Writerly Things 7/22/19: Tips to a Fresh Horror Novel

Traci Kenworth

1. Don’t Invite Clichés.

You know them when you seem them. The same old tried and long dead creatures that never change as they climb from the coffin; run through the hills, shirt flapping; attack tomb raiders, bandages unravelling to a gristly sight; or knock over a bank thanks to their invisibility. If you’re going to use the traditional monsters, give them something untraditional that blasts the old myths. 28 Days did this with the fast zombies. No more sluggish, can’t catch you as long as you don’t trip, isolate yourself in an alley with no way out, or jump in the ocean to find zombie sharks waiting.

• Invent, invent.

Come up with a new alien. A new strain of disease waiting to wipe out humanity. Take something ordinary and make it deadly. Dig into the anatomy of animals on land and sea and mix them together. I do this all the time. Sometimes, I mix animals with humans. Use claws here, stingers there. Creating your own monster is fun and ups the ante for your heroes to overcome. If they don’t know it exists, how can they discover how to defeat it? Googling it won’t help.

• Make Your Characters More than Stick Figures.

You’ve seen them. The one-dimensional characters that couldn’t fight their way out of a paper sack. Give your readers characters who will stand up to the monsters, discover a way to defeat the plague, save their loved ones, time and again. Dig deep. Make them real. Bring who they are in the surface to a crisis and help them rise above their everyday grumpy self. Help them shine. Help them thrive. Make them like you and me. Make them larger than life. It all leads to a fantastic story.

• Bring Something New to the Haunting.

We’ve all seen the paper-thin ghosts. The ones that aren’t much threat. Give us more. Give us a ghost that can not only walk through walls, but call fire and damnation upon the characters. One that can melt a sane person’s mental state with a glance in the mirror. Ghosts on land and sea. A pirate that can survive the galleons. A physical threat. Something like 13 Ghosts. Make the haunting count.

• Discover Other Dimensions.

Are we alone? Do other dimensions exist? Twilight Zone had many strong episodes exploring this idea. Why not bring it into your story. After all, The Entity is famous as is Poltergeist. What unique spin can you bring to the idea? Maybe each day we travel to a different point in our lives never knowing where we’re going or where we’ve been. What if we discovered we weren’t who we thought we were? That we didn’t even like ourselves truthfully? Where would we go? What would we do? The story is all up to you.