Writing Horror and Suspense
- Thread starter Ophious
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Maple-Leaf
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Describe things that stress you out and slip them in.
And I would recommend ignoring me, because I've never written anything suspenseful in my life.
And I would recommend ignoring me, because I've never written anything suspenseful in my life.
Nahrenne
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Maybe read some horror stories, like Stephen King?
*hasn't read or watched any horror so can't really say*
I guess the thing to keep in mind is to get into the readers' psyche and make them feel immersed in the story. Though...I guess that's a given.
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Ophious
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Yeah, I was hoping for some tips on how to do that
Horror movies mostly give their scares through jump scares but you can't really do that with novels can you
Nahrenne
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Yeah, which is why I recommend trying Stephen King's stories.
I hear he does it very well.
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Ophious
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if I don't get any good advice from here then I might
HURGMCGURG
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Description! Is! Key! A suspenseful scene needs to go somewhat slowly, but just dragging it along is annoying. Horror needs description to properly convey everything. You need to get across just how disgusting or terrifying your monster is, and it's hard to do that without describing it. Remember: Good description doesn't just tell you how it looks, but can make you feel a certain way about it through careful word choice.
Horror is about tone and theme, more than anything else. Different types of horror (slasher, cosmic, gothic, etc), however, handle that in different ways.
Setting aside the type of horror, and focusing on just the suspense: it's about build up and pacing. Suspense moves slowly, at least has a slower pace than say an all out action scene. You can fit suspense into an action scene too, but like I said, it's about build up. Expectations.
Sorta like a joke: you do the set up, and then the punchline.
Hope that helps a little.
Setting aside the type of horror, and focusing on just the suspense: it's about build up and pacing. Suspense moves slowly, at least has a slower pace than say an all out action scene. You can fit suspense into an action scene too, but like I said, it's about build up. Expectations.
Sorta like a joke: you do the set up, and then the punchline.
Hope that helps a little.
LostLibrarian
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To add to the description part. One more thing that can help: focus your description on what your pov/main-character sees and less the overall image. People in stress and horror often don't start looking at the overall world, see all the nice details and the walls, explain what plant is standing in the corner and that their aunt also had this one. People in stress often focus on small details and jump around with their focus. A moving shadow over there, a sound behind you, a smell in the air, a flickering light. Nobody stands still for five minutes and describes the floor.
You can also combine those descriptions with actions to make it more active. The shock after the sound, the shadows from the flickering lights make him shudder, the floor moaning under his weight, etc. Don't describe everything at the start but use actions to move the story forward all the time. If it's a later scene, you can also describe the environment during an earlier scene (daylight) and only describe the changes.
Besides descriptions there are two broad ideas I would underline.
1) Knowledge is power. So for horror the most effective thing is to not know something important. What is the motive behind the killer hunting you? How is the monster moving through the base? What is the monster? What is the weakness of the monster? Let the character earn the important information through hardships or even sacrifices. Besides low quality also a reason why many sequels to horror movies fail. We already know the monster and have all the cards in our hands.
2) If it bleeds, we can kill it. Your character needs a realistic (!) way to beat the monster/achieve his goal. It can be a hard one, but it should be clear that the monster is beatable. Suspense is only there if there is a chance. If not, it's just a monster slasher or something many readers will see as "asspull" after the character had no chance for the majority of the time.
In short: describe details in the environment through actions, make your monster/enemy look powerful by withholding important information the character has to work for (in good horror movies (and even some books) you don't even see the monster for the majority of the time but only the deaths at the beginning), give the character a way out that is unlikely but achievable, and extra points if he achieves his goal through a different way that uses the same effect (we know bullets kill it, so the MC uses the shrappnell of a grenade).
You can also combine those descriptions with actions to make it more active. The shock after the sound, the shadows from the flickering lights make him shudder, the floor moaning under his weight, etc. Don't describe everything at the start but use actions to move the story forward all the time. If it's a later scene, you can also describe the environment during an earlier scene (daylight) and only describe the changes.
Besides descriptions there are two broad ideas I would underline.
1) Knowledge is power. So for horror the most effective thing is to not know something important. What is the motive behind the killer hunting you? How is the monster moving through the base? What is the monster? What is the weakness of the monster? Let the character earn the important information through hardships or even sacrifices. Besides low quality also a reason why many sequels to horror movies fail. We already know the monster and have all the cards in our hands.
2) If it bleeds, we can kill it. Your character needs a realistic (!) way to beat the monster/achieve his goal. It can be a hard one, but it should be clear that the monster is beatable. Suspense is only there if there is a chance. If not, it's just a monster slasher or something many readers will see as "asspull" after the character had no chance for the majority of the time.
In short: describe details in the environment through actions, make your monster/enemy look powerful by withholding important information the character has to work for (in good horror movies (and even some books) you don't even see the monster for the majority of the time but only the deaths at the beginning), give the character a way out that is unlikely but achievable, and extra points if he achieves his goal through a different way that uses the same effect (we know bullets kill it, so the MC uses the shrappnell of a grenade).
ChronicleCrawler
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Sometimes a good ol' link is enough.