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6.
AOTW: What draws people to horror novels? Why do we, as readers, like to be scared?
Kelley Armstrong: Most of all, I believe we read horror for the adrenaline rush. There's nothing like a good scare to get the heart pumping and banish the stress of everyday life. What better way to forget that 8AM meeting with the VP --- and work through the attendant anxiety --- than to read about a killer shark ravaging a seaside town.
Whitley Strieber: We don't like to be scared. We like to learn. The discovery of the self and the definition of the individual are one thing with the evolution of the novel. In the 18th century, writers like Henry Fielding were constructing set pieces in which unchanging characters were displayed as social victims, paragons, hypocrites and evildoers. This was the beginning of the process of the discovery of the self that was furthered by Jane Austin, who began to make characters that changed. Her fiction came as we discovered that we could leave the social patterns to which we had been born. As the novel evolved beyond that point, so did the individual. Fiction is about what we know about ourselves...and horror is part of what we know. To assimilate the serial killer who walks one's inner paths, to tempt death and to survive, to thrill in secret to the suffering of others and not become a monster because of it --- these are some of the lessons in the school of horror. The horror novelist takes your hand and guides you in the shadow lanes where we dare not go alone, lest the way be lost, lest the cord that binds us to our sanity be broken. But who holds the novelist's hand?
I once woke up in the middle of the night surrounded by monsters that were far more terrible than any I had ever imagined, and I found the answer to that question: nobody does.
Tananarive Due: I have always known, since my relatively sheltered childhood, that life would have horrors in store for me, as it does for everyone sooner or later, and I think that's where my fascination developed. I am not very interested in being frightened in real life, and I go to great lengths to avoid that; for instance, while researching My Soul to Keep, a friend of mine offered to let me spend a few days in the house upon which I'd based my protagonist's house, but I decided against it --- there was too much bad energy there, as far as I was concerned. Instead, I just skulked around her backyard and took notes. I think I read horror for the same reason I write it --- I'm fascinated by the ways in which people react to extraordinary events, and I want to learn strength from those characters. Little dress rehearsals, as it were.
Darren Shan: As I said in my previous answer, horror excites us like a roller-coaster ride, but it also helps us make sense of the world, by focusing our attention on the less savoury aspects of life and enabling us to compartmentalize death and loss and tragedy, and thus understand and deal with them.
Christopher Schildt: People are drawn to horror novels because in truth they like to be frightened. It gives people a chance to be afraid, to allow the child inside a chance to escape for a few moments. After all, it is not macho for a man to admit he is afraid, or for a woman to show her vulnerable side. However, when touched by horror, society does not look down its nose at it such frailties.
David Searcy: Something about a scary story seems to discover, to situate the reader, the listener, as if within some sort of initiation. Something faintly remembered, reenacted. Something, maybe, to do with making sure we know where we are in the most emphatic and immediate sense --- like when, as a child, I'd slip downstairs into the bathroom in the middle of the night and get right up against the mirror, make the scariest face I could and flip on the light. It wasn't real. It was like a story. It was terrifying. And I think it was the suddenest, clearest way of making sure I hadn't vanished in the dark.
Douglas Clegg: I believe we all like adventure stories and stories of love. Horror fiction tweaks that up a notch to include a little spine-tingling and the supernatural. I'm not sure anyone likes being scared, but I think horror fiction can address what are considered taboos in modern society: death, spirituality, the unchained imagination, the chaotic beneath the veneer of order, etc. Frankly, I think we all like reading about monsters the way that some like to read about celebrities in the tabloids.
Ameilia Atwater-Rhodes: This overlaps what I said on the last question. People need diversity in life. They need challenges, and yes, fear. But we don't want to really be hurt or in danger. At the same time, we want to face the things that scare us, so we can prove our mastery over it --- as easily as turning another page.
R.L. Stine: Everyone enjoys a good scare --- if he or she is safe at the same time. Reading horror novels is like riding a roller coaster. It's thrilling and frightening --- but you know you're okay the whole while.
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