How to Write Two-Sentence Horror Stories
Anyone can write them, including you!
Who knew you could write stories just two sentences long? I had no idea this was a thing until late 2021. When killing time online, I saw a link to a page all about two-sentence horror stories. Intrigued, I clicked the link, read the page’s contents and felt inspired.
While writing some of my own, I found the process enjoyable and rewarding. Pleased with my work, I decided to keep going and set myself a goal of 200. Once I reached this, I self-published the stories into an e-book, Terror in Brief. I didn’t think I’d write any more instalments. However, I’ve since self-published a further five Terror in Brief e-books, with a seventh on its way.
Having now written 1,200 horror stories with just two sentences, I thought I’d discuss the process of writing them. In this post, I’ll share some tips on how to create a two-sentence horror story and talk about my sources of inspiration. Carry on reading and learn how to write some incredibly short horror stories yourself.
What Exactly Are Two-Sentence Horror Stories?
The name says it all! They’re stories that have an element of horror and are exactly two sentences in length. There’s no restriction on how long each of the two halves can be. As long as there are just two of them, that’s fine.
Horror is a very broad genre. It’s all about fear, dread, disgust and shock. Stories focus on things such as feral monsters, savage beings, malevolent spirits, wicked murderers, unforgiving psychopaths and so on. Some scary tales with two sentences are about a common horror trope and are pretty much a full-length story in miniature; with others, the horror element might not be obvious right away, but it’s still there.
What Are Some Two-Sentence Horror Stories?
Below are some two-sentence horror story examples. There’s one from each Terror in Brief e-book. Check them out and prepare to be creeped out, horrified, shocked or even just keen to read more!
The Structure of a Two-Sentence Horror Story
Writing a two-sentence horror story is very easy indeed - anyone can do it. The general structure is as follows:
First Sentence: Sets up the situation
Second Sentence: Provides a conclusion.
There has to be an element of horror in at least one of the sentences. If there isn’t one in the first sentence, it obviously has to come in the second sentence. If there’s something to do with horror in the first part, the second should expand on it.
Here’s an Example of a Story with a Horror Element in the Second Sentence Only
The first half of ‘A Taste of Love’ serves the role of setting up the situation. A boy and a girl meet. It could be perfectly innocent and there’s nothing at all in these three words to suggest that anything untoward might happen.
The second part then introduces the horror element and flips the harmless first sentence on its head. When reading the second part, we learn that the boy is a cannibal and that the girl is his latest meal. The fact that it’s a boy and not a man who’s doing the eating makes the story very disturbing if you ask me.
Of all the Terror in Brief stories I’ve written, ‘A Taste of Love’ is one of my favourites. It’s gruesome, packs a punch and tells a devastating story in hardly any words at all.
Here’s an Example of a Story with Horror Elements in Both Sentences
The first sentence of ‘Taking Its Time’ gives us a rather dire summary of the main character’s plight. She’s trapped and there’s a hungry zombie blocking her escape. It seems like her predicament is hopeless. If there’s a zombie cornering her, how can she get out?
Even though this single sentence is pretty terrifying - it could even be a one-sentence horror story - it’s still fulfilling the role of setting things up. This is because in the second part, we learn something that makes the situation all the more dreadful: the zombie, which is most certainly going to eat the main character, is a very slow eater.
The victim’s death is more than likely going to be dragged out. The zombie isn’t going to make a quick meal of her. He’s going to eat parts of her body slowly and steadily. All the while, the main character will be suffering incredible amounts of pain, shock and discomfort.
To sum up, the first sentence should set the scene, and the second should reveal something horrific. If the first one doesn’t contain anything to do with horror, the situation is essentially going from good to bad. If there is something horror-related in the first sentence, it’s like the situation is going from bad to worse.
How Long Should a Two-Sentence Horror Story Be?
By nature, two-sentence stories of any genre are very short. But just how short should they be? There’s no hard and fast rule to do with this. Generally speaking, a two-sentence story should be as long as necessary but as short as possible. Every word should matter, and there shouldn’t be any words that don’t contribute anything to the story.
Most of my Terror in Brief stories are around two dozen words in length. The shortest one I’ve written is ‘A Taste of Love’, which I shared above - it’s just six words. What adds to the story’s shortness is that all six words are monosyllabic. ‘A Taste of Love’ is indeed one of the quickest reads around!
In case you’re wondering what the other shortest stories in the Terror in Brief e-books are …
‘The Final Day’ from Terror in Brief: Volume III is just seven words long
‘Long Way Down’ from Terror in Brief: Volume IV is slightly longer, with eight words in total
‘In Your Brain’ from Terror in Brief: Volume VI is one of several stories to have nine words altogether.
If you want to write some two-sentence horror stories of your own, two dozen words is a good average length to aim for. It gives you enough room to set up a situation in the first sentence and conclude the story in the second.
The Two Ways I Gain Ideas
When I’m in the process of writing a collection of horror stories that are two sentences long, there are two main ways I gain ideas. Here’s what they are.
Passively having ideas come to me, i.e. being inspired by various things I see, hear or do. I’ll simply be going about my day when I see a word or phrase in writing, hear something being spoken or do something myself that triggers an idea in my mind. For example, I wrote the story ‘Long Way Down’ (the middle image above) shortly after hearing a TV character say they were on Cloud 9. Writing this particular story was easy. I simply placed a character on Cloud 9 and thought about what horrifying thing could happen to him or her. Then I realised the most obvious thing was for the character to fall.
Actively searching for ideas in my mind, i.e. deciding on a theme/subject and racking my brains to come up with a relevant story. In the next section, I’ll talk more about some of the themes and subjects I’ve used as sources of inspiration. Basically, it’s a matter of picking something related to horror and coming up with ideas from there, using your imagination and creativity to create an effective two-sentence story.
It’s great when something inspires you and gives you the idea for a story, however short or long you’re thinking of making it. When you’re writing a longer story or full-length novel, a single moment of inspiration can be all you need. You can take your new idea and run with it, allowing it to flourish.
However, when putting together a collection of stories just two sentences long, you can’t rely on one moment of inspiration. This is because each story requires its own idea, and you’re not going to get all the ideas you need from one so-called lightbulb moment. You may well be inspired by many things and gain lots of ideas, but if you stick to this approach alone, it could take you a long time to reach your story-writing goal.
This is why for the majority of my terrifying stories with two sentences, the idea has come from the second method. If I stuck with the first method alone, waiting for inspiration to come to me, I might not have even published the first Terror in Brief e-book by now!
Most of my stories have come from me thinking of something horror-related and churning over ideas in my mind. While I like it when an idea comes to me from an external source, I love starting with a foundation of my choosing and using my mind to build a story around it.
Sources of Inspiration
When actively finding themes and subjects to write about, there’s no shortage of options to choose from. Below, I’ll share a few particular topics that I’ve used to find ideas for my extremely short scary stories.
Classic Horror Characters
For a lot of my stories, I think of classic horror characters and try to build a brief but effective story around them. Of course, there are countless characters in the world of horror, but I prefer using the classics, i.e. older, better-established ones that more people will be familiar with.
Those that feature in my e-books are public domain. If I used characters from recent movies, they would more than likely be copyrighted and I could get into trouble for writing about them without permission. To stay safe, I write about Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the like.
To write ‘Forced Marriage’, I first decided to create a story based on the classic character Frankenstein’s monster. Having read the novel, I know that at one point, the monster wants its creator, Victor Frankenstein, to create a female companion for him.
I could tell there was something here, so I started thinking. Then I had an idea. Victor creates the female version, but once she’s alive, she doesn’t like the male monster and is stuck because she was made for marriage.
It’s like how animals are bred solely for the purpose of being killed for meat. The female monster is given life purely to become the male monster’s concubine. The animals don’t get to decide how their lives will pan out, neither does the female monster.
Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes
There are loads of stories in my Terror in Brief e-books that are based on fairy tales and nursery rhymes. When looking for sources of inspiration, I decided to read some of these and see if I could create horror stories based on them. Because they’re usually very short, it didn’t take me long at all to read some and come up with some ideas.
It also helps that quite a few fairy tales and nursery rhymes already have an element of horror in them. A lot of the older ones from a few centuries ago may seem to be innocent, but they’re believed to have dark and disturbing origins.
After deciding to write some two-sentence horror stories based on fairy tales and nursery rhymes, I did some research. I read lots of them and ended up creating a good number of stories, which I’m pleased with.
For ‘Up and Down’, I simply thought of ‘Jack and Jill’ and how they go up the hill to fetch some water. The first sentence in my story is the same as the nursery rhyme; I didn’t want to change it so that it still comes across as a nursery rhyme, albeit a horror-themed one.
The source of water on the hill is probably a pond or even a well. I realised that if I made it a well, I could have one of the characters fall or be pushed down it. That was all I needed for my story. Lastly, with the well being atop a hill, I could make it a deep one, thus having poor Jill fall quite a long way before hitting the floor.
Unfortunate Situations
Life isn’t easy for any of us. There are all manner of terrible and tragic events that can happen to even the most undeserving of people. Sometimes, people bring about unfortunate things themselves; other times, they happen upon them through no fault of their own.
Of course, this subject lends itself perfectly to two-sentence horror stories. When deciding to base some stories on the disastrous situations people can find themselves in, I soon realised that the scope for this particular subject is very wide.
There are lots of stories I’ve written that feature unfortunate situations. When writing them, I hone in on particular situations and try to make them as hopeless, traumatic and deadly for the character(s) as possible. For ‘The Martians’, for example, I had been watching an episode of Doctor Who that features the first humans to land on Mars. (This episode is the brilliant ‘Waters of Mars’, released in 2009.)
Of course, things go wrong and the people are soon imperilled. I thought it would be good to write a story of my own, where people have landed on Mars for the first time in history, but there’s a horrific twist.
I decided to keep it simple. Having written the first sentence, I thought about how I could make the second one very unfortunate but also not too complicated. Then I decided to play on the fact that the astronauts were the first to set foot on Mars - what if they were the first to die there too?
Common Sayings
There are loads of common sayings that already have an element of horror in them or could be interpreted as being horror-themed. I’ve written lots of two-sentence horror stories based on common sayings after hearing them being spoken by other people or seeing them written down somewhere.
As well as this, I’ve actively gone about finding some sayings to inspire me. Knowing there are loads of popular phrases and expressions in the English language, I decided to do an online search so I could see many of them in one place.
‘Nearly Full’ is one of many cannibal-themed stories I’ve written. It’s also one of many cannibal tales to be based on a common saying. When researching common sayings, I came across lots to do with body parts that are perfect for horror stories with two very short parts.
Lots of sayings, phrases and expressions that we use in everyday speech have literal meanings that we ignore. The phrase, ‘Do you want a hand with that?’, for example, isn’t to be interpreted literally. Instead, it’s a way of asking someone if they need help with something.
What I do is I take sayings like this and give them a literal interpretation. This helps me create the horror element that the story will be based on. With ‘Do you want a hand with that?’, it’s easy to make it literal: the hand is an actual, physical hand. What type of person would give a real-life hand to someone else? A cannibal, of course.
To ramp up the horror in the second sentence, I decided to have the potential recipient of the hand munching on something bigger: a whole arm.
How to Write Two-Sentence Horror Stories
Having talked about the process of writing two-sentence horror stories, I’ll now give you more simplistic, step-by-step guide to writing them.
Writing About a Chosen Subject
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the time I’ll choose a subject or theme and base the story around it. Here’s how you can do the same.
Decide what you’re going to write about - aliens, for example.
Think about what makes the subject scary - abducting people.
Come up with a scenario - a woman, Macy, getting abducted by aliens while she’s asleep (and therefore helpless) at home.
Set the story up in the first sentence - Macy gets abducted by aliens in the dead of night.
Conclude it in the second sentence - It turns out her parents arranged it somehow, so they’re not going to help their daughter.
Make sure the second half has more horror than the first - The first part is simply about the abduction; the second amplifies the horror by making Macy’s situation hopeless because her parents, who should want to find their daughter, actually want her gone.
Basing Your Story on Something You’ve Seen, Heard or Done
I also mentioned earlier that I sometimes see, hear or do something that inspires me to write a two-sentence horror story. Here’s how you can take something you’ve seen, heard or done and write a story about it.
Think about the image or word(s) that inspired you to write - the phrase ‘No people were harmed …’ that you see in TV and film credits, for example.
Come up with a horrifying situation based on what you’ve seen, heard or done - extras actually being hurt, but once the production has finished.
Use the first sentence to set the story up - The first sentence is a common notice that while the web series was produced, no one was harmed.
Wrap everything up in the second sentence - The extras were in fact harmed, but only once their work on the series was done.
Inject more horror into the second sentence than the first - The first sentence is an assertion that no extras were harmed and doesn’t include a horror element; the second sentence does include one, namely the revelation that extras were indeed harmed and their ordeal was filmed.
Other Hints and Tips
In case you’re still wondering how to make a good two-sentence horror story, here are a few pointers.
Be Succinct. Brevity is the essence of this type of story. Keep yours on the shorter side and only write what’s necessary.
Ramp up the Horror. Whatever your story’s about, the second sentence should be scarier, creepier and more disturbing than the first.
Don’t Have Limits. When writing any kind of story, you shouldn’t limit yourself when it comes to the story’s content.
Use Your Imagination. The horror genre is huge, and there’s more than enough space for you to exercise your creativity.
Vary Your Stories. The more stories you write, the more varied they should be in their subjects and themes.
Where Did Two-Sentence Horror Stories Come From?
I’m sure people have been writing two-sentence horror stories for ages. However, they’ve only become popular in mainstream culture in recent years. This is thanks to two things:
The Reddit community, R/TwoSentenceHorror, where people post their two-sentence horror stories;
The Two Sentence Horror Stories TV show, an anthology series currently available on Netflix; it’s based on some stories from the Reddit thread, believe it or not.
From my research, it seems that horror is the main genre which people focus their two-sentence stories on.
A few months after Terror in Brief came out, I came across some two-sentence romance stories and decided to write some of my own. The result is Love in Brief, which, like the Terror in Brief e-books, contains 200 stories.
I’ve also come across some fantasy and sci-fi stories with just two sentences. There are even some two-sentence sadness stories that are all about dreadful situations and incidents!
The TV show lasted three series. It aired from August 2019 to February on The CW in the US. It seems like the popularity of two-sentence horror stories has passed its peak, at least in terms of its pop culture relevance.
Having said that, I and other writers will keep on producing more tales of terror with two sentences!
Download the Terror in Brief E-Books
Thanks for reading my blog post on how to write a two-sentence horror story. If you’d like to check out the Terror in Brief e-books, you’ll find all the links below. You can read them in any order.
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!
If you’ve made it this far, you well and truly deserve a medal. How ironic that it’s all about incredibly short stories, yet I’ve managed to rabbit on quite a bit! Anyway, thank you very much for reading, and I hope you decide to write some two-sentence horror stories of your own. I also have a blog post on How to Read Two-Sentence Horror Stories that you should check out if you want to read these stories more effectively.
Now, I’ll leave you with this:
FAQ
What is an example of a two-sentence story?
I can give you lots of examples! Here’s one of my favourite scary stories with only two sentences: ‘The plane dropped a thousand feet. They landed around the home of the pilot’s ex-wife.’ (#155, Terror in Brief: Volume III) Imagine waking up and finding all those feet lying around your home!
How to create a two-sentence horror story?
Either gain an idea from external inspiration (e.g. something you see, hear or do) or pick a subject and think of ideas you could use. Take your idea and determine what makes it related to horror. Develop a situation that brings this element of horror to life (or death!). Set things up in the first half and conclude the story in the second half. Remember to make the second part more horrifying than the first.
Is horror hard to write?
Not at all! Whether you’re writing full-length novels or incredibly short stories, horror is a genre you shouldn’t struggle with. It’s very broad, and there’s limitless scope for creativity and imagination. There’s an endless range of things that you can easily class as horror, so you won’t run out of ideas to base your story on.
How to write a good two-sentence horror story?
The key is making sure the second part has more of a horror element than the first. If the first doesn’t contain anything related to horror, make sure the second does. If there’s an element of horror in the first half of the story, make sure there’s also one in the second half and that it’s more horrifying than the first.
How do you end a horror story?
One of the most effective ways of ending a scary story, no matter what its length, is to leave one or more characters profoundly affected by what they’ve experienced. They could be physically and/or mentally traumatised. Another way is to kill off any number of characters. There’s also a type of resolution where it seems that everything is okay and that the threat is gone, though the threat will actually return at a later date; when it does come back, it will be greater and deadlier than ever before!