Hope in Horror; March 6 2024

I – very rarely, mind you – feel qualified to answer some questions about writing, particularly when it comes to writing horror. I have a short list of things that have been asked before, and I figure I’ll dedicate the occasional blog post to answering them!

Today’s question I’m going to tackle is:

‘Is there a place for hope in horror, and what role does its presence or absence play in establishing the arc of the story?’

Now, obviously, this is just my opinion… but I don’t think you can have horror without hope. Period. In the same way that all horror works are tragedies through another lens, characters need something to lose if you’re going to ramp the stakes in a compelling way. Even the most nihilistic or negative character needs to hope for something, or the reader isn’t going to connect with them.

All fears can ultimately be traced back to the terror of losing something. Fear of the unknown, fear of change – even phobias like the dark or spiders involve a loss of comfort, minimum. If someone is scared, it’s because they’ve been thrown into (or are approaching) a situation they have something to lose in.

With horror, it’s most commonly a loss of life. That’s the easiest source of connection between the character and the reader, is the visceral need to survive.

But what good is that if the protagonist has no hope?

Not long ago, I wrote a short story about stagnation and depression, a horror short in which the protagonist accepts what’s happening to them because they just don’t have hope anymore. Sure, part of the horror in it comes from the monster in the story, but overall, the fear factor in that particular story comes from the loss of hope. The character isn’t afraid so much as just despairing; it’s the audience that are meant to feel the dawning horror of it all.

So, even in a story about nihilism, the author is leaving a void where the hope should be. It’s a deliberate tool being used, an intentional lack being used to make it scary. Hope is integral even when it’s not being used on purpose.

It can be fun (from a writing standpoint) to play with hope, in your work. Having a character start off with ‘nothing to lose’, or so they think, or so secure that they’re foolishly fearless, for example. You can drag them all over that spectrum over the course of the work – and if it’s horror, you should do exactly that! Where the arc ultimately ends, that’s up to you.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. I hope you’re all doing well!