~My book of horror stories/psychological Advice~

The beginning to my book of horror

What makes a horror story good? Bold statement to start a horror story I know but its always a valid question with varried answers. First you gotta ask what makes something horror and that could also differ person to person but the general consensus is Fear. Unknown,traumatic,overwhelming anxiety,dread ect... and all these relatively negative emotions/hormones that we feel from are premative nature for survival. Horror is also assosiated with creepy,Erie and grody stories that make our skin crawl,our noses to wrinkle and shivers to go down our spin,those are just stories tho right? Thats what keeps us safe is the knowing of its not real or couldn't happen to you,its just a story,a game,a movie,a work of fiction fabricated by another person with the intent to instill those emotions from you. That dread,anxiety and fear of the unknown which is also what gets people interested now isnt it,thats the interesting part is how we morbidly wanna learn more despite how messed up something may be,alas thats also subjective as different minds and body's feel fear differently. Some have past trama causing certain events to trigger memories and kick in survival or PTSD,others get fear because they don't understand or are weirded out by something,the fear of the unknown which could also be called dread but I digress. Dread is to have great apprehension of or fear of something in anticipation which could mean anything from an upcoming school/work event to being brutally murdered in your sleep to being stalked in the woods. Point is dread is the key factor to fear however thats also a very bold statement as I said fear is individualized meaning what one creature is "scared" but another creature wouldn't even bat an eye or move a muscle so how would dread or terror play into those two differently? Thats the point of the question now isnt it after all,what really is horror,what truly is horrific? When you personally think horrific that could mean a family member dying,you yourself dying or some kind of physical or possibly mental pain,actually maybe even emotional? As I said it differs so thats not important just yet,you may be unfazed by death,pain or all those negative sensations that are so overused. Due to our primal instinct and connection to them so how about something lets say something peaceful? How about a world so enrichingly calm its unbearable? A world where everything is just normal? Where nothing goes wrong and everything is as expected. This concept has been explored before obviously but I believe it could go farther. Some people veiw fear as only if it happened to them,hence why movies or stories involving break ins,stalkers,killers in the area,kidnapped children ect... scares,worries or concernes people because it could be or happen to them however as i said,its subjective and some people could care less where as others would be shacking in their boots. Some people veiw fear as physical like pain,a sudden noise,a flash or random event they hadn't planned for such as being jump scared or something falling over. As for physical some also fear pain but then we have to understand pain to realize why. Pain is your body sending signals to your brain telling you that it needs to move,stop or avoid the "pain" but mostly to avoid damage. This is also different for everyone as some people don't fear pain or feel it at all so they of course have no "fear" of it. Then theres people who fear mental trama like memory loss,being in a different timelines,being possessed and out of body or just overall the fear of not being in control. Now why would that be? We established people and creatures fear pain because baser insticts insight to avoid damage. Same could be said for less physical damage but also tie together for when you are not in control you now fear the unknown,you could harm yourself,someone else,do something you wouldn't normally do and that could be frightening,I personally think lack of control is our species biggest "fear" but that matters little. We can also fear mental pain as emotional trama which could be caused from a physical event resulting in mental damage,being attacked or almost killed,growing up in certain environments,watching something traumatic but when i say this its also subjective. As you know different creatures view "trama" different like how a dog gets trust issues from an abusive owner someone in an abusive relationship may also get trust issues,now that ties into our brain linking the physical with mental. When you are hurt or upset by something your brain logs that for if it happens again how to deal with it,repetition essentially. So when you are afraid of something caused by mental or physical "trama" then thats your brain remembering something similar and avoiding the aforementioned damage. Now that we've talked about all that lets go back to that question,what makes good horror? What makes something horrific? My answer would be whatever that individual perseves as unknown,damaging,painful,uncontrollable yada yada yada. If i kept going it would repeat the same words,damage and uncontrolled. The two things we as a species are "afraid" of by instict after all,so the answer is actually up to you isn't it,no matter my opinion yours is still all yours after all. Another touch is the fear of ghosts,clowns and the different variations such as phobias,why fear a spider when you know you yourself can avoid or not be harmed by it,why people with a phobia of holes on skin fear it and are uneased by it when it has no ability to harm them. Thats the beauty of it now isn't it, also music,when we hear sounds from certain items we may feel anxiety,stress,pain,sorrow,anger,happiness and all these emotions just from a simple orchestra with certain instruments played in certain tones,like hearing nails on a chalk board makes people grit their teeth and hearing doors creek make people anxious,we feel fear through virtually everything now dont we,in some manor we can feel fear from the smallest or biggest things,take being afraid of bees verses being afraid of getting lost in the ocean,two completely different events yet they can share the same level of anxiety,stress,fear and dread as one another. However fear is dread,dread is terror and terror is horror,they all tie in together in the end to form different genres as I said different levels of fear,in the end it all boils down to fear itself which is in my veiw all mental plus physical working together,how your brain responds to certain sounds,smells,tastes,sights and feelings,fear is not just fear for it is a plethora of mixed feelings from everything. I mean some people fear happiness what is known as the best feeling,some people fear commitment,being judged,upsetting/disappointing someone or something but why is that? It could be for hundreds of differing reasons honestly. Someome could fear commitment due to past failures,being betrayed,lied to ect... which their brain renders as repetition so when the allure of commitment is at hand your brain remembers those events and avoids the "damage" when there may be none on the surface however thats another issue,what may be damaging or harmful to one person isnt to another,even tho they may be fine to them commitment could be hurting the other person emotionally which causes more rendering from the brain essentially causing more damage. The same can be said about being judged and upsetting someone,some people fear being judged cause they dont want the person they don't wanna upset being upset with them,key words being "with them" as it could change their view of them,make them feel different to them or even change their judgments of them. So they don't wanna upset them out of fear of being judged or vise versa resulting in a sense of dread when someone may get upset like learning a secret,confessing something you did or just admitting something to them that may make them judge you. These types of fear differ vastly from the gernal consensus of "horror" now dont they,when you think horror its usually not a teenager worried their parents are gonna judge them or a grown adult dreading he or she may get fired and have to find ways to survive. When most people think horror they dont think subtle nuances like mood swings,people changing overtime,little events causing underlying repetitious brain activity within people. "Horror" is much more than physical and what is "horrific" will always differ for the individual that feels it,to instill fear is to invoke these feelings from the person at hand,now how you do that may varry,with how different everyone is theres no way to instill fear from one story,movie,game ect... into everyone but there are plenty of ways to target people which is what most "horror" does by going for the primal fight or flight instincts,some digs into mental horror or even sometimes spiritual but I think true horror or should you say fear is all these things,small medium or big tied in one,fear is and always will be in the eye or I guess should you say mind and body of the beholder. With this discussion relatively done I think I should say I hope any of you that have finished this will enjoy my horror stories I will be writing,I wrote this as an authors perspective on what we view as horror before I begin my book of horror. I hope anyone reading had to think alittle or enjoyed my little subjective unbiased bases into my personal favorite genre,even if you didnt thats fine too as its all subjective after all its in the eye of the beholder now isnt it. Before you go may I ask,what makes a horror story good~?