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Nov 2024

What about a monster scares you the most? What makes a good horror experience for you? I'm writing something for DnD and I want it to be fun and scary. I have a few ideas, but I would love to see the community's answers about what they find scary/interesting in horror/thriller stories.

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    Nov '24
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    Nov '24
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I don't do horror, because I don't like scaring/horrifying people most of the time, but I do suspense/psyche thriller.

I think what makes them good in my opinion is having a motivation behind the scary factor that isn't just straight horror. Actually a plot, yk? I have some stories that fall into like...body horror genres written from the pov of endangered fantasy species and things like that. Seeing the risk of losing a life through the eyes of the character is definitely scary, but it also helps the world feel full and complex

In most horror or thriller type of stories, the less you show the better. Heavy shadows and stuff like that. Once the audience sees the creature, the suspense is gone.

I get scared really easily, so I don’t really read or watch horror stories, but when I do, here’s what I like in a horror story:

  • I don’t get scared by “traditional” monsters like zombies or ghosts and such. I’ve actually been making up my own monsters to be scared of since childhood. To me, “creepy” is always better than straight up “scary”. Like, if a horror story tries to scare me with, say, a completely unexpected appearing of a ghost, I won’t get scared. But if said story manages to gradually creep me out beforehand, I won’t be able to sleep the next night.

  • This is really specific but, I love historical horror. The kind of story where when you don’t know history you’re just like “eww, that’s creepy” but when you do, you go straight up “nonononONONONOoooo!!”

  • I did a short horror comic once and all I really had to do was come up with a design for a monster that was not only creepy but also metaphorical in a way, and also make up some situations where suspense can be created. Only when enough suspense is built up, a jumpscare really works best. What really works well in my opinion, is showing the character doing something while the monster is already visible behind them. This really builds up the suspense and for me personally, it’s one of the things that scare me the most in horror stories.

Horror?

Must involve demons or aliens.

Those are what I find scary :fearful:

Subtlety, tension, buildup, usually a way of getting at something deep inside you that sticks with you as you go.

I like supernatural and psychological horror. When something is just... weird and not okay. It is also important to have likeable or interesting characters, who you can root for.

For me, there's two things - the unknown and the innocence, sprinkled with 'rumors'

Just imagine, you're in an alley at night, it's raining slightly, and you hear a voice behind you. You turn around, and it's a kid - six years old at most.

"Have you heard of the Wilted?"

(roll for history, make the DC impossibly high). You don't know about the Wilted.

"No? What is that?"

"Mommy says they come out at night, the moment every flower has closed back up, and roam the streets until the sun makes them bloom again. If they find you, they make you wither away, like an old blossom with not enough water." (Got the idea from the Wither and Bloom spell, in this case)

"What do they look like?"

"I don't know. Nobody does. All we know is every morning, in the town square, there is a new body, all dried up, on display and everything."

"Then why are you out alone at night?"

"Because I can't find Mommy."

Something like that is kind of what I like to reach for with anything meant to be unnerving. Maybe the child itself is the monster, but don't make it obvious.