How to Write Horror That Stays With You
The best horror stories don’t just end, they linger.
Horror isn’t just about monsters, ghosts, or blood. The best horror lingers. It follows you when you turn off the lights, settles deep in your bones, and makes you feel watched even when you’re alone.
It infects your thoughts, creeping into the quiet moments.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes horror work, why some stories burrow into your mind and refuse to leave. So, here are some of the most effective horror techniques I could come up with, pulled from some recent amazing reads.
1. Let the Horror Feel Inevitable
Inspired by: Mexican Gothic, Penpal, The Yellow Wallpaper
Some of the most terrifying horror is not about sudden scares, it’s about slow, inescapable descent.
Mexican Gothic traps its protagonist in a decaying house filled with secrets, the horror creeping in like rot. The Yellow Wallpaper lets you witness a woman’s unraveling in real time, each sentence more suffocating than the last. Penpal turns childhood nostalgia into something deeply wrong, a realization that dawns too late.
The key? Make the horror feel like a trap. The walls are already closing in before your character even realizes they’re in danger.
2. Make the Unbelievable Feel Undeniable
Inspired by: Night Film, House of Leaves
Good horror makes you question reality, but great horror makes you doubt yourself.
Night Film forces you into its protagonist’s obsession with a mysterious filmmaker, leaving you just as paranoid as he is. House of Leaves (at least what I’ve read so far) makes the format itself part of the horror, warping the way you engage with the text. This is my absolute favorite and a direct inspiration for Glowrot's formatting.
The trick here is to blur the line between reality and hallucination. Make the horror something your protagonist wants to dismiss but can’t.
3. Corrupt Something Familiar
Inspired by: What Moves the Dead, Tomie, Uzumaki
Horror hits hardest when it takes something comforting and turns it inside out.
What Moves the Dead warps the classic haunted house story with grotesque fungal horror. Tomie makes beauty itself something monstrous. Uzumaki takes an idea, spirals, and makes them an all-consuming nightmare.
Take something ordinary. A shape. A person. A home. And make it feel wrong.
4. Play With Body Horror (Not Only Gore)
Inspired by: Gyo, Uzumaki, The Mary Shelley Club
Body horror isn’t just about blood and guts, it’s about loss of control.
The terror of Gyo isn’t just the grotesque creatures, it’s the way they take over, warping people beyond recognition. Uzumaki’s horror builds as people succumb to something bigger than them. The Mary Shelley Club weaponizes slasher horror, but the real fear is about power, who gets to be the final girl, and who gets discarded.
Make the horror personal. Make it feel like an invasion, not just of the body, but of identity, autonomy, sanity.
5. Never Give Full Closure
Inspired by: Penpal, Night Film, House of Leaves
The scariest stories don’t wrap things up neatly.
Penpal gives just enough answers to make you sick, but never enough to let you rest. Night Film lets you spiral with the protagonist, never quite sure what was real. House of Leaves makes you question everything you’ve read.
Leave gaps. Let the horror breathe.
These are just some of the techniques I love in horror, both as a writer and as someone who craves stories that get under my skin.
If you write horror, what are your favorite ways to unsettle your readers?