Babel Clash

Okay, now I really want to get down to brass tacks. Seriously we have been talking about the tone and the feel of horror and why zombies are so damn cool and that’s great. But I think the real reason I love writing zombies is this:

I like to blow shit up.

Okay, maybe I should be clearer just in case the FBI decides to read this blog and expand my file. I haven’t ever actually blown anything up. My brother used to blow up his GI Joes with firecrackers, but I wasn’t really involved in that. But the idea of blowing stuff up is soooo cool. And what gives you a better excuse for doing it than a zombie apocalypse? I mean, seriously. Anarchy is the name of the game in Zombieville. If you aren’t blowing things up, you are doing it wrong.

And it isn’t just the blowing up part. Nope, you can also shoot people. Or say… kill them with their own stiletto. Or with a toilet seat. There are a hundred creative ways to kill a zombie and no one even bats an eye about the murderous rampage you are participating in (or… writing. Yes, writing, not participating).

Apocalypses are different from regular wars, I guess. In regular war you get soldiers with weapons and they’re trained. In an apocalypse we’re all soldiers and everything around you is a potential weapon. Those with the ability to creatively kill will be highly valued.

Oh and speaking of that, after the shit goes down, what we value in general will change. White collar workers, I’m sorry but you will be useless. People who can grow food, drive heavy equipment, run the electric grid and kill stuff will be GODS. They will rule and have many wives (or husbands) as a reward. Because as we know, in the post-apocalypse we’ll all go Lord of the Flies or Mad Max and run wild.

Sounds pretty fun to me.

Except wait, Mira, in FEED… it kind of didn’t go that way. So what’s up with still having a political and social infrastructure, man?

So Jesse wants us to get into the funny.  That’s cool.  I can roll with the funny–and not just the sort of funny that involves erecting elaborate scarecrows around the edges of the campsite while everyone else is still sleeping (although that was pretty funny).  I’m a funny girl.  I have to be, because funny is an absolutely integral part of horror.  Allow me to elaborate.

Have you ever been scared?  I mean really, really scared?  I’m talking about the kind of scared that makes your stomach drop down to your ankles and your head feel like it’s full of helium while your feet feel like they’re made of lead.  Think about that feeling.  Now?  Think about the way you felt immediately after you realized that you weren’t about to be eaten alive by an undead clown made entirely out of spiders.  Are you giggling nervously?  Well, you’re not alone.

Laughter is a natural human response to fear.  When something scares you, you try to laugh it off.  You make light of it, make jokes about it, because that keeps your brain from completely overloading.  (The line between “healthy, cleansing laughter” and “scary, hysterical laughter that makes everyone inch away from you and consider taking their chances with the zombies” is tragically thin, by the way.  So try not to laugh too much.)

My favorite horror movies and novels have always been the ones that included an element of comedy.  Stephen King’s IT is a beautiful example of blending screams with laughter–the kids may have everything evil under the sun to deal with, but they still get the giggles, goof off, and generally act like actual people put into an unbearable situation.  Or take Slither, written and directed by James Gunn.  That movie is insane, and I mean that in the best way possible.  And yes, all those people keep laughing, keep making jokes, and keep getting obsessed with little things, because that’s what keeps you sane when things get unbearable.

I find it really troublesome when horror loses its sense of humor.  No, a decapitation shouldn’t be funny, but that’s an extreme, and there’s a whole lot of room on the other end of the scale.  If things get too grim, too unrelentingly dark and depressing, why should I even bother trying to make it through?  It might be better to bow out while I still can, and go enjoy a story that still allows for a little bit of giggling in between the screams.  (It’s also possible to go too far toward the funny, resulting in things like Jason X, which was a lot of fun, but wasn’t really a horror movie.  Finding that fine line is part of the art of writing horror, like walking a trapeze line over a swimming pool filled with hungry mutant piranha.)

You can’t spell “slaughter” without “laughter.”  And that’s exactly the way I like it.

Borders in one of the few stores that maintains a distinct Horror section.  At Waldenbooks, horror titles find a home in fantasy or general fiction.  B&N shelves their King, Koontz and Straub books with general fiction.

Horror fans seem to appreciate our commitment to their genre.  On the flip side, trying to identify which titles belong in which section can be tricky.  We feature Kelley Armstrong in fantasy but Kim Harrison in horror (her adult books anyway).  We often keep an author’s work together.  So Stephen King’s Eyes of the Dragon is a fantasy, but it’s shelved in horror.  Dan Simmons’ Hyperion and Ilium novels stay in Science Fiction, but the Terror and Song of Kali live in Horror.

Sure, it would be nice to shelve a borderline book in two places.  Financially, it could mean buying twice as much inventory.  Technically, our computer system can’t handle it.  Third, we’d risk confusing customers, who might find a title only in horror one week and then only fantasy the next, as one or the other sold out.

As genres blur together (which I encourage, mind you), determining the best home for a title gets trickier.  The line between fantasy and horror is especially blurry.  For better or worse, vampires, werewolves and zombies are everywhere from Young Adult to Romance.  Zombie Romance?  Really?

F. Paul Wilson, our latest guest, has made a nice home for his work in our horror section.  What do you think?  Did we find the right home for Repairman Jack?

For me, horror is the creepy feeling you get that something is behind you, something you are helpless against that has malevolent intent.  Blood splatters, screams, and psychological catch-22 figures into it.  So now I’m wondering, what makes up horror for you?  The physical or the mental?  –Kim

Hi Kim.  You can’t read horror?  Wait a minute!  You have vampires, werewolves and demons in your stories.  Doesn’t that make you a writer of said “horror” genre?  What’s the scoop?  Demanding readers want to know!

Sad, but true, I can’t stomach horror in movies and books, and I avoid them like the plague, which some people find funny since I write about vampires, but really, that stuff scares the peas out of me.  I think the last horror film I saw was Poltergeist. Yup, the one where the little girl says “They’re back-k-k-k.”  It’s what, twenty years old, and I still can’t watch it.  I know it’s tame to what’s out there now, but I still give oddly shaped trees a wide birth. And yet, in LOTR, I could happily watch a hobbit being eaten by one.  (Maybe I just don’t like hobbits.) What keeps you up at night?  Man eating trees?  Hobbits?  –Kim

In an earlier comment Kim said, “Horror scares me. Yeah, I know. I write vampires and demons, and I am scared of horror.”

Where’s the line between dark fantasy and horror?  What makes a horror story work?  Also, which books or movies have scared you the most?

My pick:  the classic “Psycho.”