Catching up with tips, day 4: Horror

Horror is not only a genre. It’s easy to forget that it’s also an emotion, and a very powerful one, that we can use in all kinds of stories at some point or other. Here are a few recent Screenwriting Tips on HORROR.

861: Horror is when the audience has no idea what’s going to happen next, coupled with the awful suspicion that maybe they don’t want to find out.

825: The longer you draw out a mystery, the better the payoff has to be.

797: It’s easy to make us empathize with horror movie characters. It’s a lot harder to make us empathize with the monster (also a lot more fun, and potentially more disturbing).

796: Horror has to be transgressive — a violation of the normally-polite pact between storyteller and audience. If you’re not crossing some kind of line, you’re doing it wrong.

772: Fear of the unknown only works up to a point. Horror that never explains itself or establishes any sort of rules eventually becomes frustrating, then laughable.

Worth thinking about it, right?

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KHaL

Desde luego el terror es de lo más difícil. En cine o series al menos tienes los planos, el sonido, la música, efectos de todo tipo… pero en novela me parece que roza lo imposible.

KHaL

He leído a Stephen King y la verdad es que mucho miedo no me produce; acepto tensión en su lugar pero no mucho más.

Sergio Mora

A mi IT (Eso) si me dió algo de canguelo. Lo leí hace bastantes años. Pienso que si volviera a leerla ahora volvería a suceder. :)

No sé si me ha pasado con alguna más, imagino que si, pero ahora no caigo…