The nature of fear

Welcome to the newly designed website. It was with great trepidation that I changed the title from the beautiful "All Hail the New Madness" to something as boring as my own name, but it's a bit more descriptive now. (Those of you reading this on LiveJournal still get the wonderful "The Church of the Inner Sight" there, however.) The previous layout was beginning to grate on me; it was too cluttered. This site simplifies things and presents what I think is a cleaner, handsomer site. I do hope you all agree.

In the midst of working, I took time out to see the film "Paranormal Activity", which is this decade's "Blair Witch Project" it seems. Regardless of how one felt about it or about the Project before it, it did start me thinking on the nature of fear. Why are we frightened?

The nature of fear, especially in horror films. Where does fear come from? It's juxtaposition, of course — finding something where it shouldn't be — but this is the same for comedy as well. So, if both comedy and fear share juxtaposition, where does one end and the other begin? How do we know which to feel? What makes something frightening when it's juxtaposed? Dreams are juxtaposed, and what makes that juxtaposition so affecting is the fact that no one reacts to the mismatch — it's treated as fine. But even that... in comedy the same thing happens. So what else could it be? Perhaps it's based on how impossible it is. Something we can't comprehend. Comedy of juxtaposition comes from finding something where it's not supposed to be, but horror of juxtaposition is finding something where it cannot possibly be. The horror comes from the feeling of confusion and incomprehensibility evoked by seeing the impossible. It feels as though our minds are not big enough to grasp what we are seeing — something that shatters our world — and that shock evokes fear. We fear the threat of our reality being harmed.

This is much different from the fear of our merely physical harm, another fear exploited in the Horror genre, but the fear there is quite different. It's not a fear born of juxtaposition. The killer at the door does not have to arrive in surprise for fear to be instilled — it's not the killers arrival that evokes the fear, rather what that killer represents: a threat to the physical being. This threat, though more identifiable to people, is a much more limited threat — at least in terms of effect on the reader/viewer. In horror that strictly deals with this brand (and often we called these "thrillers" instead of "horror") the fear is felt, but when the covers are closed or curtain goes up for the most part these fears dissipate. Or do they?

Of course, the two can appear at once — the strange monster with the sharp teeth — but it's arguable which of the fears is the more central. Perhaps this dichotomy — mind fear vs body fear — is another example of extremes that one ought to try and plough the ground between when writing supernatural fiction.

These are the things on my mind as of late, so forgive me if they appear a bit jumbled as I work through them. Understanding our fears is perhaps the best way I can think of to imbue my work with that frisson required to make it touch the reader's core.