Story Lab : Sentence and Horror Setting Tips

Choices, Choices
Source: Buzzfeed (here)

Article: Horror Masters: 3 Spooky Tips To Write Like Lovecraft, Poe, & King
Author: Oliver Fox
Link: Here

1. Get Into The Mind Of The Monster

- Readers get to dip into the minds of people who commit heinous deeds
- Real-life villains/monsters are not moustache-twirling cartoon characters doing bad things for no reason. Rather, they are ordinary (albeit misguided) people trying to do what they believe is best.

2. Build Dread At The Existential Level:
- if something like this is out there, what other horrors might exist?
- the existential questions being raised (something far worse is out there)

3. Mine Your Protagonist’s Present Fears & Past Trauma
- Pity and Fear. To get the audience to care about your protagonist, first you have to make them pity her or him. Once you’ve established what the character wants, introduce the fear of what will happen if the character fails.
- he takes a down-on-their-luck character and dangles their dream in front of them, giving the opportunity to pursue and achieve it
 

Writing exercise for next week:

- Create a character for whom we feel Pity and Fear, and mine their trauma when crafting their terrifying encounters. (King)
- Write the story in first person and show them justifying the dreadful actions they take to achieve what they want, thus changing them into a monster. (Poe)
- Don’t just write a story with the cheap thrills of gross-outs, violence, and gore—push it further by having your protagonist realize they are becoming a monster, forcing them to face existential dread. (Lovecraft)