Questions tagged [horror]
This tag should be used for works of fiction that are about invoking a certain feeling of fear and dread in the reader.
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Is there a way to write psychological horror without it involving an unreliable narrator?
I want to include psychological horror, or at least elements of it, in my story, but I don't wanna go full hog and show the main person to have an unreliable POV. I always hear you need an unreliable ...
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How does one write a horror fight scene where a person has to fight someone that is way stronger bigger and tougher than them [closed]
So I'm trying to write some fight scenes for fanfics I'm working on revamping and I've decided,"Ya know, I should just ask the big experts rather than just random discord friends." So that's ...
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How can I fit a protagonist and his character arc to an existing world and plot?
I began my project with world-building. Afterward, I decided on the overarching plot, and now I'm trying to populate it with characters, starting with my protagonist. I've figured out his core driving ...
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How to write "The Breakdown Scene"? (cosmic horror)
I am currently writing a cosmic horror story, (without an eldritch abomination) and I am wondering how one would write the classic "You've seen too much and now your mind is breaking" scene ...
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Writing a surreal, dreamlike setting?
I am working on a concept for an existential horror / comedy, similar to works like the DHMIS TV show and Little Runmo. I already have a collection of strange, dreamlike entities; like an organic ...
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How do you turn a protagonist's desire to get revenge on an antagonist without killing the antagonist into a quantifiable and tangible goal?
I'm writing a story inspired by the 2010 South Korean movie called I Saw the Devil. The movie is about a secret service agent called Kim Soo-Hyun who enacts his revenge on a serial killer called Jang ...
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How do I stop my villain from just showing up out of nowhere?
I suffer from “villain shows up out of nowhere syndrome”. My story involves a group of survivors trying to trek through a wasteland and reach a safe zone while my reoccurring main villain continuously ...
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How do you make a story as scary as possible?
How do you make a story as scary as possible? The two things that I've been told is to make the story suspenseful by first making sure your readers know something terrible is going to happen, but not ...
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What are the elements that make up a good deep sea horror story?
I've been thinking about developing a small short story series themed around the deep sea (submarines, habitats, etc) and the abyssal void of such dark places.
I've been really struggling to find ...
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I am writing a slasher story with a vigilante killer, do you believe that a person/character can deserve to be a victim? [closed]
In the stories that I am writing, which are my loud house "Lomond" horror fanfics, there are lots of victims who are very bad/evil people, this makes me wonder this: do you believe that a ...
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Making an antagonist both scary and funny
In the story for a game I am making, there is a sideplot involving a messed up cult as a minor antagonist. Originally, the cult was supposed to be a comedic villain, mainly as a parody of religion in ...
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How do you avoid the whole "curiosity killed the cat" cliche?
I've started to write a lot more recently, especially in horror. And something that's been critiqued about my works is that they center around the whole "curiosity killed the cat" cliché. ...
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How do I depict a character going insane because he's slowly losing his vision?
I have an idea for a story where a man, Paul Atkins, goes insane because he is slowly going blind and can no longer see his wife and family. He develops schizophrenic tendencies and can't tell if the ...
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Do the mafia and dark fantasy genres work well together?
I've been writing a book for two years now, and it feels like the plot could work better if I include a mafia, like a lot of things would come together if I include that my male lead is the underboss ...
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How could I show good worldbuilding without ending up with info-dumps?
A horror story I am writing involves the protagonist in another world. It is like an isekai, but it is horror and the protagonist is trying to survive as long as possible.
The main story surrounds the ...