This course explores horror as a genre as well as what elements of writing are essential to telling a good story. As a creative writer myself, this genre presented in both literature and film has captured my interest for many years. I have noticed that when writing horror, it’s sometimes easy to forget many of the essentials of good storytelling; it is tempting to simply lay all of one’s focus on the antagonist and what they do to the main characters. Although those are important and memorable features of this genre, there are so many key elements that are often glossed over.

It is important to scare readers, but it is much more impactful if you can change them. Do not settle for stories that are just somewhat creepy. Dig deeper! Explore what terrifies you and what truths those horrors represent. Show readers something about themselves or the world that will shake them. If you can make them come to a realization they had not come to before and if you can chill them to the deepest layer of their subconscious, then you will have created horror. 

Although this course consists of a large number of writing basics, it covers elements of writing that even the best can get wrong at times. This may seem simple, but understanding and mastering the fundamentals of good storytelling are essential to writing in most every genre. By the end of this course you should have at least one outline for a full horror story, a list of characters with in-depth descriptions of who they are and what they look like, a list of ideas for plot devices to improve your story, and an understanding of how to regularly recreate the aforementioned documents for any future projects.

Thank you for visiting this course and please take the time to look through it further,

Sincerely,

Kalynn Fleischman