Talk:List of horror fiction writers

Indiscriminate collection of information?

What are the standards of inclusion here? Dunsany wrote one or two horror stories out of hundreds; are we to include Charles Dickens or Louisa May Alcott, who also wrote some stories "to make the flesh creep"? Or Shakespeare, for Titus Andronicus? And if so, where does this list stop? Septentrionalis 17:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

What is the point of this page? Why not just use categories?--65.30.35.19 15:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Perhaps this article should be divided into "primary horror fiction writers" (i.e. those who primarily write horror fiction--approximately 30% or more of their works?--like Stephen King, Anne Rice, or Ray Bradbury) and "minor horror fiction writers" (authors who have written "a few" (less than20-30%) horror-genre works but primarily specialize in other genres)?Gniob (talk)

I would suggest using something like Stephen King's Danse Macabre, in which he takes great pains to define what constitutes "horror" fiction. (King's categories are basically: the vampire; the werewolf; the ghost; and the "thing without a name".) Of course, you still may have trouble drawing a sharp line. Dickens, for example, wrote a good many ghost stories -- more than some primary horror writers total output -- yet they were but a small part of Dickens output.

I like the idea, though, of a split list with "primary" and "secondary" sections. Dunsany, Dickens, Alcott, and Shakespeare would surely make the "secondary" list, at least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 21:15, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Formatting

Is there some way to format the list into three or four columns to reduce scroll time? It would make it much more likely that people would see authors past B.Gniob (talk) 21:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

WorldCat Genres

Hello, I'm working with OCLC, and we are algorithmically generating data about different Genres, like notable Authors, Book, Movies, Subjects, Characters and Places. We have determined that this Wikipedia page has a close affintity to our detected Genere of horror-fiction. It might be useful to look at [1] for more information. Thanks. Maximilianklein (talk) 23:33, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Cause of death

Why is it relevant that Bruno Schulz (1892–1942, Poland) was a holocaust victim? Of all the authors on the list he is the only one where the cause of death is mentioned. So why not add heart attacks, accidents, suicides and murders regarding all the other authors? This is a list of horror writers, their nationality and when they were born and when they died. That's it. Except for Bruno Schulz obviously.

(Also, Supernatural Fiction Database is a good place to start if someone wants to look for names for those who wants to create a new Wikipedia article about a horror author that still doesn't have an article) 46.212.117.57 (talk) 22:29, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@Bmcln1: I agree with the previous writer that the cause of death for Bruno Schulz should be removed from the article. Perhaps you would like to give your reasons why you think otherwise? I want to emphasize that I do not at all want to say that that cause of death is not relevant. But I think it should be treated within the Bruno Schulz article, not in the list. Because, as has been said, it would be the only exception in all of the list where we give such a biographical piece of information. Daranios (talk) 11:22, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Images

I added images of Stephen King and Mary Shelley, whom I reckon to be the two most "canonical" examples of horror fiction writers (I could also see an argument for e.g. H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe). We may want to add more images, but I think we should try to keep various forms of WP:Systemic bias in mind. Right now we have an even split between men and women (one each), and representation of quite different periods in time, but unfortunately only English-language authors. TompaDompa (talk) 15:54, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Current criteria for inclusion

The criterion for the current version of the article is "notable author who has published significant work in the horror genre". Author notability to be demonstrated by the presence of their own Wikipedia article meeting WP:GNG (so no redlinks), and work significance being demonstrated by a citation here showing the independent notability of one of their horror works, or its presence in a WP:RS "best of" list.

To reiterate: merely being listed in the horror writer category on WP is insufficient for inclusion here; a citation showing they have published significant work in the horror genre is needed. — The Anome (talk) 16:15, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Film and TV writers?

At the moment, this list just includes writers of books and short stories; should we also have screenwriters here? — The Anome (talk) 22:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I say stick to literature. Screenwriters (and for that matter songwriters and writers of any other forms of media there might be) would be better to cover separately, if at all. The qualitative differences are so pronounced that it's basically an apples-to-oranges situation. TompaDompa (talk) 22:40, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you're right. It would probably make sense to make separate lists of List of horror film screenwriters and List of horror film directors. — The Anome (talk) 09:38, 5 November 2024 (UTC)