#(( as opposed to liking to live in that space right after you've jumped but havent hit the ground

[royalreef]

Anonymous inquired: 🔥🔥🔥 Munday - Accepting

(( So, when I write horror, I tend to write it using... well, I've called it the "Don't Flinch" rule in my head, but you could probably liken it just as much to quicksand or fingertraps or the like just as much.

The basic idea is this: nothing bad will happen to characters until they react to what's happening around them. It's a little like sitting them down into a chair and telling them that, whatever happens around them and whatever is going on, they will be entirely and wholly safe and untouched until the moment that they flinch. That they move, effectively, or interact with the horror, or otherwise involve themselves in some way. After that happens, all bets are off the table, they've caught it's attention and it can do whatever it wants to them now.

The reason why is pretty simple, in my opinion. No stimuli is worse than bad stimuli. Boredom is often far more painful than actual pain itself, and pain can be vastly preferable in the sense that at least then you have something to do, that you can then pare the situation down and react to it in a way that directly makes sense. There aren't really any instincts for making boredom less tolerable, but when bad things happen, the mind tends to contract and lessen the horribleness of it.

So, then, you want to force people to make that choice. They can stay in that boredom, they can walk freely and safely afterwards knowing that whatever happens is no fault of their own, or they can involve themselves. Heap the responsibility onto themselves, put themselves in harm's way, even end up hurt because of it, but then being able to react at all and to know what's happening and what reaction to have.

It's a pretty good way to build tension, I've discovered. It's picking at people's curiosity, making them sit and wait in that moment before anything happens, anticipating the drop and knowing they'll have to make themselves take that jump, and all they can do is try to brace themselves for what they know they're about to do. There's a choice to it, a choice with no right answers, yes, but a choice all the same.

And, likewise, it kinda just happened because I've figured out that people just really can't leave shit alone. There's always that urge to pick at that scab, to try and scratch, to stick their nose in where it doesn't belong. There's always the want for more, the inability to tolerate something being just out of reach for them, and I think that's fun to toy with.

Of course, another aspect of this rule for me is that... Well, by the horrors not being allowed to harm a character until they react to them or interact with them in some way, that does still mean they can do literally anything else other than that. Hence, don't flinch. Someone can throw a punch or swing a weapon directly at the victim's face, so to speak, and unless they flinch, it won't touch. However, that doesn't mean that throwing the punch or swinging the weapon isn't especially cruel, particularly with the awareness that if they do flinch, it will connect. Which, again, I also like to build tension, because it forces people and characters alike to steel their nerves. To force them to try and brace themselves to tolerate whatever's about to happen to them, because it's the only way they'll get out.