What makes a story scary? I suspect that the answer depends on the asker. You see, I think of my stories as scary. Whether other people do, I don’t know.
When I look for a scary story I’m not looking for gore. Properly speaking, I’m not looking for fear either. Mood, creepiness, and the strange are far more appealing. Frisson at the atmosphere. Poe, I suspect, isn’t too scary these days. He knew how to set a mood, though.
I recently read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” I’ve heard a lot about this story and since it is still under copyright I had to find a book that contained it. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.
Don’t take me wrong—I am a fan of Shirley Jackson. She was able to deliver as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle show. “The Lottery,” however, didn’t scare me. It was interesting, a nice short story, but not fearful.
I find my hackles rising when a story intimates a young person is in danger. Particularly a young girl. Having been a young boy myself, I suppose I feel deep down that boys give and get. I don’t want to see young boys harmed, but, at some level maybe I think they have it coming. Girls are the ultimate innocents.
The monster tale is what still makes me smile. Maybe because I know they aren’t real. They can’t get me. Or the little boys, or little girls. In the story, however, I pretend that they might.
Strangely enough, my own stories tend to reveal the source of fear to be myself. I am the one the reader should be afraid of. Perhaps it’s because as a writer I am the one drawing the reader into my nightmare. My nightmare, my rules.
It may be that other people don’t find my stories scary. I have to believe that out there under this same baleful sky there are others who share my sensibilities. It would serve me right if those who did were already dead.
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