by Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar
Setting is an excellent way for a horror writer to cultivate mood. Edgar Allan Poe’s short
stories play with it in a masterful way, from the collapsing, fungus-covered House of Usher to
Prince Prospero’s multi-hued suite of rooms. The settings are integral to the plots and have
therefore been described in careful detail. While most modern writers may shy away from Poe’s
castellated abbeys and catacombs, a purposeful setting can elevate horror fiction.
It’s no surprise that, with the name of the house in the title, setting plays a crucial role in
Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Jackson provides detailed descriptions of the
ornately decorated yet ugly rooms and doesn’t toy with the reader, cautioning us from the
beginning that Hill House is a bad place, from the odd angles that make an occupant almost
seasick to the terrible story of the suicide that occurred on the premises decades earlier. When
the house begins manifesting, from knocking on doors to writing on wallpaper and what appears
to be blood spilled all over one character’s room, the reader is ready for it, prepared to be scared.
Though not all of our questions are answered about Hill House, Jackson leaves the reader with a
menacing sense of the place.
Though the crumbling, haunted mansion is a trope in itself, Silvia Moreno-Garcia puts
her spin on it in Mexican Gothic by the change of location: Mexico rather than somewhere in
Europe or America. The setting is both historically-accurate and foreboding: Noemí, a young
woman with big dreams living in Mexico City in the 1950s, is limited by her father and society.
Thus, her days are filled with dances and new dresses until she is called to help her cousin
Catalina. Far from home and tucked away in a forest, Noemí quickly realizes that her new
situation is even more oppressive than the confinement of her regular life. High Place, the estate, is set apart from the small Mexican village El Triunfo, contributing to the isolation she feels as
she gets to know Catalina’s new, strange, cold family. In a nod to Gothic literature of the past,
Moreno-Garcia depicts the house itself almost as a character with its faded, once grand façade,
ornate furniture, and moldering walls—it’s a beast with hidden secrets.
Not all horror depends on houses: Alma Katsu’s The Hunger begins like any historical
fiction novel about pioneers traveling west in the mid-1800s for better opportunities. The book
gives a fictionalized account of the Donner Party’s ill-fated attempt to travel to California, using
many characters who were real people and portraying struggles the land thrust upon them: heat,
cold, and unseen dangers. While the true story of the Donner Party is horrific enough without a
supernatural twist, Katsu’s novel includes a group of diseased people who live apart from the
pioneers’ camps and crave human flesh. Once the pioneers realize that these are not wolves but
inhuman creatures hunting them and mutilating corpses of the dead, they have more to fear for
their survival than their dwindling provisions. While not named as such—though the characters
eventually refer to them as monsters—these creatures are very zombie-like. It may be hard to
imagine strong literary quality in a novel that includes zombies, but Katsu draws the reader into
the western setting and lulls them into a suspension of disbelief before throwing the sensational
idea of flesh-eating creatures… who have something in common with the actual humans from
history who resorted to cannibalism.
While no novel should depend on the setting to control the narrative, an interesting one
can help shape it. In an unlikely pairing, Hide by Kiersten White combines reality TV (so the
characters initially believe) and Greek mythology but sets the action at a run-down amusement
park. Though the fourteen “contestants” believe they are competing for a substantial cash prize,
needing only to outplay their competitors in what turns out to be a twisted version of hide and seek, they are actually being sacrificed to an ancient creature in exchange for protecting some
wealthy white people. The setting provides a plethora of hiding places as well as fodder for the
plot; the decaying remains of the once cheerful place give rise to accidental injuries and
discoveries as the characters fight for their lives. Like a garish antique doll that was once a
beloved plaything, the concept of an abandoned amusement park spins more nightmares than
dreams.
While setting is only one piece of the puzzle required to craft original horror fiction, it’s
an important one, allowing the writer to pull the reader into a different and frightening world.
Writers who take the time to develop an inventive backdrop boost the effectiveness of their
work.
Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar is a horror/suspense writer and associate English professor in Pennsylvania. She previously worked for fifteen years as a secondary English teacher in Delaware public schools. At the college level, she continues her passion for serving underprepared and at-promise students. She holds a Doctorate of Education with a Literacy Specialization from the University of Delaware and is working toward an MFA in Creative Writing at Wilkes University. Her creative work has appeared in more than thirty places including The Horror Zine, Tales from the Moonlit Path, Corvus Review, and Quagmire Literary Magazine. A member of the Horror Writers Association and Pennwriters, she is also the current fiction editor of River and South Review. When she’s not traveling the world with her husband, she enjoys watching horror movies and hanging out at home with her rescue dog and cats.
https://cassandraosullivansachar.com/.
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