Mariam Chagelishvili you outdid yourself with this image

Lesson 3 of 8 - The Craft of Fear: Writing Horror That Does More Than Just Scare

Welcome to the third installment of The Craft of Fear!

The third installment is usually the point in a horror franchise when things start to get weird and freaky but also…kind of off the rails (Halloween III: Season of the Witch, I’m looking at you). I promise we’re not going off the rails! We might get a little weird and freaky, but I think that’s true for every lesson in this course. As a fun icebreaker this week, I’d love to hear your favorite “threequels” in the comments!

Today, we’re building haunted houses. The time-hallowed literary trope of the haunted house can be used as a tool for developing characters, relationships, pacing, tension, place writing, and stakes in horror. Haunted houses can be a really great way to explore social issues, right? Houses in general are a symbol of domesticity and private life, and there’s so much potential there for exploring class, power, gender, family.

To begin, let’s open with one of my favorite first sentences of a novel ever. This is from Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield:

“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.”

I mean, damn!!!!! What an opening sentence! While we’re mostly going to be talking about actual haunted house stories, I love thinking of the haunted house as a metaphor, too, like how it’s employed here by Armfield and also throughout the entire text of In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, in which the haunted house is both literal (but also real — the book is a memoir) and representative of the abusive relationship between the people who occupy it.

For this lesson, I am going to STRONGLY ENCOURAGE that you follow the newsletter linearly instead of jumping around. When you get to a writing exercise, pause to do that exercise before continuing on to the next part of the lesson. In other words, don’t read ahead! You’re going to get the most out of this lesson if you avoid “spoilers.”

Writing warm-up: Practicing tight, tense dialogue

We’re going to start this lesson with a quick writing warm-up — again, you’ll get the most out of this lesson if you do things in order! So pause after reading these instructions to actually do the writing exercise.

Set a timer for between five and seven minutes. Now write a scene of mostly dialogue between two people who already know each other in a familiar way. They can have any kind of relationship to each other but should not be strangers. Start the scene with one character saying to the other: “I have something I need to tell you.” The “something” should be a significant secret or reveal that would have an impact on the relationship. But your character doesn’t have to reveal it right away; they can take their time.

This should be mostly dialogue. You can include some blocking and movement, but the majority should be dialogue, and we should move into exposition or flashback, unless that exposition is communicated in dialogue. Like here’s an example of how this scene can be written:

“I have something I need to tell you,” my wife said between bites of overcooked pasta.
“Okay,” I said.
She set her fork down, picked it back up.
“Yes?” I asked.
“It’s just that I’m not sure exactly how to say it.”
“Alright.”
“But I need to.”
“Okay.”
“Why are you being so calm?”
“What do you mean?”
“This is important.”
“I literally don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I looked in her eyes, which were wine-drunk.

It should also look/feel like you’re writing a play. Action can happen in the present, communicated in prose, but the rest should be dialogue.

Tip: If you are struggling to come up with a “secret” or “reveal” with stakes to it, think of the last time you maybe hid something from a loved one not for nefarious reasons but because you thought it would protect their feelings.

Finished with the warm-up? Okay, now you can proceed into the haunted house…

Why are haunted houses useful in fiction?

Building a Strong Foundation For Your Story …

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