Have you ever tried to write a horror story and found the result wanting? In this post, we look at how the 3 pillars of horror can improve your horror story.
It’s a difficult genre to do well. But why? All you have to do is create a monster and put it in a creepy location. Then you make a bunch of dumb jerks go there and let the monster pick them off in gruesome ways, right?
The problem with that approach is… it isn’t scary. Intense? Spectacular? Sensational? Sure. It’ll get your blood pumping, just not from fear.
Here’s the problem. If the characters are all dumb jerks, we won’t like them; if we don’t like them, we won’t care for them; if we don’t care for them, we won’t be worried for their safety. And if we aren’t worried for the character’s safety, well—we can’t be scared for them in the face of a haunted house or the monster within.
Instead, some part of us might feel these dumb jerks are getting what they deserve. We might even laugh at their horrible fates and become morbidly curious about who will die next and how.
Again, that’s not scary; it’s just a weird, vindictive betting game.
Before we look at what makes a Horror story scary, consider Stephen King’s method. He suggests the opposite of the one outlined above—the one we’ve mistaken for horror for so long.
King says: “I create sympathy for the character, then I cut the monster loose.”
With that in mind, let’s look at The 3 Pillars of Horror.
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