First of all, you’re welcome for the cursed image above.
Last year I wrote a horror story and published it on Reddit. It was just for my own benefit, as I’d been writing for some time but never done anything in the horror genre. Creepy things intrigue me (not gore, can’t stand gore) and I just wanted to see if I could build that suspense.
Shockingly, that story got thousands of views. The post has since been archived and unfortunately I don’t have screenshots, but the last number I remember was 19k.
That story got a YouTube narrator wanting to read my book to reach out to me, and the creators of a ‘zine’ to as well. Finally, it was read out loud at a Halloween event in my town.
It’s crazy how things you think so little of can become so big.
So I’m writing another one this year. Honestly, I didn’t think the last one was that impressive, so I’m going to actually try this time since I need another story for the Halloween event. Maybe that’ll ruin it, maybe not.
So how does one go about writing a horror story? It’s really very simple in my mind. You just throw together a few elements of horror and there you have it.
Think about it, every single horror story has some common thread with thousands of others. It’s because we’re all scared of the same thing, or at least enough of us are scared of the same thing that we can write about it.
Here’s a list of some things you might find in horror:
- caves
- dead children
- ghosts (ghost children are real winners)
- creepy children (children are a common theme. They’re something that should be innocent but isn’t)
- knives
- clowns
- long, windy roads with no exits
- strangers
- psychopaths/murderers
- supernatural/paranormal (werewolves, vampires, zombies, demons, etc)
- dark woods
- something hiding
- the people you should trust are actually the people out to get you
- being stalked
- abandoned anything
- something that should be a certain way, but isn’t
- mysterious
mes sages
There’s more, but these are some of the most popular. Pick a few of these, add a plot, maybe some kind of twist, and next thing you know you’re on your way to having a chilling story to share.
Some people try to be clever with their horror. They try to do something too unique. Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t quite work the same.
If you think about it, you can do this with a lot of different genre’s. To me, this is where it’s most apparent, but you can see it every time you watch an adventure movie.
Stories are just pieces of others stories.