Real Life Horror in Fiction:
An Essay by Michael McGouirk

What do we know about horror and the macabre? Do these feelings arise from the monsters we read about or see onscreen? Are these fears adopted from the feeling of being helpless in the woods while a masked maniac pursues with a machete? Is it the feeling of being alone in a personal hell that frightens us the most? Perhaps it's the sounds that we hear in the night that can't be explained. In answer, all of the above. In this rare non-fiction piece written by the horror author that you have yet come to know, I will be delving into all of the things that give those sounds in the night substance. I will try to explain why the man behind the mask is so scary. I will make some sort of attempt to make sense of the monster in the cellar. Hopefully, this piece will bring an answer to most questions regarding horror fiction and it's impact on the reader and/or viewer.


Capturing emotion is a huge part of any author, screenwriter, or director's job in frightening the target audience. Perhaps the best horror author of all time, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, was a master of capturing the emotions that make the character easy to relate to. It is a tried and true means of establishing an anxiety in the minds of the reader or viewer. The main focus of Lovecraft seemed to be establishing the fear that a character had of the definate approach of madness. This is a fear that anyone can relate to, so therefor a very good place to reach. The scariest parts of these stories was never the monster, ghost, mirror, or tomb itself, but the feelings that you share with the hero. This is a part of the horror technique of the greatest writer in our genre that I have found highly effective in my own work. The idea of losing one's sanity is quite possibly the worst feeling in the world. I have been in these shoes, and I am almost positive that most of the people reading this have been there as well. It is a feeling of change. Thoughts of who one is to become, and how one will behave start to take on a life of their own. The possibility of no longer being able to function in a society that one once took for granted is a steep cliff to look down from.
Another useful tool to establish a feeling of anxiety in the reader or viewer is to go to great lengths in describing the emotions that the overall atmosphere of the situation and/or setting can bring to the character. For instance, if the story takes place in a cemetary, it won't be scary just because of the setting or events, unless the reader or viewer has a phobia of burial grounds. This is not going to get a response from enough people. You have to describe the Character's every thought as he or she enters the cemetary. You must explain why the statue over the grave catches his or her attention. Perhaps he or she reads a name on a tombstone that holds some strong meaning that won't be revealed until later. There could be an epitaph that reminds the character of a story once told by an elder. All of these things will serve the purpose of bringing the reader or viewer to an emotional commonplace with the character. This will later help with making the audience feel what the character is feeling. This can easily be accomplished by putting a large ammount of your own real fears and other emotions into the character. This will play a key role in helping the reader or viewer relate. I will go into more detail on this later.
Characterization is a giant part of any story. A good writer will have you feel that you've seen a monolith many times in your own past. It is important to remember that characterization doesn't stop with the people. You have to characterize every little part of the story. This may sound strange, but even characterize the bricks that make the house. Describe in great detail the stone pathway that the character may have twisted his, her, or it's ankle while traveling on. Following this advice will make images stand out that may haunt the audience long after they have finished the story. This is the truest of the small victories that a writer shall want to accomplish.
When characterizing a person, you want to spend time thinking about every aspect of the character's back story. All of these elements may not make it into the story itself, but certain mannerisms that one may obtain during this backstory will show in the character, making the subject write itself. You may not want to write a story about someone who used to bag groceries at a local shop, but this may be a part of untold backstory that will help you to get into the character's mind. When characterizing the subject at the time the story is set in, this will also help you to create certain quirks that the person or thing may possess. Adding this element of realism will make even the most mundane of stories hold the audience's attention for the character alone. This will make it easier to toy with the emotions of the reader or viewer by having the emotions of the character run wild, building up to the finale.
The next part of developing the overall feel of the story is imagery. This is the physical aspects of each character, place, creature, and object in the story. Often, the characters in my stories are observationalists. This is largely because I, myself, like to take in a little bit of everything around me. Alot of the imagery in my stories may seem unimportant to the reader, but the reader must note that these things that the character sees are important to the character and how attatched he or she is to a certain setting. This adds personality to the character. This is a giant part of setting up some larger purpose for the object itself, or perhaps triggering a memory in the character that can help him or her out of a situation, or even trigger a memory that will damn the character to face some horrible horror that he or she had not anticipated. This is perhaps the most useful tool in my arsenal.


Often times, a screenwriter, an author, or a director will incorporate certain places that they've seen in real life, or certain current events that are taking place in the real world that can help them to better place the audience inside the artist's own imagination. A giant influence on both modern and classical horror is war. Most tragedies and horror fiction in the old days surrounded a time of war. During the horror boom in the nineteen seventies, alot of filmmakers used the horrors that came home with the troops from Vietnam. One filmmaker used these influences in and early slasher film that would create a whole new genre and another horrormaster had used the fears brought about by the threats of atomic warfare on a classic film that would forever change the "Zombie" genre. If the audience can relate to emotions, then the artist has done his or her job.
War makes for such a great influence because of the horrors that people notice during wartime that they wouldn't pay much heed to in times of peace. One example of this can be told as taking part during the Vietnam war. There was one soldier that was interested in special effects, and his job was to take photographs of the different terrible things that was seen during the war. Naturally, these photographs would later serve him for a more artistic purpose. He had noted that the most frightening part of his time in 'Nam was seeing more and more bunks going unused each night. You can see things like this in all kinds of horror stories. It is a way of telling the character and the reader that there is no guarantee that one will make it to one's bed the following night. Another key element in horror fiction is adding the realistic feeling of isolation in a heavy situation. Just imagine that you are alone, behind enemy lines, with machine gun fire all around you. Imagine you hear the voice of a fallen comrade calling out to you from some unseen place beyond the woodline. Now imagine it in a fictional setting. There is a man with half a face who has murdered all of your friends. You run out of the house, but are a bit unnerved by the trail that leads through the woods. You start down the trail and realize that there is no one there to watch your back. Suddenly, you hear someone in the woods calling your name. They are asking for help, but you cannot see them. You know that this voice sounds like your fiancee that you haven't seen in almost 2 hours, since the deranged mutant took him or her away. Now ask yourself if there is a difference between the way you felt reading these two, totally different, scenarios. I think that you will find the similarities between the emotion felt while reading the two uncanny. That is because it isn't the maniac, the guns, the bombs, or the woods that frightens you, but the feeling of total isolation and helplessness in a dire situation.
Another element that can create a tension that could be exploited to the hilt is the influence of economical concerns. This can be played out very well. Imagine how a city will act in a blackout, or a depression, when there is no one that the citizens can turn to for help. Imagine that a great storm has taken your city and you have nowhere to go, and no way out if you did. Imagine that all of the roads are now taken over by bandits and looters, and all of the grocery stores and supply houses are overrun by these currupt individuals. Place yourself in the middle of this horrid scene, your home destroyed, your family dead, and your friends missing. Now, your task is to get to the other side of the city, past all the bandits and looters, to the grocery store, past more bandits and looters, back to what's left of your home, past more bandits and looters (and this time with something that they want), and hope that you have enough to last until you are rescued, provided that someone does come to your aid. This is a whole new feeling of helplessness, now accompanied by overwhelming odds that seem to keep stacking against you. Hope is your only answer. There is still the possibility of the bandits finding your hiding place and trying to take your supplies and food by force. You will have to stand and fight, that is, if you're capable. Do you feel anything as you read this scenario? If so, then you will now understand how an economical disaster can be a horror all it's own. Now, replace the storm with a nuclear blast. Imagine that you knew the blast was coming, and you hid in the bomb shelter. There, you have enough food and water to sustain you through the nuclear winter. When you come out, you're all alone...or almost all alone.
In the previous scenario, your biggest concerns were the bandits. This time, there are no bandits to worry about. Replace all of the bandits in the storm scenario with ravenous zombies that are hellbent on making sure that they stay at the top of the food chain. Your only hope now is to fight. You must remain alive at any cost. Eventually, you keep yourself barracaded inside your home or your bomb shelter long enough to make them lose interest. Now there are bandits. They want your supplies, and they will stop at nothing to have them. This leaves you with three options. OPTION A: You stand and fight the bandits, leaving their corpses for the zombies and face possible insanity.
OPTION B: You sneak out of the house and hope to get past the zombies to find a new hiding place, where you will have no food, weapons, or ammunition.
OPTION C: You try to reason with the bandits. From here, the bandits have two options.
OPTION A: They kill you and take your food.
OPTION B: They let you live, you share the food, but now you only have enough for 3 days.
Now do you see why the hero in these stories always goes with Option A? The fear that the character faces in these scenarios is very real.
Pop culture can always be a good vehicle for helping the reader or viewer understand the characters. Perhaps there is a certain musical artist or television show that a character likes. This will help people to relate to the character and form some sort of definate opinion on this fictional being. This builds a strong emotional bond in the audience-material relationship. If the reader or viewer loves the hero character, then he or she will route for the character's survival. If the subject hates the character, then an open ending will make the audience happy. There are no happy endings in the horror genre, if there is to be a sequel.
Disease and poverty are also very real aspects of life that are quite frightening. In one film, there was an army of AIDS patients that went around purposely spreading the disease so that they would win a small war. The film itself is quite satirical, however, the director was trying to show the horrors of both war and disease. Disease has always been a vehicle for horror fiction, and will most likely continue to be so. What makes it such a great reference material is that there is little room for resolve. In the zombie genre, there is usually a virus that is transmitted through saliva and into blood. If a living being is bitten, then the tissue starts to decay and the bodily functions slowly shut down. A short while later, the corpse returns to life due to the virus' effect on the brain. The newly formed zombie must then feed on living victims to survive. A film was made a few years back on a flesh eating virus that is highly contagious and kills within hours. This film in itself wasn't scary, yet the idea of this disease was quite horrific.


Unless an artist uses tinges of psychology in his or her writing, there is no use in calling it horror. Depraved pornography for necrophiles, maybe. Psychology has always been highly important to any writing. You have to get into the subjects mind to properly entertain, no? Basically, this entire piece has shown examples of psychological tools that will help the reader or viewer lose sleep at night. With that said, what more can I discuss? Lots! First of all, there is the technique in using psychological studies or statistics to create a monster or a madman.
The sociopath has always been a major part of building the object of fear. My story entitled "From the Pen of Walter Jolly," was written entirely about a sociopath, and using things that I had learned about people who suffered from the same mental disorders that cripple my mind. Seeming completely normal, at first, this beast of a human hides behind a mask of style and influence. There have been many biographical films based upon these real life monsters. But is it fair to call them monsters? That is completely left up to the individual. This is where the true horror lies. What if the monster was you, a friend, a member of your family, or even your first love? What then? Do you turn the culprit in? Do you try to ignore it? Is there a way to help the culprit without harming either yourself or the villain? Don't be too quick to answer any of these questions, for the mind can react in a totally unexpected way when put in such an abnormal position.
There are enormous ammounts of horrors that lie in silence. This was another tool that was often employed by Lovecraft and is still practiced by many of his admirers. Often times, a character would not be able to deal with the memories of sights that haunt his or her dreams. The character might refer to the sight as unimaginable, unnamable, indescribable, or something of that nature. This is to show that the terror that came over the character cannot be given a value. It would be like trying to put a price tag on your first born child. Only then, should this technique be used. This is a very tricky tool to use because, if not used properly, it isjust a copout for the lazy and unimaginative. However, if employed correctly, the effect can be quite marvelous. I cannot bring myself to give an example of this mind trick, simply because they must be read in total context. I also feel that it will cheapen the impact if you don't find an example on your own.


I hope that this has been insightful to you, dear reader, and that you have learned a bit more on how to enjoy reading and/or writing horror a little more effectively. I think that it is important to take in all of the above given facts and techniques so that you may be able to scare or be scared with a greater understanding of why. Through this brief writing, I can only hope that you have learned the true essence of what makes horror the phenomenon that it is. Just remember that when you're reading a piece of fiction or watching a film, and you feel a little lump in your throat, or perhaps a wrenching in your lower intestine, that the fear you feel is real. It isn't the monster under the bed, or the strange shadow on the wall, it's fear itself.


shop      stories       poems and fragments      links       about the author      news      contact author     index

©2005 Michael Mcgouirk