October is Horror Month at The Writer’s Chatroom

We will talk about horror in many forms.

• Genres and Subgenres.
• What are the key ingredients of horror? 
• When does a story or novel go from suspense or thriller and become horror?
• Why do readers like to be scared? 

There are all kinds of possibilities when it comes to Horror Month at the Chatroom.

Let’s Talk About Fear

What attracts a reader to Horror? Why do they volunteer to be scared? Why do they express disappointment if the author doesn’t deliver on this fear?

When a Reader chooses a Horror Story she enters into a Contract with the Author. She expects the writer to deliver the goods and if you do not deliver – a less than positive review will follow.

I am not an expert on fear but I have been afraid. It is a very emotional feeling that causes real physical reactions. Flight or Fight. Heartbeats rise and many other physiological changes happen. Why on earth would we volunteer to let an author do this to us?

Again, I am not a psychologist, but I think we are willing to let others terrify us because we know we aren’t actually going to be eaten by Griffins or be locked in someone’s basement. At the most, we may put down the book and check under our beds for a few nights but we, the reader, will escape with only a little lingering stress, at worst, a bad dream.

We are willing to indulge because we know we are safe. We control the book. We can put it down anytime we wish. We don’t even have to commit to reading the whole thing.

Reading horror is like having protected sex. Okay, I just made that up. Sorry.

Join us on October 4th at 7PM EDT and let’s talk about Fear.

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