Writing Terror in Brief: 200 Two-Sentence Horror Stories
Creating scary tales, one sentence at a time.
I’ve always been a fan of the horror genre. However, it wasn’t until late 2021 that I got round to writing some horror stories of my own. These were full-length short horror stories – i.e. thousands of words long – and I ended up self-publishing them as Dog Flight.
In early 2022, I came across two-sentence horror stories when browsing the internet and very much enjoyed reading them. I decided to try writing some of my own and, after some brainstorming, ended up writing a few. I kept going and thought it would be a good idea to put them into an e-book. Of course, because the stories are short there would have to be enough of them to make the e-book a substantial length. I thought 100 would be too few, so I settled on 200.
I wrote the stories over the course of a few weeks. Sometimes I would sit down and crank out 10, 20 or more; sometimes I would have an idea for just one or two, write them down and then not write any more for the rest of the day. Before I knew it, I had 200 two-sentence horror stories and Terror in Brief was alive and kicking.
At first, the stories were going to be in a random order with no organisation at all. But me being me, I decided to arrange them into loose categories so there would be at least some degree of order to the e-book. The four categories I came up with are broad and a lot of the stories could easily fit into more than one. Though the number of stories in each category is different, I tried to make them reasonably balanced.
Within each category, there’s no order to the stories. Having said that, I deliberately placed ‘The Curse’ as story 200 because I think it’s a good one to end the e-book on.
Terror in Brief
Terror in Brief is a collection of 200 horror stories, each of which is just two sentences long. The stories are grouped into four categories:
‘Twisted Individuals’
‘Remorseless Killers’
Terrifying Creatures and Wicked Beings’
Creepy and Horrific Happenings’
Why Call It Terror in Brief?
I wanted a title that was just like the stories themselves: succinct and to the point. It had to have a small number of syllables. One word had to convey something related to horror. Another word or two had to be about the shortness of the stories. Some titles that I came up with and rejected include Horror in Two Sentences, Two-Sentence Horror, Bite-Sized Horrors and Shortest Scares. I settled on Terror in Brief because it’s direct and it sums the e-book up well, I think.
What Other Instalments Are There?
When I finished writing the 200 two-sentence horror stories, I thought that was it. I’d covered lots of different aspects of horror and wasn’t planning to write any more stories. However, over a year later I felt inspired to write more and gave myself the goal of writing another 200. As with the first instalment, there were times when I wrote lots of stories in one go and there were some instances when I wrote just one or two. That’s how Terror in Brief: Volume II came into being. I liked the ‘Terror in Brief’ title and decided just to stick ‘Volume II’ on the end to keep it short and sweet.
Less than two months after the second instalment came the third: Terror in Brief: Volume III. Both the second and third instalments have the stories grouped into four categories. They’re pretty much the same as those in the first e-book, though they’re titled differently.
Then towards the end of 2023, I self-published Terror in Brief: Volume IV, having written another 200 two-sentence horror stories. As of May 2024, there are a further two instalments: Terror in Brief: Volume V and Terror in Brief: Volume VI.
I enjoy writing two-sentence stories so much I even switched genres and wrote 200 romance-themed ones. Check out Love in Brief if you want some ultra-short love stories to read.
Longer Short Horror Stories I’ve Written
When writing two-sentence horror stories, I really liked some of them and thought it would be a good idea to expand them in some way. I thought, why not do this and include some expanded Terror in Brief stories in Dog Flight? So, I did just that. Dog Flight has seven short horror stories: five are originals and two are inspired by Terror in Brief stories.
‘The Rearranger’ in Dog Flight is based on ‘The Rearranger’, story number 110 in Terror in Brief. I kept the same title because I thought it sounded creepy.
‘Too Far Back’ in Dog Flight is based on ‘Avoiding What Is to Come’, story number 159 in Terror in Brief.
I’ve also published another collection of short horror stories: Presents for Raymond. There are six stories in this e-book and they’re all themed to Christmas. Three are originals, two are expanded versions of Terror in Brief stories and one is inspired by a Terror in Brief: Volume III story.
‘Better Be Good’ in Presents for Raymond is based on ‘Better Be Good’, story number 17 in Terror in Brief. Again, I reused the title because I liked it.
The titular story in Presents for Raymond is based on ‘Raymond’s Toy’, story number 118 in Terror in Brief.
‘Snowmen’ in Presents for Raymond is based on ‘Making a Snowman’, story number 54 in Terror in Brief: Volume III.
Every collection of full-length short horror stories will probably include at least one that’s inspired by a story from a Terror in Brief e-book.
Read Terror in Brief If You Haven’t Already
If you’re intrigued by the idea of two-sentence horror stories, check out Terror in Brief and see what very short horror stories are like. If you can’t get enough of these extremely short scary tales, download the other instalments too.
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