Young Writers Society

Good day!

After a bit of a break, I decided to write another short story. I was inspired by the work of HP Lovecraft, especially by "The Call of Cthulhu", which is considered one of the first cosmic horror tales. I never knew such a sub-genre of horror existed, and immediately I felt the urge to give it a go.

Now, don't get the wrong impression from this. I am by no means taking his work and transforming it. What I am doing is completely original, no plagiarism involved (at least none that I consciously know of), but as with every genre of writing, even cosmic horror must have certain traits and attributes that should always remain the same.

I humbly ask for some tips on writing cosmic/Lovecraftian horror. I've got a story in the works, three paragraphs so far. It'll be really bloody long if I keep up this pace, so I'd hate to waste all that time on writing a bad 30 minute story.

I'm concentrating a lot on the mentality of the main and side characters, while also establishing the atmosphere as best I can. I intend to slowly increase the levels of eeriness (something I'm not great at describing) until the story ends. It won't be a happy ending, of course.

Additionally, how do you establish an eerie atmosphere? I find it very difficult indeed.

I can't speak much about Lovecraft -- these two links might be helpful, though -- but when it comes to establishing an eerie atmosphere, I'd say less is more.

Your goal with it is to give the reader goosebumps, to build up discomfort and fear without being too direct or relying on jump-scares, right? When doing that, it's good to remember that people generally fear the unknown, and hinting at something ominous is often much more powerful than showing it outright.
You can build the atmosphere in a variety of ways: using specific words for colours, scents and sounds; focusing on specific details; minding the rhythm of your sentences to make sure the reader is comfortable enough to keep reading, but alert enough to pick up on those clues; leaving things to the readers' imagination. Foreshadowing falls here too, but it's tricky to do well so it might end up serving the opposite purpose.

By the way, I don't think there's anything wrong with writing a bad story. You might not like it, but it's not a waste of time. You'll learn what doesn't work, and the feedback you get may help you understand why those things don't work -- and so the next story you write will be as good as you want it to.

Thanks for the links and the advice!

I will do my best on the story. Afraid I might be setting everything up for a bit too long, but that's a part of the genre, so I suppose I'll have to stay true to that. Lovecraft made absolutely sure to describe the setting and atmosphere as best be could, so much so that the actual horror segments took up very little space! Must be tough to pull off, but I'll try.

Problem is that I'm not usually scared by literary works myself. Rarely am I frightened or discomforted by written stories, and so it's difficult for me to find what is and isn't scary, creepy or eerie.

Hopefully it'll get reviewed! I'll post it on the site, but longer works (I'm guessing it'll be around 3-4k words) tend to be overlooked somewhat.