Horror Happens

The world is full of nasty, scary, horrible things that can kill you, or worse. So we've all been wired with some powerful programming to keep us out of danger. It's called FEAR, and it's one of the most basic, powerful emotions we have. Not just humans, but just about everything that can move knows what fear is.

As a writer, you can use this to your advantage.

Readers enjoy a good scare. If you want to create a horror story, start by thinking about what people are naturally afraid of. We came up with a long list that included things like darkness, mean dogs, unexpected noises, monsters under the bed, and Elmo.

When you write a horror story, you create a cycle of ANTICIPATION and DELIVERY. Let the reader know something bad is coming. Churn up some gut-twisting anxiety. Stretch it out, make it worse and worse, and then, bam! The bad thing happens, in all of its horror. And it had better be even worse than expected or your reader isn't going to experience the same anticipation next time. Once one horrible thing happens, you can continue to build up for the next horrible thing, all the way until you get to the climax of your story. Throughout this cycle, remember the importance of escalation. You don't want the scariest thing to happen at the start of the story. You want to save the worst for last.

One of the worst tortures for readers is seeing a character that they care about make a bad decision that puts them in danger. This works not only for horror stories, but for any kind of story. Nothing makes a reader scream, "NO!!!" like a character who does something stupid that you know just can't turn out well. Be sure your characters make a few poor choices, and then slam them with the full consequences.

Just a final word on endings. It's a convention of the horror genre to have an ending in which the woodsman shows up to rescue Red and Granny, or the monster just falls off the Empire State Building and dies, or some other resolution that really had nothing to do with the actions of the main character. In a way, that's fine, since the point of horror is that something really bad is happening and we're powerless to stop it, so if we're powerless to stop it then something has to swoop in and save us. On the other hand, this kind of ending can be a little unsatisfactory. Consider your other options, like having your characters come up with some clever way to fight the horror that is stalking them, or, on the other hand, you could let the horror win.

Happy Halloween and keep writing!