Christina Bergling has written one of my favourite boks of 2017 - The Rest Will Come. (My review follows tomorrow). I am delighted to welcome her onto my blog today. Here she is talking about a subject dear to my heart:
Sometimes, it is rough being a horror
author.
There is definitely a strange stigma around
the horror genre. All stereotypes are odd and overreaching if you break them
down, and those for horror and horror lovers are no different. I have
encountered the assumption that you have to be a deviant or mentally ill to
enjoy the genre. I have heard the contents of anything horror dismissed as
trash. I have watched people abjectly avoid the fruits of the horror genre
entirely.
Sociologically, I get it. Culturally, it
makes sense. The mainstream always shies away from things that are disturbing,
upsetting, or traumatizing. The masses are well behaved when they are warm,
fed, and feel safe, so the majority prefers the palpable. This puts horror, a
genre fixated on the disturbing, upsetting, and traumatizing, firmly outside
the mainstream. An outcast genre.
So sometimes being a peddler of the
deformed and traumatizing is a tough racket. When I tell people I write horror,
they often grimace, or they give me some confused look. They often ask me why.
Why would I even want to write horror? Which comes with the unspoken question, what’s
wrong with you? How could these awful things come out of your brain?
I have wondered these things about myself
before. When I have written about rape, child murder, or torture, I have
wondered if something is truly wrong with me. Why would I want to dwell in all
these dark places?
My answer has always been that this is just
how my mind is. My mind just wanders in twisted directions, and I have chosen
to embrace it. I have decided to vent it and create with it. But it is more
than that. Horror is more than that. More than just a darkness or the gore.
More than a fright or a jump scare.
Why should you give horror a chance? What
could horror possibly have to offer you?
Life requires contrast. To create light,
there must be darkness. To experience sweet, there must be the bitter bite of
sour. Horror can be that sour darkness, a safe window into the other side. No
one (or perhaps very few) want to actually experience horror in real life. Yet
horror permits you to experience a taste of the primal thrill without the
danger.
The appeal is no different than taking in a
haunted house. One might even argue that a haunted house would be considered
horror itself. Horror allows you to have the fear, flirt with the scare while
avoiding any true mortal peril.
I know I, personally, am addicted to that
thrill. I actively pursue horror that will genuinely scare me. I want a book
that will have me clinging to the pages (or Kindle) and reading well past my
bedtime. I want a movie filled with startles that have me jumping on the couch
cushion. I want to experience that fear and the adrenaline that comes with it.
Safely. I definitely do not want (and do not enjoy) those same feelings or
experiences in real life.
The fear is still on the surface though.
There at the top with the gore. Below that, deeper below the superficial,
horror is about extremes. When you break any story down to the basics, whether
it is told in a book or a movie, regardless of the genre, it is about
characters in a setting. The more extreme the setting, the more opportunity to
affect the characters. Horror is merely a stage, a grotesque exaggeration of
circumstance used to manipulate characters.
In Savages,
I used horror to make comments on the ugliness of human nature. In The Waning, I used horror to examine the
psychological breakdown of a strong woman. In The Rest Will Come, I used horror to help a woman discover her true
self after being destroyed by divorce. Horror is a device. Horror is the
setting and the circumstance, not the story.
Horror allows the creator (in this case,
me) to stretch the characters and situations beyond the realm of the normal or
the every-day, creating more magnified statements and developments. I believe
that if you turn the lights out long enough, humans will show you what they truly
are. And like the safe fear of the horror audience, horror lets the creators
explore these extreme ideas without having to experience them.
I do not want to see what happens if
society was to fall or if we were fighting for our lives, but I do want to play
with the ideas from the comfort of my couch. Horror lets me do that.
What will you see in horror if you look
past the blood and the gore? Everything. Things at their most basic, things at
their most extreme. Things in a new light.
Horror has shown me some of the most basic
truths about people and the world, under all the cheap violence. Yet I have
seen so many people turn away and dismiss the potential based on the
stereotypes. Yes, the genre has plenty of shallow slasher clichés and
gratuitous violence (hence the well-earned stereotypes), but that need not damn
the entire genre.
I am not lobbying that everyone become a
devout horror lover. That is unrealistic and, if we are being fair, would
destroy the genre. I do not need horror to go any further mainstream than what The Walking Dead has done to it.
Instead, I am merely promoting keeping an open mind when it comes to the dark
genre. There are gems under the rough edges, if you are willing to look past
the blood.
Biography
Colorado‐bred writer, Christina Bergling knew she
wanted to be an author in fourth grade.
In college, she pursued a professional writing
degree and started publishing small scale. It all began with How to Kill Yourself Slowly.
With the realities of paying bills, she started
working as a technical writer and document manager, traveling to Iraq as a
contractor and eventually becoming a trainer and software developer. She avidly
hosted multiple blogs on Iraq, bipolar, pregnancy, running. She continues to
write on Fiery Pen: The Horror Writing of Christina Bergling and Z0mbie Turtle.
In 2015, she published two novellas. She is also
featured in the horror collections Collected Christmas Horror Shorts, Collected
Easter Horror Shorts, Collected Halloween Horror Shorts, and Demonic
Wildlife.
Her latest novel, The Rest Will Come, was
released by Limitless Publishing in August 2017.
Bergling is a mother of two young children and
lives with her family in Colorado Springs. She spends her non‐writing time
running, doing yoga and barre, belly dancing, taking pictures, traveling, and
sucking all the marrow out of life.
Connect with Christina here:
Well, I like a bit of horror and this is a very interesting breakdown of the genre. A good post. I must say I like the tag line on The Rest Will Come.
ReplyDeleteHi Shey. Yes, it's a good tag line isn't it? Works well with the story too.
DeleteSo true.. Beta readers play a really huge role in moulding your story to a perfect one!! for me, my sister's the sacrificial goat. Poor her!
ReplyDelete