So far, we’ve looked at science fiction and paranormal. This week: winner of the "ick factor" and most likely to be formulaic: Horror.
And the usual disclaimer: this is just to get you started and not intended to be an exhaustive list of all possibilities.
Possible tropes: Reclusive sociopathic character (think Jeffrey Dahmer).
OR
Sociopathic character who seems outgoing, articulate, charming, friendly, well-adjusted but is a cold-blooded serial killer. That's how Ted Bundy was able to get so many female victims to trust him.
OR
Can be a charismatic sociopathic cult leader with a God complex (think Charles Manson). You'll have to develop some extra characters as followers. A little research into cults is a good idea.
--The protagonist will often be very intelligent--by all accounts, Dahmer, Bundy, and Manson were all of above-average to near-genius intelligence. He or she may be a virtuoso violinist or a gifted sculptor. This gives your readers opportunity to lament his or her wasted potential. I'm not saying to create sympathetic psychopaths, I'm saying your readers will need something besides gore and violence to engage them with the story.
--Obsessive or obsessive-compulsive tendencies are common to these characters.
--Protagonist may have been abused or neglected as a child, bullied in school, or experienced some other kind of trauma. He or she could be a war veteran or a survivor of some natural or man-made catastrophe.
--Or your protagonist could have had a suburban, middle-class upbringing with no apparent etiology for their mental illness. Unlike the paranormal, you're dealing with monsters with human faces and, supposedly, human souls. The quiet next-door neighbor who volunteers at a soup kitchen or has the most meticulously groomed yard in the neighborhood, the one who seems a bit quirky at first, but nice enough. People who knew some of our more notorious serial killers are often heard in interviews saying what a quiet / polite / charming / intelligent / talented person the killer was.
--Despite what we see in the news and in TV and movie crime dramas, extreme antisocial behavior in humans is a rarity—we are, by nature, communal creatures. Horror authors like to play on the idea that most of us humans would rather believe that everyone is naturally a decent person. As a result, most writers make their protagonist suffer some sort of terrible trauma to turn them evil. Stephen King’s work features mostly these kinds of sympathetic protagonists. Carrie White, from King's first published novel Carrie, is a shy girl raised by a widowed religious fundamentalist mother, and has been the butt of schoolmates' jokes her entire life. But Carrie has telekinetic power, and in a perfect "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" moment, exacts revenge on her entire high school on Prom night when a prank pulled on her goes too far. William March’s 1954 novel The Bad Seed, on the other hand, presents the reader with the notion that a human could actually be born with no moral compass whatsoever. March's killer was a young girl in pigtails, upping the creepy factor.
--Items not originally created to be used as weapons (kitchen utensils, garden tools, grooming implements) are used as weapons or instruments of torture, while "conventional" weapons like guns are not common.
--Horror's most distinguishing characteristic is that the ordinary, the everyday, the mundane, are turned into something sinister and scary.
Most common conflicts: person v. society is usually the only conflict. “Person v. person” doesn’t really work here unless it’s a revenge story, because there’s often a complete disconnect between the creepy axe murderer and his or her victims. And the creepy axe murderer seldom experiences any moments of conscience, so person versus self will be rare or only occasionally treated in a horror story.
That horror stories are the most likely to become formulaic hasn’t seemed to deter the makers of the “Saw” movies.
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