61 Horror Clichés and How to Make Them Fresh Again
One of the criticisms of genre fiction is that it primarilycopies other authors’ work, and there’s some degree of truth to this. Everygenre has its major writers who paved the way for the rest of us, writers whosework is original and influential. Some are sui generis, and some workwithin a chosen genre and transcend it. To mention a few . . . Horror: Shelley,Poe, Stoker, Lovecraft, Jackson, du Maurier, Bradbury, Bloch, Matheson, King, Rice,Straub, Barker, Campbell, Ketchum, and Ligotti. Mystery: Conan Doyle, Christie,Sayers, Hammett, Chandler, and Spillane, Stout, Gardner, Highsmith, Rendell,and Block. Science Fiction: Verne, Wells, Burroughs, Heinlein, Bradbury,Asimov, Herbert, Clarke, Dick, and Gibson. Fantasy: Baum, Howard, Tolkien,Le Guin, Lewis, Pratchett, Gaiman, and Martin. Romance: Austen,Radcliffe, the Brontes, Steel, Roberts, Jenkins, and Sparks. Western: Grey,L’Amour, Cather, Portis, and McMurtry.
(Don’t yell at me if your favorite author isn’tlisted, especially for Romance and Western, since I’m not as well read in thosegenres as I am the others.)
These writers employ individual styles, tropes, andthemes in their writing, and if the tropes are shared ones – such as firstcontact with an alien civilization – they do something different with them,something that’s an expression of their own creativity and not merely echoes ofothers’ work. But that’s the main tension in genre writing: individual work vs generic,especially when it comes to commercial fiction. Be too individual andyour sales suffer, be too generic and your work will have little impact (andprobably not sell very well either). The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle,of course, producing work that no one else but you could write but which alsoclearly belongs to a recognizable genre. It would take me an entire book totalk about how a writer can accomplish that (seemingly) miraculous feat. (Andfor Christ’s sake, don’t tell John Edward Lawson and Jennifer Barnes at Raw DogScreaming Press I said that! If you do, next thing I know, I’ll be signing acontract for Writing Original Horror in the Dark.)
But I can choose one element of horror writing that Ithink will have the most immediate impact on your fiction to talk about – and that’savoiding and reworking clichés.
A genre has a collective group of character types(both protagonist and antagonist), setting types, story types, etc. These elementsare called tropes, and they’re the shared tools genre writers use in theirwork. In Horror, an abandoned graveyard is a setting trope. A curious, naïve,and ultimately doomed scholar is a character trope. You get the idea. Tropes areeffective when they’re first created/used in a story, but the 3000thtime? Not so much. (This is one of the reasons readers can get sick of a genre.When they first start reading in it, all the tropes are new to them, and thusinteresting and exciting. But after they read a number of books in the genre,they start to realize that the same old tropes are used all the time, and theyget bored.) There’s a word for an overused trope that has lost its power and impact.
Cliché.
This is the reason that old pros like me advise newwriters to read widely in their chosen genre and seek out the best, mostoriginal work via reviews and word of mouth. (This is one of the most useful functionssocial media serves – it makes you aware of some really cool shit to checkout.)
A word of warning:Know your chosen genre for what it is – and isn’t. Readers of genre fictionoften read for the comfort of familiarity. Romance readers expect certainthings from a Romance story, especially an HEA (Happy Ever After). Same for Mysteryreaders. There must be a murder and a solution to that murder in a categoryMystery novel. A Western must take place in the Old West (whether a realisticor mythic version). So trying to be super creative and innovative in thosegenres (at least regarding certain expected elements) is going to be a big failwith publishers and readers. Fantasy should be freer, as the presence ofsome kind of magic is the only element necessary for a story to be Fantasy, butmarket-wise, most Fantasy novels are still based on Medieval European cultureand myths. Science Fiction and Horror are the genres that allow for the mostinnovation and originality (which is why I think they often work well when blendedtogether).
Moving on . . .
Once you’ve identified overused tropes, you can avoidincluding them in your work. Better yet, you can transform them into somethingnew and powerful. Allow me to elucidate.
Choose a New Signifier
One of the most common tropes in horror is darkness/shadowsas a signifier of evil or a threat. It makes sense, since not being able to useone of our strongest senses puts us at a huge disadvantage in a dangerous situation.But darkness has been used so often in horror that it doesn’t have much poweranymore. Maybe you could choose a different sense to indicate evil in yourstory. How about cicada song? Or a slight stickiness on surfaces in a place taintedby evil? (A stickiness that gets worse the closer you get to the source of theevil.) Corvids are used as harbingers or servants of evil in horror. What ifyou used hummingbirds instead?
Reverse a Trope
Haunted houses are often portrayed as old andabandoned. Let’s reverse this trope. Older houses are safe from hauntings/demonicinfestations because they gain psychic shielding from the long-term presence ofliving beings inside them. So only new structures are susceptible to hauntings/demonicinfestations. In Frankenstein, a living being is fashioned from parts ofthe dead. Reverse this: an immortal being who can instantly heal any injury seeksdeath by trying to find a way to permanently disassemble their body.
Make a Trope Smaller or Bigger
Stephen King goes bigger in Salem’s Lot.Instead of one vampire (as in Dracula) being the threat, we get anentire town of vampires. Go smaller: A man believes there’s a mosquito in hishouse who drains a significant portion of his blood every night, which is whyhe’s so tired all the time. Instead of a worldwide apocalypse, what if you wroteabout an individual apocalypse, one that affects only a single person(and perhaps anyone connected to that person)?
Use a Trope from Another Genre
One trope from Romance is Enemies to Lovers, a storywhere the two leads go from . . . well, you get the idea. You can use that tropein any genre. (And you can also reverse that trope, make it smaller or bigger,etc.) Red herrings are a trope in mystery, but they can work great in horror too.(Just don’t write a version of a Scooby Doo mystery where the audience is led tobelieve the threat is a supernatural being, but it’s always just Old Man Jenkinsin a mask.) Horror already does this well. The SF trope of a rogue robot isused in the horror film M3gan, the Horror trope of a ghost/haunting isused in the film Transcendence. This latter example can also work well toillustrate the next technique . . .
Put a Fresh Coat of Paint on an Old Trope
I’ve mentioned this technique before in articles andworkshops. Take a trope, distill it down to its core, then create a new “shell”for the trope to make it feel fresh and original. For example, Freddy Krueger isthe archetype of a Devil. He’s associated with fire, has a demonic/monstrousappearance, wields a trident in the form of his famous glove, and torments hisvictims in nightmarish scenarios in another hellish dimension. His originalmotivation was to punish Elm Street’s children for their parents’ “sin” (burninghim to death). Freddy works because he has all the power of a Devil archetypewithout any of the baggage. Did Wes Craven purposely build Freddy on a Devilarchetype or was it just a lucky happenstance? Who knows? Who cares? The pointis that Freddy works, and we can learn from his example. Duel takes thehuman vs monster trope (or, if you prefer, knight vs dragon) and uses a semitruck (with an unseen driver) for the monster and an everyman driver battling iton desert highways. Ricard Matheson created a powerful story (and Spielberg createda powerful film) by stripping the human vs monster trope down to its essenceand modernizing it.
Use Elements from Your Life to CreateTropes
I do this a lot. My thinking is that if I use somethingpersonal to create a trope, I’ll write a story that no one else on Earth but mecould. I almost drowned when I was nine, and water is a common trope in myhorror fiction. I don’t consciously plan to use it; it just shows up in mystories from time to time. I try not to rely on it too much, though. I don’twant my own trope to become my own cliché. I also use strange things I observeto create new tropes. One chilly October morning a few weeks ago, I saw someonewalking down the street in front of my house in a suburban neighborhood. I wentto the window to get a better look, and I saw a person wrapped in a large blueblanket, walking barefoot, toeing leaves in the gutter as they went, sometimes pausingto look down at them motionlessly for a few moments before slowly moving on. Theblanket was over their head, and I only saw them from behind, so I have no ideawhat gender or age the person was. The odds are I was the only horror writer onthe planet who saw that. I haven’t used the Blanket Walker in a story yet, butit will make a great version of a mysterious, sinister figure trope – maybe aghost, maybe an alien, maybe something from another dimension, maybe somethingelse entirely. But however I use it, it will be original (or at least appearoriginal).
Combine Elements from Different Tropes
George Romero’s zombies are a perfect example of thistechnique. Romero and his writing partner John Russo took several tropes – the classicvoodoo zombie, the flesh-eating ghoul, vampiric contagion (passing on the infectionto victims), and the monster apocalypse from Matheson’s I Am Legend –and created one of the most powerful and successful horror tropes of the 20thCentury. You can do the same. Reduce some tropes to their core essence, throwthem in your mental Mixmaster, hit the ON button, and see what you get.
List of Horror Clichés
Following is a list of Horror clichés from fiction andfilm. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and there’s no order to it. I wrotethem down as they came to me or as I found them while researching. These are clichésyou should avoid using in your fiction (at least not without putting a fresh, interestingspin on them), but you can use the techniques above to transform these clichésinto original ideas to write some kick-ass horror.
If you think of any more Horror clichés, feel free toput them in the comments!
· The priest who’s lost his faith.
· The creepy child.
· Creepy parents.
· The cabin in the woods.
· Hostile locals.
· Occult reference book.
· Not calling the police.
· Stupid reason cell phones don’t work.
· Evil twin.
· The jaws of sex (sex partner killsyou).
· Ghost seeking revenge on its killer.
· I’ve been dead all along.
· I’ve been the monster/killer thewhole time – and didn’t know it.
· Old haunted house.
· Abandoned asylum/hospital.
· Evil medical professional (doctor,nurse, dentist, etc.).
· Evil psychologist.
· Evil scientist.
· Evil clergy.
· Cults.
· Circus/carnival.
· Magic mirrors.
· Evil/dangerous forest.
· The Apocalypse.
· Standard monsters (vampires, werewolves,mummies, etc.)
· Serial killers.
· Aliens.
· Possession.
· The sentient animated severedappendage.
· Creepy/killer doll.
· Animals attack.
· Cannibals.
· Creepy family.
· Curse.
· Mental illness as evil.
· Someone’s physical form, appearance,disability shows evil.
· Evil inanimate object.
· Evil machine.
· The Bad Place.
· Torture/mutilation.
· Let’s play a game.
· Memory loss.
· Maze.
· Country people are scary.
· Educated people are scary.
· Rich/Upper class people are scary.
· Poor people are scary.
· Homeless people are scary.
· Old people are scary.
· Necrophilia.
· Living shadow.
· Rape.
· Scary town.
· Occult detective.
· Behind the scary door.
· Angels and demons.
· Transformation/mutation.
· Dark secret.
· Time and/or space loop.
· Last person/people on Earth.
· The one magic (or scientific) weaponthat will defeat the evil.
DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
LetMe Tell You a Story
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In Let Me Tell You a Story, Ipresent stories from my own publishing career and use them to illustratewriting techniques and discuss ways writers can improve their own work. It’s ahow-to book, but it’s also a career-retrospective short story collection, and amemoir as well.
Youcan order Let Me Tell You a Story directly from Raw Dog Screaming Presshere:
https://rawdogscreaming.com/books/let-me-tell-you-a-story/
But if you’d prefer to order fromAmazon or B&N . . .
Barnes and Noble Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1143990468?ean=9781947879645
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AlienOmnibus
Mynovel Alien: Prototype appears in The Complete Alien Collection:Symphony of Death alongside two of Alex White’s Alien novels: The ColdForge and Into Charybdis. This is your chance to get threegreat Alien stories in one book!
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TheAtrocity Engine up for Preorder
TheAtrocity Engine,the first volume in my new series for Aethon Books, will be out April 30th,2024, and it’s currently available to preorder. Here’s the publisher’sdescription:
Menin Blackmeets Hellraiser in this rollicking mash-up of urban fantasy and cosmichorror from four-time Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Tim Waggoner.
Creaturesfrom dark dimensions infesting your home? Demonic beings trying to drive youinsane? Alien gods attempting to destroy your universe?
Justcall Maintenance.
Thisunderpaid and overworked secret organization is dedicated to battling forcesthat seek to speed up Entropy and hasten the Omniverse’s inevitable death.
NealHudson is a twenty-year veteran of Maintenance. A surveyor who drives throughthe streets of Ash Creek, Ohio constantly scanning for the deadly energy knownas Corruption. Since the death of his previous partner, Neal prefers to workalone, and he’s not happy when he’s assigned to mentor a rookie.
Butthey better learn to get along fast.
TheMultitude, a group of godlike beings who seek to increase Entropy at everyopportunity, are creating an Atrocity Engine. This foul magical device candestroy the Earth, and they don’t care how many innocent lives it takes tobuild it. (Spoiler alert: It’s a lot!)
Justanother day on the job. . .
Idon’t believe all the order links are up yet, but here’s what’s available sofar:
AmazonHardback: https://www.amazon.com/Atrocity-Engine-Tim-Waggoner/dp/1949890899/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1699124447&sr=1-2
B&NHardcover: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book/1144299910?ean=9781949890891
Lordof the Feast
My new horror novel is available forpreorder. It’s due out April 16th, 2024.
On of my main goals for Lord of theFeast was to do a dark magic take on a Frankenstein story. The book doesconnect to many of my other novels via the mythos I’ve created over the years,but you don’t need to have read any other books of mine to enjoy this one.
Synopsis:
Twenty years ago, a cult attempted tocreate their own god: The Lord of the Feast. The god was a horrible,misbegotten thing, however, and the cultists killed the creature before itcould come into its full power. The cultists trapped the pieces of their godinside mystic nightstones then went their separate ways. Now Kate, one of thecultists’ children, seeks out her long-lost relatives, hoping to learn thetruth of what really happened on that fateful night. Unknown to Kate, hercousin Ethan is following her, hoping she’ll lead him to the nightstones sothat he might resurrect the Lord of the Feast – and this time, Ethan plans todo the job right.
Flame Tree Press Paperback and eBook: https://www.flametreepublishing.com/lord-of-the-feast-isbn-9781787586369.html
Barnes & Noble Paperback: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-of-the-feast-tim-waggoner/1143636012?ean=9781787586369
Barnes & Noble eBook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lord-of-the-feast-tim-waggoner/1143636012?ean=9781787586376
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