Top 5 Supernatural Horror Mistakes to Avoid in Your Writing
Writing supernatural horror isn’t easy. You pour your heart into a story – only to realize the scares aren’t landing, the atmosphere feels off, or the tension just isn’t there. Frustrating, right?
The truth is, many writers fall into the same traps that drain the fear right out of their stories.
Maybe the ghosts don’t feel threatening. Maybe the mystery unravels too soon. Whatever it is, something isn’t clicking—and your audience can feel it.
The good news? These mistakes are fixable!
Once you spot them, you can tweak your short story, novel, or screenplay to make it both scary and smart.
Let’s break down five common supernatural horror mistakes so you can make your story as haunting as it should be!
What is Supernatural Horror?
Supernatural horror is one of the most chilling genres in horror.
Unlike psychological horror, which plays on internal fears, supernatural horror introduces otherworldly elements that defy logic and reason.
Think ghosts, demons, cursed objects, and eldritch entities—things that exist outside the realm of human understanding.
Instead of a serial killer or a virus, you might have a werewolf or a haunted house. Less Hannibal Lecter and more Count Dracula.
But, writing supernatural horror is tricky. Many writers make mistakes that take the fear right out of their story. Let’s look at five common pitfalls and, more importantly, how to avoid them.
If you prefer to watch rather than read, check out my YouTube video on this topic below!
The Top Supernatural Horror Mistakes
Let’s get right into some of the mistakes that horror movies make.
I’ll give you examples of movies that make each mistake, as well as movies that that do the opposite – so you’ll have great movies to watch and emulate while you’re writing!
1. Explaining Too Much
One of the fastest ways to kill supernatural horror is by over-explaining.
Fear thrives on mystery. The unknown is scary, but the moment the audience understands everything, the fear fades.
Where Writers Go Wrong
Take Insidious: The Last Key as an example.
It over-explains its villain, Keyface, giving a detailed backstory that turns the entity from a terrifying, unknowable force into just another monster with limitations. Once the audience knows everything, the horror loses its bite.
This is a mistake many sequels and remakes make. They try to keep the audience engaged by adding more backstory, but this only weakens the fear factor.
How to Get It Right
The best supernatural horror keeps its secrets—here’s how to avoid over-explaining:
Leave room for mystery. Horror is most effective when some details remain unexplained.
Provide just enough information. Keep audiences intrigued without revealing too much.
Let imagination do the work. Viewers will often picture something scarier than what’s shown.
Good Example
The Blair Witch Project does this well – it gives just enough backstory to create intrigue but never fully explains the entity.
In fact, it barely explains anything at all, keeping the viewer as much off-balance as the protagonists.
Not only does this found footage movie deepen the mystery of what’s happening and how to escape, but it keeps the fear alive in the viewer’s imagination.
Unanswered questions are way more unsettling than a complete explanation.
2. Ignoring Atmosphere
Atmosphere is everything in supernatural horror.
The world around the monster is just as important as the monster itself!
A good horror story blends the real with the otherworldly, using setting, lighting, sound, tone, and pacing to build suspense.
Where Writers Go Wrong
The movie Winchester had a fascinating premise—a haunted house designed to trap spirits.
But instead of leaning into the eerie mood, the film relied too much on jump scares, sacrificing the slow, creeping dread that could have made it truly terrifying.
The setting had the potential to be a character in itself, but the film squandered it.
How to Get It Right
A chilling atmosphere makes all the difference—use these techniques to build suspense:
Focus on what’s seen and unseen. Build fear through sensory details and subtle hints.
Use sound and lighting effectively. Shadows, whispers, and eerie silence enhance unease.
Pace the horror properly. Let tension rise before delivering the scare.
Good Example
The Others (2001) is a fantastic example—the film is filled with quiet tension, dim lighting, and a constant feeling of unease.
Shadows stretch unnaturally, whispers seem to come from nowhere, and every creaking floorboard builds anticipation rather than providing some immediate payoff.
This masterful buildup creates a lingering sense of dread for the audience.
3. Making Characters Act Unrealistically
Nothing ruins horror faster than characters making stupid decisions just to move the plot forward.
We’ve all seen it—someone hears a noise and immediately investigates alone in the dark.
If characters act irrationally, the audience won’t be invested. They’ll just get frustrated.
Where Writers Go Wrong
In The Devil Inside, characters make baffling choices.
They investigate multiple supernatural threats with little preparation, and priests perform unauthorized exorcisms while letting the protagonists tag along.
They ignore clear warnings and keep throwing themselves into danger. As a result, it’s hard to care about them.
How to Get It Right
Your characters should act like real people facing the supernatural—here’s how to keep them believable:
Characters should act logically within the supernatural world. Their decisions must make sense in context.
Give them survival instincts. No more running into danger without reason.
Show fear and strategy. Let them react as real people would when facing the unknown.
Good Example
The Conjuring does this well—the Warrens are professional paranormal investigators who approach the supernatural with logic and experience, making their choices feel grounded even in a fantastical setting.
For example, when they figure out that demonic possession is the problem, they try to get the Church to perform an exorcism, but it’ll take too long to get approval since the victim isn’t Catholic. This forces the Warrens to attempt it themselves.
So, even when they are faced with terrifying events, their reactions feel appropriate, and their strategies for dealing with hauntings make sense.
4. Failing to Build Tension Before the Horror Strikes
Tension is the backbone of supernatural horror.
If the threat appears too soon, the fear doesn’t have time to grow. Horror is most effective when the audience dreads what’s coming before it happens.
Where Writers Go Wrong
Darkness Falls introduces its villain, the Tooth Fairy, almost immediately.
It quickly explains how to fend her off, removing any mystery. Because of this, the fear never really builds—it’s just a matter of waiting for the inevitable attack.
How to Get It Right
Let the fear simmer before it strikes—follow these tips to build anticipation effectively:
Let tension simmer. A slow buildup makes the eventual horror more effective.
Use misdirection. Make the audience question what’s real.
Keep some mystery. Fear grows when the full horror isn’t immediately revealed.
Good Example
The Exorcist does this perfectly, spending much of its runtime on establishing the story world, characters, and eerie disturbances before revealing the full horror of Regan’s demonic possession.
And even then, it doesn’t spell out exactly what entity the priests are dealing with, making their task even harder and more dangerous.
The supernatural threat feels inevitable. This gradual build-up ensures that each time terror does strike, it has maximum impact, growing in intensity with each encounter.
5. No Rules for Your Supernatural Entity
Even though supernatural horror isn’t grounded in reality, it still needs its own internal logic.
If your ghost, demon, or curse can do anything at any time, it stops being scary. Instead, it feels too random for the audience.
Where Writers Go Wrong
Slender Man fails at this. The entity’s powers are inconsistent—sometimes it teleports, sometimes it manipulates minds, sometimes it just stands ominously in the background.
Because there are no clear rules, it’s hard for the audience to feel genuine fear.
How to Get It Right
Even the supernatural needs rules—here’s how to create a terrifying but consistent threat:
Establish clear rules and limitations. Supernatural horror needs internal logic to be effective.
Define what the entity can and can’t do. Consistency makes threats more terrifying.
Use predictable unpredictability. The horror should follow its own eerie but structured pattern.
Good Example
It Follows does this so well – the entity always follows its victim at a walking pace, never trying to hide or jump out of shadows.
It’s just there, always moving forward, making its presence relentless yet predictable.
The knowledge that it will never stop and the consistency of its behavior forces the characters to think strategically about how to survive, which means they have to rely more on their own skills and brains than on blind luck.
And that adds to both the overall suspense and the terror it instills.
Keep It Clever, Keep It Scary
At the end of the day, writing great supernatural horror is all about balance.
You want to maintain mystery while revealing just enough, build atmosphere instead of relying on cheap jump scares, write believable characters, let tension simmer before the horror strikes, and set clear rules for your supernatural threat.
Want to create characters that truly stand out in your horror story? Download my free Character Development Workbook to develop unique characters quickly and easily!
