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rebeccaberry · 3 months

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My Top Ten Tips For Writing Horror!

Hello all! As people who've seen almost any of my posts will know, I am a horror writer, and I always love seeing people try their hand at it, so here are my top ten tips for writing horror:

Write what you know scares you. Writing what you know isn't going to be helpful in horror writing for a lot of it, instead, if you focus on writing what scares you, then you're more likely to scare others. Of course, writing what you know when it comes to making characters realistic is still good advice.

Use foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is one of the best tools in any type of writing, but I find that it works especially well when writing horror.

Write longer sentences than you usually would. This makes the reader feel uncomfortable, because the natural pauses that are usually included in sentences are absent, you build more tension this way. Example: I noticed that the doorway to the house was slightly ajar, somebody was already inside, I pushed open the door and it creaked loudly as the rusty hinges strained, moving inside I noticed two things immediately, a thick stench in the air that reminded me of rotting flesh and the fact that everything in the house was coated in layer upon layer of dust. Make sure not to overdo it because then the reader will become used to the longer sentences.

Don't show everything straight away (or at all). If you show the reader everything about the monster/event early it takes away a lot of the mystique that leads to it being scary, and even revealing everything at the end can be a bad idea, because then nobody wants to reread your piece of writing.

Don't fall into cliches. I'm not saying you shouldn't have cliches in your story, they wouldn't be cliches if people didn't use them. But if you're using them, use them with purpose, make sure it fits, and don't overdo it.

Use vivid descriptions... But don't tell the reader everything. When it comes to descriptions too much is often worse than nothing at all, because a lot of the time when nothing is left to the imagination, things stop being scary.

Don't rush the payoff. Have you ever seen the opening to scream where Casey Becker gets the call from Ghostface? He's toying with her, there's that building sense of unease as Casey realises that something is horribly wrong, and so does the audience. Well, that scene wouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did if Casey had picked up the phone, been asked what her favourite scary movie is straight away, and then stabbed in the back. The payoff is always going to be better if the buildup is good.

Have some downtime between the doom and gloom. If it's always scary and your characters are always running for their lives, then eventually the reader is going to get desensitized, nowhere should be entirely safe, and they should always be on their toes, but having (even small) moments of respite, will be good for when you want the reader to actually be scared.

Practice. I know, it's cliched, but practice does make perfect, over time. If you give up because your writing doesn't match your expectations, then you'll never be able to meet your expectations, in fact, I recommend never letting yourself quite reach your expectations, always have a goal in mind that you are working towards.

The most important one... Have fun, I know, I know, this is the most cliched thing here, but it's still the most important, if you aren't having fun, then you're doing something wrong.

And there you have it! Those are my top ten tips for writing horror, if anybody sees this and wants me to do a top ten tips for writing mystery I'd be happy to give that a go. Bye now!

#author #self publishing #writeblr #authors of tumblr #writing #positive message #writer #horror #writing tips #tips and tricks #helpful #top 10

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revenge-of-the-shit · 3 years

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Writing Advice: Making The Story Flow

Tip #1: Try to see if you can watch it happen in your head like a movie.

When you write, think about these questions:

Can you hear your characters saying these lines of dialogue?

If this was a description of a movie, can you see the transitions between one scene and the next? Are these transitions abrupt or smooth?

In my writing process, I picture each chapter as one episode. Each chapter does have a conflict and resolution, but there is an arc to which the chapters belong to, and then a whole story to which the collection of arcs belong to.

This also helps a lot with pacing. Ask yourself these questions:

Could I see this happening in TV/in a movie?

Does it feel like this scene is too rushed? What would a film do to slow it down?

Does it feel like this scene drags on for too long? What would a film cut to make it more concise?

Tip #2: Give a voice to your character!

And I don’t just mean, “let them speak”; I mean, have a voice in your head that sounds like what the character is like. Other than film/television, an excellent place to find inspiration for voices is through audiobooks. Some audiobooks (sci-fi) I recommend for voice inspo:

Dune - read by full cast.

The Thrawn trilogy - read by Marc Thompson. It is almost terrifying to hear how he's able to sound like 30 distinct people.

There have also been instances of authors who take inspiration for characters from their friends. If you're one of these authors - or if you're an author that finds some similarities between your OCs and your friends - try to imagine what their dialogue may sound like. What would they say? Would they use slang? Are they more formal? Are there any phrases that they (and ONLY they) use in conversation?

Tip #3: Know what you’re building up to.

When writing your story, it's best to know what you're building up to. Even if you're a pantser - or you're just letting the story take you wherever it feels like going without a plan - if you at least have a general idea of what you want to build up to, it can help a LOT in terms of building up suspense.

It’s also important to know what other big events you want to lead up to on the way to the BIG event.

((More under the cut))

I consider a big event to be the climax/the overarching goal of an arc. I consider a BIG event to be the climax/main goal of the whole story.

(The difference is in the caps! Here's a rough diagram:)

And this is where the pacing comes in; you want there to be faster parts that go up, but also slower parts where it goes down. You need to give room for your readers to breathe every so often.

You need to know what you’re building up to; otherwise, you won’t have any suspense because you don’t know what you want your readers to anticipate. Alternatively, your payoff will end up flopping (see The Rise of Skywalker as an example of what happens when you don't adequately plan).

Tip #4: Read Your own writing.

What? Read my… own writing?

Yup. What I mean is this; once you’ve gotten started on that novel, I do highly recommend that you go back to read your previous chapters every so often, but it is equally as important that you do not change what you’ve written.

I re-read my WIP every so often when I’m writing. When I do so, I make observations like “oh shoot, I’ve totally forgotten about this thing that I set up, I need to tie off that loose end” or “hey, there’s something I can toy with that foreshadows a future event”.

By re-reading my past chapters, I’ve been able to tie my recently updated chapters back to the first ones to make the whole story feel more coherent and planned.

So why do I say that you don’t change what you’ve already written? Because if you change it, you’re getting nowhere. It’s a trap many writers fall into; they write something, they continue, then they go back and try to retcon it, then they get stuck with new plot holes and they’re dissatisfied with their results.

If you want to change parts of your story that are very much relevant to plot, wait until you’re done your whole first draft.

So what does this have to do with pacing, with plot, etc.?

This, I think, has to do with some familiarity. I mean it this way; when you bring up something that you’ve brought up before in your story, your readers will go “Hey! I remember this!” and it’s a teeny mental break because it’s something they’re familiar with. It can help a lot with slowing down pacing by just giving your characters time to reflect.

Likewise, it can speed up your pace if you use those plot points as a way to go forward.

For example: you bring up something your character thought about 3 chapters ago, and then they suddenly realize that it’s a really big clue that’s important, and then suddenly there’s tension.

It’s important to be able to connect even the small details.

Tip #5: Don't be overly meticulous

“What do you mean, Annessarose?” you ask. “You just spent the last four points talking about how important it is to link everything in the story, even the smallest details!”

Fair point. But what I mean is this - if you overly plan out your story in a plot outline and you get hyperfocused on making sure everything is connected, you’re restricting yourself more than helping.

Some of my best chapters, I think, were written when I had absolutely no chapter outline written out - just a vague idea of where I wanted to take it. I had a general idea of what I wanted to build up to; I had a doc open where I had written out the loose ends I wanted to address, but I hadn’t even highlighted which ones I wanted to address in the chapter I was writing in the moment.

If you get hyperfocused on details, it can end up detracting from the pacing and from the plot. You could end up with lots of details… and no substance. Like Batman vs. Superman. The first hour(s? who knows how long) was spent with meticulous set-up that didn't pay off much. That, in part, was why the film was so poorly received overall.

I think I’ll liken this to a piece of music. I play the cello. When I play Bach’s Cello Suite no. 3, I don’t think about each individual note. Yes, they’re very important, and each pitch and rhythm should be precise, but I don’t focus on each one individually - otherwise, the music comes out sounding choppy.

Instead, I think about the overarching melody, and where I want the music to go. The details are important, yes, but not so important they override the general message. Same thing applies to writing. If you focus on the little things only, you’ll lose the flow. If you aim for the bigger picture - you’ll find that the little things will come naturally :)

#writing advice #writing reference

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plaidbooks · 2 years

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I've asked you for writing help in the past(it was about confession scenes) and it really helped so if its okay I was hoping you could point me in the right direction. How do know when you're pacing something correctly? I constantly go back and forth between wanting the romance to take a while to build but I don't want it to take 30 chapters before one realizes their feelings. Any advice on how to figure that out? Or any resources that you feel helped you nail down pacing?

I'm glad I could help! Now, this is something I struggle with too, so I'm going to give advice that I've heard more than practiced fully.

When you're plotting out a story, you need to figure out if you want a slow burn or not. There's plenty of writers (and readers) who love a slooooow burn. And the advantage of waiting that long before a character realizes feelings is that you get to build up to it. You get to show the characters as something other than lovers (friends, coworkers, enemies, whatever), so that the payoff when they do finally get together is that much better. And you can add little aspects from their previous relationship to this new one. If it's a slow burn you want, try and focus on their first relationship as the "main" one--don't worry about the one down the road.

My issue is that I like to rush things; I know what the "big scene" is and want to hurry to it. What I found helps, though, is to read your work as a writer--putting all the pieces down, getting the plot you wanted. And then reread it as a reader. Pretend you didn't write it, that you're reading it for the first time. Do you like it? What do you wish was different? Are there parts too long, or too short? Does it make sense?

If that's too hard, having a beta reader can help a lot, too. Letting someone with outside eyes read it can help get a new perspective. And you don't have to send them a full thing--just send a scene with a "can you tell me if this is too rushed?"

A thing to remember is that what may be perfect for you may not be perfect for others. A book I'm reading for class right now is amazing, and I love the main character, while a classmate said he was too boring. You can never please everyone--might as well at least please yourself.

I'm sorry I don't have any more concrete advice for you! Another small thing is that you can read something like what you want--same fandom or not, just to see how you like their pacing.

Happy writing! I hope it works out for you!

#answered #anon #pacing is rough #my main advice is just #tell the story you wanna tell #don't look at word count #or page count #write it all #THEN worry about that

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