How to Write Horror

By Lily Childs

“Boo!”

Did that scare you? Of course not. You would no more present that word as an effective piece of horror than write The child opened the wardrobe door. A monster jumped out and frightened her. Horror is about atmosphere. It’s the sneaking sensation of being watched, the sudden chill of the graveyard; creatures scuttling – unseen. What is suggested is often more powerful than what stares you in the face, unless it’s someone else’s reflection gazing back – or none at all.

The Gory Bits

Many horror genre submission guidelines will tell you their publication is not interested in excessive gore, and with good reason. To recklessly splatter, bludgeon and spurt might make for good film effects on screen but in print, it’s different. If there’s not a damn good story to go with the carnage then blood and guts for its own sake can come across as immature. And where’s the intrigue in that?

If a bloodbath is an essential part of the story, then make it personal. Describe the quality of the blood, its colour, the heat of it. What does it taste of? Don’t have it just hitting the walls, let it run in black rivulets, dripping slowly in a teasing descent, swelling beneath wallpaper ready to burst. Draw in it, lick it, cradle it in trembling hands. And use it to thrill – not just shock.

The Bad Guys

From zombies to psychopaths, vampires to avenging spirits horror comes in many forms from the supernatural to the everyday monsters that prowl our streets or sit in an office quietly losing their grip on reality. And then there’s human nature – possibly the most terrifying state of all. What leads a man to torture, murder, abuse, control? What kind of a woman would poison, stalk, neglect? To get inside the head of these individuals may be a highly uncomfortable place to be but will help you to better present them in your horror fiction. Try to understand what has led them to behave the way they do. Were they born ‘evil’ or are they victims too, corrupted by circumstance?

And to sit within the mind of a demon? Well – that’s as fascinating as your imagination wants it to be.

Character Point of View

This leads onto the question of whether to write in the first or third person. Personally, I write in first person a lot and find it works really well in short stories. Rather than restricting or internalising the view for the reader – which I acknowledge can be a risk – I like to imbue my characters with extraordinary outlooks on life, and death of course. I enjoy narrating extreme scenarios in a matter-of-fact way, the more incongruous the better, which can make for a very disturbing read. Not all editors like first-person however, so be prepared.

I do think there is easily a place for both points of view in horror. When the serial killer describes his fetish – hearing those words straight from his mouth will make your readers’ skin crawl.

Or in third person, a victim sits calmly watching television, her baby cooing and gurgling in his crib. As an observer you can describe how she flinches at the sound of the tree scraping at the window, unaware of the shadow creeping towards her child. You can show everything that goes on in the room. But can we ever know exactly how she feels when the werewolf jumps on the mother’s back and bites out her throat before snatching the child away? If your writing is top notch, then the answer to that should be yes.

Over the Top, or Not Scary Enough?

If I have offended anyone by now I do apologise, but only because I am writing an article, not a piece of fiction. If I had my pen in hand, flying through the pages in my barely legible scrawl hammering out a story, I wouldn’t be worrying if my words might upset you. This is horror, after all; your readers know what they want. My advice is to just let it flow – don’t hold back or worry about it.

If you have a market in mind for a short story, you can always tease it up to Extreme or down to Mild Horror as fits – but do this after the first draft.

My personal test, after I’ve put the story away for a few days and gone back to edit it, is if it doesn’t make me laugh or gasp at how daring or dangerous it is, then I probably won’t submit it.

Conversely, setting out to deliberately shock and scare can make the writing come over as contrived.

Read, and Get Published

If you want to write horror then you presumably like to read it. My heart belongs to Clive Barker because there is so much beauty to his darkness; his Books of Blood can almost be considered horror primers.

Overall, I enjoy nothing more than feeling the hair stand up on the back of neck, my flesh prickle hot and cold with terror. I want to be disturbed by the writing, and more than anything I want to be so terrified by what I’m reading that I am afraid to not turn the page.

If I want this, and other lovers of the genre want this – then that’s what editors and publishers will be looking for from your writing too.

Useful Market Links

• www.duotrope.com – regularly updated database of horror and other genre publications including pay rates. Essential.
• Pill Hill Press and Static Movement – independent publishers of horror anthologies.

Lily Childs is a writer of horror and dark fiction who likes demons in tutus. Her work has been published in small press anthologies including Their Dark Masters: Extreme Vampire Horror, Daily Bites of Flesh and Caught By Darkness.

She lives on the south coast of England and writes here. Stalk Lily on Twitter here