Keepin’ It Real: Verisimilitude in Horror
by Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar
I love reading horror fiction, but one of my biggest pet peeves is when it doesn’t sound realistic. Even if components of a story are supernatural or paranormal, my type-A brain wants, at the very least, to be lulled into that suspension of disbelief—I need a level of accurate, true-to-life detail for balance. Sure, bring on the flesh-eating zombies, but consider what it might look and sound like as they tear into their victim and slurp intestines. Go ahead and kill or maim your characters, but do so in a way that makes sense from a medical perspective. Here are five tips to amp up authenticity in your horror writing.
1. Fictionalize your scary real-life experiences.
Most of us have survived some near-fatal misses by adulthood, so we know full well what it’s like inside such a moment. While it’s important to contemplate how certain traumas may be triggering, and you may want to avoid reliving those particular occasions, other events can provide excellent material for your writing. I’ve never been stabbed, thank goodness, so I have no frame of reference for that. However, I’ve driven through a blizzard, almost drowned, and barely escaped a huge falling branch. All of these have wormed their ways into my fiction; for example, in my story “Hungry Christmas,” published in Black Hare Press’s 2021 anthology Eerie Christmas 2, my characters deal with frozen windshield wipers and a narrowing field of vision before finally losing control of their vehicle, just like I did when I ignored the forecast and continued on my road trip. (It was my birthday, and I wanted to go shopping. Thankfully, I lived to shop another day!) While terrifying at the time, I borrowed elements of my memory, thus portraying more legitimacy.
2. Tap into your fears, rational or not.
One of the reasons I write horror is because I have a terrible habit of imagining the worst-case scenario. While this has been highly annoying and anxiety-inducing over the years, it’s served me well in terms of my writing. Hate crowds? Include a scene where your main character is stuck in a throng of bodies, and explain exactly what that would feel like to you—just transfer those thoughts to your main character. Afraid of spiders? Write about the physical and mental sensations you would undergo if you walked into a web and saw a huge tarantula working its way closer to you. In my story “Tunnel Vision,” published in July 2023 by The Rosette Maleficarum, my first-person narrator gives the reader a window into her (okay, MY) phobia of driving, from the racing pulse to the violent mental images of crashing. Even if my readers don’t share my issues about driving, they will perceive my character’s panic.
3. Do your research!
Would your non-horror friends and family worry if they peeked at your internet search history? If not, you may be spending inadequate time checking for accuracy. Most of us don’t know from personal experience how long it takes for a puddle of blood to congeal or which place on the skull is most susceptible to a fatal blow. While not always relevant, details like this are easy to mess up; you want to avoid having your character run from or fight a vampire when he’s been drained of blood. In real life, humans can only lose about 40% of their blood before passing out, so you’re bound to lose the respect of some of your readers if you get this wrong. Google your questions, and consult several different sources. Be careful about getting too far into the weeds, however; your reader isn’t looking for a whole science lesson.
4. When possible, ask an expert.
If I only wrote characters who were like me, they would all be animal-loving, middle-aged English professors who enjoy reading and traveling. As delightful as those characters sound (haha), they would seem repetitive, especially if you’re writing a collection of short stories with many different characters. You need variety. Still, despite reading a manual about being an accountant, it’s doubtful you would understand the ins and outs of the day-to-day job, not to mention that you’d probably also fall asleep from boredom. That’s when it’s time to outsource; check in with your accountant neighbor and jot down what she tells you about, let’s say, bond indentures. Unless it’s crucial to the plot, like #3, you’ll want to limit how much of this knowledge to include, but what you choose to add needs to be correct. Having access to someone who knows the material gives you the opportunity to fact-check: When you’re done writing the scene, ask your expert to read it and see if you represented everything correctly. If using this method, though, it’s necessary to be honest about what you’re doing so your neighbor/friend/mailman’s second cousin/actual accountant doesn’t feel used or tricked into sharing trade secrets.
5. Keep track of the information you’ve provided.
Nothing pulls your reader out of the action like a silly continuity error. While it’s fairly easy to monitor such aspects in a short story, longform fiction is far more difficult. I’ve read plenty of books where an author has switched up characters’ ages and aspects of their physical appearance, and I’ve also discovered numerous issues with timelines. Wait, in Chapter 2 it said the characters had known each other for ten years, but Chapter 7 references that they were in third grade together, and they’re thirty-two years old?!? A simple way I’ve tackled this problem is to create a separate document of notes. For example, in my novel Darkness There but Something More, which will debut in March 2024 from Wicked House Publishing, I wrote down the date of all major events, like when a character went missing and when the police were first involved. Since I worked on this project for over a year, it was challenging to keep an eye on the passage of time, and this helped me avoid mistakes. I also recommend a round of revision that focuses solely on consistency—perform searches in your manuscript for physical appearance, vocal tics, background characteristics, etc. on each character so you don’t end up turning a brunette into a blonde or switching which leg has a limp. Focus on enthralling rather than annoying your reader.
These are only a few ideas on how you can make your horror more convincing. When you ground your fiction in sincerity, the fantastical becomes more believable.
AUTHOR BIO
Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar, an associate English professor in Pennsylvania, received her Doctorate of Education with a Literacy Specialization from the University of Delaware and is completing her MFA in Creative Writing with a focus on horror from Wilkes University. She has chaired panels on and/or presented horror scholarship at the Northeast Modern Language Association Convention and the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference. A member of the Horror Writers Association, her horror stories have appeared in diverse publications including The Horror Zine and Wyldblood Magazine. Her novel, Darkness There but Something More, will debut from Wicked House Publishing in 2024. Read her creative work at cassandraosullivansachar.com.
Angry Gable Press 