Fear: 10x the scariness of any story

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FEAR! 

Fear enables you to grow, it's there either to hold you back or to be embraced and become resilient to it's grip. Fear is the major starting point to making great horror, so let me take you through THE easiest method to implement it into your projects.

Taking an inventory of fear going to help you make something scarier, it's the fuel to make scares feel personal and therefore relatable.  

Fear defined

Take a look at the current state of your story. Think deeply about the reasons you decided to make this story, a horror story! Now get a pen, paper and just sum up 3 bullet points.

ASK YOURSELF: What about this story really terrifies you? 

•  [FEAR 1]
•  [FEAR 2]
•  [FEAR 3]

If you don't know, then just ask: what terrifies you in general? Just remember though it's gonna want to be somewhat relevant to your project idea. 

OK. Great job! Next, it's time to delve deep into each of the three. And we're going to need that pen again and sheet of paper. 

'Writing what scares you' is advice I've heard for years, but I found integrating these into the story is kind of hard. The better thing to do, is to rely on a tool that helps our brain make connections. 

Making a fear map of your story (a mind-map for fear!) will be your personal 'scariness' guide, to be referred to and referenced along the way of your story. 

Being a horror maker, this simple tool literally makes you the boss of the fear. If anyone challenges your story, or if you get stuck for horror elements, revert back to the map to ramp up the scariness of the project. Because mindmaps let us generate up to 30–50% more ideas, you'll be reeling off the ways you can make the story more eerie in no time. But, the tool also lets you think deeply about battles and challenges, identified elements of the fear and so much more. 

The Fear Map

Now take your pen and write the name of your project in the middle. Then, draw three lines moving out from it, like a real mindmap. 

Stick each of the 3 fears down on each line. From here, you'll need to think deeply about each fear and how it relates to the project. 

Make new branches from 1 of the fears, and jot down ANYTHING that springs to mind. Try and come up with at least 7-8 items for each fear.

 

Great, so now you should have at least 21 items on your fear map! The reason we're mindmapping is because its the tool that unlocks creativity like nothing else. It stops your from double guessing, and removes blocks.  

Refining the fear map

These items on the list need to be refined. SO go through each one and begin editing, removing things that don't fit, or even branching off new ideas.

If you need to take time with each one, that's OK. I recommend that you even research things, or make planning notes along the way. Get everything down onto this map though, so that nothing in the mapping process is lost. 

From this session, I hope that you'll take your ideas seriously as nobody else will have thought about these fears like you just have done. This map, is integral to you as a maker and your project at hand. It is what will set you apart from every other horror project out there, because you're diving deep into fear itself. The key emotion horror is built on.

Integration

Now that you are brimming with ideas, it's time to include them into your work. I suggest you make a brand new document, layed out to easily present 1 main fear at a time and bullet point the best ideas under it. 

Properly formatting things is a good idea, because now you get to share it to others when trying to get points across. Its then there for you to reference as well. 

So, now that you have fear, defined...find out how to integrate these fears into fear peaks, to drive tension: https://bethebiteinteractive.blogspot.com/2026/04/master-tension-right-way.html

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