mbarker: (MantisYes)
[personal profile] mbarker posting in [community profile] writercises
 Original Posting Oct. 4, 2018

Out of idle curiosity (and knowing that the Halloween contest is about to start roaring – short stories up to 5000 words and poetry up to you!), I did a Google search for "writing a horror story". Let's see…

1. How to Write a Horror Story - 6 Terrific Tips

https://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-write-horror-story-tips/

A blog posting. Common elements of horror stories… Malevolent or wicked characters, deeds or phenomena, arouse feelings of fear, shock, disgust and the sense of the uncanny, intense, scary or shocking scintillating plot twists and reveals, and they immerse readers in the macabre.

The tips? Use a strong, pervasive tone. Read widely in the genre. Give wicked characters better, credible motivations. Use the core elements of tragedy. Tap into common human fears. Learn the difference between terror and horror.

Lots of good advice! Go read it.

2. How to Write a Horror Story (With Sample Stories)

https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Horror-Story

Step-by-step instructions! Be aware of the subjective nature of horror. Read several different types of horror stories. Analyze the examples. Generate story ideas by thinking about what scares you or revolts you. (Watch out, clicking here will do interesting things. A drop down to help you with brainstorming?) Take an ordinary situation and make it horrifying. Use setting to limit or trap your characters. Let your characters trap themselves. Create extreme emotions and your readers. Use horrifying details. Create a plot outline. Develop the characters. And so on…

Wow! Again, lots of good stuff there.

3. So Good It's Scary: How to Write a Horror Story - IngramSpark

https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/so-good-its-scary-how-to-write-a-horror-story

Another blog entry for the fun of it...

4. How to Write a Horror Story, Writing Horror

http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-genre/horror-by-writing-genre

All right, Writer's Digest! A collection of columns to help you "learn how to chill the blood and raise goosebumps with a great horror story."

5. Google offered me a set of videos, too. We'll skip lightly past that, but if you like your lessons on video, take a look. 

6. A Guide to How to Write a Horror Story – A Research Guide for Students

https://www.aresearchguide.com/write-a-horror-story.html

Step-by-step, here comes a horror story…

7. 10 Chilling Writing Tips From Horror Authors

https://www.bustle.com/p/10-chilling-writing-tips-from-horror-authors-2363863

How to make your word genuinely scary? Spine chilling nightmare fuel…

8. Write a Horror Story/So You Want to

And here's TV tropes! Don't get lost, but you might want to take a look at it.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/WriteAHorrorStory

They always have plenty of helpful material, as long as you don't get lost following all the possible connections. I recommend setting a timer to keep yourself under control.

9. How to Write a Horror Story: Short horror stories

Tobias Wade! Another blog

https://tobiaswade.com/how-to-write-a-horror-story/him

Mystery, suspense, climax, twist… A little bit of advice to help you

10. How to Write a Horror Story: 11 steps

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Write-a-Horror-Story-2/

Aha! Another step-by-step guide.

Oh... if you change the search string to "how to write a horror story" suddenly you get a slightly different set of results, including the information that there are about 162,000,000 results.

What fun! But remember, when all the guides have been perused and set aside, you still have to…

Write!

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