What is scary?
Is it a giant spider lurking under you bed, just waiting for
you to crawl in before it silently creeps out into the darkness of your room to
envelope you in it's deadly web?
Is it a waking up to find yourself buried alive in a close, black
coffin, utterly sightless in the dark, the only sound a muted thud of shovelful
after shovelful of dirt as it's tossed onto your living tomb?
Is it a darkened stretch of forest you must walk through
that seems to breathe with living creatures that dart and flutter just out of
sight?
Is it getting a flat tire on a deserted mountain road, where
the nearest structure for fifty miles is a dilapidated farmhouse that appears
to have no phone, cable or electricity lines, just a trickle of smoke rising
from a toppling brick chimney?
So many different levels of scary. The things we fear most come in a variety of
shapes and sizes, from the physical – like spiders and sharks – to the esoteric
– like claustrophobia and paranoia – to the otherworldly – like demons and
vampires and witches (oh my!).
When I wrote POSSESS, I chose something that I actually
found terrifying – demonic possession – and tried to convey that terror to
readers who might not have the same sensibilities. In TEN, I wrote about
something I don't intrinsically find scary – being trapped on an island with a
killer, but also tried to portray the tension and horror. To me, conveying fear isn't just about
describing a situation, object, or person that someone might find scary, but
giving a blow-by-blow of the event and actually detailing the fear reaction in
the characters.
We all know exactly what it feels like to be scared. First you have the anticipation: What's
behind that closed door? What's making that
scratching noise in the attic? What's
lurking in the deep, dark waters? It's
the tensing of muscles like you're expecting a blow, that stretching of all
your senses, trying to see/feel/hear/smell danger before it pounces on
you. The higher the tension is pitched,
the bigger the wallop.
Next, the reveal. The
door opens to expose a dead body that spills out on top of our poor heroine the
moment she turns the doorknob. The
scratching noise in the attic inexplicably moves through the ceiling, down the
stairs and manifests in a dark, demonic entity.
The dorsal fin of a great white shark breaks the surface of the water in
which you're swimming. The terror has
been revealed in one jarring, scream-inducing moment!
But that's not scary enough, not for the expectant
reader. You need the next step in the
process – experiencing the fear through the eyes of the main character. We need to feel their bodies tremble as they
break out into a cold sweat. We need to
hear the blood-curdling scream that explodes from their mouths. We need to internalize the sick, sinking
feeling in their stomachs as death closes in around them.
And lastly, the action.
Our heroine's panicked flee from the house, our hero's desperate attempt
to out maneuver a man-eating shark. Will
they survive? Will they escape? Hearts pound in anticipation with every turn
of the page!!!!
What is scary?
The answer, I think, is anything. If you tell it right. ;)
Gretchen McNeil is
an opera singer, writer and clown. Her
YA horror POSSESS debuted with Balzer + Bray for HarperCollins in 2011. Her follow up TEN – YA horror/suspense about
ten teens trapped on a remote island with a serial killer – will be released September
18, 2012, and her third novel 3:59, sci fi horror pitched as The Parent Trap meets Event Horizon, is scheduled for Fall
2013.
Gretchen is a former
coloratura soprano, the voice of Mary on G4's Code Monkeys and she sings with the LA-based circus troupe Cirque
Berzerk. Gretchen blogs with The
Enchanted Inkpot and is a founding member of the vlog group the YARebels where
she can be seen as "Monday."
And their doom
comes swiftly.
It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives – three
days on Henry Island
Suddenly, people are dying and the teens are cut off from
the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that
isn’t scheduled to return for two days. As the deaths become more violent and
the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die?
Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?
Want to help Gretchen get the word out about Ten and win some awesome prizes - including the chance to get your name in her next book? Check out The Army of Ten!
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