An In-Depth Analysis of the Horror Genre

 Hi everyone! Today I will be starting my In-Depth Analysis of certain genres series. In this series I shall be analysing the type of language used, common tropes in this genre, plot progression and how the genre meshes well with other genres, for each genre. Consider this a late Halloween treat! 😊

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

Ever liked the feeling when your eyes scan a page and then jump off whatever you are sitting on in fear? Does it give you a thrill to be terrified of what is written on the paper? Then reading horror books is right up your alley. There is variety in what horror fiction you can read, especially nowadays, however they all follow a special formula that I will explaining in further detail in this post. There are also special techniques in order to write effective "jump out of your wits" stories, mainly the language and certain tropes used. Finally I shall be examining on how the genre compares to and mixes together with other genres. Enjoy!

LANGUAGE USED:

All stories have to have colourful language that describes the situations, events, objects etc. that the characters interact with. You know the kind, why use the word "bubbly" to describe a soft drink when you can use the word "effervescent"? However, one technique that I see being used often in effective horror stories is under-describing the action and over-describing details that normally would not matter in other genres of fiction. For example, if the protagonists are running away from the threat, an author may use the simple sentence of "They ran away from the monstrous being.". However, when describing the tension in the room just before that, the author may use a paragraph or more to describe it. "Undeniable was the heavy weight suppressing the group. The silence screamed. A smell of rotting fingernails wafted from the room opposite. Rolling on the ground was what they thought was a woolly sock stuffed to the brim with the aging blood of the monster's last victim, but what turned out to be a clumpy hairball, the individual hairs connected by glops of spit, species unidentifiable." Did you recoil in disgust while reading it? If you did, that is great because that was the intention!

COMMON TROPES:

Most of the time, horror can be split into three types: psychopathical villains, mythical creatures and a psychological horror, in which there are no villains at all, but rather objects being the villain. I will give an example of each from popular culture (mostly movies and some are books): the film "Get Out" can be classified as the first type, the "Goosebumps" series and "IT" can be considered as the second type and finally the film "The Room" can be classified as the last type. Normally the protagonists are naive, curious and determined to uncover the rumours and legends, for better or worse. More often than not, since this is Horror we are talking about, things do not end well for the protagonists, at most two of them surviving the whole ordeal of the story. Most of the time, however, the villain ends up triumphing over the protagonists, taking them down one by one, to keep the readers on edge.

PLOT PROGRESSION:

Normally stories follow a general formula, and this is no different for horror stories. In this case, the steps for plot progression are as follows. First of all, we get a general history of the town or city our protagonists live in along with a specification of what legend surrounds the town, causing the villagers to recoil in fear. Then we get a general introduction of our main protagonists and as the story moves along, we should know their backstories and why they care so much about the legend. After that there is the first encounter with the legend, normally ending in one of the protagonists going missing, getting injured, or even killed in some cases. After this follows several other encounters with the legend taking down lots of people until one is left. Now the author has one of three options; either the final protagonist accepts his fate and gets devoured by the villain or tries to defeat the villain and succeeds or tries to defeat the villain and fails. The latter two are more common in horror stories, with the last one being the most common. As most of you would have realised by now, horror stories do not often get a happy ending so if an uplift is what you are looking for, kindly look somewhere else. 

MIXING WITH OTHER GENRES:

Fantasy: Of course if one is going to use a mythical or made up creature as a villain, it is a horror fantasy. You can also mesh these genres together by having the story take place in another world.

Thriller: This is the most compatible of genres to mix with as they both follow the same formula, except that thriller can have a happy ending, normally have a twist ending AND normally the villain is a circumstance. Remember, not all horrors are thrillers but all thrillers have at least one element of horror in them.

Romance: This one is a bit of a pickle to mix with Horror, however it can be done. Think on the lines of doomed romance. Maybe one of them has a horrific feature that makes the rest of the world not want the couple together. Or perhaps one of the protagonist falls in love with the villain of the flick and tries to prove to everyone that it's harmless, with devastating results. However you wish to collect the two opposing genres together, just make sure that the readers know that it will instantly fail, as if it succeeds, it would just be a romance novel, not romance horror.

Comedy: This can also be known as comic horror or dark humour. It normally occurs when the author present horrific things as something funny. A perfect example of an author who used this style quite often was Roald Dahl (obviously much harsher in his adult fiction rather than his books aimed for children).

Science Fiction: As said for Fantasy, if one sets the horror story in a different world and chooses a mythical creature as the villain, it can be a sci-fi story. There is one difference between Fantasy and Sci-Fi: the latter normally takes place in space so keep that in mind if you mean to mesh these two genres together.

I thank you all for taking the time to read this article and as usual, happy writing, everyone!