Horror writing is not my comfort zone. I decided several months ago that I would write a ghost story (not sure if it’s technically horror or not, but whatever) as an effort to stretch myself as a writer. I identify as a science fiction writer and delve into fantasy mostly in shorter pieces, but I’ve never done horror, and haven’t read it much since middle school. However, being all about experimentation and trying new things, this seemed like a grand idea. When I needed to whip up something last week for my crit group, I eked out the first draft of a Pacific Northwest ghost story (with mushrooms). But after I finished the story, I didn’t feel much like patting myself on the back. Instead I felt like I hadn’t pushed the envelope of the story enough. And then I wondered if that isn’t a very sci-fi way of looking at things.
Innocent chicken and waffles, or impending doom?
Whereas with horror it seems like the slow build is not only incredibly critical to the telling of the story, but also jives with reader expectations. The ordinary world is used to set a contrast to the horrific elements. The hook is less obvious, so what keeps the reader reading?
I imagine it’s the style of the prose, and the sense of foreboding and impending doom. But if you read or write horror, I would love to hear your thoughts.
And finally, for the return of the “What I’m listening to this week” addendum, we have
Drabblecast 224 – I loved “Unintended Consequences” by John P. Murphy (a fellow Viable Paradise grad, though not my year). The premise charmed me, and the whole story felt really cohesive.
Escape Pod 323 – “Marking Time of the Far Side of Forever” was a robot story. I have problems with robot stories. (They make me cry, and not in a good way. I get depressed). Anyway, after listening to this story against my better judgement, I set myself a challenge of writing an unsympathetic non-anthropomorphized robot story. We’ll see how that goes. Also to be clear, the EP story was well done. It hit my buttons.
Writing Excuses 7.1 When Good Characters Go Bad – Basically how to make a believable character arc. This got me thinking about a novel I’d like to plot out. Howard left us with a great writing prompt, “Come up with a list of three things that are important to your main character. Push one of those things out of alignment so that it will draw your character to the antagonist’s side.”
AISFP 175 – After listening to this interview with Brian Hades, I added EDGE Publishing to my list of publishing houses of interest.
My entire nickel’s worth:
While I agree that suspense is necessary, I don’t think it has to be a slow build through mundanity. My favorite horror gives you weird crap immediately. I staunchly disagree with people who believe in writing a chapter of “how things normally are” so the reader “understands what’s at stake.” That’s ridiculous–a properly written story compares the mundane with the surreal almost constantly in subtle ways, to make the surreal more pervasive and concrete.
I think the most important thing about horror is that you should be able to fear that this thing could really happen. Not necessarily in our universe, and not necessarily to us specifically, but the worldbuilding and the actions of the characters should be so tight and well-thought out that we don’t have room or time to question or fault what’s blossoming in our minds: just to be terrified of it.
P.S. Why do you have fried chicken and sugared waffles in the same takeout box? BLEH!
Excellent points, San, thanks for weighing in. It’s kind of a relief to get a fresh perspective on how to write horror, and I especially like your point about bringing together the mundane and surreal constantly and in subtle ways. That’s an interesting challenge. Likewise, how to craft a super-tight story that forces the reader to suspend disbelief in favor of terror. Hmm. Will definitely keep these in mind as I work through this story, and in the future.
Hope your pup is enjoying the snow (if the storm made it up your way).
P.S. The photo is from Little Skillet in San Francisco, but chicken and waffles is a soul food dish. I’ve heard that the Pennsylvania Dutch version pours some kind of stewed chicken gravy all over the top of the waffle, which grosses me out more.
Nicole – Glad you’re starting to delve into the brilliant horror genre.
You’re right in your observations of tone, pacing and characterization to build tension, but there is so much more that makes a horror story great. A solid plotline is essential to making your book work. For example, John is walking down the street looking over his shoulder at the shadowy figure behind him. In an attempt to escape, he uses his vampiric powers to turn into a bat and flies away into the night. In doing so, he collides with an alien spaceship which crash lands on earth and leads to an alien invasion. You can make your story as tense and nail-biting as possible, but if like this example, your plotline has a number of flaws (albeit funny ones) your horror story won’t work.
If you’re writing a short story, the most essential thing you need (in my humble opinion) is a brilliant twist at the end. Ghost stories in particular tend to have the most opportunities for a good ending. If you look at films like The Sixth Sense and The Others, they have brilliant twists that could have seemed even better on paper!
If you’re writing a full-length novel, although you still need the twists, you have more of an opportunity to delve into the details of your story. You have the chance to really fool the reader, make them think something completely different is going to happen at the end!
From my experience, the reason people read horror is down to the unpredictability of it all. You can be happily following the life of the main character, when all of a sudden her head gets lopped off and you wonder where the story is going to go next. With each page you turn, there is a chance that a significant change might take place which results in a major upheaval with the direction of the plot.
One last point of advice – If it’s a haunted house story, don’t forget – Description, Description, Description. You can’t beat the good old creaky stairs, dripping taps, howling wind, lightning flash, thunder rolls, flickering candles, whispers in the darkness etc.
If it’s just your average ghost story I’d suggest as little description as possible. Sometimes the scariest things in the world are what the reader’s imagination conjures. Guide them in the right direction, but let the reader choose the path.
Hope something within this essay helps and good luck with your story.
Will you be posting it on your blog? Would be very interesting to have a read!
Hi Erebus, Thank you for your thoughts! I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with this short story once it’s polished up, but I’ll definitely post an update on the blog.
I’m still figuring horror out myself. As far as getting to the ghost pigs, in horror I’ve interpreted that to mean: set the tone right off the bat. If the story is about the haunted house, you don’t need to know what’s hiding in the basement, but you should set the expectation that weird stuff might be happening. (Twists are good, tricks are bad. A trick comes out of left field with no foreshadowing.) Setting expectations can be subtle, like your narrator’s reactions don’t seem completely sane, or it can be more overt with sensory description. That said, I struggle with balancing that kind of information. I usually have beta readers tell me if they need more details up front since I tend to underwrite.
I started writing horror with flash fiction and then wrote two horror short stories. I noticed I work best when I write first person past tense. I can really get into the POV of the character and show his/her mental state. The other thing I always try to do is write at least one or two memorable moments. Memorable either because they’re shocking or because they’re unexpected, yet when you look back at the story the moment has been building since the first paragraph. “Song of Kali” by Dan Simmons is my favorite example of a horror novel that does this. If you haven’t seen it yet, the first horror flash I wrote is here: http://www.everydayfiction.com/eau-de-public-transit-by-folly-blaine/ It’s based on something I observed on the Prague metro.
Of course, I only write horror because I like it and no matter how much I’ve fought it, I keep returning to the genre. Every time I try to write science fiction, it doesn’t feel as satisfying. I wouldn’t mind hearing your perspective on writing sci fi.
Hi Christy. Well, now you have me thinking about perspective and internal vs. external conflict. I’ve always wondered if horror relies more heavily on the internal bits, and you get to see cool stuff like tight first-person narratives, and unreliable protags, and the psychological implications of everything that’s going down. Whereas perhaps more often in SF you zoom out a bit and the external conflicts and grand adventure play a larger role. Though of course for a story to be excellent, both internal and external conflicts are important. And all that said, the degree of zoomed-out-ness in SF also varies whether you’re talking about hard sci-fi (or sword and sorcery) versus space opera (or epic fantasy), which makes me wonder about subgenres of horror.
I like your point about equating ghost pigs in horror with the expectation of impending weirdness. I think in SF you *might* have to be a little more heavy handed up front, but, ugh even that depends on whether you’re talking our world or a secondary setting. I really don’t like it when twists come off more like tricks, and then I just feel cheated by the story. I agree with your point about unexpected moments that fit perfectly in retrospect, though I think that works across all genres. I call them “surprising yet inevitable” moments, and I think it’s the sign of a twist actually being successful. Or of a perfect ending.
It’s funny that you bring up Song of Kali. I read that when I was doing earthquake field work in Bhutan, and I was having a bad reaction to my anti-malaria drugs. Boo for neuropsychotic side-effects, I’d rather get malaria. Basically I was hallucinating the whole time I read that book, and the nightmares were horrific. I shudder every time I see the title mentioned. Gah.
And like I said, I did this more as a writing exercise than anything else, so I could be full of shit. But genre is so much fun to discuss!
I feel like I should be able to answer this so much more cohesively than I’m going to. But I’m going to take a whack at it anyway.
Stephen King breaks horror down into 3 categories, and since it’s been years since I read this, I’m going to paraphrase the hell out of it. The first, and most noble of horrors is the thriller–the creeping dread that haunts you for a long time after you’re done with the piece. Second comes the jump-scare, the skeleton jumping out of the closet “Boo!” sort of horror. Finally is the gross-out, which, if all else fails, he’s not above using.
Ideally, a good horror story should be of that first category, something that’s going to stick with a reader and haunt them for a while. And for that, it helps to have a protagonist the reader can relate to. The main character isn’t a hero. In fact, in several cases, he’s actually a bad guy (the “There are more evil things than YOU out there” trope). The protagonist should be someone who is, pretty much from the get-go, WAY over their heads, and they just don’t know it. The horror then comes as the protagonist (and the reader) slowly begin to put the pieces together, never realizing that in stuffing the puzzle, the trap has closed behind them and there’s no getting out.
Mixed metaphors. Just one more free service we offer!
I’d suggest thinking about the things that scare you, and figuring out WHY they scare you. By deconstructing your own fears, you can better see how to build up another fear and exploit it for the purpose of story-telling. For instance, fear of ventriloquist dummies–is it just the rolling eyes and hinged jaw or is there something more? Is it because they mimic humanity, but are soulless, and (we hope) lifeless? Or maybe it’s more existential, that we fear that we’re all puppets, not in control of our own actions–our own fates? Some make the case (and I tend to agree), that the reasons ghosts are scary is that we fear our own death. The idea that after death there’s no heaven/hell/reincarnation–there’s just more of the same in an every-tightening circle–can be a bitter pill to swallow.
Then once you have that bigger fear concept in place, find a way to personify it and use it to lure your protagonist in until there’s no hope left.
Or, barring that, shock the hell out of them with extremely graphic violence or an idea so horrifying you can’t get it out of your head.
Hope that helps!
Hi Nate! Thanks so much, you’ve given me A LOT to think about. Some of these elements are already in my current story, but could be brought into much sharper focus with conscious attention. Yee haw.
My ghost is a personification of the protag’s greatest fear, and I find it interesting that I got there from a general plotting exercise, rather than thinking about horror in particular. But now that you point it out, I’m not sure that I’ve gone far enough yet with the second half of that statement.
Love it. I want to do that. ::Rubs hands together, Mr. Burns style::
Totally over here, watching from the hall – my traditional location when the horror movies are on — but I am taking notes… your friends are smart, Nicole!
Thanks for dropping by, Fran. I’m thrilled to have such a thoughtful, insightful genre discussion on the blog. Lots of great stuff to think about, and I’ll def be referring back to these comments in the future.