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However much concision is praised as the first principle of politeness as well as aesthetic consideration, it is axiomatic that all writers hold it in contempt. As such, prior explanations of horror fiction have done much to confuse the subject with an objectless multiplication of rules and qualifications—merely in order that the author might stretch to the respectable length of a book what properly belongs scribbled on the back of a postcard. It is in remediation of this condition that I offer the following caveats as the sole distinguishing laws of the genre, expressed (I can assure you) in precisely the number of words required to express them.
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Horror fiction shall psychologize. It matters not whether the author’s psychological reasoning is good or bad; relevant or not; puerile or unseemly; craven, crass, stupid or insipid. He must psychologize. The horror, whatever it may be, must be partly embodied in the mind. This is a service not only to readers, who might well inquire the meaning of axe-wielding clowns and demon-possessed children, but to undergraduates who deserve from the author the consideration of a thesis. Moreover, without psychologizing, fiction is devoid of meaning—a story that refers only to itself is inconceivable. Therefore the writer must foist upon the story whatever mental furniture lies nearest at hand for a proper completion of the work. |
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When a horror story is of any considerable length and emanating from a book publisher, it shall have a sex scene. A sex scene will assure all literate persons that the work is not intended merely to convey sensations—no mere campfire tale—but is a proper literary work and touches on all the major issues of life, not least of which is fornication. |
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Pursuant to the necessity of convincing readers that the story is a serious one, the author shall make some polemical comment on an issue of the day. This comment need be of no particular intelligence and may be put into the mouth of any favorably depicted character; by interpolation, the inverse and idiotic opinion may be put into the mouth of an antagonist. As before, relevance is optional. |
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The author shall convey intensity. Given the baggy looseness of his purpose, the novelistic grab-bag will have to be held together by a relentless and indiscriminate show of passion. This passion may be directed at anything, given that some plausible excuse lies in the story’s background. If the protagonist believes that his son is possessed by a demonic or alien force—if he is pursued by a clown with a cleaver—or if, even before the story’s major threat appears, he is simply having a bad day—then he may certainly express passion. He may regard a barn with passion—the paint may be chipping, suggesting dilapidation, decay, death or laziness. He may regard a discarded bottle with passion—suggestive as it is of refreshment lost, of the bitter dregs drained, or of modernity which the reader will inevitably interpret as stupidity. And to convey this passion, this intensity, all that is required is the repetition of words, the repetition of lines, the fragmentation of words and lines, the shortening of lines and paragraphs in a stammering fusillade—with an iteration of apoplectic synonymity and empty ejaculation that even a washer-woman would envy. |
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| These are the laws—the sole laws—of horror fiction. And may the fleas of a thousand red editorial corrections be upon the head of him who amends them. |
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