Not everything written gets published. Sometimes for good reason. And sometimes not.
In Dead of Night , I posited that horror is often presented across two vectors: physical and psychological. Two additional vectors didn’t make it into the book: nihilism and comedy. Using these four descriptors, you can graph the flavor of any horror story:
The physical and psychological vectors detail whether the horror affects the body or mind, and to what degree.
The comedic and nihilistic vectors reveal how grim the story will get, and how readily tension is relieved.
The more you have of a particular quality, the further out from the center you place a dot on that vector. When you’re all done, you draw the polygon that represents the shape of the horror–figuratively, of course.
It’s a bit of an academic exercise, but it can help to better identify the general approach and intended mood for a given horror presentation.
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