The basic formulas of the different kinds of horror

Start by imitating what you like. If you work at it, and have talent, you will discover what you can make work, what you can make live, and what you can't.

Frankly, I like some of the Lovecraft pastiches I've read better than the original.

Beyond that, Stephen King's book On Writing will give you the basics - although most people on this board hate the guy - and Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird, is also good.

It all depends on the presence, or absence, of talent. Which you will not know whether you have, or the scope of, until you conscientiously try to exercise it.

Flannery O'Connor's short story "The Comforts of Home" is about a young, aspiring writer. You might find that inspiring.

>>9701581
OP here. I've done a story in Lovecraft's style, and did one in a Stephen Kingish sort of style from what I gathered by reading a lot of his books. What other kinds of horror are there besides the ones I mentioned though?

You realize this is kind of a retarded question? Although I suppose I'm retarded to be answering your troll.

King's Danse Macabre is lit crit on various types of horror.

Lovecraft wrote a nonfiction essay on the subject, too.

Go to r/horror or r/horrorlit and scroll through. Google "types of horror." There are as many kinds and possibilities of horror story as you can imagine (although you seem to be having a difficult time on that front).

>>9701647
Not a troll at all. I was just curious about the various types other people had been exposed to, rather than googling it. I just feel like you can learn a lot more from someone else who writes, rather than looking at something some famous writers done. Nonetheless, thank you for your examples, I'll look into them.

Hey guy on /lit/ who always recommends "Dunsay" in the Lovecraft threads, I know you're here and I want to tell you that it's spelled "Dunsany"

>>9701673
>Not a troll at all.
k.

Something else you could look at. There are several annual collections of horror short stories that have introductions and notes that survey developments in the field.

E.g., editors Ellen Datlow and Stephen Jones ("Best New" and "Mammoth Book of" series) are quite prolific anthologizers of horror stories.

There are also many blogs and discussion boards devoted to horror if you dig around a bit.

>>9701695
Lord Dunsany is not "Dunsay."

Dunsay's stuff was mostly privately circulated in MS. I think he only published one story before he passed, a non-horror story in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Mag. He died in 1990.

The editor of The Monster Times privately circulated photocopies of some of his stories in the 70s are 80s, and there was a small-press run of under 2500 copies of Dunsay's "selected" stories in 1994 or thereabouts. It's probably digitized somewhere on the web, although his estate (i.e., his mother) is very aggressive in taking down unauthorized copies, and basically nothing is authorized.

Laird Barron knew him and wrote at least one story about him, "Frontier Death Song," where the Dunsay character is called Steven Graham. Presumably much of it fictionalized, although that's not entirely clear. It's online at the moment, if a nigga care. http://www.freesfonline.de/authors/Laird_Barron.html

>>9701726
ugh look. see where the spiral takes you, listen to the voices. It's not hard.

>>9701776
You made that up

>>9701801
Convinced me to Google it so kudos. Sounded similar to TED Klein.

>>9701823
LB said in an interview that that story was about Dunsay. Maybe he was joking or "taking the piss" as the British say. I don't know to a certain that Dunsay existed; maybe it was all an elaborate hoax. I'm not aware that any of his followers were willing to be martyred rather than deny their belief in Dunsay. But then why would they? He wasn't Jesus.

>>9701776
Steven Graham is a stand-in for Stephen Graham Jones, an editor of various horror anthologies. I don't know what kind of bad beef he has with Barron, but he's bashed him (and other writers like Mark Samuels) by proxy in a few of his stories.

>>9701871
"bad beef"? Who talks that way?

This is Dunsay's mother, right?

>>9701647
>>9701510

Horror lit can be about anything as long as it is done well to skillfully project/arouse fear. there are no set kinds, save for the plagiarists and their copies

>>9701627
do a jump scare book