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Horror Author Roundtable
5.
AOTW: Are you consciously trying to "be scary" as you write a horror story, or do the horror elements creep in and surprise you, just as the elements would surprise a reader?
Suzy McKee Charnas: Depends on the work. With "Boobs" I deliberately added the gory bits that are meant to horrify, to impress upon the reader the extraordinary depths of rage that certain kinds of teasing and meanness call into being and feed in a the chosen victim. With "Evil Thoughts," I myself had some nice surprises in the way the language seemed to feed on the core of horror, enhancing it for the reader. That wasn't planned, it just developed.
Michael Norman: No. I believe the "scare" factor comes from continuing to think about what the story means. Could this happen to me?
Gregory Maguire: I tried to be scary in some scenes, but the elements I used were very common --- like the nails in a board retracting of their own accord, or a cat baked to death in an oven. Simple domestic frights, such as any of us could imagine going about our daily business. When something mightier does intrude, at last, I give it no physicality, as to describe it would be to delimit it in my readers' imaginations.
Geoffrey Huntington: I'm often surprised by what I write. I say "Aha! Of course, that's what happens" or "That's how it turns out." Sometimes a literal chill runs down my spine as something scary occurs to me. I have to look around just to make sure no demon is creeping up behind me.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: Not as such, no I don't try to be scary --- I try to deal with subjects that are scary. And my characters shape that, as they shape the entire story, which sometimes does surprise me.
Fred Saberhagen: With vampires the fictional horror elements are fairly standardized, and it would be hard to surprise anybody. I think most of my gruesome details are historical, for example from the French Revolution in A Sharpness on the Neck. The real horror is in the real world.
F. Paul Wilson: I'm not trying to be scary in the calculated sense. But being hardwired for weird fiction, that's the path I travel. I always know how my story will go before I start it --- or at least I think I do. During the writing things change. Scenes that worked in outline fall flat when fleshed out, and you've got to adjust. Some interesting things come out of those adjustments.
A horror writer is not "scared" while writing a horror novel. You know what's coming as you build scenes to maximum effect, so it's very hard to be scared. It's work. When you're spending days on a scary scene, believe me, the only thing you're scared of is not being able to bring it off. But a year later, when the reader is plowing through that scene in a matter of a few minutes, the impact is entirely different and, hopefully, very scary.
I have, however, creeped myself out at times. Occasionally I'll been writing through a planned scene or relationship when suddenly I see it in a new light and say, "What if . . .?" And then I change it and a whole new realm of unsettling possibilities opens up. And I think, "Where did that come from? I must be a real sicko."
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