HELP ME MAKE A SCARY STORY SCRIPT Sub-Step 1: Invent a “what if” scenario that seems impossible to solve and terrifying to face. Determine the environment… closed rooms, dark hallways, and sudden obstructions or tests for the hero. Make it something familiar that the audience can relate to. If this is being performed via video conference and everyone is at their home maybe the spooky story can be set it at a home…

Sub-Step 2: Choose characters for the story. Make the story and its characters personal to you. Say the story happened to the friend of someone you know or a cousin of yours and fill in the specifics with places and names familiar to your audience. Choose a protagonist who resembles your audience – someone their age, belongs to the same group, or shares one of their names. Manufacture a spooky or evil villain (alien, witch, ghost, or monster, etc.) who has flaws that the hero can exploit to defeat them.

Sub-Step 3: Try researching urban legends for ideas or try a modern twist on a classic scary storyline. Use basements instead of caves or limos instead of horses and carriages. Select eerie details that convey the smell, taste, touch, sound and vision of the story – really connect to the senses of your audience.

Sub-Step 4: Let good triumph. Maintain a theme of good triumphing over evil and insert lessons throughout about universal values of kindness if you are telling your story to kids. The hero’s success should come from a virtue or strength of their moral character. If these are intended for older audiences, this theme of good triumphing over evil is not mandatory.

Sub-Step 5: Create a story that has a clear beginning, middle and ending. A clear rising action with a building of suspense as the conflict heads towards a scary climax, raising the stakes of that conflict along the way, with a conclusion that employs a twist, surprise or cliff-hanger ending. Also don’t reveal the outcome or conclusion until the very end of your story. Try to leave a large dramatic pause right before the conclusion.

Sub-Step 6: Bring the story to life. Keep the story short (no longer than 5 minutes) – well paced and dramatic.