How To Make Any Story Creepy Using The Uncanny

How do I write a creepy story? This article will explore four tips for how to make any story creepy, regardless of genre, using… the Uncanny!

Have you ever watched a movie, read a book — even played a video game — that wasn’t explicitly in the Horror genre that still creeped you out? One moment you’re tracking along with the story feeling safe and comfortable, then something thoroughly unexpected pops up that leaves you, not merely surprised, but deeply unsettled. There’s something about that dimension of creepiness that enriches a story with another layer of emotional depth, so it stands out among more typical fare. If you find these creepy non-horror stories appealing, or—heck—if you just want to infuse your overtly frightening Horror story with a subtler species of fear, read on!

Uncovering the Uncanny

Okay, that all sounds great! But, uh… what is the Uncanny?

The Uncanny might be best defined as: ‘anything that seems oddly familiar, yet subtly off or wrong.’ Humans find Uncanny things creepy because they introduce ambiguity where previously there was none, so that we are no longer sure whether a person, place, or scenario is safe; perhaps they hide some unknown threat.

For example, when I was in my early teens, I visited a friend’s house only to realize that it had the same layout as mine! Up every flight of stairs, around every corner, I knew, generally, what to expect. But everything was equally unfamiliar because each room was appointed differently than at my house. I always had trouble sleeping over at my friend’s place because I knew, inevitably, I would wake up with the disorienting feeling of being both home and not home.

So, from here on, the underlying principles for how to make a story element uncanny (thus, creepy) are: create ‘Strange Doublings’ and introduce moments of ‘Subtle Implausibility.’

How To Make Any Story Creepy Using The Uncanny 

1. Uncanny Plots: Déjà Vu

To make a story feel uncanny at the plot level, repeat scenes or narrative beats. This will evoke déjà vu in the audience, making them question whether they have already seen this before. To increase their disorientation, make sure the repeated scenes and beats unfold slightly differently, leading to unexpected outcomes. That way, even if the audience realizes they have seen this moment before, it will throw them off when things don’t play out as they remembered. 

For Example:

The film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is an offbeat Romantic Comedy about a man named Joel using an experimental medical procedure to erase his memories of his ex. However, the twist is that Joel becomes conscious of the procedure as it is happening, essentially forcing him to relive his most potent memories of his ex, leading him to decide against the procedure after all. So, throughout the film, he ends up revisiting memories still in the degradation process. In some of these revisited scenes, the difference is subtle—the lights are out now, or rooms are stripped of their furniture. In some revisited scenes, though, his ex no longer has a face, or his ex breaks the scene by acknowledging that she is a figment of his imagination and begs him not to let the doctors erase her. Spooky.

2. Uncanny Settings: Liminal Spaces, Simulations, & More

Liminal spaces are a hot topic right now, so I will try not to retread too much old ground. Instead, let’s look at a quick and dirty definition of what liminal spaces are. Then we’ll explore my theory about how to make any setting feel uncanny.

Liminal spaces are transitional places such as gas stations, hotels and motels, waiting rooms, airports, casinos, malls. As you probably know, the setting in a story includes both the place and time the story is happening, so you can make the time liminal as well: a character might be between jobs, relationships, or seasons of life. Basically, a setting is liminal if it is an in-between place and/or time, a means to an end. That is, people don’t visit it for its own sake, or—if they do—they only pass through it briefly.

Liminal spaces aren’t inherently creepy, per se; it is only when we linger in them beyond the typical time frame that we feel something is wrong, like someone trapped us in a sort of man-made limbo.

Now you may wonder how to make any setting, liminal or not, feel uncanny. There are two simple strategies: First, introduce a twist that the setting is actually a simulation, such as theme park, VR stage, or a set. Second, depopulate a highly populated area or overpopulate a usually quiet spot. Here are some two-in-one examples: imagine a vast, empty movie set of a neighborhood in a warehouse all lit up with piped-in sounds of nature, people, and music echoing cavernously. Or imagine a graveyard plot with a bunch of mannequins staged to look like they are attending a funeral.

For Example:

One feature that makes The Shining such an effectively creepy film is the way Kubrick alternately depopulates and overpopulates the ballroom of the Overlook Hotel. The first time Jack Torrance visits, there are a few people having breakfast. But once Jack becomes the caretaker during the off-season, the ballroom is sometimes packed with partying ghosts, or sometimes houses only a single undead bartender offering the recently sober Jack a drink and advice on how to ‘discipline’ his family.

The film Groundhog Day, and its many imitators, are brilliant examples of how to use spatiotemporal liminality in a narrative. These stories all play with the idea of a character being stuck in a time loop of a single day in a single place. It doesn’t get any more liminal than that! 

3. Uncanny Characters: Doppelgängers & Simulacra.

Doppelgängers are legion in the tradition of uncanny stories, and understandably so. Perhaps the first truly terrifying moment in a child’s life is the moment they take the hand of someone who appears to be their parent or older sibling, only to discover that person is a stranger who looks like their family member. In such moments, the child feels betrayed, lost, and alone.

Simulacra may be the second major trauma a child has, whether it’s because of their grandmother’s life size collection of porcelain dolls staring dead-eyed at them, or due to mannequins at the mall they could swear were striking a different pose when they entered the mall.

To add an extra dose of creepy to your story, fill it with such doppelgängers and simulacra. Who knows? It could be a coincidence that one character looks just like the protagonist and hits it off with all their loved ones; maybe it’s just the lighting that made it appear that mannequin turned its head to watch them.

For Example:

David Lynch is the master of creating uncanny characters. One of his key techniques? He casts the same actor as multiple characters within a story. Now that doesn’t quite work in prose fiction, but we can create doppelgängers, literal or metaphorical, who threaten the protagonist in various ways.

If they are a literal doppelgänger, perhaps they threaten to ruin the protagonist’s reputation by pretending to be them and acting out of character. Or perhaps they are only a metaphorical doppelgänger who looks like someone dear to the protagonist and uses that fact to manipulate them, as in Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

As for simulacra? Well, given dummies, dolls, mannequins, and androids have been a mainstay in the horror genre, all you have to do is include them in a scene to put your audience on edge.

4. Uncanny Acts: Subtext-less Dialogue

People rarely say exactly what they think and feel, and if they do, they say it ineloquently. We tend to dance around our innermost truths through hints, irony, idioms, and plain old inarticulateness. So, when someone expresses themselves fully and clearly, it often catches us off guard, unnerving us as we wonder what kind of game they’re playing at. This phenomenon is ripe for exploration if you want to inject a sense of the uncanny into your scenes. Simply make the characters you want the audience to find unsettling speak their mind with unusual grace and candor—especially with that character’s darkest, most socially unacceptable sentiments. 

For Example:

Filmmaker Wes Anderson has used subtext-less dialogue for comic effect for decades now, but Yorgos Lanthimos has discovered its power to disturb. I won’t give any specific examples here, as his dialogue can be profoundly upsetting, but—if you feel up to it—check out his films The Lobster and To Kill a Sacred Deer.

The Last Word &… A Challenge

Now, bearing these techniques in mind, go forth and add an extra emotional dimension to your stories. I challenge you to craft a story premise that is genuinely creepy without ever straying into the Horror genre. You get bonus points if you can come up with something in the Buddy Comedy or Romantic Comedy genres.

by Oliver Fox

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1. Kishotenketsu: The Secret Of Plotless Story Structure
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3. The 4 Pillars Of Magic Realism
4. On Plot-Driven vs Character-Driven Stories
5. Writers Talk 9 | Journey To The West
6. On Ghosts & How To Write About Them
7. The 4 Pillars Of Science Fiction
8. Writers Talk 6 | Fantasy Sub-Genres
9. 10 Classic Fantasy Tropes & How To Enliven Them
10. Writers Talk 3 | Star Wars

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