Love So Strong It's Scary (#3)

Stephen King is perhaps one of the most well-recognized horror story writers in the world. With his new book Doctor Sleep (a sequel to The Shining), he is faced with some hesitation to readers' reactions, as this article by the BBC explains: Stephen King 'nervous' about reaction to Shining Sequel

An interesting thought King addresses is that "love creates horror". He explains that an audience is really gonna be scared for characters who they love. That really does seem to be the case in a lot of stories.

Characters are spent so much time forming because they drive the story. No one wants to read a story about a character who has these amazing adventures but is so self absorbed the adventures aren't appreciated, nor a character who is literally made out of cardboard. Characters are built with flaws and lovable attributes so the audience can relate and feel more a part of the story.


In general, if you're really engrossed in a book and you get to know the characters, anything that happens to them affects you in some way. I once read this book A Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. Excellent book, hooked me like a fish. One of the things that I loved about this book was the very diverse characters McCammon had created. The main character, Cory, is the adventurous young narrator. You fall in love with each and every character and any time something bad happens to one of them, it's like a little punch to the heart. At the climax of the book, Cory is in the most danger he's ever been and I remember feeling my heart pounding as he faced danger. In that case, my love for this character really did create that desperation in me that nothing bad should happen to him. Love created horror.

I, myself, am using this technique in a short film I'm currently making. One of my characters is a spunky deaf girl. The problem arises when she can't hear the warning of danger. I've made sure to give her a lovable sarcasm so the audience will fall in love with her and be terrified when she is faced with danger. It's a very interesting technique and a call to filmmakers to pay more attention in developing great characters. Have great characters, put them in danger, and have greater emotional response. Create horror.