HORROR
STORY WORKSHEET
TIM WAGGONER
I’ve been writing and teaching writing for almost
forty years now, and as you might imagine, I’ve given feedback on a lot of
student stories – I mean, a lot. I see many of the same problems with
beginners’ fiction, especially horror and dark fantasy, since that’s what I
specialize in. While I know there’s no such thing as a fool-proof formula for
writing a short story, as a teacher, I try to give students enough guidance in
terms of structure to get them started on their way. This morning, as I was
reading a couple stories for feedback, it occurred to me that it might be
helpful for beginners if they had a story worksheet that they could fill out,
and so I decided to make one.
A couple words of caution. A worksheet like this isn’t
for everyone. If you find it stifling rather than inspiring, don’t use it.
(Although, if you ever find yourself blocked, you can give it another try and
see if it helps.) You don’t need to provide information for every item. Fill in
however much or little you want. Hell, you can just read over the worksheet
then sit down to write without filling in anything. This isn’t a school
assignment. It’s a tool to use however you see fit. Also, the worksheet is a
basic one. It doesn’t cover all the ways that a story can be structured. How
could it? Each time we write a story, it’s at least a little different from any
we’ve written before, than any story anyone’s written before. But I think the
worksheet provides a decent framework for writers still learning how to write
short stories. Also keep in mind that the areas I include on the worksheet are
what I think are important for short fiction. Other writers would present items/have
different advice – which is as it should be. You should learn from as many
people as you can, take what works for you, and forget the rest.
One last thing to consider. I’ve created this
worksheet to help people write horror stories, but it’ll work for many
different kinds of fiction. For example, one item on the worksheet is the Bad
Thing. In horror, that could be a killer, a monster, a malicious force, but in realistic
fiction, it could be a decaying relationship or someone realizing they’re
living a life that’s not genuine to who they really are.
Okay, I lied. Here’s the last thing to
consider. Feel free to adapt the worksheet to your own needs, adding or subtracting
elements as you wish. Feel free to use it in writing groups, and in classes and
workshops you teach. I’ll be grateful if you give me credit for creating the
worksheet, but I don’t care if you do. I only care that the worksheet helps
people write more successful stories.
All right. Let’s get started.
MAIN CHARACTER
Normal or Not-So-Normal
Short stories should focus on a single main character
and have only one or two supporting characters. They’re short, so there’s not a
lot of room for a larger cast.
Horror stories tend to have one of two characters
types. A Normal Person (for lack of a better phrase) or an Abnormal Person. Poe’s
“The Tell-Tale Heart” is a prime example of an abnormal main character. The character’s
abnormality is usually a psychological one (such as a pathological fear of
being caught outside in a thunderstorm) that may or may not have a direct bearing
on the main story threat (although it often does). Having an abnormal main
character can add to the overall weirdness of your story, but it might be
harder for readers to relate to your character.
HOW DOES YOUR MAIN CHARACTER SOLVE
PROBLEMS?
Does your main character directly confront problems?
Indirectly confront them? Seek others’ help in dealing with them? Ignore them
for as long as possible? Try to avoid them completely? Manipulate others into
dealing with them? How your character deals with problems gives your story its
shape. It’s the most important thing you can know about your character.
HOW DOES YOUR MAIN CHARACTER REACT TO
STRESS AND DEAL WITH FEAR?
In horror stories, bad stuff happens. Characters are
under stress and they experience fear. You need to know how they react to
stress and fear, and what toll stress and fear takes on them. (This may overlap
with how they solve problems.) Do they keep going despite stress and fear? Do
they feel they have to stop partway through the story? (Don’t let them!) Do
they deny bad things are happening? Do they find their sense of reality shaken?
What will they do when pushed to their breaking point and beyond?
STORY CONCEPT
What makes your story different? A lot of beginners’
horror stories have only the most basic concepts. There is a ghost. There is a
killer. There is a werewolf. Those aren’t full-fledged concepts, though, and
there’s nothing different about them. Recently, I was asked to write a story
for an anthology dealing with classic monsters. I chose to write about a
werewolf, and the concept I came up with is that when a member of the pack gets
old, he or she goes into the woods, and a loved one “hunts” them to give them a
final fight and a chance to die what, to their kind, is a dignified death. Werewolf
is a trope. The concept is the approach to or spin on a trope. It’s what you do
with a trope.
BAD THING
A lot of time in beginners’ horror stories, the Bad
Thing is merely a trope – a witch, a zombie, a haunted house. But a Bad Thing
should have some connection to the character. So instead of writing about a
character encountering a generic ghost, write about a character confronting the
ghost – hopefully, an atypical one – with a connection to them. Maybe your
character must confront the ghost of a dog that he or she failed to watch
properly as a child, and the dog got out of the yard and was killed. The
character feels guilt and the dog-ghost feels that its master betrayed it. I’d end
this story with some kind of twist, like the dog actually wanting the character
to die and join it as a ghost so they can be together again.
EMOTIONAL CORE
A short story should focus on a single emotional core.
The dog-ghost story’s emotional core is guilt and that guilt is centered on one
specific incident – the character’s failure to properly supervise the dog and
the dog getting killed because of it. Everything in the story, whether directly,
indirectly, or symbolically, should connect to the emotional core.
MAIN CHARACTER’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE EMOTIONAL
CORE
For the dog-ghost story, the most obvious connection
is the character’s relationship to the dog, and his or her guilt over the dog’s
death. I’d extend this to the rest of the character’s life, and have them
become hyper-vigilant as an adult, maybe working as a security professional in
some capacity. If the character’s need to watch over others becomes
pathological, then he or she would become an abnormal character.
ANTICIPATION/BUILD TO CONFRONTATION POINT
The Confrontation Point is when your main character is
forced to confront the Bad Thing. It’s what your story builds up to. These are small
encounters with the Bad Thing, incidents that may be direct or indirect
encounters, and which become increasingly worse/bigger/more blatant as the
story goes on.
CONFRONTATION POINT
Your main character comes face-to-face with the Bad
Thing. What happens? In horror, the most clichéd ending is “. . . and then the
character died.” Try to avoid that. See if you can have the Confrontation Point
be something that both grows out of the emotional core and which also isn’t a cliché.
For the dog-ghost story, I would have the ghost-dog chase and knock down the
character. The character thinks they’re going to be killed, but the ghost-dog
licks their face (which sets up the ending). Yeah, the character dies, but they
end up as a ghost companion to their dog.
COOL ENDING
The encounter with the Bad Thing is resolved in a way
that makes your reader say, “Whoa! I did NOT see that coming!” This could be a
positive ending or a negative one. Your character succeeds fully in obtaining their
goal, succeeds partially, fails completely, fails partially, succeeds or fails
in an unexpected way. I often go for what I think of is a weirdly happy ending.
I’ve already said that my hypothetical ghost-dog story ends with the main
character becoming a ghost and staying with the dog. The character is dead
(which is a failure to survive the encounter) but they’re happy being reunited
with their dog and are free of the guilt they’ve carried for so long (an
unexpected success). In horror, if you can give your reader a last scare, a final
eerie image or idea, so much the better.
The following items aren’t necessarily horror
specific, but they’re issues beginning writers of all types need to address.
NARRATIVE APPROACH
·
Straight (Beginning, middle, end). In
general, this is the best approach for beginners to take. When you get good at
this, you can try more advanced narrative approaches.
·
Straight intercut with flashbacks (Current
event, flashback, current event, flashback, etc.).
·
Frame (Present, Bulk of story is in the
past, Present Ending).
·
Nonlinear (This is like a mosaic approach;
events are presented to the reader in whatever order you wish.)
NARRATIVE STARTING POINT
This is the beginning that your readers will read. Start
as close to the Confrontation Point as possible – always good advice for writing
short fiction.
INCITING INCIDENT
May not be the Narrative Starting Point. An Inciting
Incident is what kicks off the story problem (which in horror is the Bad
Thing). For the dog-ghost story, the dog’s death is the inciting incident. My Narrative
Starting Point might be when the dog’s owner, now grown, drives past his or her
childhood home for the first time since the dog’s death. (The family moved
shortly after.) The ghost-dog follows the character home and the story gets
moving.
BACKGROUND/HISTORY
Keep this to a minimum. Horror often has an aspect of
the past impinging on the present, and there’s always the issue of the character’s
background too. Too often, all this background/history overwhelms the actual
narrative. In general, try to keep the background/history to only 10 percent of
your story (if that much). If you have trouble restraining yourself when it
comes to background/history, keep two files open as you write. One is for the
forward-moving story, the other is for background/history. Jump back and forth
between them as needed, but don’t put any background/history into the
forward-moving story. When you’re finished, take only the most absolutely necessary
background/history details and sprinkle them into your story.
That’s it for the worksheet. I’ll put the items
without any explanation below, so you can copy them and use them more easily. I
hope you find this worksheet useful! If there’s something you think should be
added to the worksheet, let me know.
HORROR
STORY WORKSHEET
MAIN CHARACTER
HOW DOES YOUR MAIN CHARACTER SOLVE
PROBLEMS?
HOW DOES YOUR MAIN CHARACTER REACT TO
STRESS AND DEAL WITH FEAR?
STORY CONCEPT
BAD THING
EMOTIONAL CORE
MAIN CHARACTER’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE EMOTIONAL
CORE
ANTICIPATION/BUILD TO CONFRONTATION POINT
CONFRONTATION POINT
COOL ENDING
NARRATIVE APPROACH
NARRATIVE STARTING POINT
INCITING INCIDENT
BACKGROUND/HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
Want to read more of my writing advice? I’ve got two
books you can check out.
Writing in the Dark
is my Bram Stoker Award-Winning book on how to write horror. It’s available in
both print and e-editions.
You can order direct from Raw Dog Screaming Press
here:
http://rawdogscreaming.com/books/writing-in-the-dark/
From Amazon here:
From Barnes and Noble here:
Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/writing-in-the-dark-tim-waggoner/1137057460?ean=9781947879195
Hardcover: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/writing-in-the-dark-tim-waggoner/1137057460?ean=9781947879232
The Art of Writing Genre Fiction,
written with Michael Knost collects craft essays from both of use. (Currently
only available in print.)
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Thank you. I enjoy reading your blog. And in terms of shameless self-promotion https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Keyton/e/B016S5RBI4?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1626434034&sr=1-1 Couldn't resist :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Tim. I found this article incredibly helpful! -Marcelino R.
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