Paranoia: A User's Guide by Taylor Hicklen

 



Paranoia: A User’s Guide

I was ten and my sister was six when our parents let us stay home alone. As they pulled the car out of the garage, my sister couldn’t contain her excitement.
“What do you want to do first? I’m going to watch a movie!”
I wasn’t so sure of myself. Our closest neighbors were at least a mile away. It had occurred to me more than once that something could happen to us and nobody would notice. As my sister ricocheted around the kitchen, I felt something cold and hard start to build in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t matter that Mom had written a list of emergency numbers by the phone. We were alone, I was left responsible, and the worst part was that absolutely anything could happen.

Now that my sister is seventeen, she watches tons of horror movies. I overhear her discussing them with her friends—what worked, what didn’t, why it scared her so much. The way she tells it, a good horror movie is a lot like being ten:

1. The characters are isolated. In order for the character to become afraid, they can’t have assistance close at hand. Distance them from their resources to create tension and drive the protagonist forward.

2. The protagonist is responsible for something. Whether it’s a laboratory, a camping trip, or simply holding down the fort while everybody else is away, screwing things up is not an option. This adds another layer to the panic—not only are they being chased by a knife-wielding maniac, but the house is going to be a wreck when everyone else gets home.

3. Anything could happen. Knowing every detail and motive isn’t scary. People are hardwired to deal with cold, logical fact. Add in an unknown element, however, and things get ugly in a hurry.

It took a seventeen-year-old’s reenactment of a scene from Paranormal Activity for me to realize why my writing was lacking a punch. It’s easy to rely on the cheap scares—jumping out from behind corners, clearly deranged neighbors—but in order for a character’s fear to be believable, we have to access that deeper fear, the fear that comes from wanting to do your best while the world around you tries to do its worst.