Concepts & Motifs — in Horror Fiction
The ideas horror is built from — the uncanny, possession, the eldritch, the mythos a dozen writers share. These are the words readers reach for when a book unsettles them and they cannot say why.
18 terms · click any to explore
Body Horror
Body horror focuses on the visceral, grotesque transformation or violation of the physical form, triggering deep revulsi…
Changeling
A supernatural infant swapped with a human child, growing up with hidden motives that slowly reveal their true, often ma…
Cthulhu Mythos
A shared fictional universe of ancient gods and forbidden knowledge, originally created by H.P. Lovecraft to evoke cosmi…
Doppelganger
A physical double of a living person that appears in literature to signal impending doom, madness, or the fracturing of …
Eldritch
Eldritch describes phenomena that are profoundly alien and unnatural, evoking deep dread through their violation of know…
Exorcism
A ritualistic confrontation where an empowered agent attempts to forcibly evict a hostile supernatural entity from a hos…
Found Footage
A narrative technique presenting events through discovered documents, logs, or transcripts to create an immersive illusi…
Ghost Story
A narrative where spectral entities interact with the living, often blurring the line between psychological terror and g…
Gothic Novel
A literary genre blending intense emotion with supernatural terror, using decaying settings and psychological dread to e…
Lovecraftian
A subgenre emphasizing human insignificance against vast, indifferent cosmic entities that defy comprehension and drive …
Necronomicon
A fictional grimoire containing forbidden cosmic knowledge that drives readers to madness when they attempt to read its …
Poltergeist
A restless spirit that interacts with the physical world through violent, unexplained disturbances like flying objects a…
Possession
A narrative framework where an external entity, usually demonic or spiritual, takes control of a character's body and mi…
Revenant
A revenant is a physically returned corpse that retains its consciousness and agency, driven by vengeance or duty to hau…
The Uncanny
The uncanny describes the eerie discomfort when familiar things suddenly feel strange and threatening, blurring the line…
Unreliable Narrator
A storyteller whose credibility is compromised by bias, delusion, or deception, forcing you to question every fact prese…
Weird Fiction
Weird Fiction blends supernatural dread with cosmic indifference, focusing on psychological unease rather than tradition…
Wendigo
A starving spirit that possesses humans, turning them into gaunt cannibals driven by an insatiable hunger for human fles…
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