Q&A for How to Write a Scary Story

Like most stories, a horror story should include a clear setting, protagonist, antagonist, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. In addition, an effective horror story also includes motivation, suspense, ambiguity, foreshadowing, and a general mood of fear and/or dread.

To begin a scary story, think about the "fear scenarios" you will place your characters in. You can start by writing a list of things that scare you and/or by thinking of ways to turn ordinary situations into disturbing ones.

If you want to make your scary story humorous as well, try creating confusion among characters, invoking the absurd, and/or using misdirection to create moments for your readers that alternate between the mundane and the terrifying.

Create effective characters, choose a spooky setting, and craft an opening scene to capture the mood you are looking to create.

I like to write the story first and by the end of it you can usually pick out and find a good title. If not, a tip is to pick some element of your story and write many ideas. They don't even have to make very much sense. This should help you find your title. Don't avoid writing one down because you think it's stupid, because titles can grown on you. Try to keep your story and your audience in mind.

Start it off scary. Write something like,"BOOM! The thunder punctuated the night. The wind howled and we knew something was wrong." Keep the readers in suspense from the start.

It depends on what the cliche is. If it's something that has been used countless times, don't bet on it, although a completely original setting or conflict might help. If it's only been used a few times, go for it. Remember to be creative and original, though. New and creative things attract a bigger audience than cliche things.

It depends. The reader could actually get freaked out and stop reading your story if they get too frightened. However, it could also increase the suspense and fear that the reader feels, which is what every good horror writer wants to do. I think it's a good idea assuming you take your time to make a really strong threat that contributes to the story well.

Any story can have a twist ending! If you're looking for a clown-related twist ending, I'd take some old killer clown cliches and turn them on their heads.

Of course.

Maybe you could incorporate a series of brutal ways to die if the trivia questions are answered wrong. Perhaps you could make the crossroads narrow and really uncomfortable, calling on a sense of confinement and claustrophobia. Maybe you could add in both, and say that the goddess of the graveyard, asks wary travelers a series of trivia questions which, when answered wrong, could be met with death. Along the way with each question, they have to struggle through the crossroads, perhaps the crossroads are in a dark forest, or a series of plains, maybe even a desert filled with dunes. If you think about an empty space, and add in a series of paths, there's an element of the unknown.

It's your story so, you can do whatever you want. But if the main character is narrating in the first person, you will have to explain how they are telling the story if they are dead.

Yes, they can.

It can take a long time or an extremely short time, it depends on how much time you have to devote to it, how quickly the ideas come, and how long your story is. It can take anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of months.

Yes, that's fine, as long as the story isn't for very young children.

I find it very useful to start scary stories by looking at my own fears. Think about what terrifies you the most and write about that! Be creative with your night terrors and turn them into something you can enjoy.

Absolutely. Your character could live in a civilization of dead people, or they could be pulled into the ghost world within the story. Katherine Marsh's book The Night Tourist involves a regular student who is pulled into the New York underworld and escapes by the end.

It depends. I'd say overall, yes, but don't make them too neutral or else your story will be boring. Most good characters in books make questionable decisions, and most bad ones make some good decisions. I would say your idea is fine.

Think about what you are scared of in real life, then build off it to write a scary story. Real fears are helpful when it comes to creating scary story and can help you write it in a convincing manner.