A Simple Guide to Writing Horror

Tips and Tricks for Penning Horror

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Horror has existed since the dawn of time. Storytellers wove fairy tales with bone chilling effect, and since literary creation we have exalted in being scared. Producing a spooky tale is not quite as easy as it sounds though! With Halloween fast approaching, here are some basic tips and tricks for writing yourself a terrifying short story for the occasion.

_{Note: Horror literature and 'regular' literature are not very different. These hints and tips can be applied to any literary form of art.}

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Step One: You

Write about what scares YOU. One of the first steps to creating something spooky from your imagination is confronting that which makes you shiver. If you are not willing to bring to light your on fears, chances are you won't come out with a story you enjoy. Writing horror means you must be willing to dig around inside your head and deal with your own nightmares. A good trick would be to imagine yourself as your main character, and throw yourself in to a horrible situation. It will make your character more realistic and easier to relate to if you understand what they are going through, it will give it a human element that others can understand. Some of the best novels to thrill you are based on true stories! Consider your fears, anxiety and emotions and pour them in to your main character!

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Step Two: The Genre

Studying the genre will give you a good advantage. If you have a deep rooted love for horror movies and stories, it will show in your work. If you're more of a romance and comedy person, that will show as well. You can try too hard in a situation like this! By reading other stories, you are not stealing anything, you are building a foundation for yourself on which to grow. There are many informative books, one of which is Stephen King's On Writing which is filled with information and gives you a good starting point and some objectives. Speaking with other horror writers is also a good idea - you can gain insight to many different minds and get other ideas, as well as sparking some you didn't even know you had!

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Step Three: The Idea

Your idea is very important. What you might want to do is decide what kind of horror you want to write. There are many different elements to consider, but the main point you want to keep in mind is that horror is not simply about the axe wielding maniac that pursues you even after he has cut off his arm in a freak turn about halfway through the story - it's about creating a disturbance inside of the reader. Ghosts, psychological horror, zombies, disease, mutant fish men and that axe killer can all be classified as spooky if you get the right idea.
All horror is in essence the same. You can not at this point come up with anything that somebody else has not already written and/or made a movie of. It is a cliche genre, yet we all still love it. Why? Because it chills us! Human beings like to be scared! So whatever idea you come up with, don't think that it's overdone, just DO it. Pick up that pen and let it write. Instead of creating a new fangled IDEA, create your characters in a manner which makes them unique. Make THEM your idea, not the revolving world around them.

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Step Four: Location, Plot, Dialogue, Pacing and Characters

Location: The key tip for location is USE WHAT YOU KNOW! Being familiar with your setting makes it believable and encourages you to use descriptions that you are comfortable with. If you've never been to Asia, don't set it there if it's your first story! No matter how much googling you do, you're likely not going to get the feel of it proper and people will notice (unless by some stroke of luck you are a most gifted writer!) If you work in a warehouse, you're familiar with the warehouse, and you could use that. If you grew up in the mountains, well, the list goes on. For first timers, using what you know gives you a wonderful advantage.

Plot: Developing a plot is a good idea. You could dive in head first with your ghost story and still come out on top, but if you use a time line and plan things out, the writing process is smoother and you know what is going to happen next instead of grasping for straws when you get to that point. For instance: Susie is a hairdresser in a small shop, in a small town. That's step one, she's your main character. Susie goes to work one morning and notices that all the streetlights are blinking and there is nobody on the street. Step two for plot, the opening scene. When Susie gets to work, she realizes she's the only one she has seen since she woke up. Everything is so quiet. Opening her shop, she sees movement inside.
Now you've got your first chapter, really!
From the movement, you go on to explain a zombie invasion she has slept through. Silly girl; I mean really? The plot arcs from here till the downward slide at the end - you can point form on a piece of notepad paper what happens, and then all you have to do is fill in the blanks. For example:

After movement Susie Runs. She finds a warehouse. She hides. She tunes in a radio and hears there are survivors. She stocks up on supplies from said warehouse. She makes her break. She heads for the mountains where some quick thinkers have set up camp. Susie fights through wave after wave of zombies. Susie almost makes it to camp, but is bitten. Susie makes it to the camp, but is infected, and wipes out the survivors. End scene - she is on a hill with a severed head in her hands rocking out with a guitar!

There is the entire plot, without filler. Easy!

Pacing: Of course, summed up, that story sucks. You want to learn to pace yourself, and not get in to everything right off the bat. Take the time when you write to create the atmosphere you most want to portray - rushing in to things creates a jerky, nonsense read that nobody will enjoy, least of all you. On another note, a fantastic way to start a horror story is to jump RIGHT in to the suspense. It's a classic start, but it works almost every time. By jumping in to the suspense, I don't mean jump right in to the biggest spooky point of the story, but make it a suspenseful opening that has the potential to lead up, not too slowly, but not so fast that it's over too soon. Most writers want to get to the big bad guy at the end as fast as possible - slow down and savor what you're creating. Without the slow, the better and more gruesome parts would not be as awesome as they will be with the build up.
Don't forget to tease your readers! By putting in scenes that have the potential to be electrifying, but then they end up not being so scary, it gives the reader the idea that something is coming. Then when they least expect it, spring on them that infected, scary hairdresser! Boo!

Dialogue: When creating dialogue for your characters, try to remember not to describe the situation at hand too much if you've already used filler to do so. It's repetitive and most folks will skip over it if they already know what is going on. You're wasting words repeating yourself, and space you can be using for other means. Another good thing to remember is that if your character is a Nun, she probably won't say anything perverted or swear, and if your character is a big bad biker, he probably won't stop to smell the flowers, or talk to somebody as if he was describing the process of making candy. They should speak as they are defined! Too much dialogue is a bad thing as well. Use your atmosphere to create the effect more than what they are saying. Sometimes, less is best. (All of this depends on the type of story you are writing, it is not intended for every piece of literature.)

Characters: Deciding on the number and types of characters you have in the story is crucial. It's great fun to base some of them off of people you know, or have known in the past, as well. Be creative, make your characters have expressions and actions that define them instead of creating a 1 dimensional cardboard cutout that has nothing your reader can relate to. Try not to make too many characters though! The more you have, the more you have to keep track of, and keeping track of sixteen teenagers in a mall is not as fun as it sounds! Pick and choose between your creations and give life to those which seem like they may have the most potential. Developing a background tends to help your characters grow and progress as well. And don't forget - their relationship status may determine whether or not they are eligible for the final story cut. Single, married, divorced, or lusting after somebody else in the main story arc can give you some great opportunities for twists and turns!

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Step Five: Editing Your Work

Once you're finished with your characters, filler, dialogue and everything else, you're ready to edit. Some people, they put their work out raw and regret it later when they come back to read it and they realize that they have spelled things incorrectly or they have run off sentences and badly timed events and paragraphs. There are three main tips for editing your work before uploading or publishing it.

1) Jumping the Gun:

If it's not ready, it's NOT ready. Do not force something out in to the readable world if it's unfinished! This is a really big deal - it halts most aspiring writers, if it doesn't stop them dead in their tracks. Jumping the gun happens in a few ways, one of which is lack of feed back. If something seems off, let somebody else read it and see what they say! It can't hurt, and will provide you with insight you would not normally receive. The second is desperation - you've just written the worlds greatest chainsaw wielding, zombie infestation-ing, ghost story EVER and you HAVE to show it to SOMEBODY so WHY NOT PUBLISH IT ON DEVIANT ART RIGHT NOW! Bad. Don't. Slowly go over your work and pick it apart. Then upload it once you've given it a go through. Your work and you will be better off for it.

2) Blah, Blah, Blah (AKA Over-description and Repetition)

Check for repeated words. Check for over-description. If there is too much of either, or both, it's not preferable to less description and less repetition. If you find you are using words often, you could try an online thesaurus to find alternatives. If you've created this room in a farmhouse that takes 3000 words to describe, you've exited the realm of short story and gone off in to a badly written novel. Try to describe something as little as possible while making sure you get your point across. Run on sentences are a form of repetition as well - end things with your dialogue quickly and make sure there is a point!

3) "I am walked to the housing at the nighttime." (Mechanical Errors)

Checking for errors and badly worded sentences is a must before submitting! There are two ways to use the wrong words. The first is inattention and the second is words like him, her, their...possessive words. Some contain an apostrophe, some do not. Make sure to check for contradictions in your work. The fire truck's wheels were spinning and it's front end was on fire." is incorrect, for instance, because the possessive word would be 'trucks'. No apostrophe. There would be no apostrophe in 'it's' either. The correct sentence structure is important - "The fire trucks wheels were spinning and its front end was on fire." would be correct (even if my sentence is a lame example).

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SUBMIT SUBMIT SUBMIT

You're ready to freak the world out now. Creating a short story is as simple as baking a pie if you follow a few literary rules and make sure to check your grammar and punctuation. The mood, the characters, the idea - all of those things will fall in to place if you genuinely want to be heard!

I hope I have laid down some tricks and pointers that will assist any aspiring writer, in any genre, to create something outstanding.

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