as it's october we wanted to bring you some spooky tips to help your horror writing so any of you who are working on a horror novel these tips are for you and if you're not well maybe think about writing a short story or something like that as of course we have halloween rapidly approaching so in this article i'm going to give you six tips to improve your horror stories your horror writing again please like comment below and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already you don't want to miss out on more of the great writing tips that we have coming your way if we don't scare you off in this video tip number one is the uncanny valley so this sounds a very odd term and quite frankly i had to do a bit of research on it but the uncanny valley is an idea that when you're constructing the villain or the monster in a horror novel you want to ideally choose a monster that is almost human so the idea is that it's most terrifying or we as readers as humans what we find most terrifying is something that is close to being human but not quite so it lacks some of those key characteristics that a human would have a good illustration of this a good example of this is something like a store mannequin where in essence it is meant to represent a human but of course it doesn't look human and if you imagine a mannequin walking around of its own accord at night that would be very strange and terrifying because of course it's almost human but not quite so that's the general idea of course you'll have to use your imagination to figure out you know other ways that you can do this.
artificial intelligence is you know is another example of something that's human like but of course lacks the main characteristics and therefore you know makes a good uh villain in a horror book tip number two is to use the monster as a metaphor for something that the main character is dealing with so if it's internal grief or something like that it's more impactful to the reader if the monster of the villain is actually a demonstration of something internal so if it's a representation of internal emotions or things they've experienced that is of course even more terrifying so that is tip number two tip number three is to use strong images and when i say images i mean that when you create your scenes don't just describe it visually you also want to reference tastes you know smells sounds these other senses are really important to create that feeling of dread or terror and they're often neglected in books because we are so focused on creating the visual element but we forget that by referencing these other senses it's going to make the entire scene more impactful so that is tip number three is to make sure you are using and referencing all the scenes to really draw all the senses to really draw the reader in tip number four is to control the atmosphere and the tone so the more you can control the atmosphere and the feeling that you are giving the reader the more you're going to be able to build up that sense of dread draw them into the story and of course then it will have much more of an impact when you hit them with the surprise or the jumpy moment in the story.
the other items you need will be the color palette so as part of that make sure you're adding in the color palette and also the characters emotions all of these are going to help you with tip number four number five is to juxtapose comedy likeness or scenes of intimacy and family into the horror book that you're writing the reason this is particularly effective is if in a horror novel it becomes too much about the fear the dread the monster the reader will become a little bit removed or detached from caring about the character and seeing the human elements to of course the victims potentially in your story you still need the reader to really connect with them and have a strong emotional connection with those characters in order to want to read the whole way through the book because they care about those characters by showing those moments of likeness family it's also going to heighten and highlight the terrifying moments because it reminds the reader that these are real people that have been put in an unnatural or extreme situation so tip number five is to juxtapose likeness comedy you know family with the terror in your horror novel and to finish on tip number six is to utilize suspense so i couldn't make a video about writing a horror novel or story.
without mentioning suspense suspense is the key to ensuring that you hold the reader and you deliver a spooky story i always like to reference the woman in black as an excellent example of leveraging suspense it's not gory it's not particularly terrifying but suspense is leveraged so well so if you're looking for tips i would definitely recommend checking out that um checking out the woman in black for some tips we hope you've enjoyed this article.
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