This is sort of ridiculous, but I've recently come to realize that I may be a horror writer. This shouldn't exactly take me by surprise as it was my genre of choice growing up, and honestly the only thing I really read (or watched) until my twenties.
But I never really thought that I was writing horror, mostly because I never really thought anything I was writing was particularly scary.
But some of my beta-readers seem to disagree. The word "creepy" gets tossed around a lot. I've also been favorably compared to Clive Barker and Richard Matheson (much to my delight). Which makes me start to seriously question whether I'm writing horror without even realizing it.
My concern is...is "creepy" enough? And would a horror audience have any patience for fantasy tropes (like, say, faeries. and unicorns. although the unicorns are flesh-eating scavengers, so...erm)? Is that basically what dark fantasy as a sub-genre exists *for* or am I deeply misunderstanding subgenres again (something I seem to do often lol)?
But I never really thought that I was writing horror, mostly because I never really thought anything I was writing was particularly scary.
But some of my beta-readers seem to disagree. The word "creepy" gets tossed around a lot. I've also been favorably compared to Clive Barker and Richard Matheson (much to my delight). Which makes me start to seriously question whether I'm writing horror without even realizing it.
My concern is...is "creepy" enough? And would a horror audience have any patience for fantasy tropes (like, say, faeries. and unicorns. although the unicorns are flesh-eating scavengers, so...erm)? Is that basically what dark fantasy as a sub-genre exists *for* or am I deeply misunderstanding subgenres again (something I seem to do often lol)?