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Published Mar. 17, 2024

A critique I’m rather use to hearing at this point is that my book is too short. This was a pretty major problem when I first presented it, at five chapters, to my publishers and editor. My editar, Noa Brooks, gave me a goal of 12K words.

In reality, I was excited to get to it! There were a lot of ideas that I had that I didn’t put down because I wasn’t sure if giving Whybee an arc would ruin the comfort message I wanted to sen my readers. But, in truth, I was thrilled to make Whybee a fuller person. Someone who had a real voice. However, when I sat down to write more, I realized that I couldn’t. In fact, the more words I added, the more weight was put onto my hands and fingers. For the first time, I was struggling with creating more.

In school, I would turn single page assignments into fifteen. I lavished in palaces of paragraphs (hehe, Hamilton) and took pride in my ability to create more work for myself when it came to creative exploration. But when it came to Whybee, there simply wasn’t anything left to explore that could add meaning or purpose to their being.

I wrote Whybee, originally, for people who struggled to be loved. I think of my boyfriend who hates himself, or my best friend who cares more about her moral choices than her personal well being. I wanted to give them something that loved them unconditionally, through the eyes of an object. Something that wasn’t human. It would mean giving them a means to love themselves through something, instead of someone.

It’s important, isn’t it? That something relies on us. That something, no matter how small, looks up at us as though we are the whole world? That’s why we like animals, isn’t it? That’s why we like creating. If they couldn’t love themselves, if they couldn’t trust people to love them, maybe they could trust that a small book, optimistic and bright, would always love them no matter their flaws or mistakes. That they could be the worst version of themselves and mean the world.

Sometimes I feel less like a human, and more like a creature or cryptid bound to human flesh. My existence is surreal, time is surreal. Breathing is surreal, but it’s amazing. To understand that you are alive. That you are still here. That you have proof. Often, I think about dying. It’s something I’m going to have to go through one day. Rather I accept it or not, it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be scary. When I know that it’s going to end this way, tasks become so much more overwhelming. It’s the most I can do to stop thinking about it, and to stay awake for as long as I can. Experience life for as long as I am able, so that if I die in a sad way, perhaps I still got the most of it. 

In a way, I am Whybee. Not really, but they hold so many aspects of myself. They, too, fear dying. They, too, love breathing. But not only that, they are aspects of others, people that I admire. When you are being loved by Whybee, you are being loved by fractions of my life.

But that’s how all books are. Books are the souls of their writers.

And Whybee was meant to be short. In the beginning, merely for testing things out. But, also, short for people who struggled with reading. People like me. But, also, like the people from my schools, where reading was a chore or a burden. The people who refused to read my work because it was too long, or because they’re not a reader. And Whybee was meant to be short because it doesn’t need to be any longer. They don’t need to be dragged out. You want more from it because it’s a good thing, but if there were more, it would only repeat and stale. I think of shows that have folded in on themselves and become nothing. I think of Gravity Falls, which seems to have ended bother perfectly and too soon. Less can be more.

But, most of all, Whybee was meant to be short because this is simply where they are. 12K to 15K– that was the goal. I got to 11K.

Whybee is easy. They are comprehensible, and they are brilliant. They are short. Short like words. Short like sentences. Short like attention. Short like life.

Published Nov. 2, 2023

You could probably start a drinking game about how many times a blog post talking about horror starts out with “as Halloween approaches” or something like that. Personally, I’ve always found that introductions are a bit of a waste of time outside of giving the most miniscule of information before getting into the main meat behind the skeleton. So let’s just get to the point: why is an author who seemingly has nothing to do with horror blogging about the horror genre?

Outside of horror being the first genre baby-me decided to write in, it just stands that horror, itself, is very dear to me. While Whybee may not be in the horror genre, I have a love and passion for all things considered scary! Which is why it’s so heartbreaking that a vast majority of movies, shows, games, and even books completely misunderstand what makes horror good.

I won’t go into details about why humans, as a species, biologically find themselves attracted to scary things. There are plenty of YouTube videos and self diagnosed experiences that you can pull from to get that idea. Rather, I want to talk about horror as an artform, because that’s what made me truly fall in love.

In fantasy you have the exploration of adventure and magic, in romance you have love and drama, and in horror you have self awareness. Although tied into fear and suspense, horror is much more than jump scares or monsters. Like all forms of literary art, horror is meant to ask the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the characters. What would you do if you had to make a tough choice in a fantasy setting? How would you salvage a failing relationship if you were in a romantic subplot? How would it feel to watch your own body rot before your eyes due to an incurable disease?

Only in horror do you become aware of your own weight. Where else would you be able to feel yourself die and yet be perfectly fine? Horror gives you the ability to grow from traumatic events without personally experiencing them. That’s why I respect it, that’s part of why I adore it. Where else would you see unexplainable events or intricately designed monsters- heck, where else would you experience losing your own humanity?

While a big part of the attraction to horror comes from our fascination with horrible events, horror as an artform brings in such a unique spin that, if it were written in any other genera, would consider it to be changed into a dark-genera (dark romance, dark fantasy, dark comedy).

It’s true that when I first wrote horror stories, I went for the shock value. But now I see it as so much more, weaving the darker elements into my stories, not because it made them more interesting or surprising, but because it highlighted exactly how human everything truly is.

This is what most media get wrong. They take away the human. There’s nothing artistic about a jump scare made simply to shock the viewer. There’s nothing artistic about graphic violence simply there to be gross or cathartic(don’t worry, I’m one of those, too). And there’s most certainly nothing artistic about people having sex just so someone can get stabbed naked.

There’s also nothing human about it.

There’s no bigger realization or tie into the plot, it’s simply horror for the sake of horror. But what makes horror brilliant is when it’s horror for the sake of human.

Take the Human Centipede, for example. While some redheaded, cartoon-dog loving women have a suspiciously deep passion for the movie, it’s honestly a lot of wasted potential. Rather, a lot of the movie centers around shocking the viewer, not exploring the horrors of being turned into a monster against your will. It goes from a scientific exploration to a goose chase with an ending that, while would have worked in a different lighting, failed to truly embed the horror of the character’s situation.

I think the perfect comparison to make would be Saw. Throughout the first movie, we’re not only set up with the fact that they’ve already lost the key(a detail you might have forgotten by the time you reach the end) but we learn a great deal about the characters as they try to discover why they were chosen and what sacrifices they’ll have to make. When the man comes face to face with the realization that he’s going to die a slow and likely agonizing death, all of his desperation falls onto the viewers, as we’ve been made to learn about and even possibly relate to him before the doors close and the credits start to roll.

I used to hate the end of that movie. Not because I thought it was bad, but because the pity I felt for him as he screamed had buried itself into my soul like a parasite. Even still, it had always been one of my favorite movies.

Slasher films have become an entirely different problem, adding predictability into the mix. I can only think of two slasher movies that I genuinely enjoy, and only one of those I would hold in high regard as a great horror movie. The first being Freddy Krouger, as its addition of dreams and a paranormal-slasher makes it more interesting. The second, and the one I would use as an example of a slasher done right is Hush. The movie gives you the perfect amount of suspense and small wins as you root for the main protagonist against her home invader. The premise is unique and fresh compared to other slasher films (to which I’m not even sure I can call this slasher horror, but it DOES include a killer who manages to take down one person in the beginning of the movie) and it doesn’t ruin the premise by making it overly gruesome or ruining the suspense with something blatant. (That said, it's been a while since I've seen the movie, so take this with a grain of salt.)

Another problem with horror movies in media is that some movies have been whittled down to “justice served”. You have a group of people, wherein one person is the jerkwad, so when he dies, it’s satisfying. You’re even rooting for them to die throughout the movie! And while I absolutely love this as a casual watcher, from the perspective of someone with a deep respect for what horror can mean, I hate it. It nullifies the effect of death.

What makes someone deserving of death? Could you, realistically, look someone in the eyes and decide, “Yeah, they deserve to die.” At what point is there a line between a stray opinion and a strong belief? Isn’t the thought that you should decide someone’s death a bit animalistic?

The example of this that comes to mind is the Public Execution Trap from Saw Seven. The men decide that the woman who was cheating on them should die- this, in of itself, seems fine. They’re put on the spot, in a life and death situation with the question of who’s deserving to die. However, the meaning of putting this in the movie wasn’t to add to the plot, but was to add to the gore and satisfaction of death.

For the audience, death is not death. It is a punishment. It dulls the meaning of what it is to kill someone and erases the horror aspects of the ultimate end by truly making it a game. And the worst thing about that is, I’ve seen this pattern of thinking play out in actual people, during day to day life.

Someone doesn’t stay in their lane for a minute or so? They deserve death. Someone says something stupid online? They deserve death. Someone kills an innocent person? They deserve death.

I know that last one is a bit much. If they’re willing to kill someone, shouldn’t we be allowed to pass that same judgment onto them? But that’s not the point, and I’m not trying to start an argument. The point is that, by saying someone is deserving of death, we are molding ourselves into hypothetical murderers. If you were to kill someone for their deeds, are you any better than they are?

Why did horror forget this about humanity? This specific discussion, which seems so human, is entirely erased for the sake of morbid satisfaction. There’s nothing scary about dying anymore, it’s just the end of the character on your screen. That’s the biggest issue with this, the dullness of death for the man with the sharpest tongue.

Although it’s significantly harder to find great horror, they are out there. Some of the best horror medias are niche outside of their respective communities, while some we can pull from older years. And every once in a while, we get hit with a modern classic, a horror movie that’s completely fresh!

Such a horror movie would be Babadook. Babadook relies on suspense by subverting the viewer’s expectations to see a jump scare. It also relies on sensory details to heighten how uncomfortable the viewer becomes. The most important aspect, however, is the story that the Babadook tells. Everything that we see is rooted into the mother’s mind- essentially, this is one of the cases where we’re watching a movie from an unreliable narrator’s perspective. While this movie is, by no means, perfect, the way in which it chooses to tell its story is exactly what makes horror worth investing in.

A movie that takes this concept and does it even better would be the animated movie Perfect Blue. Perfect Blue is a blend of identity crisis and personality disorders made to confuse the viewers, as though they, themselves, are the characters. Mixed with beautiful symbolism, this movie remains to be one of my favorites in the horror genre- highlighting mental disintegration in a way that doesn’t frame people with mental disorders as crazed murderers, but as victims of their own minds.

However, horror isn’t JUST found in movies- horror can be found in games and music, perhaps even in dance and most certainly is found among illustrations. And I’m not saying that the only good horrors come from deep and meaningful media, more about what it becomes to those who consume it. 

For instance: Rule of Rose. Although it’s notorious for tedious gameplay (and was also sort of banned, oops) those who have come to love the game love it because of what it’s become. It touches on subjects of abuse and what it means to grow up as a young girl under terrible circumstances. Rule of Rose is a dog-eat-dog world, but born from a copied pattern used to cope with the decaying world around them.

Horror music is able to touch on the literal horrors of depression, religious trauma, and bullying all without becoming overly complicated or talking down to the listeners. One of the most infamous songs in this genre is Bacterial Contamination by Kanimiso-P and Deino, depicting horror elements into its style of music and in the music video. Because of their way of displaying the effects of bullying, it is able to be looked at from a more serious angle- that’s the beauty of horror elements. That’s part of what makes it so human.

Speaking of horror elements, when used in media where horror isn’t the genre, it greatly improves the messages that creators are trying to get across. And, yes, this is an excuse to talk about my all time favorite anime- Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Not even TOUCHING the artistic decisions when designing the witch mazes and soundtrack choice, Madoka Magica is a masterpiece that easily balances hope and despair using horror elements to highlight the dangers of being a magical girl. Without these horror elements, Madoka Magica loses what grounds it. (That’s not to say horror is all the show relies on, but that it’s a big part in how viewers perceive what they’re consuming.)

A more relatable show to talk about would be Courage the Cowardly Dog, which blends horror elements onto comedy in a tasteful and easy to understand way. Or Invader Zim, which puts more emphasis on the bizarre and dark than the scary. These shows aren’t necessarily horror, but the concepts, alone, are horrifying. And the way in which they choose to portray those concepts creates the way the audience understands the media they’re watching. 

What makes these shows, movies, and music stand out, however, is not only the tools they use and the way they use them, but the way in which we relate to them. The art of horror is embedded in reality, a show of the twisted that’s so deeply known to us as human beings that we see ourselves in them.

The reason I love horror is because it nurtures the parts of me that were neglected. I see a monster design and become excited by its uniqueness, I watch Perfect Blue and become blown away by its beauty, and I listen to GHOST and am reminded of the parts of me that adore dark aspects of nightmares- because I admire the way that horror media can tell stories. Where else could I learn to survive my own fears?

But I look at newer movies and shows catering to those who love horror, and I just ask myself “Why?” Why has horror simply become all about blood or all about ghosts or all about, yet another, man wanting to stab someone to death? When did people forget that horror is an artform, and not a list of “scary” things to show on television?

That’s why I’ve grown to hate horror media. It’s taken something meaningful and unique and turned it into predictable content filled with sex scenes and an excuse to blandingly jump scare the audience. In the end, there’s nothing worthwhile that you get from them.

SOURCES AND USEFUL LINKS

Bacterial Contamination producer and music video: https://vocaloid.fandom.com/wiki/%E7%B4%B0%E8%8F%8C%E6%B1%9A%E6%9F%93_(Saikin_Osen)

Bacterial Contamination video: https://youtu.be/tktcOUi-x-A?si=5WSYvmx8jKeTJ71V

Rule of Rose video: https://youtu.be/R8wvM5EmK1w?si=RxgrARVhi7KyJs7I

Babbadook video: https://youtu.be/Z7XzkX4e-HY?si=ZELOL6CdVyu0T39I

Human Centipede video: https://youtu.be/lncp53hiL3s?si=-KVuj2MO9pdxkDtz

Red Flags (referenced): https://youtu.be/GFokXnCCMf8?si=js1cSuywRIa_rlqO

Saw video: https://youtu.be/qYuV9IeJEME?si=PSYAxOoXvI6mC8E0

Hush video: https://youtu.be/7vgDBEfI28U?si=tZ8QKK-j-8x9NyMw

Puella Magi Madoka Magica video: https://youtu.be/juWylcSonMo?si=PoONnj7ewnnPYmPk