By The Fire: Episode 137 100 Word Horror Stories

Hello Addicts, the new season of the Horror Addicts podcast has begun and things are a little different this season. Season 12 of the horroraddicts.net podcast is all about The Next Great Horror Writer Contest. Since the competition was announced we’ve had over 130 people who entered the contest. The first challenge for the writers was to make a 100-word horror story, which brings us to the topic of this blog post. For each new challenge that our contestants perform I will be writing a post about the challenge.  I’ll be calling this series of posts,  By The Fire to give the feeling that we’re sitting by the fire and talking about the topic.

Writing a 100-word horror story is no easy task if you ask me. In just a few words you have to tell a story and scare someone with it. So the most important part of a short scary story is the description. Be it a haunted house, scary monster or possibly a horrific massacre, making it come to life is the most important part of the story. The 100-word horror story is a great test of a writer’s skill because to get a reaction you have to do it quick.

Two other elements that are important to the 100-word horror story is for it to have the main character and a conflict. The main character doesn’t have to be good or bad but he or she does have to be involved in some kind of conflict. It could be someone describing a murder they are about to commit or maybe someone running from a monster, whatever it is there has to be a conflict. So to sum things up there are three important elements to the 100-word horror story: Description, the main character, and conflict.

A great thing about a 100-word story is that they’re a quick way to get to know a new writer.  A good short horror story can pack a wallop and if it’s really good it can revisit you in your nightmares. So horror addicts, do you have a favorite 100-word horror story, or do you want to tell us a 100-word story? If you have a scary tale to tell share it with us in the comments and don’t forget to listen to episode 137 of the podcast to hear some short stories from our Next Great Horror Writer contestants.