How to Write a Horror Story

Horror stories are a genre of stories that appeal to both readers and writers. A good horror story will make you shiver, scare or haunt you in your dreams. The success of a horror story depends on whether the reader believes it enough to terrify, shudder, or terrify. A horror story that is considered good is not easy to write. However, as with any genre of fiction, you can master how to write a horror story with the right strategy, along with perseverance and practice.

Table of Contents

Understanding the horror genre

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Understand the subjective nature of horror stories. Like comedies, horror stories are a difficult genre to write, because an element that can make one person terrify or scream may seem dull or unfeeling to another. However, like jokes, many good horror stories have been written by the masters of the genre. ^{[1] X Research Sources} While your story may not appeal to all readers or make them cry, at least one reader will react with fear to your story.

Christopher Taylor, Assistant Professor of English, said: “The key elements of horror stories include fear, suspense, surprise, and moment of premonition .”

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Read different types of horror stories. Get acquainted with the genre by reading typical horror stories, from ancient ghost stories to contemporary horror stories. The famous horror writer Stephen King once said that, to be a real writer, you have to “read and write a lot”. ^{[2] X Research Resources} Recall the stories or urban legends told around the campfire when you were a kid, or the award-winning horror stories you read at school or yourself . You can read some typical stories like:

“Monkey Hand,” a work by William Wymark Jacobs about three wishes granted by a mysterious monkey hand.
“Confessed Heart,” a short story by master horror writer Edgar Allen Poe, about psychosis, murder, and obsession. ^{[3] X Research Sources}
If you know English, you can look up the book “The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds” by Neil Gaiman, based on the idea of a poem for children. ^{[4] X Research Sources}
You should not ignore the works of the king of horror stories Stephen King. He wrote more than 200 short stories and used a variety of writing techniques to make readers shiver in fear. Among his best horror stories ^{[5] X Research Source} , you can choose to read “The Moving Finger” (rough translation: Finger) ^{[6] X Research Source} or “The Children of the Corn (Children of the Cornfields) to understand Stephen King’s writing style.
Contemporary writer Joyce Carp Oates also has a famous horror story titled “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (translation: Where are you going, where have you been?) uses psychological fear to great effect. ^{[7] X Research Sources}
Nonconventional modern horror stories such as Stephen Milhauser’s “The White Glove” use the horror genre to tell the psychological and emotional development of a protagonist.

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Analysis of horror stories. Choose one or two stories that you like or find interesting in how they use setting, plot, characters, or twists in the story to frighten or terrify. For example:

In “Fingers”, King sets the stage for the story: a man claims to see and hear a human finger scratching on the wall in the bathroom, then the finger follows him for a period of time. short as he tried to avoid it, until he was forced to face his fear. King also uses other elements such as the TV quiz Jeopardy and the protagonist’s dialogue with his wife to create a sense of suspense and horror.
In the story “Where are you going, where have you been?”, Oates builds the main character, a young girl named Connie, with a description of the girl’s daily life, then a close-up depicting the date. her destiny, when two men arrived in a car while Connie was alone in the house. Oates uses dialogue to create a sense of fear and make the reader imagine Connie’s growing fear of the other two’s threats.
In both stories, a sense of horror or terror is created through a combination of the art of shock and fear using supernatural elements (movable slicing human fingers) and elemental elements. psychological disturbance (young girl alone facing two men).

Generating ideas in stories

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Think about the things that make you shudder or fear the most. Tap into fear of losing loved ones, fear of loneliness, violence, fear of clowns, ghosts, or even fear of killer squirrels. Your fear will then show up on the page, and your fear experience or discovery journey will also pass on to the reader. ^{[8] X Research Sources}

Make a list of the things you fear the most, then imagine how you would react if you were in that situation or forced to confront your fears.
You can also open a poll to see what your loved one, friend or partner fears the most. Gather more of each person’s subjective ideas about fear.

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Choose a casual situation and create an element of horror. Another approach is to observe normal everyday situations like a walk in the park, cut a piece of fruit, or visit a friend, and then add an element of horror or weirdness. For example, you suddenly see a human ear being cut off while walking, a piece of fruit that suddenly turns into a finger or a tentacle, or when you visit an old friend, that friend does not know who you are or claims to be a completely different person. ^{[9] X Research Source}

Use your imagination to create horror in ordinary everyday activities or scenes.

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Use context to limit or confine the characters in the story. One way to create a scary situation for the reader is to limit the character’s ability to move, forcing them to face their fear and try to find a way out. ^{[10] X Research Source}

Think about the kinds of narrow spaces that scare you. Where would you be most afraid of falling?
Confine the character in a confined space such as a cellar, a coffin, an abandoned hospital, an island, or an abandoned town. This will create direct conflict or frighten the character and create an atmosphere of tension or suspense for the story.

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Let the characters limit their own movement. Maybe your character is a werewolf, and because he doesn’t want to harm anyone during the next full moon, he has locked himself in a cellar or room. Maybe your character dreads a severed finger in the bathroom. He tried everything to avoid going to the bathroom until the other finger became so haunting that he was finally forced to go to the bathroom to face it. ^{[11] X Research Source}

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Push the reader’s emotions to the extreme. The feeling of fear revolves around the subjective reaction of the reader, so the story must evoke extremely strong emotions in the reader, including:

Shock: The simplest way is to create a shock with a reverse ending, a sudden image or a moment of terror. However, scaring with a shock effect can turn your horror story into a cheap scare story. If abused, this will make the reader predictable or not afraid enough.
Paranoia: The feeling that something is not right can confuse the reader, making them doubt about the world around them. When used to its fullest effect, it will make the reader question both their beliefs and ideas about the world. This type of fear is very effective for psychological horror stories and stories where the tension is gradually increased.
Fear: This is the fear of something bad that is about to happen. This is quite effective when the reader connects deeply with the story and begins to care about the characters enough to feel fear before an impending danger. Arousing a feeling of fear in the reader is not an easy task, it requires a lot of effort to draw the reader into the story, but it will create intense fear.
Create a balance between extreme negative emotions with extreme positive emotions. ^{[12] X Research Source}

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Use creepy details to create an element of horror or horror. Stephen King believes that there are many secrets to creating a feeling of horror or fear in a story, thereby causing different reactions from readers. ^{[13] X Research Source}

Use creepy details like a severed head rolling down the stairs, a slimy green object clinging to your arm, or a character falling into a pool of blood.
Use unnatural details (or fear of the unknown or unreal) like giant bear-sized spiders, zombie attacks, or outsider claws the planet snaps at your feet in a dark room.
Uses scary psychological details, such as a character coming home with a completely different version of a human, or a character experiencing nightmares in a state of paralysis, and from there affect their sense of reality.

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Story building. Once you’ve found a premise or scenario and setting, decide on the intensity of the emotion you’re going to create, the type of scary details you use in the story, and the outline. main plot of the story.

You can use the Freytag pyramid scheme ^{[14] X Research Sources} to build the skeleton of the plot, starting with a description of the setting and life or a day of the character(s), and then transition to the character’s conflict situation (a severed finger in the bathtub, two men in a car), progressing to the development of a conflict, as the character tries to handle or cope with the conflict but there are obstacles and unforeseen situations that arise, followed by reaching a climax, then descending with descending action, finally ending when the character changes, transforms (or in a horror stories) is a gruesome death.
Come up with a short title that can allude to the horror in your story.

Build characters

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Encourage readers to care or identify the main character. You can do this by introducing clear details, describing the character’s habits, relationships, and perspectives. ^{[15] X Research Source}

Choose your character’s age and occupation.
Select the character’s marital status or relationship.
Choose their view of the world (cynicism, pessimism, anxiety, carefree, contentment, maturity).
Add unique features or details. Create a unique character with a personality trait or cue (hair style, scar) or a physical trait (a costume, jewelry, a pipe or a cane). A character’s words or dialect can also create a character on the page and make the character stand out in the eyes of the reader.
Once identified, the character is like a child of the reader. They will empathize and support the character, hoping for the character to overcome the conflict, even though they know that this will be difficult.
The tension between the reader’s desire and the possible uncertainty will make the story interesting and stimulate the reader to finish the story.

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Get ready for bad things to happen to the character. Most horror stories depict fears and tragedies along with their ability or inability to overcome their fears. A story in which good people meet good things can be heartwarming, but it’s usually not scary or creepy. In fact, letting tragedy happen to good people not only evokes empathy in the reader, but also creates an atmosphere of tension and suspense for the story. ^{[16] X Research Source}

To create conflict in your character’s life, you need to portray a danger or threat to the character, whether it’s a moving finger, two men in a car, a monkey hand. occult or a murderous clown.
For example, in “The Finger,” King describes the main character Howard as a middle-aged man who enjoys watching the quiz show Jeopardy on television, has a good relationship with his wife, and leads a decent life. king of the middle class. But King doesn’t let the reader get too comfortable with Howard’s ordinary life when he describes the sound of scratching in the protagonist’s bathroom. The discovery of the finger and Howard’s attempts to avoid, eliminate, or destroy it have left the man’s seemingly normal and pleasant life disturbed by a paranormal or bogus force. .

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Allow the character to make mistakes or make bad decisions. Once you’ve built up the threat or danger your character faces, you then need to give your character the wrong response, thinking that he’s making the right move or making the right decision in the face of the threat. ^{[17] X Research Source}

The key here is to create enough motivation for the character to justify their wrong decision instead of making the reader just see it as a stupid or unbelievable decision. An attractive and young babysitter reacting to a masked murderer not by running to the phone to call the police, but by rushing out and running into the dark woods not only speaks volumes of stupidity. stupidity of the character but also a detail that is difficult to convince the reader or viewer.
But if you let your character make a seemingly logical decision in response to fear, even if the decision is flawed, the reader is willing to believe and support the character.
For example, in “Fingers,” Howard first decides not to tell his wife about fingers because he thinks he’s hallucinating or mistakes the sound for a mouse or an animal stuck in the bathroom. . In the story, Howard’s decision not to tell anyone is explained by the reaction of most people when they witness something unusual or outlandish: it’s not real, I’m just imagining it.
The author then justifies Howard’s reaction by having his wife walk into the bathroom and say nothing about the existence of the finger. As such, the author uses Howard’s realistic perspective and suggests that he may just be hallucinating the finger.

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Betting on the character clearly and unequivocally. A character’s “bet” in a story is what the character loses when they make a decision or choice. If your characters don’t know what the risk is in front of them, they won’t have a sense of loss. A good horror story will use the art of pushing emotions like fear and suspense in the reader to the extreme through creating extreme emotions in the characters.

Fear is built on the perception of the consequences of actions ascribed to the character or the risk of their actions. So, if your character decides to face a clown in the attic or two men in a car, the reader will have to understand what the character might lose because of that decision. Better yet, the character’s risk should be at stake with something important or harsh, such as loss of sanity, innocence, loss of one’s own life or the life of a loved one.
In King’s story, the protagonist fears that if he confronts the finger, he may lose his sanity. The “bet” for the character in the story is very high and clear to the reader. Thus, when Howard finally confronts the finger, the reader will be terrified of the possible loss to Howard.

Create horror climax and reverse ending

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Control the reader without confusing them. Readers may be confused or scared, but you shouldn’t make them feel both. The art of deceiving or leading the reader through omens, changes in character’s personality, or revelations about important plot points can all create suspense and anxiety or fear in a person. read. ^{[18] X Research Source}^{[19] X Research Source}

Lead to the horror climax of the story by providing clues or small details, such as a sticker on a bottle that later becomes a useful item for the protagonist, or a sound in the room. which then signals the arrival of something unusual, even a loaded gun in the pillow that will later explode or be used by the protagonist.
Create an atmosphere of tension by transitioning from a moment of suspense or eerie to a moment of stillness, when the character can take a breath, regain composure, and feel safe again. Then you need to increase the tension by bringing the character back into the conflict situation, further pushing the conflict to a terrible or scary level.
In the “Finger” story, King deals with this by having Howard panic about the finger, then calmly talking to his wife while listening to the quiz show on television and still thinking about the finger, Then he tried to avoid the image by going for a walk. Howard was beginning to feel safe or certain that the finger was an illusion, but of course when he opened the bathroom door the finger was still there, growing even longer and moving faster than before.
King gradually builds tension for both the character and the reader by introducing a threat, which then foreshadows the rest of the story. As readers, we know that the finger is a sign of bad luck or disaster, and we are now in a position to watch Howard try to avoid, and eventually confront, this peril.

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Bring the reverse ending to the story. A well-written reverse ending in a horror story can increase the effectiveness or success of the story. Therefore, the important thing here is to create an unexpected ending that tightens the disjointed clues in the character’s conflict, but still leaves a big question hanging in order to stimulate the reader’s imagination. . ^{[20] X Research Sources}

You may want to create a happy ending for the reader, but the ending should not be so round and smooth that it allows the character to get out of the situation without any lingering feelings of insecurity.
You can give the character a moment of recognizing the conflict or knowing how to resolve the conflict. Disclosure should be the result of details accumulating in the story and should not be offensive to the reader or appear to have been chosen at random. ^{[21] X Research Source}
In “The Finger,” Howard’s moment of realization occurs when he learns that the finger could be a harbinger of something bad or wrong in the world. And when the police came to arrest him because of a neighbor’s complaint about the noise, he asked the officer one last question on the quiz show that was under the theme of “unexplainable”. “Why do terrible things sometimes happen to the kindest people?” Howard asked. The officer then went back to open the toilet, where Howard kept his severed finger, and “bet it all” before opening the toilet to see the unknown or inexplicable.
This ending leaves the reader curious to wonder what the officer will see, and whether the finger is real or just Howard’s imagination. Thus, this is an open ending, not too surprising or confusing for the reader.

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Avoid weariness. Like any genre, horror stories also have old and clichéd motifs that writers should avoid if they want to create a unique and engaging horror story. From images like the deranged clown in the attic to the babysitter at home alone at night to familiar phrases like “Run!” or “Don’t look back!”, the cliché is pretty hard to avoid in this genre. ^{[22] X Research Source}

Focus on creating a story of your own fear. Or you can modify a familiar horror motif for something a little different, such as a vampire who likes to eat cake instead of sucking blood, or a man locked in a trash can instead of a coffin.
Remember that too much gore and violence can reduce the effectiveness of the scare, especially if the image of a pool of blood is repeated over and over in the story. Of course, a little gore is a good and often necessary element in horror stories. But you should only use blood in influential and meaningful passages that make the reader shudder instead of boring and emotionally numb. ^{[23] X Research Sources}
Another way to avoid cliché is to focus more on portraying the confused and restless mood of the character instead of images of gore or puddles of blood. Memories of images often do not linger in the reader’s mind for long, but the impact of those images on the character will cause a persistent sense of dread for the reader. Therefore, you should not aim at the reader’s imagination but should focus on creating a disturbance in their mind. ^{[24] X Research Sources}

Re-read and edit the manuscript

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Analyze your language usage. Reread the first draft and notice sentences with duplicate adjectives, nouns, and verbs. Maybe you like the adjective “red” to describe a dress or a pool of blood. But adjectives like “crimson, crimson, crimson” can add nuance to words and turn a familiar phrase like “a pool of red blood” into a more vivid phrase like “a pool of blood.” crimson”.

Look up the thesaurus and replace duplicates with synonyms to avoid repeating a word or phrase in the story.
Make sure to use language that matches your character’s tone of voice. A teenage girl will use different words than a middle-aged man. Creating dialogue that matches the personality and perspective of the character will make the character more convincing.

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Read the story out loud. You can read the story in front of a mirror or in front of a group of people you trust. The genre of horror stories originated from oral stories about ghosts to scare people while sitting around a campfire. So reading the story out loud will help you determine if the story is steadily and steadily developing, it has enough shock, paranoia, or scary effects, and whether your characters are decisive. erroneous judgment until they are forced to confront the source of the conflict.

If the story uses a lot of dialogue, when you read it aloud, you’ll know if the dialogue sounds natural and convincing.
If your story has a reverse ending, estimating the reader’s reaction by observing your audience’s facial expressions will help you know if the ending worked, or if you need to work on it further.

Warning

Avoid “re-cooking” of copyrighted content or published stories; otherwise, your behavior will be considered plagiarism.

Things you need

Paper and pencil or pen, typewriter or computer with a word processing program such as Microsoft Word.
Dictionary and thesaurus.

Steps