How to Read Two-Sentence Horror Stories
Get the most from reading these very short tales of terror.
Who knew two-sentence horror stories were a thing? I didn’t until late 2021 when I was looking at random stuff online and came across an article about them. Intrigued, I decided to write some of my own. I’ve since self-published six Terror in Brief e-books, each containing 200 horror stories just two sentences long.
In this blog post, I’m going to talk about reading scary tales that have just two sentences. I don’t mean the literal act of reading; instead, I’ll show you how to approach very short horror stories in a new way and gain more from them.
Two-Sentence Horror Stories Explained
It’s all in the name – they’re stories that are made up of two sentences and are themed to horror in some way. The two parts can be short or long, provided there are exactly two of them. The horror element can be in one sentence or both. Either way, the second one should up the ante; compared with the first, it should be scarier, creepier, more twisted, dark or disturbing – you get the idea.
There’s practically no limit to what the horror element can be. This is because horror is such a broad genre that includes so many different types of characters, settings, plots and occurrences. From committers of violent acts and deadly situations to threatening creeps and vengeful spirits, there are all sorts of things that can feature in a horror story.
What Are Some Two-Sentence Horror Stories?
Below you’ll find some examples of two-sentence horror stories. I’ve included one from each Terror in Brief e-book. Read them and prepare to be freaked out, unsettled, frightened – you might even find yourself even wanting more!
How to Read Two-Sentence Horror Stories
In this section, I’m going to share three tips to help you read horror stories two sentences long more effectively. After that, I’ll show you the best way to go about reading them. The three tips I’m going to look at first are:
Learning a different style of reading
Concentrating a lot more
Letting your imagination run riot.
Let’s not beat about the bush and instead dive right in!
1. Learning a Different Style of Reading
People can read around 200-250 words per minute, with some speedier readers hitting 300 or even higher. This reading speed is ideal for novels, but it’s not so good for microfiction. In case you’re not sure what this is, it’s any piece of writing that’s 300 words or less. It’s a sub-genre of flash fiction, which covers anything up to 1,000 words.
A lot of microfiction pieces tend to be on the shorter side; think less than 100 words. Two-sentence stories are classed as microfiction because they’re typically well below the 300-word limit.
I mention this because with long pieces of writing, e.g. novels and full-length short stories, you can read at your natural speed with a steady flow. You read one sentence and the next and the one after that and so on, all without stopping. If you’re not interrupted by anything, you could read for hours on end if you wanted, reading one continuous story the whole time.
When you’ve only got two sentences, the reading technique is a lot different. With novels and even full-length short stories, there are thousands of sentences that form a long-lasting chain. When there are just two, the chain is as short as can be.
This means that your reading is going to be constantly interrupted. Every two sentences, you’re going to have a brand new story to think about. Sure, the story is minimal in content due to its short length, but it still requires you to prepare yourself for a whole new tale to come your way.
If you’re going to read a series of two-sentence horror stories one after the other - which you should - prepare for a disjointed reading experience. You’re not going to have the flow that comes with reading a long piece of fiction. Instead, you’re constantly going to be thrown into new worlds and situations. This style of reading is different from what most people are used to, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing; in fact, it can be very rewarding.
2. Concentrating a Lot More
When you read a novel or short story, the focus is very much on the plot and characterisation; in other words, the bigger picture. Every word, phrase and sentence matters and makes a contribution to the telling of the story. However, you don’t necessarily need to concentrate on them that much.
You still need to read everything, of course, but the point is that you don’t need to give every single element a lot of focus. The reason for this is simple: in a novel or even a short story, there are so many elements that you haven’t got the time to focus on each one.
With two-sentence stories, it’s different. Because the stories are so incredibly short, you’ve got plenty of time to read them in full and focus on both components, i.e. the two sentences. Plus, when you’re reading a lot of them in succession, you have to concentrate more on each one so you better distinguish it from the one you’ve just read.
It’s similar to how you read poetry. You’re meant to read poems at a slower pace than long pieces of fiction. They’re written in such a way that you’re meant to concentrate more on the make-up of each poem. When reading poetry, you should think about each word and the role it has to play; the same goes for reading two-sentence horror stories.
When reading a series of horror stories two sentences long, approach each one with the same concentration and enthusiasm that you’d have when starting a novel or short story. Be prepared to fully focus on each individual story, giving it as much attention as you would a longer piece of writing.
3. Letting Your Imagination Run Riot
Finally, you should be prepared to use your imagination when reading horror-themed stories that have two sentences. Because of how short they are, they can’t pack in a lot of details, so you have to come up with them yourself.
In a long piece of fiction, a lot of the text is descriptive. It doesn’t necessarily advance the plot, but it’s still important because it provides the reader with the tools they need to visualise the world that the story’s set in, along with its characters and objects, not to mention any occurrences that take place in the imagined world.
When writing horror stories made up of two sentences, I try to make them as short as possible and as long as necessary. In other words, there’s no fluff - well, there shouldn’t be any! There are enough words to tell the story with basic details about the key components, and that’s it. I don’t ramble on and offer excessive descriptions simply because I can’t - there’s not enough space in a two-sentence story to do this.
To read two-sentence horror stories effectively, you have to supply most, if not all, of the description yourself. This is great because it allows you to inject a whole lot of your creativity into the story. You can take whatever’s introduced in the first sentence and build on it in your own way.
You should use your imagination to do two things: add more depth to the story and guess what could happen in the second sentence. After reading the first part, think about where things could be heading and what the final part of it might involve. Some of the stories I’ve written are quite predictable, whereas others aren’t. Even if the first sentence seems to give away what happens in the second, you should still think about what the final part will involve.
The Best Way to Read a Two-Sentence Horror Story
Taking the three tips into account, here’s the best way to read a two-sentence horror story:
Read the first sentence slowly and steadily
Remember to embrace the new style of reading mentioned in hint 1; also, as we looked at with hint 2, you should concentrate a lot more on the text when reading not just the first sentence but also the second.
Pause and think about what might happen in the second sentence
It may be tempting to read the second sentence right away, but you shouldn’t. Instead, pause for a few seconds and think about what might come in the second part of the story. This is where you let your imagination run riot, as we discussed in hint 3.
Read the second sentence and prepare to be terrified!
Once you’ve formed an idea of what the second sentence might be about, go ahead and read it. You might be surprised, astonished, repulsed, frightened - or indeed all of these and more! You may even find yourself amused.
Think about what could happen after the second sentence.
In some stories, the second sentence wraps everything up; in others, the ending is left open, so it’s up to you to interpret things. If this is the case, use your imagination and think about what might happen next.
You can read two-sentence stories in seconds. Because they’re so short and reading them can take very little time at all, they can be fleeting. To get the most out of reading these incredibly brief stories, take your time. Each pair of sentences is a story that can pack as much punch as a full-length story - if you let it.
Reading Two-Sentence Horror Stories - Examples
I’ll now share some examples of reading horror stories with two sentences more effectively. They show you how doing a close reading and using your imagination can turn a story of just two very short halves into a whole world of possibilities! I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea – I hope!
A Sinister Tale About the Other Side
When reading the first sentence of ‘Ceasing Communication’, you might be wondering what’s going on. After all, it’s common in horror for there to be a character who wants a Ouija board to be destroyed; in ‘Ceasing Communication’, the opposite is true.
You’ve read the first part and are now wondering why someone would want the Ouija board to be kept intact. This is when you let your mind wander. Maybe the person has been communicating with a dead relative and wants to keep doing so. Or maybe they haven’t managed to speak to someone who’s passed, but they want to keep trying.
As you read the second half, you’ll see that it’s not another person asking the main character to protect the Ouija board; it appears to be spirits from the other side. The conclusion is written to shock you as it adds a twist to the tale, though it’s also meant to make you think about the implications.
After finishing ‘Ceasing Communication’, think about the situation and where it could lead. What do the spirits want to warn people about? Usually, it’s the spirits that are the threat, though in this story, they’re messengers and something else, something we don’t know about, is actually the threat. What could this be?
Santa’s Elves Can Be Cunning Little Bleeps
After you’ve read the first sentence of ‘Presents She Won’t Forget’, you should have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next. The elves aren’t too keen on Laura, though they have to make presents for her. Perhaps they could tamper with the child’s gifts in some way …
Now that you’re done with the first part of the story, you’re probably going to be thinking of all sorts of things the elves could do to Laura’s presents. There’s a good chance you’ll hit the nail on the head, so to speak, and accurately predict how the elves carry out their sabotage.
When you read the second part, you realise just how far the elves are prepared to go; their hatred of poor little Laura must be quite strong! The conclusion lets us know what fate has in store for the girl. She will open up a present from Santa Claus and find some chocolates, blissfully unaware they could seriously harm or even kill her if ingested.
Then the story ends. We don’t actually see the effects of the elves’ actions, so there’s no telling whether Laura eats the deadly chocolates or not. It’s up to you to decide the outcome: does she eat them or not? If she does consume the poisoned present, how great will her suffering be? Or maybe someone else ends up eating the chocolates instead. Who knows what will happen?
You Can Never Be Sure What’s in Your Food and Drink
You’ve paid for a meal at a restaurant and hope that everything’s going to go without a hitch. The waiter brings your soup out, and you discover a fly in it; what makes this situation worse is having some of the soup before making the unfortunate discovery! The first sentence of ‘More Than What’s on the Menu’ sets up this classic situation. Who knows what’s going to happen next?
In the pause between the two parts, your mind should be coming up with all manner of possibilities. Maybe there are more flies in the soup that the main character has unknowingly consumed. Maybe there’s something else in the soup. What if it’s not even soup?
When reading the final part, you learn that the main character has been drinking wine containing dead baby remains – some restaurant this is! And because the waiter is thinking this and not saying it, the patron has no idea of the horrifying substance that’s been added to their wine.
After finishing ‘More Than What’s on the Menu’, you’re left with all sorts of questions. Could there be something unpleasant in the patron’s food as well? Who killed the baby? The fly in the soup could be accidental, but surely the dead baby in the wine isn’t – is the waiter seeking revenge on the patron or playing a sick prank?
The Importance of Close Reading
When it comes to extremely short stories - not just those made up of two sentences - you should read them as closely as possible. Don’t just skim them or read them quickly. Take your time, focus on each word and use your imagination to fill in the gaps and expand upon what might happen next. It’s all about being slow and allowing the story the time to develop in your mind. You’ll get a lot more from reading microfiction if you do take this approach.
Download the Terror in Brief E-books
Now that you have a better idea of how to read horror stories that are just two sentences long, why not put your new skill into practice? Read a Terror in Brief two-sentence horror stories e-book and see how much fear, dread and disgust these extremely short tales of terror can produce. You can read the six e-books in whatever order you like.
Terror in Brief - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Terror in Brief: Volume II - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Terror in Brief: Volume III - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Terror in Brief: Volume IV - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Terror in Brief: Volume V - Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Terror in Brief: Volume VI -Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo
Thanks for Reading!
I bet you never thought you’d find yourself reading a blog post telling you how to read stories. Anyway, thank you for reading what I have to say. If you check out my Terror in Brief e-books, I very much hope that you enjoy them. Who knows, they could inspire you to write some two-sentence horror stories of your own!
Now that I’m done writing this blog post, I’ll leave you with this …
FAQs
Can you tell me a two-sentence horror story?
I sure can! One of my personal favourites is ‘Boy meets girl. Boy eats girl.’ (#37 from Terror in Brief: Volume II). It’s based on a common phrase, is very short at just six words and has a truly horrifying ending – poor girl!
What is a really short story called?
If the word count is 1,000 or less, the piece of writing is known as flash fiction. It’s instead known as microfiction if there are 300 words or fewer.
What makes a good micro story?
For a micro story to be effective, it should provide the reader with all the necessary details but without going into too much detail. Like stories of any length, it should set things up and have a conclusion of some sort.
What is the scariest horror story ever written?
There’s no definitive answer to this question. Why? Because it’s subjective. Everyone has their own opinion on what stories are scary. Someone could read a Terror in Brief e-book and find two-sentence horror stories very scary, while another reader might only be frightened by longer pieces of horror fiction, i.e. novellas and novels.
What are the strategies of reading a short story?
When reading a short story, you should take a slow and considerate approach. Allow your imagination to flourish and fill in what the author doesn’t provide. With two-sentence stories, it’s a good idea to pause after the first half, then think about what might come next. After letting your mind wander, read the second half and see what the conclusion is.
Why are short stories easier to read?
Because they’re compact and you can read them quickly, usually in a single sitting. You don’t have to retain information and remember it in a future sitting, as you would do with a novel. Once you’ve finished reading a short piece of fiction, you’re done and can immerse yourself in another piece of writing.