How to Write a Haunted House Story
I love a good spooky manor. The Haunting of Hill House, House of Leaves, Mexican Gothic, The Elementals, and Crimson Peak rank as some of my favorite stories, and it’s no coincidence that they share the same elements, perfectly crafted to make me glance at my walls with suspicion.
The haunted house story is a subgenre of horror fiction that remains at the center of the most popular stories to this day. With every year comes a fresh take (Man, Fuck This House) or revamped adaptation (The Haunting of Bly Manor) of the favorite Gothic fiction theme.
Home is where we’re meant to feel the safest, the most protected. So, nothing fills the audience with more dread than the realization that their home is trying to kill them and there’s nowhere else to go.
If you want to be the next Shirley Jackson or Mark Z. Danielewski, filling your audience with that delicious fear of their own house, here are some tips on how to write a macabre manor.
Atmosphere
Haunted houses are often found in Gothic fiction, where the atmosphere and the house itself are considered their own characters.
A spooky descriptive setting is the cornerstone for establishing mood and tone. Gothic haunted houses are known for their dark corners, creaking steps, bone-chilling cold, slamming doors, rancid smells of indeterminate origin, water stains where no pipe sits, and whispers that are probably just the wind.
Early Details: You want to start with the familiar and mundane layers of dust and stuck drawers, then progressively ramp up the unease with strange and unusual details—the scent of tobacco but no resident smokers, previously locked doors refusing to stay shut.
Later Details: As the terror peaks and the characters understand they are not alone, you can bring out the reveals—ghostly hands warping the wallpaper, doorknobs turning with no one on the other side, mirrors showing glimpses of the dead.
Alternative: But also consider haunted house stories that aren’t set in a traditional Victorian Gothic mansion atmosphere.
The Shining and American Horror Story: Hotel take place in grand opulence and sweeping ballrooms designed in Colonial Revival and Art Deco styles.
The Elementals is a Southern Gothic take on the Victorian haunted house with the atmosphere of the Alabama summer beach and a mansion drowned in sand.
Characters
A haunted house needs a family to terrorize, and the characters in this family have some crucial traits they need to meet.
Normal People: Make the characters feel realistic and familiar to the reader, as if the family could be from their own life—maybe even their own family.
You want to steer into that established concern that a home is supposed to be a safe place. By introducing normal family members who happen to fall into otherworldly horrors at no fault of their own, you can draw out the reader’s fear that this haunting could happen to anyone.
Newcomers: New homeowners or vacationers are traditional for haunted house characters. A house won’t become mysteriously haunted if the same point-of-view family has been living in it for decades. If a tragic event occurs that causes the haunting while the POV family is living there, the mystery is already solved.
This increases sympathy for the characters. They’re just a normal family who wanted a fresh start, and that new beginning brings nothing but undeserved tragedy.
Deep Flaws: Or is it undeserved? The best haunted house stories show characters with deep issues they refuse to deal with at first, but the house will eventually force them.
While the haunting may introduce these flaws, a better story sees the house drawing out problems that were already there. The goal is to use the supernatural elements of the haunted house to highlight the human drama.
Dissatisfaction in life: Sabrina Haskins of Man, Fuck This House is already bored with her homemaking and frustrated with her family when they move into their new home. The following events relieve the boredom, but not the fear that she’s set down the wrong path in life.
Anger management issues: Is it the house manipulating George Lutz’s anger and lack of patience with his new stepchildren in The Amityville Horror, or did Kathy really not know the man she married before they bought a house well above their means? Likewise, Jack Torrance in The Shining is already too familiar with anger and alcohol issues prior to moving his family into the isolated Overlook Hotel. These houses may draw out the rage of these characters in ways they wouldn’t normally act on, but that rage is under the surface before the reader gets there.
Lack of attention: Where you have a family haunted by their house, you have parents with problems and children being shuffled off to entertain themselves. Think of the Crain children of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House or Danny from The Shining. These can be new developments in the family dynamic thanks to haunting distractions, but more often the new move and hauntings highlight this existing problem.
Ending
Finally, haunted house stories (and horror in general) have the unique option of ending on a low note. Where other genres can demand the main character learn their lesson and escape the threat, the horror genre can just as equally demand that lesson being learned by never escaping.
It all depends on that deep flaw you give your characters.
Sometimes the characters in a haunted house book just can’t come back from that ledge. They’ve given in to their anger too much and done unforgivable things during the haunting (their unforgiveable and secretive deed could also happen before the story and be revealed by the haunting to their family and the audience). They’ll need to be taken down along with the house to earn their forgiveness.
Or maybe the character does overcome their deep issue of needing to find their place and purpose in life—but that’s to be with the house and care for its inhabitants.
You can also consider ending with a tragedy where the innocent and undeserving character fails to escape, and they’re doomed to haunt the house for the next unsuspecting family.
This type of ending often comes when the character can’t overcome their original issue. Maybe they’re overconfident in their abilities against the supernatural. Or maybe they refuse to believe the level of threat until it’s far too late.
This can also be used as an exploration of the cyclical nature of trauma where trauma in one generation leads to trauma in the next generation.
However you choose to end your haunted house book, you’re showing how the journey of the haunting changes the characters, often for the worse. They’re forever corrupted by the experience, never able to return to the unaware and innocent people they were before moving in.
Lauren Donovan is a freelance editor offering developmental editing, copyediting, and proofreading. She specializes in Fantasy, Horror, and Sci-Fi for indie authors and small press publishers.
Lauren is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) and Society for Editing (ACES).
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