Many people argue that “the book is better than the movie,” or “the movie is better than the book” when a book is adapted into film. In my opinion, literature can be just as scary as films or tv, if it is done correctly. There are certain elements that any horror story needs, whether in the form of a book or movie. Things like plot, suspense, and good use of description are essential to any good story. Plot is easily the most important. Without a substantial plot to a story, it would just be characters wandering around and running into things without good reason, which really cannot be that scary to anyone. A good storyline is what drives the book and makes the horror. Say you have a monster in a town, and people are disappearing. While that could be kind of scary, there still needs to be characters and an actual plot to base …show more content…
While movies can get away with cheap jump scares in the place of tension, books typically cannot. So, they rely on a slow build of fear, which can be much more effective than a quick jump scare, if done right. When events take place, everything does not happen at once; the storyteller lets the suspense and tension rise, so readers grow anxious and afraid as they anticipate the next event. It is a pretty effective way of doing horror. Suspension of Disbelief is also a big factor. People have to be able to look past non-realistic things Another way literature can be scarier than film is refraining from over-describing. When someone reads a book, they do not know exactly what the characters and the setting look like. While there is description, not every little detail is written out, so readers are left to their imaginations. When reading a horror novel, someone might see the monster as something that they themselves are afraid of, which, in retrospect, could make everything that much scarier. In film, people can see what the monster actually looks like, and it may not be as scary to