How Can I Write Something Scary (When it Doesn't Scare Me)

[-K2-]

And remember...

K2

 

[tinkerdan]

Best type of horror always makes you feel constantly uncomfortable.

I to some extent agree with this however it is much broader than that in that all good writing comes from taking people out of the comfort zone and the the best authors are the ones who manage to put their characters into areas that go beyond the writers own comfort zone. So rather than limiting yourself to trying to understand horror you can focus on your comfort zone.

Everyone has a comfort zone to some extent; some people stay inside those while thinking they have no fears, while other people explore beyond the comfort zone and face their fears.

So maybe a person who has no fear is hiding behind the comfort zone.

I am most fearless when everything is in it's place and everything goes along as smooth as silk.

 

[MikeAnderson]

I'm the opposite. When things at work are sideways, I always seem to rise to the occasion, no problem. When things are calm, that's when I get restless and worried.

I guess my fear is stillness. If I'm not moving, I'm freaking out.

 

[tinkerdan]

I guess my fear is stillness. If I'm not moving, I'm freaking out.

I think there is another word for that: Anxiety.

Fear can be a great motivator and can reveal a lot about a person when they react or perhaps take action in the face of it.
It's real terror that starts to get close to the place where some people freeze up[even if it is imagined terror].

It says a lot about a character that can push past the fear or terror and come out of the freeze.

That's not to say that it doesn't say a lot about a person when they get whiggy if nothing is happening.
This is the guy you don't want up at the cottage for the weekend or in space where there is no place to go and not enough room to pace.
He's the perfect foil for that trope in a story when nothing is happening and you need something to happen.
The time when the guy opens both doors on the airlock because he needs some air.

So yeah there might be terror when nothing is happening.

 

[Eclectic Dragon]

One thing I've definitely started doing is taking the "get in your character's head" bit. And remembering a time when I got separated from my mom in a grocery store. Being small and surrounded by towering strangers can be spooky. I'm capitalizing on that, coupled with the age-old fear of the dark, and meeting an adult that may be there to help you, maybe not. I think that can be freaky, even for the most stable adult, since even a friendly stranger might wish you harm (or am I the only one who had an over protective mom?).

Hopefully I can capture that separation anxiety and fear in my short story exercise.

 

[-K2-]

Well, I've added and erased something over and again in this thread, so clearly I want to say it, no matter how vague I state it. Here goes...

Spoiler: My personal nonsense, are you really so bored you want to waste your time reading it?

Most of my life up to 30 was fear driven. Not unreasonable phobias, but justified fear of extreme consequences if you did or didn't do X/Y/Z. However, about a third of the way through that process, those very real fears finally exceeded what I could bear and I was left with only two options: Give up and just let it happen, or fight 'to expedite' the process...not stop it, which was not an option. I chose the latter because I had become so tired of being afraid, I began fearing fear.

IOW, I learned to be more afraid of being fearful, when faced with such I'd push it as hard as I could, consequences be damned. Fools luck most likely, but obviously I got past those troubles. However, with that mindset deeply ingrained, I then found myself charging headlong into troubles I could have walked away from...and eventually, I even amazingly made it past that point till my world/life changed at 30.

Great, so it's all over and happily ever after. Well, not really. That same fear of being afraid still dominates my decision making, no matter how much I try and squash it, now reflex. So, anything that even slightly resembles those long gone reasons for concern finds me reacting in unconventional and sometimes extreme 'fearless' fashion, although, I'm not really fearless. I just fear being afraid.

Sometimes it pays off; like in an extreme crisis, I calm to an almost sedate point and address the problem without a hitch. Others, not so much where my response is well over the top for the situation (though fortunately not negative since I've designed my surroundings to suit my 'issues').

Point being, there is also a person's past to consider and the reasons for their one way or the other response...and for those who claim to be fearless, perhaps considering why might be of value.

K2

 

[Toby Frost]

One thing I've definitely started doing is taking the "get in your character's head" bit. And remembering a time when I got separated from my mom in a grocery store. Being small and surrounded by towering strangers can be spooky. I'm capitalizing on that, coupled with the age-old fear of the dark, and meeting an adult that may be there to help you, maybe not. I think that can be freaky, even for the most stable adult, since even a friendly stranger might wish you harm (or am I the only one who had an over protective mom?).

I think that's a really good approach. When I was very young, my mum and dad took me with them to some kind of office. My dad got into the lift and went up to collect something or other from another floor. I had never seen a lift before and, to my eyes, he got into a metal room, the doors closed, it rumbled and he was disintegrated. Apparently I was horrified! I have no lasting phobia of lifts, but I used this memory in a fantasy story, Up To The Throne, where the same thing seems to happen to an inventor.

Stephen King once said that Richard Matheson took horror out of old castles and gothic mansions, and brought it into normal people's lives. I think a lot of King's own work involves taking mundane events and items and making them horrible (sometimes more successfully than others). Sometimes, he uses an old-fashioned monster to represent something less mysterious but still worrying, like the way that the vampires in 'Salem's Lot represent the decay of a nice small town.

 

[Eclectic Dragon]

De-familiarization! Yes, taking mundane things and stripping them down definitely causes a deja vu effect to readers. An example I really liked was laundry washing and drying machines. It's essentially a box that makes your clothes wet, then another box that makes them dry. It's familiar enough for readers to understand, but weird enough for them to view it as unfamiliar. Giving readers too many details or focusing on one thing can be unsettling, but so can being vague. Knowing when and where to put each to utilize it effectively is something I'm still learning.

Something that I love and always find completely unsettling are the Not Quite Rights. The deer that looks normal but when startled screams like a child and runs on its hind legs. Humans that sit like wild animals (meaning their legs or arms don't move like ours do). Children that speak like adults, and persons of all ages being strangely specific in their dialogue about things that don't happen to the vast majority of us. People are freaked out by what is both unknown and very known. But especially when alone. Then, the rattling of the blinds that happens every night is suddenly an omen, the future in the swirling of creamer and coffee. People like to compartmentalize things, and when something shakes the belief that everything makes sense, that this fits, and now suddenly it doesn't, we can begin to unhinge or screw with our our protagonist.