Published Work Reviews: Writing Horror curated by the Horror Writers Association

Thoughts on horror from some of the most celebrated voices in horror fiction-- can they be extrapolated to horror for the stage?

If you’ve been reading this little weekly correspondence for a while now, you’ll know that despite being absolutely terrified of anything that even hinted at horror as a child, I am now weirdly obsessed with it. I’ve written horror, sometimes unintentionally, into a lot of my past work. This past year I have decided I would like to do so more intentionally, and have been reading every horror play I can get my hands on. So, when I came across Writing Horror in the library, I knew I had to read it.

Writing Horror is an anthology of essays written by and interviews with legends such as Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, and Jack Ketchum. As such, I read the ones that I thought would be most relevant for playwrights and theater artists, and will discuss them with you here.

First off, I love how thorough this anthology is. There are essays on everything from what makes a good story idea, plot structure, and dialogue, as well as marketing horror, defining subgenres, and editing. Despite the fact that this book was written in 1997, I think a lot of these essays hold up well (at least, the ones I have consumed). The ones in marketing may not provide much insight nowadays, though may still be worth a read for inspiration or historical significance.

The first essay that I thought may provide some good advice to a playwright was “A World of Dark and Disturbing Ideas” by J.N. Williamson (who sadly passed in 2005). If you look him up, you’ll see that he wrote countless books, short stories, and essays on the genre, and after some light research seems to know what the heck he’s talking about.

This piece aims to guide the would-be horror novelist in “developing a useful premise”, so I figured it would be a good place to start. It was not. While I appreciated the look into Williamson’s creative process, he does not provide much in the way of how to get a “useful” idea. However, he does define what this means to him as “a concept that 1) may be new, or not developed into a plot for quite awhile, 2) that the writer is comfortable with, 3) one for which it can be reasonably assumed as accessibly market exists.” I believe this definition can be helpful to new writers of any genre, and is therefore worth something. However, if you’re an intermediate or advanced writer, it probably isn’t anything you haven’t heard before, and seems a little overly concerned with marketability. Which, hey, we gotta make money somehow! But I personally believe a focus on marketability can stifle creativity, so.

Williamson talks a lot about the “hypnagogic state” as his main source of coming up with novel ideas. This state of mind is basically the relaxed, almost asleep or almost awake state that we enter as we fall asleep or wake up. Here, the brain is supposedly more creative and free. This is valuable, I think, if you are a writer who has trouble coming up with new premises. As a writer who cannot stop coming up with premises however, I could take it or leave it.

In search of something that would be more horror-specific, I decided to read “Guerrilla Literature” by Nancy Holder next, as it promised to discuss “plotting the horror short story”. I figured, if it works for short stories, surely whatever she discusses can be extrapolated! She’s apparently a four time winner of the Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in horror writing, so I had high hopes.

Holder begins by setting up her structure— that of a war. She aligns her “must do” tips with these elements of violence and attack. The first is common ground, which she says is set up for us due to the fact that to both write and read horror, one must be a fan of the genre. So, the writer is already on common ground with the reader. Next, she states that one must have a “battle plan” or story structure which makes efficient use of a beginning, middle, and end. The ending here is what’s focused on, as especially with short stories, an unexpected ending is key. Holder says that to create a truly great ending, one must be intimately familiar with the world they have created in their story: “Feeling sure of your universe gives you the ability to manipulate and change it, as any god can.”

Third, you must of course “know your enemy”, or in this case, your reader. Essentially, know your audience. Writing horror for YA is much different than writing horror for adults. There are not only different things that those demographics fear, but also differences in what they can handle and what nuances they can pick up on. And lastly, of course, you must promise a good scare. No matter what your horror story is exploring, it is, after all, horror. Something must be at the very least disturbing. Holder suggests starting later in your story to cut out unnecessary “fat” that does not contribute to the later scare factor.

This essay felt a lot more like what I was looking for from this book— specific advice for this specific genre. I feel like, as a more intermediate writer, that the main pieces of advice I found useful were the later ones, such as knowing your world intimately and “trimming the fat” to focus on the main images and events that make your story a horror one.

Buoyed by this piece, I moved directly on to the next one called “The Horror, The Horror, The Horror” by Alan Rogers about plotting the horror novel. Prior to reading, I wondered if it would differ much from Holder’s piece about the short story. And honestly, a little bit of the advice overlapped!

The advice about knowing your world intimately was repeated; it seems that a lot of horror writers agree that it’s much easier to develop seamless twists when you are truly the expert of the world in which you write. What I really loved about this essay though was Rogers’ definition of horror. He states that horror is essentially, “stories about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances”, and comments that, “in a way, the scariness is a side effect, not the main event.” Perhaps, in trying too hard to scare our audience, we end up predictable and bland. Perhaps, indeed, the real terrifying stuff comes from just throwing regular people into a strange situation.

Unfortunately, Rogers does not provide any specific advice on structure or outlining, stating that you should just, “use the amount of detail that is right for you”, which objectively I like. While my brain works better with specific instruction, I can see how this is a helpful thing to point out.

The next essay I found interesting was Jack Ketchum’s “Splat Goes the Hero”. Now, this one I found to be not only compelling, but also very useful. Ketchum’s main thesis is that artists in general, but especially those who create horror, can’t look away. Meaning that no matter how awful, gross, sad, or terrifying, the horror writer must not cut away if at all possible. The horror reader, and therefore the writer as well, is a witness to pain. Ketchum states, “if you’re writing about violence, you’re writing about pain.” This idea of witnessing and of pain are the keys to the rest of Ketchum’s advice.

This all, in Ketchum’s mind, comes down to realism. Not realism in the sense that the plot could really happen, but that the violence could, at least in a way. If this character is shot, if they are bitten by something, if they are hit with an axe, what would that realistically look like, feel like, do to the body? This is where the idea of “not looking away” comes back. Ketchum is saying that no matter how gross the details, they should not be glossed over or overlooked.

Pain is something that all humans experience. It’s something we all relate to, and this is what Ketchum theorizes draws a lot of people to horror. While the circumstances may be fantastical, the after effects of pain and suffering are not. And these events are even more visceral for the reader if they care about the characters in some way, even if that “care” is hatred. “…We’re engaging the reader in somebody’s experience of pain,” writes Ketchum. This is more intense if we care about the character, and if we do the pain justice by describing things with all five senses.

Ketchum closes out with an example from his own writing that made me extremely upset, mostly because it involved the death of an animal (so, TW there if you read this one) but also because it was so visceral. The horrific action and its aftermath were described in detail, and I understood in my body what Ketchum meant by not looking away.

Overall, the essays I have consumed so far in this book have been mostly a net positive. Each was fairly short and easy to read, and most provided at least one piece of actionable advice that I feel can be applied to playwriting. In addition, the age of most of these pieces doesn’t show. I feel most of them aren’t outdated, despite being 27 years old, and still contain useful information.

So, if you’re interested in writing horror plays, I feel like this isn’t a bad place to start. You can cherry pick the essays that contain the information you’re after, which is helpful if you don’t have much free time on your hands, or your can read the whole thing and see what you can get out of it. You can probably find this at your local library if it’s large enough, but if you want to purchase it you can get it on thriftbooks.com for about $10.

I hope you guys enjoyed this writing book review! I’ll be back with a NPX Round-Up next Monday.

Hope you all had a happy Halloween!

Happy writing (and reading)!

~Brynn