What Makes a Story Scary, and How Can You Accomplish This Effect?

Have you ever read a scene in a horror story that literally gave you chills?

Or made the hairs on your arms stand up?

Or made you double-check the doors to be sure they were locked?

If so, you’ve experienced skillful horror writing.

But what is it about certain stories that evokes such a reaction? What makes a story scary, and how can you accomplish this in your own writing? Let’s explore…

What Makes a Story Scary?

Spooky stories conjure fear in a number of overlapping ways. It’s rarely just one thing. As a writer, you have a variety of techniques you can use to make a story scary, creepy, and memorable.

Here are seven of those techniques:

1. Atmosphere and Tone

In fiction, “atmosphere” refers to the overall feeling or tone that a story conjures. It mainly comes from the story’s setting or environment, along with other background details.

In horror stories and other dark tales, atmosphere can be used to create unease, tension, or dread. A crumbling mansion filled with shadows and stale air. A foggy forest where distant sounds hint at unseen creatures. An abandoned town where every sound echoes.

An eerie or unsettling atmosphere can make a scary story scarier, more effective, and more memorable for the reader.

Here are some ways to accomplish this in your own writing:

• Choose an eerie setting for your story, such as abandoned places, dark forests, foggy streets, isolated houses, etc.
• Use sensory details. Describe sights, sounds, smells, and textures (e.g., damp air, an odd smell, creaking wood, a faint rustling).
• Manipulate lighting and shadows. Mention flickering lights, deep shadows, or murky areas the characters can’t fully see.
• Include sounds that hint at the unseen. Low whispers, distant footsteps, rustling leaves, a faint tapping, etc.
• Describe changes in temperature, like sudden chills, drafts, or the oppressive feeling of heat or humidity.
• Add unusual or unsettling objects. Strange paintings, broken mirrors, dusty old furniture, or unexplainable symbols.
• Use fog, mist, or rain. Obscure visibility to create a sense of disorientation or claustrophobia for both the character and the reader.
• Use vague descriptions. Leave some details unclear to make readers imagine what could be lurking, instead of painting a full picture for them.
• Play with time or silence. Describe unnatural stillness, prolonged silence, or the distortion of time passing too slowly or too quickly.

Writers can also flip this concept by injecting horror into a perfectly normal and pleasant setting. This can also make for a scary scene or story.

We expect to find something scary lurking in a dark basement or a lightless cave. But when that something appears in broad daylight (in a child’s bedroom, perhaps), it becomes all the more terrifying.

2. Creeping Dread

I’m a fan of horror stories that use “creeping dread” to keep the reader apprehensive and unsettled. You can find this slow-burn approach in many scary stories and movies.

In this context, creeping dread is a slow-building sense of fear or unease that intensifies as the story unfolds. Instead of delivering a sudden shock, creeping dread creates a steady feeling of discomfort and anticipation.

It gives you the sense that something terrible is inevitable, but just out of sight.

Creeping dread can make a scary story more engrossing for the reader. It keeps them emotionally invested and eager to see what kinds of horrors finally emerge.

Here are some ways to accomplish this in your own writing:

• Drop subtle hints early on. This might include small, unsettling details (like an unusual smell or a distant sound) that feel “off” but are initially dismissed by the characters.
• Introduce minor but unexplained disturbances. Objects slightly out of place, lights flickering, or a strange draft. They seem harmless but are persistent.
• Dish it out slowly. Let eerie events unfold gradually, so the reader has time to absorb each new detail and embrace the dread.
• Embrace ambiguity. Avoid explaining too much too soon. At first, let the reader wonder what’s behind the strange occurrences.
• Reveal character anxieties. Show how the characters begin to question their surroundings (and perhaps their own sanity) as they become increasingly unsettled.
• Use isolation or entrapment. Gradually reveal that the characters can’t easily escape or get help. Being “stuck” with something unknown can establish creeping dread.
• Repeat small, disturbing patterns: Repeated events (like a knocking sound every night) make readers anticipate that something worse is coming.
• Make use of foreshadowing: Drop dark or ominous hints about future events, creating a sense of foreboding as readers wonder when something terrible will happen.
• Blur perceptions and reality. Describe how the characters feel watched or sense things that others don’t notice, making the reader question what’s real.
• Delay the main scare. Keep the reader on edge by holding back the main horror, letting the dread build as they brace for the worst.
• Use sensory discomforts. Describe characters feeling cold, uneasy, or sensing something just on the edge of their vision—minor discomforts that suggest something is lurking.

3. Withholding Information

Beginning writers often feel like they have to explain everything right up front, so the reader understands what’s happening at all times.

But in horror fiction, the exact opposite tends to work better.

As a writer, you can make a scary story more effective by withholding information and keeping the reader in the dark—at least initially.

At the start of a story, readers need to understand who the character is, where they are, and what they’re doing. But that’s all. Readers can learn as they go, picking up bits of information as the story progresses.

In the fiction writing world, this is known as withholding.

By leaving some elements unknown—like the nature of a threat, a character’s true intentions, or the full history of a disturbing event—writers can intensify the suspense and curiosity.

This lack of information makes readers fill in the gaps with their own fears and suspicions. It allows their imaginations to run wild, often resulting in a scarier story.

Here are some ways to accomplish this in your own writing:

• Limit the protagonist’s knowledge. Keep the main character in the dark about what’s happening, making them (and the reader) uncertain and unsettled.
• Restrict dialogue. Have characters speak in cryptic or evasive ways, hinting at something dark but not fully explaining it.
• Delay explanations. Let strange events occur without giving context, allowing readers to wonder and worry about what might be causing them.
• Limit backstories. Mention that something terrible happened in the past without going into a lot of details. Let the reader’s imagination fill in the gaps.

4. Relatable Characters

When readers connect with fictional characters, the characters’ fears and dangers feel more real. This in turn makes the story more immersive and engaging.

Readers don’t necessarily have to like your characters (although that never hurts). But they do need to understand your characters’ wants, fears, and motivations.

Read: How to create believable characters

5. Surprises and Twists

Unexpected turns and shocking revelations can startle readers and keep them guessing. They can also make for a scarier story, especially when those surprises endanger the characters in some way.

A clever twist can also make a spooky or scary story more memorable. M Night Shyamalan’s 1999 film The Sixth Sense became a hit largely due to its twist ending (which I won’t give away here).

Read: How to write horror with a twist

6. Imagery and Descriptions

When a horror story delivers realism and authenticity, the fear factor goes through the roof. Why? Because realistic stories are believable stories.

And when you believe in something scary, you feel it on a deeper level.

Vivid and unsettling descriptions can evoke fear and discomfort. Sensory details that appeal to sight, sound, smell, and touch can make scenes more terrifying.

7. The Uncanny

The uncanny is a powerful tool for creating horror and can make a story scary on multiple levels. But what is it, and how can you use this concept in your own writing?

Definition: Uncanny refers to the unsettling feeling of something familiar becoming strange or distorted.

In dark fiction, the uncanny often takes one of the following forms:

• Doppelgängers: A doppelgänger is a ghostly double of a living person. The uncanny aspect of a doppelgänger is that it is both familiar and unfamiliar. It’s a mirror image of the self but also something otherworldly.
• Automatons: Automatons are machines designed to mimic human behavior. They might seem lifelike and human on the outside, but they’re also clearly artificial.
• Resemblances: This can be anything from a facial feature to a voice to a mannerism. Uncanny resemblances remind us of something we know, but they are also slightly off.
• Settings: Think of a stranger or darker version of the house where you spent much of your childhood. That’s an uncanny setting. It’s familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and unsettling as a result.

The uncanny can be used to create a sense of dread, unease, and confusion—for characters and readers alike. It can also be used to make the familiar seem strange and the ordinary seem extraordinary.