Feel the Fear

We can learn a lot from horror writers.

And by horror, I don’t only mean the shockingly gory or grotesque, but rather the quiet stuff too: dread, unease, the feeling that something isn’t quite right.

Horror writers make us shiver. They make us gasp. They play upon our emotions with clever mastery, but most of all, they heighten our senses. They force us to pay attention. That’s a skill you can use in your own work, no matter what genre.

Specific beats generic

Over the years, I’ve learned that nothing is neutral in storytelling, and one secret to powerful storytelling is specificity. Sure, generic can sell, but specific gets remembered.

For example, the ghost story. What is a ghost story?

If you quickly said, “A story with a ghost,” I’d ask: what kind? Is it scary? Funny? Tragic? Puzzling? Does a ghost story have to have a ghost? (yes think about that).

Newer writers tend to fall into the bog of generalities thinking a ghost story is one thing. But master storytellers know it can be many things, and they make theirs specific by focusing on emotion.

And one of the best emotions to help your story come alive is fear.

Walk toward it

Most times when we feel fear, we want to look away. For this practice, I’m asking you to do the opposite: walk towards the feeling and turn it over in your hands. Don’t look away.

Think about that long, empty corridor. The furnace groaning somewhere below. The attic at your great-aunt’s house where you stayed every holiday, always too hot, with that dark corner where you heard strange scratching inside the walls. Too big to be a mouse, but what could it be?

You don’t have to write horror to use fear as material. Worry, dread, unease, and tension all sharpen your attention. And what you feel, you can make your reader feel too. The way to do that is to stay with the fear and study it: How does it smell? How does it feel? What does it taste like? What does it look like? What are the sounds?

Use all five senses

Newer writers, especially, tend to forget the sensory details of life. They’ll focus on sight, as most of us do, and possibly sound. But they forget taste, touch, and smell.

Does fear have a taste? A smell? A texture? Can you make it particular? That’s the most exciting part. When you return to an unsettling memory, you may find it carried sensations you never noticed. Maybe the sound was something that others would find innocuous, like dried leaves skirting along a stone path pushed by a light autumn breeze. But for you, the sound brings dread, because it reminds you of the scratching inside the walls…

That’s the lesson. The thing that makes your heart start to race isn’t a reason to look away. It’s a reason to look even closer. The good stuff often hides on the other side of fear, and it may be what makes your story come alive, what makes it more human than it otherwise would be.

This isn’t about being brave. It’s about being more attentive, more attuned, more aware. Observation is key to writing something that pulls readers in and hold them there.

Now it’s your turn

Choose a moment when you felt afraid. It could be from childhood, your teens, or last month. Remember it in sensory detail. What did it sound like? What did it smell like? How did it feel in your body? Write that down. What do you notice? What did the fear sharpen?

Or take a fear you carry now (of not being good enough, of being exposed as a fraud, of not being smart enough) and give it to a character or a place. Yes, places have personalities.

Better yet, let that fear carry you through the story you’ve been too intimidated to write, the one that makes you more aware of your dog scratching her ear or the cloyingly sweet smell of the dish soap you bought.

You don’t have to share what you write. It’s just practice, one more tool for your toolbox. And don’t worry about whether the story or scene is good or bad. That doesn’t matter. Feeling something does.

So I encourage you to feel boldly and put that feeling into your work. You might be surprised by how alive it becomes.