Thursday, October 27, 2016

Why Does Horror Literature Continue to Appeal to Readers?


In honor of Halloween, let’s discuss horror fiction--or dark fantasy as it now euphemistically called. Why does it continue to fascinate readers? Why do readers love what scares them? It appears that vampires never die. Zombies can be found in movie theatres, TV shows, commercials, books, and short stories.

When people talk about horror fiction, they might let out an involuntary shudder. However, horror fiction isn’t just about the gruesome. It’s not only about such supernatural creations as: ghosts, goblins, ghouls, gremlins, etc. No, it’s really about what we fear, what we dread most, what strikes terror into our hearts and souls. These things may be ordinary, like a pit bull off the leash running toward us, or extraordinary, like meeting a vampire in a neighborhood bar at midnight. It may even take us to a dystopian world of chaos. Our fears are both usual and unusual.


Horror fiction will not be going away any time soon because it is human nature to feel fear as an emotion. Horror fiction actually helps us handle these feelings, helps us cope with and confront our terrors, those within us and those in the environment around us. Writers like Stephen King and Dean Koontz have recognized this. They reach into their worst fears and nightmares to help us come to terms with our own. As we find ourselves in real life forced to face horrors like Ebola outbreaks and violent terrorist attacks, there is comfort in paranormal solutions.

In my co-authored novel, THE THIRD EYE: A PINE BARRENS MYSTERY, a boy and his mother, writing alternating viewpoint chapters, come to terms with their own greatest fears while solving several connected murders. The novel’s setting is real but eerie. Legends of the Jersey Devil still seem to fascinate.



Tales of the supernatural are ever popular during the Halloween season.

THE DEVIL AND DANNA WEBSTER, a paranormal YA novel from Clean Reads Press, is a perfect choice for Halloween, available in All e-book formats plus print.


DARK MOON RISING, Gothic romantic suspense from Luminosity, is also available in All e-book formats and print. A perfect ghost story for Halloween:






The Kim Reynolds mysteries feature a librarian protagonist with paranormal abilities. The latest book in this series, THE BAD WIFE from Perfect Crime Press, is now a free read for Kindle Unlimited Subscribers.  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J6PCKVW

I also have a literary crime story with a paranormal edge in the newly published anthology BREWED AWAKENINGS 2:

Do you read horror/speculative literature? Why or why not? Do you have favorite authors, books or short stories that you would recommend to fellow readers?

If you are a writer, do you write horror/paranormal lit? Tell us something about your most recent work in the genre. Are there any that you would recommend as good Halloween reading choices?


10 comments:

  1. Interesting and so true, Jacquie!
    Great job.
    Good luck and God's blessings.
    PamT

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  2. Thank you, Pam! Glad you enjoyed reading the blog.

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  3. Good post, Jacquie, on the universal longing for a good fright. I enjoyed THE THIRD EYE when I read it a while ago.

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    1. The Pine Barrens of NJ are a lot like the English moors--the perfect setting for ghost tales.

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  4. Cut my reading eye teeth on Poe and few surpass him in inducing shivers. Of the modern breed, Stephen King is 'king.' I've written some short stories in the genre but haven't attempted a novel.

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    1. I prefer reading short stories in the horror genre. I agree that Stephen King is still king of the modern horror novel. I think the reason is that he develops characters we care about and that seem real then puts them into surreal plots.

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  5. I can read vampire stories without any problem, and zombie stories seem too silly to fear, but I avoid horror stories as a rule. My imagination makes them too real. I think it's great that you have written such a wide range of stories that would fall into that genre.

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    1. Thank you, Maris. I love writing in a great variety of genres including literary fiction. My horror stories, however, are generally more psychological than gory. Even in my murder mysteries, I don't dwell on gore but try to offer interesting, well-developed characters.

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  6. I, too, started horror/dark fantasy/whatever with Poe and then there was Daphne DuMaurier and some of the "original" Gothic romance writers, like Phyllis Whitney and their dark, brooding settings and heroes.

    I sometimes get a lot of pushback when I say I write horror. I don't really care anymore. I usually write psychological horror, not gore. But if blood is needed in the story I don't shy away.

    Writers are supposed to evoke emotions; fright is just another emotion.

    Subjects I cannot read and stop reading: animal abuse and killing. THAT turns me off of a book.

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    1. Thanks for commenting, Mitzi. I agree with you about turn-offs. I don't write for shock value either.

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