/lit/ - Literature

Cancel culture and sensitivity readings that censor works before they come out. Can’t scare anyone if you can’t offend them.

>>21802893
>Can’t scare anyone if you can’t offend them.
I'm not arguing your post at large but this is not true.

>>21802885
because you're sitting in a cozy armchair reading the book with the lights on. sneak into a ghetto alley at 1am, strip naked, and try reading the book with an almost-dead flashlight.

>>21802885
Literature just isn't a good medium for inducing fear since language is processed through the prefrontal cortex, the seat of higher order abstract thinking, while fear is part of the reptilian brain and is more coupled with raw sensory input (particularly sight and smell). A movie can scare you. A book, not so much.

Books are better at inducing dread however since that is a more prefrontal emotion.

Horror is genre fiction and the best horror transcends that

Frankenstein isn't just a horror story.

When you look at the list of horror that is considered real literature, it's always literature first and using elements of horror within it.

>>21802924
what if I'm in an all-white mormon neighborhood, will it still work?

>>21802944
and none of them are scary, absolutely pathetic

>>21802885
how are you supposed to get scared from a book its in your head you have to imagine the scary stuff have you tried scaring yourself you can't also nothing is more scary than the cursed friendless gfless jobless material reality you live in, so theres that too

Hp lovecraft, edgar allen poe, stephen king, the list goes on!

Imo you’re approaching horror wrong, horror as a Genre has more lineage out of decadent and symbolist and ultimately romantic lit than people give it credit, many of the great horror writers aren’t writing to scare you but instead are trying to create a very ornate supernatural aesthetic, the middle ground is ghost story writers who were based in the concept of the ghost story yes, but often wanted to fill it with a scholarly aura, a very ivory tower nature. That’s not just weird fiction dudes but the top guys in ghost story writing like MR James.


With this in mind I think you’d find much of value in the short fiction of Blackwood, Mr James, Gilchrist, la fanu, of course Poe, Machen and Ambrose Bierce. You’ll definitely find excellent writing.

It's a refuge for bad writers

>>21802885
What makes you say this? There's some great horror authors, if you dig, I love Philip fracassi

To be scared by reading about ghosts or monsters you have to be either retarded or a colossal faggot

>>21802970
>have you tried scaring yourself you can't
I disagree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF8Mm8lN7Kw

>>21802961
No

>>21802968
What’s the most frightened you’ve ever been in real life and what were the circumstances around it? Greentext us little dude

>>21803135
>the only white boi in a black neighborhood

>>21803145
So basic fear for your safety? That’s it? No existential dread, just scared you’d get your shit pushed in? Sounds kinda pathetic desu

>>21803145
Dude, thugborea is an erotic reality.

Horror is extremely challenging regardless of how it's presented.

>>21802893
This is true. Horror is about "what is there but shouldn't be". To even talk about something that "shouldn't be" besides nazis isn't allowed. Thus another dead genre.

>>21802885
real life is more horrifying than any shit some guy could write

>>21803179
Try some shit from the dark web.

>>21802893
You’re just out of touch, or getting your worldview from the internet instead of actually reading what’s published these days. This isn’t true at all, does anyone here actually read?

>>21803331
You're out of touch, i'm out of time.

>>21803331
What makes it to print is watered down. Censored before publication or even self-censored by authors (sad but true). If you don’t recognize the shift in content, you haven’t been reading very long or are inattentive. Or cool with the change.

>>21802919
Offending sensibilities is highly effective in raising tensions. If you can’t do that, the work is less effective.

>>21802972
F. Gardner

>>21802885
because fear is a reaction, and is diluted or outright negated by being processed, and by reading it, you're automatically processing it.

>read a horror book
>no jump scares
why is it always like that

>>21802885
Because genre fiction is harder than regular fiction.

Books can't be scary.

The last really good horror story I read was The Wendigo, and I doubt anyone has ever managed to come very close to it.
The scene with the old Indian picking up the scent of the wendigo and getting scared shitless is one of a kind.
Even Blackwood barely managed to write another story quite like it.

>>21803584
This I can do.

>>21803584
Not OP, but I agree with that. I haven't come across that in books very often (desu, I only recently started reading more) but the best films are usually those that leave me unsatisfied in the end.

>>21802885
I reckon we're wayyyy too jaded nowadays to get a kick outta horror books (or the horror genre as a whole)