The Horror, Not Horror

When my kid was 5 years old I published a novella that I’m quite proud of called ALL THE DARK PLACES. Last spring this once 5 year old, now 14, read the novella. Excitedly she messaged me after reading it, she was at her dads at the time, and told me that she’d really, really liked it, but … and yes there was a but…

“Mom it’s not horror,” she said.

I sighed a breath of relief, because though I did encourage her to read it, when she was trying to find something to read, I was a bit worried that the topic would be too heavy. My policy has always been to not shield her excessively from things, rather talk about the topics when they come up and that way de-demonize them but I figured if she didn’t think the story was a horror story then maybe she didn’t get the symbolism, or the connotation.

And I was relieved.

Then someone else, just a few weeks later, told me it wasn’t horror. This time it was a grown up that would get the connotation, and this made me think.

Because though I hear this from time to time, I still consider All The Dark Places very much to be a horror story, perhaps one of the most horrific stories I’ve written, though it certainly has the element of folklore and a hint of romance as well.

This made me think of how incredibly divided we are when it comes to horror. Horror, apart from other speculative fiction, relies very heavily on emotions and as such what works for one person might not work at all for others. That way a story that some find not to be horror (I’ve only had good feedback on this book, the people who tell me it isn’t horror aren’t complaining, they’ve all told me how much they liked it) can be horrific for others.

Personal experience, along with overall mental shape of society, probably has a lot to say in the matter. It’s why the horror genre fluctuates in popularity quite a bit and why people may not even agree what is horror and what isn’t.

A lot of the time when I tell people I write horror they quickly tell me they don’t read that and every time I wonder what exactly that means for them. No Stephen King? No Bram Stoker? No Anne Rice? No Cormac McCarthy? No Haruki Murakami? Where do we draw that line? Where do they draw the line?

Other people who have read All The Dark Places have told me “It’s really, really dark,” clearly in tune with whatever it was I set out to do and though I welcome any reading you may have of it, the beauty about literature is that you create your own meaning within the words on the page, and the story forms in your head, if it’s done well, in a way that has meaning to you and though it may not be what the writer set out to do it does not mean you’re not perfectly right.

So, if All The Dark Places didn’t feel like a horror story to you, then it’s not. If it did then we share a notion, I guess, for good and for bad. It’s not about “getting it” but about conjuring up something within the reader that has been asleep, stir something, and this story clearly stirs something in people, even in those who tell me it’s not a horror story.

This is essentially a convoluted brag-post because my kid read my book and really seemed to mean it when she said she liked it and I’m glad the horror within it didn’t get to her – because I believe this says things about her life that’s good and the same thing goes for you, dear reader, if you found that it gave you something but didn’t find it scary then I envy you.

If you found it horrifying then I appreciate it very much that you read it anyway and took the time to tell me you found it scary, dark and horrifying and I thank you and I hope it brought you that horror-kind of joy we horrorfans are so fond of because stories aren’t just what the writer makes of them, they are what the reader puts into them as well.