Genre Fluid

Genre Fluid by Alethea Lyons I have a long-running debate with a friend. She insists I write horror. I staunchly deny this (as a complete wuss) and say I write very dark SFF. My first published short story is about a brainwashed child forced to commit murder. Read as a standalone, it seems like horror and it is in a horror anthology. However, it’s based on backstory for a book that is firmly science-fantasy. Where is the line between dark fantasy and horror? My usual measure is based on the primary aim of the book. Is it a story about magic or other fantastical things that uses horror elements, like a creepy atmosphere or twisted psychological motivations? Or is it a story written specifically to disturb the reader and evoke a sense of fear that uses fantastical elements like supernatural creatures? Regardless of the author’s overall intention, certain words put our minds straight into one genre or the other. If someone says ‘zombies’ or ‘vampires’ my brain immediately defaults to horror, despite both of these being fantastical creatures. If we start talking about straight-up magic or more stereotypical SFF creatures like dwarves, my mind goes to fantasy. The word ‘necromancer’ certainly sounds like horror, but Gideon the Ninth is a bit of everything. Elves in folklore can be nasty pieces of work and songs like Seven Hundred Elves describe them as ‘foul and grim’ and that they intend to ‘make [the farmer] rue the day he was born and taste of shame and pain’ which certainly sounds like it’s straying into horror to me, especially combined with the fact that they’re banished by a religious symbol. Horror and dark fantasy both explore something that is beyond the day-to-day knowledge of humans. They both investigate things that scare us. Sometimes they...
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