How do you scare your readers?

BOO!

 

That's IF you buy into the idea. It's a genre that people can enjoy, but scary it is not - which is the point of horror, imo.

 

We made it through the 80s largely without the above, and most of us are still sane red rum red rum red rum.

 

Well...yeah, that goes without saying. I'm trying to explain what Lovecraft fans love(craft) about his stories, so obviously they're going to buy into the idea.

 

I'm not a fan of the Horror genre, as a rule. However, I can get really creeped out by certain things in books. Movies are different; movies can scare you just by effecting a sudden scene or perspective change. I mean, the movie characters could be wandering the depths of a cave—that movie music DUM DUM DUM going in the background—and if the next frame is a suddenly inserted peaceful shot of somebody's sitting room, or nice mom ...you'll jump. You can't really do that sort of thing in a book.

However, think about the first Alien movie. That movie scared the crap out of me ...but we never got a really good look at the adult monster, did we ...not till the final bit where we see it floating away in space. Instead, we were scared by knowing a monster was there, and watching its effect on the characters as they got picked off one by one.

That's how you scare readers, in my opinion. Don't scare them by describing a monster or bad thing down to every dimple and fang. Instead, build up the fact that there IS something very scary out there. Let the readers use their imaginations.

How scary is it, to be lying in bed at night, upstairs, all alone in the house, and hearing the front door being opened, then something thumping its way up the stairs? Thump. THUMP. Thump. THUMP! As opposed to showing some burglar picking a lock, then dragging a big sack of loot up the stairs? Show us the burglar, and we'll be worried about what he's planning to do next. Just hearing the thumping, though ...we'll be scared shitless. We'll be relieved to discover that it's 'only' a burglar. Because, you know, it could have been ...ANYTHING!!!!

If you're not writing about the supernatural, etc, you can scare readers simply by putting their beloved characters into some sort of really harrowing jeopardy. Just experienced that, as a reader, with Watership Down. I mean, that was a genuinely scary book ...about rabbits. Take a look at how that sense of impending doom was created by the author.

Scaring readers is, I firmly believe, a matter of employing the principle : Less is More. Put notions into the readers' heads. And build on those notions.

 

Contrast. Paint a normal everyday scene and laden it with subtle hints (via word choices) then smack them in the face with the reveal.

By word choice, I mean to set people on edge with unusual word choices.

Rather than saying something like, “The cracked, misty glass caught the morning light and shone like an uncut diamond,” go for “The fractured panes imprisoned dawn’s light. Shining like an uncut diamond.”

Changing ‘glass’ to ‘pane’ hints at ‘pain,’ and ‘imprisoned’ impacts harder than ‘caught’. Also, giving agency to inanimate items will create a sense of other-worldliness (‘dawns‘ instead of ‘the dawn light’) - a simple switch to the possessive can came all the difference.

Over all though, the moment comes when the atmosphere is established and then flipped on its head. A lot of this is down to leaving words out and allowing the reader to fill in the gaps, as not everyone finds the same things scary.

note: You might want to look at how stand up comics present their jokes. The process isn’t much different.

 

There was a wee story in the book Bluenose Ghosts, written by Helen Creighton, that sticks with me yet. (Bluenose is a nickname for Nova Scotians, and doesn’t refer to nose colour.)

In that story, as told to Helen (a collector of Nova Scotian supernatural folk tales) by the man who experienced the phenomenon, went something like this:

The teller of the tale and his best friend left a party, to walk home down a country road, late at night. Moon was shining, etc, so they were able to get along quite well without any artificial light. This was familiar countryside to them. Anyway, they were partway home when suddenly a weird figure appeared at the side of the road ahead of them.

The man telling Helen the story described the figure as ‘man-like,’ but it ran across the road in a hunched over position, then disappeared into the bushes on the other side. The two friends halted, and were discussing what on earth that could possibly have been, when it appeared again, a little bit closer, and scuttled across the road again, back to the original side.

The man telling the tale was all for turning back at this point because he felt something was not right, but his friend was bolder. His friend decided to just forge ahead, while the teller of the tale hung back. The ‘thing’ came out of the bushes again, but this time it stopped in front of his friend, only a few feet away, and straightened up, facing him, with the moon at its back. It was a little bit taller than his friend. The two stood motionless for a few seconds, then his friend turned back and started to run. So did the teller of the tale. They ran like mad till they again reached the safety of the party.

When the teller of the tale turned to speak to his friend, he was horrified. The friend’s face had lost most of its colour, he was shaking from head to foot, and he seemed to be rendered speechless. He never spoke another word, and three days later he died.

The teller of the tale became so agitated at this stage of the storytelling, that his wife had to get up from her chair to comfort him. It was obvious, to Helen, that this was a frequent occurrence in their household.

Apparently the thing, whatever it was, was never seen again. By anyone.

Okay. How scary is THAT wee story? Yikes. It made my blood run cold, reading it. And yet, we don’t ever really see the ‘thing’ or find out what it was.

 

What scares people now?
We just stopped noticing things that are right in front of our eyes.
We have become social beings. Monsters and fairy tales about curses no longer scare us.

1) Social fears.
What scares people now?
We just stopped noticing things that are right in front of our eyes.
We have become social beings. Monsters and fairy tales about curses no longer scare us.
Now society scares us. Social things scare us. To go homeless on the street and eat from landfills. Read the book by Jack London "The Abyss of London" this is not horror ... This is his personal research about what happened in poor neighborhoods of London. But it is more frightening than most of horror stories.

Be an outcast hated by society. A society that is neatly trying to get rid of you, but neatly, so that it was an accident or suicide. So that they are not guilty.

Fear that your reputation will be destroyed. That you will be left alone against the whole world, unable to say anything.

(The Purge - good example)

2) Psychological fears.

uncanny valley. Something fake. Something that looks like a standard object familiar to a person, but not being one.
Puppets, masks, zombies, robots and other things that look like something familiar to people but not being them.


Fishy.
Events that go beyond chance. Events that make you think that something is wrong here. (Sequence -2013 good example)

3) Creation of fear.
We take any phobia and change the world so that this phobia makes sense. This is often done in Asian horror stories. The point is to provoke this phobia. (Giant insects, Games, Dolls, People in costumes, mascots, etc.)

 

I did *exactly* what you just described here in a story - the front door opening, the creak of the stairs as the whatever-it-was came up the stairs, the MC hearing that and knowing the creaks sounded exactly like his dead cousin. It creeped me out when I was writing it.

Of course, I then reveal the monster to be the dead cousin as a vampire, I don't know if that ruined the effect or not.

 

Probably worked fine! It's the building of suspense that does the trick, I reckon. Mind you, if the scary thing turns out not to be so scary, or gets described in a way that the reader doesn't find all that frightening, the effect can drop. For me, in your scenario, I'd find it a lot scarier if the cousin looks exactly like he used to do, before he became a vampire. And greets his cousin in a normal way. OMG. I'd think that's a lot scarier than the cousin appearing with dripping fangs. Ho hum. Another vampire. But if the cousin can create doubt, or even trust ...that's another notch up the 'scary' scale. At least for me. I mean, the POV character KNOWS his cousin is dead, right? Aieeee....

 

Yup, he attended his cousin's funeral.

The cousin was a ten year old child, and he greets his cousin the way he used to - except he looks dead, a corpse with soulless eyes and of course, fangs. The MC is scared pantless, but also, at the same time, beguiled so he can't resist as his cousin comes closer, the dead white hands reaching up for him...

I just find children scary - especially when they're not children.

 

Lovecraft was, in theory, committed to the "less is more" school but often he cannot resist revealing his monsters. For proper "less is more" horror, the stories I mentioned above- all by authors dear to Lovecraft himself- are better examples.

 

I've said this before on this site, so sorry for repeating myself, but it is what definitely got me as a reader!

It's slow realisations that something that didn't quite feel right is actually something horrific. Someone sitting not quite right in a chair, nope they're dead sitting up. Hearing a door shut and thinking someone is in your house? No, they were leaving and had been in there all along. Koji Suzuki does this really well in the ring trilogy (very different from the film's), for example watching a video with dark flashes and gradually realising it's someone blinking and the recording is literally from their mind's eye. I think what makes it work is not telling the reader exactly what is scary, just making it feel unsettling and letting it slowly come to them just how unsettling.

The Red Room by H.G Wells also builds up suspense in their mind very well without having anything scary actually happen, it shows how our own paranoia builds up and with an inner monologue we convince ourselves of horrible things that aren't necessarily there. Then you can mix that with what is and isn't really there.

 

Give an interview and talk about your book in progress & health.

It's the sure way to scare your readers, learn from George R.R. Martin.

 

This thread highlights a lot of what I struggle with when writing anything horror/supernatural related. I can setup the story/scene pretty well but I struggle with showing exactly the right amount of "spooky." It's either too little, or too much.

And now I hate the book I just published and wish I could turn back time

 

When I introduce a beast that is intended to be frightening or intimidating I usually rely on sounds more than visuals, where it makes sense.
Clicking of nails
The tension of fibers being ripped apart
Whether or not it sounds like someone trying to breathe through a wet sponge
Dragging claws over the back of ones skull

It's one thing to describe the spook, it's another to demonstrate it.
I wouldn't know how to set up things like a jumpscare via text though. Maybe have something happen to upset the reader and keep them sitting on the edge of their seat, but that's about it.

 

I figure there are several routes to it. Don't listen too hard to all the people who are so enthusiastic about their favorite horror media that they know the method to do it.

1) Amnesia Method
Let the player fill in the gaps. Never reveal the threat. Show shadows and freaky things happening. Show the terrified reactions of characters.
2) John Carpenter's The Thing
Make a monster that utilizes physical phobias.
3) Zombies
Make a monster that utilizes vague fears. Dracula, foreigners. Fear of STDs, depression, public speaking.
4) Life Situations
Make something we'd all understand. We'd all be scared of being caught in the middle of nowhere. Or in a river with crocodiles. We'd probably fear getting our teeth ripped out more than we'd fear getting our necks papercut; we know the feeling of getting teeth pulled. Domestic violence.

 

Ooh, that's a good one. Harbingers. Anticipation. Suspense.

As for the jumpscare. Well, it's a weakness of the medium. When translating Junji Ito's manga's to animation, they lost the jumpscare of the Page Turn.
As writers, we may not have the jump scare, but we must make use of what advantages we have over other mediums. We have all the words in the world to be as specific as we want to speak the vernacular of all human thoughts.

Perhaps brevity is the key here. A short sentence. Isolated. Opening the door and finding yourself face to face with horror.

"She had no eyes."