From the lonely Frankenstein’s monster to a blood-soaked army of zombies: how much excess can the horror genre tolerate before the real horror becomes numbing?#novum
The horror genre has a truly dreadful reputation – quite literally. It is all about shock, emotion and terror. Yet what one person considers brilliantly frightening may strike another as little more than heavy-handed sensationalism. So what does good horror really demand, and how can you make sure your audience is terrified for all the right reasons?
The horror genre is hardly young, but it has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past few decades. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and, of course, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) were among the pioneering works that laid the foundations for the genre. Both contain fundamental elements that can still be found in horror today, yet much of a modern audience would probably no longer consider them genuinely shocking.
There are many reasons for this. Dr Frankenstein’s famous monster is now just one creature among countless others, particularly when we think of the endless stories about zombie apocalypses. In Mary Shelley’s novel, the creation of the monster itself still plays a crucial role. Modern zombie stories, by contrast, tend to focus primarily on the impact of the monsters: the threat to civilisation, the collapse of society and, naturally, an immediate danger to life and limb – and quite often to the soul as well. Where the creatures came from, why they appeared and whether their origins and behaviour make any real sense are frequently of secondary importance. While Frankenstein features a single monster that kills only a handful of people, modern zombie stories often confront us with entire armies. And rather than simply strangling their victims like their literary predecessor, these creatures may devour them like particularly bloody steaks or infect them with an extraordinarily fast-acting virus that turns the victims themselves into zombies.
One thing is therefore impossible to overlook: modern horror often operates on an entirely different scale. And this is precisely what is frequently criticised as one of its greatest weaknesses.
More Is Not Always Better
Film and cinema in particular have left their mark on the horror genre, transforming it almost like a mutated killer virus. The visual nature of horror films gives their creators a relatively straightforward way of producing an effect on the audience. Terror can simply be placed directly in front of viewers – an uncomplicated and effective method that many films have embraced, often wielding a chainsaw rather than a clear cut.
Unlike a novel, a film does not necessarily have to build suspense or offer sinister descriptions when it can bombard its audience with blood, eerie tentacled monsters from the depths or severed body parts. The desired reaction can almost be taken for granted without requiring much preparation. This is also why horror films are so often accused of having plots that do not exactly stand up to close scrutiny – or sometimes of barely having a plot at all.
Film and cinema in particular have left their mark on the horror genre, transforming it almost like a mutated killer virus. The visual nature of horror films gives their creators a relatively straightforward way of producing an effect on the audience. Terror can simply be placed directly in front of viewers – an uncomplicated and effective method that many films have embraced, often wielding a chainsaw rather than a clear cut.
Unlike a novel, a film does not necessarily have to build suspense or offer sinister descriptions when it can bombard its audience with blood, eerie tentacled monsters from the depths or severed body parts. The desired reaction can almost be taken for granted without requiring much preparation. This is also why horror films are so often accused of having plots that do not exactly stand up to close scrutiny – or sometimes of barely having a plot at all.
Imagination Is the Key
This is where the novel has a clear advantage over film – and perhaps one reason why literary horror enjoys a better reputation. A novel leaves far more to the imagination. No matter how grotesque or brutal something perceived by our senses may be, the judgement that it is frightening ultimately takes place in our minds. Nothing is inherently terrifying; we interpret it as terrifying. And no author or director knows exactly what frightens us as well as we do ourselves.
For that reason, nothing we see or hear can be quite as frightening as what our own minds invent when they are forced to fill in the gaps. Our brains are our own personal horror animation studios.
This is precisely where the art of writing frightening literature lies. It is a balancing act, a constant exchange between creating a convincing, vividly described framework on the one hand and deliberately leaving things unsaid on the other. Horror literature may be in the almost unique position of sometimes becoming more effective when something is not written down.
Alongside the two familiar tools available to writers – showing and telling – there is therefore something akin to a third: implying. A novel can introduce objects or characters and deliberately leave them shrouded in ambiguity, ensuring that neither the other characters nor the reader ever feels entirely able to trust them. It can introduce phenomena and circumstances without immediately explaining them, creating an atmosphere of impending danger.
This approach is considerably subtler than the hack-and-slash spectacle of the screen. Since a novel cannot create or virtually force horror through visual stimuli, plot, characters and world-building automatically become more important. Literature has to rely on these fundamental pillars of storytelling to achieve its effect because it cannot take the shortcut of overwhelming the senses.
Within the context of his novel, Frankenstein’s monster is every bit as horrifying as an entire infected city. The reason is that the creature has an intensely personal and individual connection to its creator, Victor. The monster’s victims may not be numerous, but for Victor Frankenstein they represent the most devastating and significant losses imaginable within his personal world. In a sense, the monster therefore creates horror not through the quantity of its actions, but through their “quality”. It strikes exactly where it will hurt most within the specific context of the novel and its protagonist.
When the Unknown Invades
Think of many successful horror novels and you will notice a recurring motif that appears in countless different forms: something unknown, unreal and often supernatural enters the story.
It might be a ghost haunting the country house into which a young family has just moved. An extraterrestrial creature may have landed on Earth. A secret Satanic or pagan ritual may summon sinister beings from another world. The dead may return – or perhaps it is simply a dead cat that comes back.
In all these cases, events occur that are unfamiliar and inexplicable to us, tapping into one of humanity’s oldest patterns of thought: we fear what we do not know. This is particularly true when the unknown also begins to display genuinely threatening tendencies.
“The fantastic begins where the unknown intrudes upon the known,” as the concept is sometimes expressed in literary studies. And although there are more than enough familiar things capable of terrifying us – from wars and natural disasters to serial killers – horror takes on another dimension when we, or the protagonists with whom we are supposed to identify, are confronted with something unknown.
We do not know where it comes from, what it is capable of or, most importantly, how it can be stopped. This lack of knowledge creates a sense of helplessness and puts the brain into a state of alarm.
The same pattern can be seen in everyday life, and everyone has experienced it countless times. If we have worked for the same company for ten years, we are likely to be calm and relaxed on our way to work in the morning. On our first day at a new job, however, we may be stressed and nervous, constantly wondering what could go wrong and whether we have forgotten something important.
The unknown makes us anxious and unsettled because we do not know how to deal with it. In much the same way, a malicious spirit haunting our home is more unsettling than an unpleasant neighbour.
Making Horror Work
Writing good horror fiction is extremely demanding. In few other genres is it so easy to go too far while somehow missing the target at the same time.
Fear is a primal human instinct that responds relatively reliably to many of the same triggers in all of us. But simply frightening an audience is not enough. The fear has to arise for the right reasons. You might say that the journey itself is the destination: horror should not merely occur; it should also feel justified.
It should have an emotional impact, threaten the individual world of the main characters and leave the reader barely any room to breathe by confronting them with the unknown and creating a sense of helplessness.
There are many recurring motifs within the horror genre, several of which have been mentioned in this article. This demonstrates that the decisive factor is not the horror itself, nor its sheer scale, but the way it fits into the characters’ story.
So if a creepy clown or a possessed doll has inspired you to write your own horror novel, do not immediately abandon the idea simply because someone has used it before. Instead, give it a form and meaning that belong specifically to your story – and to no other.
Key Takeaway: October, the month of all things spooky, is the perfect opportunity. Do not let the challenges frighten you away. Get to work on a tale filled with blood, death and the devil – and let your keyboard run wild.
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– The novum publishing team