Making Horror Stories Scary

Have you ever encountered a horror story that left you with a lingering sense of unease? Kept you up at night, wondering if you would be in any danger, or if its ending continued to haunt your thoughts for weeks to come? A truly effective horror story has the power to stick with you long after you’ve finished reading it. To craft a spine-tingling story, various techniques can be employed, such as utilizing common horror tropes, building suspense, or employing a writing style that can infiltrate the reader’s mind. The key to creating a truly terrifying tale is in how these elements are expertly woven together. Writing a scary story can be quite the challenge but look no further! Here are some tips on how to make your stories truly scary.

What makes horror horrifying?

The horror genre includes a few different sub-genres: dark comedy, gore, paranormal, monster, slasher, zombie, and psychological. Mixing and matching literary techniques from these subgenres can create many possible outcomes for a story. You can borrow different techniques from these sub-genres to create your original story. But don’t go overboard, using too many in a single story can make it confusing. How you use particular horror techniques can make or break a story.

A great example of a sub-genre combination of slasher and dark comedy is the 1996 movie “Scream”. It both explores and mocks the slasher sub-genre while being scary at the same time. On the other hand, the “Twilight” franchise had a rough time mixing the genre of dark romance with its counterpart of a monster-type movie; despite it being very successful as a blockbuster, it is not deemed as scary. Here are the most present literary techniques in spooky stories.

Atmosphere

Don’t limit your descriptions to only what is seen, but also to how the characters interact with the horror factor in your story. Be it the unseen terror, the impending doom of what is about to come, or simply a monster. Authors use key elements like the location, objects, or inner thoughts of the characters to evoke uneasiness in the reader.

It is important to focus on the mood. Mood not only impacts how the setting is perceived by the reader but also how they will process all the ideas found in the story. How do you want to make your reader feel? How can you make them feel that way? How can a search for a lost puppy be scarier, in the middle of the night at an abandoned building or in broad daylight at the mall? Use strong imagery that will appeal to the senses.

Pacing

The pacing of a story is vital to building suspense, keeping an audience engaged, and creating dramatic effects. If a scary moment in the story is drawn too long it will lose its intensity, while if it is cut short it might be disorienting for the reader. Comedic timing is a technique used by comedians, which is the use of pacing to deliver and enhance the effect of a joke on its audience. Pauses are used for comedic timing as it gives the audience time to fully delve into a punchline, where they have time to recollect themselves for a new scene. In the case of the horror genre, pauses are there to catch the reader off guard right before a grand reveal or the appearance of a jump scare.

A master of pacing is Junji Ito. His stories might have one particular theme, but it does not become monotonous due to the high spikes of intensity against a more calmly-paced exposition. Take for example his work “Uzumaki” where a city is plagued by a supernatural curse involving spirals. Tension is shown as the spirals slowly start to take over the entire city. The story is not only focused on the city being devoured by spirals but also on how the people involved are affected by it and try to fight a force they cannot control.

Juxtaposition

Even if multiple horror scenes are needed for a story to be considered horror, it can not solely be made up of horror scenes. There needs to be a balance in all stories. How could you highlight that a moment in your story is truly terrifying if there is nothing to compare it to? If there are no juxtapositions to the scary moments, the story will become monotonous. Keep a balance between the scary or gory scenes with comedy or heartfelt moments.

Recently I watched the movie “Barbarian” which is a master class on creating scenes that contrast each other heavily, jumping from complete horror to comedy. When watching the movie, I even felt confused with the jumping from one horrifying scene to the next world-building scene, but these jumps kept me on my toes and laser-focused for the next scary buildup. The more comedic moments between the horror scenes allowed me to catch my breath.

Jump Scares

Jump scares are a huge trope in horror but they are not always done right. Their purpose in horror is to startle or shock the audience with an abrupt change, such as a change of image or event. Showing jump scares in comics can be harder to achieve, but if you master the page-turning jump scare it can create quite the reaction in your reader. In contrast to movies, which can quickly cut from one shot to another, comics are made up of still images, meaning that your jump scare could be made up of a single panel rather than a whole scene. Usually, jump scares in comics can be created with the page-turning. What truly works for jump scares in comics is to have the jump scare be the first thing you see when you turn the page. The comic’s jump scare can still have a startling effect, but unlike a movie jump scare, the panel is permanently on the page for the reader to enjoy after the reveal.

You can also use jump scares to reveal a major point of the story. In the 2017 movie “It”, one of the initial jump scares occurs when the evil clown Pennywise is first revealed to Georgie, his victim. The jump scare consists of the reveal of his glowing reddish eyes underneath the drain, showing the viewer that great danger lurks underneath us all.

Too many jump scares will make the reader anticipate them, defeating their purpose of instilling shock in their audience. Although jump scares are a common aspect of horror movies, some people may avoid the genre altogether due to the use of jump scares. The initial shock of a jump scare can create an adrenaline response and could make the audience feel scared and keep them on their toes for whatever comes next in the story. Kind of how adrenaline junkies seek their next adventure, those who enjoy jumpscares will keep on watching more horror movies to get scared. Although a great technique of horror, nowadays if used too often, jumpscares can be seen as a cheap way to scare an audience. Make sure to include other major aspects of the genre when building a story of your own. 

Leave crumbs, not the whole bread

Suspense is your best friend when writing horror. Giving out all the details in a story at the beginning will leave no room for the reader to theorize about what might come next. Leaving room for ambiguity will make the audience more involved with what they are watching. Even if they have a small hint of what might happen in the end, the lack of detail from the start will give space for great plot twists. A prime example of this is the manga “Blood on the Tracks” by Shuzo Oshimi, as it starts with a simple incident that evolves into a perplexing mystery with the revelation of intentional actions.

Human’s primal fear of the unknown has evolved from our early ancestors and was essential for our survival. We are scared of the dark because we are unable to see what looms there. Exploit the unknown in your work.

Put your own fears into it

“When I write I try to think back to what I was afraid of or what was scary to me, and try to put those feelings into books.”

R.L. Stine (Writer’s Digest)

Writing about your own experience, trauma or fears can make a story feel real since you already have a reference for the emotions, thoughts, or feelings of a situation. Everyone has their own fears, but common fears like the dark, clowns, deep water, the unknown, or even claustrophobia can be well understood by the masses. Many of these fears come from survival instincts. Throughout the centuries we have created rules for survival, labeling unique scenarios or creatures as dangerous. What is scary for you might not be to others, but exploring common fears as an author can guarantee that you will instill fear in more than one reader. Don’t be afraid to explore your own fears in a story. You might find out that your deepest fear might be shared with others, and perhaps if you write it scary enough, it will become a newfound fear for those who did not have it in the first place.  

Music

Music can make or break films or TV shows in the horror genre. Think of Michael Myers from the “Halloween” franchise, now you cannot get the piano theme out of your head. Not only have these dissonant sounds triggered a biological reaction of alert and danger in our heads, but now the second we hear a specific theme we can connect it back to the movie. Auditory buildup is created to enhance the atmosphere shown visually in the story. The environment itself may have sound effects such as crunching leaves or crows cawing in the distance, which enhances the visual elements of the scene.

Within the last decade, webcomics have become a well-known form of entertainment and digital media innovation. With the vertical scroll format of webcomics, new tools were added to its storytelling. One of them is sound effects or music. This aspect of music in comics makes a smaller gap between stand-still frames and full-length movies. Now comics have the chance of showing jump scares and creating tension or suspense in a new way, not only through page turns but also through the grand reveal with a sound effect.

Horror Artists

Writing horror can be difficult, so what better move than to look at the masters! Here are some horror authors who scare others for a living, showing horror in their own way.

Emily Carroll

With beautiful illustrations juxtaposed with vivid words, you can truly see exquisitely detailed artwork that is both breathtaking and terrifying. She employs techniques such as fragmented storytelling and isolation as a tool for character self-reflection, as well as the trope of characters who are not who they appear to be. One of her best horror techniques is the inevitability of getting scared. Even though her work is detailed and whimsical, the eerie feeling that encapsulates her work is what moves the reader from being a passive reader to an active reader. Carroll’s use of the inevitable is what makes readers want to find out the true horror behind her story. The horrifying elements are there from the beginning, but the story pushes you to find out what will happen next. 

Personal recommendations: “When I Arrived at the Castle”, “Through the Woods”, “Frontier”, “Margot’s Room”.

Check her Website: http://www.emcarroll.com/

Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino

Jeff Lemire is a master of paranormal horror. Lemire’s character writing is exquisite and his character development is well-paced. Andrea Sorrentino has mastered the art of paneling and together with Lemire, they pull off great pacing and grand reveals. You will want to read more due to their cliffhangers and great character development.

Personal recommendation: “Gideon Falls”

You can find book one here: https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/gideon-falls-deluxe-edition-book-one-hc

Horang

“Horangs Nightmare” is a webtoon that has been innovative with the medium of webcomics. This story has a scroll format and includes sound effects, 3D visual assets, and one of the coolest features I have ever seen in comics, animated panels. As you scroll through the story, panels will be revealed like Easter eggs. You might not know this webcomic by its name but maybe you recognize the scene of a young man about to brush his teeth, realizing that instead of a toothbrush, he is holding a razor. The grand sound effects give the story a theatrical feel that also creates great build up for jump scares. 

You can find the Webtoon here: https://www.webtoons.com/en/horror/horang-horror/list?title_no=2185&page=1

Conclusion

Planning out a story can be excruciatingly hard, but start small. Find out what sub-genres you want to use for your story, and learn how to create a great combination of sub-genres to create a compelling story. Remember the fundamental aspects of pacing, atmosphere, and suspense, as they will make or break your story from the very start. Take a look at authors like Carroll and Lemiere with panelist Sorrentino, and you will get a better hang of the pacing and atmosphere from their examples. The more you know about the genre, the better chance you will come out with a more complex horror story. Remember, the true purpose of horror is not to cause fear for the sake of causing fear, but reveal something from the characters in the story and even the reader who is enjoying it. It might seem like it is a lot, but do not fear, keep practicing and soon enough you will create a truly terrifying story!