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musings-of-a-writer · 6 years

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The Emotions of Horror

In order to successfully write horror, you must first understand fear. Fortunately, fear is a universal experience, and likely something you have intimate first-hand knowledge of - the key is learning to harness your fears so they can be translated for the page.

First, recognize that different techniques and approaches will work better in different media. What works well in a horror movie may not translate well to a written story, and vice versa. Understanding your medium and your goals will help you work to the strengths of the medium and provide the most effective approach.

Second, remember that horror, perhaps more than any other genre, is at its core interactive. Even a linear story told through writing or visual cues invites participation from the reader: You need them to engage so that they will bring their own fears to the table. Simply seeing characters interact with frightening things isn’t enough; you need to invoke fear in the reader by inviting them to experience the things that you describe. That’s something I’ll delve into in greater detail in a later post, but for now, keep it in the back of your mind.

Two Main Types of Horror

There are two primary types of horror reactions you can create in a reader: Visceral horror, and cerebral horror.

Visceral horror is felt in the gut. It preys upon the lizard brain and taps into basic primal fears. Visceral emotions include disgust and shock. It is most effective in visual media, where a viewer sees images and responds to them before their brain has a chance to process them, but you can still invoke these feelings through the careful use of description. More on that in a minute.

Cerebral horror is felt in the brain. It’s the type of horror that you think about hours or days or years later, the kind of disturbing ideas that implant themselves in there and become more frightening the more you consider them. These are rooted in anxiety rather than the primal lizard brain. Cerebral horror includes fridge horror and dread. A tightly crafted story will beat a movie every time when it comes to cerebral horror, because written media is more intimate. Use that to your advantage.

The Emotions of Horror Stories

Let’s talk in a little more detail about the emotions that you should work to create in your reader when crafting a horror story. In order of most-difficult to most-natural for the written medium, try experimenting with:

Shock: Films and video games can fall back on the “jump scare,” a tactic wherein you rapidly break suspense with a sudden visual cue, almost always accompanied by a loud noise. If you need an example for some reason, turn to the nearest Five Nights At Freddy’s game.

Jump scares work by temporarily startling the viewer, short-circuiting their conscious brains and tapping directly into their oldest and most primal reflex. Newborns startle when they are exposed to too much sensory input - it’s literally their first line of defense. When you jerk, scream, or flail, you are tapping in to the newborn infant part of your brain.

Can you do a jump scare in a novel? Probably not. For one, there is no sound, and sound is extremely important to a successful jump scare. For another, reading involves conscious interaction with text; you can’t really bypass their thought processes enough to invoke a jump scare response (except for the occasionally really susceptible reader).

But you can still shock them, and that’s just as good.

Shock occurs when a reader is totally blind-sided by new information. They think they know what’s going on, but in reality, the truth is something unexpected (and perhaps far more sinister). They think a certain character is safe, only for them to be suddenly and brutally murdered. They think they’ve solved the puzzle, but the rabbit hole actually goes much deeper. I’ll talk about shock in greater length in another post, because it is so difficult to do well and requires a lot more attention.

Disgust: Gore and “splatterpunk” relies on the visceral response of disgust. We are naturally repulsed by certain things, and that too may be hardwired into our DNA (although it’s also partly based on nurture and cultural factors). But basically, disgust exists to keep us away from things that may hurt us, like diseased things.

Triggering disgust in your reader will mostly fall to writing effective descriptions. Word choice matters a lot when it comes to writing gore. Some words just feel gross (think “moist”), and some invoke really icky mental images. I’ll write a whole thing on tricks to writing gore at a future point, but for now a word of caution: Horror cannot rely on gross-out scenes alone. You might invoke a kind of sick fascination in the reader, but you won’t really scare them.

Dread: Suspense and dread are vital ingredients to horror in any medium. They work by drawing the reader into the story, enticing them to think ahead - but stripping away their certainty about what will happen. A really good story will alternate between shock and dread, building up tension before twisting the narrative in an unexpected direction.

I wrote a little bit about invoking dread here, and I’ll delve into the topic at greater length later. But for now, remember: Suspense lies in giving the reader the pieces to a puzzle, but withholding context. It forces the reader to think ahead, to try and make sense of what they’re seeing, and to imagine terrible conclusions. It encourages the reader to think “what if…?” or “something terrible is going to happen but when? how? what?”

This is something you can only do well if the reader is invested in the characters and truly cares about them. Fortunately, because writing is so intimate, it’s easier to delve into a character’s mind and forge a strong connection between them and the reader.

Fridge horror: Fridge horror is basically when something becomes creepier or more disturbing the longer you think about it. It’s when the implications of something are more horrifying than what you see on the surface. It’s the part of the story the reader takes with them, the part that makes them question their own beliefs or world-view or even reality.

It is a cerebral horror, and it’s the thing that written stories can really excel at. I will - you guessed it - write a whole post on the topic in the near future, but until then, realize that fridge horror relies in part on logic (”oh god, this means THAT!”) and part empathy (”can you imagine what it must be like….?”)

The best fridge horror moments will be pulled from your own personal experiences and fears. While anyone can tap into primal fears (the dark, the unknown, disgusting things), fridge horror is often deeply personal and oddly specific. It’s raising a question and leading the reader to think “Oh god, I never thought of that, but it is terrible.”

I’ve rambled on a long time now, and I have many things to come back to and explain in more detail - but for now, hopefully this gives you something to think about! Until next time, stay scared :)

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musings-of-a-writer · 6 years

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100 years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars. Today everyone has cars and only the rich own horses.

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musings-of-a-writer · 6 years

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are you telling me that if i want to have a chapter written, i have to sit down and write the damn thing?? wtf the fuck??? this is outraging

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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i started writing original fiction because of a comment i got on a house md fic i wrote when i was 12 years old. someone said “this is out of character, house and wilson would never act like this.” so i thought, “if i make my own characters, no one can ever tell me they’re out of character, because i decide,” and i started planning my first novel. now i’m 23 and i’ve written 4 novel-length works, i have a degree in publishing and i work at a literary magazine, largely because someone insulted my house fanfiction. follow your dreams.

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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Positive Speaking Tones

Amused - entertained; thinking it is funny

Appreciative - grateful; thankful

Awe - solemn wonder; amazement

Calm - relaxed; not excited

Carefree - without worry; lighthearted; joyous

Cheerful - happy

Complimentary - politely flattering

Composed - calm and serene

Courteous - nice; respectful

Determination/Determined - not giving up

Diplomatic - trying not to offend people

Dreamy - soothing; restful; quieting

Earnest - sincere; honest; intense

Ecstatic - great enthusiasm; a trancelike state of delight or ecstasy

Eloquent - expressing ideas in a nice way; poetic; good with words

Encouraging - optimistic; trying to convince you to do something because of a belief that you can do it

Enthusiastic - excited; energetic

Exultant - highly elated; jubilant; triumphant

Formal - respectful, appropriate behavior

Friendly - the way a person treats friends

Funny - humorous; amusing

Gentle - not hurtful; careful

Giddy - frivolous and lighthearted; impulsive; flightly

Happy - cheerful; in a good mood

Honest - truthful

Hopeful - looking forward to something; optimistic

Humorous - funny

Idealistic - thinking of what is best; optimistic; not realistic

Imaginative - creative; using the imagination

Innocent - not guilty

Inspirational - encouraging; reassuring

Intimate - very familiar; the way one talks to close friends or family

Jovial - happy

Lighthearted - happy, carefree

Mirthful - joyful, jolly

Mischievous - playing tricks for fun

Nostalgic - thinking about the past; wishing for something from the past

Optimistic - hopeful; cheerful

Patient - willing to wait; not in a hurry

Placid - pleasantly calm or peaceful; tranquil

Poetic - expressing beautiful thoughts or words

Poignant - affecting or moving the motions; sincere; heartfelt

Relaxation/Relaxed - relaxed; not worried; not busy

Relived - stop being worried

Reverent - respectful; treating something with honor and respect

Sentimental - thinking about feelings, especially when remembering the past

Sincere - honest; truthful; earnest

Surprised - startled; amazed

Sympathetic - compassionate; understanding of how someone feels

Thankful - grateful; giving thanks

Tolerant - accepting of others

Vibrant - energetic; vivd; full of life

Whimsical - playful; funny; odd

Zealous - devoted; enthusiastic; eager; passionate

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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Things I Try to Remember When I’m Nervous About Writing

1. Write what you want to read.

2. There is no problem with a story so great that it cannot be fixed in revision. Keep going.

3. If your story is as uncreative as you think it is, you wouldn’t want to write it so badly. You want to write it because there’s a unique spin on it you have never seen, and want to express. Many people may write similar stories, but it’s the details that make it personal. You may not know it now, but there is someone who is looking for exactly what you’re writing. If you don’t finish it, they’ll never see it.

4. You can write something amazing and still be met with silence. There are myriad reasons for this that have nothing to do with the quality of what you produce.

4.1 It’s okay to repeat post your work if no one has seen it.

4.2 It’s okay to post your work in multiple places.

5. You don’t have to agree with every criticism (but take it gracefully anyway).

6. Most writers are scared of the same things you are.

7. Don’t judge your works in progress against the archives of finished, polished stories other writers have put together. Archives are Internet portfolios and generally don’t show all the multitude of failures, incomplete, and draft-form works those writers are also struggling with. They aren’t perfect and you don’t have to be, either. Keep working and you will have a portfolio of your own.

8. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas with other writers. It’s not annoying as long as you’re not self-important about it. Be humble and gracious, and others will reciprocate.

8.1 You can’t write as well in a vacuum; the more people know that you are working on something, and what, the more support you will get for that work. Starting a dialogue before you post something will make it more likely people will read it when you do post it.

9. It’s okay to take breaks. If the ideas just aren’t coming, go do something else for a while.

10. Be kind to yourself. Don’t call yourself names. You are not stupid, or uncreative, or boring. You wouldn’t call other people those things, so don’t do it to yourself.

I don’t know if these are helpful to other people, but they are helpful to me, so just in case, here they are!

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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Borrowed from @agentsaba’s twitter.

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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Six of Crows Aesthetic Meme (1 / 6)

Kaz Brekker: There was no sin he would not commit for the right price

Inej Ghafa

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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fav author: i’m writing a new book!!! yay!!!

book: *has no title, no cover, no plot, no release date*

me:

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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good responses to getting stabbed with a sword

rude

that’s fair

not again

are you gonna want this back or can i keep it

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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Do not judge my story by the chapter you walked in on.

Anonymous (via thewrittenroad)

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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listen i know that character died but listen…….that character isnt dead

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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“don’t judge a book by it’s cover” is a beautiful powerful sentiment that i fully ignore when book shopping

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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“It’s on my TBR-list” doesn’t mean anything since there are over 200 books on it.

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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tfw ur trying to write plot but ur brain only provides you with out-of-sequence snippets built on vague ideas and an endless number of potential outcomes that develop and branch out unnaturally over an unspecified timespan

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

Conversation

Lady Macbeth: is that a dagger in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Macbeth: i'm just happy to see you ;)

Lady Macbeth: pathetic

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musings-of-a-writer · 7 years

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. And then the murders began.

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