How to write horror

Panda Dragon · Oct 26, 2008

I'm thinking of writing a horror novel, but I don't want it to be just another "teen slasher" novel that relies on too much blood and a heroine who has bigger boobs than brains (hehe). I'm thinking of writing something that relies more on chills than gore. I'm thinking of setting it in a kind of Lovecraftian atmosphere--that is, fear of the unknowable.

Sadly, I'm never really written horror before, so don't know how to write it to make it scary. Anyone got any tips?

donroc · Oct 26, 2008

Establish a mood and tone (sans clichés), write, and it will come; if not on the first draft, it should by the final edit. Lovecrafting is good, using modern prose of course. I have "Lovecrafted" the final chapters in mine.

Panda Dragon · Oct 26, 2008

Thanks for that donroc. Lovecraft is a huge inspiration for me in terms of horror. Of course, his language is a little "dated", but I can always modenise it.

2Wheels · Oct 26, 2008

The best horror tales barely have any blood in them. They play on other fears instead - most of which are common to anyone. Figure out what would scare the heck out of you, and then use that. Most often it's basically something that threatens the human sense of self-preservation on an intimate level.

Vincent · Oct 26, 2008

This is from a rejection email on a horror short. Hope it helps.

Also, while I find Kip's ability is terrifying and strange, I must admit that I never really felt it. I had an idea of the impact you were going for, but I was just unable to get into Benny's fear and experience it for myself. That most of all is what the rejection is based on. In horror the writer's main goal is help the reader put on the protagonist's skin and know every nuance of that character's fear. Though I understand his terror, it never quite sank in enough to create terror in me.

Panda Dragon · Oct 26, 2008

Good advice beezle. The theme I was thinking of going for in this horror story is the unknown, or unknowable (which I think is a common human fear). While it will have a slight supernatural feel, I don't want to play on it too much.

Do you have any advice on HOW to get the reader scared?

Kalyke · Oct 26, 2008

Your best first stop is to study the form. I'm from the old school, and believe you should know what you are doing before you do it. Danse Macabre by Stephan King is a good book on writing horror.

Panda Dragon · Oct 26, 2008

Thanks, Use Her Name. I'll check it out.

ChaosTitan · Oct 26, 2008

Panda Dragon said:
I'm thinking of writing a horror novel, but I don't want it to be just another "teen slasher" novel that relies on too much blood and a heroine who has bigger boobs than brains (hehe).

I know there's a plethora of these in modern cinema, but are teen slasher books really that plentiful in the horror genre?

Cybernaught · Oct 26, 2008

I like horror stories where the characters face extremely impossible odds, and I'm terrified by that which I can not see nor understand.

Cybernaught · Oct 26, 2008

ChaosTitan said:
I know there's a plethora of these in modern cinema, but are teen slasher books really that plentiful in the horror genre?

I'd love to read some. I can surmise some of the prose right now.

"Tracy leaned against the window, naked, in the middle of the night, with no one else in the house. A noise outside startled her. 'Billy, is that you?' She turned to investigate, but that's when the chainsaw-wielding psycho pulled her through the glass."

ChaosTitan · Oct 26, 2008

MagicMan · Oct 26, 2008

Horror novels involve a circumstance, for example a number of people are trapped by a huge snowfall in a ski lodge. The interaction of these people, create the suspense when things happen, things that normally do not happen. Mis-direction, a trail in the snow, heightens suspense. A scream or commotion (the tractor out back roars, people dash to find out why) is the distraction to allow a person to vanish. The resulting search provides false clues. More people vanish or die. More false clues. Then an early clue shines brightly, even though discounted earlier. This clue points to the problem, the discovery. The rest is: can the remaining few solve the problem, the escape. If it were Stephen King, only one survives (lol).

Smiles
Bob

These bolded simple elements are the basis of most horror stories, cut and slash, situation, ghost, creature, or psycho.

The cast:
The MC (last alive) is the investigator, the one who has the open mind
The innocents (usually first to go)
The sceptic creates confusion and tension (next to go)
The over the top religious/paranoid/hungry, etc creates division and doubt, opposing plans/actions
The normal joe - strong but scared, creates the fear with country joe tales
The professor who is used by the author to explain away the correct clue

Inarticulate Babbler · Oct 26, 2008

Panda Dragon said:
Thanks for that donroc. Lovecraft is a huge inspiration for me in terms of horror. Of course, his language is a little "dated", but I can always modenise it.

Brian Lumley is a sort of modern-day Lovecraft. John Saul relies more on character, backstory and events, rather that blood-n-guts, as well as Dean Koontz and Peter Straub. As far as Danse Macabre, it's the toughest read Stephen King's ever written--try his On Writing, though it's more a memoir, it is readable, enjoyable and instructs well in the last third of the book.

megan_d · Oct 27, 2008

I agree that horror is scariest when it's only hinted at. Watch Blair Witch Project and then watch the sequel. In the first the viewer never really sees anything that would be scary out of context, in the awful, awful sequel it's blood and guts and bodies everywhere. There's a reason only one of the films did well.

NeuroFizz · Oct 27, 2008

Don't forget that some people include psychological suspense in the horror genre. The haunts of the normal and abnormal human minds can be brought out with as much terror as a stalking monster. And nothing is more terrifying than an intelligent, calculating horror (opposite to the apparently random wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time horror found in many stories and movies).

Haggis · Oct 27, 2008

The Horror Writers Association is a good place to start. Lots of tips there, and a good selection of helpful books as well. I strongly recommend On Writing Horror.

I'd also encourage you to join us in the Horror Forum right here on good old Absolute Write.

Oh. And read, read, read, and write, write, write.

Shadow_Ferret · Oct 27, 2008

Do you read current horror? That would be my advice. Pick up several books on horror and learn technique that way. Horror isn't just teen slasher stories.

tehuti88 · Oct 27, 2008

The thing that scares me the most about Lovecraft's writing is that the reader can never really be too sure what is going on. He keeps things vague (though he gives enough detail so that the reader doesn't just end up frustrated--as I did when I tried to read Henry James's "The Turn Of The Screw"--that was vague at its worst). The reader has a sense that something is terribly, horribly wrong, but they can't be sure what it is, until it's too late.

I don't write horror so I can't say how to write it, but that's what works for me in terms of reading/watching it. (I found "The Ring" movie to be really spooky too, for the same reasons.)

sportacus · Oct 27, 2008

Remember this: You don't need blood and gore to scare someone.

Cybernaught · Oct 27, 2008

The thing that scared me most about Lovecraft was his dialogue, and not in the way he would have wanted.

Cybernaught · Oct 27, 2008

sportacus said:
Remember this: You don't need blood and gore to scare someone.

Agreed. Psycho still scares the crap out of me and the most gore in that film was syrup.

veinglory · Oct 27, 2008

I think that summary does mistake horror movies for horror stories. I don't think there is much a of short cut in writing horror. You need to read horror, and 'get' horror, and research the (dwindling) markets for horror. These days most of the work getting published is probably cross-over not pure hoprror. Sadly most large chains don't even have a horror shelving section any more.

virtue_summer · Oct 27, 2008

Panda Dragon said:
I'm thinking of writing a horror novel, but I don't want it to be just another "teen slasher" novel that relies on too much blood and a heroine who has bigger boobs than brains (hehe).

Much more common in movies than novels. Stephen King, for example, has yet to write anything I would call a teen slasher. Then you've got classics like Dracula and Frankenstein. Those aren't slashers. More recent classics like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. Again I wouldn't call them slashers. Tananarive Due writes some beautiful novels shelved in horror that would never be called slashers. Even in teen novels, the scariest book I remember reading was Stranger With My Face by Lois Duncan. It wasn't gory at all, but it was spooky and suspenseful. And there are lots of others. The truth is that the blood soaked stories whose gore is their only attribute are not as prominent in this genre as people think.

Haggis · Oct 27, 2008

veinglory said:
I think that summary does mistake horror movies for horror stories. I don't think there is much a of short cut in writing horror. You need to read horror, and 'get' horror, and research the (dwindling) markets for horror. These days most of the work getting published is probably cross-over not pure hoprror. Sadly most large chains don't even have a horror shelving section any more.

And I still blame the slasher movies for killing the horror novel market. The typical Joe or Josephine Reader equates one with the other, even though they are totally different animals.

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