Silent Hill

I might start leaning more towards Survival Horror here.  Still, most of the advice should be able to work for non-horror survival stories.  I was wondering if Swiss Family Robinson would count too.  I mean, things seemed a bit too easy in that movie even when things were getting dicey. That should be a good segue.

1. A hero who is struggling to survive can’t be overpowered.  They are an underdog and the selling point is the looming threat of death.  If they’re able to defeat every monster or create every comfort they need on a deserted island then there isn’t any tension.  A reader will never fear for the hero’s life and start to feel like they’re dealing with a ‘no stake’ story.  So, they need to be a balance of defenseless/weak and capable.
2. Obstacles need to be difficult, but not impossible.  Just like in #1, making things too easy eliminates tension.  Authors tend to avoid this, but they’re more likely to create an unwinnable situation.  This comes from a desire to make the victory that much sweeter, which is fine.  Unfortunately, an author can go too far and make an obstacle that the hero shouldn’t be able to survive.  The results are either death/end of story or an unbelievable success that reduces the sense of danger.
3. Survival heroes need to have some victories.  Even if it’s simply getting out of a situation alive with injuries, they cannot continue losing.  It can reach points of comedy or, at least, have the readers wondering why they don’t change tactics or learn from mistakes.  Survival stories benefit a lot from a rollercoaster series with several ups, downs, and loops.
4. Turning to those stories that use a villain or monsters, you don’t have to have other targets to show that they’re deadly.  Having them kill other characters is the easiest way to create jump scares and increase tension.  It’s just not the only way and can result in readers seeing their appearance as a sign that someone will die.  Alternatives can be them giving chase to the hero, causing non-lethal injuries, and forcing them to hide until the coast is clear.
5. Don’t overuse jump scares even in books.  Less is more here.
6. A key point to surviving is having an idea of what is coming or at least a sense of what needs to be done.  A hero who is running around without a clue or plan is going to die fairly quickly.  That or depend exclusively on luck.  You don’t have to drop huge hints or have every expected scenario happen.  Yet, a hero with a sense of forethought opens the door for more believable victories.
7. Having a mystery to solve alongside the survival is fairly common, especially in survival horror tales.  At least, the video games do this.  Adding this creates a subplot, which maintains the readers’ interest.  Now, it is no longer just about the hero surviving, but also discovering what caused their situation.  The hero may want to know this information as well.  The only downside here is that it’s fairly easy to get convoluted or create plot holes that make one wonder either how things went wrong or how anyone survived the initial event to be the survivor hero in the first place.