A Plea to Writers of Horror and Mysteries

To all my fellow novelists, including historical novelists, and in particular those who write mysteries and horror fiction, I offer this heartfelt plea.

I beg you, when you seek to enhance the creepiness factor of the atmosphere of your chilling tale -- leave people with disabilities out of it, OK?

I just finished reading Philippa Gregory's The Wise Woman. It is a horror novel, though it took me some time to figure out that was why it was so unceasingly grim. When I cam to the realization I forgave the book some of its odder aspects, but one item that had puzzled me now really ticked me off. There is a character, David, whom the "heroine" Alys assumes at first to be a jester, but he turns out to be a seneschal and canny as all get out. It was understanding that the novel was paranormal horror that explained to me why he was in the story. He was there to help make it creepier.

How often do authors use people with disabilities to add to the creepiness factor? I remember in Tom Tryon's The Dark Secret of Harvest Home the first eerie scene involves the main character, just moved to the scary New England town, keeps hearing someone reading aloud from The Three Musketeers. Oh my God, it's coming from the house next door! The protagonist is creeped out, but he finally takes his courage in his hands and goes over to find out what arcane practice is going on. It turns out, as I know of course, that his nextdoor neighbor is blind. And, horrors, he's listening to a Tallkign Book!!! If this is the sort of thing that scares you, come on over to my house. I have a book going all the time.

I am sure if we put our heads together we could list dozens of characters in books we have read who are disabled in some way and who are there to add to the creepiness of the story. If you throw fat people in for good measure, you will find many, many more. Stephen King is not above it, or he used not to be, with the superhuman but nevertheless ideal victim of the blind radio broadcaster in Black House. Now that King is himself legally blind, I wonder if he regrets that choice?

Maybe it's hard to understand why this offends me. The easiest way to get this across to you is to ask you to choose some other group of people to put in those roles. My guess is that you will find the characters unsatisfyingly uncreepy or downright offensive in their stereotypes. The thing is, just being disabled, or fat or gay or old, does not make one creepy or sinister or threatening. Here, I'll ask my husband. As a blind person am I creepy? He answered, "No! Who says you're creepy?"

If you don't believe him, come on over. Let's see if I creep you out. If not, I guess you will just have to be a good writer without using easy gimmicks.