Short Horror Fiction
Jay Werkheiser
Let me set the scene for you. It’s early 1992. I’m fourteen. And I’ve just written a short story. I know it’s not perfect. I know it’s not what anyone would call publishable, but I do know there’s something in this story writing business that I like. There’s potential here. There’s enough room to go exploring and never run out of places to see. There are more stories to tell. Plenty more.
Anyway, let’s talk horror fiction. Specifically, let’s talk short horror fiction.
First off, why horror fiction? Why write something which will potentially upset, disturb or frighten the reader? Why not aim to add to the world instead of taking away from it with a horror tale? Well, this idea is, frankly speaking, crap. It exists on the basis that horror fiction must always and only be a negative. It must always lessen the reader and writer. There’s an important issue (other than it being crap) which negates this.
Who’s to say a horror story has to be only concerned with pain, suffering and misery? Who’s to say it has to be as violent and gross as, say, aSaw film? Take Susan Hill’s excellent The Woman In Black. Without question, this is a horror story. The horror of grief, the horror of the past, the horror of the unknown. And there’s no OTT violence or gore. Just as there isn’t in some of John Connolly’s short work. Or some of Stephen King’s. Ultimately, there’s nothing to stop a horror story featuring death and violence but actually being about bravery, love and hope. Even if does feature lashings of the red stuff, then I can live with that. People might complain about it, might say it's unpleasant and lowbrow and won't someone please think of the children? Does anyone say that when they turn the news on and a bomb's gone off somewhere, killing and injurying dozens of people? Does anyone say that when the camera pans over the bloodstains on the concrete or the holes in buildings that used to be windows?
Now obviously, the Susan Hill example is a novel rather than a short piece but the principal remains the same. The short story writer just has less room to play with than the novelist. That doesn’t have to be a problem, though. Some of the most powerfully written and entertaining works of fiction I’ve read have been short (Stephen King’s The Last Rung On The Ladder, and Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado to name just two). Speaking personally, I love to write short fiction. While my focus now is much more on novels, I won’t stop producing a short story when the right idea for one hits me. If I don’t, then when that idea for a nasty little tale with teeth eager to bite comes along, it’s either get it down on paper or risk it biting me. And biting. And biting.
Incidentally, the story I wrote when I was fourteen is pushing twenty years ago and I still get the same sense of happiness and potential when writing short fiction now as I did back then. And I definitely still get the same sense of exploration as I did then.
So why not pick up your pen and paper and come exploring with me? Be warned, though. We might go into some dark places.
In fact, I guarantee it.
Anyway, let’s talk horror fiction. Specifically, let’s talk short horror fiction.
First off, why horror fiction? Why write something which will potentially upset, disturb or frighten the reader? Why not aim to add to the world instead of taking away from it with a horror tale? Well, this idea is, frankly speaking, crap. It exists on the basis that horror fiction must always and only be a negative. It must always lessen the reader and writer. There’s an important issue (other than it being crap) which negates this.
Who’s to say a horror story has to be only concerned with pain, suffering and misery? Who’s to say it has to be as violent and gross as, say, aSaw film? Take Susan Hill’s excellent The Woman In Black. Without question, this is a horror story. The horror of grief, the horror of the past, the horror of the unknown. And there’s no OTT violence or gore. Just as there isn’t in some of John Connolly’s short work. Or some of Stephen King’s. Ultimately, there’s nothing to stop a horror story featuring death and violence but actually being about bravery, love and hope. Even if does feature lashings of the red stuff, then I can live with that. People might complain about it, might say it's unpleasant and lowbrow and won't someone please think of the children? Does anyone say that when they turn the news on and a bomb's gone off somewhere, killing and injurying dozens of people? Does anyone say that when the camera pans over the bloodstains on the concrete or the holes in buildings that used to be windows?
Now obviously, the Susan Hill example is a novel rather than a short piece but the principal remains the same. The short story writer just has less room to play with than the novelist. That doesn’t have to be a problem, though. Some of the most powerfully written and entertaining works of fiction I’ve read have been short (Stephen King’s The Last Rung On The Ladder, and Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado to name just two). Speaking personally, I love to write short fiction. While my focus now is much more on novels, I won’t stop producing a short story when the right idea for one hits me. If I don’t, then when that idea for a nasty little tale with teeth eager to bite comes along, it’s either get it down on paper or risk it biting me. And biting. And biting.
Incidentally, the story I wrote when I was fourteen is pushing twenty years ago and I still get the same sense of happiness and potential when writing short fiction now as I did back then. And I definitely still get the same sense of exploration as I did then.
So why not pick up your pen and paper and come exploring with me? Be warned, though. We might go into some dark places.
In fact, I guarantee it.
No comments:
Post a Comment