Although reality-based settings may appear to be mundane and commonplace that’s not strictly true. The very ordinariness of this kind of setting can work in two ways. First, readers are familiar with ordinary because that’s their world. It’s where they live, work and play. The fact that we can all relate to “ordinary” means the relationship between writer and reader is already going in the right direction. This helps readers to believe the story’s setting is credible, a vital ingredient to the success of a horror story.

Secondly, you can introduce an ominous, thickly atmospheric setting - the misty-fog-shrouded swamp, the torture chamber in the dungeons of a crumbling castle, the burial ground of a Satanic church… all these situations tell the reader that something nasty is going to happen. These kinds of settings are celebrated by the horror genre, because they prepare the reader for the rest of the story

Finally, you know your story has worked when readers think: "This could probably happen under the right circumstances”. One of the keys to credibility in horror fiction is setting and character. Readers are already meeting you more than halfway – by choosing to read your story they’re making an oath of sorts: they agree to be scared and terrified by reading your words.
In the next issue I will discuss character development. To close I leave you with a paragraph from a book that contains no supernatural being – the object of terror is one that shares our planet with us. I remember being absolutely terrified by the first chapter of Peter Benchley’s “Jaws” when I first read it at around the age of fifteen. With just a few words he paints a silent, unknown and alien world that you just know is about to erupt into something sinister and frightening.