By The Fire, Episode 139: Challenge 3: 500 words non-fiction blog post

Hey Horror addicts, we just had our third challenge in the horroraddicts.net Next Great Writer Challenge. This episode’s challenge is to write a 500-word non-fiction blog post on something horror related. The contestants are judged on if it’s a good blog topic, topic interest and the quality of the writing.  This seems like an easy enough task but the question is what is a good enough subject to write about.

You could compare vampire novels, you could say who is scarier Frankenstein or The Wolfman, or you could just write about your favorite horror novel or movie. These topics almost seem too easy though. A better nonfiction horror topic would be how horror movies have changed over the decades. Or why does something that people thought of as scary in the 1930’s, not scare anyone today? You could also write a fun topic such as why are bad horror movies just as much fun to watch as good horror movies.

One topic that really interests me is how horror films can be metaphors on what scares us in society. In the 1930’s vampires were popular and I’ve heard some scholars say that vampires represented The Great Depression sucking the life out of people. I’ve also heard that zombies represent the idea of people losing their individuality and just mindlessly buying whatever product comes our way.

Another great topic would be how the female role has changed in horror films and books. In eighties slasher films and even going back further, women didn’t have very good roles in horror films. One may come out as a hero in the end but most of them did nothing but scream throughout the movie. In the horror films of today, women are just as tough as men and sometimes rescue the man rather than the other way around. When did this role change in horror movies? I wonder if it changed because filmmakers noticed that just as many women love horror movies as men.

This brings me to another good topic: what scares people and why? This is a broad topic and you could have 500 people write a blog post on it and each one would have a different answer. Horror seems simple but it is really a complex genre. What would your favorite nonfiction horror topic be to write about and why? Let us know in the comments, I’m dying to hear what you have to say on this one.