Writing horror fiction is not easy. There is a lot that goes into writing horror; authors have to consider what is horror and what is simply a bogus attempt at making something work that clearly doesn’t want to. Before any author starts writing horror, they often ask their peers or their beta readers if the concept they are thinking about is even scary or not. The horror genre is ruled by amazing writers who make it seem so easy, but in reality, it is not.

So what does a young or upcoming author need to do to make their horror novel scary? Adding a monster or an unknown entity in their story is great, but what makes it tick? Here are some tips that will help you out.

Know What Scares People

Here is a thing about fear: everyone has something that they are afraid of. While some people are scared of spiders or heights, other people are afraid of things such as thunderstorms or flying. Fear is relative, but it is present in each and every one of us. Choose one thing, just one thing, and let that be a part of your story. Let that fear fester and boil to a breaking point in your story and generally make sure that you let the fear lead the story.

Let Your Monster Be Unpredictable

Predictability can be your downfall, regardless of the genre. Even a simple romance can be boring for readers if it is predictable. But worst of all, it is your enemy if you are writing horror fiction. Making your situations unpredictable will add to the story and enable you to enhance the element of fear in your story. Take the most trivial of things, use this technique and see what happens.

Violence is What Makes it Scary

How will your monster be a monster if it is not violent? They are not human; they don’t have a conscience, which makes them violent and unpredictable. They attack viciously, so you need to let that show. Even if your monster is “not real,” you still need to show how gruesome the attacks can be and how terrifying it would be to encounter such a monster out of the pages of your story. You don’t have to make it gory and gross if you don’t want, of course; there are other ways to show how terrible the monster is without writing bloodshed.

Keep Your Imagination Alive

Your imagination is your biggest tool and it is the one thing that can take your story to the next level. Fearing the unknown is ingrained in our heads; anything that we don’t know about scares us. So let your imagination run wild, let it take your story to places and see where it goes. Your mind is your biggest weapon; it can conjure up things that you do not think are possible, but if you put those thoughts to paper, you might have a gem on your hands.