For those who have ever read my fantasy clichés editorial, you would know I preached one universal message throughout the entirety of the book; there is no limit to creativity. Anything can be given a fantasy tone so long as you can think up a seemingly crazy idea in your head, such as a Werewolf Bigfoot or an amulet turning your protagonist into a classic horror monster. The same applies here as well when it comes to horror fiction. As long as it can make the audience tense up or be on edge, the idea can be translated into something out of our nightmares. There are limitless things you can do to create some type of horror story that is not limited to the typical thriller.

You could use the basics of a seemingly innocent children's game and turn it into something horrifying. One great idea is to use Ring-Around-The Rosy, whose origins are not half as innocent as they may seem. It turns out the children's rhyme was a coping mechanism to deal with times of plague. "Ring around the rosy..." refers to the rosy colored rash people got when first contracting the illness. "Pocket full of posy..." is a nod towards the flowers people used to carry in hopes of not contracting the plague or giving it to others, as no one knew about germs back then. Instead, the general public thought it was spread through bad scents in the air and thought posy would freshen the air around the person, thus stopping them from getting infected. "Ashes, ashes..." darkly means the cremation of the deceased to avoid spreading of the disease, while "We all fall down." refers to simply death. Ring-Around the Rosy surprisingly is not the only truly horrifying children's game out there. For other ideas, there are other notorious examples such as London Bridges Falling Down, Miss Mary Mack, and Goosey Goosey Gander. Trust me, none of the games mentioned are not quite so innocent once you do extensive research and make for great horror story fodder.

The film Ready or Not serves as a great example of turning one of these seemingly innocent children's games into horror story material. The concept of Hide-And-Seek is adapted into a scary ritual in the movie in which anyone married into the main family of the story must succeed in beating to avoid being sacrificed to the devil. Not only does the movie succeed in being quite the thriller-themed story, but the filmmakers take a step further by adding a rare breed of comedy to soften the horrifying blow to the audience. It is a great example of turning something seemingly harmless into something terrifying.

Another path to take into your creative venture is to study some stories in ancient mythology to use as a basis to your story. Surprisingly, a lot of mythology is outright horrifying and is nothing like the Percy Jackson or Red Pyramid books presents them to be. In Greek mythology, you can find the origin story of Zeus, in which his father outright ate all of his children excluding Zeus. Once Zeus succeeds in defeating his father Cronos, Zeus then chops him into millions of pieces as revenge. Then there is Egyptian mythology, which kindly tells the story of the god Ra getting bitten by a snake sent by the goddess Isis with the goddess threatening to let the poison kill him unless Ra gives up his leadership and gives it to her husband Osiris. With Norse mythology, Ragnarok is actually the end of days symbolized by the death of the god Thor, leading to an apocalypse that leads to an agonizing series of deaths. That is not even mentioning half of the stuff you will find when researching Japanese and Indian folklore, which is the sight of nightmares. At least one of these stories should be enough to spark the creative juices inside of you in order to create something scary.

A great example of mythology or folklore being adapted into a scary concept is the Japanese film The Grudge.  The horror elements of the film are based off the story of Kayoko, in which gruesome hauntings follow the murders of Kayoko and her young son from a jealous husband.  The story of Kayoko is almost exactly similar to the one presented in The Grudge, save for the names of the murdered victims and the cast of characters the spirits haunt.  It makes for a strong story of suspense and revenge, perfect for any horror story recipe.

  One final example you could draw upon for inspiration is probably the most obvious and easily achievable out of the three ideas mentioned; your own nightmares.  A scary experience in the dream world could be enough to get the horrific nobs in your head moving and create something memorable.  Some examples of great literature made from nightmares includes Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Misery.  All of them are notoriously scary and for a great reason; they are literally built upon from nightmares the authors had.  With this in mind, try leaving a dream journal on the side of your bed, but instead of recording all your dreams on there, only write about the ones that were nightmares.  It only takes one particularly bad night terror for you to potentially create the horror story of your dreams.

  The examples I put up aren't even the limit to how you could create something particularly special for the horror genre.  As I said earlier, your inspiration can come from literally everywhere.  There is no limit to what you could create for the horror genre.