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#217. Save the Cat! Writes Horror: How to Write Truly Terrifying Stories With Jamie Nash

• Savannah Gilbo • Episode 217

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Ever wonder why some horror stories linger in your mind long after the lights go out? Jamie Nash reveals how structure (not jump scares or gore) creates true terror.

In this episode, I’m joined by Jamie Nash, screenwriter and author of Save the Cat! Writes Horror, the ultimate guide to creating “Monster in the House” stories that keep readers up at night.

With over 25 years of experience writing and teaching horror (including films like V/H/S/2 and Lovely Molly), Jamie shares how to craft terrifying tales using Blake Snyder’s iconic Save the Cat! framework. We talk about how structure, theme, and moral depth make stories truly scary and how to balance dread, scares, and gross-outs for maximum impact.

Whether you’re writing a slow-burn psychological thriller or a relentless survival horror, this episode will show you how to use the Save the Cat! framework to make every scream count.

[03:45] What makes a novel truly horror and how to tell if your story actually fits this genre (before you waste time writing the wrong one).

[05:58] The three ingredients every unforgettable horror story needs and why missing even one can ruin your scare factor.

[18:24] How to use Save the Cat! beats to build tension and fear so your story feels cohesive and terrifying, not random and rushed.

[24:11] The two main types of horror pacing, and which one to choose to keep your readers gripped. 

[32:53] Why passive heroes kill good horror and how to turn your protagonist into the story’s fiercest weapon.

[36:32] The difference between dread, scares, and gross outs, and why dread flags (red flags that signal unease) are the true engine of horror.

If you’ve ever wondered how to write horror that lingers long after the last page, this conversation with Jamie Nash is your masterclass in scarecraft.

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SPEAKER_00:

All horror at some point devolves into a battle for survival. If the battle for survival never comes about, maybe it's not horror. And that battle for survival, it doesn't necessarily have to be whether you live or die. It could be your identity is taken away or something like that. It's something primal, though. It's not metaphorical. It's not like, and then I lost myself to marriage or something. You know, it's it's definitely something primal. But I think all horror by the end of it becomes a battle for survival.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo, and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable, and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. In today's episode, we're diving into what it takes to write a horror story that truly works. And I couldn't be more excited to have Jamie Nash joining me today. Jamie is a seasoned screenwriter, novelist, and the author of the brand new book Save the Cat Writes Horror, which honestly I am completely obsessed with. In this episode, Jamie breaks down the three key ingredients every horror story needs, how the Save the Cat beats show up in the horror genre, and my personal favorite, how to figure out where your story lands, on what Jamie calls the dreadometer. It's such a fun and fascinating concept, and I can't wait for you to hear all about it. So without further ado, let's dive right into my conversation with Jamie Nash.

SPEAKER_00:

So, you know, at heart, I'm a screenwriter. That's that's really what I am. And I mostly have written horror screenplays. Um I've I've written a couple horror novels as well. Uh, but for the most part, I write horror screenplays. But early in my career, when I actually wanted to be a comedy screenwriter, I I actually met Blake Snyder, the original writer of Save the Cat. And uh he and I co-wrote a couple of scripts way back then when I was when I was first starting in screenwriting. How fun. And yeah, and he kind of in my early in my career, he kind of indoctrinated me into the save the cat world. And uh I've been using it ever since. So um, so that's how I kind of came to write Save the Cat Writes Horror. And I've also written two other Save the Cat books before this. Uh Save the Cat Writes for TV and um the Save the Cat Beat Sheet workbook.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. We'll link to all that in the show notes. But so I was gonna ask you why you decided to do the horror book, and it makes so much sense because horror is your realm.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely. Um, when I was a kid, I saw I I guess I was a little kid. I grew up, I'm an 80s kid, but when I was a little kid, it was the 70s, and um, I saw some movies I shouldn't have seen at a very early age, like The Exorcist, Halloween. Like I saw all those movies before I was 10, you know. So um, and then in the 80s, there was such a popular I was a movie kid. I like all movies. Uh, you know, I saw Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars and all the things every kid loved in the 80s. Right now I'm wearing a Goonie shirt, so that kind of tells you where I'm at. Um, but there were so many horror movies that for every blockbuster movie, I'd say we saw one horror movie, you know, Nightmare on Elm Street, a Jason movie, um, something like Serpent and the Rainbow, or I don't know, there was always something going on. And as kids, we just, you know, whether it was on the VCR or actually going to the theater, we saw horror movies every week. So, you know, I I saw maybe thousands of horror movies work before I, you know, even started to think about writing them.

SPEAKER_02:

I love that. So let's go to the very beginning and let's talk about what it actually means to write a horror story or how do we define stories that fit in this genre, or as Save the Cat calls it, the monster in the house genre.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it's it's a tricky thing to to actually define it. And there's been a lot of online debates in recent years, especially as horror has gotten into more what when I pitch to producers, they call elevated horror horror. And elevated is this new term they bounce around a lot in the movie world, where it's kind of like it's kind of this weird elitist term, like it's better than that old horror stuff you used to watch. You know, this is this is something better. And and get out kind of kicked off that the movie Get Out with Jordan Peel. Um, by the by the way, I should say my book is for novelists as well. And much like you, my love of horror actually started probably more in the in reading, even more so than the movies. Because while the movies, my favorite movies were like Goonies. If you look at my bookshelf, it's all by Barker and Stephen King and Dean Arkunts and all these other authors that I loved when I was a kid. And and those to me were all elevated horror. I mean, they all were telling, in, in my opinion, dramatic stories. It's it's something I mentioned in the book that Jason Blum once said, what's the indie drama, the kind of Oscar-winning indie drama that gets interrupted by the monster? And you kind of have to figure that part out if you want to write quote unquote elevated horror. And the books I was reading as a kid did that all the time. Um, but then the question becomes if it's more shifting toward that indie drama and less the monster, is it a horror movie or is it something else? My personal conclusion, my my I have two hot takes. Uh number one is I think all horror at some point devolves into a battle for survival. If the battle for survival never comes about, maybe it's not horror. And that battle for survivor, survival, it doesn't necessarily have to be whether you live or die. It could be your identity is taken away or something like that. I it's something primal, though. It's not metaphorical, it's not like, and then I lost myself to marriage or something. You know, it's it's definitely something primal. But I think all horror by the end of it, by act three, becomes a battle for survival. And then you're just kind of the question is when does it become a battle? But then the the other thing that Save the Cat illustrates is there's this thing called the monster in the house. And um, the monster in the house, there's there's these things in the original Save the Cat book that I learned about as an early screenwriter. Um, there were these 10 genres in Save the Cat. That won't go through all of them, but just to give you an idea, his genres were story patterns. They weren't genres like when I went into Blockbuster video and it was comedy and romance and things like that. Instead, they were more like what type of story are you telling? And his were like golden fleece, which would be the hunt for a trophy or a treasure, or maybe a road trip with a destination. That was the golden fleece. And then he'd have Buddy Love, which could be romance, or it could be a story like E or something, you know, where Elliot and E.T. Bond or Black Stallion, even, is a Buddy Love story. And he came up with 10 of these. And I'll be honest, of all the save the cat things, I remember when I first read it, I'm like, yeah, he's got 10, but I bet you I can think of some more of these. I bet you, I bet you, and I after all these years, I've never once had a really good, oh, here's the one he missed. Um, he really he really did a great job with those 10. But the one I dabbled in most is the monster in the house genre. And the monster in the house genre is defined by three specific elements. There's a monster, and that could be supernatural or or someone just so evil or so relentless that they almost border on supernatural. So you're, you know, like a Michael Myers or Jason or something, even though I know the later movies, those characters became supernatural, but yeah, uh something like that. Um, but also, you know, Freddie Krueger or the monsters in a quiet place, or or or the creatures in the centers. I I said creatures because I didn't want to spoil it. Um so any of those could be the monsters. The house is the next the next point. And that the way the thing I doubled down on the house after my years of writing horror stories, the key thing to figure out in your house is why is that house a trap? Why can't people just leave? You know, um, I I actually was talking to someone about this the other day, and they said that's their problem with stranger things. Why don't they just move away from the town? You know, at season three. Um, but what is the trap? How is how are they trapped in the house? And there's the book actually lists many ways you can trap people from being a remote location to kind of going somewhere illegal, you're not supposed to go, or or even it could be your own body, like in a case of the substance or a movie like that, or the fly or or a werewolf movie. And the most the one that I learned from the most early on as a young horror writer, and I don't think I was including, and I think this is the one that elevates horror is the sin. Um, the sin is something that brings about the monster that makes us vulnerable to the monster. And it doesn't have to be your hero, it could be society, like in Godzilla, nuclear war brings about the monster or something like that. But I do think that's the part, the key to elevating your horror is choosing the right sin, which which leads to something Josh Whedon used to say in the Buffy universe. Um, monster is metaphor. What you know, what is the metaphor of your monster? So between the battle for survival and the monster in the house, like I kind of smoosh those two together. And what I ultimately say is every story, every horror story devolves into a monster in the house story at some point. It may start out as a golden fleece or bloody love, but by act three, there's a monster, there's a house, and there's a sin, and there's a battle for survival.

SPEAKER_02:

I have so much I want to say about that. So, in the book, for um anyone who's writing kind of a blended story, you do talk about this setup could look like where you have horror elements, but if you don't have that survival or those survival stakes and you don't have the monster in the house, then it could just be like on the other side of the spectrum of horror. And you also talk about relentless horror and slow burn, which we'll get into in a second. Um, but on these three things, so let's just recap them really quick. Number one is the monster, which I want to dive into later. And then the second is the house, which doesn't have to be a literal house. It can be just any kind of claustrophobic, isolated setting. And I would love to hear you talk about that a little more because I think a lot of writers will check the box. Like I have this isolated um psychiatric ward or whatever. And it's like, think about why. Think about why we want them trapped, right? Why do we want it isolate? Why do we want it claustrophobic? Can you talk about that a little more?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. Um, and I I think the big thing is you have to take away their free will. Like that's that's what I always say. It comes down to free will. Because if any time at any time they can they can check out of it or they can leave, then the tension just goes away. It's like that in in fact, it can turn you against your heroes because it almost they almost deserve it, you know, at that point. It's like they know evil's there, they know there's a monster, they're not running away, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

They're not using logic.

SPEAKER_00:

They they almost deserve what they get at that point. Um, and there's all kinds like in the book. I I come I usually give lists to help you brainstorm, you know, so you don't just go to the default, like, oh, I need a house. And you know, there's a movie like that I saw last year, Abigail, and the doors lock, and they're you know, they're trapped, they're trying to get out. They're like, oh no, I can't get out. Um, there are other movies like Rosemary's Baby, where it's like more societal, you know, it's like she's trapped in a different way. It's it's she she's trapped because of her social situation. Yeah, um, she's she's being gaslit and almost being trapped. Then there's other movies like The Walking Dead that they're trapped because where could you go? I mean, the whole world is is monsters. Um, right. So I have lists to help people brainstorm those if they want to. And I tend to go overboard with the list because much like much like Blake Snyder's 10 genres, I want to make sure I hit most of them. In this case, I miss, I'm sure I miss more than he he ever had. But I have a lot.

SPEAKER_02:

There are, yeah, there are so many. And I know readers are gonna love that because I even as I was reading it yesterday, I'm like, I could use this in my fantasy novel. So I appreciate the lists. Um, but yeah, so I think you're right. Um, and I just want to reiterate what you said for listeners that keeping them kind of in this house or in this claustrophobic isolated setting, uh, it just you know helps us evoke those, that sense of fear. It also helps raise the stakes too, because you can only have you only have so many things to work with in that isolated setting. And as people die or things get taken away, or you what a great way to raise the stakes. Okay, so we had the monster of the house and then the sin. So the sin you said was one of your biggest learnings. And um, how does that or does it connect with the monster? And how does that kind of stuff relate to theme or does it relate to theme?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And this is this is my, you know, uh again, it was the biggest thing I learned because I think when I was writing before I started to use the sin, maybe I'd stumble into the sin, or the theme might be about something different. But it was when I started started to add this into the mix, I believe my horror really took off um and got a lot better. And my first sale, my first screenplay sale was a horror script. Um, and uh it in in that in that one, so I'll tell you a little bit about one that one, it was called Altered, and it was it was originally a horror comedy about I always say it's it was rednecks who abduct an alien. Like that's what the story was about. Yeah. But and and deep down though, it was kind of a story about these kind of brothers in a sense. And it became a drama. Like originally it was a horror comedy, it became a drama. And once I nailed down that it was really about brothers who had this deep secret, this kind of shame from the past, um, they were abused in some ways by aliens, and in revenge, they abduct an alien because they want answers and they want understanding, and that's what elevated it and actually got it sold. Um so it was actually once I discovered this kind of metaphor, um, it was key. So um, so back to your question, like the sin usually brings about the horror. So the the example I tend to go, because again, 80s kids, Spielberg, was poltergeist. Um, if you remember poltergeist, the the reason the ghost is there is because they built houses on top of a graveyard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's this big scene where they say, you know, they took away the markers and they and they just built the houses. And it's this kind of what's what's the word? Desecration, blasphemy, whatever you want to say it is, this kind of ignorance of of that, and just kind of for greed purposes. Similarly with Alien, it's all about greed. Like if you're watching Alien Earth Earth right now, it's all about greed, right? It's always it's always corporate greed. Um, I I think in the last episode there was a there was a comment. This is a place of yes, not a place of no. Like you never say no here, you know. We always push forward, we move fast and break things. And that's kind of the sin in that that brings about the monster because they're they're pushing boundaries into these danger zones, yeah. Um, and you know, recklessly. Um, and so the other big thing I like to talk about with the sin is you know, you said, is it your theme? Is it not? Oftentimes it is your theme. Oftentimes the hero needs to learn some version of that, you know, and it's this is where themes can get tricky because I always feel like in most of my stories, there's this personal theme that's very personal. Like I need to learn to um pay as much attention to my kids as I do my job or whatever. That's the common one. I I do a lot of kids' movies too, right? Um, but I always feel that that theme relates to some bigger macro theme that maybe if there is a big villain or politics involved or something, the world needs to learn. There's some version of it that kind of connects the dots. Um, but what I always say is your hero does not have to commit the sin to invoke the monster. There is there is this weird karmic math that happens in horror movies where as long as somebody commits a sin, we understand that somebody has to pay the price.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And um, there's a math in horror, and that's why the sin is there. So it's not pure nihilism. At the end of the day, much like the EC comics I read as a kid, there's a moral to most of these stories. And even if somebody who doesn't deserve to die dies in the end and there's a dark ending, we can kind of walk away agreeing that the sin brought about the thing. And it's sort of a happy ending to us because we go off with the lesson that as long as we don't commit that sin, or as long as we fight not to have that sin committed, we'll have a happy ending. We'll be okay. So, in some ways, horror isn't as dark as some people. I mean, it's a dark way to tell that theme, you know, but it's not sometimes horror can be nihilistic.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

They tend to not be the most popular horror movies. The the more popular ones tend to be the elevated ones with the message and the sin that we can understand and kind of end with that karmic equation intact.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I like what you're saying about all that too, because writers will ask me a lot, or I'll hear a lot sometimes that it's, you know, they really want to write horror or they really want to write sci-fi or something, but they're like, I don't know if that's meaningful enough. And I'm like, it can be so meaningful. Are you kidding me? Every genre can be meaningful. So I love how you're kind of putting those pieces together. And you go into way more detail about that in the book. Um, so if anyone's interested, you can grab that. We'll link to it in the show notes. Um, but also the other thing you explore a lot is the horror beats and how those the save the cat beats show up differently. And I know that a lot of my audience has uh Jessica's Save the Cat writes a novel book. So they're used to the beats. Um, but is there like talk about that a little bit? Because if we're going back to the horror, like what makes horror, it's about survival with a monster in a house with a sin. So talk about kind of how that shows up in the beats a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So what I do in the book too, and the book, if you haven't read Save the Cat, I do enough of an overview that it's there. I think it works best almost if you've read read the first one and read this one, but you don't have to. Um, and what I did was I I kind of pointed out some specific beats that needed a little flashlight shined on them, yeah, for lack of a better term, uh, for horror. And um there's a couple of them. So number one, I think is the opening scare. Um, the the opening scare, most of the time in horror movies, and it happens in horror novels too, especially when you're submitting to agents and things like that. You want that, you want to show them you can write horror. So if you're sending your first chapter, you kind of want a horror beat in there, right? Yeah, but but there's different ways that the opening scare can happen. And so I again I list a bunch of common ways. And uh one is like the first kill. Like that's a very common trait is people show the first kill. That's like one of the most common. Recently, I've seen a lot of flash forwards. Like, here's page, you know, in a in a screenplay, here's page 50, or here's page 75. Sinners did this recently. Here's the end of the movie. Let's show you how we got here. And it can it can kind of give you that little horror juice early in the story. I I know in novels, not as popular, but sometimes the prologue, you know, the origin of the horror, like how the horror came about. That can be another popular one. Um, the one I see in a lot of movies these days, especially the indie drama movies, and one I use a lot too, is what one I call, and this is the one I actually wanted to say on your podcast, the horror the horror before the horror. Yeah. Okay. And that one, if you've ever seen the movie like Midsummer, or um, I'm trying to think of another movie that did it. Have you ever saw uh Finding Nemo? Uh Finding Nemo kind of does the horror before the horror. Um, so I'll I'm gonna use Finding Nemo, even though not a monster now, but I'm gonna use that as an example. In in the beginning of that, it shows you kind of the shard of glass, they call it the trauma that the main character experiences, that the character arc and the theme is all about. And it's a horrific moment. So you can write a little horror beat. And that story, I think, doesn't something come and eat all the eggs or something. I think that's what happens at the beginning. So that's why he's so um, and also I think his wife dies as well. Um, so that's why Marlon, well, it's pretty dark for him. That's why Marlon is so obsessed with keeping Nemo safe.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and in a lot of a lot of stories have that horror before the horror. I it's funny, a lot of them have car crashes before, you know. I could think of Megan, I could think of the descent, not not a horror movie, but Disturbia. You know, I can think of all these movies that have car crashes that are the trauma that happens well before the story starts. So that's the opening scare.

SPEAKER_02:

Are we is that like in Jaws, how the shark attacks first, and then we go to like the catalyst, or is that different?

SPEAKER_00:

So that's a good question. Uh so and that's my that's that's another one I bring up. So in that one, the shark attack is the first kill. That's the opening scare. And then they have the save the cat beat of the setup, which is the ordinary world of the hero. So that's him, life at home. And my key thing with the, and this is less save the cat writes for her, or more save the cat. My key thing with setups are uh have a story before the story. Like what's what's the story again, the indie drama that gets interrupted by the monster? Yeah, so he's already trying to fit in and stuff like that. But then this is this is a fine point. The catalyst, which is the first kind of hit, usually happens in a movie around the 12-minute mark. I think Jessica says in a novel, the 10% mark of your of your story, um, page count-wise. The key thing with that is the catalyst always involves your hero. So so think of it this way: let's say the first kill happened, the sheriff was never called in, or they never found the body. Um, but the what happens at the catalyst of Jaws is he finds the body. He's called out to check something out and he finds it. That's why that's the catalyst and not the opening scare. Um, so the 12-minute mark or the 10% mark always should involve your hero. So that's another like twist on the save the cat beats um that I put in. So there are two examples. I have a lot more. I kind of go into midpoints and how they can be different. I have a thing called the five-point final stand because, like I said, all things turn into a battle for survival. Um, and the and and uh, you know, I have a bunch, I have a bunch more I'll leave for the book, but um, but they're there's some of the you know early ones that that I can hit from.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and so if you if you're listening and you like Save the Cat and you want to go like even deeper into the weeds of horror, that's what Jamie's book will help you do. But I love that um, I love the mention of what an opening scene horror because you're right, we have to get that flavor and tone kind of there. And also then when we go into the setup, it's like we need to know that what kind of story we're in so that we don't just start in like a small town drama. We need to know it's horror. Um, and then we have the catalyst that happens to the hero to pull them through the rest of the book. So I love that. And we'll put the link to the book again so you guys listening can go check it out. Um, do you want to talk about you mentioned in the book like slow burn horror versus relentless horror? I think that's super cool. Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sure. And it's kind of the reason why I held off on some of my beats because I I'll talk about my beats more when we talk about this. And I knew you're I knew you were gonna ask. So um, so yeah, slow burn versus relentless horror. Um, and they're just two, I mean, people talk about slow burn all the time. I think I just made up the term relentless, uh, just to just to kind of make sense. And I'll describe relentless first, because if you ever follow my save the cat stuff, um, there's like a YouTube link that gives a I give a very good description of my view of the save the cat model and how I I view it as kind of a hero-driven model. Um maybe, maybe I could share it with you uh for listen for listeners. Um, and it's like a two-hour lecture. But if you ever listen to that, and I I'm not as strict as Blake Snyder. Blake Snyder, Jessica, they get they get dinged a little bit by people like that's not true. It's not I I I always say save the cats a strategy and a really, really good one that works 90% of the time, but you can play with it sometimes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So why am I saying this? Because relentless horror is the version that Jessica and Blake would say is the thing you want. They they would point to that and say, so it usually comes down to the fact that when you're coming up with a log line, there's a thing called story DNA. And I'm a big proponent of this. Who's your hero? What's their goal? What's the obstacle? What's the stakes, right? And in in a story like like I always use Raiders of the Lost Ark. You can see I'm a Spielberg kid. Um, Indiana Jones has to find the lost arc, there's Nazis in the way. If he doesn't get the lost arc, they'll use the arc to win the war. Hero goal, obstacle stakes. The goal is very specific and as a finish line, you can almost see. You could see him collecting the thing. So in relentless horror, those are clearly defined. Um, so in a movie like I'll say Scream, um, Sydney must figure out who the killer is, or maybe you could say survive the killer. Um, the obstacle is the killer, the stakes are life and death. It's very simple, very primal.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But when you get to a story, that's so that's relentless.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and you also say in the book, too, that it is kind of just like the word relentless, where from the start you're in this life and death danger, stakes are rising all the way through the book. So you start out that way.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a it's an excellent point. So so so the thing about the Blake Jessica model of Save the Cat and my model, like when I say use this as a strategy, is by the break into two by the 25 page mark or something before the fun and games, you establish hero goal obstacle states, and the whole rest of the movie is about that. Yeah, it's that's what it's about. It's and the the big dramatic question will Sydney survive Ghostface or will she die? And the whole movie plays out about that, you know, or at least until act three.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and then but slow burn doesn't play that. It's or at least its log line might be something completely it hides the ball. And in fact, sometimes they're hard to pitch because you have to pitch the midpoint. So and and some very popular movies uh do this. Jurassic Park really doesn't kick off until about the 50-minute mark. Yeah, but I guarantee you when you pitch Jurassic Park, and you'd say, What's it about? Oh, it's about these dinosaurs who get loose in a theme park and are trying to kill, but it really doesn't happen to almost the halfway point. So that's why it's slow burn. It happens in the middle. Get out is a is a great example. You if you if you remember the trailers for Get Out, they really didn't tell you what it was about. They kind of they kind of hinted at things, they showed you some jokes, they they played cool music. It was a great trailer, but they leave a lot of it to be mystery. Recently, weapons uh did the same thing. Uh, even Barbarian before that does the same thing. So the thing about slow burn horror is the monster, it it it's a couple things usually happen. The hero doesn't either doesn't know who the monster is, like the monster, like in a movie like Halloween, the monster's killing in the background, and Jamie Lee Curtis has no idea there's a monster, she's babysitting, she's doing nothing, and she's the hero. Um, and so that's one example. The the hero has no idea there's a monster. Sometimes in a movie like Megan, um, they know there's a monster, they're living with the monster, but they don't know it's dangerous yet, or they don't know it's life or death. So that's another common one. And then the last but not least is sometimes they're not trapped with the monster, you know. So if you're watching Alien Earth, Alien Earth right now, it hasn't really devolved into a battle for survival totally because they think they think they're the ones in charge, even though we know as the audience, uh-oh, this is gonna be a battle for survival by the end, you know, even though the monster's trapped in glass. So slowburn movies, um, that's that's what defines them. Um and there's a lot of tricks uh for slowburn, and I'll just give you one trick. Um, the the problem when you get to the funny games is why isn't this boring? And a lot of times agents and stuff, producers in my end, they will say, you know, we don't know, there's no goal here, there's no trajectory and things like that. Um, and the key thing with slowburn horror is slowburn horror really works off of tension. Um so and there's many ways you can do that. You can have the monster working off screen, and we know this time, this ticking time bombs getting closer and closer and more personal and more personal, and the bomb's gonna go off at the midpoint. Um sometimes you the the hero is is following a mystery, like like there's things going on. Maybe this house seems haunted. They don't think it's gonna kill them, but now they're following the mystery of the haunted house. So there is a goal obstacle in stakes. It's just not the battle for survival goal obstacle and stakes. And last but not least, the one that's seems to be Very popular movies today is the dramatic indie movie is happening while the horror stuff is happening. So you get Sinners is a really good example of this. Sinners has this great period piece story that's excellent to watch, but it doesn't collide with the monster until at least probably three quarters of the way through. But it's such an interesting story before then that we put up with it with this bomb under the table that the monster is coming. The monster is coming. So it just juices the tension of an ordinary dramatic movie.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's super interesting. And it sounds like uh Slowburn is probably harder to pull off because you don't have such literal life and death stakes the whole time. And it's almost like, how do you play on that danger scale without going all the way like full volume to life and death? Um, but that's great to know because I know a lot of writers will be like, well, you know, I am writing something more like that. And then they feel like they're just not gonna write a horror story that works because you're giving them options of their spectrum.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you bring up a great point. Normally, I'm a script coach myself and a story coach and things like that. Normally, I'd scare people off from going in the direction of the slow burn kind of stuff. I almost want them to do the hero goal obstacle stakes ones because a lot of times people think they're doing the hero goal obstacle stakes ones and they unintentionally go in this direction.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The only reason, and honestly, if you know me, I'm up, I'm like hero goal obstacle stakes. And most of my notes are like, you're not doing, you know, if you clear that up, you'll have a lot easier path with agents, producers, things like that. The rest, you'll be noted to death if you don't do it, right? But I have to say that just as a fan of horror, it would be disingenuous of me to kind of say that's the only way to do it. Because at least half of the movies we watch are are slow burns, uh, half of the horror or read for sure. Um, and so I kind of had to say, and that that's why I think writing a save the cap book is important for that. I kind of had to say, here's how you can incorporate the two things into the into the one thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, especially as we get to you know blending genres more and things like that. Like we're always coming up with new ways to do things. So it's nice to know we have options.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. I love that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so I want to talk, if we can, a little bit about characters because one of the things I see a lot in the horror manuscripts I edit is that there will be a super passive protagonist that is just kind of reacting and reacting to the horror or the monster or the weird things happening. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So my big trick for this, and it's almost not even character driven, but to kind of tweak it, is it's the goal, it's the goal issue a lot of times. Um, it's it's the goal. And my big thing that I I have a list of in the book, because I think this can solve that problem if you're having that problem, is sub goals. Um, and I I think especially when you get in the funny game section of like a relentless horror movie, yeah. It's very easy to just kind of cower or run away, or you know, but or even hunker down. But I do think you almost have to turn it into mini stories that are related to the sub goals. It's almost like a video game where you go on these little missions based on the big thing. And I have a again, I have a big list of things that can help you brainstorm these, but they could be anything from like tool acquisition, you know. We need the we need the shotgun or we need the the shovel or we something like that. Um, solving a mystery, that could be a thing. Um, getting medical attention, calling for help. You know, a lot of these are very obvious, but I have a big list of obvious ones if you need help with that. Yeah, but I think coming up with these mini stories that kind of cycle through that all are in service of the bigger story of survival. Um, that's the key to kind of making your protagonist active. And and you know, if your protagonist is inactive, if they're the type of person that's a slacker or something like that, um I always go back to a story like Sh uh Shrek. I don't know why I'm doing all the kids' movies today. Shrek is always my example when I talk about this. Like Shrek just wants to be left alone. Shrek's kind of a passive character. So the object with that is they turn the heat up on Shrek so much that the only way he can be left alone again, the only way he can fight to get back to status quo is to take lots of action. Yeah, and and and be very determined. And that's always my thing with with heroes, even passive heroes, is you just got to light the heat. That's where you have to raise the stakes on them a little bit. So they're forced to to have sub goals, like their hiding spot isn't gonna last. Um, all the all these kind of things. Somebody's hurt. Um, somebody needs to get the word out. There's a ticking clock, like like, you know, the police car is on the hill and they're looking around, and we only have a couple minutes to alert them to the, you know, we're trapped down here. Um, you have to give the and if you can come up with those sub goals, usually you can weave in and out of things. Um, and it keeps things from getting redundant as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I like um speaking of goals, you were saying earlier when we talked about the setup, how there needs to be something going on that the horror or the monster can get in the way of. So Shrek is a great example of, you know, kind of like the most passive example you can pick. He has a life going on, and most of us will. And so when, you know, the monster comes in, we already have existing goals that are going to compete with that survival or whatever until they can't. So we just gotta keep that in mind too.

SPEAKER_00:

That's great.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, okay, so I have two more, two more questions for you. One of them is about you talk about dread, scares, and gross outs. And that was one of my favorite parts of the book. Can you just describe like that section for us real quick?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's and honestly, I'm I love that you like that section because it's it's probably the section that made me write the book. It was like the it was like once I had that, I was like, I need to write this book because I want to get this part out.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I loved it.

SPEAKER_00:

And and it's a lot of it, I have to give credit. Stephen King, I think in his book Dance Macabre, that I read when I was like 10 years old. Like so, I was already thinking writing horror back then. Um, he he had, and I I kind of paraphrased it. Um, he he called them different things, and I never liked the things he called them, so I kind of changed them to my own. So um, Dread scares gross outs. Um, and you can look up the original, it's like terror or something, and something terror never computed well. I wasn't really sure what terror was versus so that's a big word that covers a lot, right? It covers a lot, and I could never really compute it. So um first we'll start with the two most obvious ones scares. Scares are moments where um monsters attack, uh, something something really horrible happens. There's some kind of usually usually physical element to it. Um, it's less in your mind, you know, the wherewithal change, like ah, my arm turns into the werewolf or something.

SPEAKER_02:

Very literal.

SPEAKER_00:

It's very literal. Um, it's shocking, it comes out of nowhere, and it actually, you know, should get people's hearts pumping and and scare them in some way. It's and it it's so that's scares. Gross outs, I I think you can imagine what they are. Um, and they're kind of a a special case of of scares in some ways. Um and I go into all kinds of things like figuring out scares and all that and gross outs and stuff. But I'm gonna go back to my favorite one, which is dread. Um, because much like I said the sin was the big differentiating point in my own horror writing, when I kind of figured out what dread was, that was the big differentiator. And when I read, and I read a lot of horror writers because of I'm a horror writer, um, when I read them, a lot of times that's what's missing because you can never have enough of it. Um, I have a whole nother thing in my other books called a rooting resume. And dread and rooting resume seem similar. Rooting resume is kind of the save the cat of it. That's like, why do we care about this character? Why do we I feel like you can pile that on in the first 10 pages? I feel like in a horror script, you could pile dread on by dozens and dozens of examples. Like every you could just like every page can have little pieces of dread. And what I discovered recently, and this is the reason I almost wanted to write the book. Like, once I had this, I was like, I have all these other things. And now this is really cool, and I've never heard anybody say this. I was watching the movie Barbarian, and there was an interview with the director, and he said he was reading a book about red flags, like on dates, and he stacked those into the beginning of his movie, red flags, and it popped in my head, that's dread. And I so I called him dread flags because I love a good, I love a good pun. Yeah, I love it. Dread flags, dread is really just red flags to the audience or to the hero. Sometimes the hero misses them, like sometimes the hero doesn't notice the uh I don't know, the open door behind them or something like that. Dread is just red flag after red flag after red flag that something's not right and leads the audience to um to worry, and and you can just stack these like on and it could be everything from bad weather, like we see the storm start. Yeah, that's a dread flag. That's the we're like, uh oh, the storm's starting, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

What's or there's like a murder of crows in your front yard.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a murder of crows in the front yard, and they could they could be really subtle things like uh a piece of rotting fruit. Well, I guess that's not very subtle, but I mean they can be some person acting in a creepy way to you or something. I love that. Yeah, so that my my favorite thing in the book, or one of my favorite things to tell writers about is dread flags. Stack red flags that maybe the hero sees or maybe they don't. Usually it's a mix of both. Usually they see some, they don't see some, but the audience sees them, and the audience is like, uh-oh, they're not realizing that storms are bad or flickering, flickering lights aren't good, where that creepy decoration in the haunted house hall isn't a good thing, you know. Yeah, they're the they're dread flags, and um yeah, so anyway, that I think you can somebody listening to that can take that away and run with it without even buying the book. Yeah. And um, and and use it to great use in their own stories.

SPEAKER_02:

I feel like what a fun way to be creative with that, too. You know, like that's what readers like, that's probably what the authors will have fun with. So I love that part. That was my favorite part of the whole book.

SPEAKER_00:

It's my biggest list, too, because once I get started on that, I'm like, oh, there's so many. And it's a big, it's a big list. And I didn't even get to, you know, probably three, four, five is coming soon. I could I'll I I'll have to write a whole book of just some dread flags.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, love it. Okay. Well, the last question I have for you is about um how and when we show our monsters, because I know, well, not really how and when, but I guess how much of our monster we show. Because one of the things I see a lot in drafts is over-explaining, over focusing on details instead of leaving things up to our imagination. Um, and you talk about in the book how our imaginations are going to make things way more scary than any detail you can add. How do we know where the line is between too much and too little?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great question. It's a it's a tricky for screenwriters, it's a tricky question. Yeah. Because when I'm in production, directors like to leave a lot out. Producers hate to leave anything out, and they like to tell the whole story. So there's usually this power struggle between the two. But I'll tell you, any any um horror or artist is on the side of leading leaving as much out as possible, you know. As leaving, I I always describe it, let's say the things in the shadows. You don't want to completely have it be in the shadows. I work a lot with the guy who directed and wrote Blair Witch Project, the Blair Witch Project. They left everything in the shadows in that. That was kind of all messed up to interpretation. I always feel like the monsters in the shadow in your book, give give the reader a flickering flashlight. Give the reader that flickering flashlight, give them little glimpses. And I actually, in my monster section, I actually differentiate um kind of backstory from what I call what I'm calling in the book lore. And I think lore is what you kind of tell your audience. It's kind of like maybe we know a little bit, but we don't know the actual like how the monster was born and who its mother was or something like that. We we might know the ghost story that was told because the monster showed up, and we might learn that or get glimpses of it. But that's basically what you want. You want to give those little glimpses. Um, and it depends on the story, obviously. Like if it's a story like Scream, that's almost like a murder mystery in some ways, and you're gonna tell the whole thing. But if it is a story like the Blair Witch Project, the fun is actually in almost like that that lore, that that that cryptid style, like ghost story kind of telling of what it is. Yeah. You want to give a I always feel like you want to give a little more than that, but not too much more. Like you want to give just a little bit more. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like you said, the lore and the little flashes is way scarier because our imaginations will take it and run with it. But I feel I see a lot of writers who are super concerned about the details of like, do they have fur, do they have skin? Do and it's like we don't need to know that as much as how it's affecting the characters and the story and things like that.

SPEAKER_00:

I I think for better or worse, this is this is where like notes can hurt you a little bit. Because if you if you get enough notes, somebody's gonna say, I'd like to know more about the monster, and then you're gonna be like, and that's the that's a whole nother podcast. Yeah. But you know, I think that's where some writers get a little messy and they have to be a little, but I think if you have intent for these things like slow burn or hiding things in the shadow, and you you really, really understand why you're doing it, that's the key, right? Yeah, it's like if you know why you're doing it, if it's not an accident, no, it's different if somebody says, I'd like to know more about the monster, and you're like, What? They didn't understand my whole backstory, then maybe you need to show more about the monster.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But you know, if you have intent, sometimes it's good when you get the note, I'd like to know more about the monster. Sometimes that's where you want to. Like, yeah, yeah, I know you do. That's like that's my point. That's my point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, you have so much more stuff on monsters, and I part of me wanted to go into like monster backstory and all that because that was fascinating too. But we'll leave that to the book as well. Uh, so any last parting words of wisdom for horror writers?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh wow, I I think I said all the cool stuff. I should have I should have saved something in reverse. Um, the you know, the only other thing that I'll say that's also in the book is um tone can be a tricky thing with um horror writers. Um, and a little trick I have in that in that regard is I come up with I what I call a tonameter before I start my projects. And a tonameter, I I literally let's say it's a zombie story I'm telling. I say, what tone is my movie or novel most like? And then I'll make a list of goofy, you know, I'll start redneck zombies might be number one on the goofy list, and maybe something like 28 days later, I'll be most more like seven, eight, or nine on my scale of one to ten. And I try to figure out where my scale is.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And when in doubt, I ask myself, would this fit at number six? Or have I gone to number two or three or four? And um, because I think that's tone is really important to keep a consistent tone in a horror movie. And again, if you have the intention of jumping the toads somewhere around the midpoint, like they think this is a serious thing, but I'm gonna go, you know, wild and crazy around the midpoint. I mean, that might be understandable, but most things need to keep that constant tone.

SPEAKER_02:

I actually love that part of the book too. And I kept thinking, how would I rank this the same? How would I do it differently? So I think it's cool that we can kind of do it subjectively as well and say, where does our story fit on this scale?

SPEAKER_00:

It gives you a guide. And it's it's fun to make the tone chart.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally. I know I was looking at that part a lot. So anyway, we will put the link to your new book in the show notes. We'll put the link to where to find you around the internet and everything. But thank you so much for coming on the show today.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. This was a great time, great conversation.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, so that's it for this episode of the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. Head over to savannagilbo.com forward slash podcast for the complete show notes, including the resources I mentioned today, as well as bonus materials to help you implement what you've learned. And if you're ready to get more personalized guidance for your specific writing stage, whether you're just starting out, stuck somewhere in the middle of a draft, drowning in revisions, or getting ready to publish, take my free 30-second quiz at savannagilbo.com forward slash quiz. You'll get a customized podcast playlist that'll meet you right where you're at and help you get to your next big milestone. Last but not least, make sure to follow this podcast in your podcast player of choice because I'll be back next week with another episode full of actionable tips, tools, and strategies to help you become a better writer. Until then, happy writing.

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Savannah Gilbo

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