So, the current writer's block that I'm chipping through right now is creating a memorable villain for the Witch Hunter campaign.

I'm going to feature him in the first adventure that we're writing for the campaign setting. I really want this villain to have some punch. I want him to get under people's skin.

I've been able to do this before with Toben the Many and the Telling Man from the Ravenloft products that I've written in the past. People gave me a good response on those characters, so I'm assuming that history can repeat itself.

What I'm going to do is create a villain who's one of the demons mentioned in the Bible. The reason being is that one of the themes of Witch Hunter is Biblical Evil. The dark and twisted things that happen in the Witch Hunter setting are seen very much through a Puritan scope. So, of course Satan and the Bible need to come into play.

I'm perfectly cool with that, too, because Biblical evil is pretty dark. Herod killing all of the children under a year old in his province in an attempt to kill Christ; the men of Sodom screaming at Lot to come out of his house so they can rape him to death...all of these things are as wicked as they come.

Plus, if you look at the writings of this time period, people had really vivid and nightmarish imaginations when it came to things evil. Look at what people believed went on at a witches' sabbath. Pretty messed up, eh? Of course, these assumptions were wrong, but we're coming at this game setting as if all the superstitions and fears that people had at this time were real. Look at the legends about the monastery of Lucedio, as well. These legends also spring from the same time period.

But of course, the challenge is to create a character that comes from this tradition. A character that has motives, feelings, thoughts, and a background. A demon, no less. It's a hard nut to crack, because these old superstitions labeled such things as "other" and left it at that. They didn't plumb the depths of their characters.

So I've had to think backwards in my writing. I've had to assume a Milton-esque approach and think...why would this powerful entity make these decisions.

I've come up with some interesting answers.

Ground Rules, Part III

Okay, so we've talked about what horror is and the different layers of horror.

Now, we'll get down to the brass tacks. How do you scare people? I'm often asked this one question when serving on horror gaming panels at conventions. Actually, it's really quite easy. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. In my day job, I'm a school teacher. Around the month of October, I teach a unit on ghost stories.

To start the unit off, we go around the room, and tell ghost stories to each other. Well, just about everyone knows a good ghost story. If middle-schoolers can scare the crap out of me while in the middle of a well-lit classroom, then you can scare the hell out of your players. Or audience. Whoever.

So what's the secret behind a good scare? Here it is: You find one thing. Just one mundane thing in your story or gaming session and twist it. You make that object or person unfamiliar...and it instantly becomes scary.

For example, let's look at something totally familiar. Like your dog. You know your dog, you love your dog. Your dog is just not scary. However...

What would it be like if your dog started to bark at something in the corner of the room? You keep looking and there's nothing there. Yet, your dog keeps on barking. Then, your dog starts to growl viciously, savagely. The hackles stand up on its back. Yet, as you look in the corner of the room, you can see nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Now what was once familiar has become unfamiliar. That's unsettling to us. But this slight twist to reality is only the beginning of terror. To really get a good scare, the twist can only be a springboard for jumping off into the pool.

So let's think about your dog, barking at something in the corner. It keeps on barking, and then suddenly, your dog jerks back and cowers. It whimpers and hides behind you, shivering. Now, as you look at that dark corner of the room, as you peer at it, you swear you can see the outline of something. Like a person, except so transparent as to be almost invisible. Are you really seeing it? Or is it just your imagination? The next thing you know, the thing in the corner turns around and walks into the wall...disappearing.

We can keep using this method for just about anything. Nothing's very frightening about a little girl. But there's something about a little girl ghost that gets under our skin. Nothing is scary about a mundane mirror. But what if you catch sight of your reflection not moving quite the same way you move? Dolls are welcome playthings. But what about the doll in the picture above? Just find a few things, twist them, and see what you come up with.

Remember, however, after the initial twist, you have to escalate the tension, to bring the big scare. And about that...well...that story will just have to wait for another time. A good magician never tells all of his secrets.

Some Ground Rules

All right.

Now that we've talked about what horror is, I'll talk about one of my basics when it comes to writing horror. There are four levels or depths of horror. These four layers are very important for me when it comes to writing. Namely because I might hit all four of the various layers, but I know that my eventually goal should be the Fourth Layer. When you write, you want your work to hit the reader in their spiritual center. Not on their skin, where they forget about it an hour later.

The Four Layers of Horror
The first layer of horror is what I call Physical Horror. Physical Horror is basically the most basic of frights. This is basically the "gross-out" fear that Stephen King talks about in Danse Macabre. It's that fear that you get when you see a mutilated body or a splatter of blood.

The reason I call this Physical Horror is because this kind of scare that hits you in your gut. It makes you say, "gross!" However, that's all this kind of horror can do. It makes you a little queasy, but we can get away from the horror by simply turning our heads. So this level of horror is fairly weak.

Important to note: It can be effective if used correctly. For example, it's kind of gross to see a mutilated body, sure. But what if it's the mutilated bodies of everyone you are friends with at work? And they're all piled up on the inside of your car, and you were just about to go home and celebrate your birthday with them? Ah...now we have a little Physical Horror with some meaning. That's when it really works.
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The second layer of horror is something I call Emotional Horror. This is the fear of when someone puts you in immediate fear for your safety or well-being. I call it Emotional Horror, because it's what gets the raw emotions and adrenaline pumping. For example, if a maniac with a chain saw comes running after you in a warehouse, that's Emotional Horror.

However, it's still a fairly weak fear, because even if you are in immediate fear for your life, you can at least confront the fear and understand it. Sure, it might be a guy with a chain saw, but at least you can still think about how to stop him. You can look for something to fight back. You can try to outwit him, somehow.

Important to note: This is the same kind of fear that you might have in combat in an RPG. Sure, there might be a big scary monster right in front of you, but if you can roll your dice or cast spells at it, you get the sensation that there's at least something you can do against the threat.
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Next on our list is Intellectual Horror. Intellectual Horror is the fear you experience when something is left to your imagination. Let's say that you are out grocery shopping. Then, your girlfriend calls you. Suddenly, you can tell that she's crying. The next thing you hear is a strange voice saying, "Your girl has beautiful eyes. Too bad she's not going to be needing them anymore." Then, the caller hangs up.

Immediately, you're left wondering...what the hell is going on? Who's got my girlfriend? Oh my God, are they at the house? Is she kidnapped? Is this some sick joke?

These unanswered questions create some of the worst horror experiences known - the unknown factor. I call this kind of fear Intellectual Horror because it preys upon your intelligence and imagination.
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The final layer of horror is the grand-daddy of them all. It's what I like to call Spiritual Horror. The reason I call this type of fear Spiritual Horror is because it hits us in our spiritual center. It means that we've discovered something so terrible that it turns out whole world upside down. A great example of this is the news of the launch of Sputnik, which is discussed above.

The greatest horror movies of all time, always have a moment of Spiritual Horror. When Jack Torrence in The Shining discovers that he's "always been the caretaker" of the hotel, and that he's doomed to repeat history. When the investigator in the The Sixth Sense realizes that he, himself is a ghost. All these are examples of the fear generated when our world is turned upside down.

Spiritual Horror is big. Let's look at the grocery shopping incident for example. Your girlfriend calls you. She's crying. You hear a voice say, "Your girl has beautiful eyes. Too bad she's not going to be needing them anymore." You race home and discover that your girlfriend's eyes have been cut from her face. She's screaming bloody murder. But you realize something. There's no one at the house. There's no one who could have gotten in. The doors are locked. In fact, the only bloody knife around is in your girlfriend's hand. And you realize...she cut out her own eyes. It was her voice over the phone the whole time. And now...you hear a strange voice in your head. The voice is telling you that you need to cut out your own eyes as well.

Important to note: It's hard to get to this layer of horror. Why? Because you have to really build up a lot of trust with your audience.

Ground Rules

So what is this? It's a personal blog on horror and writing. It's about horror writing, horror movies, horror video games. But it's also about creative writing, getting published, and role-playing games. Finally, this is about Witch Hunter: The Invisible World, which is a horror role-playing game, and what it took to create this wonderful piece of horror/swashbucklikng.

All right. Let's set up some ground rules, right?

First of all: What the heck is horror?
As many of you already know, horror a dread sense of realization. It's that terrible moment when you make a discovery that you didn't want to make. When you finally put all the clues together and understand something is true that you don't want to be true.

Stephen King's classic example of true horror in his book Danse Macbre is the moment when Sputnik was launched. For King, he remembers that day because he was in the movie theater and the film he was watch was actually stopped so that the manager could deliever the news to the audience.

For Americans, that moment was a huge shot the gut because it represented the idea that the U.S. wasn't on top any more. We no longer led the technology curve. Someone else was in space before us. And the people who were in space weren't the nicest of people towards us.

But let's look at a more personal example, shall we?

Let's say you come home to your lovely wife. You go upstairs and hear the shower running. You grin to yourself and get this really hysterical idea to give her a little scare. Maybe flirt with her in the shower a bit.

You open the door to the bathroom. And then you see it...a long trail of blood on the floor. It's not a gesyer. It's just a long, trickle, dividing the tile of your bathroom as vividly as a sharpie line. You follow the crooked signature to the shower, and see someone's wrist dangling upon the edge of the tub....

That moment in which you see the blood. That moment in which you see the hand, is the very moment in which you come to realize something absolutely terrible has happened. Right when you put two and two together, that is horror.

All right. Tomorrow, I'll lay out the second set of ground rules: The four layers of horror. Then, I'll talk about how I scare people.