Horror comes in many forms. It can come through a scream heard on a dark night. It can come in eyes wide with terror when something wrong is spotted or felt. Hauntings, sadistic killers, monsters, dragons, a whisper, fear of the unknown, fear of anything, and blood, lots of blood— at least one of these things should be found in a horror story.
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Words
Words are powerful. You can keep an underlying feel of horror and suspense going throughout your story just by the words you choose to use.
No matter what type of horror story you read, you should find descriptions that send chills down a reader’s spine as well as hints and innuendoes of dark and horrific things to come.
There are differences between psychological horror and supernatural horror, but the main elements of the two can be blended. Below are brief explanations of these types of horror fiction and a few great examples of each one.
Psychological Horror
Psychological horror relies on the characters’ fears and emotional instabilities to scare the reader. In these stories, there will be suspicion, distrust, self-doubt, and/or paranoia of others, themselves, and things or events in the world.
What do I consider to be some great examples of psychological horror?
Sway by Matthew Keith is a psychological thriller/horror story in which you are taken inside the mind of a man who has experienced horrendous things during his childhood. Now that he is an adult, what toll have these events taken on his life?
This is a wonderfully dark tale that left me wanting to find out whether or not the main character was really losing his sanity. It could go either way, so I hope there is a sequel for this story sometime in the future.
Misery by Stephen King focuses on what could be a writer’s worst nightmare. Paul Sheldon is a decently famous writer. He has a car wreck and is injured, but lucky for him, he Is rescued by his number one fan. She just happens to be a former nurse with enough medicine and painkillers to bring him back to health. Not so lucky for him though, she doesn’t tell anyone that she rescued him. Even worse, she doesn’t want anyone to know that she found him.
A bad situation takes a turn for the worse when she discovers that he has killed off her favorite character in the latest book in the series she so loves. Then she demands he write a novel just for her and bring this character back to life in a logical way. Kept in a solitary bedroom with his legs broken (to begin with) and no way to escape, what could he do?
Supernatural Horror
Supernatural horror can have ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, zombies— anything that is considered supernatural. Supernatural horror has as its focus beings that we don’t want to see in our everyday world. I mean, who wants to worry about encountering vampires or werewolves on a trip to the grocery store?
What do I consider to be some great supernatural horror books?
In Meat: Uncut by Michael Bray, you get to visit a new kind of grocery store, one that you don’t want to pop up in your neighborhood. Let’s pretend for just a moment. You are on your weekly or daily trip through this new grocery store that is open twenty-four hours. You’re sure the lot this new store is on was vacant only last week, but maybe you are mistaken. Much to your surprise and horror, you find something new in the meat department. Nestled between the packages of beef and chicken, there is a new variety of meat available. This particular type of meat makes you nauseous. You think you might be going crazy or something. And you wonder if anyone is watching you for your reaction. What is this type of meat? It is a human foot: washed, packaged, and ready to cook.
If those shopping in this nightmarish store want to get out alive, they must band together and fight their way out. What sort of monster has trapped them all inside this store from hell? Is it cannibals? Or could it be vampires?
There Be Dragons by Peter Hallett is a stunning debut novel that combines action and adventure with supernatural horror and fantasy.
The setting is Vietnam, 1968. One word in the title of this book captured my attention though. It was the word “dragons”. Fighting the Vietnamese was bad enough, so how would the soldiers react to living, breathing dragons?
One of the soldiers notices that there is something odd about the wounds on some of the dead. The wounds make it look as though the dead have been chewed on by some huge beast. There is talk of flying demons. It is thought that those who have seen these flying demons are just hallucinating. They have been there too long and seen too many people killed. Maybe they have even killed too many themselves.
If you have a weak stomach, you need to prepare yourself before reading this book. This story does take place during a war, so there is plenty of blood and gore. I don’t have a weak stomach, but there is one torture scene that about made me sick. His extremely realistic descriptions are very well written, and I don’t think there is any detail he leaves out.
Recommended Articles:
Sway – a Review
Matthew Keith Interview – Nightmares, Inspiration, and a Namesless Character
Meat: Uncut – a Review
Restoring the Scare Factor – Guest Post by Michael Bray
There Be Dragons – a Review
