1. Build Tension Gradually.
Minor disturbances grow a sense of unease, in readers and characters alike. Small/frequent "off" elements add up throughout the story, contributing to the novel's overall paranormal feel, and enhancing your spooky payoff scenes.
How: Take a small, normal routine or reader expectation and change ONE element (usually, change it in a negative way). A good start is to examine your scene and highlight something icky, worn, or dirty to aid in setting the mood.
Example: MC enters a shop & makes eye contact with the clerk.
Normal Reaction: Clerk greets the shopper.
Change: Clerk greets the MC & spits on the floor.
2. Add Visual Atmosphere.
Sensory details can slow the pace, aid in tension building, and activate reader imagination. Detail takes time to read, letting you keep your reader in a moment longer and sensory details are some of the quickest, easiest ways to add depth.
How: Pick one thing you want your reader to notice in the moment. Which sense(s) best describe it?
Example: Touch: Knuckles coated in mud and coarse fur brushed my cheek.
3. Cut Your Character Off.
Emotionally or physically isolate your MC. Whether stranded in a remote location or feeling alone in a crowded room, isolation causes the MC to become more vulnerable and open to the possibility of supernatural influences. Bonus: When MC is alone, the threats feel more dangerous, too.
How: Identify the antagonist/threat. What type of isolation benefits them and harms the MC?
Emotional: Teased and shamed for believing in fairies as a high school senior, MC feels can't tell anyone at her new school what she's been seeing, or she will lose her new & only friend.
Physical: The basement door is locked.
4. Light the Way.
Darkness is scary. The threat of light revealing something in the dark is scarier. Use light to expand or narrow the focal point of your scene and set the mood.
How: Light creates shadows and mysteries. Use it to reveal eerie details, enforce your perspective, and black out the stuff that doesn't matter.
Example: A light flipped on behind me, casting my shadow thin and gaunt across the tree trunks.
5. Mix History & Decay.
Age carries weight and sparks imagination of what has come before...and what might linger still. Decay invokes fragility. Both are critical tools that help writers craft spooky settings.
How: Provide readers with a little background, and/or take something nice and ask: if no human maintained or cared for [thing], what would happen to it? what feels would this evoke in MC?
Example: I made my way past the creaking gate, squeezed through a rusted turnstile, and let the single beam of my flashlight illuminate the forward path.
6. Choose Your Words Wisely.
Go harsher, starker, darker, dirtier. Words with negative connotations tend to bring the spookiness. Lighter, mysterious words are better for invoking a sense of humor or magic. Paranormal Romance often uses a heavier blend of positive/negatives vs a traditional scary tale.
How: Review in edits, or pay extra attention as you write for opportunities to sully up your style.
Negative: Framed by pointed ears, its eyes were glistening pools of dim sludge, sallow and polluted.
Positive: The driver jumped out with the flirty swirl of a yellow sundress.
The 6 tips above only brush the surface as far as setting up spooky scenes! Let me know if you want deep dives into any of these six topics, more detail on the many other ways to get spooky, or have any other writing-related question or topic.
& remember, you can't use all advice in every sentence!
YOU ARE READING
Write Better: Tips and tricks
Non-FictionThe guide for aspiring fiction writers who want to improve, sharpen, review, and/or learn. Warning! This book encourages editing and contains many tips that often require revision. Practice makes perfect, and it's good to workout your mental musc...
