You turn your head and see someone a few blocks away, with a gray hoodie pulled over his head, following you with his hands in his pockets. You think very little of it at first, another person walking home from a shift surely. But then you turn right onto a side street and you hear him turn to follow you. Now it’s starting to feel like you’re being followed. You pull out your keys and place one between your fingers. You pull out your phone and pretend to make a phone call. As you fake a conversation, your breathing starts to pick up but you control your pace so as not to alert him. If he makes the next turn with you you’re going to start running.

Fear is a very instinctual and powerful emotion that heightens the stakes of your story. Here are some ways that you can write a scene where your character is experiencing fear by showing the reader rather than telling them.

1) Mannerisms

As with any time you’re trying to show rather than tell the reader something, you’ll want to start by looking at your character’s mannerisms. Fear is a very primal and extreme emotion so it will be a more obvious reaction than certain others. For example, having a character scream or shake or walk slowly. They could also be biting their nails or even full out running in certain scenarios. But how a character reacts when faced with fear can say a lot about them, so think about how your character would react when faced with the fearful scenario in which you’re writing them.

2) Observations

Being from the POV of your protagonist, seeing them observe certain things can also show that they’re in a fearful state. For example, let’s say your character is walking down a boardwalk at night. As opposed to noticing a cute couple walking hand in hand or the way the ocean reflects the lights of the buildings so beautifully, your character instead notices a man sitting in a dark corner who is eating a sandwich and staring angrily after him. The fact that your character focuses on anything that could possibly be suspicious as opposed to the wholesome parts of the walk can show that they’re in a heightened state of unease.

3) Atmosphere

The atmosphere surrounding your character can be another way to show fear. Describing the dark night, a cold wind that creeps up your spine, trees looming over you, animals rustling around in bushes, a howl in the distance… all of these visuals create an eerie and spooky tone. Since we’re viewing the story through the lens of your protagonist, your readers know that how the scene is being described directly connects to how the character is feeling. So if you’re scaring your readers by how you’re describing the scene, you’re showing them your protagonist is scared too.

4) Action

How your character is acting is another excellent way to display how they’re feeling- especially when it drastically differs from how they would normally act. Think of horror movies and the choices the characters make along the way. Do they go through the woods or through the city? Do they go to hide in the house or in the shed? In most cases yes it’s frustrating because they seemingly make very stupid choices, but in some cases, it makes sense that characters panic and just run for the first thing they see. Whether or not they go back for their friends or how they choose to hide or what choices they make all depend on the situation and who they are as a character.

5) Character Clues

In addition to your protagonist, using supporting characters can also be a helpful way to show fear. They could point out that your character is acting strangely through dialogue. Or the way that they act in fear could provide a contrast to how your protagonist is handling the situation. This is also another thing that your character could observe and that could add to their heightened state of fear as well. It’s one thing to find yourself afraid, but once you see others around you are scared too that can often increase one’s sense of panic.

The post Show Don’t Tell: Fear appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

1) Mood

The ‘mood’ of the scene is what you want your reader to feel throughout the exchange. Picture a scene where two characters are having dinner out at a nice restaurant. When you think of this scene initially you think it’s romantic, right? Well, what if they’re on the run and one of the characters has a gun held to the other beneath the table? What if they’re dating, but one character is about to break up with the other one? What if one character is the other’s estranged father and they’re meeting for the first time? Each of these scenarios involves completely different moods and should evoke various feelings from the reader.

2) Atmosphere

The ‘atmosphere’ is the specific detail of a setting that allows the correct mood to be felt by the reader. So, for example, let’s say the dinner we mentioned earlier was romantic. You would then mention how the candlelight casts perfect shadows on the partner’s face, perhaps an old couple next to them gazes at each other lovingly, the intoxicating mix between the smell of fresh bread and the rose on the table. All of these sensory descriptors tell the reader that this scene will be romantic. Whereas if the characters were about to break up, you could describe how the partner is fidgeting in his seat, how an overly sweet smell is making the protagonist slightly nauseous, how there’s an old man sitting alone with a severe expression one table over. This alerts the reader of the more somber mood that this scene will take on.

3) Setting

The setting of the scene involves the combination of the mood, atmosphere, and more specific information. What restaurant is this? In which time period is the story taking place? Where geographically is the story taking place? This sort of additional information should be sprinkled into the scene, especially if it hasn’t already been established in your story at large. However, be cautious not to go too deeply into these details and lose the pacing of your scene. Space out these details between bits of dialogue and more immediate scene work.

4) Point of View

Part of what dictates the setting of the story is the point of view from which the story is told. Your novel may be told just from your protagonist’s perspective or you could have multiple characters in which the story focuses on. You could also vary the psychic distance in your story or have a distant or close third person vs. a first-person perspective. Regardless of the POV you choose in your story, the atmosphere of the story should be influenced by your protagonist, or whoever’s POV is the focus of the scene. This could mean it is influenced by either their mood, their observations, or what will be happening to them during the scene. So, for example, if your character has just experienced something tragic in their life all of the things they observe, taste, smell, or feel will have a melancholic feeling to them.

5) Genre

Another aspect that can influence the setting of a scene is the genre in which the scene takes place. A midnight stroll in the woods is going to feel very different in a romance novel vs. a horror novel. In the romance novel, there would be a full moon illuminating the wooded area, an owl hooting, and a cute frog leaping across the path, and fireflies would be dancing all around. In a horror novel, your protagonist can scarcely see a thing, they’d hear a distant howl, they’d smell something that they can’t place but it gave them a metallic taste in their mouth. And in a fantasy book, there would be an array of fantastical creatures and a mystical fog coating the forest floor. Think about the genre you’re working with when you’re deciding on the mood for your setting. Then use adjectives that evoke those emotive responses from your readers.

The post Why is Setting Important? appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

Let’s just say, as evidenced by the previous paragraph, that the horror genre is not for the faint of heart. Unlike the mystery genre which focuses more on the unknown, horror books focus on disturbing imagery and haunting concepts. For those attempting to go down this foggy deserted road, here are some tips on writing horror novels:

Choose your fear focus

There are a few different types of fear you can draw on in a horror novel. One of the most common types is instinctual fears which are fears that have a logical or biological foundation such as darkness, snakes, spiders, or heights. These are very easy to utilize since readers will already have an innate and inexplicable aversion to them. The next type is supernatural fears such as monsters, vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. These are a little more difficult to write since they aren’t a real fear, but they’ve been prevalent enough in horror that people have developed a sense of dread surrounding them. Finally, there are societal fears which have become a more popular form for the horror genre lately. Good examples of this are in films like Get Out, Us and It Follows. These films utilize different societal problems such as racism and prejudice to tie a horror concept into our world. And you don’t necessarily have to limit yourself to one horror concept. There must be one overarching fear- a killer chasing you, a racist family holding you hostage, a vampire clan hunting down your family- but you can pepper in some of the instinctual fears along the way.

Choose your atmosphere

Once you’ve chosen your main fear-based antagonist, you’ll have to choose what type of horror atmosphere you’re going for. This involves selecting which horror subgenre you’re going for. So, for example, thriller-horror involves psychological fear whereas classic horror will feel more like Frankenstein or Dracula with that classic gothic vibe. There’s also gross-out horror, which is essentially exactly what it sounds like. This is the one where you hear the crunch of bones breaking, see flesh being sawed apart, feel eyes get gouged out- the goal is to make your readers shudder. Finally, there’s terror which essentially involves a sense of all-pervasive dread throughout a story.

Create characters with whom we can empathize

It’s very important that, in a horror novel, you create characters that feel real and with whom readers can empathize. Trust us when we say that every version of dumb jock, geeky sidekick, and popular cheerleader have already been beaten to death. And it can be extremely hard for readers to be invested in the character’s plight if they’re a) one dimensional and b) doing stupid and reckless things. When constructing your group or family, think of movies like the new It film or even Stranger Things (though that latter isn’t horror). They create incredibly realistic groups of kids, families, etc., so the viewer is more invested than they would be if they stuck with the normal stereotypes.

Obvious Stakes

In horror, as opposed to mystery, the stakes must be both extremely high and obvious. So, for example, just a basic survival instinct because the character is being chased by a murderer. Or perhaps it’s simply protecting their loved ones from being killed. You can include a mystery element in a horror genre. For example, perhaps your main character is a detective attempting to solve a crime. But to differentiate from mystery your story needs to focus more on that sense of terror, dread, and fear as opposed to the mystery itself.

Create shock

Horror is unlike the mystery genre in the sense that you don’t need this huge plot twist in the end to shock your readers. Subtle haunting revelations can work just as well in horror as huge plot twists. In addition, the climax of your horror story could very well simply just be the final violent showdown- similar to 70’s horror films. Though the showdown itself will be predictable, this approach gives you plenty of opportunities to shock your readers throughout the story. You’ll have them find different members of their family/friends killed in horribly gruesome ways, they’ll have to escape various horrific and violent deaths, and all of these equally disturbing situations will lead up to this ultimate violent showdown.

Scare yourself

This is truly the ultimate rule for horror writing. If you’re interested in this type of writing, you’re likely already fascinated by horror films/books and you likely listen to crime podcasts detailing horrific deaths and gore (don’t get mad, you know it’s true). This means you already have a lot of messed up imagery laced deep in your subconscious that you could easily draw on to truly shock and disturb your readers. A good rule of thumb is that if you have even freaked yourself out, then you’re doing your job well.

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