 Horror/Scary: June 15, 2011 Issue [#4452] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Building Up the Horror Edited by: Satuawany  
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| The scary stories I remember best are the ones that did a masterful job of "building up" the horror. I hope a tale from my misspent early twenties can give you some inspiration. |
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Near Huntsville, Texas, there is a back road I heard about during my university days. Fellow college students called it Demon Road, though I've learned since then that "the locals" call it Demon's Road.
Seems like there's a road like that near every town, where people claim to see ghostly apparitions and strange lights that follow their vehicles. Take a dusty vehicle down that dark stretch and find handprints on it that were not there before. It's all part of the usual creepy back road mythology.
Of course, we had to find this road, but it wasn't like there were any signs with "Demon('s) Road" printed on them. Years later, research tells me its actual name is Bowden Road, for any curious readers who live near there and want to check it out. Lacking that bit of information, we never found it.
Having given up on finding the mysterious road, frustration led us to a new adventure. A friend found a dirt road in the forest that wound past a cow pasture and through lots of obscuring trees. Tucked into one grove, a small driveway led to a old graveyard. If we couldn't find Demon Road, we'd make one.
We had the location, so we started spreading the tales to friends who weren't in on the plan. We'd spin yarns that went along with the mythology. "Tom and Jerry and me were driving through there, just to see, you know, and this green light darted out of the woods and started following the truck. We sped down that road, but it kept up with us. Didn't leave us alone until we turned off the road."
Then another friend would tell a (completely untrue) story of how handprints appeared on the tailgate of his truck when he stopped out there one night. They would stick to their stories, and we all played along well; not everyone had a story. The rest of us would admit we'd never seen anything, but we'd been out there and we'd talk about how driving along that road made all the hairs on the backs of our necks stand up.
We had finesse. We'd leak a little here and there, string others along, until we had them "convincing us" to take them out there. On the way, someone would finally "admit" they had seen hooded figures in the cow pasture more than once, seemingly made of shadow. When asked why we hadn't shared that bit of information before, we'd say we were scared the others wouldn't have wanted to come if they knew.
To give credit to that false Demon Road, it was pretty creepy, but no more than any dirt road through the forest at night. I'm sure we could have given some good scares if we'd just filled others' heads with stories on the way out there, but it was all about the build-up. With the build-up, we were able to really tune up the tension. Lots of people scared themselves when they got out there, without us having to do anything.
We made trips out there to get the lay of the land, figure out how far the nearest house stood so we could weigh the odds of getting shot if we ran off into these woods or those woods. (In Texas, "getting shot" was much higher on the list of worries than either ghosts or "getting arrested.")
Here's how it commonly went down. Four or five of us would be hanging out somewhere, totally oblivious that another friend had finally gotten a group to the point of begging to go out to "Demon Road." We'd get a call, ostentatiously so the Driver (that's what we'll call the person driving the victims) could "get directions." He or she was really just letting us know to get out there and get ready.
We'd load up and take off while the Driver took the passengers on a merry ride. To give us time, they would get "lost," and the Driver would pause now and then stare into the woods and act a little scared.
Meanwhile, the rest of us would park in a thicket of underbrush near the crumbling cemetery. In that relatively clear area, we'd let our eyes start adjusting to the darkness. Good night vision was important for these capers.
Donning cloaks and trench coats, we'd clench various noise-makers and find the best tree trunks, boughs and bushes to hide behind. "Noise-makers" could be bells, railroad spikes to clang together, and whatever else we grabbed on our way out the door. My prop of choice was an empty bottle. I'd blow gently across its opening when the victims first got out there, and with more force as things progressed.
The forest around Huntsville was a pine forest. With soft needles cushioning the ground, we didn't make a sound we didn't mean to make.
We didn't jump out at anybody or chase them or even get close enough to leave handprints on the Driver's car. We'd make our little noises, at intervals. When a victim started to turn away from our direction, we'd walk smoothly from one hiding spot to another. It's much scarier to catch that figure out of the corner of an eye than it is to see it straight-on and maybe be able to tell it's nothing but a co-ed in a hooded cloak.
We scared many people. Made some friends. Lost some others.
On more than one occasion, though, we were gone by the time the Driver got there with the victims. One of us would swear we'd heard something that couldn't be the area's harmless wildlife. Other times, someone would see a humanoid shadow where none of us had taken up position.
Hey, you know you've built up your story well when you start scaring yourself.
The point is, if you want the big scare, you have to put in the work building it up. You can get some scares with little effort, but the running-screaming-back-to-the-safe-place rush comes when the storyteller spends time stringing the victim reader along.
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Last time I had a guest shot at this newsletter was back on April 20 ("No Blaming the Victim" ) and it's all the fault of these encouraging responses that I came back:
Ha! This just goes to prove you don't have to write horror to know what is good. You gave a wonderful perspective here and certainly have given me much to think about! Smashing edition. I hope you fill in a guest spot again soon! 
Really Liked this one! Got an idea from some of the things you said! Thanks!
I have a novel I have written that needs more fright in it. Your suggestions are golden, I am saving this newsletter and working over my outline to improve my novel. Using proper grammar and spelling are far easier than creating emotion in the reader. This is a very well done newsletter, thank you. Amanda Somner
Thank you all and good luck with those ideas!
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