Horror Verses crime Anyone??

[becky brown]

Does anyone else out there read alot of horror as well as crime? I do, and i find the two genres blend in well together. As a big fan of Richard Laymon, i often find myself having a hard time putting his works into one or the other catagory. Anyone else have this trouble with there fav authors?

[Jude Hardin]

I don't read a lot of Horror, but Stephen King is among my favorite authors. He can pull off the supernatural, the paranormal, the extra-terrestrial...like no one else, IMHO. That's the big difference between Horror and Crime, I think. Horror can take us above and beyond the known physical universe, while Crime is by nature grounded in it.

[becky brown]

i agree with your opinion of King, but what im getting at, is sometimes, horror authors are really just writing crime fiction, with an added eww factor, or is that just me? LOL

[Dave Zeltserman]

Stephen King's Misery is a great example of a book that could be considered either noir or horrir.

I publish a web-zine where one of our issues were stories that were both horror and crime.Most of what I write fits somewhere between the two. I have a book coming out in July called Bad Thoughts which several agents insisted had to be published as horror instead of crime (which I ignored), and the early reviews from Booklist and Library Journal both mention that it "balances the fine line between horror and crime." The book I just finished writing is part crime noir, part vampire.

Yeah, I like books that are a blend of both!

[becky brown]

thats great, when will your book be published?

[Dave Zeltserman]

July 18th. Here are some of the quotes for it. My first book was probably also more horror than crime--at least psychological horror.

[Anne Frasier]

haha! yeah, i completely get what you're talking about. i thought i was writing crime, then i was told i was writing horror. or maybe not. yes. no. yes. no. both my publisher and agent still say horror is hard to sell. i think mixing genres can work for or against the writer and publishing house depending on how they handle the marketing.

[Anne Frasier]

oh, and i'd really like to think we're about to see horror explode in the next couple of years. but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

[Daniel Hatadi]

Yes, yes, YES! I am in full agreement, except for the belief that wishful thinking can actually have an effect on reality.

[Jude Hardin]

I think I'll title my next book The Eww Factor. :)

Yeah. Silence of the Lambs was very much a Crime novel. But I would classify its sequel, Hannibal, as Horror. I think a lot of writers avoid the Horror label these days, though, because sales are rather flat in that genre.

[becky brown]

Seems sales are flat in that genre, but films of that genre are through the roof, so why for the screen, but not for the written word? We need to find out, and hopefully between us all, rectify the forgotten genre! LOL.

[becky brown]

Anyway, sorry to start a discussion and then run, but my bed seems to be saying something....yep, it wants me, so good night. xxx

[Jordan Dane]

On myspace, I get a lot of horror fans and authors friending me. I think they perceive that crime fiction can have elements of horror if the book is written that way. If you write it with an atmospheric quality and a major creep factor, you could perhaps garner a bigger audience.

I don't read a lot of straight horror but I think Dean Koontz has learned to straddle the genre fence and I LOVE his work. The man has a great sense of story telling and pace. He leaves me breathless. And his narratives are worth a second read IMO.