Writing Scary Stories: Overview Benjamin Way Creative Writing

Topics  Choosing a topic  Building suspense & atmosphere  Keeping them scared

Choosing a Topic  Two options:  Real Life  Much more limited in what can happen  Much scarier to people who aren’t superstitious  Super Natural  Much more room for imagination  Much scarier for people who accept it as possible

Choosing a Topic  Whether real or super natural, base your story on something people are already afraid of, then tell a story to make it even worse.  What are some things people are afraid of?

Things people are afraid of:  Dark, unused rooms (attic, cellar)  Spiders  Strange noises  Non-living things with eyes  Unexpected strangers  Dead stuff (corpses, ghosts, etc.)  Elevators  Witchcraft  Monsters

Situations people are afraid of:  Being alone  Being in charge of others  Walking in the dark  Investigating something unknown  Catching horrible, unknown diseases  Meeting new people  Losing somebody they love  Disappearing mysteriously

Making a scary story:  Combine some of the things people are afraid of with a situation people are afraid of, and you have created a scary story.  Ex. Dark, unused room + unknown noises + dead things + spiders = scary story

Building Suspense and Atmosphere  Scary stories should be short enough to be remembered completely and told to an audience.  Therefore, they need to be fairly simple.

Building Suspense and Atmosphere  All stories need a conflict. These stories will have simple conflicts, but they must have them.  Typically, you’ll pick a stereotypical conflict that requires little to no explanation beyond one sentence.  Ex. “A young man was trying to prove his bravery to his friends.” “A young woman moved to a new town and was trying to fit in.”

Building Suspense and Atmosphere  Give the audience time and space to imagine something bad happening before it does.  A good rule of thumb is for the “scary” thing to happen on the third try of a repeated theme.  Ex. A person hears a strange noise, and the first two times they don’t find anything, but the noise gets louder, so they check again…

Building Suspense and Atmosphere  Don’t tell the audience the specific details of what horrible thing happens at the end.  Let them imagine it themselves.  They’ll come up with something much worse (to them) than you ever could.

Keeping them Scared  The best scary stories are the ones that make people frightened all the time for at least a week.  To do this, put details in the story that will remind them of it on a daily basis.

Keeping them Scared Examples:  An odd sound in the laundry machine  A creaky door  Turning on the light in a bedroom  Something behind the shower curtain  Something sneaks up on them while vacuuming  Phone ringing in another room

Review  Whether supernatural or realistic, choose a topic that includes an element of danger for the protagonist.  To make it scary, combine situations people already are afraid of with things people are afraid of.  Keep the story fairly simple, so it can easily be remembered in full.  The audience’s imagination is key to creating fear. Give them time to imagine how things will go wrong, and don’t provide all the gory details.  To keep them scared for a long time, lead up to the scary part with details they’re likely to encounter on a normal day.