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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Last updated on Jun 20, 2022

How to Write a Horror Story: 7 Tips for Writing Horror

In our era of highly commercialized crime and thriller novels, it may seem like zeitgeist-defining horror books are a thing of the past. Indeed, Stephen King was once the perennial bestselling author in the world, and children in the 90s devoured Goosebumps books like The Blob devoured, well, everything.

But let’s not forget there’s a huge base of horror fans today, desperate for their next fix . So if you’re hoping to become the next Crown Prince of Dread, your dream can still come true! Here are seven steps to writing truly chilling horror:

1. Start with a fear factor

2. pick a horror story subgenre, 3. let readers experience the stakes, 4. create suspense through point of view, 5. consider plot twists to surprise your audience, 6. put your characters in compelling danger, 7. use your imagination.

The most important part of any horror story is naturally going to be its fear factor . People don’t read horror for easy entertainment; they read it to be titillated and terrorized. That said, here are a few elements you can use to seriously scare the pants off your reader.

Instinctive fears

Fears that have some sort of logical or biological foundation are often the most potent in horror. Darkness, heights, snakes, and spiders — all these are extremely common phobias rooted in instinct. As a result, they tend to be very effective at frightening readers.

This is especially true when terror befalls innocent characters apropos of nothing: a killer traps them in their house for no apparent reason, or they’re suddenly mugged by a stranger with a revolver. As horror writer Karen Woodward says, “The beating undead heart of horror is the knowledge that bad things happen to good people.”

Monsters and supernatural entities

These stretch beyond the realm of logic and into the realm of the “uncanny,” as Freud called it. We all know that vampires , werewolves, and ghosts aren’t real, but that doesn’t mean they can’t shake us to our core. In fact, it’s the very uncertainty they arouse that makes them so sinister: what if monsters are really out there, we’ve just never seen them? This fear is one of the most prevalent in horror, but if you decide to write in this vein, your story has to be pretty convincing.

Societal tensions

Another great means of scaring people is to tap into societal tensions and concerns — a tactic especially prevalent in horror movies. Just in recent memory, Get Out tackles the idea of underlying racism in modern America, The Babadook examines mental health, and It Follows is about the stigma of casual sex. However, societal tensions can also easily be embodied in the pages of a horror story, as in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery .

The right atmosphere for your story depends on what kind of horror you want to write. To use cinematic examples again, are you going for more Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Silence of the Lambs? The tone and atmosphere of your story will hang upon its subgenre.

• Thriller-horror employs psychological fear, often occurring near the beginning of horror stories before very much has happened
• Gross-out horror involves vivid descriptions of spurting blood, hacked-up flesh, and gouged-out organs in order to shock the reader; think gore movies of the 70s
• Classic horror harks back to the Gothic (or Southern Gothic ) genre, with spooky settings and bone-chilling characters like those of Dracula and Frankenstein
• Terror provokes a feeling of all-pervasive dread, which can either serve as the climax of your story or be sustained throughout

It’s also possible to combine subgenres, especially as your story progress. You might begin with a sense of thrilling psychological horror, then move into gothic undertones, which culminates in utter terror.

But no matter what type of horror you’re working with, it should be deeply potent for your reader — and yourself! “If you manage to creep yourself out with your own writing, it's usually a pretty good sign that you're onto something,” editor Harrison Demchick says.

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In order for readers to truly thrill at your horror story, you need to make them aware of the stakes. Clearly establish the main problem or motivation for your character(s) , and what they have to lose if they don’t figure it out. These stakes and motivations might involve: 

Survival. The most basic objective of characters in any horror story is to survive. However, there are nuances that accompany that goal. Perhaps their objective isn't just to stay alive, but to defeat their murderous nemesis while doing it — whether that’s another person, an evil spirit, or even themselves, if it’s a Jekyll and Hyde-type scenario.

Protecting loved ones. The more people the protagonist has to keep safe, the higher the stakes. Many horrific tales peak with a threat of death not to the main character, but to one or several of their loved ones (as in Phantom of the Opera or Red Dragon ).

Cracking unsolved mysteries. Because some horror stories aren’t about escaping peril in the present, but rather about uncovering the terrors of the past. This especially true in subgenres like cosmic horror , which have to do with the great mysteries of the universe, often involving ancient history.

Again, as with atmosphere, you can always merge different kinds of stakes. For instance, you might have a character trying to solve some mysterious murders that happened years ago, only to find out that they’re the next target!

The main thing to remember when it comes to horror — especially horror stories — is that straightforward stakes tend to have the greatest impact. Says author Chuck Wendig, of his perfect recipe for horror: “Plain stakes, stabbed hard through the breastbone.”

Bonus tip! Need help conjuring stakes and suspense? Try reading some masterfully crafted true crime — which can be even scarier than bone fide horror, since it actually happened.

Your reader should feel a kinship with your main character, such that when the stakes are high, they feel their own heart start to beat faster. This can be achieved through either first person or third person limited point of view. (When writing horror, you’ll want to avoid third person omniscient, which can distance your reader and lessen their investment in the story.)

We'll get into only the major POV's to consider in this post, but if you want a full point of view masterclass, check out our free course below.

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First person POV

Speaking of beating hearts, for a great example of first person narration in horror, look no further than The Tell-Tale Heart . Many of Poe’s stories involve deranged first-person narrators ( The Black Cat , The Cask of Amontillado ) but none are more notorious than this one, in which the main character is driven to murder his elderly housemate. Notice Poe’s chilling use of first person POV from the very first lines of the story:

It’s true! Yes, I have been ill, very ill. But why do you say that I have lost control of my mind, why do you say that I am mad? Can you not see that I have full control of my mind? Indeed, the illness only made my mind, my feelings, my senses stronger… I could hear sounds I had never heard before. I heard sounds from heaven; and I heard sounds from hell!

First person POV is excellent for hooking your reader at the beginning, and keeping them in suspense throughout your story. However, it might be too intense for longer, more intricate pieces, and may be difficult to execute if you’re trying to conceal something from your readers.

It’s also worth thinking about the implications of first person, past tense POV in a horror story — it suggests they’ve lived to tell the tale, which might ruin your dramatic ending. Therefore if you do decide to use first person narration, you should probably keep it in present tense.

Third person POV

If you find yourself struggling to make first person POV work, consider a third person limited perspective instead. This kind of narration is often used in longer-form horror, popularized by the likes of Stephen King and Dean Koontz . Look how it’s used here in King’s 1974 novel Carrie , in the description of its eponymous character:

Carrie stood among [the other girls] stolidly, a frog among swans. She was a chunky girl with pimples on her neck and back and buttocks, her wet hair completely without color… She looked the part of the sacrificial goat, the constant butt, believer in left-handed monkey wrenches, perpetual foul-up, and she was.

This narration paints an intimate picture of the character, while still allowing the freedom for commentary in a way that first person narration doesn’t as much. Third person limited narration also works well for building to a certain atmosphere, rather than jumping right into it, as Poe’s narrator does — which is part of why third person is better for lengthier pieces. (See more of King's masterful use of POV to wrack up tension in our Guide to King! )

Unreliable narrators

Alternately, if you’re committed to having a first person narrator but you don’t want to reveal everything to your readers, an unreliable narrator could be your perfect solution! Many mystery and thriller novels employ unreliable narration in order to work up to a big twist without giving away too much. So whether or not you’ll want an unreliable narrator probably depends on how you end your story: straight down the line or with a twist.

Plot twists are exciting, memorable, and help bring previous uncertainty into focus, releasing tension by revealing the truth. However, they’re also notoriously difficult to come up with , and extremely tricky to pull off — you have to carefully hint at a twist, while making sure it’s not too predictable or clichéd.

So: to twist or not to twist? That is the question. 

Big plot twists in horror writing tend to follow the beaten path: the victim turns out to be the killer, the person who we thought was dead isn’t really, or — worst of all — it was all in their head the whole time! But keep in mind that small, subtle plot twists can be just as (if not more) effective.

Take William Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily . After Emily dies, the villagers discover the corpse of a long-vanished traveler in one of her spare beds — along with a strand of silver hair. While the discovery of the body might be gruesome, it’s the presence of Emily’s hair (suggesting she enjoyed cuddling with a cadaver) that really haunts you.

Not to twist

The ending of your story doesn't have to come out of left field to shock and horrify readers. The classic horror approach leaves the reader in suspense as to precisely what will happen, then concludes with a violent showdown (think slasher films).

In this approach, while the showdown itself might not be a surprise, the scenes leading up to it build tension and anticipation for the climax. That way, when the big moment does arrive, it still packs a dramatic punch.

“A horror novel, like any story, is about a character or characters trying to achieve a goal based upon their individual wants and needs,” says Demchick. “If you let concept overwhelm character, you'll lose much of what makes horror as engaging as it can be.”

To scare your characters, you need to have a solid understanding of their psyche. Filling out a character profile template is a great start to fleshing out believable characters, so give ours a try.

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Reedsy’s Character Profile Template

A story is only as strong as its characters. Fill this out to develop yours.

As you write, you need to stay conscious of basic storytelling techniques and not get carried away with the drama of horror. It might help, before you begin, to answer these questions about your characters and plot:

• What fear or struggle must your protagonist overcome?
• What decision do they make to put them in this situation?
• How will they defeat or escape their adversary, if at all?
• What are the ultimate consequences of their actions?

This will help you create a basic outline for your horror story, which you can embellish to create atmosphere and suspense. In plot-driven genre stories, a thorough outline and emotionally resonant elements are vital for keeping your reader invested.

A great horror story balances drama with realism and suspense with relief, even with the occasional stroke of humor. Gillian Flynn is the master of this technique — as seen in this excerpt from her horror story The Grownup , wherein the narrator is scheming how to capitalize on her “spiritual cleansing” services:

I could go into business for myself, and when people asked me, “What do you do?” I’d say, I’m an entrepreneur in that haughty way entrepreneurs had. Maybe Susan and I would become friends. Maybe she’d invite me to a book club. I’d sit by a fire and nibble on Brie and say, I’m a small business owner, an entrepreneur, if you will.

In order to stand out from the crowd, you need to think about overused trends in horror and make sure your story’s not “been there, done that.” For instance, the “vampire romance” plot is a dead horse with no one left to beat it after all the Twilight, Vampire Diaries, and True Blood hype.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use certain elements of popular trends in your writing. You just have to put a spin on it and make it your own!

For example, zombie horror was already a well-worn genre when Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out in 2009. But by setting it in the regency era and featuring Jane Austen’s well-loved characters, he created a brilliant original work and carved out a brand new audience for zombie fiction. You can also pay homage to well-known horror tropes, like the Duffer brothers of Stranger Things   did for Stephen King and Steven Spielberg — and which savvy audiences are sure to appreciate.

It certainly feels sometimes like all the good horror stories have already been written, making your own ideas seem  trite. But don’t forget that new horror comes out all the time, and it only takes one great idea to be a hit! So try not to stress out about it, and remember: just by having read through this guide, you’re already that much closer to becoming a literary graveyard smash .

11 responses

Sawan says:

04/11/2018 – 19:34

Thank you so much for writing this article. I am currently writing a short horror story. Sometimes when I write a horror scene, I get really terrified, but after some days it all feels shitty.

↪️ dilinger john replied:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

it happens with everyone don't stress over it and pass your work to someone who will review it. you are a writer and can not be a critic at the same time.

↪️ Shane C replied:

28/09/2019 – 21:15

Sawan -- been writing for 22 years... NEVER judge your own work. You write it -- finish it off -- then have some friends that enjoy horror and reading read your work and give you honest critique. Record their critique or take accurate notes. Repeat this with several friends (but only those you can trust not to try to steal your work, Creative Commons and/or Registered Mail can be your best friend BEFORE this stage). Pick the best one you like, that makes the most sense -- but if several people say "blah blah blah should have happened," or a really close variation throughout reader opinions... Go with it! I know most people hate that, feels like butchering your art (I know I hate it), but use it anyway. It'll likely be more widely received... Just a few pointers.

Annabelle says:

21/05/2019 – 01:51

This is awesome I love this! I’m writing my own horror novel too.🙂

↪️ Andrew replied:

31/10/2019 – 20:23

what is it?

NAVEEN says:

29/07/2019 – 15:22

i am at the age of sixteen and i decided to write a horror story. thanks a lot!!

Bobette Bryan says:

27/08/2019 – 19:09

Ghosts are real. I've seen many in my lifetime and have had some very terrifying experiences with some.

↪️ smr replied:

03/01/2020 – 13:25

what the hell ??

↪️ John Brown replied:

16/01/2020 – 02:28

Me too! And I think it actually helps with writing horror stories, because you have more experience than most.

John Brown says:

16/01/2020 – 02:27

I’m 14 and I love writing horror novels, but I usually freak my self out too much to keep writing... 😕

Comments are currently closed.

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• How-To Guides

How to Write a Horror Story in 12 Steps

Spooky times are on their way! In this post, you’ll learn how to write a horror story in 12 easy steps. From the very beginning to the very end, you’ll be a horror writer in no time. Writing a horror story is easy, provided you know how to do it in the right way.

A horror story is usually about a particular issue or theme. It might be about the horrible nature of life, the evil of humans, or the beast inside us. It might even be about fear, or about the various ways in which we face fear. The one thing that all horror stories have in common is that they are “stories of fear.”

The best horror stories are about fear, whether it’s fear of death, fear of disease, fear of the unknown, fear of loneliness, or fear of pain. The main problem with horror stories is that most people don’t like to be scared. Our minds prefer the familiar, the comfortable, and the easy. So how do we get around that?

The answer is that we have to tap into our inner horror. We have to get inside our minds and into our souls to write about horror. It’s not easy, but it’s not hard either. If you’re willing to put in the effort, you’ll be amazed at the results you can achieve.

10 Tips for Writing Horror Stories

Step 1: brainstorm some ideas, step 2: develop your idea, step 3: make a list of main characters, step 4: develop a horrific setting, step 5: outline the opening paragraph, step 6: plan the major climax, step 7: write a twisted ending , step 8: choose a scary writing style, step 9: write the first draft, step 10: edit and review your draft, step 11: choose a chilling book title , step 12: publish the book, how do you start a horror story, what are the 5 elements of a horror story, what makes a good horror story, how do you write in creepy writing, how do i make my character terrifying.

Before you begin writing a horror story, here are 8 tips to help you create the perfect, chilling tale:

• Make it realistic: Don’t be afraid to make the story feel real and genuine so that the reader doesn‘t get lost in the atmosphere of the book. Try to use real-life situations as the base of the story, and then you can add the gore afterwards.
• Include plot twists: The more twists you can add to the tale, and the more surprises that will occur, the stronger the plot. 
• Avoid stereotypical characters: Just because it’s horror doesn’t mean you have to have a serial or a cannibal in your story. Go beyond the norm with your characters – remember anyone can be a serial killer, especially the least suspected person!
• Pace yourself: Don’t just jump to the scariest moment in the beginning, slowly build up the suspense. Start by giving the reader hints of danger, and then bang when they least suspect bring in the gore.
• Play on common fears: Common fears that people face every day. Such as being alone in the dark, being chased by a monster, having a bad dream, etc. Fears are icky, but they can be made into something interesting if you play with them.
• Choose a writing style: There are many ways to write horror and some people find that they have an easier time in a journalistic style or in 1st person narrative. Think about what you’re most comfortable with and try it out.
• Increase the stakes: The best horror stories involve a sense of fear and dread, so make sure to increase the stakes as you go. If your main character is at a party, maybe there’s something bad lurking in the back room or someone is trying to kill them. Make sure there’s something at stake for your characters and don’t forget to give them something to do besides running away.
• Read popular horror stories: Horror can be a very dark genre, so you might want to check out other scary tales to get inspiration. For instance, Stephen King has written some of the most terrifying stories ever created and you might even learn a few things from them. 
• Pick a horror sub-genre: Horror is very broad and can be done in many different styles and genres. I recommend going for a sub-genre like Gothic Horror, Zombie Horror, or Psychological Horror. You may find that you are more comfortable in one of these areas than in others.
• Be imaginative: Your story should be as unique as possible so use your imagination and go crazy! Do not hold back when it comes to creativity, as this is how true horror is born.

How To Write a Horror Story in 12 Steps

Follow these 12 easy steps to create a spine-chilling story that will leave your readers in awe and fear.

Here’s a simple little trick that we can’t recommend enough: start with writing down all of the words and phrases that come to mind when you think about horror. Horror is much more than just scary stories; it’s about fear. So start thinking about the horror you see around you, and what keeps you up at night. The trick is to get into your mind, even if it doesn’t feel comfortable. Try listing your biggest fears, and all the things that make you feel scared. You can also check out this list of over 110 horror story prompts to get you started.

We also recommend keeping a nightmare journal  – Which is like a dream journal but filled with notes about your nightmares instead. After you had a really scary dream write down everything you remember from that dream. This can include what you saw, heard and felt during the dream. You can then use these notes as a source of inspiration for your horror story. 

Check out these Halloween writing prompts and Halloween picture prompts for more ideas.

What keeps you up at night? The evil monsters in the monsters movies? The epidemic of a deadly virus? A tragic unsolved crime? Whatever your issue is, it can be used to create a horror story that will have your readers sweating bullets. Take your ideas from the previous step and develop them into a truly horrific story idea. Once you have written down the basic idea, try to think about how that idea can be made scarier. 

For example, if you’re writing about a deadly disease, you could use the theme of death to make it scarier. Have the characters die in the story in a mutated sort of way or from some weird side effect that leads to death. There are plenty of ways to make the story more horrible:

• Try thinking about an ordinary situation that everyone goes through and add something horrific to it. The trick to making your story scary is to make it believable. In other words, you want to make your story as true to life as possible.
• Focus on some terrifying emotions, fear being the obvious one. But you can also think about crudeness, disgust, as well as anger, regret, paranoia and shock factor. 
• Add in some unnatural details, such as spaghetti turning into worms or blood coming out of solid, unliving objects.

Write down all of the main characters in the story. If you have more than one, give each character a distinct personality. Make sure that each character has a certain reason for their actions and be sure that they reflect their personality.

Whatever your horror is, you should probably have a main character that will be a part of the story. When you write the story, it’s going to be easier to create a tense atmosphere if you have a character to relate to. Also, you may want to make sure that you have a few supporting characters that you can add to the story. The supporting characters might also become the main characters in any sequels you plan on writing.

The other characters in the story should be the antagonists. These are the evil people or creatures that are keeping you up at night. They might be the killer, the ghost , the werewolf , the zombie, the villain, the monster , the demon, or the bad guy. Whatever the issue is, that’s what the antagonist will be in the story. They might start out as just an ordinary person, but they’ll end up being more evil than the main character.

Check out this guide on character development to help you develop a powerful character.

When writing a horror story, it’s very important that you get the setting right. Think about some scary places that you know of in real life or places that you’ve seen in your nightmares. You could also link your main setting choice to a common fear explored in your story. For example, if the core concept of your horror story is related to the fear of heights, then the main setting may be a high-rise building that’s filled with monsters. 

Other common horror story settings may include a haunted house , a creepy old mansion, graveyards and even quiet suburban towns. Whatever your choice of setting, try to write a detailed description of the main setting in this step. Think about the appearance of the location, the weather, the feeling someone has when standing in this location, as well as what kind of people live here, along with the beliefs they hold.

Interested in creating a whole new world for your horror story? Check this master list of over 100 world-building questions .

The opening paragraph will be the first thing your readers see. It should be a teaser that sets the tone for the story. In other words, the first paragraph should be intriguing enough to make your readers want to keep reading. You should ideally include the main character’s name, the setting, the antagonist, the fear of the story, and the main character’s problem. 

If the story is about a haunted house, then the outline of the opening paragraph could say something like this:

The house is empty. It has been for a long time. It’s been vacant for years and years. It sits in the middle of a quiet, suburban neighbourhood. The grass is green and the trees are tall. The neighbourhood is quiet, but the town is not as quiet as everyone thinks. There are whispers, rumours, and stories. But the truth is, no one has ever seen or heard anything unusual here. Not until Wendy Williams and her daughter moved in. 

During this step, it is important to try to write an opening that gives the reader a taste of the entire story. But of course, don’t give too much away – Just a hint of fear will do! Your goal here is to have the reader wanting more. 

See this list of over 150 story starters to help you get started with your spooky tale.

This step is basically the big bang. It’s where your main character goes head-to-head with the antagonist in the story or has to face their greatest fear. It’s also when your main character learns the truth about the antagonist. The goal of this step is to keep your readers on the edge of their seats. 

When writing the climax, think about what will happen, who will be in danger, and what the outcome will be. If you’re struggling with the climax, then you should start with a smaller problem and work your way up to the big one. For example, you could start with a little bit of trouble with a character, such as a bad dream or the main character getting hurt. This will get your readers involved in the story. You may find that once you start writing, you’ll come up with a more complicated problem that your main character will have to solve.

Here’s an example of what a potential climax scene sounds like in a horror story:

The sound of footsteps is heard coming down the stairs. The footsteps are too heavy, and they seem to be coming from the basement. The door to the basement creaks open. Then a face is seen in the door frame. It’s a face with large, red eyes, and it’s full of hate.

In horror stories, the twist ending is almost always a shock reveal of some kind. Whether the true murderer is revealed, or the identity of the antagonist is revealed, it should always be a surprise. 

There are several ways to write a twist ending, but you’ll probably want to start with a twist that’s a little more obvious. You could reveal who the antagonist really is, or even what the main character has been hiding. Or you could have the main character learn some shocking information that sends them in a completely different direction. 

The unique thing about the horror genre is that even after the mystery or problem is solved, it’s not always 100% solved. There’s always some darkness lurking somewhere. Was he really the murderer? Maybe there’s more than one monster? Give this final hint of darkness to keep your readers second-guessing even after the book is over. Now that’s where the true horror lies!

Of course, horror stories are written in a more darker and dramatic style compared to other genres. But there’s more to horror writing than just using dark words and descriptions of gory scenes. In this step, you want to think about the actual writing of your horror style. Will it be written in the first person, second person or third? Do you want to take a more journalistic approach where you report horrific events? Or will you take a more narrative approach, where the reader is on the outside looking in?

In our opinion, a horror story written in the first person has a much more powerful effect. There’s something about having the perspective of the main character that makes them more vulnerable. There’s also something about being told a story by another character that makes the story more real.

While the third person is great for taking the reader through a story, it doesn’t allow for the depth of emotion that can be found in the first person. If you choose to write in the third person, then you’ll want to stick with the voice of an objective narrator who is reporting on the events of the story. 

Either way, you’ll want to try to avoid too many descriptions of gruesome scenes. You want to keep the focus on your main character’s emotions and how they feel, and their problem. 

Finally, it’s time to start writing your story! Hopefully, after all these steps, you now have a rough outline for your story. But even if you don’t, just start writing! The first draft is usually the most important one. So even if you don’t have a complete outline, get started on your story. Just start writing and don’t worry about anything else! You might also want to read this post on how to outline a book for more guidance.

While writing your draft, you’ll want to keep these things in mind:

• Make sure your story is believable to a certain extent. Of course, you might think that vampires aren’t real – But make them real for your readers! This is the most important thing. If your story is impossible or unbelievable, then no one will want to read it.
• Avoid using clichés. These are words or phrases that are overused in stories and don’t really add anything to your story.
• Use active voice instead of passive voice. Passive voice is when a sentence starts with “someone” or “something”. Active voice is when the sentence starts with “I” or “we”.
• Use short sentences and paragraphs. Long sentences make it difficult to read, and paragraphs look heavy. 
• If you’re struggling to get anything written down, then start with the easiest or shortest scenes first. You can always come back to the more complicated areas of your story later when you’re ready. 

And finally, have fun with it! Writing is supposed to be a fun hobby, so don’t take yourself too seriously! 

The hard part is done, now you’re ready to start editing your story! Start by reading the story to yourself a couple of times. Each time you read your story highlight areas that you are unsure of, or would like to improve. At the same time look out for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and sentences that sound a bit off. Once you’re done with this review, you can go back and make the relevant edits to your story.

Next, you’ll want to gather some feedback. This is where you’ll want to have a second or third person read your story. It’s not a good idea to let one person read your draft, as they’ll be biased towards what they like. So get a few different people to read your story, and make sure they have a different perspective. They can be family members, teachers, or even a friend that’s not familiar with your writing style. 

When asking for feedback, you can ask the following questions:

• What are the most important parts of the story?
• Are there any parts of the story that don’t make sense or are confusing?
• What did you like most about the story?
• Can you think of anything that could be improved?
• Did you like the main character?

Once you have the feedback, you can go back and make the changes. It’s important to make the edits, but don’t obsess over it. In the end, you want to make the story the best that it can be. And by doing this, you’ll be on your way to writing a great horror story! 

It’s time to choose a book title. This is a very important part of a horror story. Not only does a good title help to give your story an identity, but it also helps to tell the reader what kind of story they’re about to read. The title should have a great hook. It should be intriguing and a little bit scary. If you’re struggling to think of a great book title, then you can try to think about what you’d like to read. Would you like to read a book that scares you? Or would you rather read a book that’s about someone’s struggles? 

If we look at some popular horror book titles, we can see that most of them are quite descriptive:

• The Woman in Black
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula
• The Haunting of Aveline Jones
• The Haunting of Hill House
• The Graveyard Book

Essentially, they either describe the antagonist of the story or the main setting in the story. Based on this try to summarise your horror story in as little as 3 to 5 words. Think about the main setting or the main villain/monster of your tale and come up with some book title ideas. If you’re still struggling, check out this horror book title generator for some more interesting ideas. 

An important thing to note here is that you should make sure that your book title is not already in use or taken by another author. Try doing a quick Google search or a search on Amazon to see if your title is available for the taking! 

Your book is now finished! You’ve written the first draft, edited it, gathered feedback, and now it’s time to publish it! There are many ways to publish your book. The most popular method is to publish it on Amazon as a self-published author. You can also work with a professional publisher to get your book to market.

Remember that if you’re a new writer, then it’s not a good idea to start by publishing your book on Amazon. It’s better to start slow and work your way up. You don’t want to rush your writing and end up with a book full of mistakes! Start by publishing your book using a free tool like the Imagine Forest story creator , then later work your way up to publishing on Amazon. 

That’s it! Now you should be ready to write your own horror story! Give it a go and see what you can come up with!

Frequently Asked Questions

There are a number of ways to start writing a horror story:

• Focus on your own fears. Start by listing your fears and develop your story idea from there. 
• Introduce the character. You can describe your main character in the first few scenes. Make them as normal, and relatable as possible
• Describe a setting. If the setting is key to your story, then describe every inch of it. Make your readers feel like they are right there with you. 
• Start with some action. This could be a bloody murder, someone screaming and running or anything else that makes the reader feel uncomfortable.
• Picture a harmonious place. You can describe a calm and happy place. Somewhere taken from a romantic rom-com type story or a happy family movie, which all suddenly changes.
• Start at the end. Rewrite your potential ending as the beginning, and then work your way backwards. 

The 5 elements of horror include Character, Setting, Action, Horror, and Resolution. All these elements are crucial in developing a gruesome horror story.

See our guide on the 5 elements of story-telling for more information.

A good horror story has fear at its core. The reader must be scared as they read the story. If not then you missed something important in your novel. A good horror story must be scary, but it should also have an element of realism to it. The story should include relatable main characters, a scary antagonist, a creepy setting and of course a shocking reveal at the end. 

Your first step is to try to think about the creepiness of the setting. Is it a dark and scary place? Is it full of secrets? If it is, then you have a good place to start. Try to be very detailed, and specific when describing the setting. Describe the blood on the wall as it drips down, or the lock on the door that won’t turn. Make the reader feel as if they are right there. Use descriptive words and metaphors to bring your gory details to life.

To make your character as terrifying as possible, you could try the following techniques:

• Make your character an outcast. They don’t fit in with the main group of characters and can’t be trusted.
• Give them a story to tell. A dark and bloody past.
• Make them a loner. They can’t trust anyone else and have no friends.
• Make them a survivor. The main character of your story has been through a lot and can’t be stopped.
• Give the character an important title. Someone who is important in a society that has deadly plans. You can’t trust them, but have no choice but to follow their rules.

Did you find this guide on how to write a horror story useful? Let us know in the comments below.

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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When You Write

How to Write Horror Stories: 8 Tips for Writing a Spine-Chilling Horror Story

It’s hard to imagine that people can actually fall in love with a story in which horrific things keep happening to people.

But they do.

Authors like Stephen King have dominated book stores and have seen their stories thrive as movie adaptations in Hollywood.

But to write a horror story that terrorizes and wins the hearts of your readers, you need to get a couple of things right. You must understand that the terror alone won’t save your story; read on to learn about the common subjects in horror stories and how to write scary stories.

Why People Love Reading Horror Fiction

No one enjoys being surrounded by danger, death, terror, and pain. Normally, we are afraid of these things.

So, why do people enjoy stories filled with these things?

Although nobody likes to experience things in a horror story, reading them is different. Horror fiction introduces some sort of a controlled environment for experiencing fear. When we read a horror story in our comfort zone, we experience the element of fear, and at the same time, we feel safe knowing that the horrors happening in the story are not actually happening to us.

This mix leads to an intense but enjoyable experience.

The Horror Subgenres

The subgenre of a horror story determines its tone and atmosphere. When you are aware of the subgenre of your horror story, there are a lot of things that could perfectly go wrong (for your characters) and go right for your readers.

Gross-out horror : This is anything from excess blood oozing from a slit neck, intestines hanging outside, a gouged-out heart, and a lot of other graphic descriptions of gruesome scenes that are solely intended to shock the readers.

Thriller-horror : This subgenre takes advantage of psychological fear and usually occurs before much has happened, around the beginning of horror stories.

Classic horror : In my teenage years, I was in love with characters like Dracula and werewolves. Such characters are found in classic horror which is dominant in Gothic horror, a genre with spooky themes and supernatural happenings.

Terror : According to Stephen King, terror is the worst level of fear. The fear is caused by imagination and the writer has to have mastered the use of persuasive and suggestive writing. The author can suggest the unknown, and the reader’s mind starts to fill in the blanks, and the imagery becomes a terrifying story.

4 Key Elements of a Good Horror Story

A horror story involves the following key elements:

The four major ingredients must be present in any horror story and have to be used efficiently.

Fear is what everyone expects to find in a horror story—and it’s the basic element of a horror story.

However, as I have already iterated, fear on its own is not sufficient.

Your story needs that element of fear to be complemented by the other three : suspense, mystery, or surprise .

A horror story is no good if the scary characters just go about hurting, killing, or scaring the other characters with no mystery behind their existence or their murderous quirks.

And… the readers shouldn’t always anticipate the scary events as that sucks some of the fear out of the readers. When they’re caught off guard, the fear is intense and it makes the horror story more realistic.

If you don’t want to end up with a boring horror story, you need to write a story that invokes the reader’s emotions and engages their mind. A good balance of these four elements will help do just that.

Tips for Writing a Terrifying Horror

1. use your own fears.

You don’t have to be an emotionless badass to write a good horror story. Your own fears can help guide you to write the scariest of things.

Use your fears to write things that people would find spine-chilling and use vivid descriptions—as vivid as the fear in your mind—to increase the scariness of your story.

For example, I’m afraid of blades and heights and if I were to write a horror story based on these feelings, I’d be looking for the scariest things a blade would do, like one character beheading another using a blunt panga and having to repeatedly hack the neck of the victim.

2. Remember the Basics

Horror stories are special, but to you (the writer) they are still like any other story.

The basic elements of a story have to apply to a horror novel or short story—characters have to have goals, there has to be conflict, and all the other elements.

If you let the horror element overtake your storytelling abilities, there’s a 99% chance you have no story at all. So, you need to balance between the drama of horror and the flow of the story.

A great horror storyline, just like that of any story, has the protagonist(s) fears or goals, provide the characters’ motive(s) for their roles, expose the decisions that read to the protagonists’ present situation, consequences of the characters’ actions, and how they are going to overcome the situation or succumb to horrors presented by the antagonist(s).

To write a great horror story, you must supplement the mystery and suspense with some elements like humor or bravery.

3. Avoid Clichés

Clichés surprise the element of surprise from a horror story, and with that gone, the story becomes boring, predictable, and—consequently—not scary.

Basing your horror story on the familiar horror tropes isn’t bad, but… you have to develop a story that takes its own shape.  I always say that only a horror story writer is allowed to kick his readers in the face—when they think they know what is going to happen, give them something they wouldn’t expect.

4. Write longer sentences

I picked this one from our very own R.L. Stine, aka Jovial Bob. He says that by writing longer sentences, you rob the readers of “natural pauses” that periods provide. The longer sentences mean that the readers don’t have time to take a breath, hence they build anticipation for the reader.

This helps the readers feel as tense as the characters and unknowingly get immersed in your horror story. If this is successful, the reader will want to get to the end of the story as they now have some sort of emotional investment in your story.

5. Carefully Choose the POV

The point of view you use might determine the type of emotional connection your readers have with your main character. If you decide to go with the first-person point of view, the stakes are high.

You can use the first-person POV to get the reader hooked right at the beginning of the story and get their hearts pumping faster as if they were inside the story.

However, if you use past tense , then the first person POV kind of reveals that the narrator lived to tell the tale.

If you’re not clever enough, that will ruin all your chances of ending with a dramatic twist because the reader already knows the narrator will survive the ordeals.

You can also utilize the third-person point of view, which works better for lengthier pieces.

6. Manipulate the Settings

You have to set the environment in such a way that your readers can start developing some phobia just from having a vivid image of the environment.

You can vividly describe enclosed spaces to evoke claustrophobic feelings from the reader. In horror movies, a simple creak of an upstairs floorboard in a lonely house is enough to spark fear into the audience. This can also work in a written story, just paint a picture of a dark and ghostly quiet house and suggest to the reader that there are some slow creaking sounds or that the chair on the porch is swaying but there is no one outside.

7. Read and Practice

It’s obvious that some people write better horror stories than others, and it helps to study those authors when learning how to write terror into your own stories.

Stephen King tops the list for most people, you can get one of his books and study how he writes his horror novels.

The goal is not to be a copycat but to get insights into horror story writing techniques.

After studying these best-selling authors, you can start practicing with story prompts. Writing prompts can expand your range of thinking and open up new avenues of imagination that you hadn’t thought of before.

8. Scare Them, Care About Them

You shouldn’t write only to scare your readers, you must write to make fans out of them. To do this, you need to give your character a life that your readers can relate to before you get to the “boo!” part.

And… use simple language and don’t try to be too clever with your jargon.

Spine-Chilling Horror Story Prompts

1. A boy goes missing in the middle of the night and his body is found floating in a river. Five years later, reports of sightings start flowing in, to the disgust of his parents because they want their son to rest in peace. Then all the people that reported seeing the boy begin mysteriously dying one by one.

2. A man makes a deal with the devil to bring back his parents who died in a car accident when he was five years old. The devil appears to have fulfilled his promise, but the parents end up murdering all the people close to the man.

3. A serial killer gets hold of a hacker’s laptop. The hacker had just hacked the security system of a house and the owners had just left for a convention abroad. Their son organizes a house party and invites a dozen of his friends to the party.

4. A man wakes up to find a creature with razor-sharp teeth and bloody claws seated on a chair in a dark corner of the room, waiting for him.

5. A member of a religious group on an excursion discovers that the priest is a murderous werewolf. He tries to secretly warn some members but they also turn out to be werewolves.

6. A boy in a small town accidentally enters a funeral home. While there, he finds two lifeless bodies of his neighbors. When he gets back home, he finds his neighbors sitting on the front porch, their gaze razor-focused on him. 

Ways to End a Horror Story

Evil gets vanquished… but….

Most horror stories that I have read or the movies I have seen don’t just want the villain to go out like sissy: they put up a very scary fight and they finally are conquered (dead and buried) and then there’s something that suggests that they aren’t really dead—their eyes open or hand shoots out of the grave just before the story ends.

Everyone’s dead, there’s total annihilation.

A horror story can also end with everyone dead and everything is destroyed. There isn’t a single surviving soul, but the good side has won. If you look at it from another perspective, this kind of ending also means that evil has won since evil almost always seeks the world’s destruction.

The Protagonist wins but has to sacrifice something

The hero vanquishes the monsters and restores peace and order. But…the hero has sacrificed something or someone. It may be his sanity or someone that he loves.

The hero uses some lesser evil to conquer the ultimate evil

In a desperate attempt to vanquish the evil haunting them, the main character(s) decide(s) to use some evil ways or make a deal with a less malevolent entity to conquer the bigger evil.

All hope is not lost

This is some sort of happy ending, where even though things seem pretty bad (i.e., the hero is hurt pretty bad or is dead), the reader is given some hope of the hero regaining his health or becoming a more powerful spirit after death. The evil is about to be vanquished or brought to justice.

Most Terrifying Horror Books

1. It – Stephen King

2. Pet Sematary – Stephen King

3. The House of Leaves – Mark Danielewski

Advice from Great Horror Writers

When you listen to great authors, you always get a few pointers on how to write spine-chilling and nightmarish horror stories. Here’s some quoted writing advice from accomplished horror authors.

“There’s no formula. I think you have to create a very close point of view. You have to be in the eyes of the narrator. Everything that happens, all the smells, all the sounds; then your reader starts to identify with that character and that’s what makes something really scary.”

“Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I’m writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.”

Stephen King

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. —Stephen King”

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it’s when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it’s when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own has been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there.”

The thing I have learned about writing good horror stories is that you have to trap your readers. Whatever you do, make them feel like they’re part of the story—make them feel the urgency, the blood rush, the terror, and the relief at the end or the scariness of the last “hand popping out of the grave” scene.

And… you can only become a better horror story writer with a lot of practice.

Recommended Reading...

Crafting compelling game stories: a guide to video game writing, how to write a murder mystery: figuring out whodunit, good story starters for your next bestseller, 100 fluff prompts that will inspire creativity.

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How to write a horror story: Telling tales of terror

Learn how to write a horror story, with insights from Stephen King, John Carpenter, the script opening for The Exorcist, and more, and discover ideas for telling a more chilling tale.

• Post author By Jordan
• 71 Comments on How to write a horror story: Telling tales of terror

Learning how to write horror is a useful for any writer. The genre contains storytelling elements that are useful beyond it. Read a concise guide to horror. We explore what horror is, key elements of horror, plus tips and quotes from masters of horror film and fiction.

What is horror? Elements of horror

The horror genre is speculative or fantastical fiction that evokes fear, suspense, and dread.

Horror often gives readers or viewers the sense of relief by the end of the story.

Stephen King calls this ‘reintegration’. Writes King in his non-fiction book on horror, Danse Macabre (1981), about the release from terror in reintegration:

For now, the worst has been faced and it wasn’t so bad at all. There was that magic moment of reintegration and safety at the end, that same feeling that comes when the roller coaster stops at the end of its run and you get off with your best girl, both of you whole and unhurt. I believe it’s this feeling of reintegration, arising from a field specializing in death, fear, and monstrosity, that makes the danse macabre so rewarding and magical … that, and the boundless ability of the human imagination to create endless dreamworlds and then put them to work. Stephen King, Dance Macabre (1981), p. 27 (Kindle version)

A brief history of the horror genre

Horror, like most genres, has evolved substantially.

Modern horror stories’ precursors were Gothic tales, stretching back to the 1700s. Even stretching beyond that, into gory myths and legends such as Grimm’s folktales.

In early Gothic fiction, the horrifying aspects (such as ghostly apparitions) tended to stem from characters’ tortured psyches. For example, the ghostly shenanigans in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (1898). It was often ambiguous whether or not supernatural events depicted were real or imagined by a typically unreliable, tortured narrator.

More modern horror turned increasingly towards ‘psychological horror’. Here, the source of horror is more interior. Or else an external monster or supernatural figure is no figment but completely real.

See Noël Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror : Or, Paradoxes of the Heart for further interesting information on the genres history, as well as Stephen King’s Danse Macabre.

8 elements of horror

Eight recurring elements in classic and contemporary horror, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to the contemporary horror films of Ari Aster, are:

• Suspense (the anticipation of terror or bad things). Horror builds suspense by evoking our fear of the known (for example, fear of the dark). Also fear of the unknown (what could be lurking in said dark).
• Fear. The genre plays with primal fears such as fear of injury, accident, evil, our mistakes, whether evil faces accountability (see Thomas Fahy’s The Philosophy of Horror for more on the philosophy of horror and moral questions horror asks).
• Atmosphere. Horror relies extensively on the emotional effects of atmosphere. Just think of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the ship, the aliens’ human-hunting paradise, in the Alien film franchise.
• Vulnerability. The horror genre plays with our vulnerability, makes us remember it. Horror often asks ‘what if the other is overtly or insidiously malevolent? In asking this, it reminds us of the values of both caution and courage.
• Survival . Many horror subgenres explore themes of survival, from zombie horror to slasher films. Like tragedy, survival stories explore the rippling-out consequences of making ‘the wrong choice’.
• The Supernatural. Horror stories also plumb the unseen and unknown, terrors our physics, beliefs and assumptions can’t always explain.
• Psychological terror. Horror typically manipulates the perceptions of readers/viewers (and characters) to create a sense of unease. ‘What’s thumping under that locked cellar door?’
• The monstrous. Whether actual monsters or the monstrous possible in ordinary human behavior, horror explores the dark and what terrifies or disgusts.

Further elements and themes that appear often include death, the demonic, isolation, madness, grief and revenge.

What does horror offer readers/viewers?

In The Philosophy of Horror (2010), Thomas Fahy compares horror to a reluctant skydiving trip taken with friends, referencing King’s concept of reintegration, the ‘return to safety’:

In many ways, the horror genre promises a similar experience [to skydiving]: The anticipation of terror, the mixture of fear and exhilaration as events unfold, the opportunity to confront the unpredictable and dangerous, the promise of relative safety (both in the context of a darkened theater and through a narrative structure that lasts a finite amount of time and/or number of pages), and the feeling of relief and regained control when it’s over. Thomas Fahy (Ed.), ‘Introduction’, The Philosophy of Horror (2010).

Horror also appeals to the pleasures of repetition. The darkly amusing absurdity and existentialism of how characters are bumped off one by one in a slasher film, for example.

Audiences also flock to horror for tension (produced by suspense, fear, shock, terror, gore and other common elements), personal relevance (the way horror explores themes we can relate to), and the pleasure of the surreal or unreality.

What do you love about the horror genre? Tell us in the comments!

How to write horror: 10 tips (plus examples and quotes)

Explore ten ideas on how to write a horror story:

Jump scares and sudden gore might punctuate the story, but if they appear every page they risk becoming predictable.

Who in your ensemble will your reader or viewer want to survive or triumph over horrifying events, and why?

Often horror flips between everyday fears (a young couple’s fears about becoming parents, for example) and a symbolic, scarier level.

Great horror stories often live on in reader/viewer debate about what ‘really’ happened. They reward rewatching.

Horror stories make terrifying events (such as an author being abducted by a homicidal superfan in King’s Misery ) seem plausible. We believe their worlds.

Who can forget the infamous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho ? Horror often scares us where we think we’re safest.

Play with multiple layers and levels of fear – fear of the known, unknown, of real monsters and the make-believe monsters of perception.

What will create that feeling that something’s just a little off, unexpected?

Some horror subgenres (e.g. splatterpunk or slasher horror) go all-out on gore. Violence isn’t the only way to unsettle your reader, though. Play with the fear of the unseen – imagination can supply the possibilities.

Focusing solely on scaring readers may end up with a story that is more style and provocation than substance. Think about character and story arcs, using setting to create tone and atmosphere, other elements that make up good stories .

Pace the big horror scares for suspense

Let’s explore each of the preceding ideas on how to write horror. First: Pacing.

As in suspense, pacing is everything in horror. Good pacing allows the build-up, ebb and flow of tension.

See how the script for the classic 1973 horror film The Exorcist (adapted from William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel of the same name) begins? Not with immediate, obvious demonic possession, but the suspense of an archaeological dig. There are no jump scares, and no gore – just quiet unease.

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Pacing in horror-writing example: Slow-building tension in The Exorcist

EXTERIOR- IRAQ- EXCATVATION SITE- NINEVEH- DAY Pickaxes and shovels weld into the air as hundreds of excavators tear at the desert. The camera pans around the area where hundreds of Iraqi workmen dig for ancient finds. […] YOUNG BOY (In Iraqi language) They’ve found something… small pieces. MERRIN (In Iraqi language) Where? The Exorcist screenplay. Source: Script Slug

This is a long way – geographically and tonally – from a young girl walking backwards downstairs or her head turning around like an owl’s.

A seemingly innocent archaeological dig turns into something more sinister. A link is implied between the statue of a demon unearthed in the dig and two dogs starting to fight:

EXTERIOR – IRAQ- NINEVEH- DAY […] The old man walks up the rocky mound and sees a huge statue of the demon Pazuzu, which has the head of the small rock he earlier found. He climbs to a higher point to get a closer look. When he reaches the highest point he looks at the statue dead on. He then turns his head as we hear rocks falling and sees a guard standing behind him. He then turns again when he hears two dogs savagely attacking each other. The noise is something of an evil nature. He looks again at the statue and we are then presented with a classic stand off side view of the old man and the statue as the noises rage on. We then fade to the sun slowly setting as the noises lower in volume. The Exorcist screenplay. Source: Script Slug

The suspense in this opening builds up a sense of something horrifying being unleashed on the world unwittingly.

Use characterization to make readers care

Great horror stories may use stock character types, flat arcs. For example, in slasher films where some characters’ main purpose is to die in some creative, absurd way.

Yet subtler horror writing uses characterization to make the reader care.

Part of the truly horrifying aspect of The Exorcist , for example, is knowing that an innocent child is possessed. Tormented by evil through no fault of her own.

The care is palpable in her mother Chris’ (Ellen Burstyn) horror and anxiety in reaction. Empathy is a natural response to having an unwell child (and ‘unwell’ is putting it mildly, in this case).

We empathize with characters grappling with dark forces beyond their control. Life tests everyone with destructive or painful experiences at some point in time. The sense of powerlessness (and tenacity that emerges through that) is a testament to the human spirit, to perseverance.

A horror story itself may have a bleaker reading, of course. Yet we struggle on with the intrepid heroines in their attempts to overcome.

Three horror character archetypes that make us care

In Danse Macabre , Stephen King discusses three common character archetypes in horror and Gothic fiction:

• The Thing – for example, Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , which expresses pain at having been created.
• The Vampire – often represented as suffering eternal life/return (similar in this regard to ghosts and poltergeists).
• The Werewolf – a horror character who transforms, typically against their will and usually with great suffering, into a beast.

King explores examples of these three horror archetypes from books and films such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal psychological horror film, Psycho (1960).

Writes King:

It doesn’t end with the Thing, the Vampire, and the Werewolf; there are other bogeys out there in the shadows as well. But these three account of a large bloc of modern horror fiction. King, Danse Macarbre, p. 96.

Why horror character archetypes make us care

Horror lovers care about ‘the thing’ archetype often because ‘the thing’, the monster, is misunderstood or blameless for its creation. Think of Frankenstein’s monster, who bargains with his creator for release and freedom.

‘The vampire’ is often a relatable figure because of the inevitable loneliness of eternal life. The vampire is imprisoned by limitations such as not being allowed the rest of death (or even natural pleasures such as sunlight – as glamorous as it might be to sparkle like Stephenie Meyer’s diamante vamps).

King writes about the werewolf and how it represents human duality. The respectable public persona or façade, on one hand, and a world of hidden, private horror on the other. A duality many who carry private trauma can relate to.

Each archetype is relatable on some level. This empathic element makes one care for (or at least understand) the monstrous and inhuman in more literary horror stories. Evil (though some don’t like to admit it) has a face and a backstory, a history of becoming, most of the time.

Read more about how to create characters readers can picture and care about in our complete guide to character creation .

Make the known scary (not just the unknown)

Many horror movies tap into the terror of the known, the common human experience, and not only absurd (but campy and fun) nightmares like clowns hiding in stormwater drains.

Common, relatable parts of familiar human experience to mine for horror and terror include:

• Birth and death (e.g. Rosemary’s Baby )
• Loss and grief (e.g. Hereditary )
• Childhood fears (e.g. It )
• Loss of control (e.g. An American Werewolf in London )
• Ritual and community (e.g. Midsommar )
• Exploring the unknown (e.g. Alien )

Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan writes in the script for the 2000 film Unbreakable:

Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world, to not know why you’re here. That’s – that’s just an awful feeling.

Often, it is this mundane, relatable element of horror – such as the horror of not having a place in the world – that supplies the psychological or inner aspect.

For example, a bereaved family’s struggle with an occult family history (the outer horror) provides the figurative, metaphorical means to explore the painful reality of grief and intergenerational trauma (inner horror) in Ari Aster’s psychological horror film, Hereditary .

Don’t feel you have to explain everything

Although King’s concept of ‘reintegration’ applies in many horror stories where a sunnier ending promises relief, many modern horror narratives eschew tidy resolution.

It’s a classic ploy in horror series, for example, for there to be troubling alarm bells at the end, inferring that a persistent terror lives on. For example, the jump scare at the end of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) [warning: implied violence, spoilers].

The shock comes through the juxtaposition of an ‘everyone’s safe at last moment’ and terror striking from inside the house without warning, undoing the sense of resolution attained. The main character having woken from the dreams where the bulk of terrifying events occur adds to this false sense of security.

There is no graphic gore or violence. The scene doesn’t show or tell every detail. Instead, the audience has to interpret the event and what it implies about the the status of the conflict between the main characters and the supernatural villain, Freddy Krueger – whether it is truly over.

Play with the terror of plausibility

What is most terrifying is often what is plausible. For example, the crazed fan who abducts her favorite author in Stephen King’s Misery (1987), for hobbling instead of autographs. Celebrity stalking is a well-documented modern cultural phenomenon. It is hard to eyeroll at after John Lennon.

Why is plausibility worth thinking about when exploring how to write horror?

• Suspension of disbelief. If events in a horror story seem plausible (at least for the horror world created), the audience is less inclined to roll their eyes and groan, ‘That would never happen’.
• Relatability . A novel and film such as The Exorcist plays on the natural fear many have that loved ones will fall unwell or depart, in body, spirit or mind.
• Tension and unpredictability: It is more tense and unpredictable when everything is ‘normal’ to start. Ruptures in the fabric of this normalcy create tension, the sense ‘anything could happen’ (that sense requires the bedrock of plausibility first ).

Scare horror audiences when they least expect

Like that jump scare in the final scene of A Nightmare on Elm Street , horror often scares the shoes off us when we least expect it.

Take, for example, the infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), where Marion Crane is attacked in the shower.

The shower, usually associated with privacy, relaxation, is nothing like an abandoned side street, dark wood at night, or other traditionally ‘creepy’ setting. This coupled with the intensity of Hitchcock’s shots – the raised hand clutching a knife – creates a chilling scene.

Horror mastery lies in a push and pull, lulling your audience into a false sense of security, then pulling the rug out from under them when they least expect it. Tweet This

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Deepen the story with layers of fear

Horror, like other fantastical genres, deals in layers and dualities. In fantasy fiction , we often have a primary world and a secondary one. In horror, the duality is often an internal horror doing a ‘danse macabre’ with an external one.

Says horror filmmaking veteran John Carpenter in conversation with Vulture :

There are two different stories in horror: internal and external. In external horror films, the evil comes from the outside, the other tribe, this thing in the darkness that we don’t understand. Internal is the human heart. Simon Abrams, ‘The Soft-Spoken John Carpenter on How He Chooses Projects and His Box-Office Failures’, July 6 2011.

In a story using the ‘werewolf’ archetype, for example, the rational, untransformed side of a protagonist may fear the revelation of their monstrous side, the consequences this would have for their daily life (whether they are a literal werewolf or this is figurative). Transformed, the werewolf, like the ‘elephant man’, may experience the external horror and fear of others’ revulsion or animosity (which then feeds the internal, in a vicious cycle).

Having both internal and external conflicts in a horror story moves horror beyond simple disgust and shock tactics. The audience can connect deeper with characters, the cycles of violence they endure or triumph over.

Tapping into common fears for horror writing

If the point of horror writing (and horror elements in other genres such as paranormal romance) is to arouse fear, shock or disgust, think of the things people are most commonly afraid of.

Live Science places an interest choice at number one : The dentist. It’s true that you can feel powerless when you’re in the dentist’s chair. Couple this with the pain of certain dental procedures and it’s plain to see why a malevolent dentist is the stuff of horror nightmares.

Making readers scared creates tension and increases the pace of your story. Even so there should be a reason for making readers fearful.

Here are some of the most common fears people have:

• Fear of animals (dogs, snakes, sharks, mythical creatures such as the deep sea-dwelling kraken)
• Fear of flying (film producers combined the previous fear and this other common fear to make the spoof horror movie Snakes on a Plane)
• The dark – one of the most fundamental fears of the unfamiliar
• Perilous heights
• Other people and their often unknown desires or intentions
• Ugly or disorienting environments

Think of how common fears can be evoked in your horror fiction. Some are more often exploited in horror writing than others. A less precise fear (such as the fear of certain spaces) will let you tell the horror story you want with fewer specified must-haves.

Add subtler hints of something wrong

Returning to core elements of horror – fear, suspense, and atmosphere – how do you make horror scary even when Freddy isn’t dragging anyone through a solid wood door?

Tone and atmosphere emerge in the subtle hints and clues something is wrong.

Hints and signs of horrors to come could include:

• Unsettling sounds. Dripping, humming, chanting, singing, banging, knocking, drumming. What are sounds that imply trouble and the ghastly unknown coming to visit?
• Creepy imagery. What are images and signs that suggest comfort (for example, a lamp burning in a window to signal someone’s home)? Blow those candles out, play with the unhomely.
• Unsettling change. Changes in light, a companion’s tone, a pet’s behavior. Small harbingers of trouble add tension.
• Missing objects. What is not continuous in a way that unsettles and defies expectations? For example, in the reboot of Twin Peaks , an attempt to go home again leads to the dread of everything being different, that sense of ‘you can’t go home again’.
• Discomforting communication. Sometimes horror hinges on a repeated word or phrase (‘Candyman’), or someone saying something creepily unexpected.

The above are just a few ways to imply that something is very wrong.

Balance gore with the unseen (subgenre depending)

Gore in horror has the capability to shock, disgust, make your audience squeamish. Yet a relentless gore-fest may quickly desensitize readers or viewers to the element of surprise.

How much gore you include in a horror will of course depend on your subgenre and story scenario. Slasher stories and subgenres such as splatterpunk (a horror subgenre characterized by extreme violence) will have audiences who demand gore and may lament something tame.

Reasons to balance gore with the terror of the unseen, otherwise:

• Maintaining tension. Periods of calm between violent scenes create suspense, nervous tension for when there’ll be blood again.
• Deepening the story. Great stories with broad appeal take more than blood and guts – meaningful character arcs and genuine scares and horrifying scenes can coexist.
• Artful storytelling. Relying on inference, plot twists, atmosphere, tension for fright and shock is arguably more artful than leaping straight for shock-value. Critical succcesses in the horror genre often don’t rely solely on the cheapest, easiest scares. The story often earns them by building plausibility or deeper symbolic and metaphorical resonance.

Tell a good story first, scare readers second

That last idea boils down to this: Focus on telling a good story, first.

If your sole focus is how most you can shock and manipulate your audience, some may critique this as cheap exploitation.

Some authors – deliberate provocateurs – may wear that label as a badge of pride, of course. Careers are sometimes made in attracting controversy, even bans and censorship for extreme shock value.

Yet the stories that endure often make excellent uses of all the parts of storytelling and encapsulate some of the qualities that make storytelling universal – humanity, insight, the empathy and truth-finding that imagining and exploring ‘dreamworlds’ offers.

Are you writing horror? Join the Now Novel critique community for free and get perks such as longer critique submissions, weekly editorial feedback and story planning tools when you upgrade to The Process.

Now Novel has been invaluable in helping me learn about the craft of novel writing. The feedback has been encouraging, insightful and useful. I’m sure I wouldn’t have got as far as I have without the support of Jordan and the writers in the groups. Highly recommend to anyone seeking help, support or encouragement with their first or next novel. – Oliver

Related Posts:

• Showing vs telling: 'Show don't tell' in narration
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• How to write the middle of a story: 9 tips
• Tags horror fiction

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

71 replies on “How to write a horror story: Telling tales of terror”

[…] Similarly, the always awesome Now Novel blog has 6 Terrific tips on How to write a horror story that are worth a look. The most important piece of info there, in my opinion is # 5: Write scary […]

Great and helpful post. Its difficult to find helpful, informative posts on horror writing. Thanks.

It’s a pleasure, Alice. I’m glad you found this helpful.

I agree with Alice. This was very useful. Thanks, Bridget.

It’s a pleasure, Melissa, thanks for reading.

As always, an insightful and helpful post, especially regarding the distinction between terror and horror. Love the SK quote! 🙂

Thank you! Thanks for reading. It is a good quote, isn’t it?

Im 11 and working on a horror story with 100 or more pages. this is very helpful. 🙂

I’m impressed, Ethan. Keep going! I’m glad you found it helpful 🙂

Okay, I’m EXACTLY the same age and also working on a horror novel!! I already have 241 pages, though.

Update* im now 13 yayayayyaa owo I lost the pages and have then finished writing a script for something i cant loose. SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS

Omg hey Ethan and Malachi I’m twelve (right in the middle IG) and working on novels that are going to be between 100 and 300 pages! Good luck guys 😀

Great article. You helped me realise that the short I was working on is actually a novel. Not sure how mind you, but thanks all the same. I’ll sign up now.

Thanks, Gareth! Glad to help.

The article is useful, except for the last part, which totally messed up the beauty of the article. It’s POINTLESS trying to differentiate two things that are mostly used interchangeably. Moreover, Terry Heller’s point makes the whole sense, SENSELESS, because her definition of terror and horror are actually the same except for the subjects to where such emotion is concerned about. Terror is one’s fear for oneself, and horror is one’s fear for others? Are you kidding me? Both can be subjected to either oneself or to others. Dictionaries and encyclopedias never indicate that horror is what one fears for others alone, because it can be for oneself, too. If Terry cannot differentiate two things, which are not really meant to be differentiated because they are the ultimate synonym for each other, then she doesn’t have to make such an effort. She’s making everyone a fool.

Thank you for your engaging response. You raise valid points, and sometimes academic treatments of subjects do over-complicate matters. In light of your comment I’m updating the post since I see now that the distinction isn’t perhaps particularly useful here.

Thanks for the tips. Writing a horror novel for my 1st NaNoWriMo project. This was extremely helpful 🙂

I’m really glad to hear that, Ashley. I hope NaNoWriMo is going well.

I am 12 and have been working on horror since I was 7! So exited to actually get some good info! Thanks!

It’s a pleasure, Aurelia. It’s great that you’re already so committed to your love of writing, keep it up.

Thanks! I am exited to do Nanowrimo and I am am hoping to write a long novel this November. This really helped and extra thanks to the helpful comment!

It’s a pleasure! I hope your NaNoWriMo is going very well.

This has given me more quality advice on the genre than a three year creative writing degree. Best start reading the stuff first then! Thank you.

Thank you, Neil, high praise indeed. Good luck with your horror book!

… How does one get rid of writers block? My brain always blanks out when I try and start writing. So annoying! >:c

Sometimes listening to songs with a creepy tone helps

Great advice, Allee. I love listening to music while I work myself.

My advice is to literally just write what comes into your brain, it doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not, that’s what first drafts are for, as long as you’re writing in some shape of form, be it poor or good quality, it’s practice

Thank you. … My brain is weird. Just now, I’ve been shaken out of my sleep by an intense dream. Seriously. I don’t know what goes on up there, but it’s mad.

Good advice! Maya Angelou said similar about her writing process. Here are some additional tips on moving past a block: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/banish-writers-block/

I’m so happy I ran across this article. I’ve read from more than one story editor that the horror genre is the most difficult genre to master.

I’m glad to hear that, JP. All genres have their challenges but I’d say the best, best, best approach is to read widely in said genre (and others). Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, if Stephen King can’t terrify or horrify, he’ll gross us out. And he says he’s not proud. In other words, he’ll stoop to the disgust level if he can’t get the others. But this is precisely the problem with the “gross” or “disgusting.” Disgust is not fear. When we are disgusted, we know TOO much. When we are horrified, there is always something we DON’T know. I’m amazed he doesn’t know that. An autopsy gives us disgust because nothing is held back from the viewer. It is not frightening. No one believes, for example, that the body is going to get up from the autopsy table and start attacking the doctor. But if I walk into the autopsy room all by myself and see a dead body on a table, turn away from the body to shut the door, turn back to it, notice it gone, and then have the lights start dimming? Yes. Now I am scared. Why? Simply because I don’t know certain things. I don’t know why the body has suddenly disappeared. I don’t know how a dead person could have moved. I don’t know where the body is right now. I don’t know if that body (if it is actually alive) has good or bad intentions toward me. I don’t know who is dimming the lights and why. It is so much easier to disgust the reader than to horrify him. It takes more cleverness to hold back information from the character and the reader than to let everything gush forth in blood and guts. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example, there is more fear to be found in the inscrutable nightly crying of the butler’s wife than in many of our modern horror films put together. Why is she crying? Why only at night? Why is she doing looking out of the window into the dark each night? The source of fear is in the unknown.

Ultimately, King does know and it is a show vs tell metaphor. You have to read his biographical On Writing because no one explains it correctly. Terror is the psychological aspect of the story. Horror is the stories physical manifestation of the terror. Disgust is the actions of horror. Showing the actions of horror kills all suspense immediately. I like to explain it to my students and listeners as if Terror and Horror are the brake and Disgust is the gas. It’s like the old story of the escaped lunatic with a hook were a young couple go out on a date. While driving to Make Out Lane there is a report on the radio about an escaped killer with a hook running around killing people that the only the girl hears. As the girl and boy are making out she sees a shadow and the boyfriend sees nothing. Then there is the screeching sound on the outside of the car. That’s terror. The boyfriend gets out and inspects his car in the dense fog. The girl loses sight of the boy as he walks toward the rear, building on the terror. There is another screech along her door, terrorizing her. She calls out the boys name and he doesn’t respond, building on the terror, possibly toward horror if the boy doesn’t return. Then he does. He leaps into the car and jerks it into reverse and pulls away from the scene at mach-5. When they arrive back at her house, they find a hook dangling from the passenger door handle, the horror. King describes this little story as the perfect short horror story. However, in some later versions of the story the girl jumps in the driver’s seat and pulls off without the boy. When she gets to her home she finds a bloody hook dangling from the door with a bit of gut on it, leaving the girl and the audience disgusted. as the tension and suspense are deflated.

This is very helpful. My 8th grade English teacher is holding a contest for writing a short (750 to 3,000 word) horror story, so I am researching the elements of horror and how to incorporate them into my work. This article is by far one of the more helpful ones I have found in finding ways to create fear, shock or disgust in the mind of the reader. Thank you!

Hi Margaret,

Thank you for this feedback. I’m glad to hear you found this article useful. I hope you won the contest 🙂

“…his skin distinctly yellowish in colour.” Far from being exemplary in any way, this is actually terrible, hack writing. If something is “yellowish,” it cannot be “distinctly” so. It’s either distinctly yellow, or “yellowish.” Likewise, “in color” is flabby and redundant. Could the skin be “yellowish” in shape or size? Could it be “yellowish” in cost or weight? This page is distinctly whiteish in color. See how weak and flabby that is?

To be fair, there is a lot of good information on this page. But Clive Barker is a dreadful writer, and should never be cited as an exemplar of good prose.

Hi Sharkio, you raise a very good point. I second your edit of just saying ‘yellowish’ and cutting in colour and am tempted to add a note on not taking the letter of his prose as exemplary, but rather the spirit 🙂 I agree that although the atmosphere and tone are there, the prose is weak in places. There’s also the question, though, of whether we can/should apply ‘literary’ standards to genre fic where these and other ‘sins’ are more widely accepted 🙂 Thanks for the thoughtful engagement with this detail.

Are you crazy? There is no writer at the top of their game as Barker was in the 70-90s. His influence is on everything today.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, H Duane 🙂 Just goes to show that everyone has different preferences. He is regarded as one of the modern masters of horror. I suppose genre fiction readers might also be more forgiving of certain stylistic choices than literary readers.

Some good tips after writing 2 love stories and a mystery now I am trying for some horrer story and this will help me such a good information

Thanks, Sidhu. That’s an interesting genre leap, but many horrors do have both elements. It’s a weird trope to me how often the romantic leads are the first to go in slasher flicks. You’d think writers would keep them to add romantic tension to the mix. I hope your story’s coming along well.

I just finished writing my first horror script/ screenplay… I checked this list just to see if I maybe left elements out that I should include or if I was on the right track and I’m proud to report that my script has it all… Once my film finally sees the light of day, I hope all horror fans are satisfied…

Hi Timothy, I hope so too! Best of luck with the next steps, please update us about what comes of it.

I am attempting to write a horror story where the main character is possessed and is writing in a diary like format as it occurs, and begins committing murders, how do I accurately capture the descent into madness?

Hi Evan, thank you for sharing that. It’s an interesting challenge. I would suggest a shift in style and tone in his writing. For example, perhaps they use stranger metaphors, repeat themselves more, their sentences become more fragmented, there’s the occasional odd word by itself on a line, lines or sentences that don’t make complete semantic sense but have an eerie undertone (I think of the classic phrase ‘The owls are not what they seem’ in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks).

I hope this helps! Good luck.

Thank you, this was very useful. I appreciate your enthusiasm and encouragement.

It’s my pleasure, Evan, glad to help. Have a great week.

Wow this was really helpful thanks

I’m glad to hear that, Rene. Thank you for the feedback!

I wanted to write a psychological thriller story for a youtube channel. I am glad I found help from here. Thank You.

It’s a pleasure, Suyasha! Thank you for reading and good luck creating your story for YouTube.

I appreciate the reference to ’cause and effect’ for any level of villainy. The more complex the villain, the more interesting the story. Anything that steps out of the dark and says, “Hi, I’m evil. I’m here to destroy everything for no apparent reason,” flattens the scene. I think your point about motivation is key to getting people engaged in the fantasy. I think that this will heighten the tension in my current story. Thank you.

Hi Deborah, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Agreed, a complex villain also tends to be less predictable which inherently builds more suspense, as (compared to a Bond villain, for example), they’re more textured and unknowable, less of a trope or archetype. I’m glad you found these ideas helpful to your current story, good luck as you proceed further!

Totally agree with you Joseph Pedulla. You summed it up perfectly! Gross is not scary. I like scary. Stephen King is talked about all the time like the all-time best horror writer. I have tried reading some of his work and I find it mind-numbingly boring. I like the story to move along; don’t give me a whole bunch of description!! Read Darren Shan’s ‘The Cirque Du Freak Series.’ Absolutely amazing!

Thank you. I appreciate the elaboration on each hint. I also think your arguments make sense AND can be helpful to many indie-authors & startup writers alike.

Thank you for your feedback, Andre. I’m glad you found our article helpful!

Was looking for some takes regarding this topic and I found your article quite informative. It has given me a fresh perspective on the topic tackled. Thanks!

Please see also my blog, Getting to Know the 4 Incredible Authors of Horror Fiction

Hope this will help,

Thank you, Joab. Thanks for sharing your horror writing blog.

[…] How to Write a Horror Story: 6 Terrific Tips […]

This is quite interesting and I can see how it relates to film more readily than to a novel – perhaps due to the many film examples and the visual quality of the ‘jump scare’, etc. I can see that film examples are very useful, however, I’m having trouble relating this to crafting words on a page as opposed to images on a screen.

Hi Rachel, thank you so much for this useful feedback. It’s interesting how much film and narrative fiction have influenced each other in this specific genre, but this is useful to me – I will work in more examples from horror lit in an additional section when I have a moment. Thanks for helping me make this article better and for reading.

Interesting! I may add some horror prompts to Craft Challenge. You did forget to mention the terror of never finishing a book, missing tons of errors, writing something right after someone else does it, and getting your book idea stolen 😉 Although I suppose they’re preferable to a gruesome death, or drowning, or grasshoppers (don’t judge me) 🕷️🪓🩸

I’m now trying to remember which of those fears horror authors’ writer characters (e.g. in Misery ) have 🙂 I’m going to have to have a look at that. OK, I’m with you on the grasshoppers. My aunt lives near the mountain and they get these very angry-looking green ones my aunt calls ‘Green [redacted]s’ 😉

Also please do, I’ll also think up some horror prompts to share as well (another section for this article in version 2.1).

Oh, I forgot one! The fear of every critique starting with “I don’t like this genre.” 😳

Haha I love that, Margriet. A relatable fear, I would say.

How much room for humor do you think there is in the horror genre? Do you think you could write a horror novel that has a high percentage of humor Vs. horror/gore and still call it a horror novel?

This is a great question, Scott. I really am not a horror expert myself (sometimes I write far out of my comfort zone here which requires a little more research). But if I think of Tim Curry’s performance as It , for example, how he fills the character with this wild humor and characterization that made many prefer the original to the remake, I would say horror has as much capacity for humor as you want it to have. Comedy horror is a thing, with zombie spoofs and the like produced, so you could always market a comedy horror title in both categories. I think part of the natural crossover is that jump scares, campy villainous dialogue, or see-it-coming-from-a-mile tropes often make audiences laugh, too.

I’m working on one to it’s very wierd and it’s called Toony and The Ink Machine Yes I know kind of ripoff of Bendy and The ink machine.

Fabulous title, Silas! Wishing you the best with the writing process.

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• Scriptwriting

How to Write Horror — Horror Writing Tips for Fiction & Film

• Best Horror Movies of All Time
• Best Christmas Horror Movies
• Best Zombie Movies
• Best New Zombie Movies
• Best Vampire Movies
• Best Jump Scare Movies
• Best 1980s Vampire Movies
• Best Werewolf Movies
• Best Stephen King Movies and TV Shows
• Best Underrated Horror Movies
• Best Scary Movies
• Best Horror Movie Soundtracks
• What is Horror
• Body Horror Explained
• Giallo Films Explained
• Horror Movie Tropes
• Found Footage Filmmaking
• What is a Grindhouse Movie
• Best Free Horror Movie Scripts Online
• Best Horror Movie Scripts
• How to Write Horror
• Scary Story Ideas
• Midsommar Script PDF Download
• Halloween Script PDF Download
• Get Out Script PDF Download
• Alien Script PDF Download

S o, you want to learn how to write a good horror story? Whether you want to know how to write a horror movie or how to write a horror book, the four steps outlined in this guide will get you started on the appropriate course of action and help you to align your creative goals. Writing horror isn’t all that different from writing for other genres, but it does require the right mindset and a creepy destination to work towards. Before we jump into the first of our four steps, let’s begin with a primer.

How to write horror

Before you get started.

The steps outlined in this ‘how to write horror’ guide assume that you already have a grasp over the fundamentals of writing. If you do not yet understand the basic mechanics of prose, screenwriting , or storytelling, then you might not get everything you need out of this guide. Luckily, we have a litany of informative resources that can bring you up to speed on everything you need to know.

If you intend to tell the  horror story  you have in mind as a screenplay, then the best way to fast track your screenwriting education might be to read through some of the  best screenwriting books  or to enroll in one of the  best online screenwriting courses .

Our guide to writing great scenes  is another good place to start, and our  glossary of screenwriting vocabulary  is a great resource if you encounter any unfamiliar terminology. When you’re ready to start writing, you can get going for free in  StudioBinder’s screenwriting software .

Now, we’re ready to jump into step one of our how to write horror guide. But, be warned, if you don’t already have a basic story concept in mind, you should consider that Step Zero.

There’s no concrete way to generate story ideas, but you can always look to creative writing prompts  and  indie films to kickstart inspiration .

HOW TO WRITE A HORROR MOVIE

Step 1: research and study.

Writing horror often begins by consuming great horror . We look to the stories of the past when crafting the stories of the present. Someone who has never read a horror novel or seen a horror film is going to have a much harder time writing horror than someone who is a voracious consumer of horror stories. By watching and reading, you can pick up plenty of tips for writing scary stories.

Before writing your opening line, be sure to do your research. It can be worthwhile to explore all manner of horror media. But for the purposes of this step, it’s best to focus in on the type of material you wish to create.

If you want to learn how to write a horror novel, then read as many horror novels as you can get your hands on. Our list of the  greatest horror films  ever made is a good place to conduct your research if you plan to write a horror screenplay. You can also check out our rundown of  underrated horror films for even more research.

Here are tips on how to write horror from the master himself, Stephen King. And, while you're at it, might as well catch up on the best Stephen King movies and TV based on his work!

How to write good horror  •  Stephen King offers horror writing tips

It’s important to go beyond simply reading and watching horror and to begin to analyze the material. Drill down into why certain decisions were made by the writer and try to figure out why certain elements work or don’t work. It can often be worthwhile to explore material you consider bad as well as what you consider good, so you can learn what not to do.

Check out our analysis of Midsommar   below for an example of how you can break down and explore the horror films that inspire you. You can also download the Midsommar script as a PDF to analyze the writing directly. You should check out our Best Horror Scripts post for more iconic script PDFs.

How to Write Horror  •   Read Full Midsommar Script

When consuming material to learn how to write a horror story, pay particular attention to the pacing and structure of the stories you’re inspired by. For example, if the style you find yourself most drawn to is slow-burn horror, then you might want to aim for a much slower pace than average with your story as well, but the build-up will become even more important.

Horror story writing

Step 2: decide your type of horror.

So, you’ve decided you’re writing horror, congratulations, you’ve settled on a genre. Now, it’s time to pick your sub-genre (s) and to decide on the specific avenue of horror to explore. There are many horror sub-genres to choose from. Just take a look at our ultimate guide to movie genres for quick rundown. And, check out the video below to see horror sub-genres ranked.

Ranking subgenres for inspiration  •  Horror story writing

Keep in mind that genres and subgenres can be mixed and matched in a multitude of combinations. For example, The Witch blends together the horror and historical fiction genres. From Dusk Till Dawn fuses action, crime-thriller, and vampire elements. And Shaun of the Dead fuses the horror and comedy genres by way of the zombie subgenre.

Our video essay below offers insights into Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright’s creative process. Check out our ranking of Edgar Wright’s entire filmography if you want even more.

How Edgar Wright writes and directs his movies  •   Subscribe on YouTube

Step Two is also the time to decide on the specific avenue you will exploit when writing horror. By “avenue of horror,” we mean the primary source(s) of tension and scares. Witches? Zombies? Cosmic horror? Body Horror ? Social Horror? These are all different avenues that your horror story can take on, and just like with genres and sub-genres, mixing and matching is encouraged.

A horror story that exploits kills and gore as its avenue of horror will be written in a much different manner than one that focuses on a sense of creeping dread and leaves more to the viewer or reader’s imagination.

Related Posts

• What is a Giallo film? →
• The Best Christmas Horror Movies →
• How to Master a Storyboard like Jordan Peele →

Step 3: Mine your fears and phobias 

You have decided on your genre and your avenue of horror, now it’s time to get more specific and drill deeper. For Step Three, go beyond asking what makes a story scary and instead figure out what makes your story frightening.

Depending on what you chose in Step Two, this might already be baked into your sub-genre and avenue of horror. For example, the home invasion sub-genre by nature mines a very real phobia that many people share.

The best home invasion films

However, if you chose to go with the zombie subgenre for example, you may need to work a little harder to discover what it is about your story that will scare audiences. Zombies on their own certainly hold the potential to be frightening, but audience overexposure to them throughout the years has gone a long way to lessen the scary impact they once had.

For examples of how to do it right, check out our rundown of the best zombie films ever made . And, for a different yet equally effective take on the sub-genre, check out our list of the  best zombie comedies .

How to write a horror story  •  Exploit common phobias

The above video breaks down the statistics surrounding a number of phobias. One common piece of writerly wisdom is “write what you know.” When writing in the horror genre, we can tweak that advice to, “write what scares you.” Mine your own fears and phobias when crafting your horror story; there are sure to be others out there who get creeped out by the same things.

This is also the step where you should try to discover your X-factor. What is it that sets your story apart from similar horror stories? If the answer is “nothing really,” then it might be time to take your concept back to the drawing board.

How to write a horror story

Step 4: keep your audience in mind.

From this point on, you are ready to start writing your horror story. Much of the writing process will be carried out in the same way as you would write a story in any other genre. But there are a few extra considerations. Put all that research you did in step one to work and ensure that your prose or screenwriting is well balanced and doles out the scares at a good pace.

You will want to find a good middle ground between sacrificing story and character development and going too long without something to keep your audience creeped out.

Narrative pacing is important in every genre, but horror writers also need to worry about pacing their scares, similar to how someone writing an action film needs to deliberately pace out their big action sequences.

How to write a horror story  •  Keep pacing in mind

Decide on who your target audience is from the jump and keep them in mind while you write. There can be a significant difference between horror aimed at teens vs. horror aimed at a mature audience. In film, this can mean the difference between shooting for a PG-13 rating instead of an R rating.

In fiction, this decision might manifest as a plan to market directly toward the young-adult crowd. Horror aimed at children, like Frankenweenie or The Nightmare Before Christmas , is drastically different from other types of horror aimed at older audiences.

Use your target audience as a guiding star that informs all of your narrative decisions as you write. Now, it’s time to put everything you just learned about how to write good horror stories to use.

The Greatest Horror Movies Ever Made 

If you are stuck on step one and looking to find some inspiration, our list of the greatest horror films ever made is a great place to look. You are sure to find something to get your creative juices flowing within this lengthy list. Writing great horror starts with consuming great horror, coming up next.

Up Next: Best Horror Movies of All Time →

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How to Write Horror: 8 Crucial Components to Terrify and Delight

by Sarah Gribble | 0 comments

The horror genre might call to mind slasher films or other monster movies your teenage friends made you watch at night to scare you out of your wits. But horror is more than a shock fest. Scary stories have the ability to reveal the human condition in ways many other genres cannot. Today let's look at how to write horror.

Types of stories

We're continuing our series on how to write each of the nine types of stories , based on values. Values are defined by what a character wants or needs most in a story. Story types can defy genre boundaries which are often more about reader expectations and specific tropes, but the two often work together to create a satisfying reader experience.

Here are the six value scales with the plot types they tend to fall into:

• Survival from Nature > Life vs. Death
• Survival from Others > Life vs. Fate Worse than Death
• Love/Community > Love vs. Hate
• Esteem > Accomplishment vs. Failure
• Personal Growth > Maturity vs. Immaturity
• Transcendence > Right vs. Wrong

With that in mind, let's delve into how to write a horror book or story.

What is horror?

Horror is a genre of literature or film that wants to evoke fear, shock, and suspense. Characters battle for their life versus a fate worse than death.

What does that mean? A fate worse than death can mean everything from experiencing embarrassment to paralyzing fear to pain to a loss of innocence.

There are many types of horror fiction sub-genres, ranging from psychological horror to horror comedy to cosmic horror, to slashers and body horror. Horror stories often (but don't have to) have supernatural horror elements, such as ghosts, monsters, vampires, and witches.

Common techniques used to create horror include jump scares, gore, unexpected twists, isolation, and eerie sound effects. Writing horror successfully requires an understanding of human psychology and the ability to create tension and suspense through careful pacing and narrative structure.

Horror isn't just about gore or terror, however. Many horror stories include societal, environmental, or psychological themes.

To write effective horror stories, authors must be able to craft believable characters that audiences can sympathize with as well as build suspense through cleverly crafted plots.

An Example of Master Horror Fiction: Poe

Edgar Allan Poe's story “The Tell Tale Heart” is a story most of us read in school. If you haven't read it or you need a refresher, read it for free on Guttenberg .

“The Tell Tale Heart”   is narrated by an unreliable, unnamed narrator who is confessing to a murder, while simultaneously trying to prove he's not insane. He's killed an old man, whom he supposedly loved, because the man's eye creeped him out. The police show up, and he's calm and collected until he thinks he can hear the old man's heart beating under the floor boards. The beating gets louder until the man confesses to the police, begging them to make the noise stop.

This story packs all the elements of horror into around 2,000 words. The unreliable narrator gives readers a sense of unease and ambiguity throughout the story. Is the man actually mad or is there something supernatural happening?

We have fear, both from the narrator (that creepy eye) and from the old man, who is blind and suspects someone is watching him. We have a murder with dismemberment. We have isolation, as the old man is alone, but the narrator also complains of being scared in the dark night by himself.

Most of all, though, we are on the life vs. fate worse than death scale. The narrator is scared of being seen as insane, which is worse than death for him and is the cause of his confession. He still ends up arrested for the murder, though, which is also a fate worse than death.

What Makes a Good Horror Story?

What makes a good horror story is the ability to tap into our deepest fears and deliver them in a captivating way. Even if you don't consider yourself a horror writer, practicing a few short stories in this genre can help you understand human fear and the way it motivates action.

Setting and atmosphere

A good horror story should start off slow, introducing the characters and setting of the story before slowly building up tension as the horror begins to unfold. The setting of horror stories is often mundane and familiar initially—a summer camp, a basement, a house—but turns sinister as the story progresses.

The more the reader or audience can relate to the setting, the scarier it will be when the protagonist encounters anything spooky. Use sensory details to build the atmosphere. Old houses or rundown buildings and impending bad weather are common in horror stories.

• Bram Stoker's Dracula begins with Jonathan Harker arriving at Dracula's castle, which is isolated, rundown, and surrounded by fog.
• Movies like  The Conjuring  and  Poltergeist  (and a ton of others) start by a family moving into a new house.
• Midsommar begins in a seemingly idyllic community.
• A lot of horror—like The Shining— uses an impending storm to indicate coming doom. The crescendo of the storm culminates in the climax.

Believable character

Characters should be relatable and sympathetic so that readers can connect with them on an emotional level. Readers need to care about what happens to them in order for the horror to be effective. Develop their backstories and motivations, so that when terrible things happen to them, it feels like a genuine tragedy.

• The Mist by Stephen King opens with a man cleaning up his property after a weird storm. We're introduced to the entire family and a neighbor and have a chance to learn the dynamics there before any of the true action happens.
• Danny in  The Shining is a rather lonely little boy who has an alcoholic for a father. The reader can't help but want to protect him. His mother is hoping the move to the Overlook will cure their family. This broken family makes Jack's devolution more horrifying and tragic.

Fleshed out antagonist

The antagonist should be well-crafted and have both human qualities and monstrous ones; this will help create a sense of dread in readers as they don’t know what to expect from the villain. Ensure that your antagonist is well-rounded and has their/its own motivations, even if that motivation is something as simple as eating or breeding.

• The antagonist in the movie Species  starts off as an alien-human hybrid lab experiment. Her core motivation is procreation and because of how she was treated by her captors in her backstory, any human sympathy she might have had is nullified in her quest.
• In  The Creature from the Black Lagoon , Gillman just wants people to leave his territory and to be left alone (preferably with Kay, who he's rather smitten with).
• In Stephen King's  Misery , Annie Wilkes wants to save her favorite author (and maybe keep him around a bit longer than necessary initially), then desperately wants to save her beloved book series.
• Hannibal Lector is a culturally refined, brilliant, manipulative cannibal who held a prestigious place in his profession and prefers to eat the rude. In later stories, we discover he was traumatized as a child.

Foreshadowing

Use subtle hints or clues that something scary is about to happen. Foreshadowing can create a sense of anticipation and dread in the audience. Some common elements of foreshadowing in horror include: mysteriously locked doors, getting a chill for seemingly no reason, something being where a character didn't think they left it, hearing a strange noise, being warned off by the locals, or learning early on of a historic tragic event.

• In  The Shining , we're told if there's a snowstorm no one would be able to get to the hotel. Jack is also warned by the hotel owner that the former caretaker killed his family before taking his own life.
• In  The Haunting of Hill House , Eleanor receives warnings in the form of signs reading “Dare” and “Evil” and someone telling her she will be sorry the gate was ever opened. (In the Netflix series based on this book, there are ghosts hidden in corners and out of focus in many scenes.)

No help in sight

As your story progresses, your characters can't simply call the police or go to a neighbor for help. If that were the case, the horror would be over in a few minutes and the story would end. It should look increasingly doubtful that your characters will escape their situation. Isolation—physical or psychological/emotional—is a common way to achieve this.

• Nick Cutter's The Troop places a boy scout troop on a remote island with only one adult. When the adult is removed from the storyline, the boys are left on their own to battle a parasitic outbreak.
• Stephen King's The Shining takes place at a remote hotel during the offseason and gets worse when a blizzard traps the Torrances.
• Most R.L. Stine books feature children who aren't physically isolated from others, but the adults don't believe them and therefore aren't going to help.
• Zoje Stage's Baby Teeth features parents who can't control their nightmare child. The help they do receive doesn't work.
• In  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , any hope of help is dashed as the main character slowly realizes everyone in town is the enemy.

Deeper themes and ideas

Horror can be a powerful tool for exploring deeper themes and ideas. Use your writing to explore issues like mortality, identity, and the human condition. Don't just rely on jump scares and gore, but instead use horror to tell a compelling story with something to say.

• Most vampire stories are about addiction and/or the rich literally sucking the life out of the poor.
• The 2022 movie  Smile  is about the “contagious” nature of trauma and generational trauma.
• Stories like The Blob ,  Resident Evil ,  Frankenstein , and Mira Grant's Parasitology   series warn about science gone wrong.

Effective pacing

Effective horror requires careful pacing. You don't want to reveal too much too soon, but you also don't want to drag things out for too long. Use pacing to build tension and create a sense of urgency.

Keep your readers guessing and eager to find out what happens next. But don't exhaust them; every scene shouldn't be one of terror. In fact, the jump scares and ghost sightings aren't how you scare your readers. The more important part of horror is when you slow down and give your reader room to explore and get comfortable. Then you pull out the monster.

• A man runs in and says someone disappeared in the mist. (Faster.)
• Everyone agrees to stay put for a while. Things calm for a moment. (Slower.)
• Then they go to the back to fix something, and a man is pulled away by giant tentacles. (Faster.)
• When they tell everyone what happened there are a multitude of reactions, but the point is there is no immediate threat for a while from the monsters. (Slower.)
• Someone decides to lead a group of people outside and they are killed quickly. (Faster.) etc.

See how we're not seeing the monsters every scene? This gives us as readers (and the characters) time to imagine what the monsters look like, what their motivations are, and to try to come up with a way out. These slower scenes also give us time for some other elements of story, like backstory, tension, and subplots.

Twists, shocks, ambiguity, and everlasting evil

A good horror story should either end with an unexpected plot twist or shock that will leave readers stunned yet satisfied or with an ambiguous ending where the reader is left unsettled because they aren't positive what happens to the main character.

• In Ania Ahlborn's  The Shuddering , we're left with imagining what happened to the main character and his dog.
• In Dahl's  The Witches , the reader is left with the image of the boy/mouse and his grandmother bouncing around the world eradicating witches. We don't know how long they will live (ambiguity), there are still witches, even if they did defeat the specific antagonists for the book (evil still exists), and the boy remains a mouse (twist and shock).
• Every horror movie in a franchise normally ends with the antagonist making an appearance even though they're supposed to be dead and defeated by the protagonist.
• In Shirley Jackson's  The Lottery , we know exactly what happens, but we have no idea  why this stoning ritual is part of this society. We don't even know when or where this society exists.

How to Write Horror: Lean Into the Fear Factor

Fear is the crucial element in horror story writing. As a genre, horror writing leaves you plenty of room to explore themes and subplots that really dive into the dark fears of your readers—and that creates an emotional experience for your target audience. Even common fears and ordinary situations can turn dark in the hands of a master horror writer.

Dive into your biggest fears to find your best horror ideas. Then share them with us!

Want more horror prompts? Check out our 20 Spine-tingling Horror Story Prompts here.

What fears do you find most compelling in horror? Tell us in the comments .

Today, tap into that story value of life versus a fate worse than death. Set the timer for 15 minutes and make a list of fears you or a potential character might have and then create a scene where they realize their worst fears are coming true.

Share your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop here , and leave feedback for a few other writers. Not a member? Join us here . 

Sarah Gribble

Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She just released Surviving Death , her first novel, and is currently working on her next book.

Follow her on Instagram or join her email list for free scares.

Work with Sarah Gribble?

Bestselling author with over five years of coaching experience. Sarah Gribble specializes in working with Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Horror, Speculative Fiction, and Thriller books. Sound like a good fit for you?

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How to Write a Horror Story in 10 Not-So-Scary Steps

POSTED ON Aug 13, 2023

Written by Caroline Goldsworthy

Learning how to write a horror story requires calling upon our deepest fears and orchestrating terrifying moments that readers didn't see coming.

Don’t look now, but do you see that shadow in the corner? Is it real or your imagination? How fast can you race to the door and escape? The lights have suddenly gone out, and you feel someone in the room with you…

The goal of the horror author is to make readers tense up. And we have the tips and tricks to help you do just that in your next book.

This Guide Will Teach You How to Write a Horror Story:

A quick history of the horror genre.

I promise I’ll be quick. 😊

Edgar Allen Poe (also said to have written the first detective novel— The Murders in the Rue Morgue is often held to have written some of the first horror stories, such as The Telltale Heart . Others soon followed. Probably the most famous of the 19 th century are works such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelly and Dracula by Bram Stoker.

The Victorians especially loved spooky tales, and this enjoyment bred a whole new breed of work with the Penny Dreadfuls. One of the most famous, “Varney the Vampire” was a precursor to Dracula. The 19th century also saw the emergence of the Southern Gothic subgenre , covering all number of grotesque topics and thoughts.

In the 20th century, there were people like Dennis Wheatly, James Herbert, Dean Koontz, and to me, the undeniable king of horror, Stephen King.

How to Write a Horror Story: 10 Steps

Both authors and readers are fascinated and drawn in by the horror genre. When choosing between puzzling over a cozy mystery or getting drawn into a thriller vs reading horror books that deliver the scare factor, many choose the latter.

That being said, this genre isn't all about gore and jump scares. Learning how to write a horror story requires a basic understanding of how to write any book – with some added (scary) elements.

1. Choose Your Subgenre

There are many subgenres in horror fiction, and a large part of your book's success is nailing your book's positioning . This is what attracts the right readers to your content.

For example, some people are in it for the gore. Others the dark and macabre. Still others the supernatural. There may be a bit of overlap between these groups, but they are clearly distinct audiences.

Instead of starting with how to write a horror story, think about what kind of horror story you want to create.

Are you planning something that will play on your readers’ minds or horrify them with violence? Will you make them suspicious of every stranger they see for the next few days or terrify them with empty buildings?

After getting some clarity on the overall theme of your story, you can look at a list of book genres to find the perfect category for yours. This will also help you solidify the difference between horror and thriller books – many authors confuse the two and accidentally list their book in the wrong category!

Related: Horror Book Title Generator

2. Map Out Your Characters (Mindfully)

Readers need to care about the people in your story and what happens to them. If they don’t care, they’ll stop reading. This is true of every genre and every type of character .

If someone is walking down a dark alley and hears someone behind them, but they’ve just been mean to a waitress, is the reader going to care what happens to them? But what if the character is the waitress who’s working three jobs to go to law school or feed her kids—does that change things?

Spend time working on the character development of each person in your story to help evoke the right reactions and connections with your readers.

3. Establish the Setting and the Mood with Detailed Depictions

Once you've chosen your subgenre, you might already have an idea of the setting, mood, and/or general vibe of your book.

Knowing how to write a horror story requires creating a very scary scene.

Think about what puts you on edge and has your senses on full alert. Vivid descriptions using all the senses will help create a sense of dread and foreboding. Bram Stoker’s descriptions of Jonathan Harker exploring the castle in Dracula still give me a tingle every time I read them.

4. Drip Feed Tension

As you create your book outline and start writing a rough draft , you want to think about how to gradually escalate the tension with eerie happenings and foreshadowing of the horrors to come.

Seeing something out of the corner of the eye or a scratch left on a door is much eerier than seeing the monster full-on at this stage. Including subtle, slightly hidden, or mysterious clues like this of what's to come is called Chekhov's gun . It's the idea that every element in a story is necessary or has meaning. And employing this narrative convention can help you if you're wondering how to write a horror story.

Need another example? Think of the hole in the floor dripping with acid in Ridley Scott’s Alien . Then he made the characters hear something scuttle across the floor, but they’d missed it. He raised that tension masterfully.

5. Practice Creating the Perfect Monster

If you want to know how to write a scary story, don't overlook the importance of the monster.

Now, this doesn't need to be a mythical creature , ghostly being, or actual monster. It just needs to be the scary thing.

Dig something original and terrifying from your imagination. What makes your ‘monster’ unique and fear-inspiring? While authors in the 19 th century may have got away with simply saying “too terrible to describe,” you can’t. Your readers want the details. They want to feel the fear. And you are going to deliver it by dredging up something dreadfully scary.

6. Tap Into Psychological Fear

Fear of the unknown is much more powerful than gore or violence. The latter is something we often become immune to, sadly.

Many of us are afraid of similar things – being in the dark, an abandoned road in the middle of nowhere, a foggy forest. When I’m writing a scary story, I sit and think about the things and situations that frighten me. I try to conjure up the images and feel like I'm in that moment. Then, I jot down the sensations that my body is going through. Stomach clenching, hair rising on my arms and neck. Hearing my heart in my head as my blood pounds. Dry mouth. Scared to look behind me.

Finally, I make my character experience them.

7. Don't Be Afraid of Taboos

Societal taboos are great fodder for understanding how to write a horror story. They can get dark – very dark – but that's precisely what makes them work.

Yellowjackets on Netflix, for example, addresses the taboo of cannibalism alongside the fear of abandonment and being stranded without any hope of rescue. To me, it has strong elements of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as the stranded students become increasingly savage and deranged.

They both make the audience question what they themselves would do in a similar situation. Maybe it even makes them fear their own animal instincts.

No further spoilers from me since I haven’t finished watching season two.

8. Balance Actual Gore and Imagination

Slasher movies have their place in the horror genre, but pure gore is not something I would rely on.

Take some notes from other genres and create a mystery, a romance, or some healthy distrust between your characters against the backdrop of the nightmarish situation they are in. If you allow the reader an opportunity to fill in some of the blanks themselves, you can create a much deeper sensation of terror.

9. Add Twists and Surprises

You absolutely must keep your readers on the edge of their seats. Add in an unexpected plot twist, new character, or a surprise setback when they think the characters have escaped.

Though not in the horror book genre, Verity by Colleen Hoover does an excellent job of this. Even the most dedicated readers couldn't have seen all those final twists coming.

10. Create an Unsettling Ending

Does the good guy die in the end? Did they all die in the end? Was the good guy actually the murderer in the end?

Don't feel the need to finish writing your horror story by wrapping up everything with a neat and tidy resolution. You might want to leave room to do a book series. Or you just might want to let the fear stew in their minds long after they finish your book.

You want to give your readers ‘book hangover’ where your story lingers with them for days after reading it. One reader wrote to me about my police procedural novel, Recompense to say, “when I read that last page, a shiver ran down my spine.”

Cue my happy dance.

How to Get Ideas When Writing Your Horror Story

As authors, we are often asked where we get our inspiration from. As horror authors, creating especially scary story ideas can be uniquely challenging.

I usually fix people with a little smile and whisper, “I don’t see the world the same as everyone else.” And it's true, as creatives, we rarely look at the ordinary and leave it there. Our minds are always wondering about the ‘what ifs.’ For some of us, those questions lead to darker places than others.

If you're still wondering how to write a horror story and need some nightmare fuel, look no further than…

• Your dreams, nightmares, and daydreams . Have you ever had a waking dream, and your mind has taken you to places you’d never imagined before? Or woken in a strange place in the dark, convinced that there’s someone else there? No? Okay, just me, then.
• People watching . Observing the behaviors and habits of those around us is a great place to gather material for your characters. Pick and choose. Mix and Match. Don’t copy a real person exactly. That way lies litigation.  
• Your own fears (whether rational or not). I once wrote a short horror story about a forest retaliating against being destroyed by a construction company. The workers would arrive each day to find machinery destroyed, complete buildings uprooted, and more as the forest fought back. The next time I was alone walking my dogs in a forest, I had to leave in a hurry. My imagination made me scare myself.
• Scrapbooking . Collect snippets of news items or images that capture your imagination. Think about natural disasters, serial killers, unsolved mysteries, or animal attack stories. Anything that will fire your imagination.
• Fairy tales, folklore, and mythology . When you look closely at fairy stories, they are quite scary (especially if you look up the original German versions). Similarly, I was once driven to the train station by an Albanian taxi driver, who told me about Albanian folk tales. I checked them out—they are super creepy.

Give those ideas a chance to roam freely in your head as you begin to outline and write your horror story. Make sure you keep your notebook or phone to hand to record those ideas.

Learning how to write a horror story is an incredibly exciting and creative endeavor to explore on your own. But you can also enlist the help of a book writing coach to help spark even more dark and terrible ideas – while keeping you accountable during your writing journey.

Read widely in the genre or listen to some of the best horror audiobooks before starting out to see what the best (and the worst) horror authors have done. Seek out ideas that are in the news, leverage overheard snippets of conversations, and think how you can twist them into something new.

Above all else, have fun, scare yourself, and, most importantly your readers, silly.

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How to Write a Horror Story: 14 Powerful Tips for Writing Horror

Crafting an epic horror story is no small feat. It requires a delicate dance between fear, suspense, and emotion, leading your readers down a dark and twisted path. So how do you breathe life into nightmares that will haunt your audience long after they’ve turned the last page? Let’s unravel the secrets behind writing a truly terrifying horror story.

Understanding the Horror Genre

In the world of storytelling, horror is the spine-tingling genre that seeks to send shivers down your spine and make your heart race. These stories evoke fear, dread, and terror while delving into our darkest fears and anxieties. Horror often features a hearty helping of supernatural elements and terrifying, grotesque imagery to keep you up at night.

Horror Subgenres

There’s a smorgasbord of flavors when it comes to horror, each with its own distinct characteristics.

• Gothic: The dark and brooding cousin of horror, Gothic tales feature mysterious settings, supernatural elements, and an atmosphere that’ll make you feel like you’re wandering through a foggy graveyard at midnight.
• Psychological: Mind-bending and bone-chilling, psychological horror dives deep into the internal struggles and mental instability of its characters, often leaving you questioning what’s real and what’s just a figment of a character’s twisted imagination.
• Paranormal: Ghosts, spirits, and things that go bump in the night—paranormal horror deals with unexplained phenomena and otherworldly beings that defy the laws of nature.
• Slasher: For fans of blood and gore, slasher horror follows a (usually) human antagonist who commits gruesome acts of violence, often wielding a weapon that becomes their terrifying trademark.
• Body Horror: Skin-crawling body horror focuses on the grotesque transformation, mutilation, or degradation of the human body, often making you viscerally feel like your skeleton is trying to escape.
• Survival Horror: It’s you against the world in survival horror, where characters are pitted against insurmountable odds in isolated or claustrophobic environments, struggling to stay alive in the face of relentless terror.
• Sci-Fi Horror: When science fiction and horror collide, you get sci-fi horror, exploring the dark side of advanced technology and the consequences of scientific discoveries go terribly wrong.

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4 Key Elements of Horror Stories

When it comes to cooking up a breathtaking horror story, there are a few essential ingredients that every writer should have in their pantry. These elements, when combined in just the right way, will leave your audience shivering with fear and eager for more. Let’s take a look at the key components that make a horror story truly terrifying.

The bread and butter of horror, fear is the primary ingredient that fuels the genre. A horror story aims to tap into our primal instincts and deep-rooted anxieties, leaving us trembling in our boots.

2. Suspense

Suspense is the secret sauce that keeps a horror story simmering. As the tension builds, the audience is kept on edge, wondering what lurks around the next corner, anticipating the next scare.

3. Surprise

A well-timed plot twist can be the cherry on top of a horror story. Unexpected turns heighten the fear and shock experienced by the audience, making the horror all the more impactful.

Sometimes, horror stories need a little extra seasoning. Disgusting or grotesque imagery can intensify the audience’s feelings of unease and revulsion, creating an unforgettable experience that lingers long after the story has ended.

How To Write A Horror Story

Are you ready to delve into the dark corners of your imagination and unleash breathtaking tales? Fear not, brave writer—we’re here to guide you on your hair-raising journey. With these 14 powerful writing tips we’ll venture together into the realm of horror storytelling.

1. Know Your Audience

Before embarking on your horror journey, it’s crucial to gain a deep understanding of your target audience. By knowing who you’re writing for, you can better tailor your content and themes to appeal to their interests, making your story more engaging and effective. Here are some tips to help you get acquainted with your audience:

Read More Horror

Immerse yourself in the world of horror by reading a variety of horror stories, novels, and anthologies. This will help you gain insight into what works well in the genre, what resonates with readers, and the different types of horror stories, so you can figure out what you like and what’s popular among your target audience.

Identify Age & Preferences

Consider the age group and preferences of your target audience, as this will influence the content, tone, and level of gore or terror in your story. For example, a horror story for young adults might have different themes and intensity compared to a story aimed at more mature readers.

Study Your Readers’ Fears

Research the common fears and phobias among your target audience, and use this information to craft a story that will truly resonate with them. This could involve surveying readers, browsing online forums, or examining the most successful horror stories among your chosen demographic.

Analyze Trends & Subgenres

Keep an eye on current trends and popular subgenres within the horror category, as this can give you a better understanding of the types of stories your target audience is interested in. By exploring different subgenres, you can identify unique angles and themes that will make your story stand out.

Engage With the Horror Community

Interact with other horror enthusiasts, writers, and readers online and at events to gain valuable insights and feedback. This can help you fine-tune your understanding of your audience’s preferences and expectations, ultimately allowing you to create a story that truly connects with your readers.

2. Set Up a Fear Factor

Crafting an enthralling horror story requires you to establish a potent fear factor that will captivate and terrify your readers. This could be a supernatural force, a monstrous creature, or a human antagonist with sinister intentions. To make your fear factor truly compelling, consider drawing from your own personal fears and experiences. Here’s a brief overview of some fear types you can use to diversify your horror story:

• Physical Harm & Violence: Tap into the primal fear of pain and injury, using vivid descriptions of harm and brutality to evoke unease and discomfort.
• Loss of Mind & Insanity: Explore the terrifying prospect of losing one’s grip on reality as characters spiral into madness or face psychological torment.
• Supernatural & Paranormal: Delve into the eerie world of ghosts, spirits, and unexplained phenomena, creating a disquieting, otherworldly atmosphere.
• Monsters & Creatures: Unleash the nightmares of your imagination with horrifying beasts and creatures that defy nature, instilling fear through their menacing presence.
• Fear of the Unknown: Exploit the unsettling nature of uncertainty, leaving your readers to fill in the blanks with their own imagination and amplifying their own personal fears.
• Death & Mortality: Confront the inevitable and universal fear of death by exploring themes of loss, mortality, and the afterlife to evoke a sense of dread.

3. Vary the Types of Fear

To keep your readers glued to your spine-tingling tale, it’s essential to incorporate a variety of fear types. Mixing different sources of terror can prevent your story from becoming predictable and maintain suspense throughout.

4. Build an Emotional Core

A good horror story goes beyond mere frights and scares. To make your story truly memorable, create an emotional core that resonates with your readers. This could be a character’s internal struggle, a tragic backstory, or a love story intertwined with the horror. By giving your readers something to connect with, you’ll make your story more impactful and enduring.

5. Use Setting and Atmosphere

Setting and atmosphere play a crucial role in creating a sense of dread and unease. Choose a location that lets your chosen fears flourish, such as an abandoned house, a haunted forest, or a desolate town. Use vivid descriptions to build an atmosphere that keeps your readers on edge, and make the setting a character in its own right.

6. Exploit the Unknown and Inexplicable

One of the most effective ways to instill fear in your readers is by tapping into the fear of the unknown. Incorporate mysterious elements, unexplained events, and enigmatic characters to create a sense of uncertainty and disquiet. This will keep your readers guessing and heighten their sense of unease.

7. Increase Vulnerability Through Isolation

Isolation can make your characters more vulnerable, making your story that much more frightening. Separate your characters from the safety of others, either physically or emotionally. This could involve stranding them in a remote location, cutting off communication, or creating rifts between characters that leave them feeling alone and exposed.

8. Suspense and Pacing

Mastering suspense and pacing is key to writing a successful horror story. Build tension gradually, interspersing moments of calm with sudden shocks and scares. Use cliffhangers, false alarms, and unexpected twists to keep your readers on the edge of their seats.

9. Add Sensory Details

In order to truly immerse your readers in the spine-chilling world of your horror story, it’s important to include vivid sensory details that appeal to all five senses. By painting a rich, multisensory picture, you can heighten the sense of dread and unease, making your story all the more terrifying.

Use descriptive language to create clear, evocative visuals. This could involve the ghastly appearance of a ghost, the eerie flickering of lights in a haunted house, or the sinister shadows that seem to have a life of their own.

Example: The moonlight cast elongated shadows across the desolate room, as the wallpaper peeled away like dead skin, revealing the rotting wooden walls beneath.

Use onomatopoeia and other auditory descriptors to create an unsettling atmosphere. Consider the creaking of floorboards, the howling of wind, or the distant, haunting laughter of a sinister presence.

Example: The deafening silence was suddenly pierced by the shrill screech of rusty hinges, as the long-abandoned door creaked open, ever so slowly.

Describe the tactile sensations your characters experience to further immerse your readers in their horrifying experiences. This might include the clammy touch of a ghostly hand, the suffocating grip of fear, or the icy chill of a draft in an otherwise sealed room.

Example: Her heart raced as she felt the cold, damp breath of something unseen on the back of her neck, sending shivers down her spine.

Incorporate taste to enhance the sense of unease and discomfort in your story. This could involve the metallic taste of fear-induced adrenaline, the stale taste of an old, musty room, or the acrid taste of poison in the air.

Example: As he entered the decrepit mansion, the taste of mold and decay filled his mouth, leaving a bitter, lingering aftertaste that refused to fade.

Use evocative scents to establish an atmosphere of dread or unease. This might include the putrid odor of decay, the sulfurous stench of demonic activity, or the sickly-sweet aroma of a mysterious, sinister perfume.

Example: The room was suffused with the cloying, rancid smell of decay, a miasma of death and desolation that clung to every surface like an invisible shroud.

10. Create Dynamic Characters

Strong, believable characters are essential for any good story, and horror is no exception. Create well-rounded, dynamic characters with their own motivations, fears, and desires. Make sure that your readers will care about your characters, so they’re truly scared for them as the stakes become clear.

11. Make the Stakes Obvious

Following form the previous point, ensure that the stakes are high and the consequences of failure are clear. Whether it’s a character’s life, sanity, or relationships at stake, make sure your readers understand what’s on the line. This will keep them emotionally invested in your story and heighten the tension.

12. Subvert Expectations

To keep your horror story fresh and surprising, consider subverting your readers’ expectations. Play with horror tropes and conventions, turning them on their head to catch your audience off guard. This can make your story more unpredictable and exciting, helping it stand out from the crowd.

13. Find a Unique Premise

A unique premise is key to crafting a memorable horror story. Rather than rehashing tired clichés, look for a new angle or twist to set your story apart. Think about what scares you personally, and explore those fears in your writing. This will give your story a genuine, authentic quality that readers will appreciate.

14. Ground Your Story in Realism

While horror often involves supernatural or fantastical elements, grounding your story in realism can make it more relatable and therefore scarier. Develop a believable world and characters, and use realistic dialogue and relationships. This will help your readers suspend their disbelief and become fully immersed in the horror you’ve created.

7 Common Mistakes in Horror

Even the most seasoned horror writers can get caught in common pitfalls that can weaken the impact of their terrifying tales. By identifying and avoiding these mistakes, you can create a chilling and engaging story that keeps your readers hooked. Here are some common horror mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Revealing Too Much Too Soon

One key element of a successful horror story is maintaining suspense and tension. Revealing too much information too soon can undermine these feelings and leave your readers disengaged.

How to avoid it: Use a gradual, layered approach when disclosing information, and be strategic with your pacing. Focus on building anticipation and suspense by slowly unveiling the fear factor, the characters’ backstories, and the story’s mysteries.

2. Overusing Clichés & Stereotypes

Too many familiar tropes played straight can make your horror story feel unoriginal and predictable. Relying on clichés and stereotypes can weaken the story’s impact and leave your readers unimpressed.

How to avoid it: Experiment with new ideas and subvert expectations by putting your unique twist on classic horror elements. Explore different genres and story structures to create a fresh and engaging horror experience.

3. Relying Solely on Gore and Violence

Excessive gore and violence can desensitize your readers and detract from the overall horror experience.

How to avoid it: Focus on building tension and fear through psychological and atmospheric elements. Make use of the unknown, the supernatural, and the psychological to create a multi-layered, chilling experience that goes beyond mere gore.

4. Forcing Jump Scares or Shock Value

Jump scares and shock value can quickly lose their effectiveness if overused or forced. They can also detract from the story’s overall atmosphere and pacing.

How to avoid it: Use jump scares and shocking moments sparingly and purposefully. Allow the suspense and tension to build naturally before delivering a well-timed, genuinely surprising moment to maintain their strong effect.

5. Unbelievable Character Actions

Characters who behave unrealistically or make illogical decisions can frustrate readers and hinder their ability to connect with the story.

How to avoid it: Develop well-rounded characters who act and react believably within the story’s context. Ensure that their motivations and actions are grounded in their personalities and circumstances.

6. Weak or Unrealistic Dialogue

Inauthentic or poorly written dialogue can break immersion and detract from the story’s overall impact.

How to avoid it: Focus on crafting natural, engaging dialogue that reveals character and advances the plot . Be mindful of each character’s unique voice and speech patterns so that their dialogue remains consistent throughout the story.

7. Lack of a Clear Resolution

A satisfying resolution is essential for any story, including and maybe especially horror. A lack of closure or a weak resolution can leave readers feeling unsatisfied and disconnected from the story.

How to avoid it: Plan your story’s resolution from the beginning, ensuring that it ties up loose ends and provides a satisfying conclusion. Whether your ending is tragic, triumphant, or ambiguous, make sure it’s emotionally resonant and provides closure for your readers.

9 Great Examples of Horror Stories

Whether you’re new to the genre or a seasoned horror aficionado, it’s always helpful to study successful horror stories to learn what makes them work. These stories have stood the test of time, captivating and terrifying readers for generations. Here are some notable examples of classic, modern, and short horror stories to inspire you.

Classic Horror Stories

• The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe: This macabre tale of guilt and madness explores the psyche of a murderer who can’t escape the incessant beating of his victim’s heart beneath the floorboards.
• The Shining by Stephen King: Set in the isolated Overlook Hotel, this chilling novel delves into the supernatural and psychological horrors that unfold as a family descends into madness.
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: This groundbreaking Gothic novel tells the tragic tale of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation, exploring themes of ambition, isolation, and responsibility.

Modern Horror Stories

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson: A chilling, atmospheric tale of a group of people who are invited to spend a week in a mysterious and possibly haunted mansion, where they must confront their own inner demons.
• Bird Box by Josh Malerman: In this suspenseful and terrifying post-apocalyptic novel, a woman and her two children navigate a world filled with unseen horrors that drive people to madness and death.
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: This eerie, Gothic tale set in 1950s Mexico follows a young woman as she unravels the dark secrets and supernatural occurrences in her cousin’s new home.

Horror Short Stories

• The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs: This classic horror short story centers around a cursed monkey’s paw that grants its owner three wishes, with horrifying consequences.
• The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: This unsettling tale explores the dark side of human nature and the power of tradition as a small town carries out a brutal and shocking annual ritual.
• Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates: Inspired by a true crime story, this chilling narrative follows a teenage girl who becomes the target of a sinister, supernatural figure.

By immersing yourself in these great horror stories, you can better understand the genre’s conventions, learn from successful authors’ techniques, and ultimately improve your own horror writing.

Literary Genre Quiz (Hard)

Frequently Asked Questions

Finally, let’s examine some frequently asked questions related to writing horror stories.

How Do You Start a Horror Story?

Starting a horror story often involves creating a strong opening that hooks the reader and sets the tone. You can begin by introducing an unsettling atmosphere, a mysterious situation, or an intriguing character. No matter how you begin, you want to start building tension and anticipation from the outset.

What Makes a Story Scary?

A story becomes scary by exploiting human fears and anxieties, whether they be physical, psychological, or emotional. This can be achieved through elements such as suspense, pacing, atmosphere, and the unknown. A strong emotional core, engaging characters, and high stakes also contribute to a story’s scariness.

What Are Some Scary Story Ideas?

Scary story ideas can emerge from various sources, including personal experiences, urban legends, and historical events. Examples include haunted locations, cursed objects, supernatural creatures, or psychological horrors. The key here is finding a unique premise that resonates with your audience’s fears and brings a fresh perspective to the genre.

Should a Horror Story Be in First Person?

Writing a horror story in first person allows the reader to experience the protagonist’s fear and emotions directly. However, other points of view can also be effective, such as third-person limited or omniscient, depending on the story’s structure and intended effect. Ultimately, the choice of POV should serve the story’s purpose and enhance the reader’s experience.

What Age Group Likes Horror?

Horror stories can appeal to various age groups, from young adults to mature readers. The key is to tailor your story’s content, themes, and complexity to your target audience. For example, young adult horror may focus on coming-of-age themes and relatable characters, while adult horror may delve into deeper psychological and existential fears.

Is Horror Hard to Write?

Writing horror can be challenging, as it requires a delicate balance of suspense, pacing, and emotional resonance. It also demands creativity when crafting unique and terrifying scenarios. However, with practice and a strong understanding of the genre’s conventions, you can write a horror story that effectively captivates and terrifies your readers.

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How to Write a Horror Story

4 things that every horror story needs.

I’ve written over 100 stories, and it’s impossible to do that without noticing trends about what works and what doesn’t. Whether you’re new to writing horror or just burnt out and need a framework to help construct your next idea, I recommend writing down these four steps before you start every story.

1)  Mystery. The internet is a big place and ain’t nobody got time for that.

You want to grip your reader within the first paragraph, and I think the best (easiest) way to do that is by putting a burning question in their mind that begs an answer.

“Is this real?” “What happened next?” “Why would someone write a story about that?” “How could someone  survive  to write about it?”

These are the kind of questions that force people to read all the way to the end. I love whimsical language and character exploration as much as the next, but if you read the beginning of your story in isolation without  needing to know something that will come next, then it’s time to edit.

2)  Suspense. What happens when you put the suspense before the mystery? A lot of boring, out of context exposition.

Once you’ve given your reader a taste of what they want, experiment with how long you can  avoid giving it to them . Now that you have their attention, you can slow down to develop your characters and give background information on the scenario. Suspense is the anticipation of what will happen next, and the excitement of that anticipation can be just as good or better than the reveal itself.

(For example:  one of my stories  spends the entire time making the reader wonder what the scariest imaginable drawing could be without ever revealing it, as nothing explicit could be as scary as the infinite potential of the unknown).

Slow down too much however, and suddenly you’re Naruto’s 4th cousin having an elaborate love affair (filler much?) and readers will get bored. You want to continue to develop your main plot and reference the mystery as you explore the other elements of your story.

Your suspense will increase in effect the closer you draw to your climax as the reader’s need for resolution grows. Dedicating a paragraph to a guy walking home can get tedious, but when the reader knows a monster is waiting for him the second he walks in the door, every step of  the exact same paragraph  will be an adventure. His hand on the doorknob. His baited breath. The creak of the wood. These are all boring without the anticipation (suspense) of what’s inside.

3)  Climax. Urgency. Action. The big reveal.

Here’s where you find out what the monster is or see the serial killer take another life. You’ve used up all your pondering and fancy getting here, and now you want the reader on the edge of their seat. Short, fast, action-packed sentences are ideal for this. Add more action to your descriptions and dialogue as well. If you want to tell readers there’s an apple on the table, have someone pick it up or toss it from hand to hand instead of just noticing it. Add action to dialogue, making characters advance or retreat or exchange blows between words.

Present tense adds the most immediacy to the situation. Cut down all filer words, unnecessary descriptions, and even excess grammar that slows you down.

Instead of “ I noticed the cat stand up “, say “The cat is standing”. Instead of “ I immediately decided to turn around and sprint back through the hallways until I got back outside ,” say “I turn, sprinting. The hallway, the door, and finally the clear night air.”

4)  Twist. And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.

Readers are smarter than you give them credit for. Remember they want their question answered so bad that they’re trying to cheat by guessing what will happen the whole way through. A clue as small as a shifty-eyed glance can turn the big reveal into a “huh, I figured.” See if you can’t throw a little twist in at the end that gives context to the rest of the piece.

Maybe the narrator is actually the killer all along, or maybe the killer has a secret benevolent motivation. A twist doesn’t even need to change the main plot. It can be something as simple as a coward dying with dignity. The goal is to simply give the reader a feeling of satisfaction, making him glad that he read all the way to the end to see something he hasn’t already anticipated.

I use these four phases of the story as bullet points when I’m outlining, then I begin writing once I have a little blurb for each. Some stories will put the mystery in the title, build suspense the whole time, and then have the climax and the twist together in one sentence. Some will be all climax, action-action-action, with the twist another amazing actiony-action. There are infinite variations to allow the same structure to produce endless unique stories, but however you decide to break the rules, keeping these in mind will always help putting your ideas on paper

As you continue to practice, you’ll notice this structure can apply to smaller increments like paragraphs or even sentences. Hook the character on the first sentence (or word!) and repeat the rise and fall of suspense/resolution, each little cycle adding another puzzle piece to the main situation at stake.

An Example in Action:

I want to write a horror story.

1) Pick a topic. How about a good old-fashioned zombie story? 2) Write down the steps: Mystery, Suspense, Climax, Twist. 3) Ask yourself questions until you can fill in each step.

What could be mysterious about a zombie story? How about their origin? I’m going to start writing about these zombies showing up, but there haven’t been any undisturbed graves or missing bodies to produce them. Who are these guys anyway?

What suspense can I have? How about a little boy trying to get people to believe him? He keeps seeing these things, but he’s an unreliable witness so no-one takes him seriously. Suspense builds as the zombies keep getting closer/do worse things, and anticipation builds as the reader can’t wait for people to find out the truth.

Climax? Well someone has to find out eventually. Maybe the boy catches a zombie and lures it into his basement. His mom sees it and finally believes him. Then the zombie breaks out and they follow it back to a secret government lab. No wonder the police never reported any missing bodies!

Twist? What if the zombies were helpless victims just trying to get away from the experiment? And the little boy made friends with one and helps it escape to live in the woods?

4) Write that story!

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How to Write a Horror Story

Last Updated: December 10, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 1,104,746 times.

Horror stories can be as fun to write as they are to read. A good horror story can gross you out, terrify you, or haunt your dreams. Horror stories depend on the reader believing in the story enough to be scared, disturbed, or disgusted. However, they can be tricky to write well. Like any fiction genre, horror can be mastered with the right planning, patience, and practice.

Sample Stories

Understanding the Horror Genre

Christopher Taylor, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English, advises: "The key elements of a horror story include fear, suspense, surprise, and moments of foreshadowing ."

• “The Monkey’s Paw”, an 18th century tale by William Wymark Jacobs about three terrible wishes granted by a mystical monkey’s paw.
• “The Tell-Tale Heart”, master horror writer Edgar Allan Poe’s psychologically disturbing short story of murder and haunting.
• Neil Gaiman's take on the nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty in “The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds.” [3] X Research source
• You’d be remiss not to read a horror story by arguably the master of the genre, Stephen King. He has written over 200 short stories and uses many different techniques to scare his readers. While there are many lists of his greatest horror stories [4] X Research source , read “The Moving Finger” or “The Children of the Corn” to get a sense of King’s style.
• Contemporary writer Joyce Carol Oates also has a famous horror story called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” that uses psychological terror to great effect. [5] X Research source
• Modern non-standard horror, like Stephen Milhauser’s “The White Glove,” uses the horror genre to tell a coming-of-age story.

• In King’s “The Moving Finger”, King takes a premise: a man who thinks he sees and hears a moving human finger scratching a wall in his bathroom and then follows the man closely over the span of a short period of time as he tries to avoid the finger, until he is forced to confront his fear of the finger. King also uses other elements like a Jeopardy game and a conversation between the main character and his wife to further create a feeling of suspense and dread.
• In Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Oates establishes the main character, a young girl named Connie, by providing scenes of her daily life and then zooms in on one fateful day, when two men pull up in a car while Connie is at home all alone. Oates uses dialogue to create a sense of dread and allows the reader to experience Connie’s growing sense of fear of the threat of these men.
• In both stories, horror or terror is created through a combination of shock and dread, using elements that are possibly supernatural (a moving human finger) and elements that are psychologically disturbing (a young girl alone with two men).

Generating Story Ideas

• Make a list of your greatest fears. Then, think about how you would react if you were trapped or forced to confront these fears.
• You could also take a poll of what scares your family, friends, or partners the most. Get some subjective ideas of horror.

• Use your imagination to create a horrifying spin on a normal, everyday activity or scene.

• Think about what kind of confined spaces scare you. Where would you dread or fear being trapped in the most?
• Trap your character in a confined space like a cellar, a coffin, an abandoned hospital, an island, or an abandoned town. This will create an immediate conflict or threat to the character and set your story up with immediate tension or suspense.

• Shock: the simplest way to scare the reader is to create shock with a twist ending, a sudden image of gore or a quick moment of terror. However, creating fear through shock can lead to cheap scares and if used too much, can become predictable or less likely to scare the reader.
• Paranoia: the sense that something is not quite right, which can unnerve the reader, make them doubt their own surroundings, and when used to its full effect, make the reader doubt even their own beliefs or ideas of the world. This type of fear is great for slow tension-building and psychological horror stories.
• Dread: this type of fear is the horrible sense that something bad is going to happen. Dread works well when the reader connects deeply to the story and begins to care enough about the characters to fear something bad that is going to happen to them. Inspiring dread in a reader is tricky as the story will need to do a lot of work to keep the reader engaged and involved, but it is a powerful type of fear.
• Balance intense negative emotions with intense emotions of wonder or positivity. [8] X Research source

• Using gross-out details like a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, something green and slimy landing on your arm, or a character landing in a pool of blood.
• Using unnatural details (or fear of the unknown or impossible) like spiders the size of bears, an attack from the living dead, or an alien claw grabbing your feet in a dark room.
• Using terrifying psychological details like a character who comes home to another version of him or herself, or a character who experiences paralyzing nightmares which then affect their sense of reality.

• You can use Freytag’s pyramid [10] X Research source to create an outline, which begins with exposition of the setting and life or day of the character(s), moves into the conflict of the character (a severed finger in the bathroom, two men in a car), shifts upward into rising action where the character tries to solve or work against the conflict but meets several complications or roadblocks, reaches the climax, and then falls downward with falling action, into the resolution where the character is changed, shifted (or in the case of some horror), meets a terrifying death.
• Think of a short title that hints at the terror in your story.

Developing the Characters

• Determine the age and occupation of your character.
• Determine the marital status or relationship status of your character.
• Determine how they view the world (cynical, skeptical, anxious, happy-go-lucky, satisfied, settled).
• Add in specific or unique details. Make your character feel distinct with a certain character trait or tick (a hairstyle, a scar) or a mark of their appearance (an item of clothing, a piece of jewellery, a pipe or cane). A character’s speech or dialect can also distinguish a character on the page, and make them stand out more to the reader.
• Once your readers identify with a character, the character becomes a bit like their child. They will empathize with the character’s conflict and root for them to overcome their conflict, while also realizing that this rarely happens.
• This tension between what the reader wants for the character and what could happen or go wrong for the character will fuel the story and propel your readers through the story.

• In order to create conflict in a character’s life, you need to introduce a danger or threat to the character, whether it's a moving finger, two men in a car, a mystical monkey’s paw or a murderous clown.
• For example, in King’s “The Moving Finger”, the main character, Howard, is a middle-aged man who enjoys watching Jeopardy, has a comfortable relationship with his wife, and seems to live a decent middle class life. But King does not let the reader get too comfortable in Howard's normal existence as he introduces a scratching sound in Howard's bathroom. The discovery of the finger in the bathroom, and Howard's subsequent attempts to avoid it, remove it, or destroy it, creates a story where a seemingly normal, likeable man’s life is interrupted by the unknown or the unreal.

• Its important to create enough motivation for the character so their bad decision feels justifiable and not merely stupid or unbelievable. An attractive young babysitter who responds to a masked killer by running not to the telephone to call the police but outside into the deep, dark woods is not only a stupid character move, it also feels unbelievable to the reader or viewer.
• But if you have your character make a justifiable, though flawed, decision in response to a threat, your reader will be more willing to believe and root for that character.
• For example, in King’s “The Moving Finger”, Howard initially decides not to tell his wife about the finger in the bathroom because he believes he may be hallucinating or confusing the scratching noise for a mouse or animal caught in the bathroom. The story justifies Howard's decision not to tell anyone about the finger by playing off what most people who tell themselves if they witnessed a strange or bizarre event: it wasn't real, or I'm just seeing things.
• The story then justifies Howard's reaction by allowing his wife to go into the bathroom and not comment about seeing a moving finger by the toilet. So, the story plays with Howard's perception of reality and indicates that maybe he did hallucinate the finger.

• Fear is built off of understanding the consequences of an action for a character or the risk of their actions. So if your character decides to confront a clown in the attic or two men in a car, the reader will need to be aware of what the character could lose as a result of this decision. Preferably, your character’s stakes should be extreme or major, such as loss of sanity, loss of innocence, loss of life, or loss of the life of someone they care about.
• In the case of King’s story, the main character is afraid that if he confronts the finger, he may risk losing his sanity. The stakes of the character in the story are very high and very clear to the reader. So, when Howard does finally confront the moving finger, the reader is terrified of how the outcome is going to create a loss for Howard.

Creating a Horrific Climax and a Twist Ending

• Hint at the horrific climax of the story by providing small clues or details, such as the label on a bottle that will later come in handy for the main character, a sound or voice in a room that will later become an indication of an unnatural presence, or even a loaded gun in a pillow that may later go off or be used by the main character.
• Build tension by alternating from tense or bizarre moments to quiet moments where your character can take a breath in a scene, calm down, and feel safe again. Then, amp up the tension by re-engaging the character in the conflict and then making the conflict feel even more serious or threatening.
• In “The Moving Finger”, King does this by having Howard freak out about the finger, then have a relatively normal conversation with his wife while listening to Jeopardy and thinking about the finger, and then attempt to avoid the finger by going for a walk. Howard begins to feel safe or assured that the finger is not real, but of course, once he opens the bathroom door, the finger seems to have grown longer and is moving much faster than it was before.
• King slowly builds tension for both the character and the reader by introducing the threat and then having it overshadow the rest of the story. As readers, we know the finger is a sign of something bad or possibly evil, and are now in a position to watch Howard try to avoid, and then eventually confront this evil.

• While you want to create a satisfying ending for the reader, you also do not want to make it so closed and settled that the reader walks away without a lingering feeling of uncertainty.
• You could have the character experience a moment of realization about the conflict or about how to solve the conflict. The revelation should be the result of a build-up of details in the scene or story and should not be jarring or feel random to the reader. [15] X Research source
• In “The Moving Finger”, Howard's moment of realization occurs when he figures out that the finger may be a signifier of an evil or wrong in the world. He asks the police officer, who is there to arrest him after noise complaints from the neighbors, a final Jeopardy question, in the category of the “inexplicable”. “Why do terrible things sometimes happen to the nicest people?” Howard asks. The police officer then turns to open the toilet, where Howard stored the slaughtered finger, and “wagers it all” before opening the toilet seat to look at the inexplicable or unknown.
• This ending leaves the reader wondering what the officer sees in the toilet, and if the finger was real or a figment of Howard's imagination. In this way, it is open-ended without being too surprising or confusing for the reader.

• Focus on creating a story that feels personally terrifying to you. Or, add a twist to a familiar horror trope, like a vampire who enjoys cake instead of blood, or a man trapped in a dumpster rather than a coffin.
• Remember that too much gore or violence can actually have a desensitizing effect on the reader, especially if the same pools of blood keep happening over and over again in the story. Of course, some gore is good and likely necessary in a horror story. But make sure you use gore in a spot in the story that is impactful or meaningful, so it can punch your reader in the gut, rather than numb them or bore them. [17] X Research source
• Another way you can avoid cliches is to focus more on creating a disturbed or unsettled state of mind for your character, rather than images of gore or pools of blood. Pictorial memories often don’t stick in a reader’s mind, but the effect of these images on a character will likely create a lingering creepiness for the reader. So aim not for your reader’s imagination but for a disturbance in your reader’s state of mind. [18] X Research source

Revising the Story

• Get out your thesaurus and replace any redundant word use with synonyms to avoid using the same words or phrases over and over again in the story.
• Be sure to make your language use and word choice fit the voice of your character. A teenage girl will likely use different words or phrases than a middle-aged man. Creating a vocabulary for your character that fits their personality and perspective will only add to their believability as a character.

• If your story is dialogue heavy, reading it out loud will also help you determine if the dialogue sounds believable and natural.
• If your story contains a twist ending, gauging your reader’s reaction by watching your audience’s faces will help you determine if the ending is effective or needs more work.

Expert Q&A

• Avoid repackaging proprietary material or the published stories of others, otherwise known as plagiarism. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Things You'll Need

• A pencil or pen and paper, or a typewriter or computer with a word processor such as Microsoft Word.
• A dictionary and a thesaurus.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://litreactor.com/columns/storyville-writing-horror-stories
• ↑ https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128239303
• ↑ https://neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/The_Case_of_the_Four_and_Twenty_Blackbirds
• ↑ https://www.stephenking.com/library/written_old-new.html
• ↑ https://celestialtimepiece.com/2015/01/21/where-are-you-going-where-have-you-been/
• ↑ https://referenceforwriters.tumblr.com/post/60572428904/7-helpful-tips-to-writing-good-horror-stories
• ↑ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/06/finding-the-emotional-truth-in-horror-writing/530145/
• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/there-are-no-rules/the-horror-genre-on-writing-horror-and-avoiding-cliches
• ↑ https://everwalker.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/freytags_pyramid.png
• ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/16/how-to-write-fiction-andrew-miller
• ↑ https://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/10/11/25-things-you-should-know-about-writing-horror/
• ↑ https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Creepypasta_Wiki:Creepy_Clich%C3%A9s

About This Article

One way to write a horror story is by brainstorming things or situations that scare you. Many horror writers choose to take a normal, everyday situation, and make it scary by adding unsettling characters or events. Once you have a setting or scenario, make a plot outline and add some detail to your characters, including their fears and goals. As you’re writing, imagine what kind of bad decisions or mistakes your characters could make to worsen the situation, rather than improve it. For tips on writing a riveting climax or adding a twist to your plot, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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This Halloween, Terrify Your Readers By Writing Amazing Short Horror Stories

Tips on how to write a spine-chilling horror short story to get into the spooky Halloween mood.

Read more posts by this author.

It's finally spooky season, which means that it's time to get into the mood by marathoning some horror movies and binge-read horror novels and short horror stories!

Alternatively... perhaps you might want to try your hand at writing a short horror story of your own! What better way to get into and contribute to the spooky vibes of Halloween?

Whether you're interested in writing a short horror story the likes of those on the No Sleep subreddit (a place for reddit users to write and post their own scary short stories), or to share with your friends around a campfire, here are some tips on how you can write a blood-chilling short horror story.

Tips for writing an amazing short horror story

Photo by Neven Krcmarek on Unsplash

1. Invoke the 3 types of terror

According to Stephen King, the veritable king of horror fiction, there are 3 types of terror that can invoke fear in readers. Here are what they are, in King's own words:

• The Gross-Out

"The sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm."

"The unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm."

"When you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there..."

As you write your short horror stories, do come back to these 3 types of terror frequently. They can help you know what kinds of horrors to invoke for any intended effect on your readers.

2. Make us of the familiar

Why are horror stories and movies scary? It's because it takes what we are familiar with — our day-to-day lives, our common experiences — and adds a twist to it. This makes us believe that these horrors could one day happen to us, and this makes us fearful.

When we see a perfectly normal family suffer from supernatural occurrences in their own house, it's terrifying to us because we can see ourselves experiencing the same horrors.

When you take perfectly normal experiences and add a supernatural twist to them, that's when you can truly scare your audience!

3. Play with common fears and phobias

Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash

What better way to invoke fear with your short horror stories than with common fears and phobias? When written well, common fears and phobias can truly bring out the most visceral fear in people.

In fact, many successful stories use common fears and phobias! Stephen King's It , for instance, plays off of the fairly common fear of clowns. Other common fears often invoked in horror stories and films are that of the dark, dolls, zombies, and most importantly, the unknown.

4. Tap into your reader's imagination

It's said that you shouldn't reveal the monster too soon in a horror story . The power of your reader's imagination will be more than enough to fuel their fear. In fact, the fear of the unknown may even make the monster feel scarier than it actually is!

A great example of this would be the Blair Witch Project . Lauded as one of the best horror films in the found footage genre, the film never once shows the audience what the Blair Witch looks like. It taps into our imagination and uses the unknown to enhance the horror of the story.

Since you're writing a short story, you have the luxury of being able to keep your monster unknown and unrevealed, even till the very end, so make use of it!

5. Add foreshadowing

Photo by Martino Pietropoli on Unsplash

Adding foreshadowing is a great way to amp up the tension, suspense and horror of your short horror stories!

Whether it be a suspicious-looking locked door in the house or a strange man that your character walks past in the street, foreshadowing makes your reader speculate and keeps them on the edge of your seat.

It makes them wait with bated breath to see what's going to happen next, and builds up a sense of dread until the grand reveal.

6. Read other horror short stories

Perhaps the best way to learn how to write horror short stories is to read more horror short stories! That is how you can get a better idea of how to built atmosphere, tension and fear in just a few pages.

Consider reading famous horror short story collections like Scary Stories to tell in the Dark , The Dollmaster and Other Tales of Terror . You may even want to peruse horror short story forums like reddit and look up famous Creepypastas for some inspiration!

But don't just read passively – try to take notes as you read! Download a digital writing app like JotterPad on your mobile device so that you can jot down important notes as you read through these horror short stories.

With JotterPad, you can save your notes onto a cloud service of your choice. This way, you can open up your notes on your laptop when you're actually ready to get started on writing your horror short stories.

Writing horror short stories can be a pretty fun experience, especially if horror is a genre that you've never dabbled in before. Take this chance to make your first foray into the world of horror, and have a spooky scary Halloween!

Story Arcadia

How To Write A Horror Story

Writing a horror story can be a thrilling and rewarding experience for both the writer and the reader. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, there are several key elements to keep in mind when crafting a spine-tingling tale.

First and foremost, it’s important to establish a strong and compelling setting for your horror story. The setting should be atmospheric and evoke a sense of unease or dread. Consider using abandoned buildings, dark forests, or isolated locations to create an eerie backdrop for your story.

Next, focus on developing complex and relatable characters that readers can invest in. Give your protagonist fears, flaws, and vulnerabilities that make them feel real and human. This will make their experiences all the more terrifying for the reader.

When it comes to plot, pacing is crucial in a horror story. Build tension gradually, using suspenseful moments and unexpected twists to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Consider incorporating elements of the supernatural or unexplained phenomena to add an extra layer of fear to your story.

In terms of tone and atmosphere, pay close attention to your writing style. Use vivid descriptions and sensory details to immerse readers in the world of your story. Experiment with different techniques such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and unreliable narration to create an unsettling mood.

Finally, don’t be afraid to push boundaries and explore taboo subjects in your horror story. The genre is known for delving into the darker aspects of human nature, so don’t shy away from exploring themes of death, madness, or existential dread.

In conclusion, writing a horror story requires careful attention to detail and a willingness to embrace the macabre. By focusing on setting, character development, plot, tone, and subject matter, you can craft a truly chilling tale that will leave readers haunted long after they’ve finished reading. So go ahead – unleash your inner darkness and start writing that bone-chilling horror story today!

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How to Write Horror Fiction: Tips & Advice from the Masters

by Brandon Cornett | September 25, 2021

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Want to know how to write horror fiction? Want to gain some insight and advice from true masters of the genre?

You’ve come to the right place. Below, I’ve gathered some writerly tips and advice from some of the best horror writers of past and present.

From the Pros: How to Write Horror Fiction

Keep the story moving. Write scenes that scare you. Channel your own pain. Embrace the unknown and uncontrollable. According to the masters, this is how to write horror fiction. So let me turn over it to them…

Stephen King: Keep the Ball Rolling

We might as well start with the reigning king of horror fiction, Stephen King. Having written somewhere around a gazillion novels, King has some hard-earned wisdom to share on the craft of writing horror fiction.

His 2000 book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is a riveting read. True to its title, much of the book is about his life as a writer.

But it also offers some insightful tips on how to write horror fiction — or any type of fiction, for that matter.

One of King’s suggestions is to keep the story moving, by using description sparingly.

As he puts it:

“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”

Sure, there’s a time and place for details and description. But too much of it can bring a story to a grinding halt. So be selective. Above all, keep the story moving.

Dallas Mayr: Scare Yourself, if You Want to Scare Others

Dallas Mayr (who wrote under the pen name Jack Ketchum) knew how to write some truly disturbing horror fiction.

Sometimes his “monsters” lived right there in the neighborhood, as in The Girl Next Door . Sometimes they were cave-dwelling cannibals who hunted human prey, as in his novels Off Season and Offspring .

Some of his works might be too disturbing for some readers. But trust me when I tell you he was a master of the genre who is missed by a legion of fans. The man knew how to write.

Through his past interviews and correspondence, Dallas Mayr offered a wealth of advice on how to write horror fiction. One of his best tips for aspiring writers — scare yourself .

If you want to write scary-good horror fiction, you have to create scenes that scare you as the author. Your story should thrill and chill you. After all, how can you expect your work to frighten readers if it doesn’t even frighten you?

Here’s how Mayr explained it, in a 2011 interview for This Is Horror :

“I figure if I don’t scare myself, if I don’t feel that dread of what’s coming up next, I probably won’t scare you. But the same is true of any emotion or feeling I try to get down right on the page. If I’m doing comedy, I damn well better make myself laugh. If I’m doing tenderness, I want to feel that too—I want to bleed a little.”

That’s some sage advice for those who want to write horror fiction.

Anne Rice: Go Where the Pain Is

Anne Rice, the undisputed queen of vampire fiction, prefers to write about her own obsessions and personal pains. In addition to being a cathartic experience, this approach can help writers produce more meaningful fiction.

We all have pain in our past. We all have shadows that follow us, ghostly echoes of previous traumas or tragedy. Believe it or not, these things can help us write better horror fiction.

This isn’t so much a “technique” as a natural tendency. It’s a gravitation. The mind just goes there, all on its own.

Anne Rice says she is drawn to her own obsessions, including the dark chapters from her past. She incorporates these forces within her fiction.

Here’s how she puts it:

“Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I’m writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.”

Her advice fits in with the theme of this article, how to write horror fiction. But it’s broader than that, too. Writers of all genres could benefit from adopting this philosophy. What pains lie in your past? How can you bring them into your story or novel?

Shirley Jackson: Analyze Your Own Fears

Gothic horror legend Shirley Jackson used a writing technique similar to what Anne Rice described above. The author of The Haunting of Hill House (and many other great works) said that she tried to understand her own fears and to channel them into her writing.

Want to know how to write horror fiction? This is where it begins.

You have to understand fear if you hope to evoke that kind of emotion in the reader. And where better to look than your own psyche?

Many horror writers take this approach to fiction writing. After all, our writing is a direct reflection of who we are and what we’ve been through in life. It mirrors our inner selves.

Here’s how Shirley Jackson described it:

“I have always loved to use fear, to take it and comprehend it and make it work and consolidate a situation where I was afraid and take it whole and work from there.”

Think about a time in your life when you were truly afraid. Think about the nature of your fear — how it was born, how it affected you, and what you were like on the “other side.” Channel that into your writing.

Victor LaValle: Write Until You’re Convinced

Victor LaValle, author of The Ballad of Black Tom , believes authors should find their own scenes and characters convincing. If you’re not convinced by some element of your story — if you don’t believe or accept it — you should see it as a red flag. You have more work to do.

This isn’t necessarily a “how to write horror fiction” pro tip, but rather one author’s personal methodology. Still, it fits into the overall theme of this article.

Besides, any writer can benefit from this kind of self-criticism.

Think of this way: If you’re not convinced by a certain element in your horror story, how can you expect the reader to accept it?

This is how LaValle put it, during an interview for the Los Angeles Review of Books :

“There are plenty of times when it’s obvious to me that a scene, or a chapter, or a character, isn’t working. By that I mean they’re unconvincing. It doesn’t matter if we’re on Mars or in Montana, I simply don’t believe these characters in their actions, thoughts, or dialogue. That’s the easiest to deal with, in a way, because if I can see it’s false then I know other readers will, too.”

Adding to that, I would stress the importance of putting your work aside for a while, before editing or revising. When writing the first draft of a horror story or novel, writers tend to get caught up in the moment. We might write a scene and think it’s brilliant, simply because it’s fresh and new. A month later, we might review that same scene and see a dozen things that need fixing.

You’re probably here because you want to know how to write horror fiction — how to start a story and see it through to the end. But don’t overlook the importance of rewriting it.

Clive Barker: Embrace the Chaos

Clive Barker, the playwright and novelist who brought us Hellraiser , Candyman and the Books of Blood story anthologies , believes that horror fiction speaks to a lack of control.

With our technology, our science, and our relatively high brain-to-body-mass ratio, we humans like to think we’re in control. We think we have a pretty good grasp on things. (Most of us, anyway.)

But what happens when that control slips away? What happens when the universe throws us a curve ball or pulls the rug out from under our feet? Horror happens.

Here’s how Barker expressed it:

“Horror fiction has traditionally dealt in taboo. It speaks of death, madness and transgression of moral and physical boundaries. It raises the dead to life and slaughters infants in their cribs; it makes monsters of household pets and begs our affection for psychos. It shows us that the control we believe we have is purely illusory, and that every moment we teeter on chaos and oblivion.”

This insight adds a universal element to our “how to write horror fiction” theme. Chaos. Helplessness. Lack of control. Most of us fear these things on a deep, primal level. We are born with such fears. They’re part of our DNA. So they certainly have a place within horror fiction.

P.S. If you’re an aspiring horror writer, but you haven’t yet read Clive Barker’s Books of Blood series, you might want to give them a look. Some of those stories are creepy. Some are downright gruesome. All are wonderfully written. They might teach you a thing or two about how to write horror fiction.

Lightning Round: Quick Tips on Writing Horror

Need more advice on how to write a horror novel or story? Welcome to the lightning round!

• Come up with an original story idea readers haven’t seen before.
• Or, put a fresh spin on familiar horror tropes (e.g., a haunted cruise ship).
• Take the time to develop your characters before you introduce the horror.
• Create authentic, three-dimensional characters (with flaws).
• Reveal your character’s inner thoughts and fears, to help readers connect.
• Horror isn’t about monsters, but the character’s reaction to monsters.
• Give your story emotion. Let us know what the protagonist wants, and why.
• Raise the stakes. Make sure your protagonist has a lot to lose.
• Make the “monster” or villain mysterious for a while, to prolong suspense.
• Remember that people are often the scariest monsters (see Buffalo Bill ).
• At some point, force your protagonist to confront the evil / monster / threat.
• The big “showdown” should come toward the end of the story (climax).
• Leave some things to the reader’s imagination. Don’t over-describe.
• Feel free to disorient your characters (and readers) by twisting reality.
• Rewrite your scary scenes until even you find them frightening.
• Be yourself. Channel your own fears and experiences into your story.
• Read, read, and read some more. It will help you learn the craft.

So there you have it, a crash course on how to write horror fiction. I hope you found some useful tips, techniques and strategies in this article, and wish you well in your writing endeavors.

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Why 'Stand By Me' Is Still the Best Stephen King Adaptation

The best Stephen King movie adaptation trades haunted hotels and killer clowns for a tale of true friendship.

The Big Picture

• Stand By Me is the best Stephen King film because it focuses on real kids facing relatable challenges in an authentic and unfiltered way.
• The movie depicts dark topics like neglect, abuse, and betrayal, showing the harsh realities of childhood without sugarcoating for a powerful impact.
• Stephen King himself praised Stand By Me as the best adaptation of his work, capturing the heart and authenticity of his storytelling unlike any other film.

Ask a group of people for the best Stephen King story adapted to film , and you’ll probably get a bunch of different answers. Maybe a Kubrick fan will immediately say The Shining . Another might say It (take your pick as to which version), Carrie , or maybe Misery . There's something about King's work that filmmakers can't get enough of; his latest novel has already been optioned by a director despite the fact that it just came out last fall. King’s portrayals of dread and horror are renowned, depicting settings where people are cruel and selfish and protagonists must do their best to survive in spite of it. However, the best Stephen King adapted work contains no ghosts, no shape-shifting monsters, and no immediate horror themes at all. That would be Stand By Me , a brilliant film that trades overt suspense for a heartfelt tale of youthful adventure and self-discovery, and in the process, reveals almost every reason why King's stories manage to stick with audiences even today.

Stand By Me

'stand by me’s cast feel like real kids.

If there’s ever a joke that one can tell quite reliably about King, it's his obsession with the state of Maine. Most of his stories seem to revolve around the state to the extent of stories being set in the same town with the same characters (a very early entry in the later trend of extended universes). While it might seem at a glance that King is mining nostalgia by constantly setting things in his childhood state, it’s more than that. The nostalgia isn’t just positive – King is quite good at taking everything about what it means to be a kid and how you think about the world at a young age.

This is why some of his best stories feature kids and kid perspectives, he’s good at writing children in a way that feels authentic and real while never feeling cloying. In fact, this might also be part of the reason that It: Chapter Two failed to capture audiences in the same way that the first film did, as it lost that childhood edge that made the series immediately interesting. No better is this exemplified than in Stand By Me . The members of the main group of kids are not cherry-cheeked little angels – they swear, they bicker, they talk about stupid things, and the whole story originates with the morbid fascination of seeing a dead body for the first time. They don’t feel like “kid” characters, existing only to create problems for the adult main characters, or just to “look cute.” They’re rounded characters with their own problems and rich inner worlds , most of which they keep secret or hidden away from adults, and even from each other.

The “realness” of the kids comes through in a big way from the performances of the main cast of the movie. They embody their characters in a way that feels so realistic that the audience loses themselves in it almost immediately. They talk so naturally that they quickly stop feeling like actors and start feeling like just kids. Wil Wheaton attributes the success of this effect to the casting itself: Not only did the kids fit their characters, but in many ways, they already “were” their characters. In a 2011 NPR interview , Wheaton said that, at the time, he was “shy and awkward” as well as uncomfortable in his skin, traits that fit his character of aspiring writer Gordie Lachance very well. This extends to the other actors as well, Wheaton says that River Phoenix was already a "father figure" to him, and Jerry O’Connell and Corey Feldman both embodied their characters on and off the set. This sense of immediate reality and similarity between the characters and the actors themselves benefits the film greatly. The characters have their quirks, but they never start to feel like just movie characters.

'Stand By Me' Knows How to Deal With Dark Topics

“Real” characters can immediately lose their sense of reality unless they are immersed in a world that feels like it has similar stakes and problems to our own. You can have the most realistic and down-to-earth cast in the business, but if the world feels too censored and toned down, the audience will still immediately be pushed out of the finished product. This is especially hard in movies and shows about children, because children can experience things so horrible that writers might be encouraged to sugarcoat experiences. Ideas of trauma, abuse, and a loss of innocence feel like steps too far, even in pieces of media that revel in darkness and maturity. There’s a reason that some of the most remembered scenes in modern TV are scenes in which a child is put in harm’s way. It's why Bran getting thrown from the window to kick off the entire plot of Game of Thrones still feels shocking even today.

Stand By Me doesn’t sugarcoat the world of childhood . It delves deep into problems that may feel relevant to many children’s actual experiences growing up. Our main character’s parents don’t really seem to care for him at all, instead spending most of their time mourning his deceased older brother. This lack of parental affection churns inside of him, tossing up his self-worth and bringing him to tears when he eventually confides to Chris that he believes his father “hates him.” There is no fairy tale ending to this plot either – he doesn't return home to his worried parents hugging him and promising to give him the attention he deserves. Instead, he finds comfort and affirmation in his close friends when his familial bonds fail him. Not everybody gets loving parents; it’s a cruel reality of the real world. Teddy is in a similar situation, idolizing his father’s wartime service but unwilling to confront the abuse he suffered at his hands, or the fact that his father is now institutionalized (possibly due to his PTSD from serving). He is devastated when an adult mocks him about his father’s mental instability, first reacting with anger and aggression before breaking down with his friends. Again, there is no solution to this problem, Teddy’s friends can only be there for him and support him in his pain.

Only One Stephen King Movie Has Ever Won an Oscar

One of the most impactful scenes in the entire movie, however, is when Chris confides in Gordon about the truth of a crime he’s long been accused of. Throughout the movie, Chris has been the rock that the others clung to during their own struggles, the most mature of the group that was always there to offer advice and a more adult perspective. However, when the rest of the group is asleep, and it’s just him and his best friend, somebody he can trust, he opens up. He tells Gordon that he did in fact steal the milk money, which Gordon isn’t surprised by – everyone thinks of Chris as a thief, just like the rest of his family. However, Chris reveals that after stealing it he attempted to give it back to a teacher, only for her to keep it for herself and continue to blame him for stealing. It’s a moment of awareness about how the world isn’t a fair place , and that even teachers, people he thinks he can trust, still treat him differently because of his family history and how he presents himself. In this breakdown, the audience is reminded that while Chris had been the adult center of the group, he himself is still just a child, and that maturity is a result of trauma forcing him to grow up earlier than he should have to. It’s a dark truth about childhood that most media is too afraid to even acknowledge. Like Gordon and Teddy, there is no good ending to this story, no rich family or kind benefactor to take him away from his criminal roots. He simply has to push ahead knowing that the world will treat him poorly no matter what he does, the deck is stacked against him. It’s a dark topic to bring up, especially in a movie focused on children.

It speaks to something deeper about King’s work, the man is a master of horror of all regards, the supernatural and the mundane. The Shawshank Redemption is about hope, but also the horror of being locked away and forgotten. Similarly, Stand By Me is about the horror of realizing that the world is not a safe place, and children aren’t safe either. A realization pounded in when the group finally encountered the dead body they had been searching for, the body of a child their own age, most likely killed by a random accident any of them could have fallen victim to. It’s both an overwhelming and a subtle horror, a horror that everybody has to contend with at some point in their life .

'Stand By Me' Even Impressed Stephen King

The Shining is probably one of King’s most culturally successful adaptations. Its scenes and characters are so iconic in the realm of horror, the movie is practically synonymous with the genre. However, King himself has made his distaste of the movie known, believing that it has none of the “heart” and character that his original story had. King's hatred of the film was so extreme that he even financed and wrote a 1997 miniseries version of the book in order to rectify the problems he had. King’s opinion on the movie has done little to stymie its continued success and beloved status, but it stands as an interesting fact that the author himself believes that The Shining doesn’t contain what makes his stories good. The movie is a significant departure from the source material in a variety of ways, from the characterization to the events of the climax. It may be a good film, but it would be fair to argue it isn’t a good adaptation .

The opposite is true of Stand By Me . Director Rob Reiner detailed in a 1986 interview with film critic Gene Siskel that when King was first shown the movie, he had to excuse himself for around fifteen minutes before returning to give his opinion. When he returned, he told Reiner that the work was “the best film ever made out of anything I've written, which isn't saying much. But you've really captured my story. It is autobiographical.” King later reiterated this opinion by stating on the film’s 25th-anniversary edition that the movie was the first successful translation of his work to film. While the author’s opinion is not always necessary when judging an adaptation, there is something to be said when a creator so enthusiastically believes that a movie has captured something in their work that even the greats that came before had failed to do.

The true heart at the core of Stephen King’s works is one foot firmly placed in reality, characters that feel at all times like they could be real people you could meet. The other foot is usually placed in some unrecognizable horror, some creeping dread hidden behind a closed door. Even his supernatural works like It are usually utilising horror and the fantasy elements as a metaphor for real issues King wishes to discuss. That’s what makes Stand By Me the best King adaptation. With its real characters and deft handling of dark topics, it reflects the best qualities of King’s writing while being a tremendously well-acted and directed movie . King’s work is not defined by monsters and dark shadows – it is the real people at the center of it all that keep them relevant almost 40 years later.

Stand by Me is currently streaming on Hulu in the U.S.

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