 Horror/Scary: May 04, 2016 Issue [#7625] |
  Horror/Scary
This week: Gotcha! Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week:
"Poor decisions and bad luck are contingencies of most horror films."
~Wesley Morris |
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The main characters in your story are exploring (insert dark, gloomy setting of your choice). They turn a corner or open a door, and....MREOOOW! a cat leaps out with an indignant yowl and runs away. As your characters catch their breath and laugh at themselves for being scared of a cat, something else that is really scary and evil slips up behind them...
While cats leaping out of every possible hiding place have become cliches, false scares are an important element in horror stories. If everything that jumps out is a real boogeyman, the readers become desensitized to them, and they lose their effect.
When you ratchet up the tension only to release it with a false scare, the characters (and the readers) let down their guard and are more vulnerable to whatever real threat is coming up.
Be careful not to follow every false scare with a real scare, or the readers will know they are coming. Vary the timing to keep the reader on edge. False scares work best near the beginning or middle of the story. Near the climax of the story they might only serve to slow things down and actually annoy the reader.
False scares might serve more than one purpose. For example, a harmless individual who initially scares your characters might give them some important information that they will need later on. Or maybe you could turn the whole thing upside down and have a seemingly false scare really turn out to be harmful after the characters have written it off as harmless. Another variant might be a character who cries 'wolf' once too often, and then is not believed when he or she is really in danger.
Something to try: If you have a horror story that doesn't seem to work, try adding a few well placed false scares.
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