How to write a scary story. Five of the scariest stories invented by the “collective mind” How to write scary stories

We present to your attention a selection of scary stories consisting of just two sentences. Each of them makes your heart beat faster, and the small volume gives room to your imagination and imagination. So, are you ready to tickle your nerves and plunge into the world of the mysterious and inexplicable?

1. I put my child to bed, and he says to me: “Dad, check for the monsters under the bed.” I look under the bed to calm him down, and I see my child there, looking at me with horror and saying in a trembling voice: “Dad, there’s someone else in my bed.”

2. Doctors told the patient that phantom pain is possible after amputation. But no one warned about how the cold fingers of the amputated hand would scratch the other.

3. I woke up because I heard a knock on the glass. At first I thought someone was knocking on my window, but then I heard another knock... from the mirror.

4. They celebrated the first successful cryogenic freezing. But the patient had no way to show them that he was still conscious.

5. She couldn’t understand why she was casting two shadows. After all, there was only one lamp in the room.

6. A smiling face stared at me from the darkness outside my bedroom window. I live on the 14th floor.

7. This morning I found a photo of myself sleeping on my phone. I live alone.

8. I just saw that my reflection in the mirror was winking at me.

9. I’m working the night shift and suddenly I see a face looking directly into the surveillance camera under the ceiling.

10. The mannequins were delivered wrapped in bubble wrap. I heard from the other room how someone started to eat them.

11. You woke up. But she doesn't.

12. She asked me why I sighed so heavily. But I didn't sigh.

13. You came home after a long day of work and are already dreaming of relaxing alone. You look for the switch with your hand, but you feel someone’s hand.

14. You have already begun to fall asleep in a sound, peaceful sleep, when suddenly you hear: someone whispered your name. Are you living alone.

15. While falling asleep, you pulled one leg out from under the blanket. Someone immediately grabbed you by it.

16. The relatives of the deceased were never able to leave the crypt. Someone locked the door from the outside.

17. My wife woke me up last night to tell me that a burglar had broken into the house. But she was killed 2 years ago.

18. I had a wonderful dream until I woke up to the sound of someone hammering. Afterwards, I only heard clods of earth falling on the lid of the coffin, muffling my screams.

19. The last person on Earth was sitting in the room. There was a knock on the door.

20. Mom called me into the kitchen, but on the way there I heard my mother whisper from another room: “Don’t go there, I heard that too.”

21. I never go to bed, but I wake up every time.

22. She went into the nursery to look at her sleeping baby. The window was open and the bed was empty.

23. Day 312. The Internet is still not working.

24. “I can’t sleep,” she whispered, crawling into bed with me. I woke up in a cold sweat, clutching the dress in which she was buried.

25. You hear a terrible scream in the hallway, but you can’t open your eyes and move.

26. I come home, my mother shouts from the kitchen, “Go to dinner,” and then an SMS comes from my mother: “I’ll be late, warm up something for yourself.”

27. I used to think that my cat has vision problems: she cannot focus her eyes when she looks at me. Until I realized that she was always looking at something behind me.

Content:

Do you love reading scary stories that give you goosebumps? Or are you frightened by stories that keep you in a state of anxiety? Writing a horror story (like any other story) involves developing a plot, setting, and characters. But scary stories also keep the reader in a state of anxiety throughout the plot until the frightening or gruesome climax. Find real-life inspiration from your own fears and write a story that will easily scare you.

Steps

Part 1 Coming up with a plot

1. 1 Make a list of the things you fear most. This is the best way to come up with a scary story plot. The plot is a series of main events in a work that determine the characters, the setting, and the development of the story. For example, you are afraid of losing family members, loneliness, violence, clowns, demons, or even squirrels. Put your fears on paper so that they are conveyed to your readers. Write a story that will be scary for you personally.
   • Fear of the unknown is the best foundation for any scary story. People are afraid of what they don't know.
2. 2 Add a “what if” element to your fears. Think about different scenarios in which you might experience some of your greatest fears. Also think about how you would react if you were trapped or forced to confront your fears. Make a list of questions that start with “what if.”
   • For example, if you are afraid of being stuck in an elevator, ask yourself, “What if I am stuck in an elevator with a dead person?” Or: “What if a stuck elevator is a door to the other world?”
3. 3 Create an atmosphere of fear. Limit the area of ​​movement of the main character so that he is forced to look his fears in the eye and look for a way out of the situation. Think about what enclosed or confined spaces scare you the most, such as a cellar, a coffin, an abandoned city.
4. 4 Take an ordinary situation and turn it into something terrible. For example, think about taking a walk in the park, cooking dinner, or visiting friends. Then add a scary or strange element to these situations. For example, while walking you come across a severed human ear, while cutting fruit they turn into human fingers or tentacles.
   • Or add an unexpected element, such as a vampire who likes sweets rather than blood, or placing the main character in a dumpster rather than a coffin.
5. 5 Look for the plot of the story in the news. To do this, read local newspapers or articles on the Internet. There may have been a burglary in your area that is very similar to burglaries in other areas of the city. Use newspaper articles to create a story.
   • You may need your notes to create a plot. For example, when writing a scary story about how you stayed in a strange hotel. Or about a party where something happened, or about your friend who began to behave unusually towards you.

Part 2 Creating Characters

1. 1 Create characters in the story. Make the reader identify with the main character. If the reader identifies with the main character, then they will empathize and care about your character. You need at least one main character and (depending on your story) the following characters:
   • the villain
   • Minor characters (family member, best friend, loved one, etc.)
   • Episodic characters (postal clerk, gas station worker, etc.)
2. 2 Think about specific details for each character. When creating characters, define who they are, what they do, and what their motivations are. Give characters certain personality traits. Create a list for each character that includes the following information (and refer to this list as you write the story):
   • Name, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color and so on
   • Character traits
   • Likes and dislikes
   • Family history
   • Best friend and worst enemy
   • Five items characters never leave home without
3. 3 Clearly define the risks to the character. This is what he can lose or be deprived of when making this or that decision. If your readers don't know what the main character is risking, they won't be afraid that he will lose anything. And a good horror story relies on communicating the protagonist's fears to the readers.
   • Outline what will happen if the character doesn't achieve what he wants. Risks to the character or consequences from unfulfilled desires are factors that support the development of the plot in a horror story. Character risks also keep the reader on the edge of their seats and keep them interested in the story.
4. 4 The villain should not be completely “standard”. He must deviate from generally accepted norms. For example, think about Dracula. His teeth are not like a normal human's teeth because Dracula's upper fangs are much larger and sharper than a normal human's fangs.
5. 5 Make life difficult for your character. All scary stories are based on fear and tragedy and the character's ability to overcome their fears. Stories where good things happen to good people won't be scary. In fact, a story in which bad things happen to good people is not only more realistic, but also keeps the reader more on edge. Let something bad or terrible happen to your character.
   • The discrepancy between what the reader thinks should happen to the character and what actually happens to the character will keep the reader interested in your story.
6. 6 Let your characters make mistakes or make bad decisions while still believing they are doing the right thing.
   • Don't overthink such mistakes or bad decisions. They should seem justified, not just stupid or unbelievable. An attractive young nanny, seeing the masked killer, runs not to the phone to call the police, but outside into the dense dark forest - this is an implausible and stupid act of the protagonist from the reader's point of view.

Part 3 Writing History

1. 1 Create a plot after you've come up with the plot, setting, and characters. For this you can use. Its key elements include:
   • Introduction. Description of characters and location.
   • The beginning. The character's encounter with problems.
   • Plot development. The character tries to resolve the problems that have arisen, but faces obstacles.
   • Climax. Description of the most disturbing moment in history.
   • Withering of the plot. Description of events after the climax.
   • Denouement. The character copes or fails to cope with the main problem.
   • Epilogue. Description of the further fate of the characters.
2. 2 Show, don't tell, the story. A good horror story includes detailed descriptions of the characters' feelings so that the reader can more easily imagine themselves in the protagonist's shoes. If you describe the situation and the feelings of the characters briefly and superficially, the reader will be less intrigued.
   • For example, consider the following two ways of describing one scene:
     • I was too scared to open my eyes when I heard footsteps approaching.
     • I wrapped myself in a blanket and began to whine quietly. My breath caught in my throat and my stomach clenched with fear. I didn't want to look. No matter how close those shuffling steps were, I didn't want to look. I didn’t want to, I... didn’t...”
   • In the second example, the character's experiences are described in more detail so that the reader can better feel the situation.
3. 3 As the plot progresses, make the story more intense. Creating a good horror story requires the reader to empathize with the character, so you need to increase the level of danger and suspense.
   • Hint the reader at the solution to the story's mystery and possible climax by introducing small clues or details, such as bottle labels, that will later be useful to the main character; a sound or voice in the room that will later indicate something supernatural.
   • Keep the reader on the edge of your seat by alternating between scary and calm moments. Let the main character calm down and feel safe. Then increase the tension by placing the hero in the most terrifying situation.
4. 4 When writing a story, use the “prediction” technique. This technique involves introducing clues into the story that allow the reader to "predict" the plot's future developments. But the reader should be able to “see” such clues. This technique also keeps the reader on the edge of their seats because they are worried that bad consequences will occur before the hero gets out of the situation.
5. 5 Don't use certain words. Describe what is happening in words that will evoke emotions in the reader, rather than impose certain feelings on him. For example, it is better not to use the following words:
   • Scared, fearful
   • Terrible, scary
   • Fear, horror
   • Afraid
   • Funky
6. 6 Avoid clichés. Like any genre, horror stories have their own set of cliches, so avoid them if you want to write something unique and interesting. Clichés include well-known characters such as the deranged clown in the attic, or hackneyed phrases such as “Run!” and “Don’t look back!”
7. 7 Don't go overboard with the amount of blood and violence. Remember that excessive amounts of gore and violence will disgust the reader rather than scare them. If your story constantly contains puddles of blood, the reader will become bored. Of course, some blood is quite appropriate to describe a scene or character. Use blood or violence in your story wisely, that is, in a way that frightens the reader rather than disgusting or boring.

Part 4 Writing a good conclusion

1. 1 Increase the risks for the hero until the climax. Put him in a situation that he is unlikely to cope with. Overwhelm him with a lot of minor problems. Build tension until the climax so that the reader realizes that the character is in grave danger.
2. 2 Let the main character figure out how to get out of the current situation. This decision should be based on the details you add as the story progresses, and should not be spontaneous or seemingly random.
3. 3 Write the punchline. The climax is the turning point in the story. At the climax of a scary story, the main character is in danger (to his physical, psychological, emotional or spiritual health).
   • In Poe's story, the climax occurs at the very end of the story. Poe describes how, with the arrival of the police, the protagonist’s internal struggle grows and grows, but outwardly the character remains absolutely calm. At the very end of the story, under the pressure of internal guilt, the hero confesses to the murder and shows the police the old man’s corpse.
4. 4 Create an unexpected ending that can elevate or bury the entire work. An unexpected outcome is something that the reader does not expect, for example, the transformation of the main character from a positive character into a villain. ,
5. 5 Decide how you want to end the story. In the final part of the story, all the secrets and mysteries are revealed. But this is often not the case in scary stories - it is better that the reader does not leave the feeling of uncertainty. Has the killer been caught? Does a ghost really exist? But such uncertainty should not confuse the reader.
   • While you want to leave the reader somewhat in the dark, don't leave all the mysteries unrevealed, as this may cause the reader to not understand the ending of the story at all.
   • Consider whether to make the ending of the story unexpected or predictable. In a good scary story, the resolution comes at the very end of the story. Edgar Allan Poe's story keeps the reader in suspense until the very end, because the denouement is described in the last paragraph of the work.

Part 5 Editing History

1. 1 Re-read the story. Read a draft of your story (silently or out loud) and focus on increasing the suspense. Pay attention to those parts of the story that are not interesting or intriguing enough. Shorten or rewrite long paragraphs so that they help maintain a tense atmosphere.
   • Sometimes a story is written in such a way that the reader knows the outcome in advance. But the reader is still ready to read the work in its entirety, because the ending can be interesting and exciting. The reader empathizes with the hero, so he wants to follow the development of the story.
2. 2 Check the story for spelling and grammatical errors. This way, your reader can focus on the story itself without being distracted by typos or inappropriate punctuation.
   • It is better to print out the story and check it carefully.
3. 3 Let other people read your story. This will let you know what they think about your story. Ask people to comment on the following questions:
   • Characters. Are the characters believable? Is the situation they find themselves in realistic?
   • Narration. Does the story make sense? Are the events presented in the correct order?
   • Language and grammar. Is the story easy to read? Are there extra sentences, incorrectly chosen words, etc.?
   • Dialogues. Is the dialogue between the characters realistic? Is there too much dialogue or not enough?
   • Pace. Is the story moving at a good pace? Do you get bored in some places? Or does the action unfold too quickly in some places?
   • Plot. Does the plot make sense? Do the characters' goals make sense?
4. 4 Change the story. Remember this is your story. It's full of your own ideas, so you don't have to include other people's ideas. Sometimes a person criticizing another person's work is trying to bring their own views into the story. If other people's ideas are good, include them in the story. But if you don't think such ideas make sense for your story, discard them.

• Read several different scary stories, ranging from classics of the genre to modern works. For example, read the following works:
  • William Wymark Jacobs, The Monkey's Paw. An 18th century tale of three terrible wishes granted by the paw of a mystical monkey.
  • Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart. A psychological horror story of murder and stalking.
  • Any scary Stephen King story. He has written over 200 scary stories and uses various methods to scare his readers. It is recommended to familiarize yourself with the following works of his: “The Finger” and “Children of the Corn”.
  • Contemporary writer Joyce Carol Oates wrote a famous psychological horror story called Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Warnings

• If you do research for your horror story (to make it more realistic), do it carefully and wisely.

For a literary work to be remembered, it must awaken some feelings in the reader and find a response in him. If you decide to write horror, then remember: they should evoke fear in those who like to tickle their nerves. Scare the reader and he's yours. Having received what he came for, he will be satisfied and will come again. Your task is to make your work not just scary, but also memorable. Let them tremble, turn behind their backs and be afraid to fall asleep. Let's try to find out what needs to be done for this. Perhaps the most important thing I want to convey is: play on people's fears. These little trembling creatures have long been accustomed to being afraid of something. And the more time passes, the more scarecrows they come up with. What could a caveman be afraid of? Darkness, heights, wild animals, thunder and lightning, a strong tribesman. Are these fears gone now? Nothing happened. But now there are many different “phobias”. Clowns, airplanes, bacteria, mobile phones - everything that was once invented or discovered will scare someone. There is even phobophobia - fear of fears. However, if you look at the list of human fears¹, it becomes clear that most of them still remain from monkeys (or Adam and Eve, depending on your views). What does this give? There is room for activity and one very important fact: fears are natural. Of course, one scarecrow cannot scare all the crows. Surely, somewhere in the world there is a person who, upon seeing a black horned monster in his closet, will think: “Oh-oh, I’ll go eat.” You can set yourself the goal of instilling fear in him, but it is much easier to target a wide audience. What are people afraid of? Try starting with yourself. Because even if the author is not afraid, the reader will not be afraid, because only a small percentage of the author’s imagination will reach him. I think there are many daredevils among you, but the main list is approximately the same: darkness, heights, fire, water, wild animals, sharp objects. Almost all natural fears can be reduced to pain and death. This instinct of self-preservation, inherent in nature, tells us: “Don’t poke your nose into places where you can drown, get burned, or fall; do not approach a wild dog - it will bite; don’t get close to the sick and corpses - there’s an infection there.” But fear does not always have a specific guise. Most frightening unknown. A person is afraid of the dark because unknown what is hidden in it. A person is afraid of loneliness, because alone he is defenseless in front of a huge world in which there is a lot of things unknown. The ancient Greeks invented Zeus to explain thunder and to no longer be afraid of it. We know that thunder is the sound waves of vibrating air produced by the electrical discharge of lightning. Of course, this knowledge does not help everyone, but if you keep it in your head and imagine all the physical processes (or Zeus on a chariot), then you can understand that there is nothing to be afraid of. Therefore, the reader needs to be frightened by something inexplicable . Even if he doesn’t understand and is looking for a solution, its absence will frighten him even more. Whatever actually exists, the imagination will come up with something much more terrible. Human imagination is limitless, you just need to push it a little. Just don't get carried away. Write “He was attacked by something strange,” and the reader will spit at the monitor. Use familiar images at least partially. Giant spider, maniac with an axe. It will be simply gorgeous if you distort something that is not initially scary, so much so that your guts will shake. Remember the clown from It? Let it be an old lady neighbor with the essence of a monster suddenly emerging. An ordinary electronic photo frame, which began to show scenes of the death of the owner and his family. There are many already familiar images that can still be presented in a new way. Do you remember what they usually do to scare you? Mirrors. Oh, these are mysterious “windows to another world.” Spirits come through them (the well-known Bloody Mary), you can fall into them and get stuck forever. Closed space. Claustrophobia is not uncommon, and you may risk awakening it in someone else. Shrinking walls, cages and basements, labyrinths and towers. Already mentioned fire, water and height. You can get a lot out of each of these images. An airplane and a rope over an abyss will beat the heights, a fire in a collapsing house or a bonfire of the Inquisition will frighten a pyrophobe. A chamber filling with water will hit two sore spots at once. And if someone else is watching this, then in threes. Even if a person does not suffer from persecution delusions, he will be frightened by the thought of a mysterious observer who can set up any nasty thing, just to see how the victim will get out. In the end, the reader himself came to you for the torment of the heroes, so his own desire, reflected on the attacker, will affect the subconscious and make him think: “If I am watching someone, then who is watching me?” Atmosphere plays a very important role in horror. If you know how to create it, then even a clearing with flowers risks being covered with bricks. Although, of course, the location plays a decisive role. If you don’t know what else to scare, place the reader in a deliberately creepy environment. Cemetery, abandoned factory, mental hospital, concentration camp. Just as with the object of fear, a greater effect can be achieved if you make an initially ordinary place where everyone has been scary. This will allow the reader to step into the character’s shoes, and there is no need to indicate many details - they will come to mind. Elevator, courtyard, forest, bathroom, car interior. If something is missing from personal experience, the spectator’s will come to the rescue: everyone can imagine a laboratory, a courtroom, an art gallery, a beauty salon, even if they have not been there. There are a lot of pseudo-mysterious places that are popular in modern literature and cinema. For example, pyramids, the North Pole, empty cities. Using them isn't so bad, it's like riding on paved rails: reliable, but boring if nothing new happens. Add something new and it will be fine. Another move is to pull the rug out from under the reader’s feet, driving it into an unpublished place. For example, a radio or television studio, a construction trailer, a mineral mine, a disk drive (why not?). The reader will be disoriented and believe what you tell. Details are important in every description. Something bright and catchy. In the case of horror, frightening. It's not enough to just give see. Give the reader hear, smell, feel. Describe what you present juicily and tastefully. Dripping hot and stinking saliva of a monster, a resounding roar of flame and heat blazing in the face, biting ice crunching on the cheeks, making you shudder, the creaking of claws on the glass, the taste of metal on the tongue. The more powerful the image, the stronger the impression. Press on all the calluses, turn out all the abominations. If the description makes you want to wrap yourself in a blanket or wash your hands, this is a good description (not to be confused with the desire to gouge out your eyes). The story may be static (it will be a sketch), but more often some action still takes place. And you need to build it correctly so that the reader does not get bored. There are a number of methods that can be combined. The first one is injection. Scary, even scarier, creepy, nightmarish, dear mother! Play on the nerves, keep the reader in suspense. Let them bite their fingernails with their hair standing on end. Let a new horror follow the previous one, do not let anyone relax. There should be a gap, it will make reading exciting. The main thing is that each scarecrow pops up unexpectedly, even if they are waiting for it. The Boo Effect, as old as time, is much loved by horror directors. It’s more difficult to implement in text, but you can try. Second - chase. Nightmares act as a clue here. How often do people dream that someone is chasing them? They may not even know who it is, but they are very, very afraid. The chase is exhausting, your legs refuse to move, a dead end or a cliff suddenly appears, and they are already advancing from behind, you can hear stomping, the enemies are breathing in your back... The chase makes your heart beat faster and adrenaline splashes into your blood. The third way to influence the reader is to plunge him into shock. Give out something that cannot be reacted to habitually, that the brain will refuse to accept. Remember the old lady next door? Imagine meeting her on the stairwell with a bucket of severed heads. A woman with an empty bucket, promising trouble, nervously smokes on the sidelines. Shock can be caused by something strange, a break in a pattern. Fluffy kitten? What if there are hundreds of them and they tear a living person to pieces? At the same time, of course, they purr cutely and contentedly. A house that suddenly became liquid, in which for some reason the glass remained solid, a giant excavator with a bloody bucket appeared out of nowhere. More surprises, but without fanaticism, otherwise it will turn into a phantasmagoria and cease to amaze. Do you also remember that many fears boil down to pain and death? It is very important to correctly arrange in your work torture or murder. So that the impressionable reader can feel all the torment firsthand. All painful sensations are given to the will of your imagination. Although you can always stumble upon someone who has experienced amputation without anesthesia and will say: “I don’t believe it!” Well, to this we will answer that everyone’s pain threshold is different, and it’s also impossible to recognize other people’s sensations. Taking the lives of victims must be approached wisely. Decide what effect you want to have on the reader: give hope or take away. If the former, then kill the fool. Yes, the same girl who goes down to the extremely suspicious basement and asks: “Darling, is that you?” The reader knows (or believes) that he is not so stupid and this will not happen to him, i.e. hopes for the best. The intermediate situation is to kill someone defenseless. A dog, a cat, a baby, a non-walking disabled person. There is fear, death cannot be avoided, but the target audience does not consist of disabled puppies, so death bypasses the reader. Bye. It's time to take away all hope. To do this you need to kill a strong, smart, resourceful character. To show that death will come to everyone, there is no hiding from it, no hiding. It is the inevitability and inevitability of death that scares the hell out of a person. Whether the hero is crushed into a bloody pulp or has a heart attack - it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that there is no choice. If you want a semblance of a happy ending, leave the lucky idiot alive. Yes, even if he’s an academician, as long as he’s on good terms with luck. But you can do without any sacrifices at all. Acts as a scarecrow of the unknown disappearance. This is “and they lived happily ever after” in reverse. Because the reader doesn’t know: they lived, they died, he will come up with all the worst things himself. An astronaut who was completely sucked into a black hole (and there is no bookcase there), tourists who disappeared in the mountains straight from their tents. You can add mystical traces of a mysterious something: prints in the snow, streaks of light in the sky, this will give impetus to your imagination and guide you along some path. It is extremely important to put a bold dot or a mysterious ellipsis. The choice is yours, but I beg you, don’t leak the ending. Don’t write the overused “and then they woke up.” Let there be at least “and they never didn’t wake up.” If you want to be kind, defeat evil (in case of a sequel, you can leave a securely hidden larva). If you want to be evil, kill everyone. The golden mean is to leave the hero alive, but release evil into the world. Always ask yourself questions first: at what point in my story am I scared, and at what point am I bored? What horror stories impressed me most at the children's camp? What horror movies do I still can't forget? Which horror writer is my favorite? Write what scares you first of all, and there will be homophobes. I hope something in this article gave you a good idea. Play on people's fears, push readers into primal horror, don't let them forget you, make them come back. Well, and finally... BOO!

The good writing resource WikiHow has a whole selection of articles on writing all kinds of horror stories: mysticism, horror, thrillers, stories about vampires and ghosts... I chose the most interesting tips. Perhaps today, on the eve of Halloween, they will inspire you to read scary books:

1. The horror format does not always involve splashing blood and brains across the pages of a book. If desired, you can make the most frightening ordinary things. By the way, there is an interesting exercise on this topic: take any banal object (a bottle of water, a notebook, face cream) and come up with a mini-horror story involving this object.

2. "Horror" is not an autonomous genre. You can calmly mix other genres to write about what interests you. For example, create amazing worlds in space or write about historical eras. A horror atmosphere can be created in any environment.

3. They will help create the desired scary atmosphere in the book. details. Think about classic horror films. Open windows, doors that open on their own, the wind howling outside the walls of the house, the disturbed order of things, the howling of a dog... All this is more frightening than a maniac with a cleaver who, from scene to scene, cuts someone into a thousand little hedgehogs. The reader gets tired of endless descriptions of murders very quickly. From skillfully written details - never!

5. Always invest as much as possible in the antagonist. strength. Let the bad guys get even worse! The more difficult it is for the protagonist to fight the antagonist, the more interesting it is for the reader to watch their struggle. Don't be afraid to make things too difficult for the hero. Difficulties in this case are the law of the genre.

6. Avoid cliches and cliches. Handsome vampires, villainous orphans embittered by a difficult childhood, long dialogues with victims, sinister laughter and a rasping voice... Before you say your word in horror, read at least 15 books in your chosen genre. For each book, attach a card with key events, symbols and character characteristics written on it. Once you have 15 cards, look for patterns and repetitions.

8. Don't forget alternate scenes. If the heroes are constantly being chased by either a ghost in shackles or a werewolf with saliva dripping from his open mouth, readers will begin to get tired of the monotonous tension. Horror scenes should not be the main dish, but just a seasoning. Add characters' emotions, thoughts, dialogues, funny jokes and passion to the text. The more unexpected the scary moments are for the reader, the better.

9. A sign that you are on the right track is to realize that the antagonist you have invented is a little scares yourself.

As children, we all sat around the fire and told each other scary stories about “green eyes” running along the wall or about a black man who drives around the city at midnight in a hearse and takes lost children with him.

Scary stories have incredible appeal because they evoke strong emotions - and in a very short period of time.

And a charge of strong emotions is exactly what readers crave from us writers.

Algorithm for writing a scary story

So how do you write a scary story? The simplest algorithm looks like this:

Idea

We come up with an idea that starts with the words “What if...” and weave our own fears into it. It is advisable that the conversation is about personal experience - this will make it more reliable.

Realization of fear

We play out the scenario: “How could my personal fear be realized in real life?”

For example, my personal fear: to be alone, without money and without communication, in an unfamiliar city, in a foreign country. By and large, this is a fear of helplessness and personal uselessness.

Now let’s look: what terrible consequences await a person who finds himself in such a situation?

The plot of a scary story

We build the plot of our terrible story according to the classical principle:

• The hero has a problem.
• The hero is trying to solve the problem.
• One obstacle piles on top of another, the stakes are constantly increasing.
• The hero is forced to face his basic fear and try to overcome it.
• Finale: the conflict is resolved, all storylines merge into one point, the hero overcomes himself, rises to a new level of awareness, after which he either survives or dies - depending on your idea.

Main character

We think over the image of the main character and his motivations. His main task is to escape from the situation in which he found himself due to his characteristics, shortcomings or external conditions. The hero must make a volitional decision to save himself and/or other people. And what exactly he will do depends on his character and circumstances.

Let's remember Ellen Ripley from the movie "Alien": all her actions are dictated character traits of the heroine, and that is why the image turned out to be complete and inspiring.

Villains and monsters

Particular attention must be paid to the villain. It’s not enough to create his description and psychological portrait (if your villain has any psyche at all) - you must show his motives: what does he actually want?

The most terrible thing in well-written horror films is the inevitability of evil, its logic, a cold, purposeful effort towards the main character. Evil must be targeted - then it causes horror in readers who associate themselves with your character. And if it’s just a hurricane or a landslide - that is, something faceless and indifferent to you personally, then this is already a tragedy, not horror.

Writing a scary story

Once you have all the main elements thought of, it’s time to sit down and write the text. This process is divided into the following stages:

• The first draft - we just type in the text, we don’t pay attention to the style.
• Second draft - straightening out the plot “jambs”. Again, we don’t pay attention to style.
• Third draft - editing descriptions, dialogues and actions, monitoring the tempo.
• Fourth draft - we finally pay attention to the style and correct all the clumsiness, length and unnecessaryness.
• Fifth draft - line-by-line editing and proofreading (we catch minor errors and typos.
• We show it to beta readers (i.e., the first readers) - we listen to them carefully and if the criticism is adequate, we make corrections.
• We publish it online or send it to a publisher.