Good horror stories can cause a reader to react in a number of different ways. They can jump out of their chair, groan in disgust or feel their skin crawl. Fear, however, isn’t the only emotion a reader can feel. They can also feel empathy for a character, anger because the villain got away, or sadness because a victim died. These reactions occur as a result of the story’s pacing or description; an author’s goal is to help guide the reader through a broad range of reactions so that the reader won’t put their book down.
In my experiences, some new horror authors find it difficult to understand that the genre isn’t just about one emotion or another. For example, a lot of new authors write about rape, incest or abuse for the shock value. Writing for shock value is very challenging because even though it causes the reader to react (both physically and emotionally) that reaction is pretty short-lived. There is a reason why several submission guidelines for horror publishers include rape, incest
I view shock to be akin to throwing a bucket of water in someone’s face. If they’re not expecting it, they feel “shocked” that you drenched them in water, but they’re probably going to be prepared if you try the same thing on them again. After someone feels that shock, they tend to want to “dry off” and move on. If that same person has already had a bucket of water thrown in their face by somebody else, they may not give you the same reaction that you were looking for, and may even get angry with you or annoyed. In this way, I believe that shock should be a tool rather than the basis for any story or plot.
Every author that has ever written horror goes through something I call a “period of discovery.” During this time period, they go through a process to define what the horror genre means to them so that they can write about it. For many people, modern horror is all around us in our newspaper headlines. It’s the guy that was abused by his mother and went on a killing spree. It’s the unfulfilled dentist that raped women in his office chair. It’s the brother that was intimate with his sister because their cult encouraged them to fall in love. The trouble is, just because that horror is all around us in the news, it doesn’t necessarily translate into a story that readers either want to read or haven’t read before.
Authors that write for shock value unintentionally limit their audience because readers feel unfulfilled by the story. Focusing on rape, incest and abuse further limits that audience because many people are uncomfortable reading a story that focuses on abuse toward women. Take me, for example. I love the horror genre, but the minute it turns into a platform that describes violence against women, I lose interest.
The point I’m trying to make here is twofold: One, there is a reason why publishers have submission guidelines. Read them, memorize them and follow them. Two, keep in mind that if you are going to write about rape, incest or abuse, ensure that you have a plot for your story and try to refrain from excessive amounts of description.
Finally, when you’re going through your revisions ask yourself a few questions. Does your story need to have shock value just so it fits within the horror genre? What other styles of horror would work for your story?
Monica Valentinelli is a horror and dark fantasy author and games designer whose recent credits include a story in the anthology BURIED TALES of PINEBOX, TEXAS. She is also the project manager for the horror and dark fantasy webzine Flamesrising.com. For more about Monica, visit her website located at mlvwrites.com.
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APEXOLOGY: Horror
Incredibly naïve view on writing topics and subjects.
To be fair, when you say “make sure you have a plot,” that can be applied to nearly every form of horror.
I also think it’s unfair to say “rape, incest and abuse” and then call it “violence against women.” I’m not female, and I’m an abuse survivor. I know three men who have been raped: one by another man, one by a much more physically powerful woman, and another after being drugged by a woman.
Why is the graphic depiction of a murder more acceptable than descriptions of rape, incest or abuse? My father committed suicide on my tenth birthday. Fiction (like Dead Poets Society) that deals with suicide affects me more keenly than it affects my friends, and that’s my problem. My fiancée is emitophobic. Television shows show people throwing up on each other more and more these days… I have worked for multiple editors who said violence inflicted on children is simply off limits. Just about everything you can do to another person in a horror story falls outside of someone’s comfort zone.
That said, I think the extremely graphic violence (and rape) in say, American History X, was integral to the story they were telling, and the intensity of the depiction was likewise necessary to the impact of the film.
I completely agree with the exhortation to read submissions guidelines. I agree that making sure your story is more than just a long, visceral description of horrible things happening to someone (not limited to rape, incest or abuse) is vitally important. I disagree that these three acts are somehow sacrosanct, and should be avoided or glossed over if they simply must appear.
Agree pretty much with what Chris said. It’s really about the context of the usage. I personally think it’s bad taste to shock just to shock. It also doesn’t take that much skill to do it (I think of it that as like using 3D to have a saw blade fly at the crowd in a movie – cheap, and maybe effective – but still nothing to brag about).
I also don’t think that acts like incest or rape should not be written about, as they are definitely parts of the bad side of our culture – but glorifying it or just using as a way to create a visceral reaction just doesn’t do it for me – and I’ll stop reading your book if you do so.
Lastly, like Chris I agree that calling these things acts of violence against women is a bit too narrow, as they affect all people regardless of gender, age, etc. Just take a look at what happened with the Catholic church.
Thanks, Chris, for pointing out my oversight and your thoughts. You are absolutely correct in saying that I should have mentioned these acts of violence weren’t just focused on women. I do believe that the depiction of violence against women (and the horror tropes that surround it) is yet another discussion.
One of the reasons why I chose this particular topic, is because I feel it is something that should be discussed openly. It’s great to see comments that explore different perspectives on this heated issue. Whether or not you agree with me, I encourage others to do the same.
Monica,
That brings up another thing… It is something that should be discussed openly, and in a way, censoring or reducing it in fiction is a way of brushing it under the carpet. There’s a definite difference between exploring the consequences and repercussions of rape, incest or abuse and glorifying same.
Some creators write about these things because they’ve experienced them, and they’re using the form as catharsis or therapy. Tori Amos’ “Me and a Gun” is a perfect example.
This is a fantastic topic and I think worthy of serious debate. The real question is: how much is too much? I am the first to say violence in literature is necessary in order to have good conflict. Murder has been a plot device since Cain & Abel.
However, I’ll also argue that there are lines of decency that can be crossed. I take particular exception to rape and other forms of sexual abuse when they are described in detail. Like the current trend of torture porn, it serves no point but to be about shock value. The shock value as described here carries a lot of truth.
I’ve seen low-end novels that are nothing more than vivid descriptions of horrid events. If a writer is good enough, description becomes part of the overall tone, mood, and plot. I also think an element of morality is just as necessary as violence. Reading about every pump a rapist makes establishes the narrative as immoral.
I’m currently writing a book where rape is involved. I have been struggling with how to present these events as horrific and devastating without describing the details. It has made me a better writer by working the prose to elevate the horror of the event without describing it.
I believe Monica is correct: sex crimes in detail are easy shock value moments. Yes, some outstanding literature and film has included graphic rape scenes, but I would argue the authors and filmmakers spent years working their trades before they could successfully pull it off. Not everybody is that good.
@Chris – I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. In my mind, writing about rape, incest and abuse as part of the horror genre is drastically different than writing about it in a different venue like non-fiction.
@Bill and @Keith. Thank you both for your comments. Glad to see people are thinking about this issue. :)
@Keith – Again, there’s a difference between depiction and glorification. I’d argue that what Monica said about avoiding “excessive description” applies to all writing. Anything described to excess is bad. :P
@Monica – Here we run dangerously close to another problem of mine… Treating the horror genre like it is somehow less capable of exploring serious themes than “real” outlets like literary fiction or non-fiction places artificial and unnecessary limits. It doesn’t matter what form you’re writing in, what I think you’re looking for is a maturity. And I think horror is perfectly capable of maturity. Look at Caitlín R. Kiernan’s The Red Tree for an example of a mature exploration of depression, suicide and abuse in a horrific context. Or Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House or for that matter, We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
All of those books bring up another point… All fiction is a reflection of the writer. It’s all autobiography. Caitlín struggles with the seizures that Sarah Crowe experiences in The Red Tree. Much of the strangeness of Through the Looking Glass is description of the sensory-warping effects Lewis Carroll experienced due to his frontal lobe epilepsy. These are the things that shape us, and make us into the people we are, and the stories we have to tell. Sometimes we explore fictional versions of these events to lessen their sting, or to triumph over them. Sometimes we explore them as a warning to others.
I agree that a juvenile power fantasy disguised as a story isn’t cool. But removing these subjects from the playing field isn’t really the answer. As I said, what I think you’re really after is a mature handling of the subject.
@Chris – Well, I’m not sure why you perceive me to be antagonistic about writing on these topics, because that’s certainly not what I’m trying to convey.
Most writers start out in the horror genre with a certain sense of immaturity, because they don’t have the experience writing in the genre to know where the pitfalls (or the tropes) are. There’s a big difference between a story by a “new” author and one by Caitlin Kiernan. Professionals like Caitlin do handle these topics well, because they are professionals. In my mind, there’s no comparison.
Every author has to learn and figure out what’s best for them, sure, but that’s the reason why we’re having this discussion.
I don’t assume you’re antagonistic, but even among horror writers, there’s often this sheepish feeling that we’re playing in some kind of sandbox while the real writers are off having tea…
I guess what it really boils down to is that I’d hate for someone to have told Mark Z. Danielewski that he shouldn’t write The House of Leaves because he was “new,” you know?
Hello folks
I’ve been working in the mental health field for a long while, which included several years working in a locked down pych ward. I know certain things become cliche, because we see them in countless movies etc, but they do in fact remain true. In most cases freaks, serial killers, anti-social PD are not born they are made. I’m not saying everyone that is abused ends up wearing a hockey mask and cutting people up, but the most twisted people out there got that way through, rape incest, and abuse. So if you want to delve into the past/nature of your villain, those topics become hard ones to avoid.
Mike Griffiths
[...] week, I offered the folks over at Apex Book Company a blog post entitled, “Why Do Some Horror Authors Write about Rape, Incest and Abuse?“ This was a sensitive topic to write about, and I found out after the article was published [...]
I am still trying to figure out why you have a cover of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door posted with this article. Are you saying that Ketchum, one of horror’s finest, was writing for shock value? If so I believe you are sadly mistaken. I think you have totally missed the point of horror entirely to begin with. Horror is supposed to be shocking and push readers to the absolute limits of their comfort zones. If horror isn’t doing this, it isn’t doing it’s job. Horror is around to show us what we fear from a safe distance, whether it be monsters of a supernatural kind or monsters of the human kind that take the form of rapist or what have you. If you take away the horrific in horror you are merely censoring it to appease those uncomfortable with the subject matter. If you don’t like reading about subjects that terrify you, why on earth are you reading horror in the first place?
Excellent blog, Monica! As someone who has read/loved horror novels for a long time, and is finally starting to write some of those types of stories myself, I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I have to say I’m on the fence when it comes to the question of “how much is too much” or “should we be talking about some of the more gruesome aspects of our society/world,” but I thought you said it nicely — if it’s shock for shock’s sake, it’s probably not going to go over well with (most) readers. But if the author uses the shock factor as an interesting component of the story (think about how Quentin Tarantino used that nasty adrenaline shot scene to “spice up” the movie “Pulp Fiction,” or how the brutal torture scenes in “Hostel” made the audience really cheer on the main character once he finally turned the tables on the torturers) it can really enliven the story and work for the filmmaker/writer/whoever. Plus, you don’t run the risk of alienating your entire audience in the process.
I think that some shock can be good, though — in the hands of someone like Jack Ketchum, shocking material can be done very well. In the hands of lesser writers, not so much. But that’s probably something every writer/filmmaker/artist needs to work out for him/herself.
Anyway, great blog! I enjoyed it!