| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Suspense Story

Page history last edited by Wendy Rooney 11 years, 5 months ago

FrontPage

 

Writing Focus:

  • Students hear and discuss good writing.
  • Students write sentences to generate writing ideas.
  • Students write scary stories.
  • Students use a word wall to spell high-frequency sight words.

 

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/venn/index.html - Interactive Venn Diagram 

 

 http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Horror-Story - 12 Tips to Writing a Scary Story

 

1.

Get an idea. How bad is it when a horror story has no great idea to get it started? To get these ideas, try to think of them just as you're starting to drift off to sleep. Try to think of the things that you wouldn't want coming out at you from those shadows, and then begin to think of what might happen if they did. For example: "Oh my gosh! I would not want an evil monster to slowly open the door to my room trying to make me like them! That would be horrible!" could be something you'd be thinking about.

 

  • 2
    Take care of the details. This is just good, general advice for any story: you - need - details! What good are your setting, main characters, minor characters, and biggest plot events if you don't have the details to go with them? Once you've got those answered, you're good to go...
  • 3
    Plan it out. It's a good idea to write out what will happen in the story, in point form, before you actually write out your story. You can use the point form notes as a guide; they'll keep you from getting lost or going around in circles. Don't be too elaborate in your point form notes; you just want the big things that are going to happen and the order in which they go.
  • 4
    Think of an exciting first sentence. Nothing is better than to start a story with an exciting, unexpected sentence then keep the detail and excitement going. This will catch the readers eye and encourage them to keep reading. What is worse than a story that just waddles on for the first few pages.
  • 5
    Just write. Put pen to paper and write, write, write. Add extra description (and with a horror story, description is your biggest tool in causing shivers, so add enough to make them start looking in the shadows and wondering if maybe, just maybe, what you write about is possible) and more details. Follow your guidelines so that you don't go in circles and lose the reader. Be sure not to use too much mystery, if you're inclined to; your reader needs to know what's happening in order to be scared, after all.
  • 6
    Keep track of your characters. You might put a small child under the bed on the fifth page and then end the story without giving the readers their purpose, and concluding their role (the child under the bed is hiding from a serial killer but fails, and is found later, for example). You may have forgotten about them but your readers haven't! If you don't have a good memory for that sort of thing, it's a good idea to keep a piece of paper with all of your characters on it and cross them off when their portion of the story has finished.
  • 7
    Eerie settings. Some locations are better suited for a horror story than others. Places related to death make a great deal of difference in the story. For example you could have your story set in a graveyard, and old dilapidated mansion or a castle.
  • 8
    Add the horror. Ask people what scares them the most, then think of something you're afraid of, then think of something genuinely scary, toss it into the pot and bingo! You have horror.
  • 9
    Twist it till it cries. Add a very scary, exciting twist (or lots of scary exciting twists) that scarily alter a character's life (optional)
  • 10
    End with a bang. A very scary bang. Try not to make the ending happy. It is horror, after all.
  • 11
    Rewrite. Go through your story, edit it, rewrite what parts look like they could be better said, and then get your friends and acquaintances to read the story too! They are usually better than you at picking up mistakes you've made up.
  • 12
  •  Think out of the box! What's better than being creative? NOTHING, of course!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Words That Set the Mood

  • A truly horrifying story establishes an eerie atmosphere right from the beginning. An effective writer will send signals to the reader that the story will be scary and depressing using such vocabulary as "gloomy," "somber," "dreary," "forbidding" and "creepy." You can also ascribe scary characteristics to inanimate objects to heighten the mood. Buildings can appear "intimidating" and a forest can look "menacing."

Words That Evoke the Five Senses

  • A tale is even scarier when readers can see, hear, touch, taste and smell things in the story. A place can exude an "acrid," "pungent" or "choking" stench. The protagonist can hear strange "clanking" sounds or a scary character can speak in a "dark," "steely," "sepulchral," "sibilant" or "guttural" voice. Use hues such as "pitch-black" and "ebony" to describe things that are dark. A drink or item of food can taste "sour," "fetid," "foul" or "rancid." Objects can feel "slimy" or "grimy."

  • Words That Heighten Suspense

    • H. P. Lovecraft, a famous American horror novelist, wrote that "the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." A writer can increase fear in a reader by not giving away every detail of a monster, ghost or place. Establishing something as mysterious builds suspense, as the reader fills in the blanks with his own imagination and desires to continue reading to find out more. Ambiguous descriptions, such "an amorphous creature," "hazy air," "opaque waters," "tenebrous valley" or "unintelligible sound" create a disturbingly unfamiliar atmosphere for the reader.

  • Words That Show Fear

    • A scary story needs a protagonist frightened out of her wits. Words like "horrified," "horror-struck," "petrified," "panic-stricken," "appalled," "witless" and "aghast" will do; however, representing the signs of a protagonist fears are even better. Perhaps she has "droplets of sweat" on her forehead, her knees are "knocking" or she is "trembling," "quivering," "shuddering," "quailing" or "quaking." You can describe her as "transfixed" or "paralyzed" in place.



  • Read more: Vocabulary Words for Writing Scary Stories | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8153801_vocabulary-words-writing-scary-stories.html#ixzz29NJpqciE

     

 

http://www.athropolis.com/mp3pics/sc-story.htm - Write a Scary Story Template - Interactive

 

 

http://www.slideshare.net/adrodgers/scary-stories - Scary Story Power Point

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.