Horror question

[G L Wilson]

Horror. Why is it not scary in book form?

[zhannochka]

Perhaps you should work on improving your imagination...

[G L Wilson]

Perhaps you should work on improving your imagination...

Perhaps I should, the question is still valid though.

[Hopfrog]

Laird Barron's two collections, The Imago Sequence and Occultation, contain horror fiction that is as scary as it is original. Magnificent!
:thumbsup:

[Big Dante]

I find it scarier in books.

Reasons why movies would be scarier is music, effects and everything. You need to be really in tune with a book to feel all senses the same way.

[Delta40]

I find horror horrifying. In book and film. I can watch gruesome documentaries but I can't handle the twisted imagination of fiction....arrrrrrrgh!

[inbetween]

hm.. I like horror in any form... but yes I think it is ecspesially about the music... that has such an enourmous effect... but then in books you can explain thoughts and feelings way better than in films.. wich can be pretty horrifying.. so .. guess that evens it out ...at least for me

[Calidore]

Movies are more immersive and require less effort on the part of the viewer to become emotionaly involved. Converting print to imagination takes more processing power, and there's still a certain amount of distance. A skilled writer can still drum up a good deal of suspense, but in the end it's still primarily telling, where a movie is showing.

[Arrowni]

Horror is like partying. Who goes to parties with a book?

[Dark Muse]

This is an interesting question. I love horror but it is true that I do not often read horror books that actually are capable of inspiring fear within me. Sometimes they can cause a feeling of suspense and make me wonder what is going to happen next. But it is a rare moment when a book actually causes me to truly feel "horrified." Though they can often feel creepy at times, and eerie.

I think that with horror in movies the visual images do help a lot in creating the feeling of fear, because in movies you really get the feeling of tension where you know at any moment something is about to happen, something is about to jump out of a dark corner, but you don't when it is going to happen.

[Hopfrog]

As a full-time professional horror author, I don't really feel a need to "be scary" in my fiction. My aesthetic needs are to write horror fiction that is poetic, beautifully expressed, that strives to be Literary Art, however far I may fall in that effort. I take as my examples the weird spectral fiction of Lovecraft and Henry James. One constant comment leveled against Lovecraft (especially in "reviews" at Amazon here in Yankland) is "He ain't scary." To be "scary" seems a paltry aim, I have, almost an aesthetic allergy against it, and I think that may, in part, come from how easily it seems to get scares in horror films. It feels, from a writer's point of view, like a "gimmick," false and forced. I believe that good weird fiction creates a sense of unease and triggers the reader's sense of wonder in a dark way. I want to create horror that beguiles and allures rather than provides a mere creeping of flesh. I want, as a horror author, to evoke a sense of nameless dread, however subtle. I hate the violent gross-out and rarely go for that kind of thing. I want to write horror that is seductive, a bad date with an alluring panther. The tongue of the beast may arouse delight, but it is ecstasy that pulls one into the pit and wrings the heart with growing perplexity and fear. It is a huge artistic challenge, and a delightful one.

[Abyssos]

I like "interesting" horror fiction. Not the "horror" genre, and the crap that comes with it full of cliches. MAybe I don't get scared anymore due to my age, but anyway horror can still be fun. There are good horror writers like Clive Barker, Lovecraft etc. On the other hand, there are some sh.tty movies like Yuzna's Necronomicon, which ruined my early adolescence with a most unexpexted frightening scene. I mean the movie was such bad, that I wasn't prepared for such a strong horror scene. And yes, I used to listen to metal music. :D

[Varenne Rodin]

I'm sometimes scared by horror stories, but it's rare. More often I feel disgust at particularly grotesque happenings in books. There is a book, which I refuse to throw away, that I have hidden from my sight because even looking at it makes me feel physically ill.

[qimissung]

I do like walking on the edge of the abyss. Books like The Collector, or The Haunting of Hill House, or We have Always Lived in the Castle do that for me.

[Dark Muse]

I'm sometimes scared by horror stories, but it's rare. More often I feel disgust at particularly grotesque happenings in books. There is a book, which I refuse to throw away, that I have hidden from my sight because even looking at it makes me feel physically ill.

I have to ask what that books is

[Varenne Rodin]

Oh, it's not really worth reading. Probably not even scary to most people. It's 'Bag of Bones' by Stephen King. My reason for hating it is that it gives detailed descriptions of brutal murders that happened to members of my family, right down to their specific names. It's a big coincidence, I guess, but it made me feel extremely uncomfortable; terrified, angry, sick. I don't know how Mr. King put my life in a book, but I'll be creeped out by it forever. I can't look at it. I can't read it ever again. It's silly really. Some kind of sick joke.

[ScribbleScribe]

1) go to librarything.com
2) search for the group called Thingamabrarians that go bump in the night.
3) search for a thread about the scariest books people have read in that group.

Prepare to be frightened out of your mind by their suggestions. :)