Tim Waggoner graciously let me reblog this fascinating little exploration of his on writing horror.
THE (EXTREMELY) SHORT GUIDE TO WRITING HORROR BY TIM WAGGONER
Horror comes from a fear of the unknown. Keep a sense of
mystery going in your story. What’s happening? Why is it happening? What’s
going to happen next? How much worse is it going to get?
Horror comes from a violation of what your characters
consider to be normal reality. This violation shakes them to their very core
because it raises the possibility that everything they thought they knew is
wrong and that anything could happen. The Universe isn’t orderly or benign.
It’s chaotic and malicious.
Dread is the mounting anticipation of a threat drawing ever
closer. Terror is a deep emotional and intellectual reaction to a threat, a
profound realization that reality isn’t what we thought it was. Horror is an
immediate reaction to a threat – disbelief, denial, turning away. Shock is a
surprise, an adrenaline rush, while Disgust is a queasy visceral reaction.
Dread and Terror are the most effective weapons in a horror writer’s arsenal –
they have a much greater impact on readers – but all the techniques have their
strengths.
The horror equivalent of the Hero’s Journey: Some Poor
Bastard’s Descent into Hell. Horror works best when it focuses on normal people
(hence the “Poor Bastard”), and the characters’ situation steadily and
nightmarishly worsens (the “Descent”). “Hell” can be physical, spiritual,
mental, emotional, internal, external – or better yet, a combination of them
all. Possible Story Outcomes with this pattern: the Poor Bastard Escapes Hell,
the Poor Bastard is Eternally Damned, the Poor Bastard Escapes with Severe
Wounds and Scars, the Poor Bastard is Transformed by Hell, the Poor Bastard
Carries Hell With Him, the Poor Bastard Drags Other to Hell or Brings Hell to
Them, and the Poor Bastard Becomes the Devil.
Horror is internal more than external. In the movie Alien,
the crew of the Nostromo aren’t trained to deal with monsters, so they’re
terrified. In the sequel Aliens, the space marines are trained soldiers and
while they might be frightened by the monsters they face, it’s not to the same
degree as the characters in the first movie. Alien is a horror film because of
the characters’ internal reaction to events. Aliens is an action movie because
of how the characters in that film react. Write with a close point of view to
show your characters’ emotional reaction to events in order to create effective
horror.
Give readers characters they care about. Horror stories
aren’t about the monster. They’re about how people react to the monster. (Or in
some cases, react to becoming monsters.) If readers care about your characters,
if they empathize with them, then the threats these characters face will be
meaningful to readers. If your characters are the equivalent of video game
avatars with no personality, the threats they face will be meaningless to
readers.
Respect your characters – all of them. In horror, sometimes
a character’s only function is to die in order to establish how serious the
threat is and build suspense. Even if these characters only have a short time
on stage, give them their dignity. For the brief time that they appear, try to present
them as full, rich characters as much as possible. This will increase your
reader’s emotional involvement in the story and make the threat seem even
worse.
Avoid clichés. Horror is about the unknown, and once a
specific type of character, threat, or story structure becomes too familiar, it
loses its power to engage and affect readers – especially in horror.
Make your horror personal. Draw from your own experience,
observations, and fears to create horror only you can write – horror that’s
yours and no one else’s.
Take new approaches to old archetypes. Instead of writing
about a classic vampire, rework that trope. Put a new spin on it. For example,
vampires drain lifeforce from their victims. So what if there was a creature
that injected lifeforce into its victims? Perhaps the souls of people that have
died, souls that eventually try to gain control of their new hosts. Instead of
people spending the night in a haunted house, what if the house was broken into
hundreds of pieces, and each piece was given to a different person? This way,
the haunting comes to them.
There are no limits, but horror elements should serve the
story and the characters’ journey. You don’t want your stories to be the
equivalent of a simple walk through a carnival spook house, no matter how
grotesque and bizarre the attractions inside may be. Character and story come
first. After that, your tale can be as weird and extreme as you want to make it.
Physical pain is easy – too easy. In horror, characters are
often under the threat of physical violence, injury, and ultimately death. But
the mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds characters suffer can be far worse
than mere physical pain. Make sure that death isn’t the worst thing that can
happen in your horror – not by a long shot.
Don’t save the best for last. In “The Body Politic,” Clive
Barker takes the old horror trope of the living severed hand that’s out for
revenge and puts a new spin on it. Normally, stories using this trope end with
the hand of a dead person returning to enact revenge on its murderer. “Oh my God,
the hand is alive!” In “The Body Politic,” Barker begins with the premise that our
hands – all of them – have separate lives and personalities, and they wish to
be free from “the tyranny of the body.” Barker didn’t save his best idea for
last. He began with his best idea and kept going from there. You should do the
same.
How you write is just as important as What you write.
Example Version 1: There was a monster outside the front door. A man opened the
door and the monster ate him.
Example Version 2: Bob had his hand on the knob,
was just about to turn it, open the door, and walk outside to check the mail,
when he felt the metal vibrate beneath his flesh. Not much, just a little. But
it made him think that someone on the other side had put their hand on the
outside knob, making it jiggle the tiniest bit. And was the metal starting to
feel colder, as if a silent arctic wind caressed the knob outside? It was a
ridiculous thought, but he removed his hand from the knob all the same and,
without realizing it, took two steps backward.
The way you tell your story is
just as important, if not more so, than the kind of story you’re trying to
tell. This is true with any type of fiction, but it’s especially true in
horror.
Horror shouldn’t be safe – in any way, shape, or form.
Horror should take risks with characters, story elements, and narrative
techniques. Readers shouldn’t be able to guess what’s going to happen next, and
once they think they have your story figured out, that’s when it should take a
shocking left turn. Keep your readers off balance the entire time, and they’ll
experience something of what your characters are going through in the story.
They won’t feel safe – and they’ll love your stories all the more for it.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER READING
Horror Writers Association, http://horror.org
International Thriller Writers Association. http://thrillerwriters.org
Supernatural Horror in Literature, H.P. Lovecraft
On Writing, Stephen King
Danse Macabre, Stephen King
On Writing Horror, Mort Castle, ed.
Writers Workshop of Horror, Michael Knost, ed.
How to Write Horror Fiction, William Nolan.
To Each Their Darkness, Gary Braunbeck
Writing the Paranormal Novel, Steven Harper
Dark Dreamers: Conversations with the Masters of Horror, Stanley
Wiater
Dark Thoughts on Writing, Stanley Wiater
How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction, J.N.
Williamson
Now Write: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Laurie
Lamsen
About the author:
Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Tim Waggoner has
published over thirty novels and three short story collections. He teaches
creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s
Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program. Visit him on the web at
www.timwaggoner.com
Some of Tim's titles:
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