Newsletter Crossing the Boundaries

Crossing the Boundaries: Horror and Fantasy

In this time leading up to Halloween, it's often fun and useful to consider Fantasy's often close cousin, the horror genre. Many classic stories of horror are also stories of fantasy. Dracula has an immortal being forced to live through eternity seeking his true love. Frankenstien has a scientist who may well be made creating an artificial life form using electricity and pieces of corpses. The tales of Lovecraft and many of his contemporaries have beings from beyond space and time menacing modern (to the writers anyway) characters. Magic mystery and monsters all play a part in these stories. So too, many fantasy stories have elements of horror in them. The Lord of the Rings had the Nazgul, dead kings who now serve Sauron, not to mention the Balrog in the Mines of Moria. Harry Potter has Lord Voldemort, who shows aspects of many classical horror creatures. Adding elements of horror to a fantasy story can create a more gripping encounter for the heroes, and for the readers. So, how do horror stories truly differ from fantasy?

The answer tends not to be a series of hard and fast rules, but more a series of guidelines. Some things frequently happen in horror stories that typically do not in fantasy, while other things occur in fantasy that often do not in horror. Below are some common differences in horror and fantasy stories that might help you think of ways to make your fantasy a little more frightening. Please remember that these are not laws set in stone. A story that contains many of the horror oriented themes may still not be horror, and adding one or two to a fantasy story will certainly not force it to move to the horror section of the local bookstore. Use them as you will, and classify your stories as you feel appropriate.

In Fantasy, the heroes have the abilities to challenge the villains. While fantasy heroes may often seem helpless in the face of the evils that confront them, they always have some means to fight back. Frodo had Sting and the Elven mail to see him through his quest to Mt. Doom. Harry Potter has access to amazing magic and the skills and powers of his friends to back him up.

In Horror, the heroes are typically unsuited to the task at hand. Horror heroes are often just ordinary people caught up in the events of the story. Even if they have some special knowledge about the threat they face they often suffer from some flaw that makes them all but unable to face the horrors of the story. In most modern horror movies, the heroes are simply victims that don't get caught quite as unaware as the ones that go down faster. In the stories of Lovecraft, the mortal heroes are generally helpless against the eldrich horrors that appear, and can only stand against the human cultists and other agents, and pray that that will be enough.

In Fantasy, someone in the group of heroes understands what is going on. There is nearly always some mentor allied with the heroes that knows what is happening and why and hence can offer the key to victory. Gandalf, Dumbledore, and Obi Wan Kenobi all play this role.

In Horror, there is often no one who can tell the heroes what is happening or why. If heroes in horror stories want to survive, they usually have to figure things out on their own by observing the events around them. They don't have any wise mentors or knowledgeable partners to keep them clued in.

Note that this is probably the most flexible of the guidelines. Dracula was hunted by Abraham Van Helsing, and the kids in It (the book anyway) had something watching out for them, although they did have to work out a lot of what was going on by themselves.

In Fantasy, most of the main characters come through in the end. How many of the lead figures in Lord of the Rings were dead at the end? That is fairly typical of Fantasy stories. Most of the time, the lead characters come through pretty well, or if someone major is killed, then it is often possible to bring them back such is happens in The Belgariad or Army of Darkness.

In Horror, even the winners may come away scared for life. In many of Lovecraft's stories, simply confronting the elder horrors was enough to drive most men mad. Quite often when a band goes out, only one or two come back alive, and they aren't in very good shape at the end of it. Many horror stories start with a relatively large group of lead characters and then start picking them off one by one until only a very few are left at the end. In many cases in horror, the villain of the story wins, or at least comes out of things better off than the heroes.

In Fantasy, the villain can be beaten. While the heroes may have to face the cliched impossible odds to stop the evil, the evil can always be stopped. If it is not, it is because the heroes were not quite up to the task, not because the evil was unbeatable.

In Horror, the true evil is often unstoppable, but its plans can be thwarted. Often time, the evil force in a horror story cannot be stopped by mortal means. This does not mean things are hopeless for the heroes, although it can be the case. There are often ways to prevent the evil from winning, even if it is not a clear victory for the heroes. Stopping the plan, however, often just slows the evil down, and it may be back before you expect it.

So, if you want to add some horror to a fantasy story, you can always shift things towards the horror end of things. Force the heroes to learn what the evil thing can do by seeing it act rather than being told about things it did long long ago. Let the heroes win, but only at great cost. Don't end the story with the evil vanquished forever, but rather with the heroes knowing that it may be back again, and possibly soon. And please, have a happy Halloween.