All right. I’m an “old school” horror writer. Back before there was political correctness. I enjoy Bram Stoker for his sensual vampires and mixture of sex and violence. I read literary author Joyce Carol Oates for her horror techniques. I actually believe horror authors can be literary, and even pulp fiction and comic authors can be educated and literary! Wow! That’s for starters.
I’m going to complain today about Kickstarter campaigns that raise money to publish digital and paperback versions of horror stories. I helped one “come to life,” with my money, so I have a right to complain. Except, I am also an old school gentleman, so I won’t name the organization/publisher who did this, nor will I mention any of the authors’ names in the collection.
In fact, there are only three reasons why I thought this was a very negative experience:
- There was an index for “trigger warnings.” After reading these stories, as a horror author, I wondered why the fuck they needed any warnings? My logic goes this way: If a reader enjoys horror, then why would he/she/they need a trigger warning? Why read horror at all if you can’t stand dark stories that use violence and other horrible attributes of humanity? In fact, I get more triggered from daily headlines than I do from any one of the stories in this collection.
- Just a few stories were by people I even knew wrote horror, and their stories were pretty “dull” compared to their best writing. This made me believe that the publishers just wanted a “lure” so they could make money.
- I read some stories in the volume that were so illiterate that I felt nauseated as a former English professor. Not only were the sentences ungrammatical and confusing, the references to anything literary or the use of literary imagery and techniques (analogies, similes, metaphors, etc.) were not present.
That’s it! That’s my gripe. Just a warning for you if you’re an author of horror or a reader that is not politically correct, and you get drawn into one of these “schemes” to make money for a publisher. Let me know if you think the same way. I’m really old, but not senile.
