Writing a horror story is as interesting as reading it. Creating scary plots and building up the fear is more satisfying than anything else. There’s an element of sadism and optimism at the same time.
Writing a horror story can be challenging. However, if you know the right trick, you can absolutely write a terrifying plot that will give your audience goosebumps and make them feel there’s something behind!
Let’s lap through this simple guide to write a horror story-
Prey on your audience
Being precise to this, Horror stories are actually the build up of all time biggest nightmares or scary imagination of the people presented in a way that seem to happen in reality.
While writing a horror story, think about what still scares you, or what is your biggest fear. You can just set up the scene according to the incidents that have ever spooked you. The key is to cook the story in a way that the character gets into the mind of your audience, the closeness with the character will make them experience the fear!
Make it personal!
Make it personal, a lot personal that the audience can just connect with the characters. It is said that horror works best when the writer is honest with its writing. Tap into your inner fears to weave the plot, exaggerate the thing into something terrifying and threatening.
You might have seen authors publishing the stories based on true events. Well, the truth is the lifelong fear that was induced due to certain instances and not the encounter with the creepy, wily thing. This makes the audience immerse into the character, when the plot is written with some personal interests.
Protagonist should have blood, bones and flesh!
No matter how strong your wily monster, terrifying zombie or witty witch is, the protagonist should always be a human character. Or if the backdrop is of another planet, it should be a living alien, with flesh and blood.
Your characters must have a reason to exist. They should be developed as something believable. This’ll help you to set up an empathic connection with your audience. Once this is done, the audience will feel what your character does. And the plot will begin to induce fear. Try it out!
While writing a horror story add twists to misdirect and confuse the readers!
Misdirection and confusion are the predominant writing styles of horror writing. Your twists must develop suspense for your reader. Also, this helps you to manipulate the emotions of your readers.
Add the twists that misguides your reader into believing the intentions of your character. Also, swing them between alternating moments of terror and calm. This will leave your reader in a shock when the truth is revealed.
A slow paced plot while writing a horror story makes it interesting!
Exaggeration works way more better in horror than any other genre of writing. Building up a slow paced plot by adding up subtle details about the setting and scene will do the task.
Create the tension and dread by intentionally elongating the plot. Add confrontational dialogues. This will make it more intriguing.
Build up the drama, play with the emotions of your audience, let them feel the presence of both antagonist and protagonist. Cook up a horrifying scenario from the horror cliché and let your characters get into the minds of your audience so they can experience the terror!
Hope this blog satisfied your query. Happy writing!