Boo!

 

What stories scared you to death when you were a kid? Or even as an adult. Did you learn anything about storytelling from that?

 

When I was a young girl, probably too young, the first books I read and fell in love with were a series of gothic romances by a woman name Katheryn Kimbrough. These stories followed the women of a high society family named Phenwick. At ten-years-old, the stories were creepy enough to stay with me forty plus years later, but not scary enough to make me sleep with the lights on. That honor was reserved for a little story named It by the incomparable Stephen King, and didn’t happen until I was well into my twenties.

Before reading this story, I didn’t think a written story could scare me. Boy was I wrong. For months after reading It, the lights in any room with a drain had to be on and door closed at bedtime. Even so, it was the only time in my life that I did not appreciate an on-suite bathroom. As soon as I closed my eyes, I could feel that evil clown coming for me. Terrifying. Should I mention what Thinner did to my love of pie? Never mind, that’s a story for another day.

The discovery that fear could actually be created through words increased my love of reading and made me a Stephen King fan for life. I didn’t know at the time how words on paper could spark feelings of fear, excitement, or nervousness. And if you asked me today how to do it, I don’t know if I could explain in succinctly enough to teach someone, but I believe it’s the hardest most necessary skill to have when writing a thriller or mystery.

Unlike In horror movies, or even thrillers, where the eyes and ears do a lot of the heavy lifting for the storytelling by way of jump scares or gory deaths, us writers have to, or are lucky to have, far less obvious choices The description of a house, a person, or even the weather are great opportunities to start building the tension needed to induce fear in the reader.

 But the best thing I learned from my love of reading scary things is, it’s the building of the character is the most important piece of writing scary. If you can build a character that the reader loves, then that emotion will follow, be it love, hate, or even fear.  I loved those kids wandering around the Barrens. So, when they laughed, so did I. When they cried, so did I. When they were afraid, I was terrified.