TWs: mentions of violence and murder 

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another month of Bookish Debates! October is a spooky time for quite a few people, so the theme for the month was horror! Read on to hear what our Dreamers had to say about the interaction between horror, our fears and the human psyche. 

Note: As always, we welcome everyone to share additional thoughts in the comments! However, we kindly ask that everyone maintain respect and patience as opinions may differ, and not everyone may be fully familiar with this topic.

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Questions posted on 12th October 2024

Horror stories tend to explore how humans behave when faced with danger, fear, and death. They can include the psychology of one's mind, showcasing the intentions, motivations, and/or reasoning behind a person's actions. And when these stories include supernatural elements, they can often reflect real human fear better than more realistic fiction such as psychological thrillers or mysteries set in real life settings. Reading horror can also produce a rush of adrenaline through us when we experience fear while in a safe space. 

Can the horror genre be more effective at engaging readers, especially when it comes to shining a light on the darker parts of the human psyche? How can horror stories include plot twists, the villain's point of view, scary moments, gory descriptions, etc., to keep the reader's attention, give them that rush of adrenaline, and prompt them to discover how their brain reacts to fear (in times surprising them like "woah, I didn't expect to feel that way") or what would they do in such a situation? Can horror stories help a reader cope with real life, especially with anxiety issues? 

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All answers are slightly modified for grammar and structure.

Winning answer posted by SmokeAndOranges 

Note: This answer contains some spoilers for August's books! 

There's one thing I always remember when it comes to Horror: fear is a full-body experience. Horror is considered one of the three "body genres," alongside Romance and Comedy, because all three elicit emotions that are far more deeply, physiologically rooted than, say, wonder or curiosity. That adrenaline rush is literally primal; fear comes from the oldest, most primitive part of the brain. That rush can also be addictive. 

It took me a long time to discover I enjoy Horror, because I've never liked gore. I'm also not the type to write what I call "social horror": things like kidnappers, serial killers, stalkers, or gender-based violence whose manifestations I won't name. It wasn't until about four years ago that I stumbled across a Horror Webtoon that hooked me so hard that I've never really recovered. It had no villain POV. There was minimal gore, and the art style avoided it. There was virtually no social horror. 

What it did have was fear of the unknown. 

That fear's grip on me has fascinated me to this day, and I've been trying to dissect its magic and capture it in my books ever since. On a craft level, it's led me to revelations like how showing or explaining a monster destroys 90% of its scare factor, while something as simple as a flickering light or a too-quiet street can send chills up a reader's spine. I've terrified readers to tears—they've told me—with butterflies or the smell of vanilla. But the most fun part, for me, is seeing how my characters react. 

I've written a book where the crew of an airship starts vanishing one by one, and turn on one another before realizing they're under attack by an airborne predator. I also have a book where characters go the opposite direction, and band together more closely in the face of rain that taps in Morse Code and keeps telling them to run.

I've watched characters turn to self-sabotage, religion, murder, found family, madness, leadership, and mutiny. Each response depends on both personality and social context, and the way the two interact. It's the most endlessly fascinating social study. 

Can it help a reader cope? Quite possibly. It certainly helps me as a writer cope with the insanity in our world, especially when my day job is trying to avert the apocalypse. I go home at the end of the day and write deep-sea Horror or the collapse of fictional Empires. Both to decompress, and to reassure myself that people can and do make it out alive on the other side. 

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That's all for now! We appreciate all that those took a moment out of their lives to participate in this discussion and congratulations once again to August for winning!