, so we spend much of our time reliving the past and worrying or dreaming about the future. Some people crave the adrenaline rush associated with fear and choose dangerous occupations or hobbies such as driving racecars or skydiving. These activities allow them to live in the moment and experience the same adrenaline rush their ancestors felt when fleeing from a pack of dire wolves.
Horror fans prefer to get our adrenaline rush vicariously. Most of us have no desire to actually be chased by a zombie, but we love watching it happen to fictional characters in books or on the screen. Horror stories and scary movies allow us to live in the moment and face our fears in a safe way. Our fears are not much different than those of our primitive counterparts. Darkness, predators, disease, and death evoke the same responses today as they did thousands of years ago. Even in modern cities with millions of electric lights, darkness still comes at night, and predators still lurk in the darkness. These predators are armed with guns and knives, but they are even more dangerous than the animal kind. With all our technology, we still haven't conquered disease or death, and probably never will.
Dark houses, vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, demons, and serial killers will probably always be part of horror fiction in some form. The modern world has also given us a new "boogeyman"--technology. We have become dependent on machines, but most people don't really understand how they work. We wonder what might happen if they stopped working or if the bad guys used them against us. In Stephen King's "Maximum Overdrive" machines turned against humanity. Movies such as "Scream" and "The Ring" would not have been possible without modern technology.
As horror writers our challenge is to keep readers in the moment as they read our stories. Unrealistic characters or events will bring the reader out of the story. Since book characters are no more perfect than real people, it is fine if characters make mistakes, but try to avoid horror movie cliches. When a character runs upstairs when any halfway intelligent person would run out the front door, the reader stops being scared for her and thinks, "Why did the idiot do that?"
Thanks for reading!
Something to try: Write a story about the thing that scares you the most.
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