The Creep Factor: Nine Ways to Add Eeriness to Your Story

Ragged clouds scudded across the swollen face of the blood-red moon. The rising wind caused the bare trees branches to clack together like skeletal fingers. It whipped strands of Randi Enderson’s pale blonde hair into her eyes, blurring her vision. Her heart thudded with fear as she called her son’s name. “Kitteridge!”

She spun around at a rustle in the underbrush, and her foot came squarely down on the tail of her neighbor’s black cat, Spectre. At his ear-splitting yowl, her flashlight dropped from her nerveless fingers, bounced hard off the ground and went out. Blackness enveloped her like a heavy cloak.

Lightning split the sky, throwing the trees and brush into an eye-searing bas-relief. Deafening thunder rolled through the countryside, shaking the ground. The first icy drops of rain pelted down. She had to find Kitt before his father arrived. Schulyer would have her in court in a heartbeat if he found his son shivering from wet and cold.

Randi staggered, need driving her. Her steps faltered, and the skin on her arms dimpled and the hair on the back of her neck stood as an impossible sound filled the air. It rose, far too close, long and ululating, a note out of nightmares and fairytales. No dog, no yipping Kansas coyote. Only one animal made that noise, the reverberation of violence, terror and death.

Crimson eyes gleamed in the darkness, as Randi found herself staring into the face of the wolf.

The piece above illustrates nine ways to add eeriness and suspense to a manuscript.

1. It uses the number one devastator of us all: Fear. Randi is afraid for her son. Afraid for his safety and of losing him.
2. It uses a ticking clock. She must find Kitt before his father arrives.
3. It uses a deprivation of the sense we all rely on most: Sight. The darkness and lightning make it hard for Randi to see.
4. It uses a “bus.” Named for the famous bus scene in director Val Lewton’s movie Cat People, it represents a scare that elevates tension, then turns out to be an empty threat. Randi’s stepping on Spectre is a “bus.”
5. It sets a tone with portents. The blood-red moon and the skeletal fingers of the trees let the reader know something untoward is about to happen.
6. It uses weather to add to Randi’s disorientation and discomfort. The thunderstorm with its lighting and rain drives her fear higher.
7. It piles problem after problem onto the character: Loss of sight, stepping on the cat, flashlight going out, lightning, thunder, rain, the thought of her ex-husband’s disapproval, all leading to the final terror of the howl.
8. It’s unpredictable. Small annoyances like stepping on cats and flashlights going out increase tension. No one lives in a vacuum. Everyday problems bug us all.
9. It throws the unexpected at the reader. The Kansas countryside is not a place you would anticipate coming face to face with a wolf.

I hope this post helps show you how to add the “creep factor” to your work. Enjoy this night of horrors and hauntings. I wish you a Happy Hallowe’en!