1. 1:08 tap into own fears 2. 2:56 make perspective close. Make the story relatable. 3. 4:15 don’t overplay violence and gore. Takes emphasis off the writing itself 4. 5:18 do good research. 5. 6:38 use fear of unknown 6. 7:01 pace the book in different ways to create paranoia. 7. 8:00 keep a consistent theme 8. 9:21 don’t over emphasize one scare, keep the plot close and high quality. Don’t give it all up for one climax. 9. 9:52 make your ending powerful Hope this helps 🤗
Why small acts of violence, in my opinion, are more effective is because most of the time it’s something the reader can relate to on a small level. We’ve all caught our nail on something before and know the specific feeling related to that, so we could imagine how it would feel to have your nail ripped off, whereas we really have no idea what it would feel like to be decapitated.
Also suffering, when you’re decapitated, once it’s over it’s over Where as someone having a finger cut off, or something along those lines, is so visceral because you’d have to suffer with it You’re still alive and breathing You have to deal with the pain, the visual and the possible infections
I started writing a 1960s horror comedy for the sheer enjoyment of the campiness, but once the basic plot was out on paper I realized there was very little horror theming, just a cool spooky aesthetic and a half-baked mystery 😅 I think I'm teetering in the middle of the horror and comedy aspects, and not fully indulging in either. I'm super glad I found your video because it's helped push me to dig deeper into the broader theme of fear in this story! 🖤🦇
Painful moments over gore and death is worse because the person has to feel the sensation of getting their fingernails being ripped off... we can relate to pain and imagine pain we've never felt which is more unsettling that gore and death.
One of the best horror writers of all time, H.P. Lovecraft said that fear is the most powerful emotion in humans and specifically, fear of the unknown. So the fact you mentioned that speaks volumes of your knowledge. Plus, you were fun to watch 😉 Great tips!
Watched a lot of advices on how to write scary before going there myself next month and I find this one underrated. I related to it so much and I think it's not just about taste in writing/reading horror but because i share your way to apprehend / comprehend fear itself. This was a treat to watch, thank you!
I'm currently writing a horror/western collection. I agree with you on all of these points. One tip I picked up early on was to make every monster count. From Godzilla to Babadook, we remember good monster's because they are manifestations of a greater theme. This is the first video I've seen of yours and I look forward to checking more out.
Okay, this is random I know, but my favorite thing about the movie Babadook is that it feels like only a woman could make it specifically because only a woman would be brave enough to depict a sympathetic female protagonist who hates her own child. I know some people are like "she doesn't hate him she just can't deal with him at the moment, because of grief and yadda yadda" yeah, I know, but _because_ of that she *hates* him, and that just seems really bold to me. Another movie she made, Nightingale, is amazing for similar reasons.
It's funny, one of my projects is a horror western surrounding a cursed artifact and how the four stories interlock together through that artifact. All those who come across it, are met with great misfortune, horror, and despair! Another idea, surrounds a well respected archaeologist and his family on vacation, who are held captive by a young very powerful evil witch and her gang of sadistic warlocks who need him to solve a spell by the next full moon or they kill him and his family.
this list is so cool - I'm honestly a massive scaredy cat in books so I avoid horror for the most part but now I want to analyze all the different elements of my fear and speculate story scenarios 🤔
Oh, but maybe being afraid of them also highlights your developed perception, imagination and empathy! And if this comment reaches tou, could you list a couple of horror books that impressed you to this level? ...I always viewed horror books as something superficial and mostly stuck to short stories. But maybe I haven't dug deep enough. After all, in horror books it's the characters that get scared - the reader gets IMPRESSED!
thanks for this video. I've never really been proud of the horror I've written before but with these tips in mind and working them into the story, I'm much more satisfied with my writings. thank you so much.
thank you so much !!!😃🥰 I've been writing my story for almost 2 years and ran out of ideas, now I have tons of ideas, my story is about this doll, she created her own mystical world, its the world of dolls, I can't wait to publish it.
I'm currently writing a fantasy horror story but since I'm going through a big case of writer's block I'm just writing down individual scenes that I plan to eventually tie together in a more cohesive timeline. My most recent scene involved the MC sneaking into a camp to get some supplies, only to be met with an undead creature that was being kept secret within the camp. The first version was okay but it felt a bit distant. Like I described everything that happened but it didn't feel personal enough. Then remembering the "Five senses" technique, I rewrote the scene but kept visual descriptors at a bare minimum. Now I talked about how cold the night was, the errie quiet as the MC snuck about, making her own footsteps sound far louder than they actually were. I talked about even after escaping the creature, the scent of decay still remained in the MC's mind hours after the fact. I highly recommend you try this trick.
Honestly the point about subtle vs visceral violence is so important for the shock factor you're going for. For example there was this scene in a certain game where the protagonist finds out the group that caught her are cannibals, in the game the cannibalistic aspect is presented as casual shock, she wakes up and the men are just casually chopping off a man's arm, while in the series she's talking with the leader, and then slowly she sees there's a single ear almost innocently lying on the floor, all this after receiving a plate with "deer" meat on it (in the game she actually eats it), and that's when the horror realization kicks in for real, she has been cocky and aggressive all this time but now? Now she's **scared**. The show made that revelation scene much more powerful to me as an expectator, but the game's execution was great as well.
I used to study film and though I am rusty, you touch upon some key elements my teachers talked about. Dread, for instance, is one of the best tools to use. And also to make the audience question their own sanity and get "afraid" of their own shadow. Also breaking expectations is key. Building uup to the scare is fine, but it's more effective when the audience has their guards down. Good video.
smaller acts of violence are more relatable and we get scared because we CAN see that happening to us. I could accidentally have my fingernail pulled of. In fact, if the girl that does my nails is to be trusted, it happens to more people than you'd think. But being decapitated or cut in half? The chances of that ever happening to me are probably close to 0, so it does not even have me concerned, let alone scared.
I actually find horror novels a lot scarier than horror movies. Don't get me wrong, a good horror movie can definitely scare me. But in books, you're more like inside the character's head, and that's where the real horror is. Take The Shining for example. I found the book WAY scarier than the movie. And it had some scenes that were really unsettling in the book, but in the movie they really wouldn't have been. Only Stephen King can make a fire extinguisher scary. Or that scene where the little kid is playing in the haunted playground, and he feels something in the (I think it was) jungle gym with him, but he never sees it, we never see it, it's never described explicitly, and he's terrified and trying to get away from it as fast as possible. That unease, it would have been difficult to convey in the movie, but it was done really well in the book. A horror story in book form can do a lot more to get into your head than a movie can, in my opinion. I dislike the slasher genre, largely because I think it's just gross, personally, but also and more importantly because I feel horror is more psychological. I think a lot of the fear is taken away when it's so in-your-face. Then it may be shocking, but it's not like... real horror. In my opinion. Some of the horror movies that have really scared me, they're more psychological and you don't really see much of the actual "monster". Like The Changeling (1980). Or Noroi (2005). In The Changeling, you only actually see the ghost boy a couple times. So when he does appear, and the WAY in which he appears, it's much more terrifying than if he's just in your face for half the movie. And Noroi... well, I don't even know how to explain that movie satisfactorily, you just have to watch it. It's amazing. But anyway, to wrap up what I'm trying to say, horror is a lot more what you FEEL than what you SEE. If it's too visual, if it's too explained and obvious and in-your-face, it's less scary. Horror movies can be terrifying, but horror novels can be much more so in my opinion because they get much more inside your head and you're feeling it all rather than seeing it with your eyes.
I came here to get advice for writing my horror short story, it is about a group of teens stumbling upon an animalistic predator that knows how to make traps and can accurately reason where the protagonists are going and actively drives them away from where they should be going to get out alive.
Too many movies rely on jump scares and that goes into books as well. I try to implement scares that are based on a shocking or horrific revelation, The Walking Dead Telltale series did an amazing job with one where SPOILER they found out the people that were giving them shelter were cannibals. They found a missing friend tied up in a room with his legs cut off ahhh! That inspired a story I wrote which was especially creepy. Other examples are a character accidentally saying something that clues in protagonist that they're the killer, maybe the protagonist realizes THEY are the killer, or a something they thought was just a dream actually happened. That sort of psychological play is what I loooove not only cuz of shock but also messing with expectations especially if you make it like something different was going to play out.
I came up with an idea for a story of a little girl who is locked in her basement and her dad abuses her every day in there however, she sees him as a monster or a demon. From the perspective of the reader, it will seem like a monster is attacking her. At the end of the story, it will be revealed that the monster or demon was her father the entire time and she will never escape him.
Reminds of the little girl from The Haunting of Hill House who got sa'd by her foster father, and when talking about it she referred to him as the "Smile Monster" which everybody thought was an imaginary boogeyman until the dark truth was found out
lol as a fellow kid who is into horror, I find suspense a really good tool instead of gore (speaking as mostly an audience member who watches a lot of horror shows) but umm one thing I would recommend watching is The Outside which is an episode from this horror anthology show Cabinet of Curiosities. It only had one really gory scene (I think) but still had me like really nervous the whole time. I'm getting into horror writing and watching this has really helped me wrap my head around suspense vs gore. (also writing horror and watching horror are different, ik, but still) anyway I wish u luck :) oh also hereditary is really suspenseful (also gory) but the suspense in my opinion is what really made it scary. idk what i'm even saying anymore but yeah.
I read about a pair of pit bulls owned by a family for 8 years, who killed the son and daughter and put the wife in the hospital. I love dogs, and I just can't wrap my head around how you could love an animal for 8 years and have it literally destroy your family and children. Dying by dog bites is also a really bad way to go. I think I really have to explore that fear more (especially as someone who loves Rottweilers.)
Haha thank you, it's something I only noticed when I started making videos so I was pretty self-conscious about it for a while. I'm so glad you were able to get something from this video though!
This video earned a sub. Im writing for my life to get published, and am sitting frustratingly at ~26k words. Going to be diving in for more research and hope somehow I can get away with my first publication being a novella since i vehemently believe the story doesnt *need* more 🤷🏻♂️ Thanks for the uploads!
Another direction that ghost stories can hit us from, is fear of the past -- fear of past misdeeds having an unpaid price, that gets demanded in the present day. (Cryptid/monster stories can do this as well: "The Only Good Indians" by Stephen Graham Jones is a great example, but the Hellboy story "Drums of the Dead" has stuck with me since reading it for the same reason.)
I don't have alot of fears for fiction but I am sort of a squeamish person, so I make up for it with gruesome and brutal events, rather than chilling events
I totally agree with the small acts of violence point because even after seeing stuff like Dredd 2012 and Midsommer, i still believe that the bottle scene in Pan’s Labyrinth is the most violent and difficult to watch thing I’ve seen in a movie.
I agree the more the monster is revealed the less tension its presence can carry. Most monster horror starts with very little known of the thing and gradually unveils its form but that's sort of the opposite of what should happen. Like a movie needs to get more tense as you approach the resolution, not less. The ideal monster might be something like a monster which grows and transmutes behind a closed door. Its growls can be heard, it can even be felt when it shakes the house, maybe it emits a putrid stench, but as it grows the percentage of its mass that can be seen through the keyhole decreases over time. It should only become more enigmatic
If you’re looking into fears, The Magnus Archives really digs into it. It’s a couple seasons in when the really interesting stuff is revealed, but the entire podcast literally REVOLVES around fear.
I'm used to bizarre horror, you could say a fear of the unknown but on steroids, like the 'Mystery Flesh Pit National Park' internet horror story. I understand what makes the story scary, but holy hell, how does one even think of something like that?
I’m writing a short horror/suspense story about a submarine stuck at the bottom of the ocean, and there is a mystery involved as to why - (input science machine that was at the bottom of the ocean) stopped working, and the suspense of the character walking around on the sea floor trying to get his sub working again and solve the issues that arise. (As well as some maybe leviathan class creatures that will be hopefully implemented in a way to create suspense and foreshadowing). Thanks for these tips! As this story heavily draws on the fear of the unknown/darkness.
The fear of the unknown is what gets me, such as Thalassophobia. For me nothing is more terrifying than being stranded in a black, blue ocean in the dead of night and unable see the horrors that are beneath you.
WHY AM I ONLY GETTING GOOD IDEAS WHEN THE VIDEO GOES when i go to my writing table im lost im blank but when i see the video im bursting out super frikin great ideas Whyyyyy
Be realistic in scenes. If you would die in real life don't let them live when they should not. Fear can be used in different ways in horror also. I write mostly horror myself.
Despite the fact that I’ve never made a proper story before, I’ve got multiple ideas for them in my head, so that’s why I’m learning. I’m making a story that’s inspired by the champawat tiger and other man eating big cats, as I love jaws
I think simplicity is best when writing horror and violence in a realistic fashion. Most death and violence in real life is quick and sloppy, kinda gritty. Sometimes it’s slow but clean, or it’s quick, and messy. Most people don’t get tortured to death, and it makes for predictable writing. My best tip is make your descriptions simple but violent for the murder during the act. Especially from the killers perspective, less is more. Here’s an example I wrote (hopefully it gets my point across): “I sat over her watching the life slowly fade. I saw the light flicker in her eyes and thought, she looked so beautiful.”
I think accidental violence can be the scariest kind. Falling off a ledge, tripping down stairs, being hit by a car etc while being chased or chasing something etc. That stuff happens in real life all the time.
I’m so fucking excited to write this!!! So it’s going to be a short story were it starts off a silly little classic hero vs villain tale but woah, twist, the protagonist is the sidekick of the hero!…but that’s not the real twist. The entire world is just a made up world by the “hero” and they can control everyone and everything that happens. The protagonist tries to reveal this, but the hero only resets the world, over and over in an infinite loop. The ending is it becoming so close to an end but in reality the hero was just toying and seeing how it would play out. The world resets, and the hero is left to be adored and perfect in their own world. The protagonist forgets all about everything and…it’s the same as the beginning. It’s all about lack of control.
Im going to have to make a video on this, but read "The Thing in the Basement Has Gotten Better at Mimicking People", an online horror story. It displays, above all else, that the scary part isnt what scares you in horror writing. Translating the threat the way a movie does wont give you good fiction. What this genre depends on is a theme that, only by the end, do you truly realize. It can be one sentence. It can be one page. It can be a singular thought. But find something human and break it. Make the reader question their sanity as they set down your book and stare in mindless shock. The way the Sixth Sense made you realize the one who was dead this whole time was the main character. The idea of the babadook not being the villain, but yourself for creating it, ect. Those are examples of what I mean in film, but it applies to stories as well.
If you get an opportunity, I highly recommend all here to read Watchers by Dean Koontz. That book has essentially everything that Lynn has said here and is one of Dean Koontz' most popular and recognized horror novels. Relatable protagonists and clearly researched details and great villains/monsters and excellent prose and theme that resonates, etc. Great book, and an amazing example of what horror can and probably, in most cases, SHOULD do for readers.
I've written an action horror novel where the protagonist is an assassin working for a cult. He doesn't struggle with cosmic monstrosities or demons. The horror comes from both his childhood trauma (evil haunted him and no one believed him) and the realisation that HE is the most dangerous entity in the book. Other than that, I lean into vivid action scenes, towering monsters and a wraith-like cult leader operating behind the scenes. I want the book to be fun-frightening, like 'Evil Dead 2'.
I love horror and I want to try and write a horror story so badly, the only problem is that I freakin suck at writing. I haven’t tried for quite awhile but I want to give it a try again now that I’m older and wiser, I just really struggle when it comes to coming up with ideas. I have always been terrified of Mascots and Animatronics, which is why FNAF will always hold a special place in my heart. The only problem is I don’t even know where to start and whenever I come up with an idea I end up scrapping it because I’m not to confident with my writing skills 🥴
I think what makes Stephen King’s monsters are so effective is that their qualities, abilities and weaknesses are very ambiguous and difficult to ascertain. Even outside of knowing how to defend yourself against Pennywise, TommyKnockers or the Overlook Hotel, not knowing what the they want to do, or can do, is unsettling
I’m writing a story about a man who finds ruins with evidences of sacrifice to a god, and he is hunted for finding said evidence. I want to make a personal struggle with the main character, what should it be?
My personal opinion on the violence/gore topic. For the style of horror I usually write (being slasher, with some creepypasta influence) I feel personally that the gore and violence in those genres is somewhat romanticized in the community, almost to where the stories seem to portray murder as "cool", creepypasta has this problem with a lot of the big stories, though not necessarily on purpose, so in my writing, usually I like to keep the somewhat over the top style of the gore for shock value, but I try to play more into the brutality of it, and emphasize that these acts are absolutely horrible, and not once should they be seen as "cool".
Lovecraft stumbled on something interesting: it’s not the fear of the unknown, it is the fear of the unknowable that is the ultimate fear. It is not about not knowing something and finding it out.. that’s the problem of all scary movies (including the first Alien movie sadly) as they reveal ‘something’, whatever that thing is, at the end. The true ultimate fear is: there is nothing to reveal because even if revealed you wouldn’t understand and get to know what it is.. and then, if you achieved that, the fear just never leaves. And the idea keeps visiting you. It’s similar to other emotions where we develop obsessions..
6:55 I am really picky with horror but I love Mike Flanagan! I don't find any of his works particularly scary as I am very desensitized to a lot of stuff but his horror actually has a story behind it and kept me watching. When someone is just trying to be scary but disregards the characters it makes the horror not compelling at all (an example in my opinion would be The Conjuring. I didn't find it scary and honestly was bored) I have no current horror writing experience (i'm getting started) but as an audience member I can tell you that much.
writing a book about a group of teens accidentally killing another teen who 2 years latter mysteriously re-apears in the same town and the same school. Somehow that group of teens are the only people who notice this re-apearance.
Hey, very nice video, im currently working on a point and click decision based horror game, because when i started it seemed like it would be a fun challenge in the coding aspect, but the story is really hard to come up with. Its hard to make up everything, and its really hard to not make it obnoxious, and its more hard to not make it stale, and boring. Im trying my best here, refusing to use ChatGPT, and just trying to make it as good as i can. But its really hard😅
That's why In my opinion films are superior to books because you can show emotions and situations , you don't have to write "Phew glad I'm all alone in this dark filled room"- thought victim num. 1 and a pair of ocean like eyes watched him/her closely from the shadow You can just show a character relaxed and in one show a full view of the room if the viewer sees the eyes he's freaked out, but even more if they suddenly are gone
I was a combat medic in the Army during my younger days. I pull from that when writing. I find that it lends a certain realism to my ideas because I'm drawing them from actual feelings. My plots may not be perfect but when it's time to write in the fear, I can even disgust or frighten myself when I read my own writing back to myself lol
I was gonna write a lockdown horror book. I've actually been in a lockdown (real one) but a person wasn't in the building It was a gun outside and someone had a gun in their backpack
A personal advice Make sure there is some happy moments it will make the bloody deaths of your traumatized characters waaay more impactful and shocking you need to make the audience attached to your characters that way the horror more impactful making everything scary all the time becomes boring and you loose shock value
1. 1:08 tap into own fears
2. 2:56 make perspective close. Make the story relatable.
3. 4:15 don’t overplay violence and gore. Takes emphasis off the writing itself
4. 5:18 do good research.
5. 6:38 use fear of unknown
6. 7:01 pace the book in different ways to create paranoia.
7. 8:00 keep a consistent theme
8. 9:21 don’t over emphasize one scare, keep the plot close and high quality. Don’t give it all up for one climax.
9. 9:52 make your ending powerful
Hope this helps 🤗
@@GarrettFromThief It would cut down on their video watch time. Which would hurt their channels.
Thanks For The Pin!!
Thanks! You saved me a lot of time
thank you for summarizing it
Why small acts of violence, in my opinion, are more effective is because most of the time it’s something the reader can relate to on a small level. We’ve all caught our nail on something before and know the specific feeling related to that, so we could imagine how it would feel to have your nail ripped off, whereas we really have no idea what it would feel like to be decapitated.
this!! absolutely this :)
Also suffering, when you’re decapitated, once it’s over it’s over
Where as someone having a finger cut off, or something along those lines, is so visceral because you’d have to suffer with it
You’re still alive and breathing
You have to deal with the pain, the visual and the possible infections
I always thought about this!!!!
To be fair, even those who have gotten decapitated have no idea what that feels like 😂
@@alexman378 they could have become ghosts and remember it
I feel like a book about overthinking would be amazing
i could write 3 about this🧍♀️
@@lumin0us.lazuliSame, if I'd ever stop thinking about it and just do it lol
Done
For 4 years I've been trying to capture overthinking in my main character but there are so many factors that I've over thought it myself.
yeah
I started writing a 1960s horror comedy for the sheer enjoyment of the campiness, but once the basic plot was out on paper I realized there was very little horror theming, just a cool spooky aesthetic and a half-baked mystery 😅
I think I'm teetering in the middle of the horror and comedy aspects, and not fully indulging in either.
I'm super glad I found your video because it's helped push me to dig deeper into the broader theme of fear in this story! 🖤🦇
Can’t wait!!sounds so interesting!
It sound like something that will be best seller in my country...
Painful moments over gore and death is worse because the person has to feel the sensation of getting their fingernails being ripped off... we can relate to pain and imagine pain we've never felt which is more unsettling that gore and death.
One of the best horror writers of all time, H.P. Lovecraft said that fear is the most powerful emotion in humans and specifically, fear of the unknown. So the fact you mentioned that speaks volumes of your knowledge. Plus, you were fun to watch 😉
Great tips!
Thank you so much!!
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Watched a lot of advices on how to write scary before going there myself next month and I find this one underrated. I related to it so much and I think it's not just about taste in writing/reading horror but because i share your way to apprehend / comprehend fear itself. This was a treat to watch, thank you!
tysm for the kind words!
I'm currently writing a horror/western collection. I agree with you on all of these points. One tip I picked up early on was to make every monster count. From Godzilla to Babadook, we remember good monster's because they are manifestations of a greater theme. This is the first video I've seen of yours and I look forward to checking more out.
Oh yes, I have been obsessed with monsters as representations of a greater theme for the past few years, and I absolutely agree! They need to count.
Okay, this is random I know, but my favorite thing about the movie Babadook is that it feels like only a woman could make it specifically because only a woman would be brave enough to depict a sympathetic female protagonist who hates her own child.
I know some people are like "she doesn't hate him she just can't deal with him at the moment, because of grief and yadda yadda" yeah, I know, but _because_ of that she *hates* him, and that just seems really bold to me.
Another movie she made, Nightingale, is amazing for similar reasons.
It's funny, one of my projects is a horror western surrounding a cursed artifact and how the four stories interlock together through that artifact. All those who come across it, are met with great misfortune, horror, and despair! Another idea, surrounds a well respected archaeologist and his family on vacation, who are held captive by a young very powerful evil witch and her gang of sadistic warlocks who need him to solve a spell by the next full moon or they kill him and his family.
this list is so cool - I'm honestly a massive scaredy cat in books so I avoid horror for the most part but now I want to analyze all the different elements of my fear and speculate story scenarios 🤔
ahh thank you so much for watching!! and yes honestly introspective deep dives are the BEST
Oh, but maybe being afraid of them also highlights your developed perception, imagination and empathy!
And if this comment reaches tou, could you list a couple of horror books that impressed you to this level?
...I always viewed horror books as something superficial and mostly stuck to short stories. But maybe I haven't dug deep enough.
After all, in horror books it's the characters that get scared - the reader gets IMPRESSED!
Horror comedy to me is the equivalent of sweet and spicy to taste. The absolute best combination.
thanks for this video. I've never really been proud of the horror I've written before but with these tips in mind and working them into the story, I'm much more satisfied with my writings. thank you so much.
I'm so glad to hear that, thank you for watching!
thank you so much !!!😃🥰 I've been writing my story for almost 2 years and ran out of ideas, now I have tons of ideas, my story is about this doll, she created her own mystical world, its the world of dolls, I can't wait to publish it.
What’s it called? Wouldn’t mind reading it if I could!
OOO I would like to read it, it sounds interesting!
Did this book ever come out? Sounds interesting
I'm currently writing a fantasy horror story but since I'm going through a big case of writer's block I'm just writing down individual scenes that I plan to eventually tie together in a more cohesive timeline.
My most recent scene involved the MC sneaking into a camp to get some supplies, only to be met with an undead creature that was being kept secret within the camp. The first version was okay but it felt a bit distant. Like I described everything that happened but it didn't feel personal enough. Then remembering the "Five senses" technique, I rewrote the scene but kept visual descriptors at a bare minimum. Now I talked about how cold the night was, the errie quiet as the MC snuck about, making her own footsteps sound far louder than they actually were. I talked about even after escaping the creature, the scent of decay still remained in the MC's mind hours after the fact.
I highly recommend you try this trick.
It really immerses the reader in the story
2:46 I swear someone at my work laughed at this exact moment LOL (I'm wearing earphones btw)
I have to write a scary short story first school so thank you for this!
you're welcome, good luck with the assignment!
Honestly the point about subtle vs visceral violence is so important for the shock factor you're going for. For example there was this scene in a certain game where the protagonist finds out the group that caught her are cannibals, in the game the cannibalistic aspect is presented as casual shock, she wakes up and the men are just casually chopping off a man's arm, while in the series she's talking with the leader, and then slowly she sees there's a single ear almost innocently lying on the floor, all this after receiving a plate with "deer" meat on it (in the game she actually eats it), and that's when the horror realization kicks in for real, she has been cocky and aggressive all this time but now? Now she's **scared**. The show made that revelation scene much more powerful to me as an expectator, but the game's execution was great as well.
The last of us? ellie's a girlboss through and through.
I used to study film and though I am rusty, you touch upon some key elements my teachers talked about. Dread, for instance, is one of the best tools to use. And also to make the audience question their own sanity and get "afraid" of their own shadow. Also breaking expectations is key. Building uup to the scare is fine, but it's more effective when the audience has their guards down. Good video.
This means a lot to hear, thank you so much!
smaller acts of violence are more relatable and we get scared because we CAN see that happening to us. I could accidentally have my fingernail pulled of. In fact, if the girl that does my nails is to be trusted, it happens to more people than you'd think. But being decapitated or cut in half? The chances of that ever happening to me are probably close to 0, so it does not even have me concerned, let alone scared.
I actually can't write at night, because I scare myself.
I actually find horror novels a lot scarier than horror movies. Don't get me wrong, a good horror movie can definitely scare me. But in books, you're more like inside the character's head, and that's where the real horror is. Take The Shining for example. I found the book WAY scarier than the movie. And it had some scenes that were really unsettling in the book, but in the movie they really wouldn't have been. Only Stephen King can make a fire extinguisher scary. Or that scene where the little kid is playing in the haunted playground, and he feels something in the (I think it was) jungle gym with him, but he never sees it, we never see it, it's never described explicitly, and he's terrified and trying to get away from it as fast as possible. That unease, it would have been difficult to convey in the movie, but it was done really well in the book. A horror story in book form can do a lot more to get into your head than a movie can, in my opinion. I dislike the slasher genre, largely because I think it's just gross, personally, but also and more importantly because I feel horror is more psychological. I think a lot of the fear is taken away when it's so in-your-face. Then it may be shocking, but it's not like... real horror. In my opinion.
Some of the horror movies that have really scared me, they're more psychological and you don't really see much of the actual "monster". Like The Changeling (1980). Or Noroi (2005). In The Changeling, you only actually see the ghost boy a couple times. So when he does appear, and the WAY in which he appears, it's much more terrifying than if he's just in your face for half the movie. And Noroi... well, I don't even know how to explain that movie satisfactorily, you just have to watch it. It's amazing.
But anyway, to wrap up what I'm trying to say, horror is a lot more what you FEEL than what you SEE. If it's too visual, if it's too explained and obvious and in-your-face, it's less scary. Horror movies can be terrifying, but horror novels can be much more so in my opinion because they get much more inside your head and you're feeling it all rather than seeing it with your eyes.
I came here to get advice for writing my horror short story, it is about a group of teens stumbling upon an animalistic predator that knows how to make traps and can accurately reason where the protagonists are going and actively drives them away from where they should be going to get out alive.
Can you do a full video of other references like “biting down on a rusty nail.” that was such a good example. 😂
I hope you do more videos for Halloween this year - it's not easy to get great horror writing advice in particular and this is very helpful ;)
This is a great idea, I just might!
@@lynndjung yay! cool
Great video. working on writing a short horror story and I've been looking for different tips for it!
I needed some advice to write a scary character and even though this is for horror stories I still find it helpful, thanks
I'm so glad to hear that, thank you for watching!!
Too many movies rely on jump scares and that goes into books as well. I try to implement scares that are based on a shocking or horrific revelation, The Walking Dead Telltale series did an amazing job with one where SPOILER they found out the people that were giving them shelter were cannibals. They found a missing friend tied up in a room with his legs cut off ahhh! That inspired a story I wrote which was especially creepy. Other examples are a character accidentally saying something that clues in protagonist that they're the killer, maybe the protagonist realizes THEY are the killer, or a something they thought was just a dream actually happened. That sort of psychological play is what I loooove not only cuz of shock but also messing with expectations especially if you make it like something different was going to play out.
I came up with an idea for a story of a little girl who is locked in her basement and her dad abuses her every day in there however, she sees him as a monster or a demon. From the perspective of the reader, it will seem like a monster is attacking her. At the end of the story, it will be revealed that the monster or demon was her father the entire time and she will never escape him.
Omggg thats kinda sadddddd but so coool!!!
Love itt
Reminds of the little girl from The Haunting of Hill House who got sa'd by her foster father, and when talking about it she referred to him as the "Smile Monster" which everybody thought was an imaginary boogeyman until the dark truth was found out
I think your idea can work as a short story, maybe 20 pages or so
That's basically what Among the Sleep did.
Phychological horror it seems to me
i’m writing a book about a girl who gets possessed by a ghost after moving to the bronx from new jersey. this really helped!
As a kid that is into horror, I struggle to not make my horror stories gruesome because my parents would whip out the holy cross lol. This helps.
lol as a fellow kid who is into horror, I find suspense a really good tool instead of gore (speaking as mostly an audience member who watches a lot of horror shows) but umm one thing I would recommend watching is The Outside which is an episode from this horror anthology show Cabinet of Curiosities. It only had one really gory scene (I think) but still had me like really nervous the whole time. I'm getting into horror writing and watching this has really helped me wrap my head around suspense vs gore. (also writing horror and watching horror are different, ik, but still)
anyway I wish u luck :)
oh also hereditary is really suspenseful (also gory) but the suspense in my opinion is what really made it scary. idk what i'm even saying anymore but yeah.
You have NEVER given me useless information!
lol I'm so glad!!
I read about a pair of pit bulls owned by a family for 8 years, who killed the son and daughter and put the wife in the hospital. I love dogs, and I just can't wrap my head around how you could love an animal for 8 years and have it literally destroy your family and children. Dying by dog bites is also a really bad way to go.
I think I really have to explore that fear more (especially as someone who loves Rottweilers.)
Thanks for the advice, I took away a lot from this.
But please don't apologize for speeking with your hands, its commendable
Haha thank you, it's something I only noticed when I started making videos so I was pretty self-conscious about it for a while. I'm so glad you were able to get something from this video though!
@@lynndjungin my school during skits the teachers used to tell us to use hand gestures to the most
This video earned a sub. Im writing for my life to get published, and am sitting frustratingly at ~26k words. Going to be diving in for more research and hope somehow I can get away with my first publication being a novella since i vehemently believe the story doesnt *need* more 🤷🏻♂️
Thanks for the uploads!
If the story is done, it's done!! A novella sounds like a great idea. Thank you so much for the support!
@@lynndjung no thank you! 😊
Another direction that ghost stories can hit us from, is fear of the past -- fear of past misdeeds having an unpaid price, that gets demanded in the present day. (Cryptid/monster stories can do this as well: "The Only Good Indians" by Stephen Graham Jones is a great example, but the Hellboy story "Drums of the Dead" has stuck with me since reading it for the same reason.)
I don't have alot of fears for fiction but I am sort of a squeamish person, so I make up for it with gruesome and brutal events, rather than chilling events
I totally agree with the small acts of violence point because even after seeing stuff like Dredd 2012 and Midsommer, i still believe that the bottle scene in Pan’s Labyrinth is the most violent and difficult to watch thing I’ve seen in a movie.
I agree the more the monster is revealed the less tension its presence can carry. Most monster horror starts with very little known of the thing and gradually unveils its form but that's sort of the opposite of what should happen. Like a movie needs to get more tense as you approach the resolution, not less. The ideal monster might be something like a monster which grows and transmutes behind a closed door. Its growls can be heard, it can even be felt when it shakes the house, maybe it emits a putrid stench, but as it grows the percentage of its mass that can be seen through the keyhole decreases over time. It should only become more enigmatic
If you’re looking into fears, The Magnus Archives really digs into it. It’s a couple seasons in when the really interesting stuff is revealed, but the entire podcast literally REVOLVES around fear.
I'm used to bizarre horror, you could say a fear of the unknown but on steroids, like the 'Mystery Flesh Pit National Park' internet horror story. I understand what makes the story scary, but holy hell, how does one even think of something like that?
For my ELA class I'm writing a horror story so this really helped so thank you❤
This will definitely help me in my horror story to prove dinosaurs can be scary
Small acts of violence can be just as painful yet much scarier because you have to experience the horror of surviving it
I’m writing a short horror/suspense story about a submarine stuck at the bottom of the ocean, and there is a mystery involved as to why - (input science machine that was at the bottom of the ocean) stopped working, and the suspense of the character walking around on the sea floor trying to get his sub working again and solve the issues that arise. (As well as some maybe leviathan class creatures that will be hopefully implemented in a way to create suspense and foreshadowing). Thanks for these tips! As this story heavily draws on the fear of the unknown/darkness.
extremely benefcial and good advices, thanks so much Lynn.
+1 Subscriber
thank you so much!!
Thank you for this!
Thank you so much for this video! I’m currently writing a rough draft and this helped me a lot! :)
thank you so much for watching, i'm glad to hear it helped!!
Just by watching one video from your channel, I know I’m going to enjoy other videos of yours, so I’m subscribed to up you now! Thank you! 😊
thank you so much!! that means a lot to hear. :)
The fear of the unknown is what gets me, such as Thalassophobia. For me nothing is more terrifying than being stranded in a black, blue ocean in the dead of night and unable see the horrors that are beneath you.
WHY AM I ONLY GETTING GOOD IDEAS WHEN THE VIDEO GOES when i go to my writing table im lost im blank but when i see the video im bursting out super frikin great ideas Whyyyyy
Im using this for a writing comp great help👍
Thank you! I have an English writing contest and this helped a lot!
Amazing, thank you for watching and good luck!!
Be realistic in scenes. If you would die in real life don't let them live when they should not. Fear can be used in different ways in horror also. I write mostly horror myself.
Thanks so much! I'm currently trying my hardest to write a book called "The Scapegoat". I'm really excited to release it in a few years from now!
that's so exciting!! best of luck with writing and releasing it!
Thanks. I'll be sure to incorporate these into my channel
Despite the fact that I’ve never made a proper story before, I’ve got multiple ideas for them in my head, so that’s why I’m learning. I’m making a story that’s inspired by the champawat tiger and other man eating big cats, as I love jaws
Thankyou so much for these points coz I'm trying new concept for my stories 🙌❤️
I think simplicity is best when writing horror and violence in a realistic fashion. Most death and violence in real life is quick and sloppy, kinda gritty. Sometimes it’s slow but clean, or it’s quick, and messy. Most people don’t get tortured to death, and it makes for predictable writing. My best tip is make your descriptions simple but violent for the murder during the act. Especially from the killers perspective, less is more.
Here’s an example I wrote (hopefully it gets my point across): “I sat over her watching the life slowly fade. I saw the light flicker in her eyes and thought, she looked so beautiful.”
I think accidental violence can be the scariest kind. Falling off a ledge, tripping down stairs, being hit by a car etc while being chased or chasing something etc. That stuff happens in real life all the time.
Tysm ! I'm planning to write like parasite-ish horror- well technically body horror BUT PARASITE YASS
I’m so fucking excited to write this!!! So it’s going to be a short story were it starts off a silly little classic hero vs villain tale but woah, twist, the protagonist is the sidekick of the hero!…but that’s not the real twist. The entire world is just a made up world by the “hero” and they can control everyone and everything that happens. The protagonist tries to reveal this, but the hero only resets the world, over and over in an infinite loop. The ending is it becoming so close to an end but in reality the hero was just toying and seeing how it would play out. The world resets, and the hero is left to be adored and perfect in their own world. The protagonist forgets all about everything and…it’s the same as the beginning. It’s all about lack of control.
Im going to have to make a video on this, but read "The Thing in the Basement Has Gotten Better at Mimicking People", an online horror story.
It displays, above all else, that the scary part isnt what scares you in horror writing. Translating the threat the way a movie does wont give you good fiction. What this genre depends on is a theme that, only by the end, do you truly realize. It can be one sentence. It can be one page. It can be a singular thought. But find something human and break it. Make the reader question their sanity as they set down your book and stare in mindless shock. The way the Sixth Sense made you realize the one who was dead this whole time was the main character. The idea of the babadook not being the villain, but yourself for creating it, ect. Those are examples of what I mean in film, but it applies to stories as well.
The violence thing I ignore bc I’m writing a saw inspired book 😅
Thq alot to u sis ...tomorrow is my exam and it really helped me alot 🌸✨...
If you get an opportunity, I highly recommend all here to read Watchers by Dean Koontz. That book has essentially everything that Lynn has said here and is one of Dean Koontz' most popular and recognized horror novels. Relatable protagonists and clearly researched details and great villains/monsters and excellent prose and theme that resonates, etc. Great book, and an amazing example of what horror can and probably, in most cases, SHOULD do for readers.
8:13 "all ghosts are scary..."
What if the ghost is friendly? Gotcha.
This was really useful! Thanks.
I'm glad it was useful! Thank you for watching :)
I have a fear of being Crazy, that everything around me might be just a my imagination, and that im actually in a Psychoatrical Hospital or something
I've written an action horror novel where the protagonist is an assassin working for a cult. He doesn't struggle with cosmic monstrosities or demons. The horror comes from both his childhood trauma (evil haunted him and no one believed him) and the realisation that HE is the most dangerous entity in the book. Other than that, I lean into vivid action scenes, towering monsters and a wraith-like cult leader operating behind the scenes. I want the book to be fun-frightening, like 'Evil Dead 2'.
I just linked this video to my blog. I hope it gets you some well-deserved views!
wow, thank you so much for your support!
Im writing a book about flesh eating fae and i want it to be horrific and gory but i dont want it to be too much
I want people to be disgusted and scared
I love horror and I want to try and write a horror story so badly, the only problem is that I freakin suck at writing. I haven’t tried for quite awhile but I want to give it a try again now that I’m older and wiser, I just really struggle when it comes to coming up with ideas. I have always been terrified of Mascots and Animatronics, which is why FNAF will always hold a special place in my heart. The only problem is I don’t even know where to start and whenever I come up with an idea I end up scrapping it because I’m not to confident with my writing skills 🥴
Thanks for the video!
Very good tips. You should consider teaching people to write stories for video games. This video is great for Horror games. Thank you very much!
me : hey google if i break the 3rd vertebra is it enough to kill or severaly injure some one? and how do i get away with it?
My FBI agent : ...
Relatable
my way of researching how to write horror is honestly just reading stephen king lmao
same haha
I think what makes Stephen King’s monsters are so effective is that their qualities, abilities and weaknesses are very ambiguous and difficult to ascertain. Even outside of knowing how to defend yourself against Pennywise, TommyKnockers or the Overlook Hotel, not knowing what the they want to do, or can do, is unsettling
I really enjoyed this video thanks
thank you for watching!
I’m writing a story about a man who finds ruins with evidences of sacrifice to a god, and he is hunted for finding said evidence. I want to make a personal struggle with the main character, what should it be?
My personal opinion on the violence/gore topic. For the style of horror I usually write (being slasher, with some creepypasta influence) I feel personally that the gore and violence in those genres is somewhat romanticized in the community, almost to where the stories seem to portray murder as "cool", creepypasta has this problem with a lot of the big stories, though not necessarily on purpose, so in my writing, usually I like to keep the somewhat over the top style of the gore for shock value, but I try to play more into the brutality of it, and emphasize that these acts are absolutely horrible, and not once should they be seen as "cool".
Lovecraft stumbled on something interesting: it’s not the fear of the unknown, it is the fear of the unknowable that is the ultimate fear. It is not about not knowing something and finding it out.. that’s the problem of all scary movies (including the first Alien movie sadly) as they reveal ‘something’, whatever that thing is, at the end. The true ultimate fear is: there is nothing to reveal because even if revealed you wouldn’t understand and get to know what it is.. and then, if you achieved that, the fear just never leaves. And the idea keeps visiting you. It’s similar to other emotions where we develop obsessions..
I’m writing a story for my library’s Horror Short story contest and you have to add something about Edgar Allan Poe
6:55 I am really picky with horror but I love Mike Flanagan! I don't find any of his works particularly scary as I am very desensitized to a lot of stuff but his horror actually has a story behind it and kept me watching. When someone is just trying to be scary but disregards the characters it makes the horror not compelling at all (an example in my opinion would be The Conjuring. I didn't find it scary and honestly was bored) I have no current horror writing experience (i'm getting started) but as an audience member I can tell you that much.
writing a book about a group of teens accidentally killing another teen who 2 years latter mysteriously re-apears in the same town and the same school. Somehow that group of teens are the only people who notice this re-apearance.
My English teacher boutta be scarred lol
I’m am currently making a horror story called The Weepings, although there is a moment of gore in it
Hey, very nice video, im currently working on a point and click decision based horror game, because when i started it seemed like it would be a fun challenge in the coding aspect, but the story is really hard to come up with. Its hard to make up everything, and its really hard to not make it obnoxious, and its more hard to not make it stale, and boring. Im trying my best here, refusing to use ChatGPT, and just trying to make it as good as i can. But its really hard😅
Super cute pumpkin
4:45
It's worse because you have a better idea of what it would feel like.
That's why In my opinion films are superior to books because you can show emotions and situations , you don't have to write "Phew glad I'm all alone in this dark filled room"- thought victim num. 1 and a pair of ocean like eyes watched him/her closely from the shadow
You can just show a character relaxed and in one show a full view of the room if the viewer sees the eyes he's freaked out, but even more if they suddenly are gone
I was a combat medic in the Army during my younger days. I pull from that when writing. I find that it lends a certain realism to my ideas because I'm drawing them from actual feelings. My plots may not be perfect but when it's time to write in the fear, I can even disgust or frighten myself when I read my own writing back to myself lol
Thank you for your service.
@@Frost510DX no thank YOU!
I was gonna write a lockdown horror book.
I've actually been in a lockdown (real one) but a person wasn't in the building
It was a gun outside and someone had a gun in their backpack
Im writing my nightmares as a book.
I fell for Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard at an early age. I long ago had to give up being bothered by an author's lack of technical knowledge.
"I dressed like a pumpkin
Because I can"
😂😂
7:00 describe the thing one way and then later subtly change the way it's described
Thank you so much ❤
Not even sure how to write a 'The Thing' level of body horror without the guts 😭
Would a horror story featuring tickling work?
A personal advice
Make sure there is some happy moments it will make the bloody deaths of your traumatized characters waaay more impactful and shocking you need to make the audience attached to your characters that way the horror more impactful making everything scary all the time becomes boring and you loose shock value