#PennedPossibilities 825
What are your favorite chilling scenarios to write, and how are you able to accomplish this? Through setting, emotion, dialogue, and / or buildup?
I wouldn't say I have any favorite chilling scenarios. I just don't write them that often. Of the few that I have written, my favorite is a short piece based on the Cask of Amontillado, from the perspective of the guy who gets walled in. I'm told it came out very well.
I'd say the scenarios I've written have mostly relied on emotion, with some build up.
The Cask of Amontillado one is pretty short, so I'll drop it in a reply for anyone interested.
I have screamed my throat raw. I can't see my wrists, but I can feel the blood dripping down my hands. I want to say I fought, I want to say I was brave.
I was a fool. Lured down in to the catacombs by a cask of wine, trusting a madman. What fault does he hold against me? What wrong have I done him?
Why in God's name does it matter?
He knocked me out and chained me here. I awoke to find him building a wall to shut me in. I begged, I pleaded, I screamed.
He whistled to himself while he shut me away. While he walled me in darkness. When the last stone was set, even the dim, reflected light of his torch was gone.
I try to distract myself. I sing songs and tell myself stories. I pray. Always my thoughts come back: why? What horror could I have committed to be condemned to this darkness? This slow death?
I fear. I would be a fool not to fear this hell. Even in the darkness I hear the rats. They skitter through the walls. They approach and sniff at me.
I will not die of thirst, or hunger. I will grow weak, I will go mad in this darkness. And the rats will come.
By God's teeth why? Before the end, please grant me that one mercy. To know why.
DEVOUR ME