Scary Settings for Lights-Out Fright

By Linda Lovely

Halloween is days away, which puts me in mind of all manner of scary things. While it’s always potentially frightening to find yourself in the dark, some settings can add extra heebie-jeebies when you’re alone and the lights dim.

Common advice to authors is “write what you know.” Well, since I know what settings have the power to scare me, it stands to reason they should also quicken the pulse of my heroines. Creepy locations help authors build tension and foreshadow there’s danger ahead. My go-to list of such settings includes forests, caves, and basements.

FORESTS. The woods may be “lovely, dark, and deep” but they’re also home to creatures like coyotes and wolves with bone-chilling cries. And let’s not forget the critters that rustle leaves as they scoot or slither along the forest floor. Well, I’m not certain a snake’s movements actually rustle leaves but I sure don’t want to step on one in the dark.

I’ve forced my heroines onto scary forest trails in several books, including Dead Hunt, a romantic thriller, set in Upstate South Carolina. In Picked Off, the second of my cozy Brie Hooker Mysteries, Brie, who is afraid of heights (like me), is chased along a narrow wooded trail that has dizzying drop-offs. Picked Off is also an ideal read for this time of year since it opens with Brie and friends turning a barn into a haunted attraction and donning Halloween costumes.

CAVES. Since Hannibal, Missouri’s Mark Twain Cave was about 40 miles from my hometown, I visited at an impressionable age. Stalactite daggers looked ready to impale me should the rock ceiling shift. Bats clinging to perches above my head added more menace, and the cool moist air gave me a crop of goosebumps even on summer days.

I used caves as frightening sets in two novels—Lies: Secrets Can Kill, an historical thriller set in 1938 in Keokuk, Iowa, my hometown, and Dead Line, a romantic suspense set in Jamaica, an island with more than 1000 known caves carved from its limestone. While researching Jamaican caves, I contacted the http://www.jamaicancaves.org, and was rewarded with generous help (and incredible videos) from caving enthusiasts.

BASEMENTS.  Hey, basements are underground (like graves), and really, really dark if the lights flicker out. My childhood home’s scary basement had creaky stairs and a black as pitch coal bin. Wood planks covered a damp dirt floor with hair-like sprouts. Dusty bottles holding who knew what lined sagging shelves. We learned what when some of granddad’s root beer spontaneously exploded one hot summer day. His home brew had a real kick. 

In Dead Hunt, a killer sets a trap for the heroine in the basement of her own older home.  

What settings have the power to give you the biggest chills?

Visit my website: www.lindalovely.com for information on all eight of my published novels or to sign up for my newsletter.