horror story essays

101 Terrifying Horror Story Prompts

Welcome to the story den of horror, scares, and the macabre.

Most writers are often asked, "Where do you get your ideas from?" A majority of the time, writers find it difficult to answer that question.

We get our ideas from a plethora of sources — news headlines, novels, television shows, movies, our lives, our fears, our phobias, etc. They can come from a scene or moment in a film that wasn't fully explored. They can come from a single visual that entices the creative mind — a seed that continues to grow and grow until the writer is forced to finally put it to paper or screen.

In the spirit of helping writers find those seeds, here we offer 101 originally conceived and terrifying story prompts that you can use as inspiration for your next horror story.

They may inspire screenplays, novels, short stories, or even smaller moments that you can include in what stories you are already writing or what you will create in your upcoming projects.

But beware! If you scare easily — and have active imaginations like most writers do — turn up the lights and proceed with caution...

1. A girl goes missing in the woods, and her parents find only a decrepit and scary doll left behind. They soon learn that the doll is actually their daughter. And she's alive.

2. New residents of an old neighborhood are invited by their friendly neighbors to a Halloween party. The neighbors are vampires.

3. A family dog runs away from home. He returns a year later to the delight of his family. But there's something different about him. Something demonic.

4. A girl goes missing. Fifteen years later, her parents get a call from her older self. But they listen in fear because they killed their daughter that dark night years ago.

5. A man reads a novel, soon realizing that the story is his very own — and according to the book, a killer is looming.

6. A scientist clones his family that died in an airplane crash — but soon learns the repercussions of playing God.

7. A man wakes up bound to an electric chair.

8. A man wakes up in a coffin next to a freshly dead body.

9. A woman wakes up to find her family gone and her doors and windows boarded up with no way to escape.

10. A man afraid of snakes is shipwrecked on an island covered with them.

11. Serial killers worldwide are connected by a dark web website.

12. The world's population is overtaken by vampires — all except one little child.

13. A woman afraid of clowns is forced to work in a traveling circus.

14. An astronaut and cosmonaut are on the International Space Station when their countries go to Nuclear War with each other. Their last orders are to eliminate the other.

15. A treasure hunter finds a tomb buried beneath the dirt.

16. A young brother and sister find an old door in their basement that wasn't there before.

17. Winged creatures can be seen within the storm clouds above.

18. A man wakes up to find a hobo clown staring down at him.

19. Residents of a town suddenly fall dead while the dead from cemeteries around them rise.

20. A doctor performs the first head transplant — things go wrong.

21. A man is texted pictures of himself in various stages of torture that he has no memory of.

22. A girl wakes up to find a little boy sitting on his bed, claiming to be her younger brother — but she never had one.

23. A scare walk in the woods during Halloween is actually real.

24. A bartender serves last call to the only remaining patron, who is the Devil himself.

25. Earth suffers a planet-wide blackout as all technology is lost.

26. A boy's stepfather is actually a murderous werewolf.

27. Something has turned the neighborhood pets into demonic killers.

28. A priest is a vampire.

29. A woman wakes up with no eyes.

30. A man wakes up with no mouth.

31. A monster is terrified by the scary child who lives above his bed.

32. An astronaut jettisoned into the cold of space in a mission gone wrong suddenly appears at the doorstep of his family.

33. A woman answers a phone call only to learn that the voice on the other end is her future self, warning her that a killer is looming.

34. A boy realizes that aliens have replaced his family.

35. A woman wakes up in an abandoned prison that she cannot escape.

36. A bank robber steals from the small town bank that holds the riches of witches.

37. A door-to-door salesman circa the 1950s visits the wrong house.

38. Deceased soldiers return to their Civil War-era homes.

39. Kidnappers abduct the child of a vampire.

40. An innocent circus clown discovers the dark history of the trade.

41. A homeless man is stalked by faceless beings.

42. A spelunker stumbles upon a series of caverns infested with rattlesnakes.

43. A group of friends is forced to venture through a chamber of horrors where only one is promised to survive.

44. He's not the man she thought he was. In fact, he's not a man at all.

45. Suburbia is actually purgatory.

46. Someone discovers that we are all actually robots — who created us and why?

47. She's not an angel. She's a demon.

48. An old shipwreck washes ashore.

49. A sinkhole swallows a house whole and unleashes something from beneath.

50. A man has sleep paralysis at the worst possible time.

51. A woman out hiking is caught in a bear trap as the sun begins to go down.

52. Naked figures with no faces stalk campers in the woods.

53. An astronaut is the sole survivor of a moon landing gone wrong — only to discover that the moon is infested with strange creatures.

54. A woman is wrongfully condemned to an insane asylum.

55. A mother's baby will not leave its womb and continues to grow and grow and grow while doctors try to cut it out but can't.

56. Friends on a road trip stumble upon a backcountry town whose residents all dress up as different types of clowns.

57. Tourists in Ireland retreat to an old castle when the country is taken over by greedy and vengeful leprechauns.

58. A boy on a farm makes a scarecrow that comes alive.

59. A figure dressed in an old, dirty Easter Bunny suit haunts the children of a town.

60. The abused animals of a zoo are unleashed and wreak havoc on a small town.

61. A deceased grandma's old doll collection comes alive.

62. Little Red Riding Hood was a vampire.

63. Somebody clones Hitler and raises him as a white supremacist.

64. A pumpkin patch comes alive — beings with heads of pumpkins and bodies of vines.

65. An endless swarm of killer bees wreaks havoc on the country.

66. Christ returns to Earth — at least that is who people thought he was.

67. A natural anomaly brings all of the country's spiders to a horrified town.

68. A woman finds old 16mm film from her childhood and sees that she had a sister — what happened to her?

69. Something ancient rises from an old pond.

70. A woman suddenly begins to wake up in somebody else's body every morning — each day ends with her being stocked and killed by the same murderer in black.

71. An Artificial Intelligence begins to communicate with a family online, only to terrorize them through their technology.

72. A family buys a cheap house only to discover that an old cemetery is their back yard.

73. Years after the zombie apocalypse subsides, survivors discover that the epidemic was caused by aliens that have appeared to lay claim to the planet.

74. A woman has memories of being abducted by aliens — but she soon learns that they weren't aliens. They were...

75. A boy has a tumor that slowly grows into a Siamese twin — the older they get, the more evil the twin becomes.

76. A cult that worships history's deadliest serial killers begins to kill by copying their methods.

77.  Stone gargoyles suddenly appear on the tops of buildings and houses of a small town.

78. A family on a boat trip stumbles upon an old pirate ship.

79. A winter snowstorm traps a family in an abandoned insane asylum.

80. A little girl comes down from upstairs and asks her parents, "Can you hear it breathing? I can."

81. A town is enveloped in unexplained darkness for weeks.

82. A jetliner flies high in the sky as Nuclear War breaks out below.

83. Children discover a deep, dark well in the woods — an old ladder leads down into it.

84. A child sleepwalks into their parent's room and whispers, "I'm sorry. The Devil told me to."

85. As a woman showers, a voice comes from the drain whispering, "I see you."

86. A child finds a crayon drawing of a strange family — it's inscribed with the words we live in your walls .

87. All of the cemetery's graves are now open, gaping holes — the dirt pushed out from underground.

88. A woman is watching a scary movie alone on Halloween night — someone, or something, keeps knocking at her door.

89. Someone is taking a bath as a hand from behind the shower curtain pushes their head into the water.

90. A farmer and his sons begin to hear the laughter of children coming from his fields at night — no children are in sight.

91. Someone looks out their window to see a clown standing at a corner holding a balloon — staring at them.

92. Mannequins in a department store seem to be moving on their own.

93. What if the God people worshiped was really Satan — and Satan had somehow kept God prisoner?

94. A man dies and wakes up in the body of a serial killer — and no matter how hard he tries to stop killing, he can't.

95. A prisoner awakens to find the prison empty — but he's locked in his cell.

96. A woman jogging stumbles upon a dead, bloody body — she then hears a strange clicking sound and looks up to see a dark figure running towards her.

97. A girl hears laughter downstairs — she's the only one home.

98. An Uber driver picks up the wrong person — and may not live to tell the tale.

99. There's someone or something living and moving up in the attic — but it's not a ghost.

100. A child's imaginary friend is not imaginary.

101. The reflections that we see of ourselves in the mirror are actually us in a parallel universe — and they are planning to do whatever it takes to take our place in this world.

Share this with your writing peers or anyone that loves a good scary story.

For some more scares, check out ScreenCraft's  20 Terrifying Two-Sentence Horror Stories and  8 Ways Horror Movies Scare the S*** Out of Audiences!

Sleep well and keep writing.

Once you're inspired, take your idea to the next level and  Develop Your Horror Movie Idea in 15 Days .

Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries  Blackout , starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner. Follow Ken on Twitter  @KenMovies 

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5 Key Elements of a Good Horror Story

Shane Millar

Table of Contents

The 5 elements to include in your horror story, think of every scene as a short story, 3 examples of great horror stories, conclusion: 5 key elements of a good horror story.

Welcome, brave writer, to the chilling realm of horror stories .

This is the place where nightmares come alive, and where our deepest, darkest fears are confronted head-on. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you’re anything like me, you can’t resist the thrilling allure of a well-crafted horror story.

But what exactly constitutes a horror story? In essence, a horror story is a narrative that seeks to inspire one, or all, of these emotions:

It’s a dance with the macabre and a journey into the bleakest corners of our psyche.

The genre comes in many flavors, from psychological horror that messes with your mind to serial killer slashers that make you jump out of your skin. But regardless of the sub-genre, a horror story’s main goal is the same: to scare the living daylights out of you.

Now, you might wonder, as a writer, how do you craft a tale chilling enough to make a reader check under their bed at night or jump at the slightest creak of their old house? It’s not just about ghouls and gore, my friends. It’s an art that requires a solid understanding of human fears, a dash of suspense, and a liberal sprinkling of dread.

In this article, we’re going to delve into the five key story elements that make a horror tale truly unforgettable. Buckle up, because we’re about to embark on a thrilling journey into the heart of darkness.

And remember, it’s only a story. Or is it?

1. Instill a Sense of Fear in Your Reader

If you’re writing a horror story, and your readers are sipping tea and feeling as cozy as a kitten in a sunbeam, you’re not doing it right. Instilling a sense of fear is the bread and butter of horror, the secret sauce that makes your reader’s heart race like a jackrabbit on caffeine.

Now, the real trick is to not just scare your readers but to make them scare themselves.

Ah, there’s the rub!

To accomplish this, you must master the art of suspense. Don’t show your readers the monster right away. Instead, hint at its presence, leaving enough room for their imagination to run wild. Let them hear the monster’s growl, see its large, misshapen footprints, feel the chill in the air that its presence brings, but hold off on the full reveal.

Remember, fear is a deeply personal emotion. What scares one person might not scare another.

Your job as a writer is to tap into universal fears and craft a story that lets your readers’ minds fill in the terrifying blanks. In the immortal words of Stephen King, “Nothing is so frightening as what’s behind the closed door.”

So keep that door closed for as long as you can, and let your readers tremble in anticipation of what lies behind it.

2. Introduce an Aspect of the Unknown

Let me tell you something: nothing keeps a reader glued to the pages of a horror story like a good old mystery with that tantalizing aspect of the unknown. It’s like a surprise party, only you might get a blood-curdling monster instead of cake and balloons.

The unknown serves as the dark, uncharted territory where our deepest fears and anxieties reside.

It’s a place where the regular rules of life don’t apply, and anything, no matter how grotesque or terrifying, is possible. As a horror writer, you need to embrace the unknown and make it your best friend.

Incorporate elements in your story that leave your readers guessing, uncertain of what’s to come. A shadowy figure that’s never fully seen, a haunting sound with an untraceable source, a bizarre event that defies logical explanation.

These unknown elements will make your readers’ imaginations run wild with fear.

Here’s the takeaway: When you leave things unexplained, you’re inviting your reader’s mind to fill in the gaps with their own worst nightmares.

And believe me, there’s nothing scarier than the horrors we can conjure up in our own minds. So go ahead, embrace the unknown. Your readers will thank you, probably with a sleepless night or two.

But hey, that’s the cost of a good horror story, right?

3. Use Cliffhanger Exit Hooks

Oh, the cliffhanger, which is the suspense novelist’s pièce de résistance and the horror writer’s sneakiest trick. It’s like that surprise pop quiz in school, only this time, the stakes are a little more life-and-death.

A cliffhanger exit hook at the end of a scene or chapter does two things:

It slams the door shut on a current predicament

It simultaneously flings open a window to let in a new, even more sinister problem

An exit hook that ends on a cliffhanger is the narrative equivalent of pulling the rug from under your readers—and horror readers will love you for it.

For example, imagine a character who has spent the entire chapter running from a nameless terror. Just as they find a safe spot, they breathe a sigh of relief, thinking they’ve escaped. But as the readers turn the page, they find a single line that flips the narrative:

“But then, as silence filled the room, she heard a low growl behind her...”

You’ve just thrown your character (and your reader) back into the thick of things. Cliffhanger exit hooks are the ultimate tool to keep readers flipping pages well past their bedtime, and in the horror genre, that’s the ultimate win.

So go ahead, leave them hanging.

4. Add Thrilling Plot Twists

You know that feeling when you think you’ve got it all figured out, and then WHAM! A curveball comes flying out of left field? That, my friends, is the deliciously deceptive power of a plot twist. And in horror, these aren’t just fun… they’re compulsory.

A plot twist in a horror story is like that hidden trapdoor in a haunted house.

It catapults both your character and your reader into a whole new level of terror. It’s the narrative equivalent of switching the lights off when you’re just about to reach the safety of the door.

For instance, let’s concoct a tale where our protagonist is trapped in an isolated, creepy old mansion. Eerie occurrences and ghostly sightings have convinced him that the mansion is haunted by a malevolent spirit. The protagonist spends the story trying to uncover the spirit’s identity, with all signs pointing towards a previous occupant who met a tragic end. The tension builds until the unexpected twist: it’s not the spirit of the deceased occupant causing havoc, but rather his seemingly innocent best friend who is alive and well, orchestrating the horror out of a twisted thirst for revenge.

Now, that’s a twist sharper than a vampire’s fang!

A well-executed plot twist can not only ramp up the suspense but also deepen your character development and narrative complexity.

But remember, with great plot twists come great responsibility. They should always serve the story rather than being there for shock value. Otherwise, you’re just leading your reader down a dark alley with no monster at the end. And where’s the fun in that?

5. Write an Ending That Contains Hope

At the end of a dark, winding tunnel of terror, what’s the one thing we need? That’s right, a glimmer of hope. Even in the murkiest depths of a horror story, a ray of hope can be as refreshing as that first gulp of air when you resurface from the shadowy deep end of the pool.

Why is hope important, you ask?

Well, horror isn’t just about making your readers jump out of their skin. It’s about taking them on a journey where they confront their fears and emerge stronger. An ending that contains hope tells your readers, “Hey, it’s been a rough ride, but we made it out alive.”

Let’s illustrate this. Imagine a story where a group of friends are trapped in a haunted house. They fight their way through unspeakable horrors, and in the end, they escape, albeit scarred and changed. They’ve lost much, but they’ve survived. Their resilience serves as a beacon of hope that even in the face of extreme horror, the human spirit can prevail.

Without this dash of hope, a horror story can feel relentlessly bleak.

But remember, we’re not talking rainbows and unicorns here. The hope can be as small and as hard-won as surviving the night. That’s the beauty of horror. Even in the direst situations, hope can still flicker, however faintly.

Editing each scene in your horror novel as if it were a short story is vital.

What do I mean by this?

You can take the key elements of your story arc and apply those at the scene level. Just as every story has a shape and structure, so does a scene.

Follow this scene structure, and you’ll craft a winning story readers are bound to love.

Open With an Entry Hook

The entry hook is the opening line of your scene. It should hook readers in by raising a question they can only answer by reading on.

Include a POV Goal

Give your point of view character a logical goal they’re pursuing for the scene, and make it clear what the goal is early in the scene.

The Scene Middle

Much like the midpoint of your story, the middle of a scene exists to shift the emotional tone and increase the stakes should the POV character not achieve their goal.

The Scene Climax

When you are near the end of your story, you need a satisfying story climax . As you near the end of the scene, you need to build in a satisfactory scene climax as well. Does the point of view character succeed or fail in their goal? Answer this question, and you’ll satisfy readers.

Close With an Exit Hook

The exit hook is the last line of your scene. Its purpose is to raise another question in the reader’s mind they can only answer by reading the next scene.

You should keep your reader engaged and desperate to find out whether the protagonist will survive. Every scene must contain an entry and exit hook. They must also contain stakes and tension.

And the best way to engage horror readers around stakes and tension is…

You got it!

Specifically, the fear of what might happen if your protagonist fails. When you’re writing horror, life is on the line, and your reader needs to feel this in every scene.

Scene-by-scene editing helps you increase tension in your horror novels. You can use book editing software to help you track each of the elements that a good scene needs. 

To write a great horror story, you need to read great horror stories . Here are three of the best, but be warned, there are some spoilers up ahead. If The Shining , The Rats , or Dracula are on your TBR, you might want to skip ahead. 

Stephen King’s The Shining

Stephen King is the veritable monarch of horror. And as for The Shining ? Well, that’s his crowning jewel if you ask me.

This novel ticks all our boxes, folks, and then some.

First off, The Shining instills a sense of fear like no other. I mean, it’s not every day that you encounter a haunted hotel with murderous intentions, right? As for the aspect of the unknown, King weaves it in perfectly with the uncanny abilities of young Danny Torrance.

His shining lets him peek into the mysteries of the Overlook Hotel, giving us just enough glimpses of the unknown to keep us on the edge.

And let’s not forget those cliffhanger exit hooks.

King’s a master of suspense, and he knows just when to cut a scene for maximum tension. Remember when Jack finds the mysterious woman in Room 237? King ended that chapter on a note that gave my goosebumps goosebumps!

As for plot twists, oh boy! From Jack’s descent into madness to the true nature of the Overlook, King keeps us guessing right till the end.

And the ending contains hope. After all the terror and suspense, we see Danny and his mother escape, giving us that glimmer of light at the end of a very dark and twisted tunnel.

In The Shining , King displays a masterclass in horror writing, adeptly weaving in every element we’ve discussed.

It’s a chilling, thrilling ride that shows us exactly how it’s done.

James Herbert’s The Rats

Let’s talk about James Herbert’s The Rats .

If you thought you had a rat problem, well, let me tell you, you haven’t seen anything yet. This horror classic has all our key elements, making it a perfect specimen for our dissection today.

The Rats has it by the bucket load. Imagine London overrun by giant, flesh-eating rats. Shivers down your spine yet? Herbert’s depiction of these critters is enough to make even the bravest of us check under our beds. And the unknown? He plays it like a maestro, with the origin of these monstrous rats remaining a mystery for much of the book.

Herbert’s a wizard with cliffhangers, too. Just when you think a character’s safe, bam! There’s a rat gnawing at their toes. Not the kind of exit you’d want, but it certainly makes for a gripping read.

Then we have those plot twists. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the rat situation, Herbert pulls the rug from under you, introducing a new layer of horror. And the ending holds a beacon of hope amidst the darkness. Our protagonist, Harris, manages to defeat the rat queen, giving us a glimmer of light in the otherwise dark narrative.

The Rats is a gruesome testament to Herbert’s prowess as a horror writer, incorporating each of the elements we’ve discussed in a horrifyingly entertaining way.

You’ll never look at a rat the same way again!

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

It’s time to dust off that old leather-bound classic and delve into the world of Bram Stoker’s Dracula . Now, don’t let the age of this book fool you. It’s still as chilling as it was when it first came out.

And guess what?

It’s packed with our five key elements.

The fear factor? It’s practically off the charts! A blood-sucking, immortal count from Transylvania is the kind of stuff that nightmares are made of. There’s nothing like a good old vampire story to make you pull your collar a little higher on a dark, windy night.

What about the unknown?

Dracula himself is an enigma wrapped in a bat-cape, shrouded in darkness. Stoker masterfully keeps us guessing about the Count’s origins and his ultimate plans, keeping the tension high and the pages turning.

Cliffhangers? Oh, we’ve got them! Every diary entry and letter in this epistolary novel ends with a nail-biting cliffhanger. And the plot twists? Stoker was ahead of his time, constantly catching us off guard with unexpected turns of events.

Lastly, despite all the horror, Dracula ends with a welcome ray of hope. Good overcomes evil, and our band of heroes manages to defeat Dracula, proving that even in the most terrifying circumstances, hope persists.

Dracula is a shining example of a horror novel that expertly weaves together all our key elements. It’s an oldie but a goodie and a must-read for any horror aficionado.

You might want to keep a garlic clove and wooden stake nearby, though, just in case!

There you have it, horror writers!

We’ve picked our way through the graveyard of horror writing, unearthing the elements that make a story spine-tingling.

From the eerie echoes of fear we instill in our readers to the unknown shadows we allow to linger in their minds. From those gasp-inducing cliffhangers to the thrilling plot twists that make readers question everything they thought they knew.

And finally, the glimmer of hope—the thin ray of moonlight in our dark tales.

We’ve seen how these elements come alive in the works of masters like King, Herbert, and Stoker.

So, now it’s your turn.

Weave these elements into your own horror masterpiece. And remember, in the realm of horror, it’s always darkest before dawn.

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Shane Millar is the author of the Myth & Magic and Chosen Vampire urban fantasy thriller series. He is also a Fictionary Certified Story Coach and the author of the Write Better Fiction craft guides. Shane has taken too many writing courses to count and enjoys reading as much as possible. He is obsessed with five things: the writing craft, mythology, personal development, food, and martial arts movies.

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How to write a horror story: Telling tales of terror

Learn how to write a horror story, with insights from Stephen King, John Carpenter, the script opening for The Exorcist, and more, and discover ideas for telling a more chilling tale.

• Post author By Jordan
• 71 Comments on How to write a horror story: Telling tales of terror

Learning how to write horror is a useful for any writer. The genre contains storytelling elements that are useful beyond it. Read a concise guide to horror. We explore what horror is, key elements of horror, plus tips and quotes from masters of horror film and fiction.

What is horror? Elements of horror

The horror genre is speculative or fantastical fiction that evokes fear, suspense, and dread.

Horror often gives readers or viewers the sense of relief by the end of the story.

Stephen King calls this ‘reintegration’. Writes King in his non-fiction book on horror, Danse Macabre (1981), about the release from terror in reintegration:

For now, the worst has been faced and it wasn’t so bad at all. There was that magic moment of reintegration and safety at the end, that same feeling that comes when the roller coaster stops at the end of its run and you get off with your best girl, both of you whole and unhurt. I believe it’s this feeling of reintegration, arising from a field specializing in death, fear, and monstrosity, that makes the danse macabre so rewarding and magical … that, and the boundless ability of the human imagination to create endless dreamworlds and then put them to work. Stephen King, Dance Macabre (1981), p. 27 (Kindle version)

A brief history of the horror genre

Horror, like most genres, has evolved substantially.

Modern horror stories’ precursors were Gothic tales, stretching back to the 1700s. Even stretching beyond that, into gory myths and legends such as Grimm’s folktales.

In early Gothic fiction, the horrifying aspects (such as ghostly apparitions) tended to stem from characters’ tortured psyches. For example, the ghostly shenanigans in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (1898). It was often ambiguous whether or not supernatural events depicted were real or imagined by a typically unreliable, tortured narrator.

More modern horror turned increasingly towards ‘psychological horror’. Here, the source of horror is more interior. Or else an external monster or supernatural figure is no figment but completely real.

See Noël Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror : Or, Paradoxes of the Heart for further interesting information on the genres history, as well as Stephen King’s Danse Macabre.

8 elements of horror

Eight recurring elements in classic and contemporary horror, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to the contemporary horror films of Ari Aster, are:

• Suspense (the anticipation of terror or bad things). Horror builds suspense by evoking our fear of the known (for example, fear of the dark). Also fear of the unknown (what could be lurking in said dark).
• Fear. The genre plays with primal fears such as fear of injury, accident, evil, our mistakes, whether evil faces accountability (see Thomas Fahy’s The Philosophy of Horror for more on the philosophy of horror and moral questions horror asks).
• Atmosphere. Horror relies extensively on the emotional effects of atmosphere. Just think of the claustrophobic atmosphere of the ship, the aliens’ human-hunting paradise, in the Alien film franchise.
• Vulnerability. The horror genre plays with our vulnerability, makes us remember it. Horror often asks ‘what if the other is overtly or insidiously malevolent? In asking this, it reminds us of the values of both caution and courage.
• Survival . Many horror subgenres explore themes of survival, from zombie horror to slasher films. Like tragedy, survival stories explore the rippling-out consequences of making ‘the wrong choice’.
• The Supernatural. Horror stories also plumb the unseen and unknown, terrors our physics, beliefs and assumptions can’t always explain.
• Psychological terror. Horror typically manipulates the perceptions of readers/viewers (and characters) to create a sense of unease. ‘What’s thumping under that locked cellar door?’
• The monstrous. Whether actual monsters or the monstrous possible in ordinary human behavior, horror explores the dark and what terrifies or disgusts.

Further elements and themes that appear often include death, the demonic, isolation, madness, grief and revenge.

What does horror offer readers/viewers?

In The Philosophy of Horror (2010), Thomas Fahy compares horror to a reluctant skydiving trip taken with friends, referencing King’s concept of reintegration, the ‘return to safety’:

In many ways, the horror genre promises a similar experience [to skydiving]: The anticipation of terror, the mixture of fear and exhilaration as events unfold, the opportunity to confront the unpredictable and dangerous, the promise of relative safety (both in the context of a darkened theater and through a narrative structure that lasts a finite amount of time and/or number of pages), and the feeling of relief and regained control when it’s over. Thomas Fahy (Ed.), ‘Introduction’, The Philosophy of Horror (2010).

Horror also appeals to the pleasures of repetition. The darkly amusing absurdity and existentialism of how characters are bumped off one by one in a slasher film, for example.

Audiences also flock to horror for tension (produced by suspense, fear, shock, terror, gore and other common elements), personal relevance (the way horror explores themes we can relate to), and the pleasure of the surreal or unreality.

What do you love about the horror genre? Tell us in the comments!

How to write horror: 10 tips (plus examples and quotes)

Explore ten ideas on how to write a horror story:

Jump scares and sudden gore might punctuate the story, but if they appear every page they risk becoming predictable.

Who in your ensemble will your reader or viewer want to survive or triumph over horrifying events, and why?

Often horror flips between everyday fears (a young couple’s fears about becoming parents, for example) and a symbolic, scarier level.

Great horror stories often live on in reader/viewer debate about what ‘really’ happened. They reward rewatching.

Horror stories make terrifying events (such as an author being abducted by a homicidal superfan in King’s Misery ) seem plausible. We believe their worlds.

Who can forget the infamous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho ? Horror often scares us where we think we’re safest.

Play with multiple layers and levels of fear – fear of the known, unknown, of real monsters and the make-believe monsters of perception.

What will create that feeling that something’s just a little off, unexpected?

Some horror subgenres (e.g. splatterpunk or slasher horror) go all-out on gore. Violence isn’t the only way to unsettle your reader, though. Play with the fear of the unseen – imagination can supply the possibilities.

Focusing solely on scaring readers may end up with a story that is more style and provocation than substance. Think about character and story arcs, using setting to create tone and atmosphere, other elements that make up good stories .

Pace the big horror scares for suspense

Let’s explore each of the preceding ideas on how to write horror. First: Pacing.

As in suspense, pacing is everything in horror. Good pacing allows the build-up, ebb and flow of tension.

See how the script for the classic 1973 horror film The Exorcist (adapted from William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel of the same name) begins? Not with immediate, obvious demonic possession, but the suspense of an archaeological dig. There are no jump scares, and no gore – just quiet unease.

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Pacing in horror-writing example: Slow-building tension in The Exorcist

EXTERIOR- IRAQ- EXCATVATION SITE- NINEVEH- DAY Pickaxes and shovels weld into the air as hundreds of excavators tear at the desert. The camera pans around the area where hundreds of Iraqi workmen dig for ancient finds. […] YOUNG BOY (In Iraqi language) They’ve found something… small pieces. MERRIN (In Iraqi language) Where? The Exorcist screenplay. Source: Script Slug

This is a long way – geographically and tonally – from a young girl walking backwards downstairs or her head turning around like an owl’s.

A seemingly innocent archaeological dig turns into something more sinister. A link is implied between the statue of a demon unearthed in the dig and two dogs starting to fight:

EXTERIOR – IRAQ- NINEVEH- DAY […] The old man walks up the rocky mound and sees a huge statue of the demon Pazuzu, which has the head of the small rock he earlier found. He climbs to a higher point to get a closer look. When he reaches the highest point he looks at the statue dead on. He then turns his head as we hear rocks falling and sees a guard standing behind him. He then turns again when he hears two dogs savagely attacking each other. The noise is something of an evil nature. He looks again at the statue and we are then presented with a classic stand off side view of the old man and the statue as the noises rage on. We then fade to the sun slowly setting as the noises lower in volume. The Exorcist screenplay. Source: Script Slug

The suspense in this opening builds up a sense of something horrifying being unleashed on the world unwittingly.

Use characterization to make readers care

Great horror stories may use stock character types, flat arcs. For example, in slasher films where some characters’ main purpose is to die in some creative, absurd way.

Yet subtler horror writing uses characterization to make the reader care.

Part of the truly horrifying aspect of The Exorcist , for example, is knowing that an innocent child is possessed. Tormented by evil through no fault of her own.

The care is palpable in her mother Chris’ (Ellen Burstyn) horror and anxiety in reaction. Empathy is a natural response to having an unwell child (and ‘unwell’ is putting it mildly, in this case).

We empathize with characters grappling with dark forces beyond their control. Life tests everyone with destructive or painful experiences at some point in time. The sense of powerlessness (and tenacity that emerges through that) is a testament to the human spirit, to perseverance.

A horror story itself may have a bleaker reading, of course. Yet we struggle on with the intrepid heroines in their attempts to overcome.

Three horror character archetypes that make us care

In Danse Macabre , Stephen King discusses three common character archetypes in horror and Gothic fiction:

• The Thing – for example, Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , which expresses pain at having been created.
• The Vampire – often represented as suffering eternal life/return (similar in this regard to ghosts and poltergeists).
• The Werewolf – a horror character who transforms, typically against their will and usually with great suffering, into a beast.

King explores examples of these three horror archetypes from books and films such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal psychological horror film, Psycho (1960).

Writes King:

It doesn’t end with the Thing, the Vampire, and the Werewolf; there are other bogeys out there in the shadows as well. But these three account of a large bloc of modern horror fiction. King, Danse Macarbre, p. 96.

Why horror character archetypes make us care

Horror lovers care about ‘the thing’ archetype often because ‘the thing’, the monster, is misunderstood or blameless for its creation. Think of Frankenstein’s monster, who bargains with his creator for release and freedom.

‘The vampire’ is often a relatable figure because of the inevitable loneliness of eternal life. The vampire is imprisoned by limitations such as not being allowed the rest of death (or even natural pleasures such as sunlight – as glamorous as it might be to sparkle like Stephenie Meyer’s diamante vamps).

King writes about the werewolf and how it represents human duality. The respectable public persona or façade, on one hand, and a world of hidden, private horror on the other. A duality many who carry private trauma can relate to.

Each archetype is relatable on some level. This empathic element makes one care for (or at least understand) the monstrous and inhuman in more literary horror stories. Evil (though some don’t like to admit it) has a face and a backstory, a history of becoming, most of the time.

Read more about how to create characters readers can picture and care about in our complete guide to character creation .

Make the known scary (not just the unknown)

Many horror movies tap into the terror of the known, the common human experience, and not only absurd (but campy and fun) nightmares like clowns hiding in stormwater drains.

Common, relatable parts of familiar human experience to mine for horror and terror include:

• Birth and death (e.g. Rosemary’s Baby )
• Loss and grief (e.g. Hereditary )
• Childhood fears (e.g. It )
• Loss of control (e.g. An American Werewolf in London )
• Ritual and community (e.g. Midsommar )
• Exploring the unknown (e.g. Alien )

Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan writes in the script for the 2000 film Unbreakable:

Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world, to not know why you’re here. That’s – that’s just an awful feeling.

Often, it is this mundane, relatable element of horror – such as the horror of not having a place in the world – that supplies the psychological or inner aspect.

For example, a bereaved family’s struggle with an occult family history (the outer horror) provides the figurative, metaphorical means to explore the painful reality of grief and intergenerational trauma (inner horror) in Ari Aster’s psychological horror film, Hereditary .

Don’t feel you have to explain everything

Although King’s concept of ‘reintegration’ applies in many horror stories where a sunnier ending promises relief, many modern horror narratives eschew tidy resolution.

It’s a classic ploy in horror series, for example, for there to be troubling alarm bells at the end, inferring that a persistent terror lives on. For example, the jump scare at the end of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) [warning: implied violence, spoilers].

The shock comes through the juxtaposition of an ‘everyone’s safe at last moment’ and terror striking from inside the house without warning, undoing the sense of resolution attained. The main character having woken from the dreams where the bulk of terrifying events occur adds to this false sense of security.

There is no graphic gore or violence. The scene doesn’t show or tell every detail. Instead, the audience has to interpret the event and what it implies about the the status of the conflict between the main characters and the supernatural villain, Freddy Krueger – whether it is truly over.

Play with the terror of plausibility

What is most terrifying is often what is plausible. For example, the crazed fan who abducts her favorite author in Stephen King’s Misery (1987), for hobbling instead of autographs. Celebrity stalking is a well-documented modern cultural phenomenon. It is hard to eyeroll at after John Lennon.

Why is plausibility worth thinking about when exploring how to write horror?

• Suspension of disbelief. If events in a horror story seem plausible (at least for the horror world created), the audience is less inclined to roll their eyes and groan, ‘That would never happen’.
• Relatability . A novel and film such as The Exorcist plays on the natural fear many have that loved ones will fall unwell or depart, in body, spirit or mind.
• Tension and unpredictability: It is more tense and unpredictable when everything is ‘normal’ to start. Ruptures in the fabric of this normalcy create tension, the sense ‘anything could happen’ (that sense requires the bedrock of plausibility first ).

Scare horror audiences when they least expect

Like that jump scare in the final scene of A Nightmare on Elm Street , horror often scares the shoes off us when we least expect it.

Take, for example, the infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), where Marion Crane is attacked in the shower.

The shower, usually associated with privacy, relaxation, is nothing like an abandoned side street, dark wood at night, or other traditionally ‘creepy’ setting. This coupled with the intensity of Hitchcock’s shots – the raised hand clutching a knife – creates a chilling scene.

Horror mastery lies in a push and pull, lulling your audience into a false sense of security, then pulling the rug out from under them when they least expect it. Tweet This

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Deepen the story with layers of fear

Horror, like other fantastical genres, deals in layers and dualities. In fantasy fiction , we often have a primary world and a secondary one. In horror, the duality is often an internal horror doing a ‘danse macabre’ with an external one.

Says horror filmmaking veteran John Carpenter in conversation with Vulture :

There are two different stories in horror: internal and external. In external horror films, the evil comes from the outside, the other tribe, this thing in the darkness that we don’t understand. Internal is the human heart. Simon Abrams, ‘The Soft-Spoken John Carpenter on How He Chooses Projects and His Box-Office Failures’, July 6 2011.

In a story using the ‘werewolf’ archetype, for example, the rational, untransformed side of a protagonist may fear the revelation of their monstrous side, the consequences this would have for their daily life (whether they are a literal werewolf or this is figurative). Transformed, the werewolf, like the ‘elephant man’, may experience the external horror and fear of others’ revulsion or animosity (which then feeds the internal, in a vicious cycle).

Having both internal and external conflicts in a horror story moves horror beyond simple disgust and shock tactics. The audience can connect deeper with characters, the cycles of violence they endure or triumph over.

Tapping into common fears for horror writing

If the point of horror writing (and horror elements in other genres such as paranormal romance) is to arouse fear, shock or disgust, think of the things people are most commonly afraid of.

Live Science places an interest choice at number one : The dentist. It’s true that you can feel powerless when you’re in the dentist’s chair. Couple this with the pain of certain dental procedures and it’s plain to see why a malevolent dentist is the stuff of horror nightmares.

Making readers scared creates tension and increases the pace of your story. Even so there should be a reason for making readers fearful.

Here are some of the most common fears people have:

• Fear of animals (dogs, snakes, sharks, mythical creatures such as the deep sea-dwelling kraken)
• Fear of flying (film producers combined the previous fear and this other common fear to make the spoof horror movie Snakes on a Plane)
• The dark – one of the most fundamental fears of the unfamiliar
• Perilous heights
• Other people and their often unknown desires or intentions
• Ugly or disorienting environments

Think of how common fears can be evoked in your horror fiction. Some are more often exploited in horror writing than others. A less precise fear (such as the fear of certain spaces) will let you tell the horror story you want with fewer specified must-haves.

Add subtler hints of something wrong

Returning to core elements of horror – fear, suspense, and atmosphere – how do you make horror scary even when Freddy isn’t dragging anyone through a solid wood door?

Tone and atmosphere emerge in the subtle hints and clues something is wrong.

Hints and signs of horrors to come could include:

• Unsettling sounds. Dripping, humming, chanting, singing, banging, knocking, drumming. What are sounds that imply trouble and the ghastly unknown coming to visit?
• Creepy imagery. What are images and signs that suggest comfort (for example, a lamp burning in a window to signal someone’s home)? Blow those candles out, play with the unhomely.
• Unsettling change. Changes in light, a companion’s tone, a pet’s behavior. Small harbingers of trouble add tension.
• Missing objects. What is not continuous in a way that unsettles and defies expectations? For example, in the reboot of Twin Peaks , an attempt to go home again leads to the dread of everything being different, that sense of ‘you can’t go home again’.
• Discomforting communication. Sometimes horror hinges on a repeated word or phrase (‘Candyman’), or someone saying something creepily unexpected.

The above are just a few ways to imply that something is very wrong.

Balance gore with the unseen (subgenre depending)

Gore in horror has the capability to shock, disgust, make your audience squeamish. Yet a relentless gore-fest may quickly desensitize readers or viewers to the element of surprise.

How much gore you include in a horror will of course depend on your subgenre and story scenario. Slasher stories and subgenres such as splatterpunk (a horror subgenre characterized by extreme violence) will have audiences who demand gore and may lament something tame.

Reasons to balance gore with the terror of the unseen, otherwise:

• Maintaining tension. Periods of calm between violent scenes create suspense, nervous tension for when there’ll be blood again.
• Deepening the story. Great stories with broad appeal take more than blood and guts – meaningful character arcs and genuine scares and horrifying scenes can coexist.
• Artful storytelling. Relying on inference, plot twists, atmosphere, tension for fright and shock is arguably more artful than leaping straight for shock-value. Critical succcesses in the horror genre often don’t rely solely on the cheapest, easiest scares. The story often earns them by building plausibility or deeper symbolic and metaphorical resonance.

Tell a good story first, scare readers second

That last idea boils down to this: Focus on telling a good story, first.

If your sole focus is how most you can shock and manipulate your audience, some may critique this as cheap exploitation.

Some authors – deliberate provocateurs – may wear that label as a badge of pride, of course. Careers are sometimes made in attracting controversy, even bans and censorship for extreme shock value.

Yet the stories that endure often make excellent uses of all the parts of storytelling and encapsulate some of the qualities that make storytelling universal – humanity, insight, the empathy and truth-finding that imagining and exploring ‘dreamworlds’ offers.

Are you writing horror? Join the Now Novel critique community for free and get perks such as longer critique submissions, weekly editorial feedback and story planning tools when you upgrade to The Process.

Now Novel has been invaluable in helping me learn about the craft of novel writing. The feedback has been encouraging, insightful and useful. I’m sure I wouldn’t have got as far as I have without the support of Jordan and the writers in the groups. Highly recommend to anyone seeking help, support or encouragement with their first or next novel. – Oliver

Related Posts:

• Showing vs telling: 'Show don't tell' in narration
• How do you write a story using three-act structure?
• How do you write a dystopian story? 5 tips
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Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

71 replies on “How to write a horror story: Telling tales of terror”

[…] Similarly, the always awesome Now Novel blog has 6 Terrific tips on How to write a horror story that are worth a look. The most important piece of info there, in my opinion is # 5: Write scary […]

Great and helpful post. Its difficult to find helpful, informative posts on horror writing. Thanks.

It’s a pleasure, Alice. I’m glad you found this helpful.

I agree with Alice. This was very useful. Thanks, Bridget.

It’s a pleasure, Melissa, thanks for reading.

As always, an insightful and helpful post, especially regarding the distinction between terror and horror. Love the SK quote! 🙂

Thank you! Thanks for reading. It is a good quote, isn’t it?

Im 11 and working on a horror story with 100 or more pages. this is very helpful. 🙂

I’m impressed, Ethan. Keep going! I’m glad you found it helpful 🙂

Okay, I’m EXACTLY the same age and also working on a horror novel!! I already have 241 pages, though.

Update* im now 13 yayayayyaa owo I lost the pages and have then finished writing a script for something i cant loose. SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS

Omg hey Ethan and Malachi I’m twelve (right in the middle IG) and working on novels that are going to be between 100 and 300 pages! Good luck guys 😀

Great article. You helped me realise that the short I was working on is actually a novel. Not sure how mind you, but thanks all the same. I’ll sign up now.

Thanks, Gareth! Glad to help.

The article is useful, except for the last part, which totally messed up the beauty of the article. It’s POINTLESS trying to differentiate two things that are mostly used interchangeably. Moreover, Terry Heller’s point makes the whole sense, SENSELESS, because her definition of terror and horror are actually the same except for the subjects to where such emotion is concerned about. Terror is one’s fear for oneself, and horror is one’s fear for others? Are you kidding me? Both can be subjected to either oneself or to others. Dictionaries and encyclopedias never indicate that horror is what one fears for others alone, because it can be for oneself, too. If Terry cannot differentiate two things, which are not really meant to be differentiated because they are the ultimate synonym for each other, then she doesn’t have to make such an effort. She’s making everyone a fool.

Thank you for your engaging response. You raise valid points, and sometimes academic treatments of subjects do over-complicate matters. In light of your comment I’m updating the post since I see now that the distinction isn’t perhaps particularly useful here.

Thanks for the tips. Writing a horror novel for my 1st NaNoWriMo project. This was extremely helpful 🙂

I’m really glad to hear that, Ashley. I hope NaNoWriMo is going well.

I am 12 and have been working on horror since I was 7! So exited to actually get some good info! Thanks!

It’s a pleasure, Aurelia. It’s great that you’re already so committed to your love of writing, keep it up.

Thanks! I am exited to do Nanowrimo and I am am hoping to write a long novel this November. This really helped and extra thanks to the helpful comment!

It’s a pleasure! I hope your NaNoWriMo is going very well.

This has given me more quality advice on the genre than a three year creative writing degree. Best start reading the stuff first then! Thank you.

Thank you, Neil, high praise indeed. Good luck with your horror book!

… How does one get rid of writers block? My brain always blanks out when I try and start writing. So annoying! >:c

Sometimes listening to songs with a creepy tone helps

Great advice, Allee. I love listening to music while I work myself.

My advice is to literally just write what comes into your brain, it doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not, that’s what first drafts are for, as long as you’re writing in some shape of form, be it poor or good quality, it’s practice

Thank you. … My brain is weird. Just now, I’ve been shaken out of my sleep by an intense dream. Seriously. I don’t know what goes on up there, but it’s mad.

Good advice! Maya Angelou said similar about her writing process. Here are some additional tips on moving past a block: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/banish-writers-block/

I’m so happy I ran across this article. I’ve read from more than one story editor that the horror genre is the most difficult genre to master.

I’m glad to hear that, JP. All genres have their challenges but I’d say the best, best, best approach is to read widely in said genre (and others). Thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, if Stephen King can’t terrify or horrify, he’ll gross us out. And he says he’s not proud. In other words, he’ll stoop to the disgust level if he can’t get the others. But this is precisely the problem with the “gross” or “disgusting.” Disgust is not fear. When we are disgusted, we know TOO much. When we are horrified, there is always something we DON’T know. I’m amazed he doesn’t know that. An autopsy gives us disgust because nothing is held back from the viewer. It is not frightening. No one believes, for example, that the body is going to get up from the autopsy table and start attacking the doctor. But if I walk into the autopsy room all by myself and see a dead body on a table, turn away from the body to shut the door, turn back to it, notice it gone, and then have the lights start dimming? Yes. Now I am scared. Why? Simply because I don’t know certain things. I don’t know why the body has suddenly disappeared. I don’t know how a dead person could have moved. I don’t know where the body is right now. I don’t know if that body (if it is actually alive) has good or bad intentions toward me. I don’t know who is dimming the lights and why. It is so much easier to disgust the reader than to horrify him. It takes more cleverness to hold back information from the character and the reader than to let everything gush forth in blood and guts. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example, there is more fear to be found in the inscrutable nightly crying of the butler’s wife than in many of our modern horror films put together. Why is she crying? Why only at night? Why is she doing looking out of the window into the dark each night? The source of fear is in the unknown.

Ultimately, King does know and it is a show vs tell metaphor. You have to read his biographical On Writing because no one explains it correctly. Terror is the psychological aspect of the story. Horror is the stories physical manifestation of the terror. Disgust is the actions of horror. Showing the actions of horror kills all suspense immediately. I like to explain it to my students and listeners as if Terror and Horror are the brake and Disgust is the gas. It’s like the old story of the escaped lunatic with a hook were a young couple go out on a date. While driving to Make Out Lane there is a report on the radio about an escaped killer with a hook running around killing people that the only the girl hears. As the girl and boy are making out she sees a shadow and the boyfriend sees nothing. Then there is the screeching sound on the outside of the car. That’s terror. The boyfriend gets out and inspects his car in the dense fog. The girl loses sight of the boy as he walks toward the rear, building on the terror. There is another screech along her door, terrorizing her. She calls out the boys name and he doesn’t respond, building on the terror, possibly toward horror if the boy doesn’t return. Then he does. He leaps into the car and jerks it into reverse and pulls away from the scene at mach-5. When they arrive back at her house, they find a hook dangling from the passenger door handle, the horror. King describes this little story as the perfect short horror story. However, in some later versions of the story the girl jumps in the driver’s seat and pulls off without the boy. When she gets to her home she finds a bloody hook dangling from the door with a bit of gut on it, leaving the girl and the audience disgusted. as the tension and suspense are deflated.

This is very helpful. My 8th grade English teacher is holding a contest for writing a short (750 to 3,000 word) horror story, so I am researching the elements of horror and how to incorporate them into my work. This article is by far one of the more helpful ones I have found in finding ways to create fear, shock or disgust in the mind of the reader. Thank you!

Hi Margaret,

Thank you for this feedback. I’m glad to hear you found this article useful. I hope you won the contest 🙂

“…his skin distinctly yellowish in colour.” Far from being exemplary in any way, this is actually terrible, hack writing. If something is “yellowish,” it cannot be “distinctly” so. It’s either distinctly yellow, or “yellowish.” Likewise, “in color” is flabby and redundant. Could the skin be “yellowish” in shape or size? Could it be “yellowish” in cost or weight? This page is distinctly whiteish in color. See how weak and flabby that is?

To be fair, there is a lot of good information on this page. But Clive Barker is a dreadful writer, and should never be cited as an exemplar of good prose.

Hi Sharkio, you raise a very good point. I second your edit of just saying ‘yellowish’ and cutting in colour and am tempted to add a note on not taking the letter of his prose as exemplary, but rather the spirit 🙂 I agree that although the atmosphere and tone are there, the prose is weak in places. There’s also the question, though, of whether we can/should apply ‘literary’ standards to genre fic where these and other ‘sins’ are more widely accepted 🙂 Thanks for the thoughtful engagement with this detail.

Are you crazy? There is no writer at the top of their game as Barker was in the 70-90s. His influence is on everything today.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, H Duane 🙂 Just goes to show that everyone has different preferences. He is regarded as one of the modern masters of horror. I suppose genre fiction readers might also be more forgiving of certain stylistic choices than literary readers.

Some good tips after writing 2 love stories and a mystery now I am trying for some horrer story and this will help me such a good information

Thanks, Sidhu. That’s an interesting genre leap, but many horrors do have both elements. It’s a weird trope to me how often the romantic leads are the first to go in slasher flicks. You’d think writers would keep them to add romantic tension to the mix. I hope your story’s coming along well.

I just finished writing my first horror script/ screenplay… I checked this list just to see if I maybe left elements out that I should include or if I was on the right track and I’m proud to report that my script has it all… Once my film finally sees the light of day, I hope all horror fans are satisfied…

Hi Timothy, I hope so too! Best of luck with the next steps, please update us about what comes of it.

I am attempting to write a horror story where the main character is possessed and is writing in a diary like format as it occurs, and begins committing murders, how do I accurately capture the descent into madness?

Hi Evan, thank you for sharing that. It’s an interesting challenge. I would suggest a shift in style and tone in his writing. For example, perhaps they use stranger metaphors, repeat themselves more, their sentences become more fragmented, there’s the occasional odd word by itself on a line, lines or sentences that don’t make complete semantic sense but have an eerie undertone (I think of the classic phrase ‘The owls are not what they seem’ in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks).

I hope this helps! Good luck.

Thank you, this was very useful. I appreciate your enthusiasm and encouragement.

It’s my pleasure, Evan, glad to help. Have a great week.

Wow this was really helpful thanks

I’m glad to hear that, Rene. Thank you for the feedback!

I wanted to write a psychological thriller story for a youtube channel. I am glad I found help from here. Thank You.

It’s a pleasure, Suyasha! Thank you for reading and good luck creating your story for YouTube.

I appreciate the reference to ’cause and effect’ for any level of villainy. The more complex the villain, the more interesting the story. Anything that steps out of the dark and says, “Hi, I’m evil. I’m here to destroy everything for no apparent reason,” flattens the scene. I think your point about motivation is key to getting people engaged in the fantasy. I think that this will heighten the tension in my current story. Thank you.

Hi Deborah, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Agreed, a complex villain also tends to be less predictable which inherently builds more suspense, as (compared to a Bond villain, for example), they’re more textured and unknowable, less of a trope or archetype. I’m glad you found these ideas helpful to your current story, good luck as you proceed further!

Totally agree with you Joseph Pedulla. You summed it up perfectly! Gross is not scary. I like scary. Stephen King is talked about all the time like the all-time best horror writer. I have tried reading some of his work and I find it mind-numbingly boring. I like the story to move along; don’t give me a whole bunch of description!! Read Darren Shan’s ‘The Cirque Du Freak Series.’ Absolutely amazing!

Thank you. I appreciate the elaboration on each hint. I also think your arguments make sense AND can be helpful to many indie-authors & startup writers alike.

Thank you for your feedback, Andre. I’m glad you found our article helpful!

Was looking for some takes regarding this topic and I found your article quite informative. It has given me a fresh perspective on the topic tackled. Thanks!

Please see also my blog, Getting to Know the 4 Incredible Authors of Horror Fiction

Hope this will help,

Thank you, Joab. Thanks for sharing your horror writing blog.

[…] How to Write a Horror Story: 6 Terrific Tips […]

This is quite interesting and I can see how it relates to film more readily than to a novel – perhaps due to the many film examples and the visual quality of the ‘jump scare’, etc. I can see that film examples are very useful, however, I’m having trouble relating this to crafting words on a page as opposed to images on a screen.

Hi Rachel, thank you so much for this useful feedback. It’s interesting how much film and narrative fiction have influenced each other in this specific genre, but this is useful to me – I will work in more examples from horror lit in an additional section when I have a moment. Thanks for helping me make this article better and for reading.

Interesting! I may add some horror prompts to Craft Challenge. You did forget to mention the terror of never finishing a book, missing tons of errors, writing something right after someone else does it, and getting your book idea stolen 😉 Although I suppose they’re preferable to a gruesome death, or drowning, or grasshoppers (don’t judge me) 🕷️🪓🩸

I’m now trying to remember which of those fears horror authors’ writer characters (e.g. in Misery ) have 🙂 I’m going to have to have a look at that. OK, I’m with you on the grasshoppers. My aunt lives near the mountain and they get these very angry-looking green ones my aunt calls ‘Green [redacted]s’ 😉

Also please do, I’ll also think up some horror prompts to share as well (another section for this article in version 2.1).

Oh, I forgot one! The fear of every critique starting with “I don’t like this genre.” 😳

Haha I love that, Margriet. A relatable fear, I would say.

How much room for humor do you think there is in the horror genre? Do you think you could write a horror novel that has a high percentage of humor Vs. horror/gore and still call it a horror novel?

This is a great question, Scott. I really am not a horror expert myself (sometimes I write far out of my comfort zone here which requires a little more research). But if I think of Tim Curry’s performance as It , for example, how he fills the character with this wild humor and characterization that made many prefer the original to the remake, I would say horror has as much capacity for humor as you want it to have. Comedy horror is a thing, with zombie spoofs and the like produced, so you could always market a comedy horror title in both categories. I think part of the natural crossover is that jump scares, campy villainous dialogue, or see-it-coming-from-a-mile tropes often make audiences laugh, too.

I’m working on one to it’s very wierd and it’s called Toony and The Ink Machine Yes I know kind of ripoff of Bendy and The ink machine.

Fabulous title, Silas! Wishing you the best with the writing process.

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How to Write Horror: 8 Crucial Components to Terrify and Delight

by Sarah Gribble | 0 comments

The horror genre might call to mind slasher films or other monster movies your teenage friends made you watch at night to scare you out of your wits. But horror is more than a shock fest. Scary stories have the ability to reveal the human condition in ways many other genres cannot. Today let's look at how to write horror.

Types of stories

We're continuing our series on how to write each of the nine types of stories , based on values. Values are defined by what a character wants or needs most in a story. Story types can defy genre boundaries which are often more about reader expectations and specific tropes, but the two often work together to create a satisfying reader experience.

Here are the six value scales with the plot types they tend to fall into:

• Survival from Nature > Life vs. Death
• Survival from Others > Life vs. Fate Worse than Death
• Love/Community > Love vs. Hate
• Esteem > Accomplishment vs. Failure
• Personal Growth > Maturity vs. Immaturity
• Transcendence > Right vs. Wrong

With that in mind, let's delve into how to write a horror book or story.

What is horror?

Horror is a genre of literature or film that wants to evoke fear, shock, and suspense. Characters battle for their life versus a fate worse than death.

What does that mean? A fate worse than death can mean everything from experiencing embarrassment to paralyzing fear to pain to a loss of innocence.

There are many types of horror fiction sub-genres, ranging from psychological horror to horror comedy to cosmic horror, to slashers and body horror. Horror stories often (but don't have to) have supernatural horror elements, such as ghosts, monsters, vampires, and witches.

Common techniques used to create horror include jump scares, gore, unexpected twists, isolation, and eerie sound effects. Writing horror successfully requires an understanding of human psychology and the ability to create tension and suspense through careful pacing and narrative structure.

Horror isn't just about gore or terror, however. Many horror stories include societal, environmental, or psychological themes.

To write effective horror stories, authors must be able to craft believable characters that audiences can sympathize with as well as build suspense through cleverly crafted plots.

An Example of Master Horror Fiction: Poe

Edgar Allan Poe's story “The Tell Tale Heart” is a story most of us read in school. If you haven't read it or you need a refresher, read it for free on Guttenberg .

“The Tell Tale Heart”   is narrated by an unreliable, unnamed narrator who is confessing to a murder, while simultaneously trying to prove he's not insane. He's killed an old man, whom he supposedly loved, because the man's eye creeped him out. The police show up, and he's calm and collected until he thinks he can hear the old man's heart beating under the floor boards. The beating gets louder until the man confesses to the police, begging them to make the noise stop.

This story packs all the elements of horror into around 2,000 words. The unreliable narrator gives readers a sense of unease and ambiguity throughout the story. Is the man actually mad or is there something supernatural happening?

We have fear, both from the narrator (that creepy eye) and from the old man, who is blind and suspects someone is watching him. We have a murder with dismemberment. We have isolation, as the old man is alone, but the narrator also complains of being scared in the dark night by himself.

Most of all, though, we are on the life vs. fate worse than death scale. The narrator is scared of being seen as insane, which is worse than death for him and is the cause of his confession. He still ends up arrested for the murder, though, which is also a fate worse than death.

What Makes a Good Horror Story?

What makes a good horror story is the ability to tap into our deepest fears and deliver them in a captivating way. Even if you don't consider yourself a horror writer, practicing a few short stories in this genre can help you understand human fear and the way it motivates action.

Setting and atmosphere

A good horror story should start off slow, introducing the characters and setting of the story before slowly building up tension as the horror begins to unfold. The setting of horror stories is often mundane and familiar initially—a summer camp, a basement, a house—but turns sinister as the story progresses.

The more the reader or audience can relate to the setting, the scarier it will be when the protagonist encounters anything spooky. Use sensory details to build the atmosphere. Old houses or rundown buildings and impending bad weather are common in horror stories.

• Bram Stoker's Dracula begins with Jonathan Harker arriving at Dracula's castle, which is isolated, rundown, and surrounded by fog.
• Movies like  The Conjuring  and  Poltergeist  (and a ton of others) start by a family moving into a new house.
• Midsommar begins in a seemingly idyllic community.
• A lot of horror—like The Shining— uses an impending storm to indicate coming doom. The crescendo of the storm culminates in the climax.

Believable character

Characters should be relatable and sympathetic so that readers can connect with them on an emotional level. Readers need to care about what happens to them in order for the horror to be effective. Develop their backstories and motivations, so that when terrible things happen to them, it feels like a genuine tragedy.

• The Mist by Stephen King opens with a man cleaning up his property after a weird storm. We're introduced to the entire family and a neighbor and have a chance to learn the dynamics there before any of the true action happens.
• Danny in  The Shining is a rather lonely little boy who has an alcoholic for a father. The reader can't help but want to protect him. His mother is hoping the move to the Overlook will cure their family. This broken family makes Jack's devolution more horrifying and tragic.

Fleshed out antagonist

The antagonist should be well-crafted and have both human qualities and monstrous ones; this will help create a sense of dread in readers as they don’t know what to expect from the villain. Ensure that your antagonist is well-rounded and has their/its own motivations, even if that motivation is something as simple as eating or breeding.

• The antagonist in the movie Species  starts off as an alien-human hybrid lab experiment. Her core motivation is procreation and because of how she was treated by her captors in her backstory, any human sympathy she might have had is nullified in her quest.
• In  The Creature from the Black Lagoon , Gillman just wants people to leave his territory and to be left alone (preferably with Kay, who he's rather smitten with).
• In Stephen King's  Misery , Annie Wilkes wants to save her favorite author (and maybe keep him around a bit longer than necessary initially), then desperately wants to save her beloved book series.
• Hannibal Lector is a culturally refined, brilliant, manipulative cannibal who held a prestigious place in his profession and prefers to eat the rude. In later stories, we discover he was traumatized as a child.

Foreshadowing

Use subtle hints or clues that something scary is about to happen. Foreshadowing can create a sense of anticipation and dread in the audience. Some common elements of foreshadowing in horror include: mysteriously locked doors, getting a chill for seemingly no reason, something being where a character didn't think they left it, hearing a strange noise, being warned off by the locals, or learning early on of a historic tragic event.

• In  The Shining , we're told if there's a snowstorm no one would be able to get to the hotel. Jack is also warned by the hotel owner that the former caretaker killed his family before taking his own life.
• In  The Haunting of Hill House , Eleanor receives warnings in the form of signs reading “Dare” and “Evil” and someone telling her she will be sorry the gate was ever opened. (In the Netflix series based on this book, there are ghosts hidden in corners and out of focus in many scenes.)

No help in sight

As your story progresses, your characters can't simply call the police or go to a neighbor for help. If that were the case, the horror would be over in a few minutes and the story would end. It should look increasingly doubtful that your characters will escape their situation. Isolation—physical or psychological/emotional—is a common way to achieve this.

• Nick Cutter's The Troop places a boy scout troop on a remote island with only one adult. When the adult is removed from the storyline, the boys are left on their own to battle a parasitic outbreak.
• Stephen King's The Shining takes place at a remote hotel during the offseason and gets worse when a blizzard traps the Torrances.
• Most R.L. Stine books feature children who aren't physically isolated from others, but the adults don't believe them and therefore aren't going to help.
• Zoje Stage's Baby Teeth features parents who can't control their nightmare child. The help they do receive doesn't work.
• In  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , any hope of help is dashed as the main character slowly realizes everyone in town is the enemy.

Deeper themes and ideas

Horror can be a powerful tool for exploring deeper themes and ideas. Use your writing to explore issues like mortality, identity, and the human condition. Don't just rely on jump scares and gore, but instead use horror to tell a compelling story with something to say.

• Most vampire stories are about addiction and/or the rich literally sucking the life out of the poor.
• The 2022 movie  Smile  is about the “contagious” nature of trauma and generational trauma.
• Stories like The Blob ,  Resident Evil ,  Frankenstein , and Mira Grant's Parasitology   series warn about science gone wrong.

Effective pacing

Effective horror requires careful pacing. You don't want to reveal too much too soon, but you also don't want to drag things out for too long. Use pacing to build tension and create a sense of urgency.

Keep your readers guessing and eager to find out what happens next. But don't exhaust them; every scene shouldn't be one of terror. In fact, the jump scares and ghost sightings aren't how you scare your readers. The more important part of horror is when you slow down and give your reader room to explore and get comfortable. Then you pull out the monster.

• A man runs in and says someone disappeared in the mist. (Faster.)
• Everyone agrees to stay put for a while. Things calm for a moment. (Slower.)
• Then they go to the back to fix something, and a man is pulled away by giant tentacles. (Faster.)
• When they tell everyone what happened there are a multitude of reactions, but the point is there is no immediate threat for a while from the monsters. (Slower.)
• Someone decides to lead a group of people outside and they are killed quickly. (Faster.) etc.

See how we're not seeing the monsters every scene? This gives us as readers (and the characters) time to imagine what the monsters look like, what their motivations are, and to try to come up with a way out. These slower scenes also give us time for some other elements of story, like backstory, tension, and subplots.

Twists, shocks, ambiguity, and everlasting evil

A good horror story should either end with an unexpected plot twist or shock that will leave readers stunned yet satisfied or with an ambiguous ending where the reader is left unsettled because they aren't positive what happens to the main character.

• In Ania Ahlborn's  The Shuddering , we're left with imagining what happened to the main character and his dog.
• In Dahl's  The Witches , the reader is left with the image of the boy/mouse and his grandmother bouncing around the world eradicating witches. We don't know how long they will live (ambiguity), there are still witches, even if they did defeat the specific antagonists for the book (evil still exists), and the boy remains a mouse (twist and shock).
• Every horror movie in a franchise normally ends with the antagonist making an appearance even though they're supposed to be dead and defeated by the protagonist.
• In Shirley Jackson's  The Lottery , we know exactly what happens, but we have no idea  why this stoning ritual is part of this society. We don't even know when or where this society exists.

How to Write Horror: Lean Into the Fear Factor

Fear is the crucial element in horror story writing. As a genre, horror writing leaves you plenty of room to explore themes and subplots that really dive into the dark fears of your readers—and that creates an emotional experience for your target audience. Even common fears and ordinary situations can turn dark in the hands of a master horror writer.

Dive into your biggest fears to find your best horror ideas. Then share them with us!

Want more horror prompts? Check out our 20 Spine-tingling Horror Story Prompts here.

What fears do you find most compelling in horror? Tell us in the comments .

Today, tap into that story value of life versus a fate worse than death. Set the timer for 15 minutes and make a list of fears you or a potential character might have and then create a scene where they realize their worst fears are coming true.

Share your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop here , and leave feedback for a few other writers. Not a member? Join us here . 

Sarah Gribble

Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She just released Surviving Death , her first novel, and is currently working on her next book.

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Bestselling author with over five years of coaching experience. Sarah Gribble specializes in working with Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Horror, Speculative Fiction, and Thriller books. Sound like a good fit for you?

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• Scriptwriting

How to Write Horror — Horror Writing Tips for Fiction & Film

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S o, you want to learn how to write a good horror story? Whether you want to know how to write a horror movie or how to write a horror book, the four steps outlined in this guide will get you started on the appropriate course of action and help you to align your creative goals. Writing horror isn’t all that different from writing for other genres, but it does require the right mindset and a creepy destination to work towards. Before we jump into the first of our four steps, let’s begin with a primer.

How to write horror

Before you get started.

The steps outlined in this ‘how to write horror’ guide assume that you already have a grasp over the fundamentals of writing. If you do not yet understand the basic mechanics of prose, screenwriting , or storytelling, then you might not get everything you need out of this guide. Luckily, we have a litany of informative resources that can bring you up to speed on everything you need to know.

If you intend to tell the  horror story  you have in mind as a screenplay, then the best way to fast track your screenwriting education might be to read through some of the  best screenwriting books  or to enroll in one of the  best online screenwriting courses .

Our guide to writing great scenes  is another good place to start, and our  glossary of screenwriting vocabulary  is a great resource if you encounter any unfamiliar terminology. When you’re ready to start writing, you can get going for free in  StudioBinder’s screenwriting software .

Now, we’re ready to jump into step one of our how to write horror guide. But, be warned, if you don’t already have a basic story concept in mind, you should consider that Step Zero.

There’s no concrete way to generate story ideas, but you can always look to creative writing prompts  and  indie films to kickstart inspiration .

HOW TO WRITE A HORROR MOVIE

Step 1: research and study.

Writing horror often begins by consuming great horror . We look to the stories of the past when crafting the stories of the present. Someone who has never read a horror novel or seen a horror film is going to have a much harder time writing horror than someone who is a voracious consumer of horror stories. By watching and reading, you can pick up plenty of tips for writing scary stories.

Before writing your opening line, be sure to do your research. It can be worthwhile to explore all manner of horror media. But for the purposes of this step, it’s best to focus in on the type of material you wish to create.

If you want to learn how to write a horror novel, then read as many horror novels as you can get your hands on. Our list of the  greatest horror films  ever made is a good place to conduct your research if you plan to write a horror screenplay. You can also check out our rundown of  underrated horror films for even more research.

Here are tips on how to write horror from the master himself, Stephen King. And, while you're at it, might as well catch up on the best Stephen King movies and TV based on his work!

How to write good horror  •  Stephen King offers horror writing tips

It’s important to go beyond simply reading and watching horror and to begin to analyze the material. Drill down into why certain decisions were made by the writer and try to figure out why certain elements work or don’t work. It can often be worthwhile to explore material you consider bad as well as what you consider good, so you can learn what not to do.

Check out our analysis of Midsommar   below for an example of how you can break down and explore the horror films that inspire you. You can also download the Midsommar script as a PDF to analyze the writing directly. You should check out our Best Horror Scripts post for more iconic script PDFs.

How to Write Horror  •   Read Full Midsommar Script

When consuming material to learn how to write a horror story, pay particular attention to the pacing and structure of the stories you’re inspired by. For example, if the style you find yourself most drawn to is slow-burn horror, then you might want to aim for a much slower pace than average with your story as well, but the build-up will become even more important.

Horror story writing

Step 2: decide your type of horror.

So, you’ve decided you’re writing horror, congratulations, you’ve settled on a genre. Now, it’s time to pick your sub-genre (s) and to decide on the specific avenue of horror to explore. There are many horror sub-genres to choose from. Just take a look at our ultimate guide to movie genres for quick rundown. And, check out the video below to see horror sub-genres ranked.

Ranking subgenres for inspiration  •  Horror story writing

Keep in mind that genres and subgenres can be mixed and matched in a multitude of combinations. For example, The Witch blends together the horror and historical fiction genres. From Dusk Till Dawn fuses action, crime-thriller, and vampire elements. And Shaun of the Dead fuses the horror and comedy genres by way of the zombie subgenre.

Our video essay below offers insights into Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright’s creative process. Check out our ranking of Edgar Wright’s entire filmography if you want even more.

How Edgar Wright writes and directs his movies  •   Subscribe on YouTube

Step Two is also the time to decide on the specific avenue you will exploit when writing horror. By “avenue of horror,” we mean the primary source(s) of tension and scares. Witches? Zombies? Cosmic horror? Body Horror ? Social Horror? These are all different avenues that your horror story can take on, and just like with genres and sub-genres, mixing and matching is encouraged.

A horror story that exploits kills and gore as its avenue of horror will be written in a much different manner than one that focuses on a sense of creeping dread and leaves more to the viewer or reader’s imagination.

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Step 3: Mine your fears and phobias 

You have decided on your genre and your avenue of horror, now it’s time to get more specific and drill deeper. For Step Three, go beyond asking what makes a story scary and instead figure out what makes your story frightening.

Depending on what you chose in Step Two, this might already be baked into your sub-genre and avenue of horror. For example, the home invasion sub-genre by nature mines a very real phobia that many people share.

The best home invasion films

However, if you chose to go with the zombie subgenre for example, you may need to work a little harder to discover what it is about your story that will scare audiences. Zombies on their own certainly hold the potential to be frightening, but audience overexposure to them throughout the years has gone a long way to lessen the scary impact they once had.

For examples of how to do it right, check out our rundown of the best zombie films ever made . And, for a different yet equally effective take on the sub-genre, check out our list of the  best zombie comedies .

How to write a horror story  •  Exploit common phobias

The above video breaks down the statistics surrounding a number of phobias. One common piece of writerly wisdom is “write what you know.” When writing in the horror genre, we can tweak that advice to, “write what scares you.” Mine your own fears and phobias when crafting your horror story; there are sure to be others out there who get creeped out by the same things.

This is also the step where you should try to discover your X-factor. What is it that sets your story apart from similar horror stories? If the answer is “nothing really,” then it might be time to take your concept back to the drawing board.

How to write a horror story

Step 4: keep your audience in mind.

From this point on, you are ready to start writing your horror story. Much of the writing process will be carried out in the same way as you would write a story in any other genre. But there are a few extra considerations. Put all that research you did in step one to work and ensure that your prose or screenwriting is well balanced and doles out the scares at a good pace.

You will want to find a good middle ground between sacrificing story and character development and going too long without something to keep your audience creeped out.

Narrative pacing is important in every genre, but horror writers also need to worry about pacing their scares, similar to how someone writing an action film needs to deliberately pace out their big action sequences.

How to write a horror story  •  Keep pacing in mind

Decide on who your target audience is from the jump and keep them in mind while you write. There can be a significant difference between horror aimed at teens vs. horror aimed at a mature audience. In film, this can mean the difference between shooting for a PG-13 rating instead of an R rating.

In fiction, this decision might manifest as a plan to market directly toward the young-adult crowd. Horror aimed at children, like Frankenweenie or The Nightmare Before Christmas , is drastically different from other types of horror aimed at older audiences.

Use your target audience as a guiding star that informs all of your narrative decisions as you write. Now, it’s time to put everything you just learned about how to write good horror stories to use.

The Greatest Horror Movies Ever Made 

If you are stuck on step one and looking to find some inspiration, our list of the greatest horror films ever made is a great place to look. You are sure to find something to get your creative juices flowing within this lengthy list. Writing great horror starts with consuming great horror, coming up next.

Up Next: Best Horror Movies of All Time →

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How to Write a Horror Story in 12 Steps

Spooky times are on their way! In this post, you’ll learn how to write a horror story in 12 easy steps. From the very beginning to the very end, you’ll be a horror writer in no time. Writing a horror story is easy, provided you know how to do it in the right way.

A horror story is usually about a particular issue or theme. It might be about the horrible nature of life, the evil of humans, or the beast inside us. It might even be about fear, or about the various ways in which we face fear. The one thing that all horror stories have in common is that they are “stories of fear.”

The best horror stories are about fear, whether it’s fear of death, fear of disease, fear of the unknown, fear of loneliness, or fear of pain. The main problem with horror stories is that most people don’t like to be scared. Our minds prefer the familiar, the comfortable, and the easy. So how do we get around that?

The answer is that we have to tap into our inner horror. We have to get inside our minds and into our souls to write about horror. It’s not easy, but it’s not hard either. If you’re willing to put in the effort, you’ll be amazed at the results you can achieve.

10 Tips for Writing Horror Stories

Step 1: brainstorm some ideas, step 2: develop your idea, step 3: make a list of main characters, step 4: develop a horrific setting, step 5: outline the opening paragraph, step 6: plan the major climax, step 7: write a twisted ending , step 8: choose a scary writing style, step 9: write the first draft, step 10: edit and review your draft, step 11: choose a chilling book title , step 12: publish the book, how do you start a horror story, what are the 5 elements of a horror story, what makes a good horror story, how do you write in creepy writing, how do i make my character terrifying.

Before you begin writing a horror story, here are 8 tips to help you create the perfect, chilling tale:

• Make it realistic: Don’t be afraid to make the story feel real and genuine so that the reader doesn‘t get lost in the atmosphere of the book. Try to use real-life situations as the base of the story, and then you can add the gore afterwards.
• Include plot twists: The more twists you can add to the tale, and the more surprises that will occur, the stronger the plot. 
• Avoid stereotypical characters: Just because it’s horror doesn’t mean you have to have a serial or a cannibal in your story. Go beyond the norm with your characters – remember anyone can be a serial killer, especially the least suspected person!
• Pace yourself: Don’t just jump to the scariest moment in the beginning, slowly build up the suspense. Start by giving the reader hints of danger, and then bang when they least suspect bring in the gore.
• Play on common fears: Common fears that people face every day. Such as being alone in the dark, being chased by a monster, having a bad dream, etc. Fears are icky, but they can be made into something interesting if you play with them.
• Choose a writing style: There are many ways to write horror and some people find that they have an easier time in a journalistic style or in 1st person narrative. Think about what you’re most comfortable with and try it out.
• Increase the stakes: The best horror stories involve a sense of fear and dread, so make sure to increase the stakes as you go. If your main character is at a party, maybe there’s something bad lurking in the back room or someone is trying to kill them. Make sure there’s something at stake for your characters and don’t forget to give them something to do besides running away.
• Read popular horror stories: Horror can be a very dark genre, so you might want to check out other scary tales to get inspiration. For instance, Stephen King has written some of the most terrifying stories ever created and you might even learn a few things from them. 
• Pick a horror sub-genre: Horror is very broad and can be done in many different styles and genres. I recommend going for a sub-genre like Gothic Horror, Zombie Horror, or Psychological Horror. You may find that you are more comfortable in one of these areas than in others.
• Be imaginative: Your story should be as unique as possible so use your imagination and go crazy! Do not hold back when it comes to creativity, as this is how true horror is born.

How To Write a Horror Story in 12 Steps

Follow these 12 easy steps to create a spine-chilling story that will leave your readers in awe and fear.

Here’s a simple little trick that we can’t recommend enough: start with writing down all of the words and phrases that come to mind when you think about horror. Horror is much more than just scary stories; it’s about fear. So start thinking about the horror you see around you, and what keeps you up at night. The trick is to get into your mind, even if it doesn’t feel comfortable. Try listing your biggest fears, and all the things that make you feel scared. You can also check out this list of over 110 horror story prompts to get you started.

We also recommend keeping a nightmare journal  – Which is like a dream journal but filled with notes about your nightmares instead. After you had a really scary dream write down everything you remember from that dream. This can include what you saw, heard and felt during the dream. You can then use these notes as a source of inspiration for your horror story. 

Check out these Halloween writing prompts and Halloween picture prompts for more ideas.

What keeps you up at night? The evil monsters in the monsters movies? The epidemic of a deadly virus? A tragic unsolved crime? Whatever your issue is, it can be used to create a horror story that will have your readers sweating bullets. Take your ideas from the previous step and develop them into a truly horrific story idea. Once you have written down the basic idea, try to think about how that idea can be made scarier. 

For example, if you’re writing about a deadly disease, you could use the theme of death to make it scarier. Have the characters die in the story in a mutated sort of way or from some weird side effect that leads to death. There are plenty of ways to make the story more horrible:

• Try thinking about an ordinary situation that everyone goes through and add something horrific to it. The trick to making your story scary is to make it believable. In other words, you want to make your story as true to life as possible.
• Focus on some terrifying emotions, fear being the obvious one. But you can also think about crudeness, disgust, as well as anger, regret, paranoia and shock factor. 
• Add in some unnatural details, such as spaghetti turning into worms or blood coming out of solid, unliving objects.

Write down all of the main characters in the story. If you have more than one, give each character a distinct personality. Make sure that each character has a certain reason for their actions and be sure that they reflect their personality.

Whatever your horror is, you should probably have a main character that will be a part of the story. When you write the story, it’s going to be easier to create a tense atmosphere if you have a character to relate to. Also, you may want to make sure that you have a few supporting characters that you can add to the story. The supporting characters might also become the main characters in any sequels you plan on writing.

The other characters in the story should be the antagonists. These are the evil people or creatures that are keeping you up at night. They might be the killer, the ghost , the werewolf , the zombie, the villain, the monster , the demon, or the bad guy. Whatever the issue is, that’s what the antagonist will be in the story. They might start out as just an ordinary person, but they’ll end up being more evil than the main character.

Check out this guide on character development to help you develop a powerful character.

When writing a horror story, it’s very important that you get the setting right. Think about some scary places that you know of in real life or places that you’ve seen in your nightmares. You could also link your main setting choice to a common fear explored in your story. For example, if the core concept of your horror story is related to the fear of heights, then the main setting may be a high-rise building that’s filled with monsters. 

Other common horror story settings may include a haunted house , a creepy old mansion, graveyards and even quiet suburban towns. Whatever your choice of setting, try to write a detailed description of the main setting in this step. Think about the appearance of the location, the weather, the feeling someone has when standing in this location, as well as what kind of people live here, along with the beliefs they hold.

Interested in creating a whole new world for your horror story? Check this master list of over 100 world-building questions .

The opening paragraph will be the first thing your readers see. It should be a teaser that sets the tone for the story. In other words, the first paragraph should be intriguing enough to make your readers want to keep reading. You should ideally include the main character’s name, the setting, the antagonist, the fear of the story, and the main character’s problem. 

If the story is about a haunted house, then the outline of the opening paragraph could say something like this:

The house is empty. It has been for a long time. It’s been vacant for years and years. It sits in the middle of a quiet, suburban neighbourhood. The grass is green and the trees are tall. The neighbourhood is quiet, but the town is not as quiet as everyone thinks. There are whispers, rumours, and stories. But the truth is, no one has ever seen or heard anything unusual here. Not until Wendy Williams and her daughter moved in. 

During this step, it is important to try to write an opening that gives the reader a taste of the entire story. But of course, don’t give too much away – Just a hint of fear will do! Your goal here is to have the reader wanting more. 

See this list of over 150 story starters to help you get started with your spooky tale.

This step is basically the big bang. It’s where your main character goes head-to-head with the antagonist in the story or has to face their greatest fear. It’s also when your main character learns the truth about the antagonist. The goal of this step is to keep your readers on the edge of their seats. 

When writing the climax, think about what will happen, who will be in danger, and what the outcome will be. If you’re struggling with the climax, then you should start with a smaller problem and work your way up to the big one. For example, you could start with a little bit of trouble with a character, such as a bad dream or the main character getting hurt. This will get your readers involved in the story. You may find that once you start writing, you’ll come up with a more complicated problem that your main character will have to solve.

Here’s an example of what a potential climax scene sounds like in a horror story:

The sound of footsteps is heard coming down the stairs. The footsteps are too heavy, and they seem to be coming from the basement. The door to the basement creaks open. Then a face is seen in the door frame. It’s a face with large, red eyes, and it’s full of hate.

In horror stories, the twist ending is almost always a shock reveal of some kind. Whether the true murderer is revealed, or the identity of the antagonist is revealed, it should always be a surprise. 

There are several ways to write a twist ending, but you’ll probably want to start with a twist that’s a little more obvious. You could reveal who the antagonist really is, or even what the main character has been hiding. Or you could have the main character learn some shocking information that sends them in a completely different direction. 

The unique thing about the horror genre is that even after the mystery or problem is solved, it’s not always 100% solved. There’s always some darkness lurking somewhere. Was he really the murderer? Maybe there’s more than one monster? Give this final hint of darkness to keep your readers second-guessing even after the book is over. Now that’s where the true horror lies!

Of course, horror stories are written in a more darker and dramatic style compared to other genres. But there’s more to horror writing than just using dark words and descriptions of gory scenes. In this step, you want to think about the actual writing of your horror style. Will it be written in the first person, second person or third? Do you want to take a more journalistic approach where you report horrific events? Or will you take a more narrative approach, where the reader is on the outside looking in?

In our opinion, a horror story written in the first person has a much more powerful effect. There’s something about having the perspective of the main character that makes them more vulnerable. There’s also something about being told a story by another character that makes the story more real.

While the third person is great for taking the reader through a story, it doesn’t allow for the depth of emotion that can be found in the first person. If you choose to write in the third person, then you’ll want to stick with the voice of an objective narrator who is reporting on the events of the story. 

Either way, you’ll want to try to avoid too many descriptions of gruesome scenes. You want to keep the focus on your main character’s emotions and how they feel, and their problem. 

Finally, it’s time to start writing your story! Hopefully, after all these steps, you now have a rough outline for your story. But even if you don’t, just start writing! The first draft is usually the most important one. So even if you don’t have a complete outline, get started on your story. Just start writing and don’t worry about anything else! You might also want to read this post on how to outline a book for more guidance.

While writing your draft, you’ll want to keep these things in mind:

• Make sure your story is believable to a certain extent. Of course, you might think that vampires aren’t real – But make them real for your readers! This is the most important thing. If your story is impossible or unbelievable, then no one will want to read it.
• Avoid using clichés. These are words or phrases that are overused in stories and don’t really add anything to your story.
• Use active voice instead of passive voice. Passive voice is when a sentence starts with “someone” or “something”. Active voice is when the sentence starts with “I” or “we”.
• Use short sentences and paragraphs. Long sentences make it difficult to read, and paragraphs look heavy. 
• If you’re struggling to get anything written down, then start with the easiest or shortest scenes first. You can always come back to the more complicated areas of your story later when you’re ready. 

And finally, have fun with it! Writing is supposed to be a fun hobby, so don’t take yourself too seriously! 

The hard part is done, now you’re ready to start editing your story! Start by reading the story to yourself a couple of times. Each time you read your story highlight areas that you are unsure of, or would like to improve. At the same time look out for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and sentences that sound a bit off. Once you’re done with this review, you can go back and make the relevant edits to your story.

Next, you’ll want to gather some feedback. This is where you’ll want to have a second or third person read your story. It’s not a good idea to let one person read your draft, as they’ll be biased towards what they like. So get a few different people to read your story, and make sure they have a different perspective. They can be family members, teachers, or even a friend that’s not familiar with your writing style. 

When asking for feedback, you can ask the following questions:

• What are the most important parts of the story?
• Are there any parts of the story that don’t make sense or are confusing?
• What did you like most about the story?
• Can you think of anything that could be improved?
• Did you like the main character?

Once you have the feedback, you can go back and make the changes. It’s important to make the edits, but don’t obsess over it. In the end, you want to make the story the best that it can be. And by doing this, you’ll be on your way to writing a great horror story! 

It’s time to choose a book title. This is a very important part of a horror story. Not only does a good title help to give your story an identity, but it also helps to tell the reader what kind of story they’re about to read. The title should have a great hook. It should be intriguing and a little bit scary. If you’re struggling to think of a great book title, then you can try to think about what you’d like to read. Would you like to read a book that scares you? Or would you rather read a book that’s about someone’s struggles? 

If we look at some popular horror book titles, we can see that most of them are quite descriptive:

• The Woman in Black
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula
• The Haunting of Aveline Jones
• The Haunting of Hill House
• The Graveyard Book

Essentially, they either describe the antagonist of the story or the main setting in the story. Based on this try to summarise your horror story in as little as 3 to 5 words. Think about the main setting or the main villain/monster of your tale and come up with some book title ideas. If you’re still struggling, check out this horror book title generator for some more interesting ideas. 

An important thing to note here is that you should make sure that your book title is not already in use or taken by another author. Try doing a quick Google search or a search on Amazon to see if your title is available for the taking! 

Your book is now finished! You’ve written the first draft, edited it, gathered feedback, and now it’s time to publish it! There are many ways to publish your book. The most popular method is to publish it on Amazon as a self-published author. You can also work with a professional publisher to get your book to market.

Remember that if you’re a new writer, then it’s not a good idea to start by publishing your book on Amazon. It’s better to start slow and work your way up. You don’t want to rush your writing and end up with a book full of mistakes! Start by publishing your book using a free tool like the Imagine Forest story creator , then later work your way up to publishing on Amazon. 

That’s it! Now you should be ready to write your own horror story! Give it a go and see what you can come up with!

Frequently Asked Questions

There are a number of ways to start writing a horror story:

• Focus on your own fears. Start by listing your fears and develop your story idea from there. 
• Introduce the character. You can describe your main character in the first few scenes. Make them as normal, and relatable as possible
• Describe a setting. If the setting is key to your story, then describe every inch of it. Make your readers feel like they are right there with you. 
• Start with some action. This could be a bloody murder, someone screaming and running or anything else that makes the reader feel uncomfortable.
• Picture a harmonious place. You can describe a calm and happy place. Somewhere taken from a romantic rom-com type story or a happy family movie, which all suddenly changes.
• Start at the end. Rewrite your potential ending as the beginning, and then work your way backwards. 

The 5 elements of horror include Character, Setting, Action, Horror, and Resolution. All these elements are crucial in developing a gruesome horror story.

See our guide on the 5 elements of story-telling for more information.

A good horror story has fear at its core. The reader must be scared as they read the story. If not then you missed something important in your novel. A good horror story must be scary, but it should also have an element of realism to it. The story should include relatable main characters, a scary antagonist, a creepy setting and of course a shocking reveal at the end. 

Your first step is to try to think about the creepiness of the setting. Is it a dark and scary place? Is it full of secrets? If it is, then you have a good place to start. Try to be very detailed, and specific when describing the setting. Describe the blood on the wall as it drips down, or the lock on the door that won’t turn. Make the reader feel as if they are right there. Use descriptive words and metaphors to bring your gory details to life.

To make your character as terrifying as possible, you could try the following techniques:

• Make your character an outcast. They don’t fit in with the main group of characters and can’t be trusted.
• Give them a story to tell. A dark and bloody past.
• Make them a loner. They can’t trust anyone else and have no friends.
• Make them a survivor. The main character of your story has been through a lot and can’t be stopped.
• Give the character an important title. Someone who is important in a society that has deadly plans. You can’t trust them, but have no choice but to follow their rules.

Did you find this guide on how to write a horror story useful? Let us know in the comments below.

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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Our Favorite Essays and Stories About Horror Films

Reading Lists

Make tonight's evil dead marathon more literary with our best writing about the genre.

It’s the spookiest day of the spookiest season, but you already had your party last weekend, and now you have to stay home and either hand out candy to grabby children or turn out all lights visible from the street and pretend you’re not home. What makes a night in both fun and seasonally appropriate? Horror movies, of course! So while you’re waiting for, or hiding from, trick-or-treaters tonight, put on a Nightmare on Elm Street marathon and make your way through some of the best stuff we’ve published about scary films.

“ There’s Nothing Scarier Than a Hungry Woman ” by Laura Maw

Maybe you haven’t noticed this, but horror movies contain a lot of scenes of women eating—and not only eating, but eating voraciously. Laura Maw has noticed, and she thinks she understands. This essay is both a sensitive cultural analysis of a horror movie trope and a beautiful personal narrative of coming to terms with both the threat and the banality of hunger.

As a woman, to say that you have found eating uncomfortable at times is not particularly groundbreaking. The anxiety has become mundane because it is so common for women, but isn’t that in itself noteworthy? Horror invites us to sit with this disgust, this anxiety, to acknowledge our appetite, to refuse to let us suppress it. There is something uncomfortable and enthralling about watching a woman devour what she likes with intent.

“ Horror Lives in the Body ” by Meg Pillow Davis

This Best American Essays notable is about the physical experience of horror—both horror films, and the familiar horrors we encounter in our normal lives, the ways we brush up against mortality and violation and fear. Why do we seek out this physical experience—”the pupil dilation, the quickening heart, the sweat forming on your upper lip and the surface of your palms, and the nearly overwhelming urge to cover your eyes or run from the room”?

If those other viewers are anything like me, they watch horror movies because they recognize the horror, because its familiarity is strange and terrifying and unavoidable. It is the lure of the uncanny filtering into the cracks and crevices of the cinematic landscape and drawing us in.

“ What ‘Halloween’ Taught Me About Queerness ” by Richard Scott Larson

Michael Myers wears a mask to hide his face while he kills—but is that the only mask he wears? Richard Scott Larson talks about watching Halloween obsessively as an adolescent, while he was starting to understand that his own desires were also considered monstrous.

The experience of adolescence as a closeted queer boy is one of constantly attempting to imitate the expression of a desire that you do not feel. Identification with a bogeyman, then, shouldn’t be so surprising when you imagine the bogeyman as unfit for society, his true nature having been rejected and deemed horrific.

“ If My Mother Was the Final Girl ” by Michelle Ross

The “final girl” is the one who’s left standing at the end of the film, the one who survives the carnage. But what do you call someone who’s still standing after childhood trauma? This short story is about horror films, but more than that, it’s about mother-daughter relationships—a deeper and more mundane form of horror than the kind in slasher flicks.

The one thing my mother and I share is a love for slasher films. When the first girl gets hacked up or sawed in half or stabbed in the breast, my mother says, “Now there’s real life for you.” And I glance at her sideways and think, you can say that again.

“ A Love Letter to the Girls Who Die First in Horror Films ” by Lindsay King-Miller

Unlike the “final girl,” the girl who dies first doesn’t have a catchy title. Lindsay King-Miller writes about the lost friend who taught her that we don’t all have it in us to be a final girl—and that we should celebrate the girl who dies first, because she’s not living in fear.

To survive a horror story you have to realize you’re in one. The girl who dies thinks she’s in a different kind of story, one that’s about her and what she wants: to dance, to party, to fuck, to feel good. She thinks she is the subject of this story, the one who watches, desires, sees, the one who acts upon the world. She does not feel the eyes on her, does not know she is being observed, that her fate is not to reshape the world but to be reshaped by it.

“ Nothing Has Prepared Me For The Reality of Womanhood Better Than ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’ ” by Sarah Kurchak

Yes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a cheesy horror-comedy hybrid in which women are menaced and their bodies are treated as set dressing. But so is adolescence. Sarah Kurchak writes about the many ways in which this movie taught her what to expect from the world.

Sure, this was, on many levels, a schlocky B-movie with so many of the expected hallmarks of the time — women in hot pants and peril, over-the-top gore. But it was a schlocky B-movie in which a woman faced men’s threats, both implicit and explicit, and was left breathing but almost unrecognizable at the end of it. That felt familiar.

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Miciah Bay Gault, author of "Goodnight Stranger," on non-belonging and writing the supernatural

Oct 31 - Cameron Finch Read

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When it comes to body horror, "Drag Me To Hell"’s gross camp terrified me more than "Safe"’s pretty restraint

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Home » Blog » 132 Best Horror Writing Prompts and Scary Story Ideas

132 Best Horror Writing Prompts and Scary Story Ideas

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Horror stories send shivers down our spines. They are gruesome, shocking, and chilling. Scary stories are meant to horrify us, and there are many ways to make a powerful impact on the reader. The element of surprise is crucial to make the readers’ blood freeze.

There are different types of horror stories. They often deal with terrible murders, supernatural powers, psychopaths, the frightening human psychology and much more.

Although many horror writing prompts and scary ideas have been written, the following 132 horror writing prompts can spark great creativity in aspiring writers of the horror genre.

• A family is on a camping trip. The parents are walking with their two children, a daughter and a son. The little boy trips and falls into a dark river. His father jumps to rescue him. Somehow the boy manages to swim to the surface. The father is nowhere to be found. When the mother gets a hold of the boy, she can’t recognize him. She tries holding him, but the moment she touches his wet body, her hands start burning.
• A young girl goes missing in a nearby forest. The whole town is searching for her. Her parents find her sitting and smiling in a cave. Her eyes are completely white.
• A woman starts watching a movie late at night. The movie seems all too familiar. Finally, she realizes that it is a movie about her own life and that she might be already dead.
• A house finds a way to kill every visitor on its premises.
• A child makes her own Halloween mask. She glues a lock of her own hair on her mask. The mask comes to life and threatens to take over the girl’s body.
• While digging in her backyard, an old lady discovers an iron chest. She opens it and finds a pile of old photographs of her ancestors. All of them are missing their left eye.
• A priest is trying to punish God for the death of his sister. He is getting ready to burn down the church, when supernatural forces start to torture him.
• Every year a woman goes to the cemetery where her husband is buried, and when she looks at his tombstone, she notices her own name carved in it.
• A woman puts a lipstick on in the bathroom when she hears a demonic voice saying to her: “Can’t you see?”
•  A mysterious child psychiatrist promises parents to cure their children if they give him a vile of their blood.
•  A group of 10 friends decide to rent an old English castle for the weekend. The ghosts are disturbed and seek their pound of flesh.
•  A photographer travels to an Indian reservation for his next project. He starts taking photos, but there are only shadows in the places where people should have been.
•  A young married couple decide to renovate an abandoned psychiatric hospital and turn it into a hotel. Everything is going well until their first guest arrives.
•  Three sisters are reunited for the reading of their grandmother’s will. She has left them a diamond necklace, but they have to fight psychologically and physically for it.
•  An old woman pretends to be lost and asks young women to help her get home. She offers them a cup of tea and drugs them. When the women wake up, they are chained in the basement. The old woman gives them tools and boards, so that they can build their own coffin. If they refuse, she inflicts pain on them.
•  A mysterious stranger with a glass eye and a cane commissions a portrait. When the portrait is finished, the painter turns into stone.
•  A little girl’s sister lives with a monster in the closet. She exits the closet on her sister’s birthday.
•  The demons under the nuclear plant get released after an explosion and start terrorizing the families of people who work at the plant.
•  A woman gets trapped in a parallel universe where every day she dies horribly in different ways.
•  A cannibal hunts for pure children’s hearts hoping they will bring him eternal youth.
•  A politician hides his weird sister in the attic. She’s had her supernatural powers after their family home burned to the ground.
•  A 16-year-old girl wakes up on a stone-cold table surrounded with people in black and white masks. They are chant and start leaning forward. All of them carry carved knives.
•  A boy hears screaming from his parents’ bedroom. He jumps and hides under his bed. Suddenly, everything becomes quiet. A man wearing army boots enters his room. He drags the boy from under the bed and says: “We’ve been searching for you for 200 years.”
• A husband and his wife regain consciousness only to see each other tied to chairs, facing each other. A voice on the radio tells them to kill the other, otherwise, they would kill their children.
•  A mysterious altruist gives a kidney to a young man, who has potential to become a leading neuroscientist. After a year, the altruist kills the young man because he proves to be an unworthy organ recipient. The following year, the mysterious altruist is a bone marrow donor.
•  A group of friends play truth or dare. Suddenly, all the lights go out and in those ten seconds of darkness, one of the group is killed.
•  A young man becomes obsessed with an old man living opposite his building. The young man is convinced that the old man is the embodiment of the devil, and starts planning the murder.
•  Concerned and grieving parents bring their 8-year-old son to a psychiatrist after their daughter’s accident, believing that the boy had something to do with her death.
•  A woman is admitted to a hospital after a car crash. She wakes up after three months in a coma, but when she tries to speak, she can’t utter a sound. When the nurse sees that she is awake, she calls a doctor. The last thing the woman remembers is hearing the doctor say: “Today is your lucky day,” right before four men in black robes take her out.
•  A small-town cop becomes obsessed with a cold case from 1978. Three girls went missing after school, and nobody has seen them since. Then one day, in 2008, three girls with the same names as those in 1978 go missing. The case is reopened.
•  After his parents’ death a cardiologist returns to his small town where everyone seems to lead a perfect life. This causes a disturbance in the idyllic life of the people since none of them has a heart. 
•  A man is kidnapped from his apartment on midnight and brought on a large private estate. He is told that he will be a human pray and that ten hunters with guns will go after him. He is given a 5-minute head start.
•  A strange woman in labor is admitted in the local hospital. Nobody seems to recognize her. She screams in agony. A black smoke fills in the entire hospital. After that, nobody is the same. A dark lord is born.
•  A young girl finds her grandmother’s gold in a chest in the attic, although she isn’t allowed to go there by herself. She touches the gold and she starts seeing horrible visions involving her grandmother when she was younger.
•  An anthropologist studies rituals involving human sacrifice. She slowly begins to accept them as necessary.
•  A family of four moves in an old Victorian home. As they restore it, more and more people die suddenly and violently.
•  An old nurse has lived next door to a family that doesn’t get older. Their son has remained to be a seven-year-old boy.
•  A girl wakes up in her dorm and sees that everybody sleepwalks in the same direction. She acts as if she has the same condition and follows them to an underground black pool where everybody jumps.
•  A bride returns to the same bridge for 50 years waiting for her husband-to-be to get out of the water.
•  An old woman locks girls’ personalities in a forever growing collection of porcelain dolls. Parents of the missing girls are in agony and they finally suspect something. When they tell the police, their claims are instantly dismissed.
•  A chemistry teacher disfigures teenagers who remind him of his childhood bullies. One day, he learns that the new student in his school is the son of his childhood’s archenemy.
•  A girl starts digging tiny holes in her backyard. When her mother asks her what she is doing, the girl answers: “Mr. Phantom told me to bury my dolls tonight. Tomorrow night I am going to bury our dog. And then, you, mother.”
•  Twin brothers were kidnapped and returned the next day. They claim that they can’t remember anything. The following night, twin sisters disappear.
•  A boy has a very realistic dream about an impending doom, but nobody believes him until during a storm all the birds fall dead on the ground.
•  Room 206 is believed to be haunted, so hotel guests never stay in it. One day, an old woman arrives at the hotel and asks for the key to room 206. She says that she was born there.
•  A genius scientist tries to extract his wife’s consciousness from her lifeless body and insert it into an imprisoned woman who looks just like his wife.
•  Two distinguished scientists develop a new type of virus that attacks their brains and turns them into killing machines.
•  A woman steps out of her house only to find four of her neighbors dead at her doorstep. Little does she know that she isn’t supposed to call the police.
•  A bachelor’s party ends with two dead people in the pool. Both of them are missing their eyes.
•  A young woman wearing a black dress is holding a knife in her hand and threatening to kill a frightened man. She is terrified because she does not want to kill anybody, but her body refuses to obey her mind.
•  A strange religious group starts performing a ritual on a playground. The children’s hearts stop beating.
•  A woman discovers that her niece has done some horrible crimes, so she decides to poison her. Both of them take the poison, but only the aunt dies.
•  A man encounters death on his way to work. He can ask three questions before he dies. He makes a quick decision.
•  An older brother kills his baby sister because he wants to be an only child. When he learns that his mother is pregnant again, he decides to punish her.
•  A husband and his wife move to a new apartment. After a week, both of them kill themselves. They leave a note saying: “Never again.”
•  A man is trying to open a time portal so that he could kill his parents before he is ever conceived.
•  A famous conductor imprisons a pianist from the orchestra and makes him play the piano while he tortures other victims, also musicians. Every time the pianist makes a mistake, the conductor cuts of a finger from his victims.
•  A popular French chef is invited by a mysterious Japanese sushi master for dinner. A powerful potion makes the French chef fall asleep. He wakes up horrified to learn that he is kept on a human farm, in a cage.
•  A nuclear blast turns animals into blood-thirsty monsters.
•  A mysterious bug creeps under people’s skins and turns them into the worst version of themselves.
•  A kidnapper makes his victims torture each other for his sheer pleasure.
•  Four friends are invited to spend the afternoon in an escape room. A man’s voice tells them that they have won a prize. They happily accept and enter the escape room. They soon realize that the room was designed to reflect their worst nightmares.
•  Two sisters have been given names from the Book of the Dead. Their fates have been sealed, so when they turn 21, dark forces are sent to bring them to the underground.
•  A mother-to-be starts feeling severe pain in her stomach every time she touches a Bible. Despite the fear for her own life, she starts reading the New Testament out loud.
•  A literature professor discovers an old manuscript in the college library. He opens it in his study and suddenly a black raven flies through the window.
•  You are the Ruler of a dystopian society. You kill every time your control is threatened.
•  You are an intelligent robot who shows no mercy to humanity.
•  You are a promising researcher who discovers that all the notorious dictators have been cloned.
•  A nomad meets a fakir who tells him that he would bring agony to dozens of people unless he kills himself before he transforms into a monster.
•  A most prominent member of a sect goes to animal shelters to find food for the dark forces.
•  A man hires unethical doctors to help him experience clinical death and then bring him back to life after a minute. Little does he know that one minute of death feels like an eternity full of horrors.
•  You travel home to visit your parents for the holidays. Everything seems normal until you realize that demons have taken over their consciousness.
•  A mysterious woman moves into your apartment building. One by one, all of the tenants start hallucinating that monsters chase them and jump into their own deaths.
•  Divorced parents are kidnapped together with their son. Both of the parents have been given poison, but there is only one antidote. The boy needs to decide which parent gets to be saved. He has 30 seconds to make that decision.
•  A patient with a multiple-personality disorder tells you that you are one of six characters.
•  You wake up in bed that is a blood-bath.
•  The Government abducts children with genius IQ and trains them to fight the horrors in Area 51.
•   A woman who has just given birth at her home is told that the baby is predestined to become the leader of the greatest demonic order in the country.
•  A man signs a document with his blood to relinquish his body to a sect.
•  A woman enters a sacred cave in India and disappears for good.
•  A man opens his eyes in the middle of his autopsy while the coroner is holding his heart.
•  You look outside the windows in your house only to see that the view has changed and there is black fog surrounding you.
•  The gargoyles from the Notre Dame have come to life and they start terrorizing Paris.
•  Somebody rings your doorbell. You open the door and a frightened girl with bloody hands is standing at your doorstep. “You’re late,” you reprimand her.
•  You wake up in the middle of the night after a frightful nightmare, so you go to the kitchen to get a glass of water. You turn on the light and a person looking like your identical twin is grinning and pointing a knife at you.
•  A renowned book editor receives a manuscript elegantly written by hand. The title grabs her attention and she continues reading page after page. When she finishes, the manuscript spontaneously starts burning, and the editor is cursed forever.
•  The last thing you remember before losing consciousness is fighting a shady Uber driver.
•  You find yourself in a cage in the middle of a forest and black mythological harpies hovering above the cage.
•  A woman wants to quit smoking, so she visits a therapist who is supposed to help her with the use of hypnosis. She goes under and when she wakes up, she feels like a born killer.
•  Five hikers get stranded during a horrible storm. One of them kills the weakest and starts burning his body.
•  A mother goes in the nursery to check up on the baby and discovers that the baby is missing and, in her place, there is a baby doll.
•  A killer is willing to pay a large sum of money to the family of a volunteering victim. A cancer patient contacts the killer. The killer ends up dead.
•  The sacred river in a remote Asian village fills up with blood. The last time that happened, all the children in the village died.
•  A tall, dark, and handsome stranger invites a blind woman for a romantic date in his botanical garden. The garden is full of black roses in which women’s souls have been trapped. He tells her that she will stay forever with him in his garden.
•  A frightened man is trying to lead a werewolf into a trap and kill him with the last silver bullet.
•  An architect designs houses for the rich and famous. What he doesn’t show them is that he always leaves room for a secret passageway to their bedrooms, where they are the most vulnerable.
•  A man’s DNA was found on a horrible crime scene and he has been charged with murder in the first degree. He adamantly negates any involvement in the crime that has been committed. What he doesn’t know is that he had a twin brother who died at birth.
•  Every passenger on the Orient Express dies in a different, and equally mysterious way.  
•  A magician needs a volunteer from the audience in order to demonstrate a trick involving sawing a person in half. A beautiful woman steps on the stage. The magician makes her fall asleep, and then he performs the trick. In the end, he disappears. People in the audience start panicking when they notice the blood dripping from the table. The magician is nowhere to be found. The woman is dead.
• A mother discovers that her bright son is not human.
• Specters keep terrorizing patients in a psychiatric hospital, but nobody believes them.
• A man’s mind is locked into an immovable body. This person is being tortured by a psychopath who kills his family members in front of him, knowing that he is in agony and can’t do anything to save them.
• A bride-to-be receives a DVD via mail from an unknown sender. She plays the video and disgusted watches a pagan ritual. The people are wearing masks, but she recognizes the voice of her husband-to-be.
• A man turns himself to the police although he hasn’t broken the law. He begs them to put him in prison because he had a premonition that he would become a serial killer.
• Jack the Ripper is actually a woman who brutally kills prostitutes because her own mother was a prostitute.
• A ticking noise wakes her up. It’s a bomb, and she has only four minutes to do something about it.
• After a horrible car crash, a walking skeleton emerges from the explosion.
• A world-famous violinist virtuoso uses music to summon dark forces.
• A philosopher is trying to outwit Death in order to be granted immortality. He doesn’t know that Death already knows the outcome of this conversation.
• A beautiful, but superficial woman promises a demon to give him her virginity in exchange for immortality. Once the demon granted her wish, she refused to fulfill her end of the deal. The demon retaliated by making her immortal, but not eternally youthful.
• A voice starts chanting spells every time somebody wears the gold necklace from Damask.
• Three teenagers beat up a homeless man. The next day all of them go missing.
• Thirteen tourists from Poland visit Trakai Island Castle in Vilnius. Their bodies are found washed up the next morning. They are wearing medieval clothes.
• A group of extremists ambush the vehicle in which a head of a terrorist cell is transported and rescue him. They go after anybody who was involved in his incarceration.
• A hitman is hired to kill a potential heart donor.
• A man is attacked by the neighbor’s dog while trying to bury his wife alive.
• A woman disappears from her home without a trace. He husband reports her missing. The police start to suspect the husband when they retrieve some deleted messages.
• After moving to a new house all the family members have the same nightmares. Slowly they realize that they might be more than nightmares.
• A psychopath is drugging his wife, pushing her to commit a suicide so that he could collect the life insurance.
• A woman loses her eyesight overnight. Instead, she starts having premonitions.
• A vampire prefers albino children.
• A man commits murders at night and relives the agony of his victims during the day.
• A black horse carriage stops in front of your house. A hand wearing a black glove make an inviting gesture. Mesmerized, you decide to enter the carriage.
• Demons rejuvenate by eating kind people’s hearts.
• People are horrified to find all of the graves dug out the morning after Halloween.
• Men start jumping off building and bridges after hearing a mysterious song.
• A voice in your head tells you to stop listening to the other voices. They were not real.
• A severed head is hanging from a bridge with a message written in the victim’s blood.
• A delusional man brings his screaming children to a chasm.
• A 30-year-old woman learns that a baby with the same name as her died at the local hospital 30 years ago.
• A vampire donates his blood so that a child with special brain powers can receive it.
• A teenager is determined to escape his kidnapper by manipulating him into drinking poison. He doesn’t stop there.

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Books You Love

Click if you dare: 100 favorite horror stories.

Petra Mayer

Happy Halloween! A few years ago, we celebrated Frankenstein's 200th birthday by dedicating our summer reader poll to horror stories. We got more than 7,000 nominations and winnowed them down to a list of 100 spine-tingling titles. (Of course, lots has been published since then. After you get through these 100 you can check out this list of chilling and thrilling tales or these witchy books. ) Enjoy!

Who doesn't love a good scary story, something to send a chill across your skin in the middle of summer's heat — or really, any other time? And this year, we're celebrating the 200th birthday of one of the most famous scary stories of all time: Frankenstein.

NPR Reader Poll

It's aliiiiiive this year, our summer reader poll is all about horror.

Summer Horror Poll: Meet Our Expert Panelists!

H. P. Lovecraft And The Shadow Over Horror

A few months ago, we asked you to nominate your favorite horror novels and stories, and then we assembled an expert panel of judges to take your 7,000 nominations and turn them into a final, curated list of 100 spine-tingling favorites for all kinds of readers. Want to scar your children for life? We can help. Want to dig into the dark, slimy roots of horror? We've got you covered.

As with our other reader polls, this isn't meant to be a ranked or comprehensive list — there are a few horror books you won't see on it, despite their popularity — some didn't stand the test of time, some just didn't catch our readers' interest, and in some cases our judges would prefer you see the movie instead . (So no Jaws , sorry.) And there are a few titles that aren't strictly horror, but at least have a toe in the dark water, or are commenting about horrific things, so our judges felt they deserved a place on the list.

Summer Reader Poll 2017: Comics And Graphic Novels

Let's get graphic: 100 favorite comics and graphic novels.

100 Best Books

Happy ever after: 100 swoon-worthy romances.

One thing you won't see on the list is any work from this year's judges, Stephen Graham Jones, Ruthanna Emrys, Tananarive Due and Grady Hendrix. Readers did nominate them, but the judges felt uncomfortable debating the inclusion of their own work — so it's up to me to tell you to find and read their excellent books! I personally, as a gigantic horror wuss, owe a debt of gratitude to this year's judges, particularly Hendrix, for their help writing summaries for all the list entries. I'd be hiding under the bed shuddering without their help.

And a word about Stephen King: Out of almost 7,000 nominations you sent in, 1,023 of them were for the modern master of horror. That's a lot of Stephen King! In past years, we've resisted giving authors more than one slot on the list (though we made an exception for Nora Roberts during the 2015 romance poll — and she's basically the Stephen King of romance.) In the end, we decided that since so much classic horror is in short story format, we would allow authors one novel and one short story if necessary.

So screw your courage to the sticking point, and dive into this year's list! Here are some quick links to make it easier for you to navigate:

Blood Roots , Zombies And Vampires And Werewolves , The Fear In Our Stars , Horrible Homes , Final Girls , Horribly Ever After , Hell Is Other People , Short And Sharp , Scar Your Children , The Kids Aren't All Right .

Blood Roots: Foundational Horror

Frankenstein.

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Mary Shelley's tragically misunderstood monster turns 200 this year, and he is still lurching along, one of the most influential creations ever committed to the page. While reviewers at the time condemned Shelley's "diseased and wandering imagination," her vision of human knowledge and technological advancement outstripping humanity's ability (or inclination) to use that knowledge responsibly still resonates today.

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by Bram Stoker

OK, it wasn't the first vampire novel, but Bram Stoker's most famous work was certainly the first book to pull together all the qualities we now associate with vampires — except the sparkling: Transylvanian, aristocratic, dangerous to young women, so, basically Bela Lugosi (who was actually Hungarian, but oh, that accent). Much like its monstrous companion Frankenstein , Dracula wasn't initially regarded as a classic — but once the film adaptations began to appear, it quickly achieved legendary status.

'Young Goodman Brown'

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story is the ur-American horror tale. Published in 1835, it's short and savage: A young husband travels through the dark woods and stumbles upon a satanic orgy. Everyone he knows is there, including his lovely young wife. Then he wakes up in his own bed. Was it all a dream, or do his neighbors lead secret double lives? Is his wife a blushing bride or an emissary from hell? Modern America still lives in the shadow of these implications.

'The Tell-Tale Heart'

by Edgar Allan Poe

Why do you think I'm mad? I'm just nervous. Nervous, I swear. Look at how calmly I can write up this summary of one of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous stories, about an unnamed narrator recounting how he killed the old man with the "evil eye." It wasn't the man, you see, but his "evil eye"! But what's that noise? Louder! Louder! Louder! It is the beating of his hideous heart!

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," whispers the lovely vampire, "unless it should be with you." Long before Dracula had any brides, Sheridan Le Fanu's deliciously shivery novella gave readers a thrill with its barely-veiled lesbian subtext. Though lesser known than Bram Stoker's work, "Carmilla" was a great influence on Dracula — and a classic in its own right.

'The Turn Of The Screw'

by Henry James

Nobody's entirely sure what evil lurks at the heart of Henry James' seminal story, but we can all agree that it's creepy as heck. Written in the form of a manuscript by a former governess, now dead, it describes her experiences caring for two unfortunate children on a country estate that may or may not be haunted by the ghosts of former estate workers ... who may or may not be communing with or somehow controlling the children. As with several of the stories on this list, readers are left to judge whether the horrors are real or whether our narrator is merely mad.

'The Great God Pan'

by Arthur Machen

Creating a hole in a human head is almost never a good idea, particularly when it's done by a mad scientist who wants to open up the skulls of mankind to the spiritual world. This story of a half-divine woman who inveigles men to their doom shocked critics in its time — and was a major influence on H.P. Lovecraft and authors in his orbit. (And the great god Pan here isn't much like the Pan of Greek myths; he is closer to being one of the Lovecraft-inspired Elder Gods.)

'The Monkey's Paw'

by W. W. Jacobs

That old saying about being careful what you wish for predates W.W. Jacobs' classic spooky story — but there may be no better illustration than this tale of a father, a son and three wishes gone horribly wrong. "'The Monkey's Paw' gets us to do the work of dreaming up the monster on the other side of the door. But it's no less real for that. Really, it's more real, probably," says judge Stephen Graham Jones.

'The Willows'

by Algernon Blackwood

Two friends, never named — though one, we learn, is "devoid of imagination," so remember that as you read — are on a canoe trip down the Danube during its summer floods. This seems foolhardy enough, but then they decide to make camp on an island that turns out to be packed with monstrous, night-walking willow trees who definitely don't want them there. This story was reportedly one of H.P. Lovecraft's favorites, and we can see why.

'The Yellow Wallpaper'

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman drew on her own experience of illness and powerlessness for "The Yellow Wallpaper" — prescribed a "rest cure" for her nerves, she was forbidden to work, to touch pen or pencil, allowed only two hours' intellectual stimulation a day and commanded to live as domestic a life as possible. It nearly broke her, and she later said she wrote this story of a young woman driven mad by a rest cure and some unfortunate wallpaper as a direct message to her doctor.

'Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad'

by M. R. James and Darryl Jones

Between 1904 and 1925, M.R. James, an ascetic British scholar who lived his entire life at boys' schools, either as a student or a professor, turned out four short story collections that transformed ethereal phantoms into hideously corporeal apparitions with too many teeth, too much hair and plenty of soft, spongy skin. His characters merely had to read the wrong book, collect the wrong artifact or bump into the wrong person on the street, and soon one of his creations would be slithering into their safe spaces — their warm bedsheets, their cozy parlor, their beloved study — and enveloping their faces in a soggy, smothering touch.

Zombies And Vampires And Werewolves: Oh My

The werewolf of paris.

by Guy Endore

Kind of a Les Miserables for lycanthropes, Guy Endore's 1933 novel is The Great American Werewolf Novel. A man journeys through 19th century France, seeking to destroy his nephew — whom he suspects of having inherited the family curse — and along the way giving readers a tour of man's appetite for carnage, with stops during the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. What does it matter, Endore asks, if a werewolf kills a few people, in the face of a political system that kills thousands?

I Am Legend

by Richard Matheson

Richard Matheson's novel about the last man left after a plague turns humanity into vampire-zombie hybrids is as much a meditation on loneliness as it is a horror story. (Spoiler alert: Things don't end well for the dog.) I Am Legend was turned into several movies, and it was also a major influence on horror master George Romero, who once said he had taken the idea for Night of the Living Dead from Matheson's novel.

Let The Right One In

by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Sometimes we'll tell you to see the movie and skip the book, but in this case, you should read the book, too. Lonely, bullied Oskar befriends his new neighbor, Eli — who seems to be a 12-year-old girl, but is actually a centuries-old vampire. She has a few other secrets, too, but we'll let you find those out on your own. Let the Right One In is a skillfully spooky mix of horrors supernatural — vampirism — and sadly mundane — alcoholism, bullying and child abuse.

The Vampire Chronicles (First Triology)

by Anne Rice

In 1976, Anne Rice released Interview with the Vampire and no one much cared. In 1985, she released the swaggering, sexy The Vampire Lestat to massive sales, which retroactively turned Interview into a bestseller. What had changed? AIDS. Suddenly, everyone got scared of blood and bodily contact. Rice's sensuous, sexy vampires with their raw desire seemed suddenly so much more dangerous and decadent, like a raised middle finger to condoms and fear. The party continued with the third book, Queen of the Damned , but the series began to stutter after that.

Minion (Vampire Huntress Legend Series)

by L. A. Banks

Author L. A. Banks was a pioneer in black supernatural fiction and horror, says our judge Tananarive Due — and this saga of Damali, a young spoken-word artist who discovers she is part of an ancient struggle between good and evil will appeal to both fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and True Blood . But Banks adds extra layers of African spirituality, mythology and musical knowledge — Damali's guardians and guides travel with her in the guise of her backup band, camouflaging their weapons as instruments.

by Alma Katsu

The real Donner Party apparently wasn't scary enough for Alma Katsu, who recasts the story of the infamously ill-fated pioneers as supernatural horror. We know the Donner Party, trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevadas, turned to cannibalism to survive the winter – but what if there was more to it? What if it wasn't plain old wolves that killed that young boy and stripped his flesh? What if ... something ... is following the wagon train as the snows close in, tempers fray and death circles closer?

Those Across The River

by Christopher Buehlman

World War I veteran Frank finds himself broke and unemployed in the midst of the Great Depression, so he decides to try for a fresh start by moving back the rural Georgia town where his family once owned a plantation and writing a book about the estate and the awful events that happened there. Needless to say, this is a bad idea. Those Across the River is one of many books on this list that dig into the ways that humanity's great evils — war and slavery — can haunt countries and generations.

by Josh Malerman

Something is out there — something you can't see. Something you must not see, because one glimpse will drive you violently insane. In Josh Malerman's near-future apocalypse, it has been five years since "The Problem" began, and only a few survivors are left. One of them is a young woman with two small children in tow, who must get them 20 miles to safety, all while blindfolded to avoid catching sight of the mysterious horrors.

Feed (Newsflesh Series)

by Mira Grant

What if journalism was our last line of defense against a zombie apocalypse? (As a journalist, I ... well, actually no, this book scared the bejesus out of me.) In Mira Grant's zombified world of 2040, humanity is confined to tightly patrolled safe zones and bloggers are their primary source of entertainment and information. Brother and sister team Georgia and Shaun Mason are chronicling a presidential campaign convoy that gets attacked by zombies — leading them to uncover a vast conspiracy to use fear of zombies to force social change.

World War Z

by Max Brooks

Inspired by actual oral histories of World War II, Max Brooks' zombie-apocalypse novel chronicles a world on the brink of collapse after a zombie plague. In Brooks' dystopian vision, corporate malfeasance, government repression and incompetence allow the plague to run wild, eventually leaving just a remnant of humanity left to start planning a D-Day (Z-Day?) style attempt to retake the world from the mindless hunger of the zombies.

The Girl With All The Gifts

by M. R. Carey

Young Melanie — only 10 years old — isn't entirely sure why she needs armed guards or why she is so different from the adults who feed and educate her. And then she gets her first taste of human flesh. Melanie is one of the "hungries," humans infected by the cordyceps fungus (which exists in our world for real, though it mostly attacks insects ), and a lot of the horror in M.R. Carey's novel — apart from all the gooily gross descriptions of the infected — comes from what the few remaining "normal" humans do in the face of a fungal apocalypse.

The Fear In Our Stars: Cosmic Horror And Weird Fiction

'the shadow over innsmouth'.

by H. P. Lovecraft

"Even among unrepentant Lovecraft readers, 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' can start arguments," says judge Ruthanna Emrys, our resident Lovecraft expert. "The Deep Ones, hybrids between humans and their ancient, aquatic brethren, are among Lovecraft's most compelling creations, and it's a rare Lovecraftian anthology that doesn't include a story or five about their amphibious exploits. On the other hand, Lovecraft's terror of Other People is on full display here. Close parallels are drawn between having kids with non-human monsters and having kids with natives of Pacific islands, and there are repeated shudders over Innsmouth folk speaking languages other than English . If you can handle this sort of thing it's an entertaining read; whether you read it or skip it, modern takes like Sonya Taaffe's 'All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts' — also on this list — provide compelling alternatives." Emrys has also written a thoughtful essay for us on how to think about Lovecraft — check it out.

The Ballad Of Black Tom

by Victor Lavalle

Victor LaValle grew up reading H.P. Lovecraft — but when he got older, he began to recognize the racism in those stories he had loved. The Ballad of Black Tom is a powerful response to Lovecraft's racism, taking one of his most hateful stories, "The Horror at Red Hook" and recasting it in the voice of a young black man in 1920s Harlem (and, let's not forget, making a much stronger story out of it). LaValle doesn't look away from this darkness at the root of modern horror — instead, he builds something strange and angry and new on top of it.

The Fisherman

by John Langan

Two men, Abe and Dan, have both lived through terrible losses. They take up fishing together, which sounds perfectly peaceful and soothing — until they decide to look for a fabled fishing spot called Dutchman's Creek, which doesn't exist on any maps. It does appear in legends, though, generally featuring a huge, scary monster — but Abe and Dan press on into the upstate New York wilderness, and untold horrors await.

Laundry Files (Series)

by Charles Stross

Charles Stross' Laundry Files series starts off as half spy-thriller pastiche, half satiric take on the practically-Lovecraftian horrors of office bureaucracy, but it quickly gets into actual horrors like war, fascism, climate change and the inability of humanity to stop metaphorically punching ourselves in the face. "Manages to be both funny and gut-churningly terrifying," says poll judge Ruthanna Emrys.

by Kathe Koja

The first novel for Kathe Koja and the first book published by Dell Abyss, a legendary experimental horror imprint, The Cipher struck like lightning and won the Bram Stoker Award for best novel. A pair of starving artists in a burned-out industrial helltown find a hole in their storage space that swallows anything, and it's not long before someone sticks their hand in — and then things get really weird. A shot fired across the bow of a horror industry that was becoming increasingly misogynistic and conservative, it reminded readers that another early name for horror literature was "the weird."

John Dies At The End

by David Wong

There's a drug, it's called soy sauce, and it lets people see into other dimensions. How long will it take for all hell to break loose? "David Wong is an editor for Cracked.com and his John Dies At the End books (three and counting) deliver the overeducated, undermotivated smarty-pants tone of the best Internet writing, in an anything-goes whirlwind of flying dogs, reality-warping drugs and monsters made out of frozen meat," says judge Grady Hendrix.

At The Mountains Of Madness

by H.P. Lovecraft

"'At the Mountains of Madness' is a classic of cosmic horror and one of Lovecraft's best stories," says judge Ruthanna Emrys. "The terrifying thing isn't meant to be the strange creatures — one hesitates to call them monsters — but the simple fact that all civilizations, all species, fall eventually to entropy. Of course, 'Mountains' inevitably shows off Lovecraft's own well-known prejudices as well, since what actually brings down the ancient civilization of the Elder Things is a slave revolt, with the story squarely on the side of the slaveholders. The definitive abolitionist shoggoth story has yet to be written (though Elizabeth Bear's award-winning 'Shoggoths in Bloom' is an excellent starting point)."

'All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts'

by Sonya Taaffe

What must it be like to know your family will all return to the deep to live forever under the waves in fabled Y'ha-nthlei — and to know that a genetic quirk dooms you forever to dry land? Or worse, to live trapped between wave and shore? Poll judge Ruthanna Emrys calls this story "my single favorite modern deconstruction of Lovecraft. ... Sonya [Taaffe] is among my favorite emerging voices and not nearly enough people have heard of her."

by Junji Ito

A dental technician turned manga artist, Junji Ito is one of horror's singular visionaries. He employs tight, precise draftsmanship to deliver stories that are hard to read, not because they can become grotesque, but because they take ideas (living over a greasy restaurant, falling in love with a house) and pursue them to their logical, and deeply disturbing, ends. While his short stories like "Hanging Balloons" and "Glyceride" are more upsetting than anything else on the market, most people discovered him through his epic, novel-length manga, Uzumaki , about a town where everyone is obsessed with spirals. If you think that sounds harmless, then you don't know Junji Ito.

Communion: A True Story

by Whitley Strieber

"How does a book published as nonfiction sneak onto a list of fiction?" asks judge Stephen Graham Jones. "Easy: Read it all as made up, while also, for the scare, completely and 100 percent (secretly) believing in it, because not believing in this case draws a bull's-eye on your back that can only be seen from the sky." Our judges had a hard time deciding between Communion and Whitley Strieber's equally scary fictional Roswell alien tale Majestic -- so why not read them both?

'The Repairer Of Reputations'

by Robert W. Chambers

Robert W. Chambers' "King in Yellow" stories "are a foundational classic that doesn't get as much attention as Lovecraft for the simple reason that there are only four of them," says our judge Ruthanna Emrys. "This is the best of the lot and a sterling example of a story where the narrative undermines the narrator's prejudices (and eventually everything else he says). It starts with the main character talking approvingly about a rising fascist movement complete with 'suicide chambers' and forced removal of Jews, but quickly becomes obvious that the author is not in sympathy." She also points out that Chambers was one of the first authors to imagine a book (or in this case a play) that harms its readers.

Horrible Homes: Ghosts And Hauntings

The haunting of hill house.

by Shirley Jackson

One of the finest haunted house novels of the 20th century — if not any other century. A scientist convenes a group of four paranormally-experienced people at a mysteeeerious mansion, hoping to find some concrete evidence of the supernatural. What could go wrong? A lot, it turns out, as things begin to go bump in the night, and one of the four, Eleanor Vance, seems fall further and further under the house's evil spell. But are the ghosts real? Or is Eleanor just disturbed? The uncertainty is part of the scare.

The House Next Door

by Anne Rivers Siddons

Anne Rivers Siddons was best known for writing posh fiction about posh Southern people when she turned out this perfect haunted house novel. Taking one part economic anxiety from Robert Marasco's Burnt Offerings , one part emotional unease from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House , and adding her own observations about Southern yuppies, she updated the haunted house formula to include this beautiful, modern home that wages unrelenting psychic warfare against its owners. Everyone has felt, at some point or another, that their house hates them. Siddons' book explains exactly how much.

Burnt Offerings

by Robert Marasco

At first, haunted house books were about intrepid investigators unraveling the secrets of a cursed fixer-upper (see: The Haunting of Hill House ). But Robert Marasco knows what really scares us: Money. Burnt Offerings created the formula of a family getting a fabulous deal on a piece of property they can't possibly afford, then being brutally punished for their sins. In this 1973 novel, Dad tries to drown Junior, Mom becomes an obsessive neat freak and Grandma's health fails, until the only thing they can do is run screaming into the night, losing their entire deposit. Every modern haunted house book about a deal that is too good to be true — from The Amityville Horror to The Shining — has its roots here.

The Shining

by Stephen King

"The Shining is one of those rare novels in which the premise pulls us in immediately," says judge Stephen Graham Jones, "before we're even through listening to the whole sentence: A writer at an empty hotel for the whole winter — and just like that, we're racing down those hallways, throwing balls at the wall, no schedule, a stocked pantry, a typewriter waiting over there and thousands of feet of floor space for us to fill with our imaginations."

House Of Leaves

by Mark Z. Danielewski

Mark Z. Danielewski was weird right from the start , as his debut novel House of Leaves amply proves (even the footnotes have footnotes, and eventually they take on a life of their own). Partly a haunted house story, partly a love story, partly an account of a fictional film, partly a saga of mental illness — and did we mention that it's written in different colors for different concepts and multiple fonts to designate the multiple narrators? -- House of Leaves will rummage around in your mind and leave it ever-so-slightly different afterwards.

The Elementals

by Michael McDowell

Proclaimed "the finest writer of paperback originals in America today" by Stephen King, Michael McDowell spent his career slumming in the low-rent paperback trade — but that didn't keep him from becoming one of the great 20th century chroniclers of Southern life. Rooted in Alabama, McDowell's characters explored haunted houses choked by sand dunes, pierced their dead mother's hearts with ceremonial knives and married into families of amphibious river monsters but remained always recognizably human. Though he is best known for writing the screenplay for Beetlejuice and contributing to the one for The Nightmare Before Christmas , McDowell's books are being rediscovered now by readers who want more humanity with their chills.

The Woman In Black

by Susan Hill

The heir to M.R. James' tradition of quiet, chilly ghost stories, leavened with some of Daphne Du Maurier's keen psychological insight, Susan Hill has spent years tending her small corner of the horror garden. Her 1983 novel, The Woman in Black , is essentially a slim thesis on the return of the repressed, but it has had an enormous impact, spawning a viewer-scarring BBC adaptation in 1989 and a two-person stage play in 1987 that has become one of the longest-running plays in West End history. Reading Susan Hill feels like standing in a dark room and feeling an ice-cold child's hand slip into yours.

by Bret Easton Ellis

A lot of readers voted for Bret Easton Ellis' best-known work, the slasher novel American Psycho. But our judges felt that Lunar Park was a stronger choice."You go into Lunar Park knowing it's a novel," says Stephen Graham Jones, "but then Bret Easton Ellis tricks you into forgetting that, at which point he can set up scare after scare, run you through this navel-gazing haunted house of a life — not necessarily his . But maybe."

The Bone Key

by Sarah Monette

Shy, awkward museum archivist Kyle Murchison Booth gets tangled up with all sorts of supernatural creepies in Sarah Monette's story collection — sometimes literally, as in the case of the demon lover whose touch leaves scars on his skin. In her introduction, Monette says she was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James, but our judge Ruthanna Emrys says that unlike Lovecraft, "Monette makes these into intense character studies where every ghost and monster provides a window into Booth's anxious, lonely psyche."

Wylding Hall

by Elizabeth Hand

A British acid-folk band retreats to a remote old country house for the summer to regroup and write music after one of their singers dies. But ... something ... is there with them. Or maybe it's not? They are, after all, all completely out of their minds on various substances the whole summer. Maybe there's a reason for all those dead birds in the house, for the doors that are locked and then unlocked, for all those odd little details that add up, day after day, reality fracturing a little more — until it breaks.

by Aaron Campbell, Jose Villarrubia, Pornsak Pichetshote and Jeff Powell

It's hard to tell what's scarier in this comic series about a Muslim woman and her multiracial neighbors: the evil spirits that haunt their apartment building or the real-life hatred and xenophobia those spirits feed on. Or the shadowy, scratchy art by Aaron Campbell, which will give you creeps for days.

by Scott Smith

After Scott Smith's debut with a black-as-night best-selling thriller, A Simple Plan , everyone wanted to know he was going to do next. And it turned out that he wanted to do next was write about Yankee tourists getting trapped in Mexico by a sentient plant. The Ruins could have become a travelers' advisory on the dangers of Latin American tourism, but instead it's a cautionary tale about the risks of bumbling around foreign countries and assuming their culture and traditions only run as deep as what you see on the manicured grounds of your five-star resort.

Final Girls: Horror By And About Women

by Daphne du Maurier

Published in 1938, Rebecca wasn't just a massive sales success and it wasn't just the basis for a blockbuster 1940 Hitchcock film that won two Oscars — it also inspired a resurgence of gothic romances (those unavoidable books with covers featuring women running from houses) 20 years later. A tour de force of first-person narration, Rebecca sweeps readers into the point of view of a woman who feels so little right to exist that we never even learn her name. In 1960, Ace Books editor Jerry Gross relaunched the gothic romance after spotting his mother reading Rebecca . "They don't write like that anymore," she told him. She was right.

'Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?'

by Joyce Carol Oates

Sulky teenager Connie is tired of being compared to her perfect older sister. She wants to hang around with the older kids; she wants to talk to boys . What she gets is an encounter with one of horror's great monsters — Arnold Friend and his creepy gold car. Joyce Carol Oates has said this story was inspired by a real-life serial killer, but everything beyond that has been debated endlessly — is it a feminist fable? An allegory for the changes America was going through in the 1960s? Both? And what do those numbers on the side of Arnold's car mean?

The Red Tree

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

Sarah Crowe may be a novelist, a storyteller by nature, but she is the most unreliable of unreliable narrators in Caitlin R. Kiernan's dark tale of love, obsession and suicide. Sarah moves into a spooky old house, where she unearths a manuscript written by a former resident about his fixation on the gigantic red oak near the house. The tree seems to be connected to a series of murders and accidents ... but then, Sarah's own sanity is slipping, as reflected in the journal entries that tell her story.

by Robert McCammon

Just a magical girl and her dog ... up against unfathomable evil. Seven years after a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union blows America apart, the country is an unrecognizable hellscape, overrun by competing armies, poisoned by toxic rain and sunk in the permanent gloom of a nuclear winter. Young Swan — along with her dog Killer and her pro-wrestler buddy Josh — must face down the entity known as "Friend" to avert further horrors — and with her power over growing things, restore life on Earth.

'The Screwfly Solution'

by James Tiptree Jr.

This 1977 short story by Alice Sheldon is still scarily relevant today in its depiction of a world devastated by a disease that causes men to murder women, and the religious movement that helps justify the killings. Notably, Sheldon is better known by her pen name, James Tiptree Jr. — her true gender wasn't known until late in her career. And today, the James Tiptree Jr. Award is given for works of sci-fi and fantasy that expand our understanding of gender.

'Left Foot, Right'

by Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson "uses Caribbean mythology to create stories that are as horrific as they are character-driven and fresh," says judge Tananarive Due. And this story of loss and guilt and grief, of sparkly red shoes and a young woman coming to terms with an accident that cost several lives is both. It'll warm your heart at the same time it sends a chill down your spine.

Come Closer

by Sara Gran

Amanda has it all — a great career as an architect; a happy, tidy marriage ... and a strange voice in her head that tells her to shoplift, pick up random men and drop obscene prank documents on her boss's desk. And the dreams — at night, she dreams of a woman with sharp teeth, standing beside a bloody sea. Is this the demon Naamah, who has apparently been visiting Amanda since her childhood? Or is she just losing her mind? (Amanda herself is pretty certain it's a demon.)

by Livia Llewellyn

Perhaps we should put a content warning here: Poll judge Ruthanna Emrys says Livia Llewellyn's work is "occasionally X-rated, with a dash of Y, Z and WTFBBQ." However, she adds, "I'm a hard scare and it scares me." The stories in Furnace are surreal and gorgeously written, shot through with equal parts lust and confusion, dripping with bright blood. Read with care.

Horribly Ever After: Fantasy And Fairy Tale Horror

The bloody chamber.

by Angela Carter

A gallery of darkly glittering fairy tales, Angela Carter's 1979 book takes "Sleeping Beauty," "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Bluebeard" — among others — and mutates them until they're poisonous draughts of sex and death, garnished with baroque curlicues of sadomasochism and cruelty. A decadent, throbbing book in which the Beast licks off Beauty's flesh, the Erl-King is garroted with his own hair, and Little Red Riding Hood is warned about men who are "hairy on the inside" before throwing her clothes in the fire and seducing the wolf, it resulted in Neil Jordan's feverish and ravishing movie, The Company of Wolves .

Through The Woods

by Emily Carroll

Don't step foot in the forest — or if you choose to, read cartoonist Emily Carroll's short story collection first, so you get an idea of what you might be up against. Carroll's illustrations are shiveringly gorgeous, all bloody washes of red and icy blue shadows, spidery black and faint yellow glows in the darkness, woven through with skittering lines of story. "These are tales of strange things that come from or go into the woods — and what they did to people, or had done to them, along the way," says our reviewer Amal El-Mohtar.

by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III and Sam Kieth

Neil Gaiman's chronicle of Death's little brother Dream isn't strictly horror (he is more a mopey goth, annoying and still somehow compelling), but our judges agreed that vast swaths of his realm, the Dreaming, are pretty horrific. And then there is the 1989 story "24 Hours," about a villain who steals an artifact from Dream and uses it to trap a group of people in an all-night diner and torture them — forcing them to confess their sickest secrets, worship him as a god and ultimately kill each other in gruesomely beastly ways. Where's Dream? He shows up at the end and doesn't do much (*shudder*).

Her Body And Other Parties

by Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado's debut story collection is an unsettling mix of ghost stories, campfire tales, the things young girls whisper to scare one another at sleepovers (the woman with the ribbon around her neck, ugh) and even Law & Order reruns. They run the gamut from fairy tale to horror, but all of these stories consider the bodies and experiences of women, the violence visited on them and the ways they respond.

White Is For Witching

by Helen Oyeyemi

Teenage Miranda Silver is tormented by a craving for things that aren't food, like chalk and plastic, and as this early novel by Helen Oyeyemi opens, she is dealing with her mother's death and the malevolent spirits in her house. Lush and incantatory, packed with twins, strange hungers and hauntings, White is for Witching is a cornucopia of creepy scares.

'Goblin Market'

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Oh Laura, oh Lizzie — maybe you should just have stayed home. But who can resist the temptations of "Figs to fill your mouth, Citrons from the South, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye?" And who wouldn't peep at goblin men, no matter how dire the consequences? I'll buy, I'll buy.

Experimental Film

by Gemma Files

There is a line you can draw between the ghosts and spirits of horror and the silver nitrate ghosts that flicker across the frames of early silent films, and Gemma Files makes the connection clear in Experimental Film . Film critic Lois is at a low point in her life when, one night at an experimental film screening, she sees a few fragments of mysterious silent footage featuring a woman in a shimmering dress, moving through fields and speaking to workers; this is Lady Midday, a spirit fading along with her films, who sees in Lois a chance to regain her powers.

Hell Is Other People: Real World Horrors

'the lottery'.

You know this story even if you haven't read it: A seemingly-idyllic New England village gathers for an annual lottery, at which it is gradually revealed that one resident will be stoned to death to ensure a good harvest. Outraged New Yorker readers canceled their subscriptions when "The Lottery" first appeared in 1948, appalled at Shirley Jackson's insinuation that their comfortable lives might be hiding horrors. But some letter writers wondered whether such rituals were real, and if so, where could they be seen?

The Collector

by John Fowles

The horrors in John Fowles' first novel are purely human — it is Fredrick's monstrous desire for and feelings of entitlement toward beautiful art student Miranda Grey that drives the story. Where before he had been happy collecting and immobilizing butterflies, now it's Miranda he must pin down and keep. And how dare she be so ungrateful, so unwilling?

by Dan Simmons

Give this to the Shackleton fan in your life, but then run away quickly. No heartwarming tale of ice-bound persistence here; The Terror takes on Sir John Franklin's ill-fated 1845 expedition in search of the Northwest Passage in which he and both his ships were lost. Franklin's real fate — frozen and starving, locked in the Arctic ice — is awful enough, but Dan Simmons ratchets up the horror with a mystery and a monster that looks like a giant polar bear.

by Dean R. Koontz

Our readers loved Dean Koontz, and our judges agreed that Intensity , his tale of a woman frantically fleeing a murderer, was their choice for the list and a natural fit in this category. There are no evil spirits here, no Elder Gods under the waves — just a tense duet between "homicidal adventurer" Edgler Vess, addicted to the intensity of experiences, and intended victim Chyna Shepherd, who turns the tables on Vess, risking her life to stop him.

The Girl Next Door

by Jack Ketchum

"The Girl Next Door takes us down step after step, until — too late — we realize we're in a small damp cellar, and then it grabs our head, makes us see what is going on over in the corner," says judge Stephen Graham Jones. "Worse, it leaves us there, doesn't allow us any of the usual outs, it makes us accept that this horror is a potential built into ... people? Society? All of us? Hopefully not, but if we don't guard against it, maybe so, too. The Girl Next Door is that guard."

Exquisite Corpse

by Poppy Z. Brite

The big star of the Dell Abyss imprint, Poppy Z. Brite (now Billy Martin) spoke in the language of the marginalized, the forgotten and the lost. Brite's first two novels, Lost Souls and Drawing Blood , were inspirational texts for goth kids, gay kids, lost kids, unwanted kids — basically everyone the Happy Shiny '90s didn't have room for — telling them that no matter what anyone said, they belonged. Exquisite Corpse , on the other hand, was a romance novel about two serial killers so bleak and unforgiving, it almost ended Brite's career.

"Night They Missed the Horror Show"

by Joe R. Lansdale

"Night They Missed the Horror Show" is "a story that doesn't flinch even once," says judge Stephen Graham Jones. "It's a story that looks straight on at terrible things, yeah — but the real power of this story is that it has a clear moral center. It pulls off that impossible trick of getting us to side with people we have no business siding with, and then it punishes us for our complicity, it punishes us for leering, it leaves us feeling dirty and compromised. When horror is really working, it works like this." (And a language warning — there's some ugly stuff here.)

by Dathan Auerbach

What hath the Internet wrought? To find the most original ghost stories these days, you have to dive into the online world of creepypasta: urban legends unleashed by anonymous authors online. Like a nest of squirming eels, these stories mutate, procreate and cross-pollinate with alarming speed and slipperiness, occasionally getting mistaken for reality. Penpal — and its close relative John Dies at the End — capture the spirit of online horror and trap it between two covers. Dathan Auerbach originally posted Penpal in serial form on Reddit's r/nosleep board, and while it loses something in book form, it's still a disconcerting tale about a kid who learns that his childhood may not have happened quite the way he remembers it.

by Joe Hill

Not strictly a vampire story, despite the license-plate pun of the title — but Joe Hill's tale of a child predator who whisks his quarry away to a place called Christmasland where their souls are imprisoned to the tune of sugary Christmas music is still plenty blood-chilling. With its biker heroine with supernatural gifts pursuing her classic-car-driving nemesis through roads real and strange, NOS4A2 is a wild ride.

'Bloodchild'

by Octavia E. Butler

The aliens in Octavia Butler's short story are awful-looking insectoids who implant their eggs in human hosts, but that is actually not what is horrible in "Bloodchild." While there is a touch of body horror in Butler's depiction of male pregnancy, what is scary here is the queasily familial relationship between the alien Tlic and their human hosts. The Tlic see humans affectionately, as big warm convenient animals. And the humans, though troubled, mostly return that affection.

Lord Of The Flies

by William Golding

Keep your vampires, werewolves and haunts — few things are as scary as "the darkness of man's heart." William Golding's tale of tale of castaway boys gone murderously feral has become shorthand for any situation in which people start turning on each other. "What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?" asks the ill-fated Piggy, and it's pretty clear what Golding thinks. Bonus: Stephen King got the name Castle Rock from one of the locations in Lord of the Flies .

The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

Blessed be the fruit ... of Margaret Atwood's horrifically sharp mind. This classic feminist dystopia is prominent in the public mind right now, and not just because it has been made into a TV series. Atwood's book mines true horror from what people do to one another (poor Offred, suffering through the Ceremony every month) — and to themselves. (Who really thinks Serena Joy was happy with her accomplishments?)

by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison's towering and beautifully crafted story concentrates the horrors of slavery into one singular horror — the apparition of Beloved, whose mother Sethe has killed her to spare her from being taken by slave catchers. While slavery has been over for a decade when the book opens, it's as much a specter in Sethe's new home as Beloved is and is destined to haunt and scar lives long after her unquiet spirit disappears. Beloved isn't a horror novel in the strictest sense of the word, but our judges felt it more than deserved a place here.

Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

by Octavia E. Butler, John Jennings and Damian Duffy

Octavia Butler's story of a young woman yanked backwards in time from the 1970s California to the slave quarters of a Maryland plantation is horrifying enough on the printed page, but John Jennings and Damian Duffy's graphic adaptation means you really can't look away. "The graphic novel makes the horror of imagining being whisked back to the slavery era even more visceral," says judge Tananarive Due.

The Devil In America

by Kai Ashante Wilson

"Horror often tries to explain the inexplicable," says judge Tananarive Due, and Kai Ashante Wilson's novelette about the things lost to slavery and hellish destruction of a black town in the years just after Emancipation "is as good an explanation as any for why incidents of mass violence against blacks have peppered our history."

'I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream'

by Harlan Ellison

Lots of movies, books and stories have been built on the premise of an out-of-control artificial intelligence. But except for maybe HAL 9000, none of them are as scary as AM, the supercomputer created by warring nations in Harlan Ellison's horrifying short story. AM abruptly gets tired of the war, ends it by triggering a mass genocide and spends the next century or so working out its hatred of humanity by torturing the last five remaining humans — but not letting them die.

Short And Sharp: Story Anthologies

Books of blood.

by Clive Barker

In 1984, Clive Barker burst onto the scene with one of the most remarkable debuts in horror: three volumes of short stories known as the Books of Blood . It was as if a band you had never heard of released a box set instead of a first album. Never treated with much respect in the United States (his American publisher only printed them in paperback), the stories raised the bar for horror, making it sexier, queerer and more poetic. Ranging from slapstick comedy to gross-out horror to breathtaking surrealism just in the first volume alone, each story is technically perfect and philosophically unnerving.

The October Country: Stories

by Ray Bradbury

Evil babies, mysterious jars, bodies in a lake, strange inheritances, monstrous families — whatever your favorite flavor of horror is, you're likely to find something to your taste in this collection. Ray Bradbury wrote these 19 stories early in his career, but they read like the work of a mature master, gripping and stylish. If you can, find one of the editions that includes the striking, stark-edged illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini; they'll add an extra frisson for your reading pleasure.

The Weird: A Compendium Of Strange And Dark Stories

by Ann Vandermeer and Jeff VanDermeer

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer's massive anthology includes everyone from Franz Kafka to George R.R. Martin — and some of the weirdest stories ever assembled between two covers. It won a World Fantasy Award in 2012, and it's guaranteed to keep you occupied (and thoroughly creeped out) for a good long while. Alternatively, you can use it to squash any pesky monsters under your bed.

The Imago Sequence and Other Stories

by Laird Barron

Tough guys are generally no match for the eldritch horrors of Laird Barron's Imago Sequence — which, if you had to sum it up, you could describe in an extremely reductive manner as H.P. Lovecraft meets Raymond Chandler. Imago Sequence is a great read if mere noir isn't dark enough for you, and it has a peculiar humor all its own — Lovecraft's Great Old Ones become, in Barron's world, crotchety but plenty scary old people.

Alone With the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell, 1961-1991

by Ramsey Campbell

Modern horror's ultimate stylist, Ramsey Campbell started his career as a Lovecraft imitator before going off in his own direction. Specializing in the horror of cities, dirt, squalor and the general mind-shattering everyday degradations of urban life, Campbell creates a world in which there is no difference between our brutalist, lunatic buildings and their brutal and insane inhabitants. Strongest in his short stories, a massive selection of which are collected here, he writes from the point of view that our cities are haunted garbage heaps, and we're all just the ghostly, numb cadavers infesting their derelict ruins

Things We Lost In The Fire

by Mariana Enriquez

Contemporary Argentinian politics provide plenty of horror in Mariana Enriquez' story collection — crime, abandonment, corruption, drugs; Enriquez grew up in Argentina during the country's brutal Dirty War period and draws on it in her writing. But then the horrors begin to creep in from outside the boundaries of our own world — haunted houses, evil rituals, disappearances that seem political but prove ... otherwise. "I guess I've always been a dark child," she told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro. "There's comfort in darkness for me."

The Kids Aren't All Right: Creepy Kids

by Peter Straub

Teenagers Tom and Del are miserable at their extremely grim boarding school — tormented by staff and upperclassmen alike — until a tragic fire halfway through Peter Straub's book leads them to retreat to Del's uncle's spooky house in the Vermont woods (called, of course, Shadowland). Uncle Coleman is a master stage magician and, to put it mildly, not a very nice fellow. And it turns out that the magic he is teaching Tom and Del has much more to it than just stagecraft. Also, at one point the Brothers Grimm appear, making for a truly warped fairy tale of a novel.

A Head Full Of Ghosts

by Paul Tremblay

Old-fashioned and very modern horrors collide, explosively, in Paul Tremblay's novel. As a teenager, Merry Barrett's older sister Marjorie, begins to display signs of mental illness, leading her parents to consult a priest, who recommends exorcism and who brings in a TV production company to make a reality show about the troubled family, with tragic consequences. Years later, Merry begins to dig up the past, leading to what our reviewer Jason Heller calls a "bloodcurdling revelation ... as sickeningly satisfying as it is masterful."

Rosemary's Baby

by Ira Levin

The first horror novel to hit the best-seller list since Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca in 1938, Ira Levin's trim, sleek thriller stapled eyeballs to pages with its passionate commitment to "going ... there." Realizing that the scariest moments in horror happen in the lead-up, rather than the payoff, Levin decided that nothing could be scarier than pregnancy, when your womb is rented to an unseen tenant who turns your body into a life support system for nine months. Throw in what most mothers suspect anyways — that their child is the spawn of Satan — and you've got true horror. Precise, understated and without a single wasted word, director Roman Polanski cemented its legend with his scrupulously faithful blockbuster film adaptation.

The Exorcist

by William Peter Blatty

William Peter Blatty's novel — and William Friedkin's subsequent movie — became a cultural landmark, helping launch the horror revival of the late '60s and early '70s. Rewritten, reinvented, deconstructed and just straight up ripped off numerous times over the years, the original story of a single mother and her daughter possessed by a demon can sometimes edge over into melodrama, but mostly it's a "what happens next?" read that grabs you by the throat with prose as primal and bloody as the King James Bible, forcing you to care about issues of faith and sin as deeply as Blatty did when he wrote it.

"Stephen King is the absolute worst brand-name author," says judge Grady Hendrix. "Open up a John Grisham or Nora Roberts book, and you know you're getting a legal thriller or a romance. But the only thing that ties Stephen King's horror novels, nonfiction, young adult and mysteries together is his name on the cover. True believers became aware of this with 1978's "The Woman in the Room," a story inspired by his mother's death, but it was "The Body" that told everyone else King had more to say than "Boo!" Made into the movie Stand By Me , it's still one of the great American coming-of-age stories." And, says Hendrix, it's got a dead body and the horror of growing up — so it belongs on the list.

'It's A Good Life'

by Jerome Bixby

Dr. Spock's 1946 Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care reassured nervous parents that their children were going to be just fine and that you couldn't hug them or love them too much. But books ranging from William Golding's Lord of the Flies to William March's The Bad Seed reminded us that a child's natural state is evil. Science fiction writer Jerome Bixby delivered the most economical reminder with his 1953 short story "It's a Good Life," since adapted into The Twilight Zone show and movie three times and into one episode of The Simpsons . A young boy gets everything he wants — or else he makes bad things happen with his mind, resulting in a town of helicopter parents who live in mortal terror of denying this little monster anything.

by Thomas Tryon

The dark horse among the trinity of books that kicked off the horror revival of the late '60s and early '70s, The Other will never be as well-known as Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist because it lacks a hit movie version. But just as The Exorcist owned the possession genre and Rosemary spawned a whole brood of satanic pregnancies, The Other gave us a graduating class of homicidal children and evil twins. The story of identical twins living on an idyllic farm, it slowly descends into madness involving drowned babies and hidden pitchforks. Possessing an M. Night Shyamalan-worthy twist and told in dense, poetic language, it's a hammer wrapped in velvet.

by Nick Cutter

When you think of Canada's idyllic Prince Edward Island, you think of Anne of Green Gables , right? Not for long. The Troop brings that old urban legend about tapeworm diet pills to body-horrific life in a story about a group of PEI Scouts whose camping trip on a nearby island is rudely interrupted by an emaciated stranger ... and the genetically-engineered parasite he carries. Trapped on the island after the parasite takes their scoutmaster, the boys must survive however they can.

by Ken Greenhall

Written under the pen name Jessica Hamilton, this is a classic tale of a sociopathic young girl with powers far beyond the natural. Elizabeth – perceptive, detached, ruthless – becomes obsessed with an apparition in an antique mirror, a beautiful woman who says she is a distant relative – and after Elizabeth gets through with her murderous agenda, pretty much her only relative. Stylish and nasty, Elizabeth will make you look twice at any mirrors you may pass.

Please, Momma

by Chesya Burke

Grief and loss are truly, gruesomely haunting in Chesya Burke's short story about a mother unable to let go of her ghostly daughter and a daughter desperate to save her mother from the horrors she has brought on herself. Burke makes the pain of loss physical and malevolent, and her writing feels like riding in a car at night, watching strange things flicker at the side of the road. (Image: Getty/Chirag Rai/EyeEm)

Scar Your Children: Horror For Beginners

Scary stories to tell in the dark.

by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell

The book that named this category — a generation of children were scarred by Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark . Not so much because of Alvin Schwartz's stories themselves, which are certainly creepy but nothing to look under the bed about. No, it's Stephen Gammell's "ugh get it off me" illustrations, in all their skin-crawling scribbly watercolor blot glory, that haunt everyone who ever found this in their school library as a kid. They reissued this with updated, cutesified illustrations a few years ago — SACRILEGE. Gammell or get out.

Goosebumps (Series)

by R. L. Stine

If you were a kid in the '90s, chances are you read at least one volume of R.L. Stine's long-running and immensely popular Goosebumps series. Not, perhaps, the scariest books on this list — Stine has frequently said he avoids real terror — they're still a great way to warp budding young readers into a lifelong love of horror. (Also, Slappy the Dummy was extremely creepy, I don't care what you say.)

by Daniel Kraus

Daniel Kraus' book pays lip service to the hoary old story of a young boy who loses his mother and is sent to live, and bond with, his estranged dad. Only this time out, Dad is a squatter who lives in filth, and he and his son bond over his job: grave robbing. Learning the best ways to yank gold fillings out of corpses and how to remove their rings, the two learn to love and appreciate each other while going facedown into rat nests and cracking open coffins full of liquefying corpse-meat. Taking every societal norm — cleanliness, honesty, not desecrating the dead — and setting it on fire, this is literally the most anti-social book ever written.

The Jumbies/Rise Of The Jumbies

by Tracey Baptiste

Young Corinne La Mer doesn't believe in Jumbies at first ... but that isn't stopping them from trying to take over first her family and then her entire island. Author Tracey Baptiste draws on her own Trinidadian heritage for this darkly fantastical duology that mixes mythology, folklore and the real-world horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. "I felt giving [children] this kind of story where something horrible happened, but something beautiful resulted from it, would be some small amount of comfort," Baptiste told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro .

The House With A Clock In Its Walls

by John Bellairs

Trafficking in the kind of American Gothic perfected by Ray Bradbury, John Bellairs' three books set in the fictional Michigan town of New Zebedee are lonely and charming and shot through with a sense of creeping damp and creeping doom. Sort of a Harry Potter for less sporty boys, they star chubby Lewis Barnavelt, who has been banished to live with his Uncle Jonathan after his parents die in a car wreck. The good news: Uncle Jonathan is a wizard. The bad news: Living with him means that Lewis will probably die. Simultaneously comforting and creepy, the New Zebedee books, with their scratchy illustrations by Edward Gorey, scarred children throughout the '70s and '80s.

Spirit Hunters

by Ellen Oh

After a series of traumatic events, seventh-grader Harper Raine — half-Korean and half-white — moves to a new house her friends say is haunted. Spoiler alert: It is. An evil spirit gets its hooks into her younger brother, and Harper has to break through to her repressed memories of the trauma in order to free him — with the help of her grandmother's knowledge of Korean tradition. Spirit Hunters is a genuinely scary read, full of ghosts and gore and family trauma.

by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

Neil Gaiman's tale of a young girl who steps through a strange door and finds a magical new family is charming ... at first. But then Coraline realizes her other mother and father aren't going to let her go home. " Coraline is deft and creepy and fun and dark and wrong," says judge Stephen Graham Jones. "It's our knee-jerk fantasy come to life too fast, without us having had time to draw boundaries around what we thought we wanted."

Down A Dark Hall

by Lois Duncan

When 14-year-old Kit arrives at the Blackwood School for Girls (that's not an ominous name at all), she knows right away that there's something dark, something wrong about the strange old house. And that's before she even meets the other three students — and before they discover the strange new talents for painting, math, music and poetry that only come out as they sleep. Down a Dark Hall is a gothic classic, and one of Lois Duncan's best.

When You Write

How to Write Horror Stories: 8 Tips for Writing a Spine-Chilling Horror Story

It’s hard to imagine that people can actually fall in love with a story in which horrific things keep happening to people.

But they do.

Authors like Stephen King have dominated book stores and have seen their stories thrive as movie adaptations in Hollywood.

But to write a horror story that terrorizes and wins the hearts of your readers, you need to get a couple of things right. You must understand that the terror alone won’t save your story; read on to learn about the common subjects in horror stories and how to write scary stories.

Why People Love Reading Horror Fiction

No one enjoys being surrounded by danger, death, terror, and pain. Normally, we are afraid of these things.

So, why do people enjoy stories filled with these things?

Although nobody likes to experience things in a horror story, reading them is different. Horror fiction introduces some sort of a controlled environment for experiencing fear. When we read a horror story in our comfort zone, we experience the element of fear, and at the same time, we feel safe knowing that the horrors happening in the story are not actually happening to us.

This mix leads to an intense but enjoyable experience.

The Horror Subgenres

The subgenre of a horror story determines its tone and atmosphere. When you are aware of the subgenre of your horror story, there are a lot of things that could perfectly go wrong (for your characters) and go right for your readers.

Gross-out horror : This is anything from excess blood oozing from a slit neck, intestines hanging outside, a gouged-out heart, and a lot of other graphic descriptions of gruesome scenes that are solely intended to shock the readers.

Thriller-horror : This subgenre takes advantage of psychological fear and usually occurs before much has happened, around the beginning of horror stories.

Classic horror : In my teenage years, I was in love with characters like Dracula and werewolves. Such characters are found in classic horror which is dominant in Gothic horror, a genre with spooky themes and supernatural happenings.

Terror : According to Stephen King, terror is the worst level of fear. The fear is caused by imagination and the writer has to have mastered the use of persuasive and suggestive writing. The author can suggest the unknown, and the reader’s mind starts to fill in the blanks, and the imagery becomes a terrifying story.

4 Key Elements of a Good Horror Story

A horror story involves the following key elements:

The four major ingredients must be present in any horror story and have to be used efficiently.

Fear is what everyone expects to find in a horror story—and it’s the basic element of a horror story.

However, as I have already iterated, fear on its own is not sufficient.

Your story needs that element of fear to be complemented by the other three : suspense, mystery, or surprise .

A horror story is no good if the scary characters just go about hurting, killing, or scaring the other characters with no mystery behind their existence or their murderous quirks.

And… the readers shouldn’t always anticipate the scary events as that sucks some of the fear out of the readers. When they’re caught off guard, the fear is intense and it makes the horror story more realistic.

If you don’t want to end up with a boring horror story, you need to write a story that invokes the reader’s emotions and engages their mind. A good balance of these four elements will help do just that.

Tips for Writing a Terrifying Horror

1. use your own fears.

You don’t have to be an emotionless badass to write a good horror story. Your own fears can help guide you to write the scariest of things.

Use your fears to write things that people would find spine-chilling and use vivid descriptions—as vivid as the fear in your mind—to increase the scariness of your story.

For example, I’m afraid of blades and heights and if I were to write a horror story based on these feelings, I’d be looking for the scariest things a blade would do, like one character beheading another using a blunt panga and having to repeatedly hack the neck of the victim.

2. Remember the Basics

Horror stories are special, but to you (the writer) they are still like any other story.

The basic elements of a story have to apply to a horror novel or short story—characters have to have goals, there has to be conflict, and all the other elements.

If you let the horror element overtake your storytelling abilities, there’s a 99% chance you have no story at all. So, you need to balance between the drama of horror and the flow of the story.

A great horror storyline, just like that of any story, has the protagonist(s) fears or goals, provide the characters’ motive(s) for their roles, expose the decisions that read to the protagonists’ present situation, consequences of the characters’ actions, and how they are going to overcome the situation or succumb to horrors presented by the antagonist(s).

To write a great horror story, you must supplement the mystery and suspense with some elements like humor or bravery.

3. Avoid Clichés

Clichés surprise the element of surprise from a horror story, and with that gone, the story becomes boring, predictable, and—consequently—not scary.

Basing your horror story on the familiar horror tropes isn’t bad, but… you have to develop a story that takes its own shape.  I always say that only a horror story writer is allowed to kick his readers in the face—when they think they know what is going to happen, give them something they wouldn’t expect.

4. Write longer sentences

I picked this one from our very own R.L. Stine, aka Jovial Bob. He says that by writing longer sentences, you rob the readers of “natural pauses” that periods provide. The longer sentences mean that the readers don’t have time to take a breath, hence they build anticipation for the reader.

This helps the readers feel as tense as the characters and unknowingly get immersed in your horror story. If this is successful, the reader will want to get to the end of the story as they now have some sort of emotional investment in your story.

5. Carefully Choose the POV

The point of view you use might determine the type of emotional connection your readers have with your main character. If you decide to go with the first-person point of view, the stakes are high.

You can use the first-person POV to get the reader hooked right at the beginning of the story and get their hearts pumping faster as if they were inside the story.

However, if you use past tense , then the first person POV kind of reveals that the narrator lived to tell the tale.

If you’re not clever enough, that will ruin all your chances of ending with a dramatic twist because the reader already knows the narrator will survive the ordeals.

You can also utilize the third-person point of view, which works better for lengthier pieces.

6. Manipulate the Settings

You have to set the environment in such a way that your readers can start developing some phobia just from having a vivid image of the environment.

You can vividly describe enclosed spaces to evoke claustrophobic feelings from the reader. In horror movies, a simple creak of an upstairs floorboard in a lonely house is enough to spark fear into the audience. This can also work in a written story, just paint a picture of a dark and ghostly quiet house and suggest to the reader that there are some slow creaking sounds or that the chair on the porch is swaying but there is no one outside.

7. Read and Practice

It’s obvious that some people write better horror stories than others, and it helps to study those authors when learning how to write terror into your own stories.

Stephen King tops the list for most people, you can get one of his books and study how he writes his horror novels.

The goal is not to be a copycat but to get insights into horror story writing techniques.

After studying these best-selling authors, you can start practicing with story prompts. Writing prompts can expand your range of thinking and open up new avenues of imagination that you hadn’t thought of before.

8. Scare Them, Care About Them

You shouldn’t write only to scare your readers, you must write to make fans out of them. To do this, you need to give your character a life that your readers can relate to before you get to the “boo!” part.

And… use simple language and don’t try to be too clever with your jargon.

Spine-Chilling Horror Story Prompts

1. A boy goes missing in the middle of the night and his body is found floating in a river. Five years later, reports of sightings start flowing in, to the disgust of his parents because they want their son to rest in peace. Then all the people that reported seeing the boy begin mysteriously dying one by one.

2. A man makes a deal with the devil to bring back his parents who died in a car accident when he was five years old. The devil appears to have fulfilled his promise, but the parents end up murdering all the people close to the man.

3. A serial killer gets hold of a hacker’s laptop. The hacker had just hacked the security system of a house and the owners had just left for a convention abroad. Their son organizes a house party and invites a dozen of his friends to the party.

4. A man wakes up to find a creature with razor-sharp teeth and bloody claws seated on a chair in a dark corner of the room, waiting for him.

5. A member of a religious group on an excursion discovers that the priest is a murderous werewolf. He tries to secretly warn some members but they also turn out to be werewolves.

6. A boy in a small town accidentally enters a funeral home. While there, he finds two lifeless bodies of his neighbors. When he gets back home, he finds his neighbors sitting on the front porch, their gaze razor-focused on him. 

Ways to End a Horror Story

Evil gets vanquished… but….

Most horror stories that I have read or the movies I have seen don’t just want the villain to go out like sissy: they put up a very scary fight and they finally are conquered (dead and buried) and then there’s something that suggests that they aren’t really dead—their eyes open or hand shoots out of the grave just before the story ends.

Everyone’s dead, there’s total annihilation.

A horror story can also end with everyone dead and everything is destroyed. There isn’t a single surviving soul, but the good side has won. If you look at it from another perspective, this kind of ending also means that evil has won since evil almost always seeks the world’s destruction.

The Protagonist wins but has to sacrifice something

The hero vanquishes the monsters and restores peace and order. But…the hero has sacrificed something or someone. It may be his sanity or someone that he loves.

The hero uses some lesser evil to conquer the ultimate evil

In a desperate attempt to vanquish the evil haunting them, the main character(s) decide(s) to use some evil ways or make a deal with a less malevolent entity to conquer the bigger evil.

All hope is not lost

This is some sort of happy ending, where even though things seem pretty bad (i.e., the hero is hurt pretty bad or is dead), the reader is given some hope of the hero regaining his health or becoming a more powerful spirit after death. The evil is about to be vanquished or brought to justice.

Most Terrifying Horror Books

1. It – Stephen King

2. Pet Sematary – Stephen King

3. The House of Leaves – Mark Danielewski

Advice from Great Horror Writers

When you listen to great authors, you always get a few pointers on how to write spine-chilling and nightmarish horror stories. Here’s some quoted writing advice from accomplished horror authors.

“There’s no formula. I think you have to create a very close point of view. You have to be in the eyes of the narrator. Everything that happens, all the smells, all the sounds; then your reader starts to identify with that character and that’s what makes something really scary.”

“Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost my faith as a Catholic. When I’m writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.”

Stephen King

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. —Stephen King”

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it’s when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it’s when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own has been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there.”

The thing I have learned about writing good horror stories is that you have to trap your readers. Whatever you do, make them feel like they’re part of the story—make them feel the urgency, the blood rush, the terror, and the relief at the end or the scariness of the last “hand popping out of the grave” scene.

And… you can only become a better horror story writer with a lot of practice.

Recommended Reading...

Crafting compelling game stories: a guide to video game writing, how to write a murder mystery: figuring out whodunit, good story starters for your next bestseller, 100 fluff prompts that will inspire creativity.

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The intern, part 2, paradise falls: chapter 24, the door of empathy, writing fantasy: forgotten worldbuilding details, mathura and the taj, history lesson, ten years old, the island flamingo: chapter 31, the two of us, hyperfocus or new career, southern ways – part 8, paradise falls: chapter 23, slow and steady, sweet summertime, a fractal molecule, not privileged, storm drain: a 500 word horror story.

The early summer rainstorm ceased. But, dark clouds remained and hovered above the sparsely populated street. Rainwater trickled into the storm drain below and lured the brown, slimy creature to the surface. Overcast skies and rain-drenched surface created the perfect environment for the underground creature. Conditions were ideal for it to go in search of a meal. It seeped out through a small crevice between the road and the round drain cap.

The sinister blob slithered down the deserted street and headed toward the nearest home. It glided across the dampened pavement with an eerie silence. Driven by hunger, the brown goo then drifted onto the wet grass where it devoured pill bugs and worms. The mysterious mass lacked a mouth, so it absorbed things through its gelatinous skin.

As it neared the solitary house, it sensed large sources of food and quickened its pace. The blob slithered into the backyard, inched its way up the steps, and squeezed through a screen door. Once inside, the creature squirmed into the family room and moved up the backside of the sofa where a male dozed. With stealth and silence, the goo rolled toward him. It slid over the man’s forehead and dove into his opened mouth.

The male bolted awake, and his eyes flew open. He coughed, retched, and struggled to breathe. The man reached up and grabbed at the goo to yank it away, but the creature ingested his hands. Before long, he succumbed to the attack.

The mass then inched its way down the man’s esophagus and into his stomach. After consuming the innards, the slimy creature forced its way out through the abdomen of the lifeless male. It slithered in and out repeatedly until it consumed every bit of flesh, bones, organs, blood, and hair. Evidence of the male’s body was non-existent. Gone—vanished into the belly of the blob.

The creature left the couch and made its way into the kitchen where it detected a female. The mass glided toward her leg and ascended.

She looked down and screamed. The female shook her leg and whacked at the brown goo to free her body from the ghastly creature, but it latched on with unmatched strength. It made its way toward her face, entered her mouth, and rendered her silent.

The slime entered through her eye sockets and consumed her brain, then moved down to ingest her body. A droplet of blood remained on the floor—until the gelatinous creature rolled backward to absorb it.

The slimy creature sensed movement coming from above. It slithered up the refrigerator, toward the family feline.

Fearful of the strange brown blob, the calico cat jumped down and dashed out of the house.

The nefarious creature, satisfied with its consumption of food, rolled down from the appliance. It slithered out of the house and headed back toward its home—the underground. It intended to roam the storm drains, to lie in wait for the next rainstorm and the meal it’d provide.

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Essay on Horror Story

Students are often asked to write an essay on Horror Story in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Horror Story

Introduction.

Horror stories are a genre of fiction that seeks to scare, disturb, or startle its readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror.

Elements of Horror

Key elements include suspense, surprise, and a sense of impending doom. Often, horror stories involve supernatural elements or entities.

Impact on Readers

These stories can have a profound impact on readers, evoking intense emotions and creating memorable experiences.

Despite their frightening nature, horror stories remain popular due to their ability to engage readers’ emotions and imagination in unique ways.

250 Words Essay on Horror Story

The intrigue of horror stories.

Horror stories have always captivated the human imagination. They are a mirror of our primal fears and anxieties, often personified in the form of ghosts, monsters, or uncanny events. The fascination for horror stories is not merely a pursuit of thrill, but a complex interplay of psychology, culture, and narrative techniques.

Psychological Appeal

At the heart of every horror story is the exploration of fear. Sigmund Freud’s concept of ‘the uncanny’ explains our attraction to horror as a confrontation with repressed fears and desires. This exploration of the unknown and the forbidden can be cathartic, allowing us to experience fear in a controlled environment.

Cultural Significance

Horror stories also reflect societal fears and anxieties. For instance, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” mirrors the 19th-century fear of scientific advancement, while George Orwell’s “1984” embodies the dread of totalitarian regimes. Thus, horror stories serve as cultural artifacts, offering insights into the zeitgeist of an era.

Narrative Techniques

The narrative techniques employed in horror stories are designed to evoke fear and suspense. Techniques such as foreshadowing, dramatic irony, and unreliable narrators keep readers on edge, while the use of dark, descriptive language helps create a chilling atmosphere.

In conclusion, horror stories are more than mere tales of terror. They are a reflection of our deepest fears, a commentary on societal anxieties, and a testament to the power of narrative techniques in evoking emotional responses. Their enduring popularity is a testament to their complexity and the human fascination with the macabre.

500 Words Essay on Horror Story

Horror stories have been a part of human culture for centuries, delighting and terrifying audiences in equal measure. They are narratives designed to frighten, cause dread or panic, or invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale. The horror genre taps into the primal fear within us, making us confront the unknown and the terrifying.

The Psychology behind Horror

Horror stories, in their essence, serve as a mirror to our psyche, reflecting our deepest fears and anxieties. They provoke a sense of fear and excitement, a thrilling cocktail of emotions that keep audiences coming back for more. The science of fear explains the allure of horror stories. The adrenaline rush, the heightened senses, and the relief after the threat has passed, all contribute to the addictive nature of horror.

The Evolution of Horror Stories

Horror stories have evolved significantly over the years, keeping pace with societal changes and shifts in what we fear. Early horror stories were often tied to religion, reflecting fears of the supernatural and the afterlife. As society became more secular, the focus shifted to the horrors of the human mind and the terrors of the unknown.

Modern horror stories, such as Stephen King’s works, often blend elements of the supernatural with the psychological, creating a sense of unease that lingers long after the story is over. The horror genre has also expanded into various sub-genres, such as psychological horror, supernatural horror, and body horror, each catering to different fears and anxieties.

The Impact of Horror Stories on Society

Horror stories have a profound impact on society, shaping and reflecting our collective fears. They often serve as social commentaries, highlighting societal issues under the guise of the supernatural or the macabre. The horror genre allows us to confront and discuss topics that might otherwise be considered taboo, such as death, violence, and the darker aspects of human nature.

In conclusion, horror stories are an integral part of our cultural fabric, serving as both entertainment and a means to explore our deepest fears and anxieties. They have evolved with society, reflecting our changing fears and serving as a commentary on societal issues. Despite their often gruesome and terrifying content, horror stories provide a safe space to explore the darker aspects of our psyche, helping us to understand and confront our fears. The enduring popularity of the horror genre is a testament to its ability to tap into our primal fears and its capacity to thrill, terrify, and captivate audiences.

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Short horror story essay 8 Models

Short horror story essay is one of the popular intimidation methods that help parents in correcting children and improving their behavior in many educational aspects.

Through this article, we will provide you with many models that talk about stories of horror and intimidation that may help or influence the behavior of children, show the goals of horror stories, and the extent of the impact of these stories on improving children’s instincts, and strengthening their personality.

Short horror story essay

The school plays an important and significant role in educating children and improving their behaviour. In a similar article that talks about horror stories, the student can learn about the dimensions of these stories, the extent of their impact and why they are used.

The student can talk about his fears and terrifying situations he went through. The teacher can take advantage of these events and try to address these fears by guiding him and talking to him, or by making him research more about the dimensions of the problem and the benefits that he benefited from despite going through a terrifying situation.

At the beginning of the article we will put several points that show the goals that must be present within the topic, and several models will be created using these points inside them, so that the articles are useful for the student in case he wants to present them to the school, or if he wants to know the aspects that he should talk about inside a similar article he talks about the horror stories and the bad situations he was exposed to.

Objectives of the article

1- To obey orders.

2- Giving up bad behavior.

3- Repressing the evil instincts that are inside every human being.

4- Controlling the child in the safety zone next to the parents.

5- Planting correct means and methods through intimidation.

Several years ago, my father told me a story about a boy  who went out without telling his family where he was going. And this was late at night. After he left, he met some children and played a little with them and enjoyed this, but because of the late time these children left him, some of them returned to their home alone, and some of them their families came to to pick them up, and he found himself alone in the end.

He decided to walk around for a while, so that he might encounter other children and continue playing with them. But after walking for a long time, he found that all the streets were empty, and it was dark everywhere, and he could no longer discern where he was, and that he was far from home and lost his way.

And whenever he tried to return from where he came, he found himself in dangerous areas with street dogs, and in order to avoid them, he kept entering other streets, until he lost the way completely. So he sat crying and did not find anyone to bring him home because all the people of the town were asleep.

The time at night was getting hard for this naughty little boy. Every minute that passes feels like it’s a long time and he’s so afraid of darkness and loneliness. And whenever he heard the sound of dogs howling, intensified in crying. And whenever he called his father, he did not come to take him, because he was far from the house and did not tell them that he was going out, and did not tell them where he was going.

Then he learned that he had made a big mistake and that his father would not come to look for him because he thought he was asleep. And he decided to try to call for help and search for any place where there are people and tell them what happened.

And he kept walking in the dark crying for a long time until he found some people, and told them his name, where he lived, and the name of the neighborhood in which he lived. Fortunately for him, they weren’t bad guys, and they brought this guy home.

The father was very angry with him for this behavior and punished him for a week for this behavior. But the boy was happy that he came home and learned the lesson well and knew that this wrong behavior was dangerous and could have lost his family for life.

While hearing this story, I was very afraid and put myself in the place of this boy, and I found myself learning from him what to do. And that I must tell my family where I am going, and watch the time, and take care of myself and not stay away from home. When I finish playing, I go home.

In the early morning, I was very careful to memorize my full name, the name of the neighborhood in which I live, the name of my mother, and the house number.

Although the story was scary for me, I learned a lot from it and had a reaction to every event that takes place in it.

Dear student, a basic form was submitted for the topic on short horror story essay, In addition to many other models such as, horror short story essay, creepy short horror story essay, a short horror story essay, short ghost story essay, short ghost story essay, scary short story essay, scary experience essay.

If you prefer to add any other topic, you can contact us through the comments of this article and we will study your request and add it as soon as possible.

horror short story essay

At the weekend I went on a trip with my friends to the forest. We took camping equipment, some food and water. The weather was nice, the trees were leafy, the birds were flying from tree to tree, the landscape was beautiful.

We wandered in the woods and ate the fruits on the trees, and as we wandered, a huge bear appeared in front of us, looked at us and prepared to attack us.

We were all very terrified, but the instructions reminded us not to run, not to scream, and to act calmly. I took out of my bag a self-defense spray bottle, which should be used in this case. But the bear left quietly and none of us were hurt.

creepy short horror story essay

I get up early and sit in the garden of the house, enjoying the fresh air, listening to the sound of birds, watching beautiful flowers and other beautiful landscapes, but yesterday something terrifying happened to me.

When I sat on the bench in the garden and was enjoying nature I felt something moving under the chair.

I quickly looked under the chair and found a large black snake.

It moves slowly, I felt very terrified and could not move, I remained frozen in my place, the snake crawled slowly and I looked at it with horror, until it moved away several meters, I called the competent authority immediately and a trained man came and caught the snake.

a short horror story essay

Last week I went with my family to the zoo, the weather was nice, and we were enjoying the nature, where there are a lot of green leafy trees and decorated with beautiful flowers and large areas that allow us to run and play, everything was beautiful.

Then we went to the animal cages and watched the animals from a distance.

But there is a person who got very close to the lion’s cage, even though there is a sign on it that says Do not go near the animal cages.

He was not satisfied with that, but he extended his hand into the cage, and the lion grabbed his hand with force, and this person was unable to rid his hand of the lion’s fangs.

The man screamed loudly from the severity of the pain, and the guard came quickly and tried to give the lion a piece of meat to leave the man’s hand, but to no avail.

The veterinarian quickly intervened and gave the lion an anesthetic injection, and the man was able to get his hand out of the cage, but it had many wounds and was taken to the hospital. It was really terrifying moments.

Short ghost story essay

There are many people who feel terrified in the dark, and my brother is very afraid of the dark and feels terrified and imagines frightening things.

So when the electricity went out and the house became dark. I went to his room quietly without feeling, and stood in front of him, making some strange sounds.

My brother jumped quickly and came out of the room saying a ghost of a ghost, but he hit the wall and cut his head and bled a lot, it was a big wound.

At that time I was telling him don’t be afraid, I am your brother, but he was very frightened. I was very sorry for him and regretted that I had caused him to feel terrified and made him crash into the wall.

And I told him I was just trying to joke with you and I wouldn’t do it again but you should train yourself not to be afraid of the dark.

A Short Scary Story Essay

Last weekend I went with my friends on a fishing trip. We chartered a fishing boat with all our fishing gear and went into the sea for a long distance, so that we could see neither the beach nor the city.

We started fishing and we were very happy because there are many fish and they are also big, and the weather was nice.

Suddenly strong winds blew and the waves rose, and the fishing boat was swinging with us over the water, up and down, and we couldn’t control it.

At this time we felt so afraid that we would drown.The fishing boat cannot withstand these bad weather conditions.

But after a while the wind calmed down a bit and we miraculously survived.

Scary short story essay

Last weekend I went with my colleagues on a school trip to one of the archaeological sites, and we had some teachers with us organizing the trip and supervising our transfers.

We entered a museum that houses great antiquities and stood listening to the tour guide talking about the history of these antiquities.

I was fascinated and listened to the tour guide with great interest, so that I did not feel the departure of my colleagues and teachers, as they left the museum and got on the bus and left this place and did not feel my absence.

When I found myself alone in the museum, I felt very afraid and searched for them all over the museum, but I could not find them, so my fear increased and my crying became louder.

Suddenly I found one of the teachers entering the museum and looking for me, so I ran towards him and grabbed his hand and felt safe.

Scary Experience Essay

At the end of the year I had a frightening experience. I went to the beach and decided to snorkel, so I bought wetsuits, put them on, and dived into the sea. But it was not what I expected and almost drowned.

I was so scared when I found myself unable to dive, and could not swim to the top.

It was a difficult situation but one of the lifeguards on the beach saw me, knew I was going to drown and ran to save me.

Therefore, I advise others to learn before we do anything that might endanger our lives.

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5040+ Horror Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest . From hauntings and murderers to terrifying creatures from the deep, our collection of horror stories will have you breaking out in cold sweats. Take a look… if you dare.

🏆 Winning stories

“ the gingerbread cookies ” by aaron chin.

🏆 Winner of Contest #229

The Gingerbread Cookies Let’s go downstairs and bake some cookies, like mother used to make. The warm smell sits right at home in your nostrils, invading them like wild ax-murderers hacking and slashing their way through endless miles of human bodies that stand in the way of their inhumane, carnal desires. Shhh, shhh, but that’s too dark. It’s Christmas after all. So let’s go down...

“ Cerulean ” by AnneMarie Miles

🏆 Winner of Contest #223

The door is cerulean, a bright and vibrant blue, but really it is the color of my sudden uneasiness. The feeling creeps up me slowly, jumps out at me dauntingly, and I am frozen in it. If the door were a mirror – and how I wish it were as innocent as a mirror – I would see my face reflected back to me, and it would tell me to run.I’m not sure what’s more jarring: the fact that this door is a clashing contrast to the rest of the library décor, or the fact that I’ve never noticed the path we took to get here before. I supp...

“ Do Flamethrowers Belong In The Library? ” by Kenz Ross

🏆 Winner of Contest #211

We lose people all the time. It’s just the nature of the job. What can you expect from a place full of nooks and crannies people intentionally go to get lost in? I usually don’t worry when I don’t see someone for a while, but when it’s been days since someone’s checked out, it’s usually a sign that I need to step in. I’m not doing this alone, thankfully. No Librarian i...

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“ the selfie of dorian gray ” by fox ferguson.

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #244

[Content note: substance misuse, suicide, transphobia]Picture this: Dorian Gray, 25, gorgeous bachelor of the Brighton gay scene #handsomeAF #queen #slay. Picture his blazing blue eyes set above aquiline nose and a rosebud pout of a mouth. Cheeks ready to blush under the lick of glitter from a make-up brush. Deep gold locks styled to perfection. Forehead wide and empty as a summer sky #beautynotbrains #imageiseverything #skindeep.Picture this: Dorian perched on the sleek leather and chrome of a barstool in the Poison Ivy, margarita in one ha...

“ Safe and Sound Safe and Sound ” by Katharine Widdows

Trigger warning - psychological abuse.7.15am - go downstairs. Phone fully charged, remove cable. Stare at phone wallpaper – not familiar – photo of huge oak in West Park at end of my street – where Rich proposed. Maybe took it yesterday – maybe not. Not sure. Stare more. Check for messages. Mum, Sarah, Rich. Rich? Not heard from him in ages. Is he ok? Oh, he’s replying to me. I didn’t message him. I must have, yes, look. Asked if he had a good weekend, sent 23.03 yesterday. Was in bed by 10. Must have got up - come downstairs - forgotten. Sl...

“ The Unbecoming of Belinda Blackwell ” by Giulietta Villalobos

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #241

There are few places Belinda Blackwell likes to lay down to rest more than upon her husband’s chest. He hadn’t been expecting her. Belinda hadn’t been expecting to be home so soon, either– what with the unpredictability of her father’s illness demanding open schedules from his children, someone on-call at all times lest the old man die without one of them there to hold his hand. When Oscar had come to join them a week early— something about a case closing timely and a stiffening in his shoulders when Belinda enquired about her sister-in...

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“ angel of the house ” by amanda greystone.

Submitted to Contest #252

Dr. Endicott would’ve had a restful evening if it hadn’t been for a bloodcurdling scream coming from the main corridor.  The noise had startled him and he had spilled his tea as a result.  “Blast!  Now what?”  He was frantically sponging himself as he ran down the hallway. When he reached the source of the commotion, he found two orderlies struggling with a new arrival. “Please!” the disheveled man said as he pulled away from the attendants.  “I’m not mad! I don’t belong here!” Dr. Endicott went over to the orderlies...

“ Cobblestone Symphony ” by Galaxy Grandeur

Sensitive Content: Violence, Physical Abuse, Stalking The cobblestone streets rattled in a quiet symphony under her feet, heels gently clicking with her footsteps. Moonlight lit the roads with a pale glow, the occasional street puddle reflecting the great lunar orb so few bothered to even look up at. It was a well lit night, and yet things still clung to the shadows, trailing in silent undertones behind the symphony. She rounded the corner to find the lively watering hole she frequented in her younger days already bustling, warm glows emitte...

“ Nightime Melodies ” by Michael Mackenzie

The music was the sound of someone dying. That’s what I heard my first night in the new apartment. It was two in the morning and I lay next to a cum stained mattress left by the prior tenants, eleven empty bottles of Modelo that I hated myself for drinking because it worsened by headaches and no one in their early forty’s should drink that much, and a brown bag that held 3 debit cards equaling $300 minus the cost of the two six-packs.              Why that much? Becau...

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Tell me, who do dangerous people target? It’s the people who walk slowly, looking at their feet or looking around at the beauty of the world. Or at least that’s what most of them target, but some ignore how you walk or how you look at the world, for some, there is no rhyme or reason, just bad luck.One day you’re walking home. It’s not yet dark, but the sun is setting. There are a few clouds in the purpling sky, but none are threatening to rain on you. You might have something to protect yourself, on your keychain or in your pocket, but ...

“ Who Watches ” by D R

I haven’t left my apartment in three days. He is still standing out there. The “he” in question has been at it for the past few weeks, though I suspect he has been doing it far longer without my notice.  A few months ago, while walking back from the supermarket in the evening, I felt him. Normally I’m not very self-conscious, but I felt a weird tingling sensation on the back of my neck, like someone was watching me. I quickly glanced back, and he was there. He was about two hundred yards from me, walking in my direction. Although the di...

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Trigger Warning: Violence, Sexual and Physical, Kidnapping, I see him following me. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him. He’s stalking, about 6 feet behind me. I want to run, but I know he’d be able to catch me. He’s been following me for 15 minutes. I won’t call the police because I know he’ll hear me. I’m tempted to call my friends, stay on the phone with them until I’m back in our apartment, but lord knows that wouldn’t stop him. I know Lauren’s tracking my location, watching my little dot ping closer. Keeping my head trained on my...

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In one building, a large one with 100 floors, abandoned, lies a monster. But, this monster was once like you and me. Allow me to set the stage.Our story starts with a man with tan skin and brown hair, a golden watch on his wrist and a plaid shirt. He looked out of his balcony with woe, despite his life. As he looks out at his 5 cars, and beach residence filled with rich and extravagant items, he sighs with heavy shoulders. As he got into his platinum plated car with soft leather for it’s seat, he sobs slightly before speaking. “God, I’m so p...

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Rachel paced the hundred square-foot room; the soles of her feet blistered as the weeping floor boards sent her neighbors into a frenzy.With every bang on the wall, Rachel would shield her head. She removed the sweat weighed shirt and sat on the edge of the creaking bunk bed. Rachel gripped the sheets until her nails pierced her palms. Deep breaths.What is she doing?She’s practicing.Practicing? For what?It’s what she learned in the meeting you idiots.Ah, is it working?Of course not! She craves it! We crave it! WE NEED IT!Rachel stood back to...

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The Best Horror Short Stories

Horror stories. What is it that you think of first? Maybe it’s malevolent, otherworldly spirits. Or perhaps it’s psychopaths, serial killers, and struggling writers driven mad by a deserted hotel? Whatever it is, there’s one thing that unites you and every other horror lover out there — adrenaline. You know the feeling: your skin crawls, your heart pounds, a shiver runs down your spine. And, as all the best horror story writers will tell you, the cause of this feeling isn’t just the presence of a monster, but the creation of suspense. 

That’s where short stories come in. Think Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, H. P. Lovecraft: some of their best horrors take the form of a short story. Tales that climb steadily towards a dark and horrific denouement. The kind of thing that, if you’re brave enough, you’d tell your friends around a campfire — a torch casting spooky shadows on your face. 

Looking for some spine-chilling horror stories?

If you’re into creepy stories that keep you awake at night, then look no further than our collection of short horror stories, compiled from submissions to our weekly writing contest. Here we’ve gathered together all the scary stories that made us want to lock our laptops in a cupboard and hide under the blankets. And at the top of the page, is the cream of the crop: horror stories that have either won our competition or been shortlisted. 

Lots of promising new writers have emerged from this collection, deftly creating atmosphere and building that all-important suspense. So who knows? You might just discover the next Stephen King. And if you enjoy this collection of horror stories, then why not try your hand at writing your own? You could join this week’s short story contest , and walk away with the cash prize — and a shot at publication in Prompted , our new literary magazine!

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Dreadful Dialogues: Crafting Convincing Conversations in Horror Stories

From ancient campfire tales to contemporary horror novels, the chilling power of the spoken word has never lost its grip on our collective fear. In horror stories, dialogues play a pivotal role in shaping the narrative, building suspense, and unmasking the true nature of the characters. They are the undercurrents of dread that sweep readers into the depth of the story, infusing every word with an ominous chill.

In this post, we aim to provide a comprehensive exploration into crafting dialogues that evoke unease, provoke fear, and pull readers deeper into your haunted world. We will dive into the purpose of dialogues in horror writing, discuss techniques to create chilling and meaningful conversations, explore how these conversations can flesh out characters, and underscore the vital role of dialogues in advancing the plot.

The Purpose of Dialogues in Horror Writing

Dialogues in horror writing are not just exchanges of words but a powerful tool with several important functions. Let’s delve into how dialogues contribute to character development, build suspense and tension, and play a pivotal role in advancing the plot.

The Importance of Dialogues in Character Development

In any genre, the words a character speaks give readers insight into their personality, background, and motivations. In horror writing, dialogue plays an even more critical role as it offers glimpses into a character’s fears and vulnerabilities, all while maintaining the dark overtone of the narrative. Characters reveal themselves not just through their actions but also through their dialogues. The way they react to the unknown, their word choice when faced with fear, and even their silences can all provide valuable insights into their character, making them more relatable and their fear more palpable to readers.

Building Suspense and Tension through Dialogues

Horror thrives on suspense and tension, and dialogues are a key way to inject these elements into your story. A whispered secret, an ominous warning, or an interrupted confession can all send chills down a reader’s spine, leaving them anxious about what’s coming next. The conversations between characters can hide clues and riddles, escalating the mystery and anxiety. Also, by exploiting the “unreliable narrator” technique, the dialogue can contribute to the overall uncertainty and suspense of the plot.

The Role of Dialogues in Advancing the Plot Dialogues in horror stories can also be instrumental in pushing the plot forward. They can serve as a vehicle for revealing essential plot points without resorting to a direct narration, maintaining the intrigue and surprise element. Dialogues can also facilitate critical turning points in the story, such as a character’s realization of danger, the discovery of a dark secret, or the unveiling of a twist in the tale. In doing so, conversations serve as a bridge between different scenes or chapters, maintaining the story’s momentum and pacing.

In essence, dialogues in horror stories are far from mere chit-chat; they are purposeful, multi-faceted tools that can make your story come alive with suspense, depth, and a sense of impending dread.

Crafting Chilling and Meaningful Dialogues

Creating convincing conversations in horror stories requires meticulous crafting. Each line must serve a purpose and contribute to the atmosphere, characterization, or plot progression. Here’s how you can weave chilling and meaningful dialogues into your horror narrative.

Techniques for Creating Authentic, Character-Specific Dialogues

Effective dialogue in horror stories begins with understanding your characters deeply. Each character should have a unique voice that reflects their background, personality, and emotional state. A scientist might use precise, logical language, while a child might speak in simple, innocent phrases, and a menacing antagonist might opt for cryptic, unsettling speech. Consider your characters’ age, education, and origins when creating their dialogues. Using character-specific dialogue not only enhances the authenticity but also deepens the readers’ connection with the characters.

Conveying Fear and Suspense through Dialogue

Creating a sense of fear and suspense in dialogues is a delicate art. To convey fear, the dialogue should reflect the character’s emotional state – their shock, disbelief, or dread – while also painting vivid images in the reader’s mind. The use of short, sharp sentences can create a sense of urgency or panic. On the other hand, a slow, drawn-out conversation can build suspense, particularly when combined with evocative descriptions of the characters’ surroundings and reactions.

Use of Subtlety and Implication in Horror Dialogues Horror isn’t about the monstrous creatures that lurk in the dark; it’s about the unknown, the anticipation, the dread. Subtlety is your ally when it comes to crafting dialogues for horror stories. Rather than revealing the threat directly, use dialogues to hint at it, to imply the unseen terror. A whispered warning, a hushed rumor, or a carefully-worded question can sometimes be far scarier than a blatant revelation.

Balancing Between Saying Too Much and Saying Too Little

In horror writing, what is left unsaid can often be just as important as what is spoken. The key is to find the right balance. Saying too much can strip away the mystery and suspense, making the horror feel flat. On the other hand, saying too little can leave readers feeling lost or frustrated. A good strategy is to reveal just enough to keep the story moving and to stoke the readers’ curiosity, but not so much that it dispels the haunting sense of the unknown. Remember, crafting chilling and meaningful dialogues is a nuanced process, one that calls for careful consideration and fine-tuning. But with practice and patience, you can master the art of dreadful dialogues, making your horror stories more captivating and spine-chilling.

Adding Depth to Characters through Dialogues

Dialogues offer a valuable window into a character’s soul, revealing their traits, past, and relationships with others. They also serve as a subtle tool to depict the evolution or degradation of a character over time. Here’s how you can use dialogues to add depth to your characters.

Revealing Character Traits and Backstories through Dialogues

Every spoken word can give readers insights into a character’s mindset, personality, and history. For instance, a character’s dialect might indicate their geographical origin, their choice of words can hint at their education or occupation, and their tone can suggest their emotional state or personality type. Likewise, sprinkling hints about a character’s past within their dialogues can add intrigue and depth to their persona. Just ensure that these revelations feel organic to the conversation and don’t come off as forced exposition.

Using Dialogue to Highlight Character Relationships and Dynamics

The way characters converse with each other can also illuminate their relationships and dynamics. A character might speak with reverence to a respected elder, teasingly to a sibling, or cryptically to a rival. Their dialogues can reveal the power dynamics at play, the level of intimacy, or the hidden tensions between characters. An exchange of words can often be more revealing than any amount of direct narration.

Depicting Character Evolution or Degradation through Changes in Dialogue Over Time

As your horror story progresses, your characters might undergo significant changes – a brave character might be broken by fear, or a timid character might find their courage. These transformations can be subtly reflected in their dialogues. As characters evolve or degrade, their speech patterns, tone, and even vocabulary can change, mirroring their internal journey. This not only adds depth to the character but also enhances the overall impact of the narrative.

Remember, in a genre like horror where fear and suspense cloak every scene, the dialogues can serve as a lighthouse, guiding readers to understand your characters better, empathize with their fears, and get lost in the eerie world you’ve created.

Advancing the Plot via Dialogues

In addition to developing characters and setting the mood, dialogues in horror stories can be a driving force in propelling the plot. Let’s delve into how dialogues can reveal key plot points, foreshadow events, and influence the tension within your story.

Using Dialogues to Reveal Key Plot Points

Dialogues offer an engaging way to unravel the intricacies of the plot. Revealing key plot points through conversations makes the story feel more dynamic and less reliant on heavy narration. It could be a character revealing a dark secret, an overheard conversation hinting at a looming threat, or a confrontation leading to a shocking confession. Revealing plot points through dialogues requires careful crafting, but when done correctly, it can heighten the sense of realism and immediacy in your narrative.

Dialogue-Driven Foreshadowing and Hint-Dropping

Foreshadowing is a powerful technique in horror writing, and dialogues offer a subtle medium to achieve it. By incorporating veiled warnings, enigmatic prophecies, or ominous conversations into your story, you can provide readers with hints about the horrors to come. This not only creates a lingering sense of unease but also keeps readers intrigued and eager to unravel the mystery.

How Conversations Can Escalate or Alleviate Tension in the Plot

Dialogues can also serve as a valuable tool to manipulate the tension within your story. An intense argument or a fearful confession can escalate the suspense, while a moment of humor or a heartening conversation can offer brief respite, amplifying the impact of the next tension-filled scene. Using dialogues to modulate tension helps maintain pacing, ensuring that your horror story keeps readers on edge while also providing moments of relief.

Remember, every conversation in your story is an opportunity to advance the plot, drop clues, and adjust the tension. Using dialogues strategically can not only enhance the flow of your narrative but also deepen the immersive horror experience for your readers.

The Role of Editors in Shaping Dialogues

Behind every effective dialogue in horror stories often stands an editor who has meticulously shaped, polished, and fine-tuned the conversation to hit all the right notes. Let’s explore how professional editing services contribute to enhancing the quality of dialogues and their effectiveness in the narrative.

Enhancing Dialogue Quality with Professional Editing Services

An experienced editor is instrumental in elevating the quality of dialogues. They help with grammar, punctuation, and syntax, ensuring the dialogue reads smoothly and naturally. But their role goes beyond mere proofreading. They scrutinize each line for clarity, brevity, and impact, pruning unnecessary words and enhancing the dialogue’s power to evoke emotions and create suspense.

Maintaining Consistency in Character Voices

Consistency in character voices is vital for authenticity and continuity. Editors play a crucial role in safeguarding this consistency. They keep track of each character’s unique speech patterns, dialect, and vocabulary, ensuring these elements remain constant throughout the narrative. If a shy character suddenly becomes loquacious, or a scholarly character starts using slang, the editor is there to flag the discrepancy and ensure the character’s voice stays true to their personality and background.

Ensuring Dialogues Contribute Effectively to the Narrative

Editors also ensure that every piece of dialogue serves a purpose in the overall narrative. They assess whether the dialogues advance the plot, reveal character traits, build tension, or provide necessary information. If a dialogue doesn’t contribute to the story in some meaningful way, the editor can suggest revisions or cuts to maintain the narrative’s momentum and coherence.

Objectivity in Assessing Dialogue Believability and Natural Flow

An editor’s objectivity is invaluable in assessing the believability and flow of dialogues. As the writer, you might be too close to the work to see when a conversation feels forced or unnatural. An editor provides a fresh, unbiased perspective, identifying areas where the dialogue seems artificial or disjointed. They help ensure that the dialogues feel genuine, maintain a natural flow, and resonate with the readers.

In essence, a professional editor is an indispensable ally in your horror writing journey. Their expertise and objective assessment can help refine your dialogues, ensuring they are as chilling, meaningful, and effective as they can be.

Dialogues in horror stories serve as more than mere exchanges of information. They are powerful tools that can breathe life into your characters, amplify suspense, unveil crucial plot twists, and imbue your narrative with a chilling authenticity. Crafting effective dialogues in horror writing demands careful consideration of each character’s unique voice, the careful balance of revelation and restraint, and the strategic use of conversation to enhance tension and propel the plot.

As we delve into the craft of writing horror stories, it’s clear that dreadful dialogues – chilling and meaningful – can be your ally in creating an immersive and terrifying experience for your readers. And as you wield this potent tool, remember the valuable role an editor can play in shaping your terrifying tale into its most effective form. In the end, the craft of horror writing is a collaborative dance between the writer’s creativity and the editor’s keen judgement, ultimately leaving readers on the edge of their seat, under the spell of your dreadful dialogues.

The post Dreadful Dialogues: Crafting Convincing Conversations in Horror Stories appeared first on The Horror Tree .

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The Big Picture

• Roseanne reflected blue-collar realities - living paycheck-to-paycheck and enjoying simple pleasures.
• Season 9 took a drastic turn, veering away from the show's original essence, ending unsatisfactorily.
• The reboot corrected the course, retconning the original ending, and portraying the Conner family familiarly in 'The Conners.'

The furniture was ugly, the jobs were unglamorous, and there was nothing sexy about the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois. Money wasn’t abundant, often scrambling to make ends meet. Living paycheck-to-paycheck, the blue-collar, middle-American Conner family was just trying to get by with some laughs along the way. Roseanne , in its original nine-season run, showed the realities of what life was like for millions of people who were living on a prayer. They were meager in money and rich in love. The show’s intro has the cast enjoying a meal with each other, happy in spite of not having much. So, it’s surprising then that for a series that exuded so much warmth, its ending felt uncharacteristically cold .

For the first eight seasons of the series, Roseanne was one of the most relatable series to ever be on television. The kids misbehaved, bills were paid late, and jobs were lost. It was a show that broke away from Hollywood’s propensity for sitcoms with financially comfortable families, choosing instead to show the lives many people lead, low-wage jobs and all. And Roseanne ( Roseanne Barr ) was a matriarch whom television hadn’t really encountered before: brash, impatient, and the master of rejoinders. The domestic goddess was the lord of her home. Blue-collar realities were the bedrock of Roseanne ’s storylines — broken dreams, simple pleasures, and generational blueprints followed.

A revival of the popular 1990s sitcom "Roseanne", which centered on the everyday life of an American working-class family.

How Did 'Roseanne' Change in Season 9?

Season 9 was when everything changed for the worse. Veering away from the barely-getting-by ethos that kept the show grounded, the Conners won the lottery in the ninth season . Now, instead of looking over unpaid bills and trying to scrounge something together for dinner, Roseanne was going to exotic spas, saving Hillary Clinton from terrorists on a train, and meeting with the rich elite. It was no longer the same show despite its insistence that money wouldn't change them. Considering that most people in the country weren't wooed by a prince who whisked them away to his palace like Jackie ( Laurie Metcalf ) was, the show no longer reflected the viewers who watched and loved it, seeing themselves in the Conners' daily struggles. Dan ( John Goodman ) has an affair that feels like a betrayal to the series; Roseanne and Dan's good-but-not-perfect marriage is central to the show. His infidelity wasn't the Dan viewers had spent eight seasons rooting for.

The 'Roseanne' Series Finale Ends On a Bleak Note

Considering how far the show had managed to fall off course in just one season, the series finale served as an attempt at realigning it with what made it so loved. In its last episode, everyone is back home from the hospital after Darlene ( Sara Gilbert ) and David ( Johnny Galecki ) nearly lose their premature daughter, Harris. The family and friends are relieved that Harris managed to survive. Darlene and David are living with Roseanne and Dan until they get back up on their feet. Everyone takes turns visiting Harris in her crib; they're shown from Harris's point of view, saying something goofy and well-meaning to her. It's also revealed that Becky ( Sarah Chalke ) and Mark ( Glenn Quinn ) are expecting but decide to keep it a secret for now. Eventually, everyone congregates in the kitchen for the last meal of the series. Roseanne is taking in the perfection of the moment: everyone's happy, enjoying food and each other's company. After a tumultuous season, everything has returned to normal, except that it hasn't. Roseanne begins to narrate while looking around the room full of people.

First, she singles out Leon ( Martin Mull ). She says, "Everyone wonders where creative people get their inspiration. Actually, I've found it's all around you. Take Leon, for instance. Leon is not really as cool as I made him." And with those two words — "made him" — the finale begins to take a drastic turn. She goes on to talk about how she really did introduce Scott ( Fred Willard ) to him in real life and that he was actually a probate lawyer. She concedes that she wasn't very creative with that. At this point, viewers are still wondering what Roseanne is exactly talking about. She then looks at her son DJ ( Michael Fishman ) and narrates about how people think her son is a nerd and that nerds are artists who listen to the beat of their own drum.

Her mother, Bev ( Estelle Parsons ), pops into the picture. Roseanne reveals that her mom isn't actually a lesbian and that she reimagined her mom as being gay because she wished her mom had a better sense of herself as a woman and took more control of her own life. Roseanne then fixes her gaze on Jackie. She reveals that Jackie is actually gay in real life, but for some reason, Roseanne always pictured her with a man, so she remade her as straight. Now, it has become clear that none of what viewers have seen this season is real. In reality, Roseanne is writing a book, and everything that has happened has been a figment of Roseanne's imagination.

Roseanne then looks at Nancy ( Sandra Bernhard ) and narrates that she admires Nancy for getting out of a terrible marriage. In her book, Roseanne sends Nancy's husband into outer space. Next, the camera shifts to Becky and David sitting next together. Roseanne goes on to say that she always pictured David being a better match with Darlene, so in her book, she made Darlene and David a couple instead. Then, the camera moves across the table toward Darlene and Mark. Darlene and Mark are actually a couple, but Roseanne felt Becky and Mark would be a better pairing, so she made them a couple in her writing. And then the camera angles toward where Dan was sitting, but the chair is empty. In reality, Dan died of a heart attack a year earlier. Unable to cope with the loss of her husband, Roseanne has been telling her story as if Dan had been alive for the past year and took viewers with her in this embellishment.

The merry kitchen setting, with happy friends and family seated around the table, begins to fade, leaving Roseanne alone in the basement she used to write in. Speaking about the pain of losing Dan, she talks about how her writing is what helped her through the grief of his death. Feeling betrayed by his death, she says that it felt like he left her for another woman. Hence her creating Dan’s affair earlier in the season. Finally, she begins her final mea culpa. In the wake of Dan’s death, she, like many blue-collar women who have to deal with the aftermath of a dead spouse, felt a sense of dread and impending financial doom when her partner and co-provider died. To create in herself a sense of security, she wrote that her family had won the lottery. The swanky parties and luxury spas never actually happened, instead simply serving as mental vacations from the emptiness she now faced. It was easier for her to imagine her life like so many of the sitcoms, the ones where no one has any real hardships and their problems are resolved by the end of the thirty-minute episode. Overtaken by loneliness, Roseanne even imagined herself being with someone else , which explains the storyline in Season 9 when Roseanne has a brief relationship with Edgar Wellman ( James Brolin ).

Roseanne Finds Herself Through Her Writing

When Darlene’s baby almost died, Roseanne realized that her family needed her to be present. Seeing her granddaughter fight for her own life, Roseanne decided she needed to fight for hers. In embracing her life, Roseanne realized that her long-held dreams of being a writer would never materialize if she didn’t actually start, so she decided to write about her life. Whatever she didn’t like in her life, she would rearrange in her writings, which is what viewers had been watching and, up until the final episode, were unaware had been fabrications. Roseanne reflects on all that she has learned: dreams won’t come true without action, love is stronger than hate, and she believes God does exist. Her book is now complete.

The series ends with her sitting on her couch, alone in an empty house. A quote from Lawrence of Arabia ’s T.E. Lawrence appears:

“Those who dream by night, in the dusty recess of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.”

Then we get one more of Roseanne’s famous laughs.

Roseanne ’s ending has been one of the most controversial endings of a series. A show that had so much warmth, people laughing and sitting around a table, ended with its protagonist alone. For many, it was an unsatisfying ending, upending what made the show great: they may not have a lot of money, but they had each other. Seeing a woman like Roseanne, who had the spirit of a phoenix, sitting alone on a couch as the picture fades wasn’t how we imagined how our domestic goddess’ story would end. The series did, however, culminate on a feminist note , as Roseanne says in her final monologue:

“We didn’t teach our daughter to sacrifice more than our sons. As a modern wife, I walked a tightrope between tradition and progress, and usually, I failed by one outsider’s standards or another’s. But I figured out that neither winning nor losing count for women like they do for men. We women are the ones who transform everything we touch, and nothing on earth is higher than that."

Throughout the series, we see Roseanne work many different jobs: factory worker, salon cleaner, server, and restaurant owner. But her true goal was to be a writer, something that the series gives a little attention to. In an episode where Dan and Roseanne get a rare night out in a decent restaurant, Dan asks Roseanne what she'd really like to do; she dreamily says she'd like to write as if it's no longer a possibility. Her family creates a writing space for her in the basement, which is referenced in the penultimate and final episodes. But earlier in the series, when she has the space and the seldom time to write, she finds herself doing everything but writing, not being able to focus on bringing her dream into reality. It took the enormity of Dan's absence for her to truly hone in on her dream .

The 'Roseanne' Reboot Tries to Retcon Its Original Ending

In Roseanne' s 2018 revival, the series, once again, course corrected. In the reboot, Dan is alive, and all is back to normal in the Conner house — well, somewhat normal. With Barr's new embrace of far-right politics , the blue-collar spirit of the show was warped into an unsatisfying zero-sum game where progressive, feminist, queer-inclusive, working-class values clashed with the bigotry that fueled and fomented the Trump presidency. Roseanne took an "agree to disagree" approach to diverging political culture that was out of touch with the Roseanne viewers fell in love with in 1988. In the first episode of the reboot, Dan and Roseanne come across the book Roseanne wrote at the end of the original series. Roseanne jokes about how her book's ending was a disappointment, tossing it to the side in an attempt to cleanse itself of some of the big risks and big losses the series took with its '97 finale.

The series then passes the baton on to Darlene, who has moved back home with her parents following her divorce and the loss of her job. It's a full circle moment as we watch Darlene struggle to make ends meet while still being present in her children's lives. It's the same predicament Dan and Roseanne always found themselves in during the show's original run, and we get to see it from a new perspective as Darlene navigates her new world. Rehashing the original series premise may not always be the best call, but if the response to the show's ninth season is any indication, there was no other way to go. Audiences have always loved watching the Conner family because they're normal people . They're not oversaturated, and they don't live in a big house or drive fancy cars. They're just a family with large personalities who entertain through their everyday antics. So, retconning the abysmal ninth season and giving fans back that familiarity was necessary and much welcomed. It felt like a warm hug like we were stepping back into our childhood home, and that was what Roseanne was always meant to be.

'The Conner's Moved On and Moved Forward

Following Barr's controversial and hurtful statements both online and off, the revival series was canceled just a couple of months after its renewal announcement. But despite the cancelation seemingly spelling the end for the new era of the Conner family, it actually wasn't the end. Shortly after the revival's cancelation and firing of Roseanne Barr, a new spin-off was announced , one that was to be called The Conners and would focus on the Conner family sans Roseanne . The show was then faced with the issue of how to explain Barr's absence and took a page from the original finale by killing her off. But something that very easily could have been a downfall for the series actually seemed to work in its favor.

In the original series, we related to the Conner family because they were just a working-class family trying to make ends meet and find the joy in life. The spin-off takes that premise and gives it a new twist by having the family struggle through the loss of one of their own, which is something we all eventually have to deal with, and who better to get us through than the Conner family? A family that has provided us with so much comfort and warmth over the years. Yes, we wanted to see the Conner's succeed, but Season 9 took it to an extreme that just felt unnecessary. Thankfully, the revival knew that and retconned it. It's especially refreshing in today's day and age, where everything on television is all maximalist and high-intensity. It felt good to kick back on the sofa and settle in for a night with the Conner family again .

In 1988, viewers were introduced to a woman trying to make ends meet with her factory job and contractor husband. Her kids were wild, and her house was plain. They didn’t have a lot, but they had each other. For eight seasons, so many of us saw a dysfunctional family who looked so much like our own. And in 2018, we got that comfort back. Yes, there were some tweaks and new additions, but it was still the Conner's that we know and love.

Rosanne is streaming on Peacock in the U.S.

Watch on Peacock

• TV Features

Dolly Parton announces Broadway show ‘Hello, I’m Dolly’ about her life and career

NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway has had great success with “Hello, Dolly.” Now get ready for “Hello, I’m Dolly.”

Dolly Parton  is writing new songs to go along with some of her past hits and co-writing a stage story inspired by her life for a stage musical that she hopes to land on Broadway in 2026.

“I’ve written many original songs for the show and included all your favorites in it as well. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll clap, you’ll stomp, it truly is a Grand Ol’ Opera. Pun and fun intended,” she said in a statement.

Parton will team up with Maria S. Schlatte on the story. Schlatte won an Emmy for producing  Netflix’s “Christmas on the Square,”  which starred Christine Baranski.

“Hello, I’m Dolly” is the name of Parton’s debut album released in 1967, which had the songs ″Dumb Blonde″ and “Something Fishy.″

Parton went on to become a national treasure, starring in movies, writing books, earning Grammys, becoming the first country artist to be named MusiCares Person of the Year and donating $1 million for coronavirus research.

With 52 Grammy nominations and 11 wins, she is the second-most nominated woman in Grammy history, only behind  Beyoncé,  who has 79 nods and 24 wins. The country icon earned the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award a decade ago.

Parton will have plenty of past hits to choose from, including her three Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — “9 to 5,” “Here You Come Again” and “Islands in the Stream.” She also has 25 No. 1 Hot Country songs like “Yellow Roses,” “Think About Love,” “Tennessee Homesick Blues” and “Jolene.”

This won’t be the first time Parton’s music will be heard on Broadway. A stage version of “9 to 5″ landed in 2009 starring Stephanie J. Block, Megan Hilty and Allison Janney, and the 1993 Christmas special “Candles, Snow & Mistletoe” contained her song “With Bells On.”

Parton’s show will be the latest musician bio on Broadway using their songs, joining such recent artists as  Neil Diamond,  Alicia Keys,  Michael Jackson,  Carole King and  Gloria and Emilio Estefan.

She will join such pop and rock luminaries as Elton John,  Cyndi Lauper,  The Go-Gos,  Sting, Alanis Morissette,  Dave Stewart, Edie Brickell, Trey Anastasio,  David Byrne and Fatboy Slim  and  Bono and The Edge  with Broadway scores.

“Hello, I’m Dolly” will be produced by Parton, Adam Speers for ATG Productions and Danny Nozell for CTK Enterprises.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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