Creepy Plot Hooks: Instant Sub-Plots for Writers

I love the Halloween season. Every year, well before it's actually arrived, I start getting excited. There's no honest reason for it, I've just always loved it - everything from the winter's bite that breaths in the air to the many-colored leaves crunching underfoot on an eerie full-moon night just sets my senses tingling.

In writing, we want to experience - and help our readers experience - that senses tingling sensation as often as possible. Give them a kiss that curls their toes or a scene so remarkable that it will live on in their memory, and they'll love you for it. And always, one of the easiest ways to get the senses tingling is to remember that even the sweetest book can have more depth when a touch of the creepy is added.

Plot hooks are smaller items that you can work right into an existing story without having to change everything you've written. They don't have to change the focus of your book (and if they try to do so, you're probably not writing the right story); instead, they're meant to help you really dig deeper into your characters and show the reader why they're memorable.

Creepy plot hooks give your characters an added distraction, further complicating their goal. They are designed to create suspense, confusion, and generally disturb your characters to no end ... until they resolve the sub-plot, of course. These instant sub-plots can also help you deepen the mood of your book, really shining light on the odds stacked against your characters, and giving them a chance to foreshadow the fact that they will succeed.

None of these sub-plot hooks should be considered unchangeable. If you like the overall idea of a plot hook but it just doesn't tie into your overall story well enough, change it. Alter the pieces that don't fit, and you'll have a creepy little sub-plot perfect for planting in your book, tailored to blosson through the story.

Blood Hooks

Yeah, I'll admit, even the title of this section makes me wrinkle my nose. Blood is usually the first clue characters get that something's seriously not right - and depending on your characters' experience with the stuff, seeing blood can have a variety of dramatic impacts. They'll be on guard, and worried or downright terrified ... perfect. Here are a couple ideas:

- Your main character walks into one of two places: somewhere that would naturally have them wary (a dark alley, a haunted house, or just something that they personally find creepy but that most people wouldn't), or somewhere that's deeply personal (their bedroom, a secret spot in the woods behind their house no one else knows about, you get the idea). Their senses are already hyperactive when they see - what else? - blood. And the blood isn't just drops of blood, but there's something unique about it. Maybe it's a bunch of words written in blood, a warning perhaps, or a well-defined footprint. Your character's sub-plot goal is to find out who or what the blood belongs to, how it was spilled, and decide if it has any impact on the larger goal (your main plot).

- At least one of your main characters starts seeing something very weird throughout their journey toward succeeding in the larger goal of your plot: they see trails of blood. No one else seems to be able to see the trails, and they lose the trail every now and again. Sub-plot goals: Find out where the trail leads, decide how (and why) they keep following it when it disappears, and discover what it means.

Reality Hooks

There's no quicker way of making your characters paranoid, even a little crazy, than to mess with their reality. If something has gone awry in subtle ways, they might try playing it off for a while before reality smacks them in the face. There might be a perfectly logical reason for why your characters appear to have been transported back in time - they're hallucinating, maybe - or it could be all magical ... or it could be just a dream. If it's real to your characters - even temporarily - it heightens the tension and deepens the drama.

- At least one of your characters is walking down the street when they realize that everyone has appeared to vanish. There's no cars moving, no people talking, it's like they've walked into a void. This can be made even creepier if the character then realizes that not quite everyone has vanished ... because someone is following them.

- There's something different about your character. When she wakes and looks in the mirror, she's puzzled to find her eyes a much darker shade of blue than before, or that she seems to have lost all her freckles. It's nothing major - not like she's grown horns and sprouted a tail. It's little things that her friends and family can easily dismiss. What's happened, though? It could be hallucinations, abduction, spirit possession ... the list goes on.

Body Hooks

These are the hooks that are old as time itself; the legend of the werewolf is a type of body hook. When something totally unexplainable happens to change the human body, characters start freaking out. Just remember that these are sub-plots ... either the changes will be explained and become beneficial to the main plot, or there will be a "cure" that lets your character more or less forget about the experience when they're back to normal.

- Your main character is in a battle for their life against an apparently insane animal. It could even be a hamster that flew out of its cage (yes, flew) and attacked rabidly. During the battle, which is brief but heated, the character is bitten. Within days, they start reacting like Peter Parker, growing spidey senses that are specific to the animal they were bitten by. Their body will start taking on characteristics of the animal, they might start getting territorial, and to make things even more interesting it might not be them who realizes it, but their counterpart character that does.

- As your characters progress closer to their goal (your main plot), they start realizing something intensely disturbing ... they're beginning to look like the very things they fight. How do they reverse the effects? What's caused them in the first place? Is this morphing an advantage or disadvantage ... and do you wrap up the sub-plot immediately, or let it play into your main plot?

There are, of course, dozens of other "hooks" that can play into a creepy sub-plot. If none of the ideas I've come up with appeal to you, take some time to sit back and brainstorm. Think back to when you were a child. Was there something that particularly scared you? Our childhood fears don't seem as harmful to us as adults, but they definitely retain a creepy factor.

Creepy sub-plots should never ever take over your whole story. They're there to add dimension, to help your characters spend some time doing something other than grinding toward their goal, but they're not a focus. Play with your creepy sub-plots and see where they might work most seamlessly into your overall story, and you'll love the results.