Why must you mimic them?” ― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears―the wind howls. “And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn.
It’s made by an animal, but attributing a howl to a subject that’s not an animal sets an especially eerie mood. The word “howl” evokes a melancholy, pained cry. “If I didn’t look around it would not be true that somebody had opened the gate with the creaky hinges, and that is a wonderful principle for a man to get hold of… What you don’t know don’t hurt you, for it ain’t real.” - Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men: Restored Edition 8 “Creaky” objects, like wooden floorboards in disrepair or a rusty swing, almost cry out in warning to the reader. “There’s nothing like a blood-curdling hymn to make you feel at home, thought Jean Louise.” - Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman 7ĭescriptive words for sounds add layers to an already spooky writing project. It comes from the medieval idea that an excessive amount of fear can turn the blood cold and therefore curdle it. The word “blood-curdling” arouses terror and fear from the senses. Pettigood stood frozen gazing at the ransom letter, a spine-tingling draft billowed through the drawing room, as if bringing his awareness back from the clouds. The adjective “spine-tingling” can refer to a chilling, heart-thumping type of fright, but can also describe thrilling suspense about an unknown situation.Īs Mr.
“But some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.” ―Howard Phillips Lovecraft 5Īlluding to the human anatomy in your writing conjures sensations of fear.
Emerging from the supernatural, a phantasm might be seen so faintly, so momentarily, that its beholder questions the reality of the surrounding world. “Phantasm” conjures a haunting image of an unnatural apparition. A few feet ahead, her eyes met the macabre playground of the day’s crime scene. She turned the corner of the house and flinched as the smell of decaying flesh, rotten yet cold as iron, struck her nostrils. Nothing screams Halloween like the word “macabre,” which was derived from an Old French phrase that alludes to the “dance of death.” Today, macabre acutely describes death in a grisly and gory fashion. I keep it in a jar on my desk.” - Robert Bloch, author of Psycho 3 “Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. It’s also a form of “ghoul,” a word derived from Arabic that means demonic being.
The word “ghoulish” describes grotesque or perverse characteristics that are frightening to the beholder. Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’” -Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” 2 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’ Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore. “‘Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, ‘art sure no craven, It’s reminiscent of the word “ghost” as if the subject is taking on a death-like pallor. The adjective “ghastly” evokes a horrifying or terrifying sentiment about the noun it’s describing.