When I was little, I
always liked the villains the best.
Apparently that marked me
out quite early on as being ‘odd’ (or at least, a horror author in the making!)
but I don’t really think it was odd at all.
Initially, I think it was
a typical childish fascination with ‘scary’ things and a very marked desire to
be seen to brave with ease the things that other people found frightening. One
of my earliest memories is being taken to see Disney’s Snow White at a
long-since closed cinema in the big city. I was maybe five at the time (no, it
wasn't the original film release, I’m not quite that old!) and clearly recall
people warning me that I might be afraid of the witch. I wasn't afraid of her.
I thought she was brilliant. Aside from my obvious desire to prove them wrong
and show how brave I was, it was a genuine fascination. The witch in disguise
was interesting and cool, but the Evil Queen was beautiful. Why was evil always
so much better dressed? I think that was probably a big (and admittedly quite
shallow!) formative decider. The fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty were sparkly
and annoying, but Maleficent’s dragon was spectacular, and nobody was going to
diss her.
Peter Pan - despite his impressive abilities of flight - was twee,
not to mention sartorially challenged. Captain Hook, with his debonair swagger
and excellent hat, had my absolute allegiance from the off. Initially, it was
just that the baddies always seemed more interesting to me, but as I grew up,
something else crept in. It struck me that the villains of fairy tale, even when
not actually intrinsically evil, well - nobody really liked them. They seemed to have no friends. I began to empathize
with them. Of course, some characters are pretty irredeemable, but it’s that
type of ‘looks evil, therefore must be evil’ monster that started to really pique
my interest. The generic ‘run as soon as you spot it’ lumbering B-movie demon.
It looks horrible, so you know, instinctively, that it must be horrible. This didn't, and still
doesn't, sit right with me. I wanted to know the story behind the twisted old
lady living alone in the woods. I wanted to talk to the lonely ghosts from whom
people fled in fright before they even got out their first ‘boo’. I wanted to
make friends with the monsters.
So this is what has
shaped my writing style. My horror isn't meant to make people scared of
monsters: it wants to reassure them that the monsters are often nothing to be
scared of. There’s more of a challenge in helping people see the beauty in the
horrific and encourage them to sympathize with the ‘monsters’ than there is in
handing them a shotgun and pointing them, unquestioning, at the zombies.
Sometimes monsters look like monsters, but sometimes they don’t. And sometimes
the ‘monstrous’, if you only give it a chance, can be very beautiful indeed.
Die Booth lives in Chester, UK, in a tiny
house with four fire-places and enjoys old things, funny noises and exploring
dark places. Die’s work has featured in three Cheshire Prize for Literature
anthologies and has most recently appeared in The Fiction Desk, Litro, and
Prime’s ‘Bloody Fabulous’ anthology amongst others. You can also read several
of Die’s stories in the 2011 anthology ‘Re-Vamp’ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Re-Vamp-ebook/dp/B005UGJYEC/
co-edited by L.C. Hu. Forthcoming work is due to appear in ‘Gothic Blue Book
III’ from Burial Day Books and ‘The Art of Fairytales’ edited by Sarah Pasifull
Grant.
Die’s first novel ‘Spirit Houses’, a monster-friendly
supernatural tale of action, adventure and excellent Scotch, is available now
from the following outlets:
Paperback and e-book: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/diebooth
A fun blog, thanks -- and as a child I thought the Evil Queen was beautiful too!
ReplyDelete