How far can you take YA Horror?

Lillith1991 · Jul 26, 2014

What it says on the tin. I plan to write a YA Horror novel at some point, but I'm wondering what the limits are for them. I love adult Horror and have loved the YA Horror that I've read, but I have noticed it seems more psychological Horror than something visceral in what I've had the chance to read. Is visceral Horror taboo? Are there certain sub-genres of Horror I should stay away from when it comes to writing YA Horror?

TechnoFusion · Jul 26, 2014

I'm also writing a YA horror and it's very visceral; there is bloody violence, however it is not overly glorified or sexualized. I think if you keep the details minimal without excessive torture or excessive details about the killing.

Basically, keep it Scream level, not Saw or Hostel.

eyeblink · Jul 27, 2014

Lillith1991 said:
What it says on the tin. I plan to write a YA Horror novel at some point, but I'm wondering what the limits are for them. I love adult Horror and have loved the YA Horror that I've read, but I have noticed it seems more psychological Horror than something visceral in what I've had the chance to read. Is visceral Horror taboo? Are there certain sub-genres of Horror I should stay away from when it comes to writing YA Horror?

Darren Shan's YA novels are pretty gory and are often read by younger teens.

The impression I get is that scary is fine. Gory is fine, if it's fantastical gore. (If you're old enough to know that zombies biting chunks out of people is fantasy then the only likely issue is squeamishness, but that's something not dependent on age.)

Particularly sadistic and/or sexualised violence is more likely adult material.

JustSarah · Jul 27, 2014

How far can you as the writer take it? Because I've heard with YA there is much less limits than with chapter books or middle grade. And that's not factoring in that it's the horror genre.

I liked Science fiction horror (of the terminator variety), because I don't like the old utopian visions of science fiction. Can you not have a decapitation in YA, that isn't historical or hand waved? Something I've always wondered.

Though I've come to prefer less gory execution of the same idea.

Uh ... pun not intended.

CJ Knightrey · Jul 27, 2014

My gut instinct is to say that you can get away with a fair bit of violence and horror in YA. But off the top of my head I can't think of many nitty gritty Saw level gore in YA books...I suppose Hunger Games counts? But even that doesn't really come close. I know most levels of gore/horror don't bother me, and I'm actually sad there isn't more genuinely scary YA out there.

When you look at the kind of movies and video games most teens watch ad play, I don't really think they'd be to phased by some scarier material in their books.

Lillith1991 · Jul 27, 2014

I'm not interested in writing a YA in the vien of SAW or Hostle, those aren't the type of Horror I enjoy. If that is the impression i gave, then it is due to poor word choice on my part. It's good to know though for future reference, that as long as it isn't sexualized, gore and other forms of violence are fine.

Periwinkle · Jul 27, 2014

Have you read Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series? Imho, one of the best YA series. It would definitely fall in the horror genre and some scenes are quite graphic and gory. However, it's also literary and the characterization is excellent.

Lillith1991 · Jul 28, 2014

Periwinkle said:
Have you read Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series? Imho, one of the best YA series. It would definitely fall in the horror genre and some scenes are quite graphic and gory. However, it's also literary and the characterization is excellent.

I haven't. It's on my list now. Thank you!

Lillith1991 · Jul 29, 2014

JustSarah said:
How far can you as the writer take it? Because I've heard with YA there is much less limits than with chapter books or middle grade. And that's not factoring in that it's the horror genre.

I liked Science fiction horror (of the terminator variety), because I don't like the old utopian visions of science fiction. Can you not have a decapitation in YA, that isn't historical or hand waved? Something I've always wondered.

Though I've come to prefer less gory execution of the same idea.

Uh ... pun not intended.

Pretty far I should think. All depends on the concept and whether it would actually support a high level of gore or violence. I'm not inclined to write one like that though, unless I somehow decide to write about the coming of age of a teenage serial killer or something of the sort. Current concept is about a teenage girl who has to defeat a coven of vampires in order to save her town. So there will be violence and gore, but hopefully not anything overly excessive.

Lillith1991 · Aug 4, 2014

Seventeen year old Salem,MA resident Selene Waters has been dreaming about an old house out in the woods for months. Drawn to the place by some unseen force, she disturbs something that's been waiting centuries for it's revenge against her.

People that Selene knows are dying, drained of their blood. The teen goes into the woods one last time to meet the vampire, only one of them will survive until dawn.

I thought I would give people a taste of what I was talking about, since I don't feel that I adequately described what my idea was initially. I'm wondering about how far I can take descriptions of the bodies of the people being by my antagonist- a rather vengeful vampire- to torment my MC. What if anything would take the descriptions into the world of Adult Horror that just happens to feature a teen protagonist like say Carrie does? Obviously I could get away with very little in way of gore or blood for the idea, but that feels disingenuous for my antagonist. I genuinely can't imagine her killing people with the intentions to torment someone else, without her in some way making it even worse by having it be a gruesome spectacle. That isn't how my big bad operates.

KateSmash · Aug 4, 2014

Lillith1991 said:
What if anything would take the descriptions into the world of Adult Horror that just happens to feature a teen protagonist like say Carrie does? Obviously I could get away with very little in way of gore or blood for the idea, but that feels disingenuous for my antagonist. I genuinely can't imagine her killing people with the intentions to torment someone else, without her in some way making it even worse by having it be a gruesome spectacle. That isn't how my big bad operates.

Honestly, you can get away with any level of gore in YA that you could in adult - so long as it doesn't enter the realm of gratuitous. So, you know, as long as it doesn't resemble splatterpunk or exploitation cinema (ie. the gore is meant for titilation, sexual or otherwise), you should be ok.

Does your big bad have a POV? If not, all the blood and guts and ick will already be filtered through your teen protagonist. That alone gives you a huge leg up on it being YA (provided voice, etc caveats).

A lot of the zombie YAs get really squicky. While I loathe the back half, the first third or so of A5HES by 1lsa B1ck (so written to dodge searches since I'm being less than kind) has some of the most gruesome levels of gore.

Lillith1991 · Aug 4, 2014

KateSmash said:
Honestly, you can get away with any level of gore in YA that you could in adult - so long as it doesn't enter the realm of gratuitous. So, you know, as long as it doesn't resemble splatterpunk or exploitation cinema (ie. the gore is meant for titilation, sexual or otherwise), you should be ok.

Does your big bad have a POV? If not, all the blood and guts and ick will already be filtered through your teen protagonist. That alone gives you a huge leg up on it being YA (provided voice, etc caveats).

A lot of the zombie YAs get really squicky. While I loathe the back half, the first third or so of A5HES by 1lsa B1ck (so written to dodge searches since I'm being less than kind) has some of the most gruesome levels of gore.

Deffinitly won't be meant to for titilation. My big bad is a rather vicious eternally 18 year old female vampire, for her, a dramatic and gorey kill is something she would do because she knows it will make my MC Selene feel even worse about the deaths. The gruesomeness for her is partly enjoyable and partly torturing her main target Selene.

KateSmash · Aug 4, 2014

Yes, but is she a POV character? If not, then there's no real danger of going too far. If so, just be mindful of keeping her from enjoying the kill too much, or writing it in such a way that her enjoyment is the right level of terrifying.

Lillith1991 · Aug 4, 2014

I'm considering having her be a POV character, but I'm honestly leaning towards it being solely Selene's Point of View. It's up in the air at the moment.

Razzy · Aug 4, 2014

I think it really depends on the reader personally.
I know that as a younger writer who writes supernatural/YA myself, I would think myself more mature than most people my age and could read horror without being too scared or anything like that.
However, YA could apply to anyone between the ages of twelve to eighteen and although most teens now don't really care too much when it comes down to horror stuff and would happily read it, I know that most would also not care too much for ridiculous or unnecessary detail on gore or anything. I think when it comes down to YA writing, a lot of teens would be more interested in the events, plotline and action of your novel rather than any length of description or detail. Although description is needed to set the scene, I often find I skim over a lot of detail in which I find unnecessary and focus more on the events.
But then again, this is just my opinion as someone who would be classed as Young Adult myself. c:

kaitlin008 · Aug 5, 2014

KateSmash said:
Honestly, you can get away with any level of gore in YA that you could in adult - so long as it doesn't enter the realm of gratuitous. So, you know, as long as it doesn't resemble splatterpunk or exploitation cinema (ie. the gore is meant for titilation, sexual or otherwise), you should be ok.

Does your big bad have a POV? If not, all the blood and guts and ick will already be filtered through your teen protagonist. That alone gives you a huge leg up on it being YA (provided voice, etc caveats).

A lot of the zombie YAs get really squicky. While I loathe the back half, the first third or so of A5HES by 1lsa B1ck (so written to dodge searches since I'm being less than kind) has some of the most gruesome levels of gore.

I agree with this. My recently sold debut is YA horror, and it involves an apocalypse of sorts in which the whole earth becomes inexplicably covered in human blood. As you might imagine, there's some gruesome imagery in it. And some brutal deaths. You can get away with quite a lot, even in YA, when it comes to gruesomeness of description, as long as you're not just trying to out-gore yourself with every scene. (Like how several people have brought up Saw and Hostel which are basically like 'what is the most disturbing way we can kill this person and how can we make it the most borderline unwatchable?')

Reading as much YA horror (or even, often, other speculative genres) will help a lot, but the main thing is to just write the book, and if you have good beta readers, they'll tell you if you've gone too far with the gore.

spikeman4444 · Aug 7, 2014

as far as you want

How far can you take YA Horror?

Lillith1991

The Hobbit-Vulcan hybrid

TechnoFusion

eyeblink

Barbara says hi

JustSarah

CJ Knightrey

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Lillith1991

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Periwinkle

Lillith1991

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Lillith1991

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Lillith1991

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KateSmash

this was a triumph

Lillith1991

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KateSmash

this was a triumph

Lillith1991

The Hobbit-Vulcan hybrid

Razzy

kaitlin008

Seeing newness all the time

spikeman4444

The snozberrys taste lke snozberrys