When I was starting out, I had problems with writing pastiches and using templates. I did not want to have derivative ideas or predictable structure. I admit now that this attitude slowed my progress by many years. Pastiches, fan fiction, formula, filling off the serial numbers are all valid ways to learn craft and I wish I had done that sooner.
It is difficult to find a book on how to write horror. There are essay collections from horror authors. There are “How To” books where one author describes a method of building character and scene. There are books of horror prompts. But there are no books that give a nuts-and-bolts template for horror, plus collect prompts together in one cover.
Now there is a comprehensive text for writing horror and it isn’t even for writing fiction.
I’m talking about the new “Ravenloft” rulebook from Wizards of the Coast.
The tables for character creation are, as usual, great starting points for prompts. However, there are also tables for motivations, settings, plot points, abilities that come with a curse; all of them have at least one cool idea. Some of the settings have analogs to gothic horror, dark folk tales, mythologies, cosmic terrors, ghost stories, and more. The descriptions rival TVTropes.com.
Best of all, it has an actual outline for an adventure with a haunted house, and that outline can be adapted for other horror templates.
How thorough are these tables? Under “Creating A Domain”, I discovered my central character is undergoing all six trauma types listed in “Endless Torment”.
All that and it brings back my favorite playable undead “Brain In A Jar”. Fans are called Jugheadz
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