Genre Tips: Writing Suspense & Horror Stories

"My reason for writing stories is to give myself the satisfaction of visualising more clearly and detailedly and stably the vague, elusive, fragmentary impressions of wonder, beauty, and adventurous expectancy which are conveyed to me by certain sights (scenic, architectural, atmospheric, etc.), ideas, occurrences, and images encountered in art and literature." -- H.P. Lovecraft 

The great American horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft wrote a little book called Supernatural Horror in Literature in 1927 and an essay entitled: "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction". He also continued to train other horror writers of the time, as well as influence new horror writers of today.

He wrote: "The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint...of that most terrible conception of the human brain–a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space."

In other words, horror writing is not just writing about blood and guts or by revealing the monster. It's all about tone/mood--the atmosphere of dread. Your protagonist is up against something that is utterly unknown or foreign--something unbelievable, or something odd or out of place in our normal, everyday lives.

To this end, the monster in horror stories is often a metaphor made real. A person suffering from cancer, might be a protagonist who is being hunted by an amorphous, malignant mass, or a teenager who is tempted to take drugs, might be accosted later by a roomful of zombies. Cancer = monster, the drugs = zombies. Many horror stories work on this level of metaphor.

So--if you want to write a horror story, you're going to need to write with an effective tone and use diction (specific word choice) to create a specific mood for the reader.

H.P. Lovecraft describes his writing process: "As to how I write a story—there is no one way. Each one of my tales has a different history. Once or twice I have literally written out a dream, but usually, I start with a mood or idea or image which I wish to express, and revolve it in my mind until I can think of a good way of embodying it in some chain of dramatic occurrences capable of being recorded in concrete terms. I tend to run through a mental list of the basic conditions or situations best adapted to such a mood or idea or image, and then begin to speculate on logical and naturally motivated explanations of the given mood or idea or image in terms of the basic condition or situation chosen."

H.P. Lovecraft also gives us these planning/writing tips:

• "Prepare a synopsis or scenario of events in the order of their occurrence--not the order of their narration." This is also helpful when writing mystery fiction. You need to know what order things happened in so that your protagonist can unravel the mystery.
• "Prepare a second synopsis or scenario of events--this one in order of narration (not actual occurrence), with ample fullness and detail, and with notes as to changing perspective, stresses, and climax."
• "Write out the story--rapidly, fluently, and not too critically--following the second or narrative order synopsis. Change incidents and plot whenever the developing process seems to suggest such change, never being bound by any previous design."
• "Revise the text, paying attention to vocabulary, syntax, the rhythm of prose, proportioning of parts, niceties of tone, grace and convincingness of transitions."
• Prepare a typed copy (or proofread, edit, revise, and proofread again!) Print out.

You can see, here, of course, that young writers usually just jump into a story and try to battle their way out. This sort of tactic doesn't really work well with stories of mystery, suspense, and horror because the writer should have a good idea about what the plot IS--even if the story is more about the character or how the character solves or uncovers the mystery. In other words: you need to know what's going on so that you know what to highlight and focus on for the writer. Take models like Edgar Allan Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" for example. The narrator spells out his intention in the first sentence or two--then the rest of the story makes the reader wonder when this man is going to get his revenge. I.E., he creates suspense! That would not happen if Poe didn't know his plot events, and in what order they occur.

Finally, in regards to the types of horror/weird stories, he states:

"There are, I think, four distinct types of weird story; one expressing a mood or feeling, another expressing a pictorial conception, a third expressing a general situation, condition, legend, or intellectual conception, and a fourth explaining a definite tableau or specific dramatic situation or climax. In another way, weird tales may be grouped into two rough categories—those in which the marvel or horror concerns some condition or phenomenon, and those in which it concerns some action of persons in connexion with a bizarre condition or phenomenon." -- H.P. Lovecraft 

"Each weird story—to speak more particularly of the horror type—seems to involve five definite elements: (a) some basic, underlying horror or abnormality—condition, entity, etc.—, (b) the general effects or bearings of the horror, (c) the mode of manifestation—object embodying the horror and phenomena observed—, (d) the types of fear-reaction pertaining to the horror, and (e) the specific effects of the horror in relation to the given set of conditions." -- H.P. Lovecraft

In writing a weird story you might focus on the horror of a condition or phenomenon or write about a person who uncovers or comes across some bizarre and weird event or occurrence.

NOTE about suspense. Readers like suspense. We like to sit on the edge of our seat and wonder when the event we think is going to happen will happen. To create suspense, you should hint at the danger the protagonist is in. I like to write backward to create this suspense. I might start with the crime scene first--see what's there, investigate, then work BACKWARDS to figure out what caused the victim's death. By doing this, you will know the scene you are attempting to write. To add suspense, simply sprinkle in details or clues along the protagonist's way.

For interested writers, here is a link to some Lovecraft fiction online: Dagonbytes.

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