Everyone likes a good one liner, yeah? It’s literal definition is a one line witty remark or a short joke, but for the purposes of this, think of a one liner as a line with a purpose. I’ve wanted to articulate what this is for so long, and why your writing should have at least one or two of these, but an eerie one liner is the best term I can think of that encompasses this.
With that out of the way, beware spoilers for the following stories (which will be labeled when they’re about to show up so you can skip around it): Avatar: The Last Airbender, Critical Role 1, Critical Role 2, Undertale, Until Dawn, The Prince of Egypt.
Please take this with a grain of salt.
So, what do I mean about eerie one liner? These are single lines that stick with you, that resonate to a reader. They make you feel the exact opposite of what you would feel with a good witty one liner. These do not make you warm and fuzzy, but instead haunt your dreams at the cusp of sleep.
An eerie one liner can fail without context [Until Dawn/Undertale Spoils]
While some lines can just be outright terrifying, the absolute horror or meaning of these lines should fail if spoken out of context. Of course, if you have a line like “She left, and never looked back,” without any context the reader can maybe try to fill in some blankes. This doesn’t mean the line succeeds with context. We have no idea who is “she” and why she left, and why she never looked back. This line gathered power with context.
Let’s look at a real life example of an eerie one liner from Until Dawn.
“Hannah?”
Out of context, this line can mean a thousand things and could be completely forgettable if you don’t know the context that this is spoken. First of all, Hannah is believed dead in Until Dawn until it’s later revealed she survived a fall that trapped her in a mine, and she ended up eating her sister (who also fell with her) and turned into a monster from Native American faiths called Wendigos. This line is spoken by her bother Josh after a Wendigo creature graps him. He recognizes the tattoo on the creature, and speaks this line in utter desperation and confusion.
It’s a moment of raw emotion, and while Until Dawn is filled with witty one liners (#TheresAFreakingGhostAfterUs), this one eerie line stuck with me because nothing else mattered in this moment. All of the fun and jokes melted away and it was just Josh finding his sister, and the terror that comes with that.
I’ll give you another example with Undertale
“But nobody came.” and “I can’t understand!”
Now the greatest thing about this line is how it evolves from a taunt to a character’s internal struggle. In the beginning, the antagonist Flowey uses this line to taunt Frisk. It’s funny to him that no one is coming to help Frisk in the end. They are just…alone.
But later, we uncover the story and we learn that this line encompasses all of Flowey’s emotions after he had died as Azrael, and woke up as Flowey. He’d gone out into the surface world to help his adopted brother Chara, and when he died, nobody came to save him. This topped with the line:
“I can’t understand.”
By this point we’ve learned that Flowey has no soul, and therefore, no way to emotionally connect with anyone. This is obtained when Frisk refuses to kill Flowey and isntead tries to spare him. Flowey is frustrated and claims he can’t understand why Frisk is being so nice, so merciful when Flowey had done so much wrong to Frisk. Flowey literally cannot understand mercy and empathy and it frustrates him and it’s pure, raw emotion as he becomes visibly upset that he can’t understand because he wants to understand.
An errie one liner can reveal something about inner struggle [Critical Role 1 (Scanlan). Critical Role 2 (Yasha) ]
This one is not always the case, but in relevance to a character, I think these eerie one liners should reveal something about a character or a character’s inner struggle. The character is driven by an emotion or an event that is going to cause this line to come forth. It is backed by a tragic backstory, by an event they wittness. They do not plan these lines, but rather fall out of their mouth before they’ve realized what they’ve said.
Here’s an example from Critical Role 1:
“What’s my mother’s name?”
On the surface this line seems odd at best, but this line is screamed out by Scanlan Shorthalt in the wake of his own ressurection. He has become frustrated that all of his friends have such vivid histories so often talked about and considered in their actions and he felt like he was just a storyteller, and that his own trauma didn’t matter anymore. Kaylee learning of his death and bringing him back was this trigger, and this line is followed by dead silence because no one knew his mother’s name. This line comes out from anger.
Another Critical Role example, this one from Campaign 2:
“I have so many flowers to bring to her.”
Now, this line a reader could maybe put some context clues based on what words are here, but you really have to be in for the long haul to understand the depth of this line. Yasha is seen throughout the entire show collecting flowers in a book, which the other players are aware and even give her flowers when they notice that she does this. Then, she admits to Jester and Caduces that she’d been married, and her wife killed. At a loss for words, Yasha says she’d love to visit her grave, and then drops this line. In that moment, everyone realizes why she’s been collecting the flowers, and what once was a cute hobby is now riddled with absolute agony. This line comes out of tragedy and saddness.
An eerie line can be dangerous to say or carry a dangerous meaning/undertone [Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Prince of Egypt]
When we say things in certain contexts, we never quite know what the concequences are. There’s risk with these lines that can have some serious concequences. There’s also a darker understone or meaning within it. These lines should scare you. They should make you think. They should make you wonder how many people would say the same. Be scared to say it. Be scared to know what it means. Be scared to hear it.
How about an example from Avatar The Last Airbender.
“There is no war in Ba-Sing-Se.”
This line is terrifying not to those who say it but those who hear it. People come from outside the city and they hear this line and it confuses them beacause there is a war going on outside the walls, and why not in the city? It’s a line that’s drowning in political intrigue and indoctronation. This line is scary because you don’t know how far this city is willing to go to make sure you know that there is no war in Ba-Sing-Se.
A final example, from The Prince of Egypt.
“I know to whom I speak, Aaron.”
Miriam speaks this to her brother Aaron in front of their brother Moses, who has yet to realzie his hebrew origin. Moses has been offended by Miriam and Aaron is desperatly trying to fix the problem and he tells Miriam in a hushed whisper that she doesn’t know to whom she speaks.
This line is scary because Miriam is saying this in front of her owner essentially, as she is a slave. She’s defying her masters in the name of her religion, and in the name of the Israel people. This line encompasses all of Miriam’s frustrations and her desire for freedom being literally right in front of her. But saying this, changing Moses’ mind is a risk. We are terrified for Miriam because what if she can’t convince Moses? Will he hurt her? Will she surive? Should she have been silent?
And that’s all I got.
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