Readers can either be confused or scared, but not both. Deceiving or manipulating your readers through foreshadowing, shifting character traits, or a revelation of a plot point can all work to build suspense and create anxiety or fear in the reader.  Hint at the horrific climax of the story by providing small clues or details, such as the label on a bottle that will later come in handy for the main character, a sound or voice in a room that will later become an indication of an unnatural presence, or even a loaded gun in a pillow that may later go off or be used by the main character. Build tension by alternating from tense or bizarre moments to quiet moments where your character can take a breath in a scene, calm down, and feel safe again. Then, amp up the tension by re-engaging the character in the conflict and then making the conflict feel even more serious or threatening. In “The Moving Finger”, King does this by having Howard freak out about the finger, then have a relatively normal conversation with his wife while listening to Jeopardy and thinking about the finger, and then attempt to avoid the finger by going for a walk. Howard begins to feel safe or assured that the finger is not real, but of course, once he opens the bathroom door, the finger seems to have grown longer and is moving much faster than it was before. King slowly builds tension for both the character and the reader by introducing the threat and then having it overshadow the rest of the story. As readers, we know the finger is a sign of something bad or possibly evil, and are now in a position to watch Howard try to avoid, and then eventually confront this evil. A good twist in a horror story can make or break the story, so its important to create a twist ending that ties up many of the loose ends in the character’s conflict but still leaves one major question up in the air to tease the reader’s imagination.  While you want to create a satisfying ending for the reader, you also do not want to make it so closed and settled that the reader walks away without a lingering feeling of uncertainty. You could have the character experience a moment of realization about the conflict or about how to solve the conflict. The revelation should be the result of a build-up of details in the scene or story and should not be jarring or feel random to the reader.  In “The Moving Finger”, Howard's moment of realization occurs when he figures out that the finger may be a signifier of an evil or wrong in the world. He asks the police officer, who is there to arrest him after noise complaints from the neighbors, a final Jeopardy question, in the category of the “inexplicable”. “Why do terrible things sometimes happen to the nicest people?” Howard asks. The police officer then turns to open the toilet, where Howard stored the slaughtered finger, and “wagers it all” before opening the toilet seat to look at the inexplicable or unknown. This ending leaves the reader wondering what the officer sees in the toilet, and if the finger was real or a figment of Howard's imagination. In this way, it is open-ended without being too surprising or confusing for the reader. Like any genre, horror has its own set of tropes and cliches that writers should avoid if they want to create a unique, engaging horror story. From familiar images like a deranged clown in the attic to a babysitter alone in a house at night, to familiar phrases like “Run!” or “Don’t look behind you!”, cliches are tricky to avoid in this genre.  Focus on creating a story that feels personally terrifying to you. Or, add a twist to a familiar horror trope, like a vampire who enjoys cake instead of blood, or a man trapped in a dumpster rather than a coffin. Remember that too much gore or violence can actually have a desensitizing effect on the reader, especially if the same pools of blood keep happening over and over again in the story. Of course, some gore is good and likely necessary in a horror story. But make sure you use gore in a spot in the story that is impactful or meaningful, so it can punch your reader in the gut, rather than numb them or bore them.  Another way you can avoid cliches is to focus more on creating a disturbed or unsettled state of mind for your character, rather than images of gore or pools of blood. Pictorial memories often don’t stick in a reader’s mind, but the effect of these images on a character will likely create a lingering creepiness for the reader. So aim not for your reader’s imagination but for a disturbance in your reader’s state of mind.
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