Monday, July 15, 2019

technique - Mixing humour with horror in fiction


I got into trouble last year for submitting an assignment (Masters in Creative Writing) that included a story that sprinkled elements of humour (think Despicable Me) into a gritty and frankly disturbing tale of a homeless man swapping bodies/minds with a teenage girl (think Freaky Friday spiked with A Clockwork Orange).


The dismissal of my experiment still rankles; I think mostly because I didn't get an explanation I could use to progress my writing.


Under what circumstances would it be acceptable to mix humour with something approaching horror? If possible, can you give examples of novels/screenplays in which this has worked?





PS I looked at Is blending genres well received by readers? and found some good general advice about blending genres, but nothing that addresses the specific bleed style I am looking at. Similarly, Writing Across Multiple Genres is more about authors crossing genres rather than mixing them, as is Writing different genres.




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