copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman
Too often, writers write the way people too often speak: without thinking or, more specifically, without planning. They hope for inspiration as they put pen to paper or (more typically fingertips to keyboard). However, a bit of forethought could go a long way, in horror writing or in the writing of any other genre of fiction. By brainstorming as to what’s so scary about a potential or chosen setting, the horror writer is better able to capitalize upon features of the locale that are uniquely or especially eerie, frightening, or repulsive. Here are a few key settings for horror stories. The aspiring horror writer can add more of his or her own and update the list as new elements of the horrible and the terrible occur to him or her concerning such places.
Attic
It is seldom visited, and its contents, to some extent, are apt to be forgotten; therefore, the attic is more or less unfamiliar and may house dangers, such as bats, rats, spiders, rabid squirrels, or human intruders.
It is unlit or dimly lit and full of shadows in which dangers may lurk or be concealed.
Its contents may be old or unused and may, therefore, represent mementos of death.
It is not spacious, and it lacks headroom, making one feel trapped.
Depending upon the weather, it could be hot, humid, musty, or damp.
It could smell of mold decay (if the body of an animal that has died in the attic’s walls or elsewhere has begun to rot).
Because of the boxes, crates, and other containers it often contains, the attic features many potential hiding places from which one may be ambushed.
It may lack continuous flooring, which impedes movement and escape.
Its being little visited and kept locked suggests that the attic is a “forbidden” place.
It seems unnaturally quiet.
Noises, lights, and smells, in a closed or locked attic suggests that something is amiss (i. e., that the attic is occupied by an animal, a human intruder, or a ghost, perhaps).
The ladder or the narrow, steep flight of steps leading to the attic suggests the unusual character of the attic.
It is isolated from the rest of the house and, therefore, from the rest of the family.
Its floorboards and hinges may creak.
It is likely to be unfurnished, undecorated, and unadorned; it may be unfinished as well, suggesting a place that has been abandoned and lacks the typical comforts of home.
Note: Flowers in the Attic is set, in large part, in an attic.
Basement
Many of the eerie elements associated with an attic are also associated with a basement, making a basement scary for the same reasons that an attic may be frightening. In addition, these other eerie elements are often specifically associated with a basement:
The knowledge that, in descending a ladder or a flight of steps, one is going underground (where things are often buried) enhances the uneasiness one may feel
in entering a basement.
Its windows, if any, are apt to be small, perhaps mere vertical slits, which obscures one’s vision to the outside world and makes escape impossible.
It may contain a furnace, the fiery grate or interior of which, in the otherwise relative darkness, may appear eerie or even hellish.
Its cupboards, if any, may contain unusual odds and ends or “secrets” that are better left unknown.
Its walls may be stained or discolored or in disrepair.
Note: The movie The People Under the Stairs is set mostly in a family’s basement.
Crawlspace
Many of the eerie elements associated with an attic are also associated with a basement, making a basement scary for the same reasons that an attic may be frightening. In addition, these other eerie elements are often specifically associated with a basement:
It is even more cramped and inspires claustrophobia even more than an attic or a
basement, reducing movement to a slow, even potentially painful, crawl.
It is dirty and may be stuffy or musty.
Its pipes, joists, beams, and other obstructions impede movement and/or escape.
Animal carcasses could be present or their bones may be scattered inside the crawlspace. (John Wayne Gacy buried the bodies of many of his victims in his house’s crawlspace, and a lesbian stalker lived in her victim’s crawlspace.)
Tunnels from the crawlspace could lead elsewhere.
Note: As its title implies, the movie Crawlspace featured this setting.
Hotel
It is large, both in space and in the number of rooms, allowing multiple possibilities of ambush, for being trapped, or for having one’s escape cut off.
It is full of strangers, some or all of whom may be hostile or untrustworthy.
As a guest, one is in a dependent role.
Others have keys to one’s room or suite.
It could be haunted.
It operates on a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week basis, even while one is asleep and, therefore, vulnerable).
One could get stuck in an elevator, between floors.
Who knows what extra ingredients could be added to a drink in the hotel’s cocktail lounge or to a meal served in the hotel’s restaurant or delivered by room service?
One or more of its employees could be replaced by imposters.
Any weakness in its security could be exploited.
Its surveillance cameras are watching guests all the time, everywhere.
It could be isolated; even when it is not, it is a self-contained and relatively self-sufficient world unto itself (a total institution) of great resources.
It can feature fountains or statues in its lobby and courtyards or grounds.
It can harbor strange sights and sounds (and smells).
Its floor plans could be like a mazes, and, behind each door, a possible threat could wait to ambush a guest.
Power may fail.
Fog or other atmospheric or meteorological effects may occur.
Insects, animals, or humans may intrude.
Note: Stephen King’s short story “1408” takes place in a hotel, as does the movie, 1408, based upon it; King’s novel (and the movie based upon it), The Shining also takes place in a hotel.
Mansion
Many of the eerie elements associated with a hotel are also associated with a mansion, making a mansion scary for the same reasons that a hotel may be frightening. In addition, these other eerie elements are often specifically associated with a mansion:
Things look different in the dark than they do in the light.
It is isolated behind walls and iron gates, obscured by trees and other vegetation.
Its ornamentation and decoration may be odd (demon doorknockers, gargoyles,
bizarre statues or portraits).
It is associated with an ancestry and heirs (in other words, the house has a past, as it were, which may be filled with guilty secrets).
Its library may contain forbidden books.
“What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?” What, indeed!
It may have an evil-looking façade or aura (as does the House of Usher, the
Amityville house, and Ed Gein’s house).
Its grounds may contain the family’s private cemetery.
It can be personified (“if these walls could only talk!”).
Almost by definition, abandoned houses are scary (they suggest the fragility of life, or relationships, of stability, and a person, too, as a former resident, may be fragile, unstable, or abandoned.)
It could be really haunted or it could become “haunted” (e. g., as a Halloween fund-raiser), attracting real ghosts or demons.
Its various rooms symbolize various aspects of the personality, as dream dictionaries indicate.
An ascent can become a descent.
What was left behind in an abandoned mansion (a mirror, a birdcage, a cabinet, an organ) could be demonic.
Abandoned and in a state of disrepair, it is apt to be unsafe because of weak floors or stairs or crumbling ceilings or walls.
Note: Many horror stories, both in print and on film, including The Amityville Horror, Rose Red, ‘Salem’s Lot, Psycho, and The Haunting of Hill House being but a few of the better known among them, are set, in full or in large part, in mansions.
Island
It is remote and inaccessible.
It may be inhabited by “savages” and/or strange and dangerous plants and animals.
It is at the “mercy” of the sea.
It may contain caverns, mountains, or forests that are habitats for unusual, or even bizarre, and threatening menaces of a vegetative, animal, or human nature.
It may have an odd shape (Skull Island) that is frightening in itself.
It may have been used for nefarious purposes.
It may be volcanic.
It may suggest an alternative evolutionary origin.
Note: The Island of Dr. Moreau, King Kong, Jurassic Park, and many other novels and movies take place upon islands.
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