- Joined
- Nov 3, 2012
- Messages
- 17
- Reaction score
- 3
Have you ever run into people who say things like:
1. How do you write (scary/sick/crazy) stuff like that?
2. If you write stuff like that, you must have a strange mind.
3. There must be something wrong with the way you think.
4. You're weird.
From what I've noticed over the years, some people just don't get it. Horror may not be a genre they like to read generally, so when reading something by someone they know, they may see it as strange material. They don't realize that many of us have read some stuff that's so much more horrifying than what we've done so far. But anyway, many people seem to think horror writers (King/Koontz/Saul, etc) are crazy people.
When people have said those things to me, I've replied with something like, "Well, a cop who spends his time going after criminals isn't necessarily a criminal himself," "A writer who writes about rape or murder isn't necessarily a rapist or a murderer, why would you think a horror writer is comparable to the villain in his story, or that he feels a relationship to the horrors in his story?" "Why would you think just because someone writes horror that they are horrifying people?" And I've asked: "Haven't you ever studied the works of H.P. Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe in a literature class?" I also mention that the main characters in a horror story, the good characters, often overcome amazing odds, and that they live through situations most people will never have to encounter, making them special and interesting to read and write about.
Obviously, these people are often not very well-read, or are somewhat outside the parameters of knowing about literature in general. But how would you reply to statements such as these?
1. How do you write (scary/sick/crazy) stuff like that?
2. If you write stuff like that, you must have a strange mind.
3. There must be something wrong with the way you think.
4. You're weird.
From what I've noticed over the years, some people just don't get it. Horror may not be a genre they like to read generally, so when reading something by someone they know, they may see it as strange material. They don't realize that many of us have read some stuff that's so much more horrifying than what we've done so far. But anyway, many people seem to think horror writers (King/Koontz/Saul, etc) are crazy people.
When people have said those things to me, I've replied with something like, "Well, a cop who spends his time going after criminals isn't necessarily a criminal himself," "A writer who writes about rape or murder isn't necessarily a rapist or a murderer, why would you think a horror writer is comparable to the villain in his story, or that he feels a relationship to the horrors in his story?" "Why would you think just because someone writes horror that they are horrifying people?" And I've asked: "Haven't you ever studied the works of H.P. Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe in a literature class?" I also mention that the main characters in a horror story, the good characters, often overcome amazing odds, and that they live through situations most people will never have to encounter, making them special and interesting to read and write about.
Obviously, these people are often not very well-read, or are somewhat outside the parameters of knowing about literature in general. But how would you reply to statements such as these?