Besides all of the trick-or-treat fun, costume parties and family-friendly activities, you may want to use Halloween as an opportunity to get creative with your little one and work a little learning into spooky season.
Most of the holidays we celebrate today bring stories with them as part of the tradition, so why not teach kids to create a Halloween-themed story to celebrate? This Halloween, participate in the tradition of telling bone-chilling stories around the campfire with a tale of your own. Learn how to write a scary story through our three-step writing guide:
- Create at least two unique spooky characters.
For your story to be powerful and scary at the same time, it’s important for you to create at least two really spooky characters. When you’re thinking about who they could possibly be, remember that it is extremely important for you to choose two characters who are very different from each other. This difference does not always have to be physical.
- For example, if you choose to write about two ogres, you could make one soft-spoken and shy, who doesn’t appreciate the conventional life of an ogre, while the other one is comparatively aggressive and evil. However, both of them are best friends as they’re bound together by a common goal to uncover the reason behind why the moon in their Ogre Village turns red every Halloween night!
- To increase conflict, which is the key to a good story, you could choose two characters who have different origins. For instance, you could write about a witch and a goblin who bump into each other in their Magic School and befriend each other even though their families are mortal enemies. How does this friendship go? Does it help resolve the generational conflict? Asking such follow-up questions may be helpful for your story.
- Establish a unique setting.
A powerful setting is the heart of a good story. When you’re writing about magical characters in a fantastical timeline, the importance of a powerful setting only increases. Before you begin writing, brainstorm potential settings for your Halloween story to make it more interesting—such as a castle that has minotaur horns, a moving tree house covered with blood-stained cobwebs or an ancient cottage that has a rooftop made out of human tissue, bone and cartilage.
- Think of a conflict and a solution.
The importance of dramatic conflict and believable solutions in a story cannot be emphasized enough. To make sure that your story is truly festive, it would be a good idea for the conflict in your story to go hand-in-hand with the occasion that you’re trying to write about. For example, if you’re writing about Halloween, a possible example of conflict could involve the loss of a precious pumpkin lantern that absorbs all the night in the world on Halloween night. Without this illuminated pumpkin, the world would be submerged in pitch darkness on Oct. 31, which is why it’s essential for a werewolf and his best friend, the moon, to collaborate and bring it back. Of course, these are just ideas, and it’s important for you to use your imagination combined with your understanding of Halloween to bring your own ideas to life!
