When you write about fear, you want your readers to experience anything from a tingle between their shoulder blades to blood-curdling horror. Writing effective fear is a good trick to master. Here\u2019s a look at the mechanics behind fear, the elements that make up a perfect horror flick, and the techniques you can use to terrify your readers.<\/p>\n
You can be irrationally scared of ducks, but not in the same way that you are rationally afraid of drowning. You can fear an immediate risk, like when you\u2019re trapped in a burning house, or you can fear the might-be risks, like when you have a flat tire in the middle of the night on some unknown road.<\/p>\n
Fear is varied. It\u2019s also character-specific. Some people tend to be scared because of active imaginations; others might jump at noises because they suffer PTSD; yet others are simply rationally afraid of being hurt.<\/p>\n
You have to know what moves your character to fear in order to take advantage of it.<\/p>\n
Fear comes down to a change in metabolism and organ functions at the presence of a perceived risk. Here are some symptoms that follow:<\/p>\n
Use these common reactions as a baseline for your characters\u2019 behavior when scared.<\/p>\n
Close your eyes and think of the two or three scariest things you\u2019ve ever experienced. Dig\u00a0deep<\/em>. Often you will draw from your own fear in some way to write horror\u2014yes, even if you haven\u2019t been buried alive and that\u2019s in the cards for your character.<\/p>\n Make a list of what you were thinking, feeling, smelling, and hearing during these experiences. Involve your senses and your memory. Write down the buzz-words. Now, you can take your reaction and work it into a scene. Don\u2019t be afraid to have fun with it, and if you find it hard to write about, create a character and make\u00a0them<\/em>\u00a0do it. (Note: This is therapeutic, too, for those hard-to-deal-with events.)<\/p>\n Who is your Master of Horror? Find what thrills you and take it in like a sponge. Read and watch all the suspense and horror you can find, even some things out of your genre. Break the language barrier, too: Koji Suzuki\u2019s\u00a0Ringu<\/em>\u00a0(which became the Japanese horror movie Ringu and the remake The Ring) is an excellent example.<\/p>\n Break these stories and storylines down: What\u2019s scary and why? What\u2019s a cheap thrill and jump scare, and what\u2019s long-term suspense?<\/p>\n A good horror book or movie makes you jump in all the right bits; an\u00a0excellent<\/em>\u00a0one makes you go to bed and pull the covers over your head just in case. Great horror just sticks. One example is IT and the fact that many are scared of clowns decades after.<\/p>\n Set the atmosphere when you write. Dim the lights, put on scary music. You know you\u2019re writing great horror\u2014and I\u2019ve heard many best-selling authors say this\u2014when you manage to scare the daylights out of\u00a0yourself<\/em>.<\/p>\n In 2004, researchers came up with the perfect formula for what elements makes a horror movie\u00a0scary<\/em>:<\/p>\n (ES + U + CS + T) squared + S + (TL + F)\/2 + (A + DR + FS)\/N + sin(x) – 1<\/em><\/p>\n Yes, that looks like enough math to terrify anyone. Let\u2019s go over it section by section.<\/p>\n You get more fear (squared) when you add up\u00a0EScalating music<\/strong>, the\u00a0Unknown<\/strong>,\u00a0Chase Scenes<\/strong>\u00a0and being (or feeling)\u00a0Trapped<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You get some fear when you add\u00a0Shock.<\/strong><\/p>\n You can add fear by creating a good blend of\u00a0True Life and Fantasy<\/strong>\u00a0(too much of either might undermine your efforts).<\/p>\n You get fear from being\u00a0Alone\u00a0<\/strong>in a\u00a0Dark Room<\/strong>\u00a0with an ominous\u00a0Film Setting<\/strong>, but that effect might decrease when the\u00a0Number<\/strong>\u00a0of characters rises.<\/p>\n Near the end, sin(x) represents\u00a0Gore<\/strong>. Note that sin(x) can take a positive or a negative value, which means that there is definitely such a thing as too much and too little gore.<\/p>\n Finally, we have – 1 to represent\u00a0Stereotypes<\/strong>, which are a bad habit anywhere and can kill a horror story by making it banal.<\/p>\n That\u2019s every slasher movie ever made in mathematical terms. Those, you\u2019ll notice, are also elements contained in most suspense, horror, thriller, and crime books and you can apply them to figure out just how effective your scene is. (In case you were wondering, Kubrick\u2019s\u00a0The Shining<\/em>topped the study.)<\/p>\n It becomes easy to go overboard when writing horror. Here are some points for what to avoid:<\/p>\n Armed with this knowledge of fear, go scare your readers, and most importantly, yourself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","categories":[32,9],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Learn From Others<\/h2>\n
Fear That Sticks<\/h2>\n
Mathematical Terms<\/h2>\n
Going Over the Top<\/h2>\n
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