Well as you often see when I’m giving advice on horror, try to look at folklore which isn’t so well known in order to give you inspiration! But don’t like, rip it off
Now in terms of directing it used to really annoy me when they just made the screen go round alot, it just seems like a waste of time because it isn’t scary and doesn’t contribute to the plot
Do try and make use of characters though! I used to love it when an angry INK character without a face would start doing the K-pop dance amimation.
Why? Because it looks odd it allows the reader to be completely confused, then you can scare them because their minds are boggled.
Episode, from what I’ve seen doesn’t particularly have the tools for a horror story. Wattpad, though, has the ability to add banners and pictures, set the tone really nicely.
I think a writing platform that allowed you to change the background colour of the pages themselves would also be a pretty good start tbh. Darker pages with images here and there, indistinct and in the corner of your vision. That kinda thing.
Episode being a visual medium that uses tennants and ideas from film and animation would really translate nicely to horror if they had the tools though
Well one good horror story I know on the episode forums is Haunted: Shroud. Or just Shroud. This inspired my fantasy horror story called Tribe of Malainchi as well.
Trust me it is soooo possible to create horror stories on Episode and I had immense fun doing it. Really forces to think outside of the box.
Personal pet peeve of mine when reading horror stories on the app.
So it’s totally okay to put in a bit romance into your horror story if you want and sometimes it can actually benefit the story , but don’t make it the main focus of the plot .If you really plan to write an actual horror story.
Unless it’s some kind of stalker story where the actual antoganist is obsessed with the protagonist. Romance shouldn’t be the focus
Remember this still a horror story not relationship therapy for your MC.
So this might seem very obvious, but I have read multiple so called “horror” stories on the app. That for SOME reason have random love triangles in them that don’t seem relevant to the story at all. There is a murder on the lose and the only thing on your mind right now is which boy you need to choose ? Girl your writing a horror story not another edgy YA romance
I’d say the best way to scare a reader is to have overlay jumpscares not just using the characters and their weird action thingy and using classic, limelight and ink characters or just classic cause that seems to scare the reader so much that they don’t even continue reading it anymore.
One thing that I think would be really useful in a horror story is actually using the visual filters… They can make everything look darker, or change the colors around enough to make the scene look unnatural.
