The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1764, is widely considered to be the first official horror novel. But horror stories, or at least ghost stories, go back as far as people do—scary folklore, folklore around death and the afterlife, and myths about horrible beasts, curses, and so on have been part of human storytelling from the start.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gotten any easier to write, though. Horror, in particular, can be extremely difficult to get just right. It’s often a fine line between scary and corny, and even if you’ve nailed it for one reader, you might have crossed it for others. How do you craft a story that’s guaranteed to be scary without making it cheesy? How do you make a horror story scary while keeping it believable?
How do you write good horror?
In this article, we’ll give you five tips for writing horror. We’re going to talk about what horror is, cover some subgenres of horror, talk about what to avoid when you’re writing horror, and give you some tools you can use to make your next horror story great.
What is Horror?
Before we can really dig into writing horror, we need to understand what it is and how it functions as a genre. So what is horror, exactly?
Wikipedia aptly sums horror up as “a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust.” It is “often divided into the subgenres of psychological horror and supernatural horror,” with the latter subgenre falling under the ‘speculative fiction’ umbrella.
You may have a story that includes elements of horror, like suspense or supernatural happenings—take Twilight, for example. But these elements on their own don’t necessarily make a story horror if the story isn’t intended to scare the reader. Horror makes you (or is meant to make you) feel uneasy, disgusted, repulsed, and generally bad.
Because horror draws on fear, which is a very primal human emotion, it can be a fascinating place to explore people’s opinions. You can learn a lot about a certain society or facet of society based on what they were publishing as horror at any given time.
Dracula of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for example, was actually inspired by criminal anthropologists—he was meant to “look like” a criminal since they thought they could create a physical profile of common criminals. This tells us a lot about the society Dracula came out of, what they thought of crime, and how they approached solving it.
Horror Subgenres
When you set out to write horror, it’s important to know what subgenre you’re working in. Not only will this give you a place to start reading other horror novels (which you should definitely be doing—that’s the first unofficial tip), but it’ll give you a sense of what kinds of tropes and plot points readers will expect when they’re reading your work. Seeking out different subgenres will also help you find the perfect niche in which to work. This list isn’t exhaustive, but it covers the basics:
1. Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction is kind of the foundation for much of what we know as horror. This covers Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley, and, of course, Bram Stoker. Gothic fiction includes many elements from romantic literature, so you’ll see a lot of people venturing into the foggy mist and happening upon something awful. Nature is meant to be a revealing force which makes people confront themselves—gothic literature is also generally very focused on the plights of the individual.
2. Psychological horror
Psychological horror is one of the two big subgenres we listed earlier. It doesn’t include supernatural elements, and it aims to uncover the disturbing depths of the human psyche. You’ll often see things like unreliable narrators in a psychological horror—an unreliable narrator is meant to make you question the events you’re witnessing, which puts you in an inherently uncomfortable and untrusting headspace where reality is constantly questioned.
3. Supernatural/paranormal horror
Supernatural/paranormal horror was the second big subgenre of horror, and, as you may have guessed, it’s horror that uses supernatural elements. Anything with ghosts, monsters, demons, magic, cryptids, or spirits is going to fall under this umbrella.
4. Body horror
BookRiot describes body horror as a subgenre focused on the mutilation or violation of the human body—you’ll see this combined with slashers, monster stories, zombie stories, and things of that sort. Frankenstein is a classic example.
5. Splatterpunk
Splatterpunk is a horror genre focused on extreme depictions of extreme violence. There’s often a ton of abuse, sexual violence, and things of that nature—nothing is off limits, and everything is intended to be as horrifically violent and gruesome as possible.
6. Erotic horror
Erotic horror is exactly what it sounds like. Where most horror aims to scare you, erotic horror also aims to, you know, excite the reader. Most erotica will do these through pretty conventional means, but erotic horror uses elements of horror combined with the regular stuff to get its readers going.
What to Avoid When Writing Horror
Now that we have a baseline understanding of what horror is and what kinds of horror there are to work with, let’s cover some general “don’ts” when it comes to writing horror.
1. Violence for violence’s sake
New horror writers sometimes have a tendency to confuse ‘intense’ with ‘scary.’ When writing in a subgenre like splatterpunk, you can definitely expect to see more taboo acts of violence written in more graphic detail than you might see elsewhere—unless you’re working in splatterpunk, though, you don’t necessarily always want to reach for the most disgusting thing to happen at all possible times.
This isn’t for prudish reasons, either. It’s because while you want to scare your reader, you still want to tell a good story. If you’re trying to be as edgy as possible without thinking about what motivates these plot points, you’re probably losing track of your story, and that’s going to be frustrating for your reader. If the reader isn’t following along with the story, they’re not settled enough to be scared by your extreme violence—they’re probably just frustrated and trying to figure out how it fits into the narrative.
2. Bad pacing
Similarly, you want to avoid keeping your scariness level at a constant eleven out of ten. Again, intense doesn’t mean scary, and you can’t maintain a super high level of tension for very long without hitting the ceiling. You definitely want to keep the suspense at a constant simmer, but you also want dramatic contrast in your stories. Failing to provide this contrast will often mess with a reader’s suspension of disbelief, and instead of being stressed out, they’ll be bored.
3. Lawless paranormal activity
If there are paranormal elements in the story, you want to avoid having them be completely random and overpowered. If a ghost can do anything at any time with seemingly no limitations or motives, it might feel cheap to the reader. Similarly, if random paranormal events are happening without a clear motive other than ‘wouldn’t this be crazy/scary,’ readers might get confused or, again, bored, because they’re unclear what’s driving the action in the story.
Tips for Writing Horror
If you’ve found yourself doing some of the things we just talked about, don’t worry! We’re going to talk about how to correct these issues (and give a few extra tips for good measure).
Be intentional with scary moments
Instead of having scary things happen out of nowhere, or just because it seems shocking, ask yourself what’s motivating these moments. If you want to have your character stumble upon a dead body, that’s all well and good, but there should be some kind of reason for it. That dead body should matter to the story as a whole—nothing in a novel should happen once and then never matter at all for the rest of the read.
Ask yourself these questions: how do your characters arrive at this moment? How do they deal with it? How does this moment affect the rest of the plot, or how does it set the characters up for their next move?
Have rules for paranormal happenings
You don’t need to explain the paranormal activity in your book to the reader, but you should understand how it works. Are there places a ghost can’t or won’t go? Why or why not? How do werewolves work in your book? Having these paranormal creatures act in a consistent way will make it easier to build suspense—it’s hard to get worried about your characters if it seems like they’re in the same amount of trouble all the time, and if there’s no way to tell what a ghost or monster is capable of, that trouble is hard to gauge.
Use suspense
Speaking of which!
Suspense is your absolute best friend when you’re writing horror. Using it correctly means letting the reader know enough that they’re afraid, but not so much that they can tell what’s going to happen. It also means smart readers will probably be able to put it together before you want them to, but ideally, you’ll have written it so well that they don’t care if they can guess what happens next.
Have rules for what everyone can do and set them up. Let’s say you’ve got a ghost who can walk through walls, and let’s say you’ve got a climax where the main characters are barricaded in a basement, thinking themselves safe at last. If you haven’t shown us that the ghost can walk through walls before now, it’ll kind of feel like it’s coming out of nowhere. It might still be scary, but it won’t feel earned.
If, however, you’ve shown us early on that the ghost can walk through walls, the reader will be nervous the whole time those characters are in the basement. When is the ghost going to show up? We don’t know! This adds an immediate layer of tension.
Use your characters
Remember how I said that scary moments should be motivated? In most stories, characters drive the plot, not the other way around. Your characters, their specific fears, and their specific personalities should be at the center of your novel. Even if you have a horror story about an average guy dealing with a horrible situation, their averageness should matter. You also want the events of the story to be particularly frightening for your characters—it should draw on their fears.
Ask yourself these questions when developing your characters: how would this specific character deal with this situation? How is this particularly scary for this particular character? What does this character learn about themselves as a result of this plot point?
Don’t forget atmosphere and sensory detail
Last, but certainly not least, don’t skip out on the setting. Horror relies on not just uncomfortable happenings, but an uncomfortable atmosphere—even in the lulls, we shouldn’t feel safe. Lean into this by describing the setting. Put your characters in crowded environments, smelly basements, dank corridors, etc. Describe these things using sense details that make the reader feel like they’re in it, too. This will amp up the overall sense of discomfort, and it’ll prime your reader to be startled by the next big scare you’ve got in store for them.
Next Step
Now that you know what to do to write a good horror story (and you know what to avoid), it’s time to start writing your horror book.
