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Hi there! I'm Siobhán, a children's book editor who is totally obsessed with horror. This blog is where I explore the spooky, the macabre, the gory and the strange in stories, TV shows, films and games just for kids and teenagers.

This is the sister blog to Writer and the Wolf, my editing website. If you’re writing your own children’s book, head over there for advice and support!

Flavours of Fear: Writing Scary Scenes
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Today I’m going to be diving into Rayne Hall’s craft book, Writing Scary Scenes. Scary scenes aren’t solely the domain of horror stories – any character can feel fear or dread at some point in a novel without it dictating the book’s entire genre.

So what’s the difference between a deliberately scary book and a non-scary book with a scary bit in it? There’s tons of discussion about what makes something ‘horror’ and everybody has different perspectives on the genre (just to make things harder for you!).

For me, there are two things that define a horror novel: it’s written with the intention of scaring readers (or unsettling them, repulsing them, etc.) AND there’s some general, underlying tone of horror throughout the story. A book might end with the most terrifying, horrific scene you’ve ever read but if the rest of the story was light and easy-going and there was absolutely no build-up that left you feeling a little uneasy or tense as you waited for that terrifying thing to happen, I’d argue it’s not horror. 

I’ll be digging further into these discussions around the horror genre and what really defines it on the blog so watch this space! I’d love to hear your thoughts.



FLAVOURS OF FEAR

Rayne Hall opens her book with a really important point:

‘When you write in a deep point of view, the character’s emotions transfer to the reader. By scaring the POV chracter, you will scare the reader.’ (p8)

This is something I talk to my clients about all the time because it’s utterly crucial when it comes to connecting with your readers and making them care about your story and character. In her book Story Genius, Lisa Cron talks about the science behind reader response, explaining that we literally feel the emotions of the story’s protagonist as though we’re experiencing the events along with them, rather than just reading about them. Our body, in particular our brain, is physically going through the motions of somebody who is actually there, falling down that hole or running away from that axe murderer or falling in love, which is why reading can be such an immersive, magical experience in a way that watching a film might not quite achieve.

Hall spells out how this applies to horror. If your main character is scared, your reader will be scared – assuming you’ve put the work into building a connection between your protagonist and your reader and they feel immersed in their POV.

Next, Hall breaks down the different types of fear. This is really important, too, because fear isn’t just a one-note, one-size-fits-all emotion; there are various intensities, multiple stages, and you can take your reader on a journey by playing with lots of different flavours of fear rather than relying on just one.

I will preface this discussion by saying that these descriptions of fear are Hall’s interpretations and shouldn’t be taken as official definitions. I don’t fully agree with everything she says here so take what works for you and leave the rest. Horror is such a varied, complex and exciting genre and people will always have different opinions and perspectives – that’s what makes it so fun!

SUSPENSE

‘The urge to find out what will happen next or how it will happen.’

This is the type of fear that has us sitting on the edge of our seat, excited and nervous. We know something’s coming and we just have to let it play out. Suspense isn’t always scary and there’s room for suspense in all genres and all stories. I’ve always loved Hitchcock’s famous explanation of suspense in films with his ‘bomb under the table’ example: if the viewer is watching two people having an innocent chat and suddenly a bomb explodes from under the table, it’s a big surprise, a shock. Maybe they’ll jump out of their seat, gasp, even scream. But if the viewer already knows there’s a bomb under that table and they’re just waiting nervously for it to explode, that’s suspense. The scene that immediately springs to mind for me is my absolute favourite Hitchcock moment: Tippi Hedren in The Birds waiting for school to finish as dozens of crows slowly gather on the climbing frame behind her. It’s not a shock when they attack the school children– the viewer has seen the birds arrive one by one even though Tippi hasn’t – so we’re waiting in painful suspense as the birds silently congregate and bide their time.

UNEASE

‘A mild form of fear.’

This is that bad feeling a character gets when they sense something’s up but they’re not sure what. The sensation they’re being watched, for example, or that danger might be around the corner – but which corner, and what danger? Hall gives examples of how this might manifest as behaviour in a story: your protagonist may feel cold or get a shiver down their spine; they may glance around nervously or push their food around on their plate. In a middle grade or YA horror novel, it might be that feeling the main character gets when they start a new school and a particular teacher is being overly nice to them and prying into their personal business for no apparent reason. Creepy teacher alert!

ANXIETY

‘Similar to unease but the character knows the danger is real.’

Hall describes anxiety as how we might feel waiting for a job interview or dentist appointment: heart beating faster, fiddling with a necklace, shallow breathing, stomach cramps. Maybe now that teacher has asked the main character to stay behind after class for a private chat.

APPREHENSION

‘The character knows what menace to expect but doesn’t know yet if it will happen.’

I’m not totally convinced this definition differs radically from the other types of fear so far, but perhaps this is how our main character feels when the rest of her class is filing out after the bell rings and another student stops to whisper in her ear: ‘be careful, you know she stays looking young by drinking kids’ blood, right?’ Now the MC knows what the danger is but isn’t sure it’ll actually happen to them.

FOREBODING

‘The character senses that something bad is going to happen, but does not yet know what. He may be reluctant to mention his foreboding to others for fear of ridicule.’

Hall suggests a character might feel a heaviness in their stomach or a dry throat. Again, I’d say foreboding, apprehension and unease are all pretty similar but I’d suggest foreboding is a slightly stronger form of unease: something bad’s coming but we don’t know what or when. The signs are pointing to danger – a thunderstorm outside, a vulture flapping its wings in a nearby tree, a weird recurring nightmare – but if you confide in anybody they’ll tell you you’re imagining things.

DREAD

‘The character and the reader know that a terrible thing is about to happen, but they don’t know its exact nature.’

The difference between dread and some of the other types of fear, according to Hall, is that now we know something bad’s coming rather than just suspecting or feeling it. So maybe now our main character is having her after-hours meeting with creepy teacher and she’s being perfectly nice and normal but she’s locked the door and pulled down the blind on the window. This isn’t looking good.

TERROR

‘The character knows what the threat is and he knows it is real. He also knows that he is helpless to do anything about it.’

Okay, we’re really turning up the dial on those fear flavours now! Terror, according to Hall, is the emotion we feel when we knows something absolutely awful is coming – and it’s coming now. We can’t get away, we can’t even think about anything else. We might feel paralysed, breathless, completely fixated on what’s happening in front of us. Hall suggests using terror sparingly as its impact diminishes the longer it goes on. A few minutes at a time is enough. Now, creepy teacher is bearing her sharp teeth and leaning in towards our main character’s neck. What’s she going to do?!

HORROR

‘An intense emotion. It is similar to terror but the character has more awareness of other realities and more control over his actions.’

I’m not entirely sure what the main difference is between terror and horror here according to Hall’s definition: horror allows the character to be more in control while terror leaves them powerless? While this might help us see how characters could respond differently to the two flavours, it’s not too helpful in showing us how to actually write horror and terror. What do they feel like on the page? What will the reader feel? Here’s what Devendra Varma says in her book The Gothic Flame:

The difference between terror and horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.
I think the easiest way to look at is terror makes us feel terrified – scared, afraid for our lives. Horror makes us feel horrified – shocked, maybe repulsed.

This is an excellent definition! So our main character was terrified as her teacher leaned in for the bite, preparing herself for pain, maybe death, but if she were watching creepy teacher suck somebody’s else’s blood she may have felt horrified – disgusted, shocked – but not necessarily feared for her own life at the same time.

REVULSION

‘Revulsion combines the feeling of fear with that of loathing. The character recoils from what he sees.’

This is a pretty easy one to grasp, particularly if you’ve ever seen a horror film! The character feels disgusted or generally put off by what’s in front of them: a dead body, a monster, bodily fluids, you get it. It’s the domain of gross-out horror films like The Human Centipede and body horror fiction, which doesn’t mean those stories don’t play with other flavours of fear as well. Stephen King describes this as the lowest form of fear but confesses he resorts to gross-out scares when he needs to. I don’t agree; I think all forms of horror and fear are valid and it’s brilliant that there’s something out there for everyone. Some horror fans love the creeping dread (like me) while others go out of their way to find stories that shock or repulse them. Whatever floats your boat, right? Everyone’s welcome in horror!

Stay tuned for more discussions on what horror means and how it works.

Tips for writing a creepy attic or basement in middle grade or YA
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Hey there! Could you do me a quick favour and grab me that old suitcase from the basement? Yeah, sorry, the light’s not working but you can use this torch. Oh and the door does tend to slam shut sometimes so be careful not to get locked in. Watch out for the rats! What do you mean you’ve got to go? Hello?

Alright, I don’t blame you. Attics (AKA lofts) and basements (AKA cellars) are obviously the scariest rooms in any house (except for maybe Regan’s bedroom in The Exorcist) which is why I’m glad I’m a Londoner and don’t have either. But their innate creepiness isn’t enough to sell your setting: you need to make readers see, feel, hear, smell, taste the room, experience the claustrophobia, sense the lurking danger.

If you’ve done your job properly, readers should feel connected to your protagonist and following them into a dark basement or creaky attic will make them feel as though they’re really, physically there themselves. In her book Story Genius, Lisa Cron explains that when a reader is truly immersed in a story, ‘our brain activity isn’t that of an observer, but of a participant.’ Our bodies are reacting to the story as though we’re actually taking part! How cool is that? So all you need to is make your readers believe they’re creeping around beneath or above the house alongside your main character. How do you do that, then?

First, think about why these spaces are so inherently scary. What makes them such a common horror trope? Well, they’re not usually lived in, which makes them a forgotten, unloved space: the most lifeless room in a house. They can be dangerous since they tend to be full of broken and discarded objects and it’s likely the wiring is dodgy and things are leaking, too. Unless there’s been a big renovation they’re probably dark, cold and damp.

And think about where a basement is located: underground. Under the earth. What else is down there? It also means they’re hard to escape in an emergency. If the stairs are blocked, there’s no other route out.

I’m scaring myself, here. Let’s move on.

Visit a basement or attic

If you can, break into somebody’s basement and… no,I’m kidding. If you don’t have one of these rooms in your own house, ask around and see if a friend will give you a guided tour. It probably won’t be in the dusty, ghost-filled state that your fictional room will be in, but just getting a feel for the size and shape of an attic or basement is helpful.

Our house had a loft conversion before we moved in so although the attic is now our bedroom, it still has the sloped ceilings and creaky floorboards (the bane of my life). At the edge of the bedroom at the front of the house are the eaves, basically a bit of the attic that was left largely untouched in the conversion and we now use for storage.

In there it’s dark, draughty, dusty, full of cobwebs and bugs, covered in a random nails jutting out from the wall, there are gaps in the roof that let the light and rain in… a good old fashioned attic.

It’s barely big enough to squeeze into and we just use it to store Christmas decorations so it’s not terribly scary, but those details could add some colour to a setting.

There are also plenty of basements and attics you can visit around the world:

Read The Rural Setting Thesaurus

I’m going to repeat what I said last time because I’m lazy: I adore both The Rural Setting Thesaurus and The Urban Setting Thesaurus and I think every writer should own a copy of each. It lists the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures you can expect to find in almost any setting, and even offers ideas for character interactions and conflict that might occur there.

I’ll include a few excerpts here but you’ll need to buy the book to read the section in full!

A basement:

Sights: Worn wooden steps, a rusty floor drain, small grimy windows with dead flies on the sill, a clunky hot water tank
Sounds: A chugging washing machine, the raspy noise of a cardboard box being dragged across the floor, the groan of a shifting wooden beam
Smells: Musty air, mould and mildew, damp clothes from the laundry
Textures: The slight give of an old step, the clammy chill of wet laundry, the thin string of the lightbulb cord

An attic:

Sights: An exhaust fan, sunlight filtering in through cracks in the eaves, animal tracks in the dust, mildew stains on boxes from a leaky roof
Sounds: Scampering feet, the wind beating against the house, a bird pecking at bugs in the eaves
Smells: Insulation, dust, dry rot
Tastes: Stale air, damp, dust
Textures: Balancing on a wobbly ladder, bumping shins against a box in the dark

 

Watch YouTube or read blog posts

You’ll find hundreds of thousands of videos and posts that will take you on a tour of a basement or attic. Take a look at these for starters:

And of course I can’t forget my one true love, Are You Afraid of the Dark? Here are two excellent episodes that feature spooky basements and attics (and don’t forget the show’s opening credits which feature a rickety attic as an added bonus):

The Tale of the Dollmaker | spooky dollhouse in the attic

The Tale of the Dark Music | scary music playing in the basement

Listen to music and sound effects

When I’m trying to write an atmospheric scene, I love listening to ambient music or sound effects to help get me in the right frame of mind. If you’re working on a spooky graveyard scene, think about the sounds your characters might hear and pop them on YouTube or Spotify while you write. Here are a few examples to get you started:

Read how other MG and YA authors did it

Here are some recently published middle grade and YA novels that feature attics and basements as settings:

  • The Dollhouse by Charis Cotter
  • Agony House by Cherie Priest
  • All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue
  • Seven Ghosts by Chris Priestley
  • The Smashed Man of Dread Street by JW Ocker
  • The Girl in the Locked Room by Mark Downing Hanh
  • The Fade by Demitria Lunetta
  • Amity by Micol Ostow

Consider how young characters would interact with the setting

Basements and attics are perfect horror settings for middle grade and YA because it’s usually children and teenagers who are most suspicious of these spaces. We grown-ups aren’t scared of a silly old attic, right? So think about how children and teens would realistically interact with these rooms. How your protagonist would interact with them. Are they afraid of the dark? Is their older sibling teasing them and daring them to go in? Or are they too mature for all that nonsense?

Maybe they go down there to prove to their little sister there’s nothing to be scared of. Maybe they’re the ones teasing the younger kids. Or maybe they use it as a way to get away from their parents. Perhaps they sneak up/down there with a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Or maybe they let a friend hide out there because they’re running away. Maybe the basement is their new bedroom and their parents have tried to make it nice and cosy for them but something just doesn’t feel right. Don’t just rely on the spookiness of the setting to sell the scares for you. Show readers how the room makes your main character feel.

Over to you!

I’d love to hear how you’ve used attics and basements in your writing! Or if you’ve read any good MG or YA fiction that uses these settings well. Drop me a comment below!

Analysing the Tale of the Twisted Claw
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‘Be careful what you wish for – you might just get it!’

Analysing S01E04 ‘The Tale of the Twisted Claw‘

Let’s get started! Here’s an embedded video from the official Are You Afraid of the Dark? YouTube channel but you can also click on the link above and watch it over on YouTube instead:

Episode overview

Horror tropes to watch out for

Be careful what you wish for, three wishes, scare dare, old dark house

Storyteller

David

Frame story (what’s happening around the campfire) 

Ugh, Eric. It’s his night to tell a story and everyone’s on tenterhooks as he reaches the climax. A little boy wakes from a bad dream only to find a monster next to his bed and then… BAM! Lazy Eric reveals he hasn’t figured out the ending yet. Don’t do this at home, kids! There’s a time and place for a cliffhanger but when all your friends sneak out of their bedrooms at midnight with limited time to hear ghost story, they expect it to be wrapped up in twenty minutes. This, of course, gets us thinking about the merits of leaving your middle grade or YA novel unresolved, forcing readers to buy the sequel in order to find out what happens. I really advise against this! It’s absolutely valid to leave a couple of threads open for further exploration in book two but the main narrative arc needs to be tied up or readers will feel frustrated, dissatisfied and cheated. Leave all that ‘to be continued’ stuff to serialised magazine mysteries and 1960s episodes of Batman. Give your readers an answer to the story’s narrative question by the end or expect angry letters from fans!

Plot

Taken from the official YouTube channel:

At Halloween, Kevin and Dougie decide they will break with the tradition and visit the scary house of Miss Clove, known to everyone as the Witch. Instead of the usual candies they are expecting, Miss Clove has a special treat for these daring young boys–an ugly, Twisted Claw.

Theme

I’d suggest the theme here is impulsiveness and thinking before you speak. Eric starts telling a story without considering where it’s going (is this going to get him a written warning from the gang, at least? I hope so), while the boys are pushed into making spur of the moment, seemingly innocent wishes that have devastating consequences. Kevin is introduced as an adventure-seeking dude, always looking for the next thrill and not giving much thought to what might go wrong, so this story seems to be exploring how children make choices and the importance of thinking through your actions. Remember that children’s books are no longer the place for preaching or correcting behaviour and this isn’t what AYAOTD seeks to do, either. Rather it’s reflecting genuine childhood behaviours, experiences and mistakes. Kid do often make impulsive decisions that turn out to be disastrous! This episode helps viewers process and work through that part of them in a safe space.

Story development

Protagonist’s goal and motive

It’s a dual POV this time with teen boys Kevin and Dougie getting equal screen time in the story. Kevin is the more daring of the two friends, always looking for adventure, while Dougie (played by Noah Plener of Ready or Not fame) is cautious, and against Dougie’s protest the two play a prank on scary Miss Clove on mischief night (how cute and innocent does that sound?). Their goals start out as most AYAOTD episodes do: Kevin wants bragging rights for pranking the local ‘witch’ while sensible Dougie just wants to stay out of trouble.

Devices and motifs

When Kevin wishes to beat Bostick in a race, a black dog runs onto the pitch and trips Bostick up, breaking his leg, so that Kevin can win. Black dogs pop up a lot in horror and supernatural folklore as an omen of death (I actually attended a fascinating webinar, ‘Beyond the Hound’, from The Folklore Podcast recently about black dog mythology) so this feels like a symbol of bad energy, a warning to the boys that these wishes are not what they seem.

As always we see lots of focus on doors and thresholds, with the boys hesitating over knocking on Miss Clove’s door. It’s by entering her house that they pass the point of no return and have the vulture’s claw and its dangerous magic foisted on them. At the end of the story we get a dramatic zoom-in on Dougie’s front door when the doorbell rings and we wait to discover if the curse has been broken: will opening this door have a better outcome than opening Miss Clove’s?

Monster / Villain

Cackling Miss Clove is the baddie in this episode although she’s a very sympathetic antagonist. Who can blame her for playing a trick on the boys when they squirted her in the face with cream and made her break a vase? Like lots of good villains, Miss Clove’s character is the polar opposite of the boys and highlights their fatal flaw: she possesses the foresight and smart planning they lack. When they first prank her, she predicts they’ll come back on Halloween and has the vulture’s claw ready, and she knows offering them three wishes will teach them a lesson in thinking about the consequences of their actions.

Climax and resolution

The tension builds as the wish aftermath get worse and worse until finally Kevin wishes that Dougie would just lose his parents (noooooo!😭). When Dougie gets a call from the police to say his folks were in a car accident, he knows he has to fix things and makes one final wish that they never got the claw in the first place. Thankfully his parents return home safe and sound and Miss Clove leaves the broken vase, now good as new, on their doorstep with a card saying ‘trick or treat’.

Call to Adventure!

How to use these ideas and observations in your own work

Hopefully this episode has given you middle grade horror or dark fantasy writers a lot of ideas and inspiration! Here are some things to think about when writing or revising your own manuscript:

    • There’s a focus on individual responsibility and choice and how characters deal with the consequences of their actions in this episode. Is your main character an active protagonist, driving the story with their decisions? They should always be in the driving seat, making choices and taking action as often as possible to propel the narrative forward. Dougie and Kevin are cruel to Miss Clove and that decision is met with a cursed vulture’s claw. They respond to this by making wishes which each have devastating consequences and eventually they have to deal with them. The entire story is kicked off and resolved because of choices they make.
    • This episode features the motif of a black dog, which is symbolic of death and danger in folklore and the horror genre. How could you use mythology and symbolism in a new way in your novel to add atmosphere or even change the direction of your plot?
    • Don’t be like Eric! Think about the ending of your novel: is the story arc fully resolved? Do you answer your narrative question? Will readers feel satisfied and rewarded when they get to the last line? If not, you might not be ending the story in the right place.
Want to read more middle grade horror? Start here! 2021 edition
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Maybe you write horror for adults and want to dip your toe into the middle grade pool. Maybe you write realistic fiction for kids and want to try your hand at something spookier. Maybe you’ve never written anything but children’s horror is calling to you. Or maybe you’ve already written a scary middle grade but you’ve realised you just don’t know the market enough. Never fear! Here’s my introduction to finding recently published MG horror that everyone’s raving about.

Of course you can find middle grade horror books to read in a thousand places: the library, Amazon, recommendations from friends, browsing your local bookshop, reading reviews in publishing magazines. These are all excellent options and I encourage you to go do them, now! But if you’re feeling lost in a sea of titles and don’t know where to begin or what’s worth reading, this post is intended to point you in the right direction and get you started with the category. By hunting out books that have won or been nominated for genre awards, received buzz from specialist publications and blogs in the field or been chosen by libraries to actively promote to children, you can be fairly confident those titles have been popular and well received by those in the know.

☆ Summer Scares 2021 Middle Grade

Every year for National Library Lover’s Day, the Horror Writers Association, United for Libraries, Book Rio and Booklist come together to select their Summer Scares Reading List. These are titles selected by a panel of librarians and authors to promote horror to all ages. Here are their 2021 picks:

Ollie’s Odyssey by William Joyce

Whichwood by Tahereh Mafi

Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by Hal Johnson

 

☆ Ladies of Horror Fiction Award for Best Middle Grade 2021

The Ladies of Horror Fiction select a middle grade shortlist and winner each year and here are their six 2021 choices:

Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon (winner)

Crater Lake by Jennifer Killick (nominee)

Ghost Squad by Claribel A Ortega (nominee)

The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf (nominee)

The Stitchers by Lorien Lawrence (nominee)

Thirteens by Kate Alice Marshall (nominee)

 

☆ Bookshops’ and publishers’ top picks

Take a look at the middle grade bestsellers at the big book stores in your country or children’s publishers online. You might not be able to filter by middle grade AND horror but you could pick one category and scroll through the results for titles and covers that shout ‘horror’ at you. Alternatively, you can Google ‘bestselling children’s horror’ and you’ll find publishers’ top lists that way.

☆ Where else can you look?

 

Analysing The Tale of Laughing in the Dark
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It’s the most fun in the park when you’re laughing in the dark!

I have a soft spot for this episode because I love any horror featuring creepy fairgrounds, although I was slightly perturbed on rewatching to discover that the backstory of Zebo the clown is very similar to a plot thread in my own middle grade novel. In this AYAOTD? episode, the original Zebo the clown stole money from the fairground in the 1920s and, trying to flee, accidentally burned down his own haunted house with a lit cigar. His ghost (and cigar smoke) now haunts the new spook house. In my story, a Victorian serial killer burns down the haunted house in a fairground while trying to escape the police and is now rumoured to haunt its grounds. Did this episode somehow infiltrate my subconscious 25 years later? Or have I just watched so much AYAOTD? that I’m now totally in sync with the writers? (I am listening to the Carrie soundtrack as I write this so I’m not on a completely different wavelength, I’m sure.) Either way, let’s call it a nice easter egg for fans in my novel if it ever gets published!

Analysing S01E03 ‘Laughing in the Dark‘

Let’s get started! Here’s an embedded video from the official Are You Afraid of the Dark? YouTube channel but you can also click on the link above and watch it over on YouTube instead:

Episode overview

Horror tropes

Monster Clown, Scare Dare, Protect This House

Storyteller

Beth

Frame story (what’s happening around the campfire) 

Kristen, played by the lovely Rachel Blanchard, is terrified of clowns so she tries to run away when Beth starts her story. But the other members accuse her of being a scaredy-cat so she stays against her better judgement. By the end of the story she is proud that she managed to sit through the whole story and announces she wasn’t scared at all, until another member pounces at her in a clown mask and she runs away screaming.

Plot

Taken from the official YouTube channel:

Two 12-year old boys, Josh and Weegee, and Kathy, 10, come upon a spook house, “Laughing in the Dark”, at an amusement park. Even though it is rumored to be haunted by Zeebo the clown, Josh declares he will go through the spook house and bring out Zeebo’s nose as proof that he completed the mission. Josh soon discovers for himself the truth about the mysterious Zeebo.

Theme

As always, the frame story reflects the themes of the campfire tale, and tonight it’s all about admitting you’re scared. While Kristen tries to be brave throughout the meeting despite her clown phobia, Josh makes fun of Weegee (is this a real name? We’re only on episode three so they can’t have resorted to making up names already) and his sister for being terrified of Zebo and the spook house, constantly calling them chickens and dopes. Charming! We’ve seen from the past couple of posts that there’s usually a cocky, nasty little so-and-so getting their comeuppance in Are You Afraid of the Dark? episodes and today that is definitely Josh. Eventually he confesses that he was scared all along and I’d like to think he’s a little bit kinder to poor old Weegee in future.

Story development

Protagonist’s goal and motive

In an unexpected twist, it’s the mean kid who takes centre stage in this episode. After making fun of his friends for being scared of the spook house, cocky Josh is dared to go inside alone and face Zebo the clown, stealing his nose as proof. Actually, Josh is projecting his own fear onto Weegee: when he completes his dare and rubs it in his friend’s face, Weegee proclaims ‘Alright, you’re a hero and I’m a loser!’ and this is exactly what Josh wanted to achieve. He wanted to be seen as a hero, even though he was scared the whole time.

Devices and motifs: Identity, Childhood, Doors

Once again we have the idea of identity and proving yourself. I’m definitely seeing a running theme in AYAOTD? here. Josh’s sense of self is wrapped up in his ability to withstand scary things while appearing brave and actually, in the end, he does exhibit immense courage by returning to the spook house and giving Zebo his nose back, despite now knowing the ghost stories are true. Josh is on the cusp of adolescence and stuck between wanting to be mature – a ‘hero’ rather than a ‘baby’ – and still feeling like a child who’s scared of things that go bump in the night, highlighted earlier in the episode when Weegee tells Josh to stop messing around and get serious for a change. That childishness is underscored by the fairground motif: clowns are meant to be fun and family friendly, but here we see that image inverted as Zebo turns into a predator, breaking into Josh’s house and threatening to hurt him. He scares him with magic tricks, an inflated balloon, clown shoe footprints, laughter. Zebo represents childhood and Josh is running away from it as fast as he can. That idea of transition is also represented in AYAOTD?‘s favourite motif of thresholds and doors. When Josh enters the spook house for the first time, the cinematography changes and everything goes black, with just Josh visible as he walks through the corridors. We see close-ups of his footsteps, echoing in the darkness, as he walks towards his fate. Once he’s inside, he must choose a door to open: ‘Pick the right door and you go free. Pick the wrong door and there he’ll be!’ Josh has a choice: stay a kid and believe in ghosts or grow up and look down on everyone else for believing in them. Doors are a big visual motif in AYAOTD?, partly because they’re scary – what’s behind them? What’s the door keeping out? – but also because they represent change and transition, moving from one place or phase to the next.

Monster / Villain

Zebo the Clown is the big bad wolf in this story and he is pretty terrifying, with that cackling laugh and the fact that he can break into Josh’s house despite being a mannequin. But there’s a secondary villain too: the man who runs the spook house and entices kids inside. He’s got a real Jack Nicholson’s Joker vibe about him and is perhaps even scarier than Zebo himself, and in fact the Midnight Society gang theorise that this guy is Zebo’s ghost since he’s seen smoking cigars at the end.

Climax and resolution

Everything is resolved happily at the end – Josh returns Zebo’s nose and we can assume that’s the end of that – but the final image of the spook house owner laughing wildly into the camera tells us Josh isn’t going to be Zebo’s last victim. The door, then, is definitely left open for future threat and viewers aren’t given as much closure as in the previous two episodes.

Structure

 The Trajectory of Fear 

Let’s look again at Ash Law’s trajectory of fear:

UNEASE Although the protagonist claims he thinks the whole thing’s baloney, the opening scene drips with unease as Weegee and his sister refuse to go inside the spook house, despite the creepy Jack Nicholson-esque owner trying to entice them in. Sure, it’s probably just a made up story, but there’s tension building already.

DREAD As Josh wanders around the spook house we can see the fear starting to show on his face, even though he tries to cover it up with jokes. Each door he opens, expecting to see Zebo, builds that sense of dread.

TERROR When Josh is home alone and he realises there’s somebody in the house, terror strikes! He’s screaming, running around the house, trying to hide – this is the high point of fear in the episode.

HORROR This is the revelation of the monster, when we finally come face to face. In this case, we don’t actually see Zebo up close and personal in Josh’s house but he blows a balloon under his bedroom door so we know he’s right outside. According to Ash Law, this is the moment when the horror is finally defused because the monster has been exposed and now everything will start returning to normal. In this case, Josh returns the nose to the fairground and we can relax.

Call to Adventure!

How to use these ideas and observations in your own work

Once again, I hope this episode has given you middle grade horror authors plenty to think about! Here are a few ideas to think about when writing or revising your own manuscript:

    • Listen to how the circus music playing throughout the episode is distorted during scary scenes. How can you turn innocent elements into something ominous in your story?
    • Clowns are downright terrifying, fact. How might you bring that fear into your story but put a new twist on it? Perhaps the clown is the hero, or the protagonist loves clowns until something in your inciting incident puts them off forever.
    • Pay attention to all the doors in the episode. In one scene, when Josh is hiding in his bedroom from Zebo, he turns around to discover he hasn’t locked the door and the camera zooms in. Think of the fear in that moment when somebody knows there’s an attacker in their home and the door isn’t enough to protect them. How can you turn doors into a horror device in your manuscript?
Lessons from R. L. Stine’s Masterclass #2: Write for fun!
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I talked recently about my love for R.L. Stine and his fabulous masterclass for children’s authors and today I’m going to do that a bit more. For this post I’ve chosen a lovely quote from the course that really resonated with me, and I hope it will speak to you a bit, too:

Why can’t you just write for fun? Why do you have to write from the heart? I’ve written hundreds of novels and I’ve never written one of them from the heart.

 

For years, I was very self conscious about my creative writing. I’d pumped out god knows how many stories, poems and plays throughout my childhood (all pure gold) but as an adult, I clammed up when I sat down to type. I thought I needed to say something profound, to ‘bleed’ onto the page like the famous writing quote orders us to do. I didn’t have deep secrets or unique experiences I wanted to share with readers, so I felt inadequate, like an imposter. Writing was all about big, original ideas and I couldn’t find anything big to say, so I didn’t say anything.

I feel like I wasted so much time thinking like that!

If you have something profound or monumental to say, or you’ve been through something you want to share, absolutely write that down. But if you don’t, that’s fine too. We don’t always have to feel sad or angry to write amazing novels. You don’t even have to feel sad or angry to write sad or angry novels. You’re a writer – you get to make this stuff up! We can read, observe, interview, imagine, role play and remember those emotions into our books if we don’t feel them.

What Stine’s quote really says to me is that it’s fine to just write something fun, just for the fun of writing it. If you’re staring at a blank document trying to stir up some intense memories or wondering what your unique take on the world should be, just relax. Let go of all that pressure and enjoy it. Maybe the emotions will come later, or maybe they won’t. That’s okay, because everybody has the right to write. You’re not an imposter because you don’t spill your heart onto every page or because your prose isn’t as poetic or passionate or laced with darkness as the next person’s. The children or teenagers who end up reading and loving your book will be glad you didn’t write like the next person, because they like how you write. Maybe you’re really funny or spin a great spooky scene – there are readers crying out for those stories! So if you’re struggling to write from the heart, just start by writing for fun. I promise you are not failing at writing.

Making your spooky kidlit scenes even scarier with sound effects
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Sensory description is so important in any genre of fiction, but in scary stories it can add a chilling, leave-the-lights-on-tonight-please-mum atmosphere to an otherwise flat scene. In fact, you should write with all your senses; it’s easy to focus on what your characters see, but think what the reader is missing out on. Show us that distant creaking gate your MC hears walking through the park at night, or the floral perfume they can’t get off their clothes, even though they didn’t put any on. In a previous post I talked about describing a graveyard setting in your horror novel using all the senses and today I’m going to widen the setting but focus on just one sense: hearing. So, how do you go about writing spooky sounds in your horror story? How do sound effects translate to the page?

My top tip is to learn from the pros. When I was writing about an abandoned fairground in my middle grade novel, I found an interview with the sound effects team behind horror movie Hereditary. They described in detail how they manufactured the sounds of wind whistling through a dilapidated building, and it was a huge help to me. Here are some other interviews that might help get your brain ticking:

If you’re writing about an eerie silence

The sound of silence in A Quiet Place:

I think audiences aren’t used to that experience. Normally there is a security blanket of music, sound, and loudness that can make them comfortable and lean back in their seats and chomp on their popcorn. They can relax and get lulled into the movie.
By subtracting the sound — finding how quiet we could get, it creates a much more unsettling experience because audiences just aren’t used to that. In real life, the world is noisy and full of sonic stimulus.
There’s hardly a quiet place in the world anymore that you can go to. And normally theaters are the opposite of quiet. So this film created a novel, very different experience that I think was really unsettling for people and made audiences a part of the experience. Just like the characters on screen, the audience was afraid to make a sound in the theater. That’s what we were hoping for, that kind of effect.

 

If you’re writing a haunted house

Flickers and buzzes in The Haunting of Hill House 

‘I have this really interesting iridescent flicker sound in my library that I created for a movie about six or seven years ago. It has an interesting filament/glassy element too. So that is one of my signature sounds that we used here. I’m a big fan of interesting light buzzes. You can make things buzz and it sounds annoying and not interesting.
For those basement scenes — including the scene in which young Hugh and the groundskeeper Mr. Dudley (Robert Longstreet) are in the basement cleaning up the mold and they’re discussing Olivia’s (Carla Gugino) blueprints — we made some really good decisions about what interesting buzzes we could use and how far we could push keeping them playing through a monologue.
Mr. Dudley’s monologue in the basement was really interesting and we kept the iridescent bulbs buzzing while he was talking. We tried to figure out how long we could sustain those buzzes without being distracting, all the while making it feel uncomfortable through the dialogue.’

And the house as a character in The Orphanage:

‘The house is one more character in the movie and so I needed many sounds to emphasize its personality. My family has a very old house in the mountains, which is completely isolated from civilization.
I went up there one weekend. I was lucky because it wasn’t windy and it was a quiet, misty winter day, so I could record a lot of sounds both from the inside and the outside of the house using a stereo Schoeps microphone and recording on a MacBook Pro with an M-Box Pro running Pro Tools.
I recorded steps from different floors, bangs on the wooden beams, doors slammed from different positions within the house, and glass windows being opened and closed. The creaks I got from the main staircase of the house were edited later into the foley footsteps to get that creaky wood floor of the house.’

 

If you’re writing a monstrous villain

The voice of a villain in It: 

‘The sound of Pennywise’s voice truly began with the actor’s performance. Bill Skarsgård experimented with modulating Pennywise’s voice—morphing childlike wonder with animalistic terror. He is one of the most fascinating voice actors I have worked with. As he stepped up to mic on the ADR stage, Skarsgård actually dropped his lip, and his face became Pennywise. On mic he explored the full frequency range of his throat and voice including Tuvan-like throat tones.’

 

If you’re writing a gory slasher

Snapping bones with the A Sound Effect library:

Take bone breaks, for example. You want to use something crunchy and snapping. For this I’d highly recommend Chinese cabbage or celery. Single leaves or sticks make great bone-snapping sounds when broken fast. When breaking or twisting several sticks or leaves at once it gets really brutal. This is perfect for crushing rib-cage sounds or any kind of dismemberment.

 

If you’re describing an unsettling landscape

Spooky silence in The Nun: 

‘When you get to the Abbey, all the life just falls out of the track. The only things that you hear are really nasty bugs and sparse and creepy creatures. Whatever is there, and is alive, is not pleasant. Even though the evil is contained in the Abbey, there’s an aura or halo around it that is infected. The people in town speak about that. When they talk about the Abbey, they spit on the ground to keep the evil spirits away because it’s so bad. No one goes there but Frenchie, and he only goes to the ice-house to deliver supplies every couple months.’
Lessons from R. L. Stine’s Masterclass #1: No moralising
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Last year I took R. L. Stine’s masterclass on writing horror for young readers and it was utterly fascinating. I was a huge Point Horror fan as a teenager and still read a lot of middle grade and YA horror now, so I knew I had to sign up for this course. Just minutes in and I’d completely fallen in love with him. I wholeheartedly recommend the class to anybody remotely interested in writing kidlit because Stine is such a joy to listen to and hilarious to boot. There’s so much good stuff in his webinars that I’m going to take this one post at a time, looking specifically at his writing values and the advice he gives writers of middle grade and YA horror. This week, he answers a question he gets asked a lot:

What are the morals I’m teaching? None! There aren’t any. The main moral lesson is ‘Run!’

Told you he’s funny! This line had me laughing out loud but it also struck a chord with me as a writer. I think Stine is absolutely right that children’s authors shouldn’t attempt to teach their readers a moral lesson – leave that to the Victorians. The literary landscape has changed since the didactic 1800s and it’s no longer the role of the kidlit author to preach or instruct. We want to give young readers something to think about, but we don’t want to tell them how to think.

But what I suspect Stine is really getting at here is the fact that his stories don’t have an overarching theme or idea holding them together. The Point Horror books are the literary equivalent of a 90s slasher movie, full of flashy scares and red herrings that keep kids guessing until the end. Like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend, they’re not commenting on complex social issues or exploring the teenage psyche, they’re just fun. Please note I am not being derogatory – 90s slasher movies hold a very special place in my heart and I still watch them often. But typically their protagonists don’t change or grow significantly over the course of the story. They have limited character arcs and their primary goal is to, as Stine says, run!

It’s typical in middle grade and YA novels to see the hero go on an emotional journey, their view of the world or themselves shifting throughout the story as they try new things, meet new people, uncover secrets and overcome challenges. Readers want to feel a connection with a book’s protagonist and follow them on this journey, feeling more and more invested in the plot as the character grows.

Plot-driven vs character-driven stories

In Stine’s books, the main character’s emotional journey is secondary to the action plot. Readers pick up Goosebumps or Point Horror for the scares and don’t much care if the protagonist grows as a person by the end of the book. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: R.L. Stine is a bestselling author for a reason. There is obviously plenty of room for plot-driven stories like his in which character development takes a backseat while fun and excitement drive the story. In fact, Stine says on this course that he doesn’t write to scare kids, he writes to get kids reading. He knows accessible, high-action stories like his are probably more likely to excite a reluctant reader than an emotionally rich, character-driven coming of age story, and that’s his goal. And a brilliant goal it is, too. I believe passionately that children should be encouraged to read whatever on earth they want to: comics, chapter books, horror, sci-fi or adult literary fiction. Reading is reading! If a story about swamp monsters or a babysitter stalker gets a ten year old hooked on books for life, that’s a huge win. It certainly worked for me.

However, it’s important to be aware that, nowadays, a lot of agents and publishers are looking for manuscripts with strong characters, particularly if you’re writing for older children or teens. Kids adore R.L. Stine but he doesn’t get a whole lot of respect from critics because his characterisation is often seen as flimsy. But does that matter?

I read an interesting interview with children’s book author Bruce Hale where he talked about the lack of respect his funny stories get from the industry:

Your books are often humorous and filled with adventure, two things that middle grade readers love. Do you think you are treated less seriously as an author because your books are not introspective and sad? 

It’s an old tale in publishing and in Hollywood—funny stories get no respect. Audiences and readers may love them, but critics and those who pass out awards somehow see these humorous or action tales as being less-than. I try to be philosophical about it, since those are the stories that come to me to write. Sure, it’d be great to win awards. But what matters most to me is whether the reader likes my stories. If I can bring joy by bringing laughter, it feels like I’ve done my job well.

What a great answer! If children are enjoying his work, that’s all that matters. Some authors crave industry recognition and literary awards, but others just do it for the love of writing and for the love of their audience. There’s no one right way to write a book!

Again, Stine’s approach clearly works phenomenally well for him, regardless of being snubbed by critics (I’m sure he’s crying all the way to the bank) but it doesn’t mean you have to emulate it to be successful. You can take lessons from Stine and incorporate the exciting, plot-driven elements into your story without sacrificing character and theme. That’s the great thing about writing: the more you read, the more you learn and the faster you figure out what does and doesn’t work for you. So if you’ve never read a Goosebumps or Point Horror before, pick one up and make your own judgements. They’ve sold hundreds of millions of copies for a reason.

Analysing The Tale of the Phantom Cab
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Welcome back, genre authors, to what is quickly becoming one of my favourite blog series ever! In the last post I explained that I’m going to be analysing each episode of Nickelodeon’s 1990s Are You Afraid of the Dark? TV series, exploring the horror tropes, themes and techniques the show uses to scare and captivate young viewers (and, ahem, slightly older ones).

You may have noticed that I started the series with The Tale of the Lonely Ghost, which is the second episode of the show, and today’s episode is actually the pilot. There’s a very good reason for that: I don’t love The Tale of the Phantom Cab as a story, and I wanted to kick off with a gem. But despite my personal misgivings, The Phantom Cab is actually a fan favourite and the antagonist, Dr Vink, returns in a further four episodes across four seasons. He’s a great example of how the show’s writers were always careful to offset the scares with humour: eccentric, flamboyant characters like Dr Vink and magician Sardo, another AYAOTD? regular, helped balance the horror with fun and highlighted the fact that, as scary as it might be, this programme was intended to be light entertainment for young children.

Analysing S01E01 ‘The Tale of the Phantom Cab‘

Let’s get started! Here’s an embedded video from the official Are You Afraid of the Dark? YouTube channel but you can also click on the link above and watch it over on YouTube instead:

Episode overview

Storyteller

New member, Frank

Horror tropes

Don’t go in the woods, Mad scientist, Impossible Task

Frame story (what’s happening around the campfire) 

It’s the first episode of season 1 so we’re introduced to the Midnight Society – a group of teenagers who meet in the woods to tell ghost stories. We learn that these teens are all from different schools and friendship circles but they come together to share their love of the dark. Today there’s a new member hoping to join: Frank. He has to scare the others if he wants in but they’re skeptical, no thanks to Frank’s cocky, bad boy demeanour.

Plot

Taken from the official YouTube channel:

Two brothers, Buzz and Denny, get lost in the woods while hiking. As night falls, they are directed by a stranger to a cabin where they might seek help from old Dr. Vink. The strange Dr. Vink poses a riddle to them which they must solve before he will let them phone their parents. The boys cannot solve it and he throws them out into the forest. The boys panic as they are left in the woods alone under Dr. Vink’s curse. Their only hope is the Phantom Cab.

Theme

Frank tells us at the start that the story’s protagonist, Buzz, is desperate to prove himself to his older brother, and now he’s going to get the chance. This theme of ‘proving oneself’ is reflected in the frame story, as Frank has to show he can tell a good scary tale and impress the society members if he wants to join. It’s also about acceptance: Buzz doesn’t just want to impress his brother, he also wants him to accept him as an equal and as somebody worthy of hanging out with. That theme popped up in The Lonely Ghost, too, when Amanda accepted a scary dare in order to gain acceptance into Beth’s gang, and it’s not far off what Frank is doing right now, sitting in a dark, spooky wood at night in an attempt to be accepted into the Midnight Society.

Story development

Protagonist’s goal and motive

Poor, geeky Buzz is always being pushed around by his older brother, Denny, but he’s not bitter. He just wants to show Denny that he’s ‘not a loser’ which is a noble aim. The pair go orienteering through the woods and smart Buzz takes charge of navigation, hoping to prove his usefulness to Denny, although of course he gets them lost by pointing the compass at his belt the whole time (classic Buzz). So Buzz’s story goal in this episode is to get them home safely, and his motive is a desire to impress his cool older brother and earn his respect. And actually, the viewer wants this for Buzz too. In The Lonely Ghost, the audience hates Amanda’s cousin Beth because she’s spoilt and cruel, so we root for Amanda to win the day and for Beth to suffer. But in The Phantom Cab, we really want harmony between Buzz and Denny because that’s what Buzz wants. He’s not trying to embarrass or punish his brother – he loves him. Notice that, despite Denny being a bit of a bastard, the writers get viewers on his side quickly with a Save the Cat moment: Denny rescues Buzz when he falls over the side of the mountain. This happens early on in the episode, so however we might feel about Denny calling Buzz a loser or a dweeb, we know ultimately Denny loves his brother and that helps us understand Buzz’s motivations. If Denny were a total scumbag, we’d struggle to relate to Buzz and his goal.

Devices and motifs: acceptance and identity

The theme of ‘proving yourself’ cropped up in The Lonely Ghost, too, when Amanda had to show her cousin she was brave enough to enter the haunted house and hang with her friends. This is a really important idea in middle grade fiction because not only are children trying to prove themselves to each other and the adults in their lives every day but they’re also trying to figure out who they are. In this story, Buzz sees himself as intelligent, somebody who can solves problems, and he’s desperate for his brother to see him that way, too. His self-identity is wrapped up in his ability to solve Dr Vink’s riddle and he needs Denny to witness it so that he can be accepted for who he feels he is. Some middle grade readers have a really clear sense of who they are, what they’re good at, where they want to go in life, but a lot won’t have a clue (I didn’t!) and they’re trying figure it out every day. Remember the Dolly Parton quote, ‘find out who you are and do it on purpose’? That’s what Buzz is doing in this episode: he knows who he is, or at least who he wants to be, and he’s trying to live it. He goes hiking with his brother and takes charge of the compass because he’s the ‘smart one’, and when he gets them lost he needs to find another chance to prove it. His own perception of himself and also how others see him is important to him, as it is to most children his age. Think about this when you’re writing your middle grade story: how does your protagonist view themselves and what would it mean to them if others didn’t see them in the same way?

Monster / Villain

Dr. Vink is definitely the baddie here. At first it looks like he’s letting kids off pretty lightly – they didn’t solve his riddle so they have to leave without calling their parents for a lift. A bit petty but hardly evil mastermind stuff. But then Flynn – the stranger in the woods who pointed them in Vink’s direction to begin with – picks them up in his cab and we get Vink’s real punchline. The boys must solve that damn riddle during the cab ride or Flynn will crash the car into a tree and kill them. He’s been doing it for forty years after failing to solve the riddle himself, and he has to keep crashing into trees until some smart cookie finally comes up with the answer. As scary as Flynn is, he’s the victim here.

Setting and atmosphere

The whole episode is set in a dark, deserted forest full of rustling trees, howling wolves, indistinct whispers and ghostly laughs so there’s an eerie, suspenseful atmosphere from the get-go. Flynn’s torchlight glinting through the fog sets the tone for the rest of the episode: Denny jokes that Flynn might be ‘a maniac killer in a hockey mask who’s going to slash us’, foreshadowing the threat to come. Of course Flynn isn’t a slasher killer but he does have designs to smash them up in a car crash later! Speaking of foreshadowing, even before darkness falls and the boys find themselves hopelessly lost, we get a dark omen: when the boys are hiking in the woods, Buzz trips and almost falls to his death. Denny saves him, but it’s a tense moment and hints at worse things to come. Notice that the story ends with a reversal of this dynamic: Buzz saves Denny from certain death later by solving the riddle.

There are also echoes of Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel in these woodland scenes. Lost in the dark, the boys happen upon a cabin in the woods, the light emanating from beneath the door making the house look like something from a fairytale. We know what’s waiting for them inside but, just like Red and Hansel and Gretel, the boys will defeat the monster and win out in the end.

The scenes inside Dr Vink’s cabin have a lighter tone, with cryptic little jokes and whimsical pipe music playing in the background, but the threat hasn’t been defused yet: when the boys fail to solve Vink’s riddle, he offers to let them phone their parents in return for a specimen – his code word for body part. The shadowy cabin, lit by flickering candles, is full of such specimens in jars and bubbling experiments, setting Vink up as a madman.

Climax and resolution

Once again, there’s a happy ending. The boys are rescued by a ranger who takes them home to their parents and we’re told Vink’s house disappeared from the forest and nobody ever saw him again. The door isn’t left open for future threat but, as regular viewers will know, Vink does return in several later episodes. First time viewers of The Phantom Cab will get closure because Frank assures us Vink has been permanently defeated, but a second watch might leave children a little on edge if they know Vink isn’t really gone after all.

Structure

As always, when I discuss various story structures I am absolutely not suggesting that you need to follow these or any structures when plotting or writing your novel. There’s no one right way to write a book. But exploring structure can be a really helpful way of unpacking story arcs, pacing, reader expectations and genre conventions. Ultimately, the most important formula for a story is a character with a problem they need to solve or a goal they need to achieve + things getting in that character’s way = a resolution that demonstrates how that character has grown, changed or learned something on their journey.

But plot structures like the Hero’s Journey or Save the Cat! can help to highlight the other elements of a plot and where the action should rise and fall. For example, in all story structures there is some sort of inciting incident – an event that disrupts the status quo and sets everything in motion – and in the case of The Phantom Cab, it’s Buzz misreading the compass and getting them lost. This forces Buzz into action and brings on his character journey.

 The monster with a thousand faces 

In the last post in the series we looked at this structure as it applies to horror stories, so let’s try it again here:

1) The initial situation/The ordinary world

    • The hero does something normal: Two brothers are hiking in the woods, enjoying the sunshine and loving life.
    • There’s a problem: It turns out Buzz has been pointing his compass at his belt all afternoon and now they’re lost with no way to get home. So the protagonist’s goal is: get home!
    • Warning: They meet Flynn, a helpful stranger in the woods who suggests they knock on Dr. Vink’s door for help. But he issues a warning first: ‘Before you ask the doctor for help, make sure you need it. The price he charges is a little steep.’ So already, we have obstacles getting in Buzz’s way.

2) Break into act two

    • The protagonist makes a choice: The boys know something’s a little off with Vink’s cabin but they have no way to get home, so they step over the threshold and go inside.
    • Initial problem is either solved or changed: The boys want to call their parents to have them come pick them up, but Vink insists they solve a riddle first. He’s obviously a dangerous guy to be around, so now their problem isn’t ‘find a way home’, it’s ‘get out of here alive’.
    • Fake solution: The boys fail to solve the riddle but they escape Vink’s house unharmed – win!
    • Fake villain: This is where the protagonist identifies the wrong villain and thinks they’re safe. Vink is the bad guy here, but there’s another obstacle in their way: Flynn.

3) Climax

    • Protagonist and antagonist/villain fight. It’s a mental battle rather than a physical one. Flynn threatens to kill the boys if they don’t solve the riddle and it’s a race against time but of course Buzz solves it and saves the day! How does Buzz change by the end of the story? I think he learns to believe in himself more. He’s so used to Denny calling him a dweeb and a waste of space that he starts thinking he must be right. In that final moment in the cab, he knows for sure Denny is wrong and finally proves it.

The ‘monster with a thousand faces’ structure seems to be working pretty well for Are You Afraid of the Dark? episodes so far! That’s not to say it will translate perfectly to your horror manuscript; shows in the AYAOTD series follow a particular formula so that viewers know what to expect from each episode. You might want to subvert those expectations a little, or introduce a more complex plot. These AYAOTD episodes are only 20 minutes long so there is little room for subplots or deep character development. Think how you would expand on these short scary stories in full length manuscript.

Call to Adventure!

How to use these ideas and observations in your own work

Once again, I hope this episode has given you middle grade horror authors plenty to think about! Here are a few ideas to think about when writing or revising your own manuscript:

    • Watch how the lighting technicians and sound engineers create atmosphere in the woods. How can you evoke memories and sensations for your readers with similar techniques? Think about what your protagonist hears, smells, tastes and feels rather than only focusing on sight.
    • The main fear at play in this episode is being abducted and attacked in the woods. Whether it’s Vink trying to put their hands in a jar or Flynn driving them into a tree, this setting is full of threats at night. This is a primal fear that’s been used by storytellers for generations, from ancient folktales to Hollywood horror blockbusters. How might you use this instinctive phobia of dark, empty woods in your middle grade novel in a way that doesn’t feel overdone?
    • Like last week’s episode, notice how Buzz is an active character even though his brother is often in charge. It’s Buzz who tries to solve Vink’s riddles, not Denny. How can you make your protagonist active, driving the plot forward, even when things seem out of their control?
Analysing The Tale of the Lonely Ghost
 1024 684 Siobhan O'Brien Holmes
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Hi, horror fans! I’m really excited about this blog series and I hope you will be too. I was a big fan of Are You Afraid of the Dark? as a child; I even analysed the opening credits in great detail for my media studies GCSE coursework. For anybody who hasn’t seen AYAOTD? before, the show’s concept is simple. A group of young teenagers called the Midnight Society meet in the woods at night and take it in turns to tell scary stories around a fire.

This blog is aimed at authors, not screenwriters, but there’s a lot to learn and unpack in this children’s TV show and I bet you’ll pick up some tips and inspiration if you’re writing horror (or anything with scary bits) for young readers. The intended viewership was around middle grade level although I was still watching well into my teens so there’s something here for the YA crowd, too. So, what can authors learn from this series?

Explore common but fantastical childhood fears

First, consider the fears that writers introduce in each episode. Villains range from the sandman and clowns to mad scientists and evil headmasters, each picking up on young children’s common phobias and nightmares. But notice that the threat is never realistic: there are no babysitter stalkers or serial killers with axes here. In his masterclass, R.L. Stine pointed out that the scares in his Goosebumps books, which are aimed at the same audience as AYAOTD?, are never things that could happen in the real world. They’re speculative horror like ghosts, vampires and x-ray glasses, so however scared children might be, they know deep down there’s no real threat to them.

Note the everyday middle grade conflicts

Focusing on the spooky situations these episodes introduce will certainly help you explore what scares and excites children of this age, but the episodes as a whole will get you thinking about the realistic, everyday elements of their lives, too: fights with friends, bullies, mean older siblings, new schools, nobody taking them seriously. Every episode opens with a tangible childhood obstacle and goal; the horror is just a backdrop that often helps the protagonist face and tackle their real world problem.

Closure and hopeful endings

Also, consider the episode endings. Viewers always gets closure: the monster is defeated and everything goes back to normal, although the protagonist is usually a little better off than when they started. And just to make sure the threat’s really over and to remind viewers this was only a story, a member of the Midnight Society puts out the fire and they all go home to their safe, warm beds. Your horror story doesn’t have to have a neat, upbeat climax like this although most middle grade fiction does end on a hopeful if not happy note.

Analysing S01E02 ‘The Tale of the Lonely Ghost‘

Let’s get started! Here’s an embedded video from the official Are You Afraid of the Dark? YouTube channel, although you can just click on the link above and watch it over on YouTube instead:

Episode overview

Storyteller

Sensitive, quiet David

Horror tropes to look out for

Haunted house, mirror monster, scare dare

Frame story (what’s happening around the campfire) 

Shy David gives Kristen a locket for her birthday, while Frank and Eric are butting heads once again (those boys!).

Plot

Taken from the official YouTube channel:

‘Everybody is psyched about summer vacation except Amanda Cameron, because she has to spend the entire summer with her obnoxious cousin, Beth. Amanda is willing to do anything to join Beth and her group of friends, including the initiation: Amanda must sleep all night in the haunted house across the street. Even though Amanda does not believe in ghosts, what she finds in the house changes the past and the future. She might be able to change her fate for the summer after all…’

Theme

Before David starts his story, he tells us it’s about two kids who don’t get along because they’re too different, and a love that can survive anything – even death. We can see how this theme is reflected in the outer frame story: Frank and Eric have clashed since the day they met, while David conquers his embarrassment to express his feelings for Kristen with a locket – the same object that symbolises love later on in the ghost story.

Story development

Protagonist’s goal and motive

Amanda is the protagonist in David’s ghost story, and she wants to pass Beth’s initiation so she can hang out with her and her friends over the summer. Her motive is clear: she doesn’t want to spend all summer by herself. But digging deeper, we can see Amanda is a people pleaser. She wants Beth to like her and think she’s cool – what 12 year old can’t relate to that? – so she’ll do whatever it takes to impress her.

Devices and motifs: Thresholds

As in a lot of AYAOTD? episodes, there’s a big focus on thresholds here: Amanda must cross over into the haunted house and then again into the little girl’s bedroom. There are plenty of shots of doors and close-ups on handles before the horror even begins, foreshadowing what’s to come.

In a TV documentary about horror movies, film critic Mark Kermode explained that thresholds are crucial in horror because we’re drawn to danger as children. We know walking into that derelict building or empty forest is a bad idea but we do it anyway, and that feeling of risk and excitement mixed with dread as we step over the line stays with us forever. I think thresholds are particularly relevant in middle grade and YA because children and teenagers are standing on the threshold between youth and adulthood, excited to step through the door and gain some independence but also scared to leave the safety and comfort of their childhood. In this episode, Amanda goes through a transformation that allows her to stand up to her cousin Beth, and immature Beth is forced to grow up a bit, too.

Monster / Villain

The baddie in this episode is actually cousin Beth. She’s a cruel, spoilt teenager who symbolises every bully or mean older sibling any of us had in the ’90s. At first we’re supposed to think that the monster of the piece is whatever’s haunting that house across the road, and later we suspect Nanny of some strange sorcery, creeping around the house and jumping out at people in the dark. But of course, she’s just a grieving mother trying to live a quiet life.

Luckily, the villain is defeated in the final act when Amanda threatens to leave Beth locked in a cupboard forever if she doesn’t promise to stop bossing everybody around. When the story’s over, David tells us that Amanda had a great summer hanging with Beth’s friends, and she even let Beth join in. Win!

Setting and atmosphere

It’s pretty easy to build up the scare factor in this episode because haunted houses are intrinsically terrifying. The house is treated like a character in its own right, with Amanda’s aunt announcing at the start that ‘sometimes I think this house doesn’t want to be sold’; when she sticks a For Sale sign in the garden, it immediately falls over. Foreshadowing! When Amanda enters the house, it’s dark and dusty and she finds her way around by torchlight.

The stairs creak, there are sudden, unexplained noises creating jump scares and, most importantly, Amanda is all alone. When she finds the little girl’s bedroom, she sees EM PLEH written on the wall (backwards writing is always scary) which, I must admit, takes Amanda quite a while to interpret considering she seems to be a pretty intelligent girl. Anyway, next she sees a ghost girl trapped in the mirror and runs from the house, screaming. Later, Amanda and Beth go back to the bedroom together and EM PLEH is covering the walls, taking the horror to the next level, but this time the ghost girl comes out of the mirror to give Amanda a locket. Amanda realises the girl is Nanny’s daughter who died in the house, and she reunites them, shifting the atmosphere from scary to heartwarming.

Climax and resolution

It’s a happy ending all round. Amanda gets one over on Beth and Nanny is finally at peace, stepping into the mirror to be with her long-lost daughter.

Structure

There are lots of ways to structure a story. Formulas like Save the Cat! and Freytag’s Pyramid work brilliantly for lots of genres but horror often follows a different pattern. There are dozens of articles and books that cover horror-specific structures and over the course of this AYAOTD? series we’ll be testing a few out. First, here’s the episode mapped out against Karen Woodward’s take on the hero’s journey:

 The monster with a thousand faces 

1) The initial situation/The ordinary world

    • The hero does something normal: Amanda arrives at Beth’s house and is her lovely, friendly self, trying her best to get Beth to warm up and accept that they’re going to have an amazing summer together.
    • There’s a problem: Oh dear, Beth is a total cow. She has no interest in hanging out with Amanda this summer, so she makes up a fake initiation that Amanda must pass in order to get in to her gang.
    • Warning: Amanda stands outside the haunted house with Beth’s friends, listening to Beth tell a scary story about the girl who died in the house. Beth gives her the chance to back out and spend the summer alone, ‘reading books or something’.

2) Break into act two

    • The protagonist makes a choice: Amanda ignores this warning and decides to smash this initiation, no matter what. She heads into the house, torch in hand.
    • Initial problem is either solved or changed: Amanda makes it to the little girl’s bedroom and sees a ghost in the mirror. The initiation is over; her new problem is escaping alive.
    • Fake solution: She makes it home to safety. Even when she and Beth have to go back to the house to clean up, Beth reassures her nothing will happen in broad daylight.
    • Fake villain: Karen explains that often at this point the protagonist identifies the wrong person as the villain and thinks they’re now safe (think of any horror film you’ve ever seen) before the real baddie reveals themselves. This doesn’t happen exactly in The Lonely Ghost but Amanda does assume the ghost in the mirror is the threat when in actual fact it’s Beth.

3) Climax

    • Protagonist and antagonist/villain fight. There isn’t a physical fight but Beth pleads with Amanda to let her out of the closet and Amanda makes her sweat.

So it looks like this structure fits ‘The Tale of the Lonely Ghost’ really well. How does it work for your story?

 The Trajectory of Fear 

RPG author Ash Law wrote an excellent article about working through the four stages of fear in a horror game. It’s long so I won’t quote it all here but here’s an overview:

UNEASE This is the starting point. It is the knowledge that something is not right in the world. Effective Horror stories set this up well, poor Horror stories skip Unease entirely. The more time you can devote to building Unease the better the foundation is laid for later types of fear. Unease is the sense that something is not quite right with the world.

DREAD Dread is the suspicion, unconfirmed, that something is not right and is HERE; it is more immediate and focused than unease. Dread is built on the foundation of Unease, and without that foundation can feel hollow. Dread is the uncertain possibility of certain danger: you know that danger exists and what form it might take and that it is close, but it exists in a Schrödinger’s jack‐in‐the‐box.

TERROR Terror is the most powerful type of fear because of its immediacy. Terror is the sure knowledge that something terrible is imminent, that the danger is here and now but has not yet been revealed.   Terror is used in Horror stories at their scariest point. If the foundations have been properly laid this is the place on the trajectory of fear that is the highest point, the biggest emotional pay‐off.

HORROR Horror is the most immediate and primal type of fear, but paradoxically the weakest. Horror is the revelation, meeting the danger and discovering the boogieman. Horror is the punch line of fear, the thing that elicits gasps and jumps. Unfortunately the moment the horrible thing is revealed the tension from the terror is released and we are back to where we started from.

Read more of Law’s fascinating essay

In The Lonely Ghost, unease builds as soon as Amanda arrives. There’s obviously something wrong with that house across the road and it’s clear to viewers that trouble’s brewing, but it’s not an immediate threat. Dread starts when Amanda is dared to go into the house; she’s still not sure there’s anything to be truly frightened of but she’s about to find out! Terror comes when Amanda is in the house and hears scary sounds and sees ‘HELP ME’ on the wall. Now she knows something’s definitely coming – soon. Horror hits when she finally sees the ghost girl in the mirror pointing at her. The monster has been revealed. We get another hit of horror later when Amanda goes back to the house and gets even closer to the ghost girl.

Call to Adventure!

How to use these ideas and observations in your own work

Hopefully this episode has given you middle grade horror or dark fantasy writers a lot of ideas and inspiration! Here are some things to think about when writing or revising your own manuscript:

    • Look at how the lighting technicians and sound engineers create atmosphere in the haunted house. How can you recreate that on the page by using all the senses and having your characters interact with the setting?
    • The central fear in this episode is a simple, timeless one: ghosts. How might you put a twist on this to make the story feel fresher for a modern audience who may have read a lot of ghost stories already?
    • Think about what’s going on in Amanda’s life, beyond the scares. How might you write her character? She’d need to be developed a lot in order to drive the plot of an entire manuscript: what might her backstory be? What made her have sympathy for Nanny and the dead girl in the mirror when many children would have just run away? Does she have a character flaw that might lead her to make the wrong decisions?
    • Notice how Amanda is an active character, making choices and driving the action forward. Yes, Beth dares her to go into the house, but it’s Amanda’s decision to accept because she has a goal she needs to achieve. All good protagonists need to take actions that keep the story moving.
    • It’s a while before anything truly scary happens, but the foreshadowing and tone of the episode tell viewers something horrifying is just around the corner so they’re kept on edge the whole time. How might you build up those four stages of fear Law talks about in your story before the monster enters the story? How can you warn readers that the scares are coming?
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