Why Horror Fiction Should Be All Too Real by Stewart Bint

​Who has the most twisted, bent, and dark psyche, the horror writer or the horror reader?
You’ll be pleased to hear, it’s neither. Being scared to the point of the screaming heebie-jeebies by horror fiction is actually very good for us. And with my readers craving that chill on their spine and a rise of their neck hairs, I see my role in giving them an intense fix of that, as something akin to a social worker.
First off, why do we like to be scared? It seems that when we're afraid our bodies release different chemicals which can contribute to feeling good under the right circumstances…and I guess those right circumstances are when that fright, that danger, that unknown, that horror, is simply within safe boundaries. It would be very different if we were really facing those dangers. But identifying with the fictional character we’re reading about, or watching on screen, in the comfort of our own living room or bed, should still get our heart beating and our blood coursing faster than from the effects of a swiftly imbibed double Espresso.
And thereby hangs the rub. As horror writers, how do we ensure that our readers identify with the character? For a scary story to be truly effective the reader has to empathise with the characters and really care about what happens to them.
My way of ensuring readers’ empathy for my character is, first of all, to make that character someone you can readily identify with, and then set them in realistic situations…again, easily identifiable, to make them think, hey, this could really be me and my family.
I develop my characters in realistic situations, let the reader like them…love them if possible, and then build the tension slowly. What begins as simply uncertain becomes unease. Then frightening. Then dangerous. Then deadly. Then horrific. And suddenly you realise the full horror that’s been unleashed.
Three of my five novels slot into the horror genre - In Shadows Waiting, To Rise Again, and When God's Wind Blows. Also, my eclectic collection of 21 short stories, Thunderlands, contains two scary tales, The Growing Thing, and my critically acclaimed horror fantasy The Twitter Bully. 
So, why do I like inflicting these horrors of my mind on innocent people who stumble into my world? Well, I’m just an ageing hippy who goes barefoot most of the time and likes to entertain people through stories. My books aren’t great art and they’re not great literature, but my readers tell me they’re entertaining, so that’s good enough for me.

​I was bitten by the writing bug when I was seven years old in 1963, through watching the original series of what has been my favourite television show ever since: Doctor Who. Even at that young age I was enraptured by the storylines which can take place at any time in the past and future, and absolutely anywhere in the universe and beyond.
Doctor Who inspired me to start creating my own worlds and characters, writing my stories in little blue notebooks until my parents bought me a portable typewriter for my ninth birthday. And those make-believe worlds became invaluable after my Dad died when I was 11. I retreated more and more into those places where I was in control of my characters’ fate, knowing that whatever horrors were thrown at them, and whatever happened to them during the story, I would make sure they were okay in the end. My fictional worlds were certainly better than the real one at that time.
Looking back now, I reckon those early days of the programme showed my subconscious that it was okay to feel scared shitless, and planted the seed to sadistically pass that feeling on to other people.      
Supernatural, paranormal and science fiction are the genres I love to read myself, so I guess it was inevitable that they’d become the genres I’d write. Also, most of my ideas are too way out for straight-forward thrillers. I like to think my stories satisfy my readers’ thirst for the unknown, providing them with a healthy dose of sweaty-palm, squeaky-bum, horror.
Maybe writing scary horror stories is my way of compensating for not being able to pursue my first career choice. My careers teacher at school was having none of it when I said I wanted to be an assassin. Or maybe it’s because I’ve experienced the supernatural, along with that chilling feeling it leaves in its wake, on several occasions. For instance, the entity I describe in my 2015 novel, In Shadows Waiting, is based on something I saw in the early 1980s. I was the newsreader on a BBC radio breakfast show at the time, and had to leave my digs at around 4.30 a.m. One cold November morning I was just opening the front door of the large, rather gloomy house I shared with around eight people, when I sensed something near me. Turning round and looking back up the stairs I saw a misty figure on the first-floor gallery landing. There were just dim red holes where its eyes should be.
That experience inspired my breakthrough novel…albeit it was many years later before it saw light of day.
So, what are ghosts? In my opinion, they can be one of two things. First, a simple ethereal manifestation of another moment in time that defies the laws of physics as we know them. Images of the past somehow break through into today. Secondly, a ghost that interacts with us can be a tortured spirit, trapped on our Earthly plane, unable to move on until unfinished business has been concluded.
And I’ve seen both types. While that red-eyed figure was definitely one of the latter, I also witnessed the “flashback” type many times at my In-Laws’ home in London during the 1980s and 1990s. Their house was built on the site of an old footpath on the edge of Hounslow Heath, and we lost count of the number of times a figure glided past the frosted-glass door between the lounge and hall.
Then, of course, as well as ghosts, we have well-documented demons that take possession of people or premises. And they’re not nice at all. Again, as with ghosts, their existence defies the laws of currently-known physics.   
Just a thought. If we did actually understand the physics behind these supernatural phenomena, ghost stories wouldn’t be ghost stories any more. We’d have to re-categorise them as science fiction.
But for now, it’s the thought that something may exist on a different plane, that fascinates us and keeps us coming back for more. 

x.com/AuthorSJB    stewartbintauthor.weebly.com/   bsky.app/profile/stewartbint.bsky.social 
www.facebook.com/StewartBintAuthor/