So yesterday in Creative Writing, we were assigned to write a short story about a picture from this book. So as I love the Horror genre, I decided to write one. The problem is, I don't know how. Can anyone help me who has experience writing? Thanks.
Writing Horror?
- Thread starter Typical Cats
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As a rule of thumb, try to build atmosphere. If your character is in, say, a dark forest, show them reacting to random noises and being creeped out. Have some build-up before the main bad thing shows up.
Cliffhanger endings can also be good because they leave the protagonist's fate ambiguous.
Also, it would help if you posted the picture.
Cliffhanger endings can also be good because they leave the protagonist's fate ambiguous.
Also, it would help if you posted the picture.
hmmm, try and go outside the expected, prey upon the abject and atavistic fears that the human subconscious harbors. Twist the image as best you can.
I'm just gonna take a quote from Burn Notice.
"When you want to create fear, it?s best to keep it simple, The same thing people are afraid of as kids, scare them when they?re adults. Fear of the dark, for example. Fear of being alone. And above all, fear of the unknown."
It's difficult to accomplish the first two in a book, but even when your protagonist is alone things get creepy because there's no one to give reassurance or validate that things are fine, or even to agree that things are getting psycho. But mostly, for horror you want the reader's mind to be filled with questions that they can imagine all sorts of horrible answers to, but are never answered. "Why didn't Larry come back? He said he'd only be gone a few minutes..." "Someone was talking in the distance, but they were cut off mid-sentence and everything went quiet. What happened?"
A really effective horror writer would never even bother to show a body or anything explicit. The constant feeling of not being sure of what's going on is enough to drive people crazy.
"When you want to create fear, it?s best to keep it simple, The same thing people are afraid of as kids, scare them when they?re adults. Fear of the dark, for example. Fear of being alone. And above all, fear of the unknown."
It's difficult to accomplish the first two in a book, but even when your protagonist is alone things get creepy because there's no one to give reassurance or validate that things are fine, or even to agree that things are getting psycho. But mostly, for horror you want the reader's mind to be filled with questions that they can imagine all sorts of horrible answers to, but are never answered. "Why didn't Larry come back? He said he'd only be gone a few minutes..." "Someone was talking in the distance, but they were cut off mid-sentence and everything went quiet. What happened?"
A really effective horror writer would never even bother to show a body or anything explicit. The constant feeling of not being sure of what's going on is enough to drive people crazy.
I find horror rather hard to right nowadays cause everyone's so desensitized after the Saw series. Still, I would say go for something realistic. Fantasy horror is usually something hard to convey.
For example, my horror story was a man who snapped, and you would get conflicting views of reality, through the people around him and the main character, without a real break in any of it. It was something that could happen, and something that hits close to home.
... Infact, for Halloween that year, my friends and I designed our house to play out like the story (at least the beginning part) where a girl would look pregnant, then while she hands out candy one of us would pull her back and stab her and the baby doll inside her would fall out,a nd she would stumble out the door and look dead.
scared an awful lot of kids that year, and actually got the cops up there.
... but I rambled off. Just make it real, and have a lot of atmosphere to set the mood for it.
For example, my horror story was a man who snapped, and you would get conflicting views of reality, through the people around him and the main character, without a real break in any of it. It was something that could happen, and something that hits close to home.
... Infact, for Halloween that year, my friends and I designed our house to play out like the story (at least the beginning part) where a girl would look pregnant, then while she hands out candy one of us would pull her back and stab her and the baby doll inside her would fall out,a nd she would stumble out the door and look dead.
scared an awful lot of kids that year, and actually got the cops up there.
... but I rambled off. Just make it real, and have a lot of atmosphere to set the mood for it.
This might not help you much, but the key to horror writing is making sure that is believable. That's it's not just a story in a book, but it is something that is very real and you might be the next victim. You need to sell fear: you might be next
go with details. give details to everything but the source of the horror, and if you just need to describe the horror, only give an inkling as to what the thing is. the juxtaposition between the details of the things in the stories with the indescribability and vagueness of the spooky bits makes the story hit on a deeper level.
Just as well, fuck hope. Good horror has no happy ending, there is no true denoument, no final resolution. Life is ambiguous, and so should your your story end in the grey, so that it'll stay in a dudes head after they read it.
That's what I've always figured, and if all else fails, copy Lovecraft.
Just as well, fuck hope. Good horror has no happy ending, there is no true denoument, no final resolution. Life is ambiguous, and so should your your story end in the grey, so that it'll stay in a dudes head after they read it.
That's what I've always figured, and if all else fails, copy Lovecraft.
Horror in that people might check their closets once or twice after reading? I dunno, be vague like the eyes you can't see but always feel. Perhaps include a suggestion of the supernatural, something unrecorded by the world thusfar. (as far as the public is concerned) It could be about something ordinary viewed in a new light (or lack thereof) with unneccesary detail and what may be foreshadowing.
Taking out the garbage: "Here again, as always, most every day and night, in the night, alone, my own footsteps the only describable sound. I can see by the flickering streetlight, always flickering every damn time, I've lost count of how many times they've tried to fix it, but forever it blinks at the shadows, I can see the box of refuse and useless materials I'm soon to contibute to. Leaving the bags with a noise, I hear the familiar voices, all wordless and incoherant but deafening nonetheless. "Sometimes," I think aloud, "I wish I could explain it to them." The thought occurs perhaps it comes from the freshly deposited sacks, if such is the case maybe I'll explain it all next time... Before they go in the bags."
It is imperitive you not use what was thrown together before going to sleep, however.
Goodnight.
Taking out the garbage: "Here again, as always, most every day and night, in the night, alone, my own footsteps the only describable sound. I can see by the flickering streetlight, always flickering every damn time, I've lost count of how many times they've tried to fix it, but forever it blinks at the shadows, I can see the box of refuse and useless materials I'm soon to contibute to. Leaving the bags with a noise, I hear the familiar voices, all wordless and incoherant but deafening nonetheless. "Sometimes," I think aloud, "I wish I could explain it to them." The thought occurs perhaps it comes from the freshly deposited sacks, if such is the case maybe I'll explain it all next time... Before they go in the bags."
It is imperitive you not use what was thrown together before going to sleep, however.
Goodnight.
I really wish I could upvote posts, because you could not be more correct.Elcarsh said:
Minus points for reminding me of the Black Plague monsters and ruining tonight's dreams, though. Bad form.
Hum... not a particularly good horror writer, but here I go, nonetheless:
1) Be very descriptive (increase level of description, though maintaining conciseness, as you go along).
2) Continually intensify sensory perceptions (to the point of sensory overload i.e. what the character hears/sees/touches/smells)
3) Gradually remove the character's emotions as the story progresses (that way, the reader slowly implants their own onto the character)
4) The only emotiveness you want within the 'genuine horror' part is the removal of hope and instead having absolute despair, but you do that by description of the surroundings, rather than what the character is going through, since writing is more about imagination than presentation, hence once the reader is doing the imagining for themselves, that's the scare. This means pacing the narrative a la 'the Picture in the House' (yes, that's Lovecraft), which is rather more creepy than scary.
$0.02 for what it's worth.
1) Be very descriptive (increase level of description, though maintaining conciseness, as you go along).
2) Continually intensify sensory perceptions (to the point of sensory overload i.e. what the character hears/sees/touches/smells)
3) Gradually remove the character's emotions as the story progresses (that way, the reader slowly implants their own onto the character)
4) The only emotiveness you want within the 'genuine horror' part is the removal of hope and instead having absolute despair, but you do that by description of the surroundings, rather than what the character is going through, since writing is more about imagination than presentation, hence once the reader is doing the imagining for themselves, that's the scare. This means pacing the narrative a la 'the Picture in the House' (yes, that's Lovecraft), which is rather more creepy than scary.
$0.02 for what it's worth.
As you've probably noticed from reading the various posts, there really isn't a consensus on what makes a good horror story, it's true in film, and it's even more true in the narrative form. Unlike films, however, the narrative form really can't rely on cheap tricks (it's almost impossible to startle someone [read 'make them jump'] with narrative, the little impact that gore has is reduced even further, atmosphere is a lot harder to develop, etc...), so with narrative you're going to have to develop something which makes the person sitting in their chair looking at words on a page feel uncomfortable in their immediate environment. If you can't do that, it's not horror, it's action with a horror aesthetic (which is often mistaken for horror, but is different. For an example, think about the Resident Evil films, they're not scary, they're action with a horror aesthetic).
Now, you can take my advice as you will. I haven't written horror in a long time, as writing horror has long since ceased to be an aspiration of mine. But I used to write horror back in the day, I also read from books on theory and from some of the better (and a couple of the worse) authors in the genre as well.
My suggestion is that if you want to scare your reader, there are some things which can help a lot. The first, is make the threatening force in your story something which they feel could easily show up in their own environment. One of the best examples I can think of in this regard is the Mothman Prophecies (although it's worth noting that it's author, Mr. Keel is a real UFOlogist, and claims the story is real. Whether it is or not, that kind of treatment really ups the ante because that irrational part of the mind which deals with fear keeps asking "what if it was true?") The entity you see in that story is capable of appearing anywhere, lurking outside your window, speaking to you out of your bathroom sink, making cryptic phone calls, etc... When you read the story, you begin to feel afraid when you get up at night to go to the bathroom, or look out the window at night.
So set your story at home, for authors without a large backlog of experience, this is good advice regardless of genre. You already know what a home feels like, where creepy things could hide, and what would really send shivers up your own spine. Use that to your advantage.
Some things to avoid are cheap tricks like ultraviolence and gore. While I have been known to go on long rants about the myriad of things that H.P. Lovecraft does wrong, one of the things he does so right that it almost makes up for the many serious flaws in his writing, is that he doesn't show or tell, he suggests. Violence and gore are at best temporarily disturbing, but the suggestion that even now something evil is lurking around any given corner, that's the kind of thing which festers.
Also, while there are exceptions, some well worn monsters like zombies, werewolves, and vampires aren't really all that scary. Pick an entity which is almost more existential in the threat it offers, strange spectral entities, demons, extraterrestrials, or, even better, don't make it clear at all exactly what is behind the scary shit that's going down. The less you show your monster, the more you let your readers insert their own fears into your story. Take advantage of that. One other big advantage that these less tangible threats offer, is that they can't be easily fought against. Feeling powerless is a powerful emotion, it's absolutely terrifying, and the less your characters are able to fight back (suggesting by extension, that the ability your reader has to fight back would be lesser), the scarier your story will be. Of course, a human "monster" can also be used to great effect, questioning whether evil lies in the person riding next to you on the train, chatting with you in the office, or even sleeping next to you in bed, that shit can get scary.
Now, you can take my advice as you will. I haven't written horror in a long time, as writing horror has long since ceased to be an aspiration of mine. But I used to write horror back in the day, I also read from books on theory and from some of the better (and a couple of the worse) authors in the genre as well.
My suggestion is that if you want to scare your reader, there are some things which can help a lot. The first, is make the threatening force in your story something which they feel could easily show up in their own environment. One of the best examples I can think of in this regard is the Mothman Prophecies (although it's worth noting that it's author, Mr. Keel is a real UFOlogist, and claims the story is real. Whether it is or not, that kind of treatment really ups the ante because that irrational part of the mind which deals with fear keeps asking "what if it was true?") The entity you see in that story is capable of appearing anywhere, lurking outside your window, speaking to you out of your bathroom sink, making cryptic phone calls, etc... When you read the story, you begin to feel afraid when you get up at night to go to the bathroom, or look out the window at night.
So set your story at home, for authors without a large backlog of experience, this is good advice regardless of genre. You already know what a home feels like, where creepy things could hide, and what would really send shivers up your own spine. Use that to your advantage.
Some things to avoid are cheap tricks like ultraviolence and gore. While I have been known to go on long rants about the myriad of things that H.P. Lovecraft does wrong, one of the things he does so right that it almost makes up for the many serious flaws in his writing, is that he doesn't show or tell, he suggests. Violence and gore are at best temporarily disturbing, but the suggestion that even now something evil is lurking around any given corner, that's the kind of thing which festers.
Also, while there are exceptions, some well worn monsters like zombies, werewolves, and vampires aren't really all that scary. Pick an entity which is almost more existential in the threat it offers, strange spectral entities, demons, extraterrestrials, or, even better, don't make it clear at all exactly what is behind the scary shit that's going down. The less you show your monster, the more you let your readers insert their own fears into your story. Take advantage of that. One other big advantage that these less tangible threats offer, is that they can't be easily fought against. Feeling powerless is a powerful emotion, it's absolutely terrifying, and the less your characters are able to fight back (suggesting by extension, that the ability your reader has to fight back would be lesser), the scarier your story will be. Of course, a human "monster" can also be used to great effect, questioning whether evil lies in the person riding next to you on the train, chatting with you in the office, or even sleeping next to you in bed, that shit can get scary.
Adding my own observation: I always feel the scariest things are things that are really similar to real life, but just very subtly wrong. Humans are very easily creeped out by that kind of wrongness.