I love the terror/ horror distinction, and it’s funny that over in the crime oriented genres, we simply call the former dread “suspense.” Hitchcock loved differentiating between suspense —hearing the tick of a known bomb—and mere surprise —the bomb going off, especially if the viewer was unaware of it. I’m other words, he drew the same emphasis between long-term psychological buildup of tension over sudden fleeting (often wasted) jump scare.
I thought that was an important distinction between horror and terror, between the visual and written forms of horror and terror. Terror can be in the atmosphere we create for our readers.When constructing terror, we allow the reader's imagination to work with our written words; they are pulled into our stories, participating in them. It is at least what I hope to achieve. Now that you mention it, I should work on that written attemp at jump scares too. Never really thought about it that way before.
You may be interested in Edmund Burke on these subjects. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, in particular Part II, sections II and III, on terror and obscurity. I imagine Radcliffe was influenced by Burke in her ideas about them.
Excellent piece - I've been writing more edgy/disturbing stories lately and this is a timely reminder of how to keep readers right where I want them. Fever Dream looks incredible, snagging that one right now.
I agree that true terror comes in anticipation. My mind automatically leaps to Alien, but Hitchcock was also a master at making us wait for that moment when the "monster" appears. I still get the chills when I get into an unfamiliar shower. Surely, someone or something is about to pounce. :-)
A great example of this is Seán Padraic Birnie’s I WOULD HAUNT YOU IF I COULD. It’s a collection of short stories that really capitalize on the eerie and uncanny. I loved it!
The only book that has ever jump-scared me was WHERE THE RED FERNS GROW, not with the dogs at the end, but when I hit the scene with the ax (if you know it, you know it). I was in 5th grade and the moment my eyes skimmed the words I jumped and threw the book across the room! 😅 That was more Horror, though, and the abrupt, conjured visual.
"this is an advantage of prose. Literature can delve into the minds of characters" Well stated. Also Lincoln if you ever recommended an anthology seeking submissions, especially if you're in it, I'm sure some of your readers would jump at the chance. Like me : )
If I were to write a horror story, it would not include monsters and blood and gore. It would be a psychological thriller on a more contemporary realistic setting, e.g., a dangerous psychopath becomes president of the US and unleashes an authoritarian regime and a reign of terror.
"But there is only so long you can keep the monster hidden in a film. It must eventually appear. In prose, it will never literally appear as an image so even its overt appearance can be cloaked in obscurity and indistinctness—especially when you filter a scene through a character’s POV."
Love this! And it's perfectly timed, since I'm hard at work on the opening chapters of my next horror novel. Thanks for writing this newsletter specifically for me!
Oh - I thought I’d never have to see the crab-head from The Thing ever again, and now my flesh is creeping. There really is that thing of a physical response to horror.
The strongest version of a jump-scare I’ve experienced in a novel wasn’t with horror but at the end of part one of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Shocked, and as an involuntary response, I yelped, slammed the book shut, got out of bed and had walked into the kitchen before I realised what I was doing. I think it was an effect achieved through misdirection and the placing of a reveal, and also through the book’s clever management of POV.
Good read Lincoln. I reckon M R James just about manages to do jump scares in prose. His technique, roughly, is to burst suspense with a particularly bizarre image, link it to a sensory detail, and structure the sentence so the payoff comes last. (I forget the story, but in one, a man descends a well to excavate an object only for some freaky creature to *gently put its arms around his neck.*) James’s trick can never beat the shock and surprise and unavoidability of a movie jump scare but it can be done.
On your point about being given hints versus being confronted by something, I think in movies there’s a material aspect too. In short, the better effects got, the more the camera *could* linger. Or : “One kind of horror film , usually an older kind, is about what is glimpsed. In part this is to do with the make-up, costumes, and special effects available at the time. But we should be careful about projecting our modern squeamishness about artificial-looking special effects as the sole explanation for the amount of screen-time they once got. It wasn’t only because filmmakers were worried you’d be able to see the Man-in-Suit that horror used to come at you in a flash...” https://mazinsaleem.substack.com/p/the-eater-of-worlds-and-of-children-a-review-of-it-f0fb32e40ee0
I love the terror/ horror distinction, and it’s funny that over in the crime oriented genres, we simply call the former dread “suspense.” Hitchcock loved differentiating between suspense —hearing the tick of a known bomb—and mere surprise —the bomb going off, especially if the viewer was unaware of it. I’m other words, he drew the same emphasis between long-term psychological buildup of tension over sudden fleeting (often wasted) jump scare.
I thought that was an important distinction between horror and terror, between the visual and written forms of horror and terror. Terror can be in the atmosphere we create for our readers.When constructing terror, we allow the reader's imagination to work with our written words; they are pulled into our stories, participating in them. It is at least what I hope to achieve. Now that you mention it, I should work on that written attemp at jump scares too. Never really thought about it that way before.
Sending this to my students
Thank you, Alex! 🙏
You may be interested in Edmund Burke on these subjects. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, in particular Part II, sections II and III, on terror and obscurity. I imagine Radcliffe was influenced by Burke in her ideas about them.
Yes! Radcliffe makes explicit reference to Burke
Excellent piece - I've been writing more edgy/disturbing stories lately and this is a timely reminder of how to keep readers right where I want them. Fever Dream looks incredible, snagging that one right now.
I don't have a lot of experience with horror, and as I'm rewriting my gothic novel, I find this very helpful—thank you!
Love this and am going to use the info soon.
I agree that true terror comes in anticipation. My mind automatically leaps to Alien, but Hitchcock was also a master at making us wait for that moment when the "monster" appears. I still get the chills when I get into an unfamiliar shower. Surely, someone or something is about to pounce. :-)
Judge Holden is a great character of terror. You could even say the Glanton gang or Glanton himself is horror but the Judge alone is terror.
A great example of this is Seán Padraic Birnie’s I WOULD HAUNT YOU IF I COULD. It’s a collection of short stories that really capitalize on the eerie and uncanny. I loved it!
The only book that has ever jump-scared me was WHERE THE RED FERNS GROW, not with the dogs at the end, but when I hit the scene with the ax (if you know it, you know it). I was in 5th grade and the moment my eyes skimmed the words I jumped and threw the book across the room! 😅 That was more Horror, though, and the abrupt, conjured visual.
"this is an advantage of prose. Literature can delve into the minds of characters" Well stated. Also Lincoln if you ever recommended an anthology seeking submissions, especially if you're in it, I'm sure some of your readers would jump at the chance. Like me : )
If I were to write a horror story, it would not include monsters and blood and gore. It would be a psychological thriller on a more contemporary realistic setting, e.g., a dangerous psychopath becomes president of the US and unleashes an authoritarian regime and a reign of terror.
"But there is only so long you can keep the monster hidden in a film. It must eventually appear. In prose, it will never literally appear as an image so even its overt appearance can be cloaked in obscurity and indistinctness—especially when you filter a scene through a character’s POV."
Love this! And it's perfectly timed, since I'm hard at work on the opening chapters of my next horror novel. Thanks for writing this newsletter specifically for me!
Oh - I thought I’d never have to see the crab-head from The Thing ever again, and now my flesh is creeping. There really is that thing of a physical response to horror.
The strongest version of a jump-scare I’ve experienced in a novel wasn’t with horror but at the end of part one of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Shocked, and as an involuntary response, I yelped, slammed the book shut, got out of bed and had walked into the kitchen before I realised what I was doing. I think it was an effect achieved through misdirection and the placing of a reveal, and also through the book’s clever management of POV.
Great essay. Definitely agree re: terror on the page and keeping within that zone for as long as possible.
Good read Lincoln. I reckon M R James just about manages to do jump scares in prose. His technique, roughly, is to burst suspense with a particularly bizarre image, link it to a sensory detail, and structure the sentence so the payoff comes last. (I forget the story, but in one, a man descends a well to excavate an object only for some freaky creature to *gently put its arms around his neck.*) James’s trick can never beat the shock and surprise and unavoidability of a movie jump scare but it can be done.
On your point about being given hints versus being confronted by something, I think in movies there’s a material aspect too. In short, the better effects got, the more the camera *could* linger. Or : “One kind of horror film , usually an older kind, is about what is glimpsed. In part this is to do with the make-up, costumes, and special effects available at the time. But we should be careful about projecting our modern squeamishness about artificial-looking special effects as the sole explanation for the amount of screen-time they once got. It wasn’t only because filmmakers were worried you’d be able to see the Man-in-Suit that horror used to come at you in a flash...” https://mazinsaleem.substack.com/p/the-eater-of-worlds-and-of-children-a-review-of-it-f0fb32e40ee0