Uncertainty in Horror

While stories are typically based on conflict, I think that there are other elements that can take a story almost as far or that can add a lot to a narrative. This time in particular, I want to talk about uncertainty and, to an extent, certainty.

I talked about this a lot over on Stories Across Borders back when I did my cycle on horror stories with Blake. Especially in the episode for my story Heavy Void, which was very much written with these principles in mind. I think this is something that most writers kind of intrinsically know anyway, but probably don’t actively think about very often. So I want to go back over how important both certainty and uncertainty are to the horror genre and examine something that most of us know by default but probably haven’t actively paid much attention to.

I’ve written a lot of horror over the years, even if much of it has been lost to the abyss never to be seen again. However, I’ve only posted one pure horror story here at the time of writing this, Heavy Void. But, if you’ve read any of my other work, you’ll likely have noticed that I frequently include horror elements in my other stories as well. Domino is primarily a dramatic story, but it leans into the scarier elements of the premise on occasion to increase the tension. Similarly, The Orchard is a fantasy story, but it makes use of the darkness in a very horror-like way towards the end for the same reason.

Suffice to say, I’ve spent a decent amount of time thinking about what makes a story scary or intense and what brings those tension levels up. That’s where the principle of certainty and uncertainty comes in.

The unknown is scary. As humans, we tend to fear what we don’t know or understand. Or, at the very least, we are more inclined to be afraid of the unknown. It’s a survival mechanism. If we don’t know what something is, it makes more sense to be cautious than to just assume it can’t hurt us. Unless you’re one of the minority who are an expert, even if you know that the majority of the snakes or spiders in your area are largely harmless to a human, you’re not going to try and pet one because you don’t know if the animal you’re looking at is the dangerous kind or not.

Darkness scares people because it conceals. It sounds a bit trite, but it isn’t the absence of light that makes people shudder. It’s not being able to see. It is a very primal fear. The notion that a predator could be hiding in the shadows waiting to pounce and you wouldn’t even know it was there let alone what it was - how it might kill and eat you. With the lights off, that sound you hear in the night could be mice in the walls or it could be your imminent demise. You don’t know.

That’s why darkness is such a useful tool in telling a story - even when it isn’t a visual medium. Even those of us who aren’t particularly scared of the dark still make that connection between light and safety, darkness and danger. When you put a character in the dark, you create a void where anything could be lurking. Danger could be anyway, waiting to pounce. Because of that association and because of the uncertainty that environment creates, it increases the tension and makes it scarier.

This principle doesn’t just apply to the darkness either. Any time you take away a character’s ability to perceive their environment, put them into an unfamiliar location or place them in a situation with an uncertain outcome you create this uncertainty. Things are less scary the more familiar we become with them. That’s why horror franchises often feel less scary to us over time. That’s why we can conquer our fears. Naturally, this means the inverse is true as well.

Again, this isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most writers just know this intrinsically. Most of the time, a story is captivating because we don’t know what is going to happen and we’re compelled to read on by curiosity. Or, sometimes, it’s because we know exactly what the outcome is and want to know how the story got to that point.

So, let’s talk about how certainty factors into this. Personally, I am of the opinion that the perfect recipe for horror is a mixture of the unknown and the guaranteed. Going back to our spider or snake, these are a fairly certain element. Especially if we know they are dangerous. You know that creature can bite you, poison you and kill you. But, you also know that if you can keep track of them and keep your distance, they aren’t a threat. If we bring the darkness back into this picture? Suddenly, you can’t be certain where that spider is anymore. Maybe it’s still on the wall across from you or maybe it’s hanging on a web lowering itself towards your head. Maybe it’s even already landed on you and you have no idea. That situation is much more alarming.

You can see this idea play out in Heavy Void. The protagonist wakes up in an unfamiliar environment in a thick darkness his eyes cannot penetrate. He has no idea how they got where he did or why he ended up there. He knows he’s standing on dirt and that’s about it. This in and of itself is an uncertain, unfamiliar and therefore scary situation. He is isolated, confused and vulnerable and then stumbles across a brutally mutilated body - on realizing what it is by touch after tripping over it. He gets the immediate shock of finding a dead person and then the dread settles in that he isn’t alone in the dark. Something else has to be present within. Someone or something killed this other person and it could be anywhere. Just like with the spider.

This is why I am so willing to defend jump scares in film. A lot of people think they’re cheap, but I think when used correctly they’re the perfect example of this theory in action. The first jump scare is just a cheap shock. We now know the monster or the murderer is there and they are dangerous. That creates a certain danger. But then, instead of immediately jumping into the next jump scare, you make the audience wait. You throw in false alarms to spike the audience’s adrenaline and keep them on edge. They know the threat is out there, but they do not know when or how it will strike.

That’s the ideal recipe for a horror scene or story in my mind. Or at least, it often is. Nothing in writing is a steadfast rule. It’s the certainty that there is a threat combined with the uncertainty of what or where it is and how it will get you. It makes the odds feel stacked against the character and plays upon the natural inclinations of the audience. Guaranteed danger but uncertain circumstances. That is a recipe for high tension.

Nothing I’ve written above is exactly a revolutionary concept, and it’s not even a concept unique to horror. Almost every story is a combination of the certain and uncertain in some way. When you pick up a romance novel, you know the leads are going to get together in the end. You don’t know how and it’s that uncertain element that keeps you reading. In a crime drama, we know that there’s a danger to the city lurking around but the mystery of the killer’s identity keeps us invested. None of this is new.

However, I do find it very interesting. Uncertainty makes us curious. It’s why we continue reading. But, at the same time, it is something that can be weaponized to raise stakes, increase tension and even scare the audience. I think that concepts like this, that we tend to include naturally anyway, are still worth thinking about more actively because it can clue us in to why our stories work and how we can make more active use of such concepts to further invest our audience.