Why I Like Creepy Things
16 Jan
Aaron Polson had a blog entry last week about genre, and hit a lot of the points I think most writers spend a lot of time considering. Not the big guns who can genre hop without thinking twice, of course, but the ones struggling for name recognition in whatever sphere. It’s the rule you hear all the time: pick a genre and stick to it.
I’m sure future me will be very annoyed with current me for not listening to this, but current me doesn’t feel at all like a hopper. I definitely think I write fantasy, just in a lot of different incarnations (I said on his blog: dark, historical, urban, epic, clockpunk, steampunk, whatever). But it always ends up being creepy, and in my weird little brain, that should really count. I mean, this is why people call it dark fiction, right? It covers all the bases.
There’s a reason for my interest in this subject matter, of course– no, not because I’m creepy! Well, I might be, but we’ll leave that to one side for now. It’s because when I was a kid I always liked scary stories the best. I read everything that got in my way, but the books that stick with me from my childhood are either classics (I won’t even tell you how many times I read Little Women) or YA horror. We had the Book Fair in my middle school, which Scholastic still does now, and I would save up my allowance for it– and usually get a little extra because, come on, they’re books! I remember buying weird shit like the Bunnicula series by James Howe– in particular I remember liking Howliday Inn– and The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright. I have this very distinct memory of being 10 or 11 and reading the latter by my night light, and getting so scared I threw it across the room. I think I read it 20 times that year. And then there were those Scary Stories books put together by Alvin Schwartz. Wow.
Right about then people started feeding me Poe, Blackwood, but also people like Dickens, who has some pretty creepy goings on. It snowballs once people figure out the morbid holds your interest, really, because there’s just so much out there. By the time I was introduced to Lovecraft in college it was all very, “Where the hell have you been all my life– you fit right in!”
But I think WD Prescott nailed it in his recent Choate Road Pulpit piece about what horror is. (Sending good vibes, man.) When you say you write horror, people definitely picture the book version of Saw– my mother, for example, really shies away from that sort of thing. But she read Grants Pass cover to cover, and really loved it. Does it get more horrific than facing down the decimation of everything you ever knew– family, friends, society, sanity? Probably not, but I think horror is great because it’s about facing it and coming out the other side. Even in fantasy novels, which really lend themselves to horror, the parts that stick with me emotionally are the creepy ones, the most notable being Tolkien. I could write a whole essay on that alone, but to keep it short: Mirkwood in The Hobbit, The Paths of the Dead and Mordor in The Lord of the Rings.
So sometimes it’s just horrific how f@%ked up humanity is, and sometimes it’s more fantasy/supernatural darkness, but it’s all good and creepy and not afraid to be honest about the things we don’t like to feel. I think that appealed even as a kid, looking back. And I think it has a lot to do with my inability to stick to a friggin genre instead of flitting between the two. Or that’s my excuse, anyhow.
I really need to find my old copy of The Dollhouse Murders. I found this awesome review and it made me miss it pretty hard. Anyone else have one from back in the day that sticks with them like this?
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Now playing: Kasabian – Ladies and Gentlemen (Roll the Dice)
via FoxyTunes
I continue to struggle with genre, too. I find that I can come up with some pretty creepy, gruesome stuff without even dabbling into speculative worlds…as well as really good things, or funny, or fantastic. Genre is the bane of the writer, but the lifeblood of marketers.
Great blog!
I find that when I’m writing shorts, horror is where I go first. But my NaNo ’08 project leaned more towards suspense.
Scholastic was a great thing – one of my fondest junior school memories. I still blow all of my allowance on books
I can definitely see the benefits of sticking to one genre – but I see the mixing of genres as equally beneficial, especially in being able to hook different types of readers.
“Genre-hopping”, if such a thing really does exist, is part of the search for a voice. I don’t do “horror” without a fantastical element. I don’t write crime or mystery, no serial killers or murders without supernatural elements.
And I want Jeremy to be my publicist. He’s got the business thing down.
Bunnicula, The Celery Stalks at Midnight, Howliday Inn…priceless childhood entertainment.
Jeremy, I completely agree, and I understand the necessity of categories when it comes to getting things to the right markets. But I think that’s where indie pubs are getting things right: with a smaller audience trusting a specialized publisher, slipstream becomes viable. (Horror/Sci-Fi = Apex, etc.) In a smaller way, but when done right, awesome quality.
Mary, all my allowance goes to the same place, oh yeah. But I agree, romance is so much more interesting with a little horror involved, an suspense with a little supernatural. Why sell a story short, right?
Aaron, totally. I also think it’s part of being honest to your voice, and not trying to curb one thing or the other. If you like it, odds are it’s what you’ll write best, I figure. And yes. Priceless! And you get to do it all over again with the kids. How freaking cool.
Hee hee…Bunnicula. I loved the covers of those books : )
I write scifi, fantasy, horror…but I like to think I am exploring human nature. Does that count?
I genre hop all the time and write whatever demands to be written. However it is for the most part dark, odd or both.
Yea, we’ve bot a lot of those scholastic books for Sean over the years. I think that it’s a great idea to introduce (brainwash) the youngsters about horror at an early age…
Thanks for the like to the WD Prescott piece. A lot of good information there.
I rarely set out to write in any particular genre, but most of it comes out as something you’d label ‘horror’, and I don’t know why that should be as I read very little horror.
Amanda, I think it ought to! That’s what I mean when I say it’s about facing the feelings we don’t like to have, exactly. Darkness is just one way to get there, and some people can handle it. Some not so much. But SciFi and Fantasy are the other two through which I think it’s so much more interesting. (So wish I could write SciFi. Gah.)
Cate, I really think those tendencies are more honest than genre labels. Again, I do understand the necessity of it for large markets, but I suppose that’s why indie is so comfortable. My husband was just telling me about an article he read about how things have to be either blockbusters or specialized indie flicks to be successful these days. I think that says a lot.
I like both, myself
Alan, I’m all for the brainwashing, definitely. I definitely wandered into that myself, but I was fantasy brainwashed from the start by my dad– and I thank him for it every time I see him!
Yeah Mike, I often have things come out less or more scary than I expected, but in general it can be most easily labeled like yours. I don’t read much straight horror either, but dark fantasy, definitely.
Bunnicula – gods, I haven’t thought of that one in ages, but I just about had it memorized when I was a kid!
Dollhouse Murders – I’m sure we must’ve talked about this at some point, given the bent our conversations usually take – but yes, creepy as hell, and I still have it out on my bookshelf because of that.
Other creepy from childhood that stuck with me:
Wait till Helen Comes – Mary Downing Hahn
Ghost Cat – Beverly Butler
I’m sure there were a bunch of others, as I might as well have lived at the library, but those are the ones I loved enough that I went out and bought my own copy.
I’m sure we must’ve discussed it before, because when I read that comment it made me remember… somethingorother.
I never had Wait til Helen Comes, but I distinctly remember Ghost Cat. And Ghost Abbey! Unrelated, but the one title just reminded me of the other. I can’t remember the ones I got out of the library either– just the ones that were on my shelf forever.
Childhood was awesome.
I’m going to hunt down a copy of The Dollhouse Murders.