The first time I read 'Guts', nobody fainted. My goal was just to write some new form of horror story, something based on the ordinary world. Without supernatural monster or magic. The would be a book you wouldn't want to keep next to your bed. A book that would be a trapdoor down into some place dark. A place only you could go, alone, when you opened the cover.
Because only books have that power.
A motion picture, or music, or television, they have to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadcast to a vast audience. Other forms of mass media cost too much to product to risk reaching only a limited audience. Only one person. But a book… A book is cheap to print and bind. A book is as private and consensual as sex. A book takes time and effort to consume - something that gives a reader every chance to walk away. Actually, so few people make the effort to read that it's difficult to call books a 'mass medium'. No one really gives a damn about books. No one has bothered to ban a book in decades.
But with that disregard comes the freedom that only books have. And if a storytelling is going to write novels instead of screenplays, that's a freedom you need to exploit. Otherwise, write a movie. That's where the big money's at. Write for television.
But, if you want the freedom to anywhere, talk about anything, then write books. That's why I wrote 'Guts'. Just a three-act short story based on true-life anecdotes.
People write to say this story is the funniest they've ever heard.
People write to say it's the saddest they've ever heard.
And 'Guts' is by no means the darkest or funniest or most upsetting story from the novel Haunted. Some, I didn't dare read in public.
These are the places that only books can go.
This is the advantage that books still have. This is why I write.
Thank you for reading my work.
Because only books have that power.
A motion picture, or music, or television, they have to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadcast to a vast audience. Other forms of mass media cost too much to product to risk reaching only a limited audience. Only one person. But a book… A book is cheap to print and bind. A book is as private and consensual as sex. A book takes time and effort to consume - something that gives a reader every chance to walk away. Actually, so few people make the effort to read that it's difficult to call books a 'mass medium'. No one really gives a damn about books. No one has bothered to ban a book in decades.
But with that disregard comes the freedom that only books have. And if a storytelling is going to write novels instead of screenplays, that's a freedom you need to exploit. Otherwise, write a movie. That's where the big money's at. Write for television.
But, if you want the freedom to anywhere, talk about anything, then write books. That's why I wrote 'Guts'. Just a three-act short story based on true-life anecdotes.
People write to say this story is the funniest they've ever heard.
People write to say it's the saddest they've ever heard.
And 'Guts' is by no means the darkest or funniest or most upsetting story from the novel Haunted. Some, I didn't dare read in public.
These are the places that only books can go.
This is the advantage that books still have. This is why I write.
Thank you for reading my work.
( Chuck Palahniuk )
[ Haunted ]
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