Wanna Read a Self-Help Book, How About This Horror Instead — Said No One Ever
Just the facts Ma-am: the truth about horror
While velvety darkness presses against her back, she plays in the malevolent images that darken the innermost chambers of her broken psyche. Her pale visage stares with glittering eyes into the blue light of the monitor. She is driven by hunger, a compulsion, and minutes tick away as she continues her fevered search. Pleasure hangs by a thread suspended for the time being, and the question remains, will she find what she seeks?
I am a horror writer and reader, and I have discovered something disturbing during my online quest for a gripping read. I belong to two forums but I will get to that in a moment. But for now, I want to explain the expectations I hold while I conduct my search — what I hope to find, and what I wish to gain from my exhaustive efforts.
Stephen King’s, Dark Half, rests on the table beside me, and the scene I’ve set the book down to is graphic and intense. Mr. King has masterfully created urgency as the antagonist disintegrates into a puddle of pus while holding the protagonist’s family for ransom. King fills my need — my thirst — for justice. His words hitch my pulse, gross me out, and excite me as the protagonist fulfills an unspoken promise to triumph over evil. It is always good against evil — right against wrong. The worthy will rise to victory — almost always. Or will they?
While King, Koontz, Lovecraft, Poe and du Maurier grace my nightstand, many more have me hunkering down in front of the screen wading through increasing levels of concern, alarm, and terror, eagerly awaiting that first scare that provides a release of dopamine.
You see, a lot of what horror offers is physiological. Those who suffer from anxiety benefit from the neurochemical responses in the brain after a scare more than others. The feelings associated with this dopamine release are enjoyable and beneficial when the viewer can cast it all aside as fake.
Suspending belief while we anticipate a dose of justice by a higher power, the protagonist, the law, or a supernatural being is comforting in its predictability.
That first fright and the subsequent dopamine release, are the soothing waters of a long-awaited rain flowing over the open cracks of the desert hardpan.
As we set the book aside, leave the theatre, or shut down the computer, we experience quiet confirmation that good has triumphed over evil. All is right with the world. And throughout it all, we reveled in the primary aims of the horror genre to deliver fear, shock, horror and disgust.
Since I was a child, I have loved horror.
Psychological thrillers and gothic horror are my favourites because the most frightening monsters are the ones passing for humans — if only on the outside.
So today, I went looking on the Horror Community Top Stories.
Before I move on, please allow me to clarify my previous statement.
Horror readers are filling needs — more than one.
They are looking for specific responses to expected cues. They have expectations when they pick up the book, choose the story, or select the movie. In the same manner, a romance reader will return to the Harlequin-laden shelves time, and again, horror readers will peruse the dusty spines of the horror section in their pursuit of a thrill, a fright, or some good old fashioned ick-factor. We want to know we are okay. And we find that metaphorical thumbs up within the unholy pages of Mr. King and Mr. Koontz, Lovecraft and Barker.
Now as an online writer of horror (which scratches a whole different itch) I have my favorite authors online. I follow them closely.
But imagine my horror (pardon the pun) when wishing to return to one of my newfound favorites on Vocal, and I had a problem finding it. My error was looking under the Horror Community’s Top Stories. There is where my horror-loving heart broke when I viewed the selections.
Now before I continue my rant, the platform in question is Vocal — not Medium. So for those of you thinking you wish to write for another forum, I’m suggesting you look into what the site considers horror before you waste your time.
News Flash: Writing about writing horror, movie reviews and commentaries, and endless lists compiling the authors favorite horror selections where interesting reads are not horror. They satisfy none of the expectations a reader or viewer holds when sitting down with a book, online story, or movie. So why has the platform repeatedly chosen reviews and how-to pieces and, (deliver me), listicles over some of the horror stories created by actual horror writers as their top stories?
I can only speculate they don’t particularly like horror themselves, so they return to what they recognize — reviews of other artists’ works, the ever-present listicle, and how-to articles on the genre. Adding insult to injury, the actual horror stories on the Horror Community Top Stories appear chosen more to promote specific creators than for delivering on the expectations a horror reader has when picking a story.
An example of this is a Top Story which begins with a series of typos and unfinished sentences with absolutely no punctuation. Totally serious. The first three words of the beginning sentence are missing.
It was that bad. It went so far beyond missing a typo, a duplication, or spelling error, I had to question why the platform would select this story over ANY other for others writers to read.
I came to understand, without too much time wasted, the forum was looking the other way because the author was barely high school age.
So for those questioning why I pointed this out, I am not making the statement they are promoting certain authors over well-written and dazzling horror pieces without sufficient cause.
Sadly, this means that when following the advice of Stephen King, as a reader, I must seek to find more fertile hunting grounds.
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
So if you want the ultimate how-to, there you have it. From the master, himself.
If I am forced to get my fix elsewhere so is every other horror reader/writer online. Think about that for a moment. Any potential readers will be stopped at the gates by stories like the one above, and myriad non-horror pieces that clog up the pathway to your piece. If I came across the abomination mentioned above without knowing that behind it lurked sharp-toothed little gems, I’d never go back.
That platform’s Top Story pics for the Horror Community will have me picking up a book — and returning to Medium — rather than perusing their selections. How many other frustrated horror readers are doing the same while you pay your monthly fees to have your work fall into the pit. For writers on the site that is a shame because there are some brilliant horror stories on there, even if you have to dig to find them.
I know there are because I’ve read them when talented authors are promoting their stories on Facebook groups. I know they are now collecting dust somewhere in the Horror Community’s depths. It’s frustrating to have your work and the work of other horror writers relegated to the dusty dumping ground in favour of pieces that are neither fiction nor horror.
That is the real horror story.
The platform shows every reader that looks upon the horror community the same thing they just showed me. Look elsewhere because there is no horror here.
My point is this: if the platform you write for is actively sabotaging your ability to get reads, well, let them can talk to the hand.
If you write horror, sci-fi, thriller, or — fiction — take my word for it Medium is a better choice.
