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Horror
Sub-Genres
by Paula Guran
(Reprinted with permission from and with special
thanks to the folks at Dark Echo Writer's Workshop)
Don't expect to find a definition of horror here. The
closest I get to even attempting that is in an essay, The
Meaning of the "H" Word. And you can re-read
Doug Winter's words on the site entry. These will remind
you that horror isn't a genre at all. Once you have that
firmly in mind, then you can ponder the irony of the
following -- horror sub-genres and related terms. Not
that these can be considered definitive. Horrorists
disagree about such things; academics debate them. Some
that have complex meaning are still treated simplitically
and with great brevity.
I never promised you this would be easy.
Cross
Genre:
Of course is you can establish genre lines, then horror
crosses them. When genres -- horror, fantasy, science,
and speculative fiction -- start slipping into one
another the Brits call it (appropriately)
"slipstream."
Cutting
Edge:
This term's meaning shifts -- often from person to person
-- so I can really only offer what I think it means. For
ME, cutting edge means that the fiction usually refuses
archetypal, supernatural aspects -- unless those elements
are used so originally they become antithetical to
traditional horror. Cutting edge can be hard, soft,
quiet, psychological, surreal, eerie, avant pop,
post-modern, literary, alternative, have erotic, and
sexual aspects, etc. The idea is that it is not exactly
the same old thing -- even if the departure is only
stylistic rather than purely thematic.
Dark
Fantasy:
A term that could arguably be applied to most horror and
sometimes is, but generally it means a fantasy story that
can have supernatural elements but is not the
supernatural fiction of vampires, werewolves. etc. You'll
often find stories like Robert E. Howard's Conan the
Barbarian refer"#CC0000" to as dark fantasy. A
"purer" reference in this context, however,
would be Karl Edward Wagner's doomed immortal anti-hero
Kane. Characters/fictions that originated in graphic
narratives (comics) like James O'Barr's The Crow and
modern interpretations of Spiderman and Batman are dark
fantasy.(Although the heroes and magic of "sword and
sorcery" is sometimes dark fantasy,
"S&S" generally belongs to the fantasy
genre more than horror.)
Dark
Fiction:
Back in 1994 I started using the term "dark
fiction" to (1) allay the fears of writers and
readers who didn't want to be associated with
"horror", a word that's always been troublesome
and was, at the time, falling even further out of favor
in some circles; (2) have an inclusive term that covered
more than some folks thought horror did; (3) use as the
title of the AOL workshop --Dark Fiction/Horror Writers
Workshop -- for the first two reasons and also because,
in alphabetical listings "d" was preferable to
"h". It wasn't original, of course, but I
honestly don't know where/when it started to be used to
label a particular type of fiction. (Thomas Monteleone
used the acronym HDF in the introduction to the first
volume of the Borderlands anthology series to refer to
"contemporary horror, dark fantasy, and suspense
literature." I don't think he used it for long,
though.) In any case, for the first couple of years I was
repeatedly told that "dark fiction" was not an
acceptable term, that no one in publishing used the
phrase, that it meant nothing, and that, surely, I meant
"dark fantasy." Well, that was probably true
then, but I used it anyway. Now I see it used all over
the place.
Erotic
Horror:
Usually "erotic" means sensual sexual content
integral to the story and can be as mild as
"romantic suspense." Many editors and writers
prefer the term "sexual horror" over erotic, as
the sex in horror can be far from nice or arousing.
"Erotic" can be stretched to mean graphic,
intentionally explicit sex in a story meant for a
pornographic market. The code word being
"explicit."
Extreme:
It's, well, extreme. It goes straight to the
blood-and-guts and aims for the gross-out without
hesitation. In guidelines you might find terms like
"splat," "splatter," or
"splatterpunk" and "gore,"
"grue," and "gross." (Most GLs tell
you to AVOID these things.) Splatterpunk, by the way, was
just a label made up to describe the "young
Turks" bringing a more visceral, gritty edge to
horror 10-15 years ago.
Gothic:
1.
English Gothic: Novels and tales that developed as
a reaction to the Age of Reason and dominated English
literature from 1764 with The Castle of Ortanto by Horace
Walpole into the early 19th century. Characteristic theme
is the stranglehold of the past upon the present or the
encroachment of the '"dark'"ages of oppression
upon the "enlightened" modern era. Enclosed and
haunted settings (castles, crypts, convents, mansions),
gloomy images of ruin and decay, episodes of
imprisonment, cruelty, and persecution are used to
express this.
2.
American Gothic: Charles Brockden
Brown (1771-1810), considered America's first novelist,
gave Gothic an American setting and more of a
psychological interest in aberrant mentality. Gloomy
atmosphere plays a smaller role in American Gothic,
psychic breakdown plays a larger role.
3. Although sometimes
used as a synonym for "horror," it shouldn't
be. Although there is academic debate, gothic can
probably be identified by themes of a character being
*trapped* -- by location, by family destiny, whatever.
Joyce Carol Oates extends this to what she calls
"assaults on individual identity and autonomy."
4. An entirely
different meaning arises when Gothic or "Goth"
subculture is refered to in connection with horror
fiction. Any attempt to define Goth winds up stereotyping
an extremely diverse subculture. It's also wrong and
probably stupid and calling fiction "Goth" is
just the same. Since the stereotypical goth wears nothing
but black, too much eyeliner, and is full of gloom,
pretension and angst, then I suppose "goth
fiction" is the first form of literature to wear
make-up.
Lovecraftian,
Lovecraft Mythos, Cthulhu Mythos, etc.:
As long as you have some idea of who H.P. Lovecraft was
and what he wrote, these probably make sense. Lovecraft's
fictional premise was that the world was once inhabited
by another race of dark powers. Although cast out, they
live on somewhere always ready to take the world back.
"Lovecraft style" is florid and never stints on
adjectives.
Noir:
Usually set in an urban underworld of crime and moral
ambiguity. Dark, cynical, paranoid themes of corruption,
alienation, lust, obsession, violence, revenge and the
difficulty of finding redemption in a far from perfect
world. An oppressive atmosphere of menace, pessimism,
anxiety, suspicion, and dingy realism. You'll also find
the term in combinations like neo-noir, future noir or
noir sf, tech-noir.
Psychological
Horror:
Based on the disturbed human psyche. Obviously psychos on
rampages fall into this category, but it is just as often
more subtle. Since the reader's perception is sometimes
altered by exposure to an insane viewpoint, psychological
horror can also deal with ambiguous reality and seem to
be supernatural.
Quiet
(or Soft) Horror:
Subtle, never visceral or too shocking, with atmosphere
and mood providing the miasma of fear rather than graphic
description. The opposite of "Extreme."
Supernatural:
The rules of the normal world don't apply; ghosts,
demons, vampires, werewolves, the occult etc. Within this
sub genre is an ever-growing list of sub-sub-genres --
most of which deal with vampires.
Surreal:
Not really sub-generic, it can be used just to mean
unreal; strange or bizarre. Or it can be used to tie a
style to the surrealist movement in art and literature
that attempted to express the subconscious and move
beyond accepted conventions of reality by representing
the irrational imagery of dreams and bizarre
juxtapositions.
Suspense
(or Dark Suspense) and Thriller:
No supernatural elements, but a constant sense of threat
coming from an outside menace. Add a strong investigative
angle and becomes mystery more than horror. Add action
and adventure to suspense and you come up with
"thriller" -- except you can have
"supernatural thrillers."
Visceral:
A term, not a sub-genre, that refers to earthier, more
reality-based or supernatural fiction with a tendency to
be "in-your-face" with descriptions of the bad
stuff -- but not as extreme as Extreme.
Weird:
Can be used in several ways. "Weird fiction" is
sometimes used as a synonym for horror. It can also mean
only strange, uncanny, supernatural stories or refer to a
school of writing popularized by the pulp magazine
"Weird Tales" that tended to be Lovecraftian or
occult; more "traditional" horror.
"Pulp" is also a word used to describe this
type of tale, although "pulp" can also mean
more action-oriented material.
©
Copyright Paula Guran. All rights reserved.
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