The Writer - 10.2019

2 | The Writer • October 2019

FROM THE EDITOR

NICKI PORTER

Keep writing,

Nicki Porter

Senior Editor

@nickimporter

The haunting season

I read multiple genres all year long, mixing poetry

and nonfiction with novels and short stories as I

please. The lone exception is October, when I read

one genre and one genre alone: Horror.

I want books that go bump in the night, leave

me terrified to sleep with the lights off, convince

me that someone’s lurking in the linen closet. I

want prose powerful enough to raise goosebumps

on my arm. I want stories that linger long after

I’ve closed the covers (or buried under them).

Scary movies, horror books, creepy TV shows,

I love them all. But when I confess this love to

others, I often get the same shuddering reaction:

“Oh, I can’t do stuff like that. Too scary.”

Which, of course, is a pretty understandable

response, right? Who would willingly spend their

free time knee-deep in a case of the heebie-jeebies?

So why do fans keep coming back to horror?

What makes a person want to be scared?

I think about it a lot, especially in an age where

the headlines contain enough horror to last a life-

time. What drives a person to spend their leisure

time in a fictional hellscape? Why do we seek the

dark, and what do we hope to find there?

Part of me knows it provides a temporary

escape from everyday anxiety. It’s hard to fret

over that upcoming root canal when flesh-eating

zombies are on the loose. I know it’s also a path to

explore all the larger things in life that haunt us.

(Is The Shining about ghosts, or is it about addic-

tion? The wise reader answers: Why not both?)

Still another part of me craves art that creates a

physical response in the reader. If an author can

use the English language to make me audibly

laugh, tear up, or shiver in my chair, that’s a damn

fine piece of writing. So I want books that make

my heart race. I want language that gives me chills.

I want to feel something when I read, and horror

promises I’ll feel vividly alive from start to finish.

But I think one of my favorite things about

horror is how much earnesty exists at its core.

Fiction is a lie, plain and simple, but oh, how

much of it is spent convincing the reader that it’s

the truth. And ghosts, goblins, and ghouls are all

a much harder truth to sell than a troubled mar-

riage or murder case – and one humans don’t

have any good reason to swallow. We want to

laugh, so we flock to comedy. We need to under-

stand death and pain, so we relish tragedy. But

humans don’t have much of a good reason –

socially or biologically – to admit a work of art

makes us afraid. Showing fear implies weakness,

insecurity, a loss of control. So we cross our arms.

So we jut our jaw. And we say: You think that’s

scary? That’s not scary.

That’s stupid.

That’s why it’s easier to make a horror-comedy,

with fake-blood hijinks and campy zombies. So

we laugh at the things that should scare us. But

how brave, how confident is the author who will

stand in front of a crowd, that swarm of crossed-

arm skeptics, and say: I am going to tell you a

story that will scare the living daylights out of you.

And you’re gonna love it.

That’s the kind of confidence I want to see in

an author. That’s the kind of confidence I want to

see in fiction, period.

So come November, I’ll welcome all my cheer-

ier genres back with open arms. But for the rest

of this month, you’ll only find me in the dark.