How do I write horror?
I've written a couple of horror pieces that I'm proud of, but I still feel like I'm missing the real "fear factor." I'm avoiding gore and the like, but I'm still looking for something that will freak out my readers long after the story has ended.
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Spooktastic
You've just been dying for a time to use that, haven't you?
Try going for existential or cosmic horror, those tend to be the kind of thing that becomes more horrifying the more it's thought about
Fresh off the press f a m
Just googled "skeleton Halloween"
Can you go into more detail about them?
Existential horror is something that has the cold, unstoppable indifference of the world itself and its machinations as the villain or horror piece of the story, usually focusing on feelings of dread, hopelessness or unexplainable discomfort and/or disgust.
Cosmic or Eldritch Horror is where the horror is drawn not from some insidious, direct evil or danger from a beast but rather from the idea of a being so much greater than yourself that it doesn't register you as anything more than a bit of dust; entirely unstoppable and/or uncomprehendable. These tend to emphasize helplessness and futility, as well as the idea of being only "A mote in god's eye".
So, would a good way of thinking about existential horror be, "You're going crazy, but the monsters are still real"?
Not really, more like "The world is an uncaring hopeless place, and the monstrous works to exploit me and all I love cannot ever be stopped because justice does not exist except as a carrot held in front of me to further bring me into the machine that will leave me a dry husk, until my bones have joined this wretched clockwork and my mind is no more."
>I've written a couple of horror pieces that I'm proud of, but I still feel like I'm missing the real "fear factor."
posting a story/excerpt is the best way we can tell you how to improve
alternatively, a bunch of writers have written on what makes their writing scary (poe, jackson, stephen king rofl)
That seems more like nihilism than terror, though.
I would, but it's all fanfiction garbage.
I'm looking for ways specifically to show how scared the characters are. One idea I have is Character A laughing like the whole thing's a joke while Character B yells at them to shut up and listen to them. Any other ways I could explore?
The horror is in the design of the Infernal Machine, you must build the world of your character to break them and destroy them utterly, and leave them only enough life to carry out the Will of the Machine, whatever that is. Existential horror does not have happy endings, and even when it does they usually come at an enormous cost, are hallow and meaningless victory, or are simply a tool to further bend them to the Machine's will.
Note: the Infernal Machine does not have to be a machine, it can be an oppressive government, an unseen force, or something like the Devil, it could even be something one considers beneficial or good for society or humanity in it's end (this could make the feelings of dread and hopelessness even greater) the only requirement is that it somehow must be torturous, humiliating, degrading, just generally awful for the main character or a proxy that the main character feels for. Even better if the Machine is seemingly pointless or entirely self sustaining in its ends.
Note 2: This is not the only way to Existential Horror, anything that evokes similar emotion is the same genre.
for horror to be really effective, it needs to tap into some kind of terrifying mundane fear. The Other Mother and the Babadook, for instance, terrify the shit out of parents; Frankenstein plays on the fear that results from having a child who despises you; Vampires represent blood-sucking elites and Zombies represent hordes of ravening plebs.
Pick a group.
Pick a fear.
Serve slowly, keeping suspense.
TEENAGERS fear BEING CONTROLLED
The passenger looks like a stickfigure frame made of metal pipes and hinges. It jams its "arms" into its victim's forelimbs through their elbows, shoves a spike into their mouth through the back of their head and jerks them around like a mannequin, still visible on their backs. It crudely operates the victim to lure in their friends or family. once they can no longer talk, it folds in on itself, crushing them and leaving their remains hanging off it in bloody strips until it moves on to the next victim.
Write about what scares you, and capture the feeling it gives you well enough that other people feel the same way you do.
Don't come up with some stupid creepypasta storyline and expect it to work. Meaningful horror always has its genesis in the self.
Honestly, creepypastas are the only thing that have ever scared me.
What happens when he's scared of dying?
go to bed, kafka
Some of the /x/ ones and some SCPs spook me a bit, but I'm talking the kind of garbage Slomebeast got famous for. Most creepypasta is writing for a spooky twist, with its writers never realizing how hokey it is to do that.
desu, some creepypasta has literary quality. if russian sleep experiment was in a short story collection we'd all be cumming our pants over it.
do a story about a cockroach that turns out to be a human baby or vice v.
This, only instead of a baby can it be a penis?
yes
not the same fag but imo the penultimate existential horror is the ending of I have no mouth and I must scream and it's analogous to plato's cave
nihilism is terror
you can't