How do you really scare your reader?

Build-up is huge, like what everyone has said, and I also really want to hammer some more on the point that what you don't see is scarier than what you do see. The fear of the dark comment summed it up perfectly. People aren't going to be scared from a detailed description of the fear-causer, whether it's gore or a monster/demon or a killer or whatever. (In fact, with supernatural things, describing it will just seem even cornier.)

In the case of supernatural horror, what works best from my perspective as a reader is when the author plants a lot of cues that are subtle/removed enough to not blatantly describe the fear-causer, but specific enough that it's clear it's something supernatural. Things like unexplained/out of place odors, sounds, etc., or occurences that should not naturally happen (especially things going wrong with nature. or food going rotten within seconds immediately after it is brought into this house. etc.)

Think about some movies that rely on those "never-seen antagonist" tactics, like Blair Witch, the Conjuring, etc. Even if they might not be your own cup of tea, they did very well, and it's because a lot of people are scared by that approach. If they had actually shown the BW or the Conjuring demon via CGI, it would have been corny as hell. I think it also worked really well for "The Ring" - you do see Samara eventually, but it's only at the end, and a lot of the fear in her appearance is the fact that her hair is hanging over her face in a way that conceals everything. The fear is built up the whole movie by unnatural reactions to viewing the tape (dead girl in the closet), unnatural nature/animals (the horse boat scene, fly coming out of computer screens, coughing up the rope), and a sense of increasing horror (the 7 day time limit with things getting creepier and creepier throughout the movie)

Like most have already said figuring out what scares you and others and exploring the genre (and how it works) are the first things you should do. Then, like others have suggested, think about the moments in those stories, novels and films, that scare you and try to figure out why.

I remember a moment in Kings novel ‘Desperation’ which still frightens me when I think about it . If you haven’t read it (and don’t want spoilers...) best skip the rest of this post.


There is a part of the tale in which a police officer(possessed by an entity known as Tak) is reading someone their rights and right in the middle lips in the sentence ‘I am going to kill you’.


You don’t see it coming and it’s terrifying because it shakes your belief of what that person is supposed to be and what they’re supposed to represent. TAK. It works because it plants a seed of foreboding horror, a hint that there is something not right, and once it starts there is no way to stop that horror you start to share with the character. Your mind wanders – what did he just say? What is happening?

Oh god, what is going to happen?

It’s just my opinion but it worked on me...

Stephen King put it simply. To paraphrase -- "Make the reader care about your characters. Then let loose the monster(s)"

williemeikle said:

Stephen King put it simply. To paraphrase -- "Make the reader care about your characters. Then let loose the monster(s)"

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A great quote. Horror isn't scary unless you can put believable, seemingly-real people around it. It's the most important part.

Honestly, I can't tell if I'm scaring my reader or not. I'm not them. I just write my icky bug the way I want, with my usual touches of mayhem and humor and if it scares them fine, if it makes them laugh, great, if it makes them throw the story down in disgust, at least it's a reaction. Then again, I still don't have a book out yet FOR them to do any of those things yet....

I think there are two kinds of books that scare a reader. One would be Stephen King's (Richard Bachman) The Long Walk. Suspenseful and horrifying at the same time, while ultimately possible in real world terms. The second type would be a supernatural story like Carrie. You don't expect what you get because anything is possible, but you don't that at the outset of the novel. JMHO

Rick Archer said:

I think there are two kinds of books that scare a reader. One would be Stephen King's (Richard Bachman) The Long Walk. Suspenseful and horrifying at the same time, while ultimately possible in real world terms. The second type would be a supernatural story like Carrie. You don't expect what you get because anything is possible, but you don't that at the outset of the novel. JMHO

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So, you scare your reader by being Stephen King?

Lol, just teasing. I think the distinction between the two types of stories is quite interesting. Perhaps there's an age relationship as well. As a kid, I had a series of nightmares about Gremlins. As an adult, it's the things that could actually happen that give me the willies.

^I was terrified of Gremlins as a kid, too! I couldn't even watch the ads on TV. I hid behind the couch. (Seriously.)

Fear is a very subjective thing. I think the trick is not to scare every reader by adding elements that every reader will find scary--it's focusing on the characters and then making them hurt. I've said for a while the empathy is one of the most important elements in horror--don't tell the reader how to feel. Make them feel what your MC is feeling.

...the price tag is a good place to start!

...Y no one mention Lovecraft? :U

Notes on Writing Weird Fiction - H.P. Lovecraft

I source a lot of my horror writing from what I learn reading Lovecraft. I've written out that entire link by hand, just so it would sink in. Going for the subconscious, understanding the psyche, can be a good approach to figuring out what an audience might be scared of... but that requires some comprehension of an audience's unconscious fears...

I personally like Stephen King's description of horror. In order of ascending horribleness: the gross-out (gore), horror (something horrible/frightening to look at/incredible to comprehend), and terror (knowing that something is about to happen and being unable to stop it). Terror should be your ultimate goal: to scare your reader without even having to show them what's in the closet.

Alternatively, there are shared fears i.e. spiders, the dark, deep and open water, becoming lost, breaking teeth and losing eyes, disease, etc.

Making use of these can automatically put your readers on the defensive. By connecting your readers to realistic characters that they care about, they will experience the same fear you put your character through. Walking a character that your readers care about into a room full of giant spider webs will put them off-balance because A). SPIDERS! and B). One of those giant, hairy, spindly-legged spiders will descend over the MC's head. They just don't know when; only you do.

Wow that was a wall of text. Sorry about that, hope it helped

hmmm... the 2 times i really remember being scared from a book was the scene The haunting of hill house by shirley jackson when there is banging on the walls and "whose hand was i holding" and in Gerald's Game by stephen king where she sees that freak guy and is like "you are not real"

that doesn't help.

the movie Sinister scared me. not during the movie, but after the movie i was like "i could go to sleep and someone may tie me up and kill me when i wake up"

For me, there are two kinds of horror/scary stuff - things where you don't know (what's going to happen, what's that noise, what's in the dark) and things where you've been there, done that, but without the nasty events. The books (and movies) that scared me the most? The latter. Take "Jaws" just as an overly obvious example. How many people go swimming at the beach? Have there been an actual shark attacks? Have people actually died? Or the MC is walking down a poorly-lit street, late at night, knowing there's a serial killer on the loose... That "OMG that could actually happen - and to me!" has a much more visceral effect on me.

... readers aren't essentially any different than you, the author. What scares you may well scare them. So simply incorporate your own fears into your story.

Shameful suggestion to be sure.

My favorite scares boil down to two ideas:

That monster could be anyone or anywhere and it could be coming after me

If I had to do what needed to be done to stay alive, that monster could be me.

It really differs from reader to reader. Horror is subjective. What may terrify one reader, another reader may not bat an eyelid at. My only advice is to read horror stories, watch horror films. What part of them did you find frightening, if any? Why were they frightening? Write about something that scares YOU.
Good luck.

Definitely a good place to start is by making your characters as real as you can and make them people your readers will care about. After all, if the reader doesn't care about what happens to the character, they're certainly not going to feel any apprehension when things start to go wrong around them.

The build-up is the next thing. Increase the tension by a notch or two at a time, and by the time you get to the main reveal, the reader should be on the edge of their seat, so to speak. There's a lot of talk about roller coasters when you discuss a good book, but I don't think that's particularly accurate. Sure, there might be little peaks where the tension drops a bit afterward, (Say, the discovery of a dead body, that is then found to have nothing to do with the monster creeping around.) but most good books don't have anywhere near the ups and downs a good roller coaster has. I'm not even sure what you would count as the loop-de-loops and the spirals.

Description. The final reveal really needs to be done right with the proper description. If you know how to twist a visual of something just right, anything can be made to be frightening. An innocuous glass of liquid, your television, a paper airplane. Certainly just don't throw something out there with the expectation that people will be afraid of it just because of what it is. Sue turns the corner and stops dead in her tracks as she finds herself face-to-face with a...spider! Clown! The old guy from down the hall that always hits on her and begs her for a kiss with rotten, cigarette-stained teeth!

As a side note, I saw Gremlins in the theater when I was four. It was my absolute favorite movie ever until Jurassic Park came out. Oddly enough though, E.T. scared the bejeezus out of me.

Just reading some of the examples in these replies made my hands sweaty! Lol. I agree that the progressive build-up of tension is a huge part of what scares a reader. Another thing I've noticed that tends to scare me is witnessing someone/a character who you've grown a fondness for go through some kind of terrible transformation. For example, seeing someone become slowly psychotic, or disfigured. I'd also recommend trying to remember some of your nightmares. What was it that scared you? Perhaps you could incorporate into your writing

Give them these two things...

1. Something that will stick with them long after they put the book down.

2. Something that could happen to the reader.

But sometimes, writing a horror novel isn't just about scaring them.

Keep it uniquely disturbing. Be innovative, be fresh, and don't be afraid to go there. Horror readers are a lot like erotica readers; the more hardcore you're willing to be, the quicker you'll find your niche. In this day of E-books and such, you may not be trying to impress a traditional publisher. You will be forced to compete on a much bigger, much more direct scale. It's okay to be a little over-the-top, as long as you earn it by keeping your actual writing tight.