1. Tobin Rickard

    Tobin Rickard Member

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    What makes a good Horror story?

    Discussion in 'Horror' started by Tobin Rickard, Apr 10, 2017.

    I'm interested in hearing what others think of here. Personally, I find I don't get scared by much while reading. It's when the author can get me to think of a particular scene when I'm not near the book, that's when I'm really feeling a story.

    Example: I decided to read The Stand recently. During the change of seasons, which inevitably leads to spring colds / flu. More than once I found myself getting that skin crawling feeling because of someone sneezing or coughing. Nothing in the story itself is overly frightening, but it sticks with you, just under your skin, biding its time.
     
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  2. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    My go-to, as somebody who writes both action stories and horror stories, is that an action story is a story where you want the hero to face the opposition because you want the hero to win. A horror story is a story where you don't want the hero to face the opposition because you don't want the hero to lose.

    It doesn't matter what the opposition is; the hero has to be outmatched.
     
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  3. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Perhaps you should read some Clive Barker.

    Atmosphere, and tension work really well.
    It all depends on what type of Horror story
    you are going for: Monster/Supernatural,
    Psychological, or a mix of sorts.

    Barker doesn't prescribe to @Simpson17866
    set rules, because some of his short stories
    have pretty ambiguous entities to them.
    There is a short in The Inhuman Condition,
    Down Satan!, which deals with the deeper
    implications of summoning the devil.
    It gets pretty grim. The guy goes insane
    ultimately.
     
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  4. Tobin Rickard

    Tobin Rickard Member

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    I do enjoy Clive Barker. The Yattering and Jake is one of my favorite short stories of any author.

    I guess I'm interested in seeing what elements of language you can play with to cause someone to feel terror. Is it truly difficult, or just not something most writers want to attempt? There don't seem to be a lot of us horror writers playing these days.
     
  5. OJB

    OJB A Mean Old Man Contributor

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    I have to echo Cave Troll here.

    Tobin, I am doing a complete study of Clive Barker's works right now in my Blog (All 17 novels.)

    https://www.writingforums.org/entry/horror-a-study-on-clive-barker-part-1-intro.63788/

    So far we've seen that he uses different figures of speech for different effects. His work is very theme and subtext-heavy as well.
     
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  6. Tobin Rickard

    Tobin Rickard Member

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    Oh I am so there. *bookmarks*
     
  7. W.D.Wallace

    W.D.Wallace Member

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    For me good horror relies on great suspense and pay off. There have been to many times I get into a good horror book that keeps me turning pages and I am full immersed in the story and it fizzles out in the last 20 pages it is so depressing. I also want to worry about the characters and fear for them, I dont really get scared while reading but if I can feel and fear for the people going through it then i get sucked right in.
     
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  8. Frostbite

    Frostbite Member

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    Lovecraftian horror is in my opinion the best form of horror. Mostly because it is the only form of horror that actually is able to play with my emotions.
     
  9. Odile_Blud

    Odile_Blud Active Member

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    I like when an author can tie in deep themes and symbolism.
     
  10. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    The MC has to be helpless and the reader needs to feel that. The horror is the MC's futile struggle. They should succumb, or by a stroke of luck, the hostile force passes them by. (Lovecraft loved this last one.)

    That's why you can have books like the The Road or 1984 feel so much like horror. It's their overwhelming sense of helplessness.

    A story can start off horror and then lose it. As soon as the MC starts to fight back, it becomes another genre. Usually some blend of action/fantasy.

    (I guess I should have said IMO several times.)
     
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  11. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I'm a horror junkie. :) What works for me:

    - Protagonists I care about, and who I want to survive whatever is happening to them. This includes not making cliché horror mistakes like failing to kill the enemy when they have a chance.

    - On the same note, strong protagonists who don't weep and wail but are active in getting themselves out of the situation they're in. If they sit and cry until the bad guy finds them, why should I care that he's going to kill them?

    - Unpredictable Bad Guy (whether it's a serial killer or a monster or a mysterious fog). I like knowing that the Bad Guy can and will do anything in their pursuit of whatever they're pursuing.

    - Black humour mixed in with the truly horrifying bits. Not a requirement and not always appropriate, but I love it when it's done well.

    - The right amount of detail. Impossible to define but, like porn, I know it when I see it. Many good horrors have been ruined by too much exposition on the Bad Guy - mystery is good, because it ties in with unpredictability. Understand a monster and, usually, he's no longer as scary (notable exception Hannibal Lecter with Hannibal Rising). Likewise with describing torture etc - sometimes, less is more, because horror readers can insert their own worst fear (fingernails... always fingernails...) and be more scared than what the author would have come up with.

    - I really like ones where good and bad isn't black and white, and the Bad Guy turns out to be sympathetic even if we abhor what he does. I read one recently where a man kidnapped a woman and sealed her in his house, Josef Fritzl style, but turned out to have suffered terrible abuse from his parents and have SENs that meant he truly didn't think what he was doing was wrong. Although I very badly wanted the poor woman to escape, I felt for the kidnapper, felt his pain when he saw she was trying to get away from him and wasn't loving him like he wanted. It's so much more horrifying when things aren't black and white.

    I also have my favourite tropes. I never, ever tire of demonic possession, Ouija boards, cursed objects, the kind of kidnapping I talked about in my last point, crazy families (a la House of 1000 Corpses), sci-fi-esque epidemics that make people do bad things...

    I'm also sick to death of zombies, vampires, and other overdone monsters.

    I'm sure I'll think of more...
     
  12. Ulquiorra9000

    Ulquiorra9000 Member

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    One of my favorite aspects of horror is how the monster defies expectations, put simply. By that, I mean two things: 1) it doesn't die when you expect it go, but instead keeps coming (adds a sense of helplessness to protagonist) and 2) external appearances hide the true threat. On the latter, you've got vampires, who seem human until they strike, or werewolves, who appear human until the full moon appears ;) I should note that my fav movie, The Terminator, is a horror movie in terms of plot mechanics. The killer robot appears human on the outside and its true form is revealed later, and it keeps attacking when you think you've destroyed it. The movie is, to me, a fascinating and perfect blend of sci-fi and horror elements.
     
  13. DawesyPie

    DawesyPie Member

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    I've always that it was atmosphere and setting that gets under my skin. I've re-read the shining every couple of years, that nails it.

    Action, suspense sequences I tend to find less effective. It's the waiting for the terrible thing to happen, the anticipation far worse than the event itself.
     
  14. Bronson

    Bronson Member

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    The stories that I've always found the most enjoyable in horror are the ones that reflect the dark side of people, and are just around the corner from real life. Can't say many horror stories "scare" me, but the ones that I appreciate the most are the ones that can simultaneously have realistic characters reacting genuinely to an extrarealistic horror (something conceivable, but unlikely like aliens, ghosts, machines and so on). Clive Barker is one of my favorites for that.
     
  15. Walking Dog

    Walking Dog Active Member

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    The unknown gets me - footsteps on the stairs, a grabbing hand from the water's depths, a growl from the bushes. Nothing is more frightening than the imagination. Force me to use it.
     

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