What is horror? Ask a group of people that question and you’ll get a plethora of answers. According to our good friends at Merriam-Webster, the official definition is:
Horror—a very strong feeling of fear, dread, and shock.
So the burning question on everyone’s mind is, how the hell do you create something that instills a very strong feeling of fear, dread, and shock? It’s a slippery slope of information rationing; give too much, and it’s no longer scary, withhold too much, and you’ll just frustrate readers with the endless questions with no answers.
Let’s look at the following passage from Stephen King’s “Mile 81”:
Doug reached for the door handle, then thought better of it and stooped to peer through the opening. What he saw was dismaying. The bench seat was covered with mud; so were the dashboard and the steering wheel. Dark goo dripped from the old-fashioned knobs of the radio, and on the wheel were prints that didn’t look exactly as if hands had made them. The palm prints were awfully big, for one thing, but the finger marks were as narrow as pencils. (“Mile 81”—by Stephen King)
What worked with this piece? Let me break it down.
Doug reached for the door handle, then thought better of it and stooped to peer through the opening. (King builds tension here with the character hesitant to open the door. There’s something screaming in his protagonist’s reptile brain, and both as a character and a reader, we want to know what’s going on. We want to know what Doug saw in the car that made him hesitate. King has given us some info, but left things unanswered. It’s that fear of the unknown that has created the first hook.) What he saw was dismaying. (More information, but more questions. What did he see? I want to know. Why was it dismaying?) The bench seat was covered with mud; so were the dashboard and the steering wheel. Dark goo dripped from the old-fashioned knobs of the radio, and on the wheel were prints that didn’t look exactly as if hands had made them. (Holy crap! Why is the car in such a state, and even more concerning, what made the prints on the wheel? I need to know more!) The palm prints were awfully big, for one thing, but the finger marks were as narrow as pencils.(This is a great example of slowly building up that feeling of dread.) (“Mile 81”—by Stephen King)
The above passage from King’s short story strikes a good balance between the give and take relationships of creating horror. The scene could have been ruined easily if he answered too many of the questions, or if he didn’t give enough description at all. A person’s mind will fill in the blanks with details more horrifying than you could ever come up with, but you have to seed that person’s mind with the necessary foundation to foster the horror. This ideal is constantly destroyed in horror movies. Think about it. How many movies featuring a monster or a killer have you seen where they keep the killer in the shadows? That technique keeps the viewer on edge far more than when they show the creature/killer, bringing it/them into the light. Once they drag the critter from the shadows, the illusion of horror is destroyed with cheesy effects. A similar thing happens with writing. If you reveal your creature too soon, it loses some of its hold on the reader. There is a time and place for the reveal, but too soon isn’t that time or place. Now that you have this tip, go write a scene utilizing the balance between giving and withholding information. Post it in the comments, I'd love to see what kind of nightmares you dream up.
Horror—a very strong feeling of fear, dread, and shock.
So the burning question on everyone’s mind is, how the hell do you create something that instills a very strong feeling of fear, dread, and shock? It’s a slippery slope of information rationing; give too much, and it’s no longer scary, withhold too much, and you’ll just frustrate readers with the endless questions with no answers.
Let’s look at the following passage from Stephen King’s “Mile 81”:
Doug reached for the door handle, then thought better of it and stooped to peer through the opening. What he saw was dismaying. The bench seat was covered with mud; so were the dashboard and the steering wheel. Dark goo dripped from the old-fashioned knobs of the radio, and on the wheel were prints that didn’t look exactly as if hands had made them. The palm prints were awfully big, for one thing, but the finger marks were as narrow as pencils. (“Mile 81”—by Stephen King)
What worked with this piece? Let me break it down.
Doug reached for the door handle, then thought better of it and stooped to peer through the opening. (King builds tension here with the character hesitant to open the door. There’s something screaming in his protagonist’s reptile brain, and both as a character and a reader, we want to know what’s going on. We want to know what Doug saw in the car that made him hesitate. King has given us some info, but left things unanswered. It’s that fear of the unknown that has created the first hook.) What he saw was dismaying. (More information, but more questions. What did he see? I want to know. Why was it dismaying?) The bench seat was covered with mud; so were the dashboard and the steering wheel. Dark goo dripped from the old-fashioned knobs of the radio, and on the wheel were prints that didn’t look exactly as if hands had made them. (Holy crap! Why is the car in such a state, and even more concerning, what made the prints on the wheel? I need to know more!) The palm prints were awfully big, for one thing, but the finger marks were as narrow as pencils.(This is a great example of slowly building up that feeling of dread.) (“Mile 81”—by Stephen King)
The above passage from King’s short story strikes a good balance between the give and take relationships of creating horror. The scene could have been ruined easily if he answered too many of the questions, or if he didn’t give enough description at all. A person’s mind will fill in the blanks with details more horrifying than you could ever come up with, but you have to seed that person’s mind with the necessary foundation to foster the horror. This ideal is constantly destroyed in horror movies. Think about it. How many movies featuring a monster or a killer have you seen where they keep the killer in the shadows? That technique keeps the viewer on edge far more than when they show the creature/killer, bringing it/them into the light. Once they drag the critter from the shadows, the illusion of horror is destroyed with cheesy effects. A similar thing happens with writing. If you reveal your creature too soon, it loses some of its hold on the reader. There is a time and place for the reveal, but too soon isn’t that time or place. Now that you have this tip, go write a scene utilizing the balance between giving and withholding information. Post it in the comments, I'd love to see what kind of nightmares you dream up.
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