2008 Woodie Awards
Why I Write Horror
An Essay
Sarah Langan, New York University
Issue date: 6/1/08 Section: Spring 2008
Since I began publishing fiction, a pattern has emerged. I'm asked one question above all others, and it happens at readings, at NYU where I go to school for Environmental Science, and when I visit my boyfriend's family in Maryland. Friends and strangers alike narrow their eyes when they learn what my book is about. They wonder if I'm playing a practical joke. Then they ask: Why do you write horror? What they really mean is: Are you mental or something?
Some find my subject matter titillating, but not for the reasons I'd like. I once dated a man who was disappointed to discover that my apartment wasn't filled with candles and S&M sex toys. I was a horror writer, after all; wasn't I supposed to be kinky? And if I wasn't kinky, then why was I slumming in a genre scaffolded by the appetites of freaks?
My first novel was recently published. For a long time I wasn't able to sell it. During those years that I was papering my walls with rejection slips, I was young, single, a graduate of Columbia University's M.F.A. program, and living in New York. Back then, everybody wanted to be the next Candace Bushnell or Melissa Bank. Agents I queried, when they were kind enough to reply, asked: Why are you writing this stuff? Do you have anything satiric or quirky, about dating?
I tried. Really, I did. But the dates in my stories always ended quite badly, or else very happily, except that everybody turned into a fish. After a while, I went back to my un-publishable book.
For the record: I have no interest in shaving my teeth into points and pretending I'm a vampire. My writing doesn't employ irony, either. I write my characters and settings as realistically as I know how. When the shit hits the fan, some of those characters die. A ghost gives them a good eviscerating, a changeling steals their kid, or at the very least, they lose an eye. In short, I write what marketing people have categorized as horror. And yes, I probably am mental, but my state of mind and my genre are completely unrelated.
Some find my subject matter titillating, but not for the reasons I'd like. I once dated a man who was disappointed to discover that my apartment wasn't filled with candles and S&M sex toys. I was a horror writer, after all; wasn't I supposed to be kinky? And if I wasn't kinky, then why was I slumming in a genre scaffolded by the appetites of freaks?
My first novel was recently published. For a long time I wasn't able to sell it. During those years that I was papering my walls with rejection slips, I was young, single, a graduate of Columbia University's M.F.A. program, and living in New York. Back then, everybody wanted to be the next Candace Bushnell or Melissa Bank. Agents I queried, when they were kind enough to reply, asked: Why are you writing this stuff? Do you have anything satiric or quirky, about dating?
I tried. Really, I did. But the dates in my stories always ended quite badly, or else very happily, except that everybody turned into a fish. After a while, I went back to my un-publishable book.
For the record: I have no interest in shaving my teeth into points and pretending I'm a vampire. My writing doesn't employ irony, either. I write my characters and settings as realistically as I know how. When the shit hits the fan, some of those characters die. A ghost gives them a good eviscerating, a changeling steals their kid, or at the very least, they lose an eye. In short, I write what marketing people have categorized as horror. And yes, I probably am mental, but my state of mind and my genre are completely unrelated.
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 5
Vince Liaguno
posted 7/10/08 @ 8:19 AM EST
Sarah, your thoughts are insightful - as always. I especially appreciated the point you made about the cyclical nature of the horror genre and how its popularity - or lack thereof - is in direct proportion to what's going on in the world at any given time. (Continued…)
Michael Arnzen
posted 7/14/08 @ 11:04 PM EST
You've hit the cultural nail right on its soft head. It sure IS like the crisis-riddled 70s all over again, isn't it? Let's just hope the movies (as well as the books, obviously) that come out of it are just as good. (Continued…)
F. Paul Wilson
posted 7/15/08 @ 10:01 AM EST
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Too true, Sarah -- especially that last -- and I don't think I've ever heard it put so well. (Continued…)
Glenn Chan
posted 8/25/08 @ 5:16 PM EST
I don't know if it's so much that we are "in crisis". The people on the losing side of these wars- those are the people in crisis. Life is pretty good right now. (Continued…)
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