(Post originally published on February 3, 2021.)

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Even if you don’t write horror, you may want to include some fear in your stories.  From fear, we can create hope and relief.  We can also drive people into despair and sadness.  It’s a fascinating jumping point for so many stories.  Yet, one does come off a little depraved if they enjoy the manipulation too much.  Still, we’ve come this far (5.5 sentences) and might as well move on to the advice.

1. Fear doesn’t always come from gore.  That’s actually disgust.  The fear can come at the beginning because you are surprised by the gore, but it isn’t the main focus.  This may seem like it’s more for movies and shows.  It isn’t because authors add graphic descriptions of violence in their books at times.  Blood being described as it flies from a body and limbs getting hurled into the air like hats at a high school graduation.  Just know that the fear kind of comes and goes in this scenario, so you can’t depend on gore for that emotion.
2. You can cause a reader to become numb to fear.  If stimulated and kept tense for a long period of time, a person may simply turn off that part of their mind.  It isn’t intentional, but the human body does what it can to reduce stress.  This means, keeping the tension going for too long can result in there being no payoff.  This is the reason why many authors suggest that you create tension in waves.  Add calm and relaxing scenes between the tense ones in order to keep the reader emotionally invested.
3. Never flat out tell a reader that he or she has to be scared.  They don’t like that.
4. Have a reason for the fear being in your story.  If you’re writing a romance then repeatedly terrifying your reader won’t help with the plot.  You can have some tense scenes where a touch of fear is involved, but you have to maintain the proper tone for fear to make sense.  It is one of the most powerful emotions that humans have and it has a major impact on tone in a story.  Throwing it in for amusement when it doesn’t match can ruin everything.
5. Dialogue can be just as important as exposition when it comes to inducing fear.  Think about being told a story in a way that puts you on the edge of your seat.  A character is capable of doing this.  It can be tricky because you may have to depend on adjectives or risk an info dump.  You can’t have them do this with a few quick sentences, but you can’t go on for pages upon pages.  That’s just a story within a story, which can throw readers off.  Beta readers can really come in handy here.
6. If you can scare yourself then you’re onto something.  Then again, being the author means you’re emotionally invested in the first place.  Don’t take your own sense of fear as proof that you’re doing things perfectly  It’s more that you’re in the right ballpark that you plan on dropping the readers off in.  Unlike them, you know where the story is going, so the fear has an added level of anticipation that can enhance it.  You may miss that you aren’t creating enough tension for a person lacking in your pre-existing knowledge.  As before, beta readers can help here.
7. Just because Stephen King did it doesn’t mean you should or can do it too.  Fear depends a lot on there being something that a person hasn’t seen.  If you go for an evil clown then you may only scare those with the specific phobia.  Others will roll their eyes and all tension will disappear.