Thank you for your interest in writing a guest post for HorrorFam.com and wanting to make sure you do it right! ♥
Below, you’ll find our style guidelines, our formatting guidelines, and a few additional tips (like including the number one most important thing in every article!).
HorrorFam.com Writing Style Guidelines
Write About What You LOVE!
We try to focus on the positives here. It’s better for Head Editor Lauren’s mental health, when reading article after article, to not be drenched in negativity; and it’s more FUN for YOU as a writer! Why waste hours or days pouring your time into something you despised? Life is precious and all-too-short — choose a topic you love! Spread some good into the horror community. Or, to quote Count Dracula: “Leave some of the happiness you bring” [with each article you write].
If You HAVE to Be Negative…
The positivity mentioned above is much easier to achieve when you’re focusing on a single topic. If you’re writing about multiple things that fall into the same category, it’s highly unlikely that everything will be amazing.
Never lie and say something is fantastic when you know in your heart it isn’t. For example, MOST of the horror films that came out in 1985 ranged from pretty good to downright amazing, but there were definitely a few clunkers – and they were called out as such. Be HONEST! But try not to be mean.
Good or bad, a lot of people worked really hard on the project you’re critiquing and there’s rarely an excuse to be cruel or rude. Even the very worst films usually have one good thing to say about them… even if it’s just that the poster looked cool or that you enjoyed the original song that played over the end credits.
If a film on your list stands out as truly horrendous, please, genuinely warn our readers what they’d be getting into – but throwing the entire cast & crew under the bus is almost never necessary. Remember: you’re writing about creations made by real human beings (just like you!) who have feelings. And many – especially indie horror creators – didn’t try to make something terrible and highly value honest feedback. So, when possible, don’t just say what they made was horrible – say it was horrible and offer your thoughts on how it could’ve been improved! (Example: “The extremely shaky camerawork made it downright impossible to follow the plot. I can’t recommend this film, but if So-and-So invests in a tripod for their next feature, it would be a marked improvement.” PROBLEM: Nauseating/distracting camera shaking. SOLUTION: Invest in equipment to steady the footage next time!).
We’ve all made mistakes in life and at work, but how often was your behavior altered by an onslaught of complaints alone? How did you – or the world around you – improve from getting beaten down with negativity? Even if the folks who made the horror movie you disliked don’t listen to the feedback you provide regarding how to improve, someone will. And that ultimately means we’ll all be able to enjoy better films in the future!
You Can Write About Horror Topics Other Than Movies!
Horror films are what most of our writers choose to focus on, but as long as your topic is genuinely horror-related and you have 700 or more words to say about it, it’s fair game!
Feel free to write out your thoughts on horror novels, horror video games, horror television shows, horror-focused YouTube shows or Podcasts, monsters from urban legends or mythology, your favorite horror music composers, horror-themed toys or masks — we’re open to nearly all forms of horror!
Write Like You’re Writing to a Friend.
You’re not writing an essay to secure acceptance into a college or to impress a board of business directors – you’re a horror fan writing to other horror fans! Or, quite often, you’re writing to people who are timidly interested in becoming horror fans! How would you talk about your article’s topic to your best friend? Or, how would you share it with a family member…?
Keep your writing friendly and casual. Basically, write how you speak! If you find yourself having flashbacks to the 5th grade and struggling through the MLA essay format – something’s gone wrong. Take a breath and relax. Writing an article for HorrorFam.com should be as fun as reading one! Don’t stress yourself out.
What Won’t Be Accepted as a Guest Post/Article:
True crime. Real-life murders are, indeed, extremely horrific – but they’re not fun. They’re not a source of joy for (most of) our readers, for our editor, or for the families and friends of the victim(s). Plus, there are a ton of other places to read/write/talk about true crime cases; we don’t need them on HorrorFam.com too.
Fictional Short Stories. While we applaud and support your journey as a writer (our head editor, Lauren Spear, started her freelance writing journey at age 15 by getting her fictional short stories published in magazines!), we don’t currently publish short fiction as “articles” on HorrorFam.com… That said, if you’re a budding horror fiction writer who’s trying to get more eyes on your work, don’t be shy about telling us. If you have a location where your fiction can be read (there are a lot of free-to-use online writing platforms you can publish on!), share it with us and we’ll try to include you/your work in one of our Indie Horror Inbox Roundups to get the word out about your creations.
AI Slop. If you have a robot friend you like to bounce ideas and outlines off of in your private time, that’s fine. But do NOT have them write your entire article for you. The quality of their work/writing isn’t as good as you think. Seriously. Write about your real, human, experience regarding whatever horror-related topic you’ve chosen.
Plagiarism/Stolen Work. It’s gross and it’s illegal. Just don’t.
Articles Not Written in English. We’re more than happy to work with ESL writers or writers whose English isn’t “perfect” (that’s partially what an Editor is for!) and we’ve published multiple articles over the years from writers who’ve had brilliant thoughts but needed a little help making sure they’d be understood by our English-only audience. However, if you send us a post written entirely in another language… we won’t be able to read it and will assume it’s spam. (Fun Fact: Lauren used to put every single non-English email through Google Translate just to be sure she wasn’t accidentally ignoring a genuine horror-related submission, but that ended up wasting a lot of time for messages that were primarily scammy ads in the end anyway).
With that out of the way, let’s move onto…
HorrorFam.com’s Writing Formatting Guidelines
The best way to write an article for HorrorFam.com and know you’re “in line” with our general style is to read some HorrorFam.com articles! There’s a lot of wiggle room for you to get creative, but here are the basics as far as formatting:
- Introduction to your topic (more on this below)
- Header/H2 text categorizing your first thought/topic/point/title of film you’re reviewing/other.
- Write some paragraphs about it.
- Header/H2 text categorizing your next point/section of thoughts.
- Write some paragraphs about that.
- REPEAT as often as needed!
- Outro with your final thoughts overall on the topic you chose to write about.
That’s pretty much it! Other than that, just remember to use casual language, keep your paragraphs relatively short, and use hard spaces (press Enter, not Tab) to designate new paragraphs.
If you’re struggling to come up with Headers to separate your thoughts into distinct sections – don’t stress! Lauren can help you with that. Make sure you have a solid intro, that you got all of your thoughts out about your topic in the body, and that you’ve got an outro and you’ll be fine. Lauren knows not everyone is used to writing in “blog” format, and is always willing to help. Just don’t send her a huge wall of continuous text because it’s extremely hard on her eyes and she might refuse to read it (again: press ENTER for new paragraphs, do NOT use Tab/Indents).
And remember to include your author bio at the bottom!
Extra Tips for Nailing the Style and Formatting
Keep Your Introduction SHORT
Say the name of the movie/game/novel/other, then share the most bare bones summary/teaser of what it’s about (“this haunted house thriller featuring ghosts stalking a plumber” or “this deep-dive into psychological pain starring ‘80s favorite So-and-So” or “this horror cartoon movie with unexpected roots in Roots takes on black comedy on multiple levels”), any noteworthy/recognizable stars (“Shawnee Smith from The Blob and the Saw franchise”), and a hint of how you felt about it. Keep it kind of vague, but give the reader a general idea of what you felt overall (which you’ll expand upon in your outro). Usually HorrorFam.com article intros are around 100-200 words long.
The paragraph above ^ is 107 words and can be used for reference for how long your intro, or half of your intro, should be! Save the juicy meat of your thoughts for after your first header and beyond – don’t try to say it all in your introduction!
Share a Little About the Plot
Without giving away too many spoilers (if it’s shown in the trailer, it’s fair game!), talk about the plot of the movie/game/novel/other.
If you’re talking about a movie, try to think about what happened in the first 30 minutes of the film: What characters were introduced, what’s the main “problem” they face/who’s the villain/what’s at stake, and how did you feel during that time…? Did you like/feel invested in the characters? Did you care about what was happening? Did you want to spend the time required to find how it would all end?
Consider the Extremes/What Stood Out
Pull the movie apart and put it on a line spectrum — what were its absolute BEST qualities and absolute WORST qualities? Now, talk about them. Did the movie have AMAZING special effects that blew your mind in the most excellent way possible? Was the acting SO HORRIFICALLY BAD that you could barely pay attention to anything else, even when they were melting into a puddle of goo? Being mindful of spoilers (or giving a “spoiler warning” if it’s impossible to avoid), share what made the film STAND OUT, good or bad.
This is a good mental exercise to tease an honest review out of yourself! But, remember, if there was more bad than good… you should probably choose another subject matter. Don’t torture yourself by writing about something you despised!
Remember: YOU Are What Makes Your Article Special!
Don’t get too hung up on summarizing the plot of the film/game/show/novel/whatever you’re writing about! Our readers could easily look up the plot to a film on IMDb or read the back cover of a book – that’s not what they come here for. They’re here to read what YOU — an actual human being with feelings — thought about it!!
This goes hand-in-hand with writing as if you’re writing to a friend or family member. Would you just tell them about the movie’s plot from start-to-finish? What reason would they have to watch it for themselves (or sit down and watch it with you)? Naw, Fam. You’d tell them the spoiler-free gist of what to expect and why you felt it rocked.
Share YOUR experience. YOUR feelings. If you’re bold enough, share a connection you have with your subject matter on a more personal level (“I first saw this when I was six and peed my pants but as a 38-year-old it wasn’t as scary” or “as a mom, I wouldn’t show this one to my kids, but as a horror fan I was cackling with joy at the gory kill scenes”).
Be human. Most importantly – be YOU. Other writers have covered many of these topics thousands of times over the years (how many articles do you think have been written about Frankenstein’s Monster? Or the Friday the 13th franchise?), but no one has talked about them the way YOU will because you’re bringing YOUR OWN unique experience and thoughts to the table! 😊
Ready to Write a Guest Post for HorrorFam.com?
You should have more than enough information now to absolutely “WOW” Lauren when you write to her! Sooooooooooooo… go for it! Write to Lauren with your article (or article idea/pitch if you want to clear your topic before committing to writing a full piece) at lauren@horrorfam.com or by using our contact form.