Avoid Scary Pitfalls when Writing Scary Stories

1. Overusing exclamation points to convey fear, yelling, and surprise. Do a search for exclamation points. If you’ve got 300 in a 200-page manuscript, you’ve fallen into the pit. (Don’t laugh. I see it all the time in manuscripts.) Remove ALL of them with one global search-and-replace, then start at page 1 and put back only a few. The rest of the time, use dialogue, narrative, and context to convey emotions, surprise, and yelling.

2. Overusing ellipses to drag things out. This is melodramatic and overtly manipulative. Build up tension through a scene and across chapters. Don’t try to cheat with punctuation—earn the tension.

3. Overusing “suddenly” and “surprise.” Those two words can easily get overused in scary stories. How many things really are “sudden”?: Suddenly, a scream ripped through the house. How about just have the sudden thing happen?: A scream ripped through the house. You can interrupt a character’s dialogue to indicate a suddenness: “I can be there in about—” A scream ripped through the house. Be creative, not repetitive. 

Happy writing—and happy Halloween!
The Editor

The Editor, Deborah Halverson, has been editing books for thirty years and specializes in picture books, Middle Grade/Young Adult fiction and nonfiction, and New Adult fiction. For her editorial guidance in making your manuscript ready for submission to agents and publishers or for self-publishing, click Editorial services. Learn more in her books: Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies and Writing New Adult Fiction