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Horror is about making the reader uncomfortable, according to Bat Eater writer Kylie Lee Baker
Sure, seeing a dead body is scary, but finding yourself in an uncomfortable, almost alien situation is far worse, explains the Japanese Gothic author.
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How does a horror novel make sure people feel scared when everyone is afraid of different things? The trick, it seems, isn’t to rely just on gore or shock but to give the reader a general sense of discomfort. As Japanese Gothic author Kylie Lee Baker explained, the key to great horror is getting under the reader’s skin – figuratively rather than literally.
During a panel at BookCon 2026, Kylie Lee Baker explained that, while horror is a wonderfully varied genre, there is one element that needs to be present in any book she writes that is horror. “Well, for me, and I’m not saying this is The Way to Write Horror. This is just the way for me personally and how I write. When I write horror, compared to some of my Young Adult Fantasy work, even though that is very dark and gruesome, horror for me is about making the reader uncomfortable.”
In case you’re guessing that means the kind of gruesome displays you’ll see in the Saw franchise, Baker suggests a different kind of discomfort. “And that doesn’t necessarily have to be through gore or something stomach-churning and gross. It can also be through very harsh realities, like in my debut adult horror novel, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng; it centered around the theme of anti-Asian hate crimes and how being able to look away from that is a privilege that not everyone has. And so I think more so than the gratuitous gore and graphic on-page decapitation that takes place in that book, it was more about showing this very raw truth that is not sugar-coated in any way. Because the point is to make the reader uncomfortable because the world is not built for your comfort. Because you are not entitled to comfort in every single situation.”
Watch the full Horror as a Mirror, Horror as Escape: How Lived Experiences Shape Fictional Fears panel from BookCon 2026 here:
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