I don’t understand how a description of a situation, a subject, or an environment can make you feel scared without any visual components. They’re just words, and there are only so many words you can use to describe something scared. But without a visual component (at the very least an image), how do you get scared by it?
by tensefacedbro
31 Comments
Some horror books are well written, what can I say
Well if it’s just words why would anyone feel anything (not just fear) from reading a novel? I don’t think someone is going to be able to explain how to engage with an art form and have an emotional reaction. You may just be a visual person who responds to images not words.
Do you not visualize what you read?
I see the scene in my head as I’m reading
I always blamed my vivid imagination. But it’s not just with horror.
Oddly I can do Creepypasta but not visual ones.
I was reading Puppet Masters and began to be freaked out at certain spots just at the vision in my brain.
I was reading The Last Canadian and grew so depressed I stopped reading it.
I get SUPER sympathetic during movies too though. I think I’m just very empathic? I felt a strong pang when the soldier in Toy Story was struggling after being stepped on.
I was too embarrassed for the characters to finish Blades of Glory
And god, Legend of Huma. I can’t finish that book again and it was my favourite. That and a few others where heroes die in the Dragonlance saga.
That’s actually a really interesting question. I have been scared by many a book and I’m quite desensitized because I’ve been a horror fan in every genre imaginable since I was very young. But I can’t honestly answer how I get scared by a description. It’s not like I think whatever is in the book is going to jump off the page and come and get me once I fall asleep. I think fear is a word that describes many things in one. Sometimes it has nothing to do with actually being afraid of something and just feeling a sense of utter horror about a hypothetical situation. Or it could just be playing on our sense of empathy for a fictional character and our fear for them. Even though fictional characters aren’t real, they become very real in our brains and we feel things for them.
But in that same vein, why would you be scared by a visual component? It’s just a picture. I guess I don’t understand how you could understand being scared of an image but not of words. You’ve given me something to ponder!
I’ve always loved horror movies, but I could never wrap my head around horror novels – much like you, OP.
And so, I decided to read some horror novels. I’ve read 3 so far and have yet to be scared. I could tell which parts were supposed to elicit a fear reaction, but it had no effect on me other causing me to think, “That would be pretty eery if I saw it in a movie.”
However, I then watched a podcast where they talked about a book that was in the *extreme* horror genre. I quickly realized that horror does not have to be equated to fear. The definition of horror is: an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. Ergo, you can be horrified without being scared.
Honestly, no horror book has ever scared me as much as a horror movie has. Regardless, I keep reading them because they’re fun to me. I love the tropes and the aesthetics. Even if I don’t get the same visceral reaction to a horror book, I do still enjoy the journey.
The reader has to have a good enough imagination to be able to emote what they’re reading.
When I read a book, I’m visualising myself there, it’s like I’m not reading the words even though I clearly am. If you don’t visualise what you’re reading I doubt you’d be able to get scared by it.
Oof- When I was young, reading The Shining? I got scared to bits. I’d say books are naturally more scary than even the most intense film because everything lives in your mind. You don’t have the luxury of separation between what is happening on a screen and what you take in
I wouldn’t say you get scared while reading it, more enthralled than anything, it’s more like an idea from it sticks in your brain and you feel the fear later as you fall asleep and the barriers between your waking mind and sleeping mind break down.
I can’t say I was overly scared while reading it, but the way the imagery was written in The Keep, it gave me nightmares.
There is a visual component in many people’s heads. Many of us run a ‘movie’ in our heads as we read.
Because for some people, there’s this thing where whatever you read, your brain makes into pictures. Sometimes even video. And if that thing is scary, then bam- you’re freaked the hell out.
For me the scare usually comes after I’ve put down the book, when I’m laying in the dark thinking about what I just read.
Can you name some horror books that you read?
The best horror is psychological.
Are… are you asking how books work….?
My mind can conjure images much scarier than anything from a horror movie.
Well, horror movies start out as “just words” in a script. Horror books are like movies you play in your mind. And sometimes, what your mind creates is scarier than a film.
Edit: It also depends on how good the author is at creating a tense atmosphere. I’ve read horror books that didn’t really do much for me. But then I’ve read some where I was tense, but also eager to find out what’ll happen.
I’ve only ever been scared by one horror novel and it’s because I could relate it to something I experienced in real life. But like others have said, having an imagination helps lol
Horror novels can still scare me a bit, but I actually prefer the less intense effect. Watching horror is too much for me in a lot of cases, or even just violence. But with reading, my brain magically detaches enough to gloss over the level of detail that would be upsetting to me.
I read *The Changeling* years ago and found myself pretty creeped out by the recent tv adaptation, which I was not expecting based on how I remembered the book. House of Leaves felt very spooky at times, but I plowed through it way faster than I normally finish a book.
How do words make us worry about the Protag, how do they make us feel sorrow and joy? Or maybe this is a conflation of how film and visual media communicates vs how a novel does?
Usually, a writer will have chosen prose as their conduit because that’s how the story/art is asking to be communicated. Ideally, an effective writer knows the strengths of the medium, but that can’t account for personal taste
Never been scared of written words? Keep trying, you’ll find the right one someday
Horror is about mood. It’s not so much the environment or the description, but the overall sense it creates and feeling it inspires. The same way, for instance, writing may make you feel comfortable, it may make you feel unease. Once it makes you uneasy, it’s not far to genuinely creeped out.
I don’t really get scared when reading the same as I do watching a horror movie. The things in a film that are scary are things just not present in a book: jump scares, music/sound, and not being in control of the pacing.
How are people made happy by words on a page? Or made sad, and crying? Fear is just another emotion. I will say though, it is harder to elicit fear from a written medium, it takes more talent than eliciting sadness or happiness, but it’s very much possible.
I react to it in more of an in awe way, not really scary. My mouth can open as I read through just kinda like…. daaaaaaaaamn. and then at the end: wow that was creepy. I dunno. that’s how I process it in the most laymen way possible.
Also, the same way I react when i read about someone doing a crazy action sequence except different end result of badassery. Which is often mixed into the horror elements depending on the situation.
If someone called and told you there was an escaped murderer in your neighborhood, would you get scared? Our brains can’t always tell the difference between real or imagined threats.
I rarely read horror anymore because it causes too much stress. I can become very immersed in the story and I can have a physical response when it gets scary. It’s easier for me to release the stress from a movie that only lasts 2 hours than a book that can take me a week to finish.
I really wish I could add the SpongeBob 🌈✨IMAGINATION✨🌈 gif here so just pretend it’s here, and that’s my explanation for how horror novels scare me
How can you get horny by reading an erotica? They’re just words. The thing is it’s not the words, but the imagination, and our imagination will be way scarier than any movie out there
Who gets scared by horror movies?
As a horror fan, I’m pretty immune at this point.
The Shining and the Salem’s Lot TV miniseries scared the hell out of me as a child.
Recent horror doesn’t scare me, but a few movies have disgusted me. Sinister, Martyrs, and the Poughkeepsie Tapes. Watching each, it was basically like we’re trying to come up with more extreme, twisted gratuitous violence rather than being scary. Midsommar also falls in that category.
The best recent ‘horror’ I watched was Coherence. I wasn’t scared, but I was excited for something original that I had no idea where they were going with the plotline. That makes it a good scary movie.
This whole ‘Oh, it doesn’t scare me’ thing turns horror into a competition, and that’s never been what it’s about for me. I like characters who come up with clever ways to fight the monster. The Thing is a good example.
And so I enjoy horror novels when they have a tight plot and an interesting premise. That’s what makes it good, not whether it scares me.
Salem’s Lot and the Dead Zone are my favorite King books. House of Leaves was good fun. And I love the Raw Shark Texts even though it seems like only a handful of people even know it exists. Oh, and World War Z was a great book. The movie shouldn’t have even been called World War Z because it wasn’t about the book.
So that’s my deal. The more times you get scared, the harder it is to scare you. Does that mean I don’t enjoy reading or watching horror? No.