PLOT THREAD: Horror

Logistically, Horror Plot Thread is what Blake Snyder describes as a “monster in the house”. The house is any enclosed area where the characters are trapped (e.g.a haunted house, an island, a prison complex, a spaceship, a cabin). The monster is the being, natural or supernatural, that’s hunting characters down and picking them off one by one.

Once you see this, you realize that Jurassic Park, Aliens, and Fatal Attraction are all “horror” stories too.

But what is horror? Horror is visceral fear. Fear of something that’s about to happen. Horror is realizing that it’s already happened or happening and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s dread. In horror the prot has lost control and there’s not much they can do.

To make the story more horror-inducing, make the prot supremely competent but even with their powers, they still lose. As you build the story: make the audience want them to get out of this and work out. Start with a character you can really be empathetic with. There’s a hope that things are not as bad as you imagined. But ultimately, they can’t get out and survive. They’re dead or trapped forever.

The key theme of horror is there are some things in life where you lose control and you can’t win. A deeper theme for Snyder is that the characters are placed in this “house” due to a moral sin they have to admit and confess.

Writing Horror:

• In a normal, mundane situation, add just one element that’s out of place. Build anticipation with small signs, minor threats, flashes/glimpses of what’s to come.
• Spend a lot of act one getting to know the characters and then put a difficult decision in front of them where you know they’re going to make the wrong decision and you see them do it. That’s dread. Or character knows the consequences and has no option. They’re in control but fate and their tragic flaw is forcing their hand.
• A lot of horror is character reaction and how you as a writer describes the normal stuff. Pure Gore is where characters don’t change. Horror is where characters have to change.
• When you make the monster appear… make it something reader wasn’t expecting or make it far worse than reader was expecting

Horror Plot Thread: Key Elements

• House: Enclosure where they are trapped: cabin in the woods, island, system, spaceship, haunted mansion, submarine, supernatural horror, contraption like Cube, or puzzle like Saw
• Monster: Literal like minotaur or dragon, or natural like a shark or T-Rex. Serial killer. Demon. Ghost. Or if a “mundane” horror… a jilted lover out for revenge, a stalker who kidnaps you, a game where rich people hunt you.
• Sin: The heroes are trapped with this monster for a moral reason. Can be hubris, greed, not fearing what should be feared, career/adultery/x- over family, ignoring ethics) This plot thread is saying you did something wrong, and now you have to pay for it. It’s a moralizing story. Audience must know what was done wrong and what brought his crude justice on them. Even ignorance/innocence can be a “sin” as is the case with teenagers, poor people, or unwitting tourists.
• The “Half-Man”: A victim who survived the monster in a previous encounter. They warn the protagonists to leave, get out, or just scares them.

Horror Plot Thread: Progress Bar

A SERIES OF THREATS & DEATHS: Monster/House closes in protagonists lose escape routes, timer runs down, and allies are picked off one-by-one… while backstory-wise, what the characters did in the past is revealed slowly until the devastating truth of what triggered the monster, the “sin” is revealed.

Horror Plot Thread: Plot Beats

• STASIS: Introduce the group - show camaraderie, but also rivalry. Is there a hierarchy? Is there a loner? Is someone acting suspicious? Each character is a variation on the theme. It could be a stable family with all its dynamics, a team of hyper-competent colleagues, or just a group of innocent friends. What is their “sin”? AND THEN introduce the mechanism of the monster in a dramatized scene right away. Maybe it’s a weird murder and the group thinks they can solve it together, or they heard of a rumor/legend of some ritual that gets you killed (e.g. Blood Mary) and the group is tempted to test it, or you start in the “house” right away with a victim. Maybe the victim is a friend/ally/family of the protagonist that will also be sucked into this mire.
• DISRUPTION: Force the group to go to the “house”, or invite the monster into the house. Have a debate about whether to do this or not amongst the group. Could be a distress signal or phone call to the “house”. Or a dare to go into the “house”. Or even an unhealthy attraction to the monster.
• B-WORLD: Signs of and interactions with the monster. Maybe encounters that tease the monster, monster stalks, leaves gifts, makes contact from a distance. Half-men tell stories. If a pattern of previous deaths, show another one that increases personal stakes. MAYBE INTERACTIONS START HERE: Hide and seek. Ambushes. Minions. Show them caged.Discreet meetings with monster if fatal attraction. Or boundaries are crossed.Prots get too close to the serial killer or they do the ritual/mechanism thing.
• MID-to-LOWPOINT: Monster first major move. Someone dies. Mundane monster says I’m pregnant, or makes you an accomplice, or drags you beyond drama, into a crime. Monster starts to pick them off one-by-one:Get creative here. Must intensify and raise stakes. Kill creatively. Kidnap on the table.Mundane monster starts to get violent. Vandalism. Invasion of privacy. Contacts family. Kills a pet. Kidnap. Robbery.
• LOWPOINT: CONFESSION: The TRUTH comes out. Why are we stuck here? What or who invited the monster? What’s the sin we’re paying for? Complete hopelessness and despair. If murder/ritual, go to the place where it all began.
• CLIMAX: A clever plan to trap, kill, or stop the monster… or an escape plan from the house emerges. Or there’s simply a violent confrontation where the aggrieved work together. They pull of the plan and escape… or they don’t and they’re trapped forever, or all dead.

Sources & Resources

• Snyder, Blake. Save the Cat Goes to the Movies. Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.18: Elemental Horror.” Writing Excuses, season 11, episode 18, Dragonsteel Production, 1 May 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-18-elemental-horror/
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.20: Horror as a Subgenre.” Writing Excuses,season 11,episode 20, Dragonsteel Production, 15 May 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-20-horror-as-a-subgenre/
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.21: Q&A on Elemental Horror, with Steve Diamond.” Writing Excuses, season 11, episode 21, Dragonsteel Production, 22 May 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-21-qa-on-elemental-horror-with-steve-diamond/
• “Lecture #2: Plot Part 1 — Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy” YouTube, uploaded by Brandon Sanderson, January 29, 2020, https://youtu.be/jrIogch5DBU
• “Lecture #3: Plot Part 2 — Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy” YouTube, uploaded by Brandon Sanderson, February 12, 2020, https://youtu.be/Qgbsz7Gnrd8

All other plot thread notes here