The Horror!

Unrelated to absolutely everything I've been up to lately, horror is hard to write.

I mean, I guess The Long Road has horror-ish elements (like whatever the fuck the sheriff of Maranatha is), but I wouldn't call it horror.

Horror movies are easy. Shitty horror movies, anyway. You throw in a creepy soundtrack, some jump scares, and you're done. Startling, at any rate, is easy on film.

You can't startle with a book. Words don't jump out at people. With a book, you've gotta be all atmospheric and build tension. With words! It's hard.

I tried to write a ghost story once. To be honest, it had some good parts to it, but the ghost bit was not one of them. It's just hard to create that creepiness. For me, anyway.

I think the trouble might lie in my sense of descriptions. As you probably know by now, I don't do much in the way of descriptions. I can't describe a room, or a building, or a town with any kind of effectiveness. I think the descriptions I do have are very matter of fact. Very cold and clinical. They don't create that mood. That ambiance. I'm just like, "There was a house. It had some doors. As houses do." Just… shit descriptions. Sometimes I manage super gross descriptions, but they're not filling anyone with dread. I have looked into how to write horror, and there is an element of disgust, but you can't make it with just that. No one's going to want to read constant descriptions of post-shotgun heads leaking grey matter and maggots. That's something you want in small morsels. Much like brain matter. And now I'm thinking about cannibalism and kuru.

And now I'm thinking about zombies.

I had a vague idea about a zombie story yesterday, but I don't know if I'll ever write that, because zombies are… ugh. They're kind of overdone at this point. And mindless flesh eating monsters are… *shudder*

Anyway, I can do gross. I can't necessarily do scary. I think scary has to tap into some kind of psychological thing. You have to build up this ominous atmosphere, get into the reader's head, and then tear them apart from within.

But it's a skill to do it well. And I don't have that skill. Not yet anyway.

I'll see you Wednesday.