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The H-Word. Part 3

And now… The tipping point for me. The article that made me want to shake somebody at the Wall Street Journal. Did you know this summer is…

 

THE SEASON OF THE SUPERNATURAL!

 

Yep.  “Real” authors are now coming out of the closet. The genre fiction my creative writing professor, Clint McCown, banned us from writing in his class because it wasn’t “real” or “literary” is suddenly okay.  Except, wait! Let’s not call it horror fiction when literary writer Glen Duncan writes about a werewolf with “a lusty appetite for human flesh”.  Nope- it’s “a high concept literary novel.”  It just HAPPENS to have a man-eating werewolf as the narrator.  Hmm… How can the literary establishment avoid the stigma of writing genre books? Certainly, those books, populated with werewolves, zombies, ghosts, and vampires, couldn’t possibly be horror fiction. Of course not. It’s “supernatural literary fiction”. I’d like to thank Glen Duncan’s publicist for taking the time to offer us here at MonsterLibrarian.com, a horror fiction review site, a review copy of The Last Werewolf.

The Wall Street Journal did briefly acknowledge the horror genre, but none of the books in this article were mentioned as part of the horror genre. And, while I understand that different imprints have different audiences, I was appalled at Knopf’s attitude that “we don’t do those kinds of books”.  It’s so disrespectful to readers’ preferences, and readers are the lifeblood of any publishing house.  The author of the Journal’s article tried to justify the popularity of these titles by counting Homer, Shakespeare, Dante and Milton as writers in the literary tradition who tossed gods, monsters, and the undead into the mix, but those guys cared about telling a story, not whether it was “literary”.

And that’s why my five year old is begging me to tell him about Odysseus and the Cyclops for the billionth time, and preparing for the zombie apocalypse (in spite of my attempts to protect him from all things zombie). The stories and the monsters are just that good. There’s no reason to be afraid of the H-word. There are a LOT of good storytellers out there. Even if they write “those books”, that’s no reason to write them off, or treat their readers with contempt.

Look, the horror community is not as organized as the romance community. RWA has hard data on sales and on who their readers are.  Writers in the horror genre don’t. And it would be hard to collect… are there ANY major publishers who publish horror since Leisure went by the wayside? But horror readers, writers, and books are here, and it’s foolish for publishers, mainstream authors, and book critics to write them off.  Horror fiction. Not “paranormal”, not “supernatural”, not, “thriller”, “science fiction”, “fantasy”, “dystopian” or “lowbrow”.(although it can be any of those things as well). It’s okay to read and write horror fiction with pride. No one should have to defend that choice.

No matter what anyone else doesn’t say.

 

Posted on May 29, 2011 by , 4 comments

The H-Word. Part 2

Watch out.

I’m gonna say it again. Horror. Horror fiction. It’s out there. And it not only crosses over, but exists outside the bounds of other genres. Don’t be afraid to say it. Some people just don’t seem to be able to get it down on paper.

In her new readers advisory guide, Fang-tastic Fiction: Twenty-First Century Paranormal Reads, Patricia O’Brien Mathews really tries hard to define the boundaries of what constitutes paranormal fiction, for the purposes of her guide. Her introduction makes it pretty specific, as a matter of fact. She excludes most science fiction, dystopian fiction, straight fantasy fiction, and horror fiction (which she defines as fiction with the primary intent to scare or horrify the audience). Alas, the world of literature is not so easily categorized these days, as she found when she searched for “paranormal” titles in bookstores and libraries. Does Kelley Armstrong write science fiction, horror, mystery or fantasy? Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books counts Armstrong’s novel Bitten as a favorite paranormal romance. Which is it? Are Rachel Vincent’s Werecats books(which we’ve reviewed here- check out this review for Stray science fiction, romance, or horror? And do they have anything in common with F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series (and here’s a review of Infernal from that series) at all, except for both being classified as science fiction and horror?

Do all of these really belong to the same family of books? Because horror keeps popping up, even in a book that specifically excludes books in that genre in favor of “paranormal reads”. Maybe someone should go shake the catalogers until they develop some consistency. No offense. I love catalogers.

I’ll mention here that Patricia contacted us and offered to help us out while I was in the middle of writing this. I really do think it’s great that she put this guide together. And it’s even better that she is willing to share her expertise. She has a blog where she updates her annotations, which is worth checking out.

So on to the next book that drove me bonkers. That would be Writing the Paranormal Novel: Techniques and Exercises For Weaving Supernatural Elements Into Your Story, by Steven Harper. I’m not really trying to write paranormal fiction, but for what it’s worth I think it’s an interesting and informative guide, and right at the beginning, Harper writes about “supernatural people”. You know, vampires, demons, zombies, shape-shifters, malevolent monsters… There’s lots about world building and developing character histories, plot, pacing, point of view… there are exercises you can try and checklists to use, but the closest Harper gets to the H-word is a mention of The Talisman, co-authored by Peter Straub and Stephen King. Now, obviously there are many types of books that use the classic monsters of the horror genre for their own ends (and the term “paranormal” covers a broad swath of literature), which is fine, but COME ON! Is the horror genre so invisible that you don’t notice it even when you are writing about writing about its tropes, creatures, and cliches?

Apparently it is.

Posted on May 29, 2011 by , Reply

The H-Word.

Horror fiction.

There. I said it.

There IS such a thing as horror fiction. There’s actually enough of it to constitute a genre.

That would be the HORROR GENRE. Not science fiction, not fantasy, not “thrillers”, urban fantasy, or paranormal romance. Nothing wrong with those. There are a lot of fantastic crossover titles, and there is a reason that we review them.

But, hello? The horror genre exists. It’s here. And I’m tired of not reading about it when it is completely discounted, or when books that clearly fall into the category of horror fiction are described as everything else.

Let’s see… In the past month here’s what I found (or didn’t find).

First, in the field of research on literacy, reading engagement, and advocacy…

1.) I was rereading Stephen Krashen’s The Power of Reading. I admire Krashen and his research has been and is incredibly important because it’s about engaging and creating readers, and it’s backed by data. Krashen was an early advocate of (ahem) “light reading” for kids. In the book, he mentions a study he co-authored in 2000. In this particular study (not the only study he’s done, this is just an example) Krashen found that 53% of 124 fourth grade students remembered the first book to make a major impact on them (in his words, a “home run book”). That’s about 65 kids. Of these, SIXTEEN were “scary books”. In other words, nearly a quarter of kids who remembered their “home run book” remembered a “scary book”. And that’s just one study.

Krashen discussed the value of teen romances and strongly advocated the use of comics and graphic novels to engage kids and teens in reading. But in all his discussion of “light reading” he never uses the H-word, and when he does mention scary stories, he is dismissive of the books of R.L. Stine, who was hugely popular at the time the first edition was published. That is, he dismissed the valued reading material of nearly 25% of the kids (fifteen of the sixteen books mentioned were R.L. Stine books). Since Krashen wrote this book, graphic novels have become relatively accepted as legitimate reading material, and there’s been a lot written about their value. Scary stories? Horror fiction? Not so much.

2.) Let’s fast-forward a bit to a more recent book, Readicide, by Kelly Gallagher. Gallagher addresses the problems inherent in giving kids the opportunity to get “lost in a book” when teachers and schools are overwhelmed with the pressure to succeed on standardized tests. He’s a passionate advocate and it’s an important book.

And then we get to the book list at the end. “101 Books My Reluctant Readers Love To Read”. A list of coming of age stories, sports stories, nonfiction and memoirs, poetry, mystery, and (surprise!) graphic novels. And… the extremely awkwardly named category award goes to… “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”!

Yep. Christopher Pike is on that list. He wrote Point Horror titles. Is it THAT HARD to say “horror”? Which of those categories does World War Z fall into, Kelly? I’m pretty sure most readers of zombie fiction would be surprised to find themselves described as readers of “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”. Heck, do any of your students call themselves readers of “Fantasy/Science Fiction/Vampire”?

And these are the advocates for reluctant readers and reading choice in schools, in libraries, and at home. I have tremendous respect for the work they do- it informs my whole way of looking at the world. I am so disappointed that horror fiction is so far beneath the radar that they don’t notice what is right in front of them.

But there’s more. It will have to wait though, because it’s time for dinner.

Posted on May 28, 2011 by , Reply
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