>>17539474
If no one can help you here, try /tg/.
It comes up for RPGs and they have good info.

>>17539474
Trying framing something mundane in an unsettling way.

For example
"As he arrived home he noticed his lights were off and his from door was ajar."

Something like that is super unsettling and plays into primal fear of having your home violated

>>17539485
Front door

>>17539474
It is impossible to make words scary.

Here's a scary story true story though. If the reader can comprehend how corrupt others are it might make them paranoid.

http://kelownasucks.com

>>17539496
>that site
What is this garbage?

>>17539562
a fucking what?

>>17539474
>Pic unrelated.

Make it related. Challenge yourself. Make a spooky story that involves pancakes, but doesn't involve the pancakes being made of people or something else disgusting, that's too easy. Use your imagination.

>>17539474
Put in MINDFUCKS!

>>17539474
Only real way to do it is to read a lot of horror novels and pay attention to how they do it.

I'm currently writing a horror novel, and what i've been doing is paying attention to pacing. You don't want your scary moments to be too long, because then it looses the surprise or mystery. You don't want things to be too short, however, because it'll confuse the reader. And it's all about how you word things. You have to pay attention to your sentences, as if they're beats to a song.

I suggest going the lovecraftian route. Don't give the object of horror definite shape or form. Don't allow your protagonist to fight it. Make it bigger (not necessarily in size) and more terrible than someone is able to comprehend. Play into the fear of the unknown. All they need to know is that it's horrible and so far beyond them that all they can hope to do is protect others from learning about it's existence. It doesn't have to be the end of the world. Stick to what one of the anons above suggested and keep it small and mundane. Make them fear a room in their house, not a made up location that means nothing to them. Aside from that just have an engaging plot and don't throw in useless information. If they're not main characters we don't need to know their life story

The best way to convey horror to write what is scary to you. One of the best pieces of advice I've gotten for writing is never write for anyone but yourself. Write about what you think is scary, exciting, interesting, ect.

Also the more you read, and the more variety of authors you read will add into your own vocabulary/writing style naturally. I really love Neil Gaiman for the atmospheres he creates, and Joe R. Lansdale for the way he describes things-more like the way a person naturally speaks as opposed to a 'written' style, if that makes sense.

I guess it's worth noting that different things make different people tick, that includes fear. So you should remember not to try to satisfy everyone, but instead go with what feels right to you.
Me? It's been a couple of years since I last felt afraid experiencing any kind of media. But I can surely say that I find the most immersive / atmospheric stories about things that sound as if they could happen to anyone.
If the story touches on straight up paranormal topics I like it to be subtle and scare with the things it's not showing / telling you instead of throwing shit in your face.
There's a difference between fear and an involuntary reflex connected to jumpscares. Fear is a lasting emotion, jumpscares make you gasp / jump in your chair without even making you think about the thing that acts as the scare.

My favourite paranormal themes would have to be the seemingly thin line between insanity and an apparent possesion, even if the story doesn't say it's a possesion in the end, but makes you wonder about the nature of the events.
Then there's alternate worlds / dreamscapes and being trapped in your own mind.

>>17539474
Play off of your own fears and explore them verbally

>>17539474

>>17540921

This guy. Lovecraft works so well in that he never actually describes anything for definite. The half pictures let your imagination fill in the rest. Your brain can dream up things far scarier when it's pointed in the right direction.

Alternatively, research horror. Watch films, and pause when you get scared. Analyse why you are scared. Write these into your own work. Profit.

>>17539474
I write screenplays for a production company, my suggestion would be to not focus on making some scary boogyman. Granted I am by no means a great writer, this is actually my first attempt at writing in general. What I do is try to picture myself as the character, and think about what would THEY find terrifying? Just write and try not to judge what you're writing. You'll throw away your first few ideas but never give up on an idea even if it sounds dumb. It's just a part of progress, a lot of my better ideas were derived from some pretty shit concepts. You might also combine different concepts to give your story more depth. Depending on my mood, I like to come up with themes I want to touch on and develop stories from there. "Then what happens?" And "why?" Should be consistent questions you ask yourself.

Conspiracy theories are are great source of inspiration to me because they are so scary. One of my favorites is that wealthy families of the world have underground bunkers that they'd be safe in if the world ever came to a nuclear type apocolypes. So I thought of the reality of a situation like that, there's a group of people living underground. You know the world is fucked. But they hear this insanely loud pounding at the doors. How terrifying is that? You know everyone on the outside is dead, but you hear this pounding. Eventually these creatures break in and kill everyone. Why? They're the mutated survivors of the apocolypes coming for revenge. So the way it could be written is very sympathetic to the vault dwellers, you don't want these scary monsters killing them. At some point in the story though, it's revealed that the dwellers are only there because they have connections to the corrupted individuals that destroyed the world, and now the surviving "humans" have come for revenge. Just some insight from my process, I hope that helps you.