This week: The Horror Genre – Popular or Not? Edited by: Lornda  
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"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones."
~ Stephen King
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
~H.P. Lovecraft
"Horror is a universal language; we're all afraid."
~ John Carpenter
 The horror genre is rising from the ashes.
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The horror genre’s growth has been steady over the years but it’s never hit a high — until now.
Edgar Allen Poe (1800 – 1849) started it with his dark writing and was followed by H.P. Lovecraft, (1890 – 1937) Shirley Jackson, (1916 – 1965) and now there’s Stephen King (1970s to present) pushing the horror genre to its best.
If you write horror, there’s interesting facts popping up about book sales. In 2023, it jumped by 54% in the UK, and in the US, it grew by 24.2%
| "Source: Nielsen Bookscan" |
Novels written in the horror genre have a long way to go in sales. Compared to the romance genre, which is one third of the fiction market, it raked in $1 billion in a year. Horror $80 million. Granted, romance is easier to write.
Horror has not only grown with novels but across the board with movies and video games. The target audience? Younger people have a new interest so sales have been constantly climbing.
There are subgenres to consider when writing horror to capitalize on the market. Political and psychological subjects seem to be the new appeal. Word on the horror genre street is that publishers are looking for these types of story themes.
Check out the top selling novels to see what people are reading in the horror genre. Reading the top ones will help inspire you and give you ideas on what topic is popular. Of course, Stephen King is on the list with his novel ‘You Like It Darker’. No surprise, but did you know that this novel is a collection of short stories? If full-length novels are not in your writing plan, give short stories a try.
If you are considering writing horror, the numbers show the genre is popular and is growing quickly. If you get stuck on what to write, there are many subgenres to experiment with, and if political and psychological are not your horror style, word has it that zombies and vampires are making a comeback. Toss in a sprinkle of romance and you’ll be published in no time!
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| | Hauntings [ASR] #1327852
Dark poem to honor Writing.com’s celebration of the horror genre
by Joy  |
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
 Is the horror a genre something you read? How popular do you think it is?
 Feedback from my last newsletter, "Sympathy for Monsters" . I asked the question: Have you ever felt sympathy for a monster? Which one(s)?
S 🤦  : "Sympathy for monsters? "King Kong" managed it (especially Jackson's remake); the 2 sequels to "Creature From the Black Lagoon"; most good versions of "Frankenstein"; The "Shape of Water"'s merman thing; the David werewolf in "An American Werewolf In London"... a lot. But it takes a good script, a good actor (or really talented CGI artist) and a talented film-maker working together for it to work."
W.P. Gerace  : "Greetings Lornda,
I do hope you are doing well today. I have to say Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "The Birds" does it for me too. I will also say Stephen King's Movie , " Salem's Lot" is another. My great grandmother Rose was terrified of Alfred Hitchcock I was told. I do enjoy his movies and shows that come on from back in the day. Have a great day my friend. :)"
 Comments from the Newsfeed. Many of them.  Thanks!
S 🤦 "Reading Frankenstein, I always felt sympathy for the monster, as it understands it's existence is not right. In the book, he is quite verbose, and does tend to wax philosophical. Then we have the Karloff film, where there is also the sympathy for a naive being who really does not comprehend the world. I also felt sympathy for King Kong in the original 1930s and Peter Jackson versions. The creature in the two sequels to Creature From the Black Lagoon is really done dirty and the second sequel (3rd film) is just really heart-wrenching."
Paul : "All of them! There is something good in each of them."
TheBusmanPoet : ""The Fly" with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. Goldblum invented and experimented with using a transporter but what he didn't realize was that if anything else was inside the pod with him it would combined them on a molecular level and change the very essence of who he was. The computer couldn't differentiate between the two and combined them on a molecular level.
After checking why his body was changing, the computer that controlled the process showed Goldblum why. There was a tiny housefly inside the pod with him. When he initiated the sequence to go from one transporter and materialize into the other Pod, it combined his DNA with the fly's DNA, thus changing his whole molecular structure of his body. In the end, he held a shotgun to his head as if begging to die. Geena Davis pulled the trigger, killing him. It was both grotesque and sad. In the end is where I felt my sympathy for him because I can't even imagine what he was thinking after he realized what had happened."
tj wanderlust-words-in-motion  : "I often felt sympathy for the monster who lived under my bed growing up; all that lint and dirty socks..."
Mousethyme : "I always felt sympathy for the Frankenstein Monster. He didn't ask to be brought to life and he wasn't the one that was grave robbing. They called him a monster just because of the way he looked."
Gertrude  : "Quasimodo"
Whalebones : "Most monsters in fiction, are just cannon fodder for the heroes. in that sense shouldn't we all feel some type of sympathy for them. All of those orcs, werewolves, vampires, and zombies. all of them had to have a family. one of the best has to be paradise lost."
elephantsealer : "Feel sympathy for a monster, did you say? Not me!!!!!!!! Monsters do not need sympathy!!!!!!"
Kotaro : "In the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien has Frodo show sympathy for Gollum, but has Sam show only loathing. As the story progresses, the power of the ring over Frodo grows creating an understanding of Gollum and thus to his sympathy.
Also, Tolkien has Gollum without the ring struggle with himself and nearly turns to good, but loses to his evil half partly due to Sam’s distrust."
joemjackson : "King Kong. He just wanted a girlfriend."
Bilal Latif : "Sloth from the Goonies is a full-fledged hero. "Hey you guys!""
Arsuit : "I'm working on a story from the point of view of the nameless monsters who get slaughtered by fantasy heroes without a second thought."
Bob : "The only time I allow a monster to survive in any form is to allow it to appear in the sequel. Then I take it out, because evil cannot be allowed victory."
keyisfake : "King Kong."
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Horror/Scary: September 17, 2025 Issue [#13346]
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