Thriller vs Horror

Soccer Mom

I have finished two novels that to me are thrillers. No supernatural, etc. However I'm surprised to discover that both agents and publishers want to look at the work as horror. Until this experience I thought horror was more "things that go bump in the night" as opposed to a thrilling story about a likeable person battling great odds to acheive a worthwhile goal. I'm as confused as you are. I'm currently working on a third novel, and it, too, is a thriller as far as I'm concerned. Of course, I'd gladly let the publishers call it a thriller if they'd be willing to publish it. I've had four nonfiction books published, one a Literary Guild alternate selection, but I'm finding ficition hard to break in to. It's been thrilling and a horror for this writer.

Hi Bob. Welcome to AW.

Yeah, I'm shopping a novel around right now. I thought I had written a mystery. I intended to write a mystery. Then Linda was kind enough to help me with the query and she and others pointed out to me that I had actually written a suspense novel.

Huh. Who know it would be so complicated to label a book? Like you, I don't much care what the label is. I just want the book to find a home.

This is a great place for helping in breaking into fiction. There are some very knowledgeable people on these boards.

For my opinion on this subject, I'm thinking of the classic horrors of the last thirty years like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Scream, versus classic thrillers like DaVinci Code, Silence of the Lambs, and anything written by Tom Clancy. There are always fringe stories that border both genres, but in straight-forward cases, I think these are the major differences:

In general, from what I've gathered in reading thrillers and horror (and watching movies of both genres), I find the major difference lying with the protagonist(s). Seems in the thriller, the protagonist is out to get the antagonist or at least stop him or his evil plan. The protagonist is in action throughout the story, while occasionally reacting to something the antagonist does. The protag is on a mission to foil the baddie, and is often the cop, detective, CIA/FBI/Military specialist, or something of the kind.

In horror, I find the protagonist reacts through most of the story, and doesn't really want anything to do with the antagonist. I usually find these protagonists are ordinary folk, who for some reason are being terrorized by a baddie/paranormal force/monster, and (unlike with the thriller's protag) is ill-equipped to deal with the antagonist, and is usually not willing to deal with the antagonist. They spend most of the novel reacting, then in the end, they finally go into action to take on the antagonist and defeat him/her/it.

I also find that it's usually, or at least sometimes, hard to figure out who the protag in a horror is; usually quite a few more bodies pop up in a horror than in a thriller, and the protag sometimes ends up being the last man standing, or at least the smartest of the bunch that has been targeted by the antagonist, and the only one(s) smart enough to figure out how to win.

Some other usual differences:
Thrillers usually take place over a series of days or weeks, while horrors seem like they last little over 24 hours. Usually higher body counts in horror. Usually more gore with horror killings, though thrillers lately seem to be catching up in the gore category.

But overall, though it may sound simplistic and probably is, the protagonists in thrillers tend to act throughtout most of the story, while the protags of horror tend to react through most of the story. One wants to engage, the other doesn't. One is usually better equipped and motivated to hunt down the baddie, the other isn't. Generalizations, but they seem to apply to a lot of the stories in each genre.

Some very astute observations, and I agree with most of them. However....

gp101 said:

I also find that it's usually, or at least sometimes, hard to figure out who the protag in a horror is; usually quite a few more bodies pop up in a horror than in a thriller, and the protag sometimes ends up being the last man standing, or at least the smartest of the bunch that has been targeted by the antagonist, and the only one(s) smart enough to figure out how to win.

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This is more often true in films, but it is more an exception than a rule. You can tell who the protag is from the start of films such as Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and Final Destination. There may be an early twist (bye bye, Drew Barrymore), but soon it becomes fairly obvious. Some films make it more difficult to know (Hostel comes to mind) who to root for.

In horror fiction (from my reading experience), the author usually sets up the main character(s) pretty quickly. They don't always survive (thus is the nature of horror, because the good guys don't always win), but you know to root for them.

gp101 said:

In horror, I find the protagonist reacts through most of the story, and doesn't really want anything to do with the antagonist. I usually find these protagonists are ordinary folk, who for some reason are being terrorized by a baddie/paranormal force/monster, and (unlike with the thriller's protag) is ill-equipped to deal with the antagonist, and is usually not willing to deal with the antagonist. They spend most of the novel reacting, then in the end, they finally go into action to take on the antagonist and defeat him/her/it.

.

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I loke your definitiion... and a good example of this - in movies, that is, I don' think I've ever read a horror book! - is The Blair Witch Project

Kevin Yarbrough said:

Horror is written to elicit fear in you, to take you to the dark side of the human imagination and show you what lurks there. It shows you what can lurk in the dark, what is hidden under your bed and in your closet. It is the things we know can not happen in real life.

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I have to disagree and agree. I write dark fiction (horror). I agree that horror shows the darker side of the human imagination.
I disagree that it is things we know can not happen in real life.
Take for instance Psycho... that's a horror novel. That certainly could happen in real life!
H.P Lovecraft (father of horror) said...
'The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown.'

I think that horror got a bad rep back in the early 80's when novel after novel and then movies followed that were all about blood, gore and such. And honestly, that stuff is NOT scary and NOT horror- it's slasher. Also, many reputable publishers (magazines and novels) request that you don't add gore or blood just for the sake of adding it.

Horror's primary focus (at least to me) is to scare the reader. To unsettle you, get you to double check that door at night, make you consider sleeping with the light on - and a good thriller could do the same. So I do not think that they are mutually exclusive of each other - horror and thriller - but can work together to give a much broader readership for the author.
Or, at least I hope!

Welcome, Christina! Welcome AW. Myself--I enjoy a good unsettling

Confession time. I started this thread by accident, thinking I was sending a private note to Soccermom.

However, the input has been very insightful, and helps explain the reaction of a publisher who is currently reading one of them. It is a story of the occult, but not things that go bump in the night or possess a hapless soul. It is the story of the occult as it real exists, a world of extreme mind control, based on Afro-Caribbean religions in South Texas.
I wrote it as a psychological thriller only to have the publisher insist that he would read it as a horror book. To which I say, Okay, call it what you want, just publish it.
It's been a couple of months and no word so I suspect it's going to be rejected. I just feel grateful that someone is looking at it.

I'm a retired journalist, and both my novels deal with incidents I encountered while covering stories.
Oh yes, gp101, I couldn't agree more.

Bob Stewart said:

To which I say, Okay, call it what you want, just publish it.

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Exactly, Bob. However, the only reason that publishers even have to decide what label to slap onto the book is so that book sellers know where to place the book on the shelf!

And honestly, even with that, it still doesn't help 'book placement'. My published book, a paranormal thriller was placed in a local book store in that huge, never ending array by author's last name. UGH! How the heck can anyone find a book in that mess, unless you know who you are looking for? {vent over}

So let the publisher call it what they will. As long as it sells...

Hi Christina. I like paranormal. The name of your book is?

The Wylie-Merrick Lit. Agency blog gives some nice definitions of horror-suspense-mystery. Look in the coments section.

http://wyliemerrick.blogspot.com/2006/05/where-to-begin-then.html

Bob Stewart said:

Hi Christina. I like paranormal. The name of your book is?

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Hi, Bob. The title is Greystone and it's based on a real place in New Jersey.
Thanks for asking.

Nail-Head-Hit!

Soccer Mom said:

Another distinction. If it contains elements of the paranormal (vampires, werewolves, Killer cars.) it is usually shelved with horror. If it is human on human conflict, it is more likely to be shelved as a thriller.

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I would definitely agree with you soccer mom. The supernatural can definitely play in the thriller genre, but the monster sort, tends to go into Horror.
Of course slasher style is horror, but silence of the lambs which takes on a crime investigation plot with horror elements in tow tends to be more of a thriller, but there is of course that fine line.
The more graphic elements of death tend to be more strictly horror as well.

At P.O.D.LINGS we like thrillers, but more traditional horror like zombies and vampires we tend to stay away from doing reviews of. The fine line is there in our submissions as well though--we reviewed Golem,by Greg Vilk which had a supernatural element and killing, but the killing was not the basis of the story. There was a mystery about the creature itself to be unraveled and the killing was just a necessity because of what it was. One might say the same about a vampire--necessity, but there's really no mystery to unravel in it is there?

A fine line indeed.

Podlingmaster

In my opinion, about eighty percent of the novels that Stephen King has published contain this criteria. Especially novels like IT, The Stand, Desperation, and Needful Things. And less than one third can really be called horror, or contain the gross out/fear factor. Nail-biting, certainly, but so are thrillers.

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I would say that Stephen King is definitely more suspense than thriller. I wouldn't call any of the books I've read from him as thrillers. He has complex characterizations, some of the best around, but his plots don't match the twists and turns of master thriller writers.

merper said:

I would say that Stephen King is definitely more suspense than thriller. I wouldn't call any of the books I've read from him as thrillers. He has complex characterizations, some of the best around, but his plots don't match the twists and turns of master thriller writers.

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Oh dear.

Who wants to start the "Thriller versus Suspense" thread? Because now I'm curious....I had always used them interchangeably.

I'm sure Linda will weigh in here- My understanding is that suspense is a slow building to a climax--always waiting for the shoe to drop, which it finally does. Thriller is supposed to be a roller coaster ride. It has it's highs and lows, but it's a fast-paced, high-stakes game.

Okay, from what I have read- (and now adding my 2 cents worth) -
Suspense must contain mystery. x is a mystery that y character needs to solve. Usually the reader finds out the clues and solves the mystery along with the character.
Thriller doesn't need a mystery. As Soccer Mom pointed out- it's a fast paced roller coaster ride. Silence of the Lambs is thriller. No mystery, just a quick paced, action packed ride.

I think there are some very real fundamental differences between all three genres---horror, thriller, and suspense. The problem is that in a lot of the advertising for horror, it's often called suspense or thriller, rather than horror. That's how it catches me. I'll see 'thriller,' then I'll read further and realize it's actually a horror novel. Yet, I've also observed that the reverse is not true--thriller and suspense novels are never billed as horror.

I personally have always thought of horror as a genre that is intended to scare the reader. Make them afraid of what might hiding behind the door. Or in the innocent looking child next door. Granted, my reading experience in horror is limited, but those (outside of vampire books) were frightening books.

Suspense and thriller do not that have that element. Suspense is, I think, a close sister to mystery (closer than it is to thriller). The stories tend to be about solving a crime, but there's a big emotional component in the story (i.e., someone's life is in danger) where a mystery tends to be more intellectual. The stories are also more violent than mystery, but less violent than both thriller and horror. I noticed some very key differences between how much violence was in a serial killer thriller and a serial killer suspense. It's like it's a little more excitement and danger than a mystery, but not enough to be frightening or over the top. Like horror, suspense can have elements of paranormal in it, though the paranormal is more about psychic abilities and ghostly visits rather than supernatural evil.

Thriller is about paranoia and conspiracy (please note that in this definition, I'm completely leaving crime out of the mix). Stories usually take some aspect of technology or accepted belief and build a conspiracy out of it--always with high stakes. In essense, that aspect is what drives the story itself. So in a techno thriller, the technology would drive the story. In a medical thriller, medical science drives the story. In an action-adventure thriller, action drives the story. But it's also about heroes and heroines--people facing impossible odds but doing the right thing to stop the bad guy.

The best thing to do actually is to read lots of books in the different genres and make comparisons. Horror's own definition is confused (it appears to have had an identity crisis), and suspense and thriller have largely been lumped in with mystery. Reading's about the only way to understand the genres.

There are some interesting points on this thread.

I started reading horror when I was about 14 (discovering Stephen King), and I began writing the genre about the same time. For the last 12 years or so, I've been reading mostly crime fiction, but it was only last year did my writing catch up with my reading and I embarked on my first crime novel.

The last novel I wrote was a supernatural horror novel. It hasn't been published yet. All of the big publishers I have sent it to have told me that horror's a dead market in the UK and they are not being encouraged to take on any new horror writers. I have noticed that a lot of bookshops don't even have a horror section anymore (and I am talking UK here - I am aware that things are different in the US). I have read books that would at one point have been labelled horror - now they're labelled 'supernatural thriller' or 'chiller' or some equally innovative title.

So I am now writing crime, which is a genre I feel comfortable with, and I am hoping this novel will have a better reception.

But to go back to the original point, what's the difference between crime and horror? Seems to me that there's more and more of a crossover. And I wonder if this is a reflection of society - what we are scared of in society influences what scary things turn up in fiction. No longer are we afraid of nuclear war, alien invasion, evil otherwordly creatures. We are afraid of much more immediate threats. Paedophiles, serial killers, rapists, terrorists. These are the villains that are appearing in our fiction nowadays, rather than demons and supernatural creatures and things that cannot be explained. Evil has taken human form, and we seem to find it all around us.

What's interesting is that the supernatural element has not gone away completely, and it is finding its way into the crime genre that seems to be picking up where horror left off. To present one example, Michael Marshall Smith, who used to be an sf writer whose books leaned towards the supernatural, has found success recently writing crime thrillers. But his books still lean towards the supernatural.

So it's not as though the genre of horror has really died - it's just been relabelled.

Shara

I think you hit the nail on the head Shara. Horror isn't really a dead genre, but they label it other things now.

So...

Horror is like a nightmare? Thriller is like a roller coaster? And suspense is like hearing a noise outside your window?

ltd.