Scary Story Essay

As one reads through a spine-chilling tale, have you ever found yourself captivated, unable to avert your gaze despite the creeping sensation of terror that permeates your being? If so, you’re not alone. Scary stories essays have been popular for centuries, and they tap into our deepest fears and anxieties and transport us to a world where anything is possible.

If you are struggling to develop ideas for your scary story essay, don’t worry – with the right tools and techniques, anyone can write a terrifying tale that will leave readers begging for more. Whether you are an experienced wordsmith or a fledgling novice, continue reading to acquire the knowledge necessary to pen a narrative that will ensnare your audience and leave them tossing and turning throughout the night.  Write my essays with confidence and create your spine-tingling tale today!

What is a Scary Story Essay?

A scary story essay is a narrative essay designed to frighten and unsettle the reader. It typically involves supernatural or horror elements like ghosts, monsters, or otherworldly creatures. The objective of an essay centered around a frightening narrative is to instill a feeling of uneasiness and apprehension within the reader while concurrently maintaining their attention until the very conclusion.

Some characteristics of a scary story essay include:

  • An eerie or ominous tone
  • Vivid descriptions of the setting, characters, and events
  • A sense of foreboding or impending doom
  • Suspenseful pacing and plot twists
  • An unsettling or unexpected ending

Differences between a scary story essay and other types of essays

One of the key differences between a scary story essay and other types of essays is the emphasis on creating an emotional response in the reader. While most pieces are designed to inform or persuade, a scary story essay spm is intended to evoke a specific emotional reaction.

Another difference is using narrative techniques such as plot, setting, and character development. In a scary story essay, these elements are used to create a sense of tension and unease rather than simply advancing the plot or conveying information.

Elements of a Horror Story

The key elements that make up a horror story include:

 When these fundamental components are merged and executed efficiently, they coalesce to generate an overwhelming sense of dread and discomfort in the reader. For example, the creepy setting might make the reader feel like they are being watched or followed, while the vulnerable characters make them feel sympathetic and protective.

The plot and tone of the story might create a sense of dread or anticipation as the reader wonders what will happen next. And when a sudden shock or surprise does occur, it reinforces the idea that anything can happen in this world and that the characters are never truly safe.

Types of Horror Stories

Numerous horror tale classifications exist, each presenting distinctive attributes and themes. Some of the most common types include:

How to Start a Scary Story Essay (Horror Story Essay)

Tips for brainstorming ideas.

Consider the setting, characters, and plot when brainstorming ideas for your scary story essay. What kind of horror elements do you want to include? Are there any real-life fears or anxieties you want to tap into?

After formulating a rudimentary concept, endeavor to generate several plot twists or scenarios that could unfold within the established framework. Do not hesitate to allow your creative faculties to soar unrestricted and endeavor to formulate a concept that exudes individuality and unpredictability.

How to create a compelling opening that sets the mood

The opening is one of the most important parts of a scary story essay. The opening sets the tone for the entire paper and should grab the reader’s attention immediately.

Consider starting with a startling or eerie image or scene to create a compelling opening. This might be like a character stumbling through a dark forest or a haunted house looming in the distance. You could also start with a quote or dialogue that sets the mood.

Examples of effective opening lines from famous horror stories

  • “The horror, the horror!” – Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  • “It was a dark and stormy night…” – A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  • “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” – The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Writing a Scary Story Essay

How to structure the essay for maximum impact.

To structure your scary story essay for maximum impact, consider starting with a compelling opening that sets the mood, followed by a gradual buildup of suspense and tension. The story’s climax should be the most intense and terrifying part, with a resolution that provides some closure for the reader.

Developing a well-rounded plot and characters

To develop a well-rounded plot and characters, consider the motivations and fears of your characters. What propels their actions, and what are their most profound terrors and apprehensions?

Try to create real and relatable characters, even if they are dealing with supernatural or horror elements. This will make the story feel more immersive and engaging for the reader.

How to create suspense and tension

To create suspense and tension in your scary story essay, consider using pacing and structure to build up to the climax. You can do this by gradually increasing the frequency and intensity of horror elements, such as jump scares or moments of suspense.

You can also use foreshadowing and other literary devices to hint at what’s to come while still keeping the reader guessing. Furthermore, do not hesitate to leave certain details to the reader’s imagination, which can engender an even more disconcerting feeling of terror.

Using sensory details to enhance the scary atmosphere

To enhance the scary atmosphere of your story, consider using sensory data to help the reader visualize the setting and characters. This might include descriptions of sounds, smells, textures, and visual details like lighting and shadows.

You can also use figurative language and metaphors to create a more vivid and evocative picture for the reader. For example, you might describe a character’s fear as a cold, clammy hand gripping their heart.

Scary Story Essay Examples

“the tell-tale heart” by edgar allan poe  .

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe is a classic horror story that features a narrator who becomes obsessed with the eye of an old man, to the point of murdering him. The story is told from the perspective of the murderer, which creates an unsettling sense of intimacy and psychological tension.

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs is another famous horror story that involves a cursed object. In this case, a family possesses a monkey’s paw that grants wishes but with terrible consequences.

Analysis of what makes these stories effective and how they can be used as inspiration.

These narratives are potent as they delve into ubiquitous dreads and trepidations, such as the fear of demise and the inscrutable. They also use literary techniques like pacing, foreshadowing, and sensory details to create a vivid and unsettling atmosphere.

As you work on your scary story essay, you can use these stories as inspiration for your plot and characters while also studying their structure and pacing to see how they create suspense and tension.

Tips for Writing a Successful Scary Story Essay

Dos and don’ts for writing a scary story essay

  • Use sensory details to create a vivid and evocative atmosphere
  • Build suspense and tension gradually, with a well-paced structure
  • Create well-rounded and relatable characters
  • Use literary devices like foreshadowing and metaphor to create a sense of foreboding

Don’t:

Rely too heavily on jump scares or gore to create horror

Neglect the importance of setting and atmosphere

Use clichés or tired tropes that have been overused in horror stories

Tips for editing and revising to improve the overall quality of the essay

When editing and revising your scary story essay, consider the pacing and structure of the story. Make sure that the buildup of tension feels natural and engaging and that the climax is both satisfying and terrifying.

It is also crucial to prioritize character progression and dialogue, ensuring each persona is distinctive and multifaceted. Ultimately, it is imperative to contemplate the all-encompassing tone and ambiance of the narrative, guaranteeing that it evokes a pervasive feeling of discomfort and foreboding from the opening sentence to the closing line.

In conclusion, writing a scary story essay can be a thrilling and rewarding experience, but it requires careful attention to detail and an understanding of what makes horror stories truly effective.

By adhering to the pointers and techniques explicated in this article, you can compose a hair-raising anecdote that will keep your readers teetering on the precipice of their seats. So why not start brainstorming ideas for your scary story essay today? With a little creativity and imagination, you can create a story that will haunt readers long after they finish reading.

Remember to focus on the key elements of horror, such as setting, characters, and plot, and use literary techniques like pacing and foreshadowing to build suspense and tension. With practice and perseverance, you can hone your writing skills and create stories that will chill and thrill readers for years.

What is a Horror Story essay?

A horror story essay is a narrative essay designed to frighten and unsettle the reader. It typically involves supernatural or horror elements like ghosts, monsters, or otherworldly creatures. A short horror story essay aims to create a sense of unease and fear in the reader and keep them engaged until the end.

How do I start a scary story essay?

To start a scary story essay, consider starting with a startling or eerie image or scene that sets the mood. You could also start with a quote or dialogue that creates a sense of foreboding. From there, gradually build tension and suspense until you reach the story’s climax.

What are some tips for writing a good scary story essay?

Some tips for writing a good scary story essay include:

  • Don’t rely too heavily on jump scares or gore to create horror
  • Avoid clichés or tired tropes that have been overused in horror stories

Can I use real-life experiences in my scary story essay?

Yes, you can use real-life experiences as inspiration for your scary story essay. However, be sure to use them in a way that is respectful and doesn’t exploit real-life trauma or tragedy.

How can I make my scary story essay stand out?

To make your scary story essay free stand out, try to create a unique and unexpected plot that subverts readers’ expectations. You can also use vivid and evocative language to create a more immersive atmosphere and focus on creating well-rounded and relatable characters. Lastly, do not fear to take risks and experiment with fresh concepts – the most exemplary horror tales frequently challenge conventions and surpass limitations.

Lesley Hummings

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Primer on the Construction of a Scary Story Essay

essay story about scary experience

Welcome to The Knowledge Nest's comprehensive guide on how to construct a bone-chilling and captivating scary story essay. In this primer, we will delve into the art of storytelling, the elements of suspense, and the techniques to engage your readers with spine-tingling narrative experiences. Whether you're a student or a curious writer, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and expertise to craft a truly remarkable and unforgettable scary story essay.

Understanding the Genre

Before embarking on your journey to writing a scary story essay, it's crucial to gain an understanding of the genre itself. Scary story essays are a unique form of literature that seeks to engross and terrify its readers simultaneously. The goal is to craft a narrative that elicits fear, suspense, and a sense of unease. To achieve this, one must employ various literary techniques to create an eerie atmosphere and deliver spine-chilling moments to the readers.

Elements of a Scary Story Essay

A well-crafted scary story essay requires careful attention to several key elements. These elements work together seamlessly to heighten the sense of fear and tension in the narrative, captivating the reader's imagination from beginning to end.

The Setting

Creating an atmospheric setting is essential in a scary story essay. By vividly describing the surroundings, you can immerse your readers in a haunting world filled with darkness, isolation, and unknown terrors. Use your words to paint a detailed picture and let the setting become a character in its own right, contributing to the overall sense of dread and anticipation.

Characters and Characterization

Well-developed characters are integral to a compelling scary story essay. The protagonist should be relatable and vulnerable, allowing the reader to empathize with their fears and struggles. Additionally, introducing intriguing and mysterious secondary characters can add depth and complexity to the narrative, leaving readers to question their motives and trustworthiness.

Tension and Suspense

The heart of any good scary story essay lies in the art of building tension and suspense. Through carefully structured plot twists, foreshadowing, and unexpected revelations, you can keep your readers on the edge of their seats, eagerly turning the pages to uncover what lies ahead. Harness the power of pacing and timing to ensure every moment is infused with an unsettling and captivating vibe.

Moments of Horror

A successful scary story essay relies on its ability to deliver moments of horror that will leave a lasting impact on the reader. These moments can manifest through vivid and unsettling descriptions, blood-curdling twists, or encounters with the supernatural. Use your words to elicit genuine fear, making every page an exhilarating and chilling journey for your audience.

Techniques for Engaging Your Readers

Now that we've explored the essential elements, let's delve into the techniques that will help you engage your readers and keep them hooked throughout your scary story essay.

Mystery and Intrigue

Creating an air of mystery and intrigue will captivate your readers, compelling them to continue reading in search of answers. Use subtle clues, enigmatic occurrences, and unresolved questions to pique their curiosity and keep them invested in the story's unfolding.

Imagery and Description

Utilizing vivid imagery and descriptive language will allow your readers to vividly imagine the haunting scenes you're depicting. Engage all their senses as you describe eerie sounds, ominous visual details, and chilling atmospheric conditions.

Character Development

Investing time in developing your characters will create a stronger emotional connection between your readers and the narrative. Develop their fears, desires, and motivations, allowing your audience to relate and empathize with their experiences.

Plot Twists and Surprises

Unpredictability is a powerful tool in a scary story essay. Strategically place plot twists and surprises to keep your readers guessing and constantly on edge. These unexpected elements will heighten the suspense and deliver a rollercoaster ride of fear and anticipation.

Writing a scary story essay is a thrilling endeavor that allows you to explore the depths of your imagination and engage readers with an unforgettable narrative experience. By understanding the genre, incorporating the essential elements, and employing effective techniques, you can craft a truly bone-chilling masterpiece that will keep readers up at night.

At The Knowledge Nest, we are passionate about providing comprehensive guides and resources to help you unlock your writing potential. Whether you're a student, an aspiring writer, or simply someone who enjoys captivating stories, our aim is to empower and educate. Explore our website to discover more valuable insights and embark on your journey to becoming a masterful storyteller.

Embark on the construction of your scary story essay now and let the chilling tale unfold!

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A Night in a Haunted House: An Eerie Experience

Table of contents, the haunting atmosphere, unsettling encounters, confronting fear, a morning of reflection.

  • Radford, B. (2014). The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead . Prometheus Books.
  • McAndrew, F. T. (2016). Parsimonious Psychics and Psychological Profiling . Skeptical Inquirer, 40(6), 10-11.
  • Braude, S. E. (2019). Thirteen Unpredictable Synchronicities: The Challenges of Studying an Evolving Phenomenon . Journal of Scientific Exploration, 33(4), 611-634.
  • Houran, J. (2015). Assessing Haunted Places: A Review of Methods and Measures . Journal of Parapsychology, 79(2), 187-207.
  • Carroll, R. T. (2003). The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions . John Wiley & Sons.

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Short horror story essay

Short horror story essay 8 Models

Last updated Friday , 15-03-2024 on 11:35 am

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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Essay on My Most Dangerous Experience

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Most Dangerous Experience 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 My Most Dangerous Experience

Introduction.

My life has had many exciting moments. But the most dangerous experience was when I got lost in a forest during a family camping trip. It was an adventure I’ll never forget.

The Camping Trip

My family and I went on a camping trip to a dense forest. We had fun exploring nature. One day, I decided to go on a solo adventure, not knowing the danger that awaited me.

Getting Lost

I strayed too far from our campsite. Soon, I realized I was lost. The forest was dark and scary. I couldn’t find my way back. I was alone and terrified.

Luckily, I had a whistle with me. I blew it hard. My family heard the sound and found me. It was a frightening experience, but I learned a valuable lesson about safety.

250 Words Essay on My Most Dangerous Experience

Every person has some scary moments in their life. These scary moments can be big or small, but they leave a lasting memory. My most dangerous experience was when I got lost in a dense forest during a family camping trip.

One sunny day, my family and I decided to go camping in a forest. We packed our tents, food, and other things. We reached the forest, set up our tents, and started exploring. I, being the most curious one, wandered off a bit too far.

I was so busy looking at the beautiful birds and plants that I didn’t notice I was moving away from my family. Suddenly, I realized I was alone. I tried to find my way back, but all the trees looked the same. I was lost. I started to feel scared.

The Fear and Rescue

As the sun started to set, the forest became dark and scary. I could hear strange sounds. I was very scared. I climbed a tree and stayed there. After what felt like a long time, I heard my dad’s voice. He was calling my name. I shouted back. Soon, my dad found me. I was so happy to see him.

That was the most dangerous experience of my life. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Now, I always stay close to my family when we go on trips. This experience taught me the importance of being careful and not wandering off alone.

500 Words Essay on My Most Dangerous Experience

Everyone has some memories that stick with them forever. For me, one such memory is of a dangerous experience that I had when I was just a teenager. It was a sunny day when my friends and I decided to go on a bike ride to the outskirts of our town. Little did we know, this trip would turn into an unforgettable adventure.

The Bike Ride

Our journey started off well. We were full of energy and excitement. The wind was blowing through our hair, and the sun was shining brightly. We were racing each other, laughing, and having a great time. But soon, the weather began to change. Dark clouds started to form in the sky, and it started to rain. We were far from home, and there was no shelter in sight.

The rain quickly turned into a storm. Lightning flashed across the sky, and the wind blew fiercely. We tried to ride our bikes in the rain, but it was hard to see. The roads were slippery, making it hard to control our bikes. We were scared, but we knew we had to keep going. We had to get home.

The Accident

Suddenly, my friend’s bike slipped on the wet road, and he fell. He was hurt, and his bike was damaged. We were all shocked and scared. We didn’t know what to do. We were in the middle of nowhere, with no one around to help us. My friend was in pain, and we had to get him to a hospital.

We decided to carry my friend and walk towards the nearest town, which was a few miles away. We were wet, cold, and scared. But we knew we had to be brave. After what felt like hours, we finally reached the town. We quickly found a hospital and got my friend the help he needed.

That day was the most dangerous experience of my life. It taught me many valuable lessons. It taught me the importance of being prepared for any situation. It taught me about bravery and friendship. But most importantly, it taught me that life can be unpredictable, and we must always be ready to face any challenges that come our way. Despite the fear and danger, I am grateful for this experience because it made me who I am today.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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This helped me very much but l needed 300 to 350 words

That was nice,🥺

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

132 Best Horror Writing Prompts and Scary Story Ideas

essay story about scary experience

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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Our Favorite Essays and Stories About Horror Films

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Reading Lists

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

essay story about scary experience

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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essay story about scary experience

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How to Write a Scary Story

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How to write a scary story in 5 Easy Steps

 Most of us love a good scare!

From our first game of peek-a-boo as a child through those ghost stories around a campfire as a teen, surprises and a little fright never lose their appeal. It’s why horror movies remain big business at the box office and on streaming websites.

  •  Even those who profess not to read much will likely have read a Stephen King book or two.
  • Gamers aren’t immune either, as the popularity of games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hills will attest.
  • Horror is one of the best-selling fiction genres in any medium. 

In this article, we’ll look at spine-chilling tips to help students write spooky stories that will rattle readers to their core. If scary is not your thing, then check out our complete guide to writing a narrative here.

So, pull the curtains, dim the lights and let’s learn how to write a horror story for school.

THE STORY TELLERS BUNDLE OF TEACHING RESOURCES

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A MASSIVE COLLECTION of resources for narratives and story writing in the classroom covering all elements of crafting amazing stories. MONTHS WORTH OF WRITING LESSONS AND RESOURCES, including:

1. Write about what scares you.

BRAM STOKER’s vampire tale dracula is regularly remade for audiences of all eras and ages

The old writer’s mantra states, ‘write about what you know. While it’s most unlikely that your students know any killer clowns or lunatic killers who haunt campsites frequented by teenage couples, they can still write about the things that scare them.

This is the best place to start. A student has little hope of frightening the reader unless they choose to write about something they find disturbing.

The more specific the subject, the more personal the writing can become. Horror is filled with tropes and cliches. The world doesn’t need another axe murder chasing teens through the woods or another foolhardy ouija board misadventure – unless there’s a new spin put on things.

Avoiding tired clichés like those mentioned above will help maintain the element of surprise in the writing, which, as we shall see more of later, is essential to keep readers engaged.

Teaching Activity: Ask students to write down a list of the top 3 things that scare them. They needn’t be things that other people are scared of; the more personal and idiosyncratic they are, the more original the story is likely to be. These could be anything from a fear of heights or open spaces to a fear of the doorbell ringing at night.

Now, ask the students to choose one of these fears and list why they are scared of it. They should also write about how their fear makes them feel. The more detailed they can write about this, the better. 

Encourage the students to use their full five senses to describe the feelings and emotions they would experience. The more convincingly they can convey the experience, the more successful they’ll be in striking fear into the hearts of their readers later on.

2. Use Setting to Your Advantage when writing a Horror story

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The setting is a crucial element to any story and when used skillfully, it can be an essential tool in raising the scare factor of any tale.

When asked to write a scary story, younger kids will inevitably gravitate towards the more apparent settings such as haunted houses, cemeteries, and dark woods. Again, these well-worn settings would best be avoided unless the student intends to subvert a reader’s expectations.

In fact, given that surprise is one of the key elements to any good scare, subverting the setting is one great tool for terror available to our students. 

For example, the comfort of a sleepover at their grandmother’s can take a turn for the worse if it’s discovered she holds a Black Mass. Imagine a coven of devil-worshippers in the dead of night in that dated living room where she serves milk and cookies to her grandkids during the day. Enough to make you spill your glass of milk over the embroidered cushions!

The physical environment can also be used to create tension and fear. For example, imagine two siblings hiding in a cupboard witnessing Grandmother’s midnight Satanic shenanigans. It’s hot and cramped. Imagine the claustrophobic feeling coupled with the terror of discovery. It’s enough to make you want to skip that Sunday visit to Grandma’s entirely [shudder].

If you are going to teach students how to write a scary story about a haunted house ensure you show them examples of figurative language that gives the house character.

Teaching Activity: Ask your students to take the fear they identified in the first activity and devise a setting for a story based on that fear.

One novel approach for deciding on a setting is to choose the place that seems least likely for a horror story. This unlikely element is one of the reasons why clowns are extraordinarily creepy or why the child’s doll in the Chucky movies is so unnervingly terrifying. 

Not only will this build strength in the student’s creative writing muscles, but it will also help ensure a crucial element of originality in the finished story. The setting should be painted as vividly as possible to create a picture in the reader’s mind. The clearer that picture, the more intense the fear created.

Remember, too, the setting consists of both time and place , so students shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with historical and future settings for their stories too.

Exotic characters are common place in horror writing

3.  Choose your character and point of view wisely when writing a horror story

One of the most common areas horror stories fall down in is that of characterization. Poor characterization is the number one reason many scary stories and movies fall as flat as the characters they utilize.

If your student wants to take their reader on a real knuckle-whitening ride of terror, they have to make the effort to bring their characters to life. An effective strategy to help students bring characters to life on the page is to have them base them on real people.

These real people could be people they know personally, people they’ve heard about in their community or beyond, or even pre-existing fictional characters they are already familiar with. Students should, of course, make the necessary modifications to make sure they are not committing either defamation or plagiarism.

At a more advanced level, students may also consider creating a composite character that brings together various aspects of different characters (real or fictional) that they already know.

Once students have gathered together their cast of characters, they’ll need to decide on a point of view from which to tell the story. Generally, this will be a first or third-person POV, and though the advantages and disadvantages of each type are too complex to go into here, you can find out more about different POVs in other articles on this site.

That said, some general points to consider when choosing a POV for a horror story are that while the first-person POV is great for grabbing the reader’s attention from the outset and for building suspense when the story is in the past tense, it may ruin any suspense regarding whether the narrator survives or not.

Third-person narratives allow for a slower build to a story while maintaining the suspense concerning the outcome for the story’s protagonist. They also allow for the more detailed narration and description demanded by longer stories.

One more point for students to consider is whether the narrator is reliable or not, If they opt for an unreliable narrator, this can open up great opportunities for a final twist in the tale. The 90’s movie The Usual Suspects is a great example of the unreliable narrator at work where the climactic twist at the end reveals the real Keyser Söze.

Teaching Activity: For this activity, students should select a scene to rewrite from a fiction book they are already familiar with. A book a few levels below their current reading level will be perfect.

Students rewrite the scene from first and third-person limited and omniscient perspectives, as well as from the points of view of different characters in the story. More advanced students can even play with using a reliable and unreliable narrator if they’ve already grasped these concepts.

When students have written the different versions of the scene, they should take time to compare the effects of these different points of view. Ask them to identify which of the perspectives and points of view worked best for this particular scene and story. What were the specific advantages and disadvantages of each version?

Year Long Inference Based Writing Activities

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Tap into the power of imagery in your classroom to get your students to master INFERENCE as AUTHORS and CRITICAL THINKERS .

This YEAR-LONG 500+ PAGE unit is packed with robust opportunities for your students to develop the critical skill of inference through fun imagery, powerful thinking tools, and graphic organizers.

4. Lay It all on the line when writing a scary story

Although written centuries apart these two horror tales are almost identical

Like the card game poker, it is when the stakes are highest that horror stories are at their most exhilarating. 

In the world of stories, these stakes are directly related to the central problem and character motivation. The broad appeal of horror stories lies in the universality of these motivations.

Ensure students understand this and reflect this knowledge in their writing. There are several different types of ‘stake’ they can use to amp up the reader’s interest. Let’s take a look at 2 of the most common motivations in this genre:

The Survival Motivation: This is the most primitive of the 3. Not wanting to die is something we can all relate to and needs no explanation. However, this motivation can be further enhanced by adding another layer for the character. For example, if the protagonist needs to survive to defeat the monster etc, then the need to survive is emphasized beyond just the preservation of life.

The Protection Motivation: Here, the protagonist’s prime motivation is the need to protect others from a threat, usually in the form of loved ones such as family or a lover. Again, this is a primitive desire that we can all relate to and needs little in the way of explanation for the reader. There are two main ways to increase the stakes for this motivation – increase the number of people’s lives on the line or reveal a deep relationship between the protector and the protected.

 Teaching Activity: Organize students into small groups. Have them look at a list of horror movies, such as those on an online database like IMDb, and then sort the movies into two categories: Survival Motivation or Protection Motivation .

There may be some crossover as many movies will employ both motivations to enhance the drama. In such cases, students should focus on the prime motivation of the movie’s protagonist. Where there’s disagreement, a discussion can be had as a whole class at the end.

When they have completed this activity, students should then look at their notes from the previous activities described above. What motivation is best suited to their embryonic story? Students should write a few lines to explain.

umm… it’s a horror movie… I wonder what will happen???

5.  Avoid Clichés in horror writing

There are arguably more familiar tropes and clichés associated with this genre of story-telling than any other. For our student writers, these should be avoided. Clichés and overused tropes result in dull and predictable storylines. These are the opposite of the elements such as surprise and shock, which good horror so often relies on.

The one exception is when the writer takes well-worn plotlines and characters and subverts them to come up with something new, which leads us directly to our next activity.

Teaching Activity: Organize the students into small groups again and challenge them to make a list of clichés and tropes from horror books and movies. The IMDb movie database will again serve well if they need some inspiration. Even if they don’t know the movies, they can read the synopses and identify some of the clichés and tropes used.

Once students have their list, they should attempt to make something fresh from them. The simplest way to do this is often to change the setting or characters. This will lead to unusual ideas, such as vampires in space or piranhas in the city sewage system.

The ideas generated need not be plausible or even ‘good’. This activity aims to flex the students’ creativity muscles in pursuit of something original.

The Final Bell Tolls

So there we have it. Five tips to help students hone their horror-writing skills and five activities to put that newly-gained knowledge into practice.

Writing spooky stories is a great way to get reluctant students to write at Halloween and any time of the year. 

Though writing spooky stories is fun , students still gain opportunities to internalize literature’s essential elements and develop their understanding of how language, structure, and story work.

Not bad for a night’s work…

Now go and write one, and be sure to read our complete guide to writing narratives if you need any further guidance on story writing.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING STORY ELEMENTS

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☀️This HUGE resource provides you with all the TOOLS, RESOURCES , and CONTENT to teach students about characters and story elements.

⭐ 75+ PAGES of INTERACTIVE READING, WRITING and COMPREHENSION content and NO PREPARATION REQUIRED.

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110+ Horror Writing Prompts (With A Twist)

Give yourself the chills with this list of over 110 horror writing prompts. From scary ghost stories to creepy stories about animals and monsters. Now is the time to write your own horror story , just like Goosebumps or The Haunting of Aveline Jones. 

From the gory to the scary, from the monstrous to the supernatural, from the humorous to the wacky, we have it all! Use this horror writing prompts generator to get a random horror writing idea to write about:

Keep on reading for a list of horror story prompts.

Most horror stories are based on one thing, fear. And it’s always a good idea to have a bit of that in your own life. Fear makes us all think differently, it makes us do things we wouldn’t normally do. And it’s the same thing that makes horror stories so scary. It’s a good idea to think of something that scares you, and then write about it. As a starting point, we have provided you with this list of horror prompts. For some of these gory ideas, we have included a twist, while for others it’s up to you how the story goes!  Feel free to use any of these prompts in your writing, and to expand on any of the ideas.

List of Horror Writing Prompts

This list of horror writing prompts will you give you the well-needed inspiration for a good horror story:

  • The Haunting Hospital: A small girl named Julie is walking down a country road when she finds a cemetery and realises it is her home town. She goes to her house and finds that it has been turned into a hospital. She finds her father and her mother there. Her father tells her that she is now a part of the hospital and that she must work to be paid. Julie and her mother go to work as nurses.
  • Chasing Shadows: A girl named Becky is walking in her neighbourhood when she sees a little boy playing in the street. Becky runs over to him and asks him what he is doing. He tells her that he is a little monster and that he will kill her if she does not leave him alone. Becky takes off running and the little monster chases her.
  • Park of Peril: A little girl named Melissa is walking through the park when she finds a little boy who tells her that he will eat her if she does not take him home. Melissa takes off running and the little boy chases her.
  • Claws of the Night: This one involves a kid named Angela. One night she goes to sleep and when she wakes up the next morning her hands have turned into the claws of a cat.
  • The Poisoned Harvest: A boy named Billy is walking down the street one day when he sees a homeless man. He notices some fruit by the man. When the homeless man is not looking, Billy steals the fruit. Later on, he goes home and eats this piece of fruit. The fruit is poisoned, and Billy goes blind.
  • Carnivorous Confrontation: A story of a kid who loves to eat the flesh of dead animals, but one day a man appears and tells him not to eat them.
  • Invisible Menace: Write a story about a young boy who is terrorized by an invisible monster.
  • Nightmare Room: The invisible monster is eating kids and it is in their room all the time.
  • Enchanted Chaos: A handsome prince on a quest to learn magic wants to marry the beautiful princess, but the kingdom is being attacked by demons, ghosts, and…his dad.
  • Insanity’s Feast: The whole little town goes insane. They start killing people with their mouths. They kill them in the most gruesome way.
  • Shuttered Nightmares: A serial killer is taking photos of their victims. He is telling them how he is going to kill them. And then he starts his killing.
  • Witch’s Chains: Two kids named ‘Bud’ and ‘Chip’ got separated from their parents. They live next door to a witch and are unable to leave the house. One day, the witch makes their parents get into a container, and leaves them in the backyard, chained to a tree.
  • Enchanted Camp: A summer camp where a powerful wizard casts a spell on the children to make them do his bidding.
  • The Weeping Specter: A ghost that follows you around and cries on your shoulder and if you get sad it gets angry and turns into a ghostly voice that spooks people.
  • Haunted Truths: The lead character is haunted by a ghost who knows the truth about their past.
  • Distrustful Shadows: A girl named Dana, who works at a daycare centre, doesn’t trust anybody. This causes her to make sure she does everything she can to stop any other person from ever entering her place.
  • Realm of Nightmares: One day, the princess wakes up in a terrible nightmare. She is being chased by something, she cannot see what it is. And then she hears the voice of her mother, telling her to run away. She goes to her room and sees that the covers on her bed are in a shape that reminds her of the monster she just saw. She knows she cannot sleep in this place. She goes to the other side of her room and sees a window. She goes to the window and finds that it is an opening to a new world…
  • Witch’s Wrath: A girl named Misty lives with her parents and their next-door neighbour who is an evil witch. One day her father and the witch get into a fight and the witch accidentally kills him.
  • Brief Awakening: A boy named Sam is suffering from a terrible disease and he only has days to live. He’s in a coma, and he’s not responding to any medical treatments. Until one night he starts to experience some new changes…
  • Vengeful Wishes: A little girl named Mina finds a genie. The genie grants her 3 wishes. Because Mina has been a victim of bullying, she uses all her wishes to punish her bullies with ghoulish consequences. 
  • Jar of Horrors: One day, a boy named Marcus went out to take a walk, and he found a jar that he thought was full of gold. Marcus had also found a bag that was heavier than he could lift, but he drags it home anyway. When he opens to bag he discovers something disgusting…
  • Game Over: A creepy character named Nemesis is trying to kill Luke, who plays video games and lives in his basement. At night, Luke hears voices telling him to hide. He goes to the basement and a creature knocks him out. He ends up as a character in his gruesome game. 
  • Bracelet of Resurrection: A boy named Josh loses his best friend to a freak accident. He finds the other half of a bracelet he gave his friend that day. He hangs on to it until one night the bracelet brings his best friend back to life.
  • The Ghost Writer: Write a story titled, The Ghost Writer. Write about the ghost of someone who haunts you.
  • Eternal Specter: Write a scary ghost story about a man who is cursed to spend eternity as a ghost.
  • Hidden World: A boy named Brody is having problems adjusting to life in his new home after his parents divorced. He tries to see his dad, but they don’t want him around. One day he discovers a secret passage to a hidden underground world where his father now lives.
  • Stuttering Shadows: A story about a young man named Kenny, who works as a garbage man. He also has a terrible stuttering problem that he has to deal with. One day he discovers that his stuttering is getting worse and worse and he becomes scared to death because of it. He thinks that the talking squirrel next to him is a demon.
  • Haunted Corner: Write a story about an object in your room that becomes haunted. 
  • Ghostly Deception: A boy named Bryce has been hiding out from his abusive father. One day his father is gone and his dad’s new girlfriend walks into the house. He thinks it’s the ghost of his dead mother. The ghost shows him that his dad’s new girlfriend has been lying to him about how his birth mother died.
  • Trapped in Terror: A young boy named Spencer and his sister Sarah, are on a camping trip when they find a box of mysterious objects. When they open it, one of the items shoots at them, striking Sarah and trapping her in a pod inside a tree. While locked inside the tree, Sarah meets an evil doll named Alice.
  • Possessed Playtime: A young girl named Cassandra is babysitting her neighbour’s two kids. One day the kids eat some forbidden foods and a demon spirit possesses one of the kids and turns him into an evil creature who haunts the neighbourhood.
  • Eyes of the Bunny: A little girl named Hayley discovers a secret house that no one in the neighbourhood knows about, and is welcomed inside by a red-eyed white bunny. One day when Hayley goes to a party, her newfound friend kidnaps her and traps her inside this mysterious house. 
  • Eternal Echo: Write a horror story about a horrible accident or a nightmare that has haunted you your whole life.
  • Drowning Destiny: A boy named Joshua falls into a river and is about to drown when he gets rescued by a beautiful mermaid. She tells him that he will die the next day because that is his destiny. 
  • Keys of Madness: A young boy named Alex finds a set of glowing door keys and uses them to enter a huge abandoned mansion. When he explores the mansion, he is visited by a dark spirit who attacks him and drives him insane.
  • Alien Abduction: A boy named Sam wakes up one day to find that his parents have been missing for over a year. The day he discovers them, they tell him that he was kidnapped by aliens, and they built an experimental human brainwashing machine. 
  • Dreams of Stella: A young boy named Toby starts having strange dreams of a girl named Stella. One day, he sees Stella when he’s on a roller coaster, but it turns out to be a ghost who is trying to take over his mind. 
  • Eye of the Leaf: A little boy named Ben is playing outside one day when he finds a strange leaf. When he picks it up, it turns into a leaf with a red eye and starts to follow him. 
  • Vengeful Spirit: Write a horror story about a ghost who just wants to kill the person who called him a monster when he was alive. 
  • Nightmare Adoption: A young girl named Annabelle is adopted by a family that lives in a very old house. One day when is playing outside, she is kidnapped by a scary man named the Nightman.
  • Stuffed Shadows: A young boy named Jack gets lost in the woods and finds an old abandoned house. He enters the house and finds a huge stuffed animal. When he touches it, it wakes up and attacks him.
  • Depths of Fear: Imagine your worst fear and write a scary story about it.
  • A Rude Awakening: Write a horror story titled, A Rude Awakening. What would you do if you woke up in a place that you weren’t familiar with?
  • The Mysterious Case: What happens when someone goes missing and no one knows where they’ve gone?
  • Dreamstalker : Write about a monster that might be stalking you in your dreams.
  • Write a story titled, When The Wind Blows. This story could be about a sudden change in weather that comes with a new problem.
  • Mirror Demon: Continue the following story: Suddenly, the demon in the mirror reappeared and she began to scream.
  • Doctor’s Dread: When the doctor gave her the news, she screamed out loud and ran in circles.
  • Safekeeping Shadows: In her final hours, she told me to be thankful that I had done my best to keep her safe. That I had made sure no evil would ever hurt her again. 
  • Camping Secrets: Continue the following horror story: As I was growing up, every year our family went camping in the woods. My grandfather passed away a few years ago. He was a rich man, and I wanted to visit his grave at the cemetery. 
  • Forest of Shadows: While walking around the forest, I came across a monstrous-looking creature. I was scared and ran back home. The next day, I decided to go back and see what the monster was doing. 
  • Echoes of Dread: Write down your biggest fear. And then write a story based on this fear.
  • Silent Stalker: When I looked in her file I saw that she had gotten five serious stab wounds. But, I could not see any sign of her attacker. Her wounds were all over her body and all over her arms.
  • Arachnid Terror: After discovering that a spider was sleeping in her bed, a young girl named Amy screams and runs away, locking herself in the bathroom.
  • Electric Fury: A scientific team is doing research on electricity. They find a very strong cell that could create many things when it is exposed to electricity. Suddenly the electricity static comes alive. It gets angry and attacks the scientists. 
  • Imaginary Friend: A little girl named Amber loves to play with her new imaginary friend. She calls him “Giant” and she makes up stories about him. She believes that he is her friend for real.
  • Melting Nightmare: Continue the following story: As it continued attacking, it even caused my teeth to start to melt off of my jaw. My skin would start to burn, and my hair would become brown. 
  • Friday Night Terrors: It’s Friday. The TV is on, and you are wide awake. As you lie there listening, you begin to feel tired. And just as your eyes begin to close, you hear a creak of the floorboards. Your eyes snap open. What you see scares the living hell out of you.
  • Blood Dawn: You wake up one morning to find your entire body covered in blood. What do you do? 
  • Room of Despair: How would you react if you were locked in a room and told you could never leave?
  • Haunting Memoirs: What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you? Can you explain this in great detail?
  • Chilling Chronicles: Make a top ten list of the creepiest books or stories you have ever read.
  • The Gruesome Creation: Describe the most gruesome and disgusting creature you can imagine.
  • Zoo’s Menace: Write a horror story where there is a threat of animals getting out of the zoo.
  • Red-Eyed Pursuit: Continue the following starter: A red-eyed man of tall and dark build looms over a bus stop on a lonely, deserted country road, staring at me intently. I run like hell to get to the other side of the street, but it’s too late…
  • Homebound Horror: A strange animal has been following you through your home. Have you been doing anything strange or dangerous that has made it freak out?
  • Midnight Messages: Someone is leaving you messages in the dead of night. What’s the creepiest message you’ve received?
  • Ghostly Watcher: Create a ghost story about a creature that watches and waits in the corners of dark, abandoned places.
  • Jack and Jill’s Nightmare: Jack and Jill went up the hill, but they never came back down. Will they ever make it to the bottom? Write a horror story based on this idea.
  • Dark Secrets: The history of your town has a long dark secret that nobody wants to talk about. What is it?
  • Mutated Reality: Reality show participants get kidnapped and sent on a dangerous mission, where they must learn how to blend with mutated creatures.
  • Beastly Intrusion: In a small community in Japan, a supernatural force enters the community through a sewer. To beat it, the village must learn to work as a team and think like a beast.
  • School of Shadows: School kids don’t believe in ghosts until they’re suddenly being terrorised in their school at night.
  • Vampiric Genesis: Someone is using a contaminated strain of bat DNA to create vampires in real life. And it’s up to a group of scientists to put an end to it.
  • Promised Souls: The dead walk, and all they want to do is get what they were promised. Will you figure it out?
  • Spellbound Silence: An aspiring rapper, who always dreamed of singing in front of an adoring crowd, becomes the target of a spell that makes him unable to sing, his most cherished talent. Will he survive the consequences of his initial desire to be a star?
  • Mirror Man: Continue this story: You look into the mirror and see a man in black standing in the corner…
  • Cryptic Chronicles: Imagine that you stumble upon a really creepy story in your local library and it leads you on a very strange and frightening journey.
  • Lost in a Strange World: When night falls, people get teleported to an area far away, in a very different world! The only way to return home is by combining body parts with the different elements of the land.
  • Wicked Takeover: A small town gets taken over by a wicked witch, who’s on a mission to suck the souls of all the inhabitants.
  • Soul Seeker: When someone posts an ad online about finding a soul and bringing it home for a price, things get really interesting.
  • Human and Beast: What would happen if human DNA was spliced with that of a deadly monster?
  • Unknown Beyond: A guy receives an advance warning from his friends in the afterlife to get ready for the afterlife, or something worse may happen…
  • Death’s Present: A girl gets a letter that someone wants to give her a present before they die, but the present comes with a very specific clause. What happens when she follows the instructions?
  • Dark Diary: As a local woman is trying to recover from the death of her husband, she discovers an old diary, in which she discovers something that happened in her past that has led to events that followed.
  • Christmas Carnage: It’s beginning to look like Christmas! But there’s more to Christmas than Santa and presents. A deadly secret is hidden away in a child’s bedroom. And with a massive killer about to make an appearance, it’s a race against time to track him down.
  • Empire of Evil: A ship sets sail for the distant colony of the Empire, but its mission becomes a mission to find the source of evil.
  • Hell Town: Using a sinister new machine, a small-town mayor is convinced to turn his town into a hell-like world.
  • Wild Dogs: A group of four friends are lured into an abandoned house by a pack of wild dogs.
  • I Went To A Party: Complete the following sentence in three different spooky ways: I went to a party and…
  • Sea’s Claw: The captain was anxious to get home, but the sea was so rough that his ship could not make it. Suddenly, from the fog, a giant black claw appeared. The giant black claw grabbed the ship and then brought the ship to the bottom of the ocean.
  • Dybylu’s Awakening: A monster named Dybylu wakes up one morning, alone in her room. She can feel it in the air; her pet cat is afraid. She goes to look in the mirror and see’s a human staring back at her. 
  • Murdered Spirit: A little boy is asked to help a spirit of a man who was murdered, but as he hears the story, it sounds weird and a bit confusing, and he begins to wonder if the story is even true.
  • Playground Horrors: In a playground near an orphanage, there are many playgrounds where kids play. The best playground is found next to an abandoned asylum. 
  • Barn Cat’s Secret: A drifter named Mick goes to a farm with his friend Sam, and the owner of the farm is a creepy scientist. Mick climbs a barn ladder and sees a strange cat in there…
  • Cape Creature: A sweet girl named Annie and her sister, Charley, are having an adventure in their neighbourhood. Suddenly, Annie spots a strange black cape creature lurking in the distance. It was the most feared and horrible creature Annie has ever seen.
  • Island of Souls: The main character goes to an island that no one has visited before. He is enjoying his vacation, but one night he finds out that his home is being invaded by creatures who want to steal his soul.
  • Spookie’s Nightmares: A witch known as ‘Spookie’ causes horrible hallucinations to victims of her nightmares. Her victims can’t scream or cry or run. All they can do is panic.
  • Stick’s Mischief: A girl named Paige finds a stick that attracts a mysterious creature that will play a sick joke on her. 
  • Black Blood: One day, a girl named Robin started having problems in school. Her parents, who are very smart and caring, see something is very wrong with Robin so they take her to the doctor. The doctor makes her go through a lot of tests, and everything is okay except for one last thing. Robin has black blood running through her veins.
  • Mirror’s Curse: A teenage girl named Sarah who is obsessed with her appearance starts turning into an old, ugly witch every time she looks into a mirror. 
  • Bee Killer: When bees start dying suddenly out of nowhere, the lead detective in a bee colony must find the culprit. 
  • Demon’s Puzzle: A strange jigsaw puzzle holds a horrific secret… In it, a grinning demon holds a girl’s head in its giant mouth.
  • Forbidden Drawing: A little boy sees a drawing of him in a forbidden book he had found. He is then transported to a never-ending forest, lost forever…
  • When the Past Comes Back: An adult is being haunted by their younger self.
  • Beast of the Woods: A reporter goes into the woods where there was a fierce animal attack. In this attack, five women and a little boy were killed. He decides to search for evidence on who this killer creature might be…
  • Letters of London: A man lives by himself in a flat in London. A mysterious person starts sending him letters which talk about how scary things will happen if he doesn’t leave his flat. 
  • The Ghost in Her Friend’s Mother: A 7 year old girl is having a sleepover at her friend’s house. Her friend’s mom leaves them alone, but they soon find out that she was poisoned, and that a ghost has taken over her body.
  • Creepy Crawlies in Your Kitchen: The first animal the kids see is a snake that eats people’s brains. It sneaks around in people’s kitchens.
  • Revolving Nightmares: The story starts off with a character telling the readers about the night he and his parents got stuck in a revolving door. The night would haunt him for the rest of his life.
  • Tommy’s Window: A long time ago there was a man named Tommy, who was lost in a forest. Tommy thought he heard a ghost calling him. Tommy went in the direction of the noise and found a scary-looking house that has windows that never opened. Tommy finds out that the house belongs to a witch and that if he opens the windows, the witch will turn Tommy into a puppet. 
  • Tommy the Dog: This is a story about a little boy and his dog.  The little boy goes to a big park, and he sees a dog that is alone. He walks over to the dog, but it just barks and then runs away. The next day Tommy starts turning into a human-sized dog. 

Fear no more! Just use this list of horror writing prompts to start writing your own fantastic horror story! Use any of these scary prompt ideas to take the story from your mind to your computer screen.

Looking for more creepy horror prompts? Check out this list of Halloween writing prompts , as well as this scary Halloween picture prompts . 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the 5 elements of a horror story.

Every good horror story contains the following five elements: Character, Setting, Action, Horror and Resolution. You can’t write a good horror without these elements.

How do you write in creepy writing?

To write in creepy writing, you need to immerse yourself in the world of horror. You think to think exactly like your main character or antagonist. Imagine yourself as a ghost, a demon, a monster, or a murderer. You can be a ghost who haunts people in their dreams or a monster who stalks them in the real world. Use extreme details to describe scenes of horror with gory and disgusting elements.

How do you get inspiration for horror?

Most horror stories are based on fear. Think about the things that scare you or haunt you in your nightmares. You can also get inspiration from watching scary movies or reading about scary stories. Finally, horror stories can also be inspired by real-life situations. For example, a girl who is bullied decides to take revenge on her bullies in a gruesome way. Of course, you can also use this list of horror writing prompts to inspire you too!

What are common horror themes?

Horror themes can be based on personal experiences, fears, or nightmares. Here are some common horror themes to explore:

  • Stalker: Someone who stalks you in your dreams or in the real world.
  • Monsters: Someone or something who appears to be human, but isn’t.
  • Revenge: Someone who is still haunted by a past event, and needs to seek revenge to overcome it.
  • Secrets: A deadly secret that could shake the lives of anyone involved.
  • Psychopaths: People who just kill or hurt others for the fun of it.

Did you find this list of over 110 horror writing prompts useful? Let us know in the comments below.

horror writing prompts

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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A Scary Story: Believing in Ghosts Exist in Real World

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Published: Feb 8, 2022

Words: 606 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

The Role of Transformation in a Scary Story (essay)

Works cited.

  • Bader, C. D., & Mencken, F. C. (2013). Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture. NYU Press.
  • Carroll, R. T. (2016). The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Houran, J., & Lange, R. (2001). Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. McFarland.
  • Radford, B. (2017). Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits. Rhombus Publishing.
  • Hallowell, R., & Hallowell, P. (2010). The Ghost Hunter's Field Guide: Over 1000 Haunted Places You Can Experience. Clerisy Press.
  • Braude, S. E. (2003). Immortal Remains: The Evidence for Life After Death. Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Wiseman, R. (2014). Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There. Macmillan.
  • Nickell, J. (2012). The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead. Prometheus Books.
  • Koestler-Parapsychology Unit. (2020). Ghosts in the Machine: How Can We Study Them? The Paranormal Review, (95), 14-19.
  • Sheldrake, R. (2019). The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind. Crown House Publishing.

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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. 

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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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    A scary experience is something that makes you feel frightened or nervous. It can happen when you are not expecting it, and it can make your heart beat fast. Sometimes, you might even feel like you want to run away or hide. Scary experiences can be different for everyone. For some, it might be seeing a scary movie, while for others, it could be ...

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    The main elements that people are looking for in a scary story are concept, suspense, atmosphere. They have to arouse readers' curiosity and want them to ask for more, make them live and feel the story and what the narrator wants to offer, to escape from reality and enter into the fantasy world. This is what the stories that we had to read ...

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    Introduction. 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 ...

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    Looking to write a scary story essay? Our comprehensive guide provides you with expert tips and step-by-step instructions to construct a captivating and spine-chilling narrative. Explore the elements of suspense, fear, and tension to create a masterful piece of writing. Discover the art of storytelling and learn how to engage your readers with thrilling experiences. Let The Knowledge Nest ...

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    Horror stories don't all have to involve the main character moving into a haunted house. The secret to a good story is to make the main character be as sympathetic and likable as possible. A mother feeding her son, a sister playing with her brother, school friends - bonds of love and friendship are at the heart of every good scary story.

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    Scary Story Essay example. Scary Story I looked up at the black sky. I hadn't intended to be out this late. The sun had set, and the empty road ahead had no streetlights. I knew I was in for a dark journey home. I had decided that by traveling through the forest would be the quickest way home. Minutes passed, yet it seemed like hours and days.

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    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 ...

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  18. Narrative Essay

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  21. A Scary Story: Believing in Ghosts Exist in Real World

    Get original essay. Firstly, I believe that ghosts exist in some way or form because an encounter I had growing up. This encounter related to a picture frame that continuously fell over, onto the ground with no apparent external pressure or force of nature. As a child, I lived in an old mansion in the central west end.

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