Creepy, Scary Stories

1
Creepy, Scary Stories

• What you need to be effective.

2
CREEPY TALES

• Watch this Power Point and learn how to transform
  your typical scary tale into a believable story
  that truly
• gives your readers the creeps, shivers their
  spines, shakes their souls, and spasms their
  stomachs.

3
REALITY CHECK

• It takes a lot of reality to create a story that
  gives readers the frights they wont soon forget.

Good fiction is a lie that can be believed.
4
REALITY CHECK Setting

• WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW
• The very ordinariness of such settings works
  because readers are familiar with the ordinary
  they live there, and if you start with a really
  creepy setting, youll be hard pressed to spring
  a surprise on your readers who anticipate
  something bad to happen in that type of place.

5
REALITY CHECK Setting

• WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW
• When the ordinary is invaded by the terrifying,
  extraordinary horror happens.
• Its the intrusion of the extraordinary, the
  appalling unusual into the lives of ordinary,
  credible, for-real characters that makes for
  compelling shock fiction.

6
REALITY CHECK Setting

• Authors, such as Stephen King write about places
  they know. Stephen King, a Maine native, has
  lived in Castle Rock and Salems Lot. Even
  though he changed the names of the towns, his
  writing is realistic and believable, because he
  knows everything about these places.

7
REALITY CHECK Characters
A good horror story character is a fictional
someone whos every bit as alive and as much a
unique individual as anyone we know really well
out here in the real world. He must be for
readers to care about him. If readers dont
care, it wont matter what the character does or
what happens to him.
8
REALITY CHECK Characters
Dont use stereotypeswrite about what you know.
You know people and how they think/feel when
someone lets them down. Youve experienced
disappointment, joy, hate, love, embarrassment,
and pride so you can create credible characters
that experience these emotions.
9
REALITY CHECK Characters
The real characters you create will hold out a
welcoming hand and yank readers into your waking
nightmareand keep them there!
10
REALITY CHECK Characters
EXAMPLE
11

• Sellers Middle School, room 37
• Mrs. Elliott, 10 students (mix of male and female)

12
REALITY CHECK

• CHARACTERS
• Your cousin
• Your teacher
• Your uncle
• Your school nurse
• Your best friend
• Brainstorm other familiar characters

• SETTING
• Your favorite store at the mall
• Your grandmothers house
• Your friends room
• Your locker
• Your favorite hometown pizza place
• Brainstorm other familiar settings

13
REALITY CHECK Shift from Blood and Gore

• A modern horror story cant simply rely on
  pointless violence and shock value to disgust its
  readerit must work hard to instill genuine
  chills. The writer needs to unnerve the reader
  enough to make her flick on an extra light and
  lock the back door, just in case.

14
REALITY CHECK Find the Fear

• What does society fear today? What do you fear?
  Go to the root of these terrors. Are you afraid
  of the dentist because of the pain or does it go
  deeper?
• EXAMPLE Stephen Kings Quitters Inc. is on
  the subject of giving up smokingwith terrifying
  consequences.

15
REALITY CHECK Find the Fear

• THEMES such as
• Breaking the rules and
• Shortcuts to success
• are perfect vehicles for tales of ruin. W.W.
  Jacobs the Monkeys Paw, explores the idea
  that theres no such thing as a free lunch. In
  this story, a family is given three wishes, which
  come at the price of their sons life.

16
REALITY CHECK Find the Fear

• EXAMPLES

17
CONCLU-SION

• Horror stories can lurk anywhere. What makes
  them truly terrifying isnt the unknown but the
  familiar stretched over a very unusual canvas.

18
Story Diagram

• Protagonist - the hero/heroine of the story the
  main character
• Antagonist the force working against the
  protagonist usually another person bad guy
• Action What happens in the story

19
Story Diagram

• Problem/Conflict Each protagonist will
  encounter a problem of some kind 3 different
  kinds
• Man against man
• Man against himself
• Man against nature

20
Story diagram

• Setting where the story takes place
• Solution what solves the problem/conflict that
  the character has?