The Warning Shot

One very effective technique I've seen in some horror novels is something I'll refer to as the "warning shot." (Since I'm a bit of a neophyte to this genre, I'll probably be making up the terminology as I go along.)

This technique is a fairly simple one, but it seems to work wonders in establishing the tone of things to come, and it has the effect of raising the tension level in the story, even if the current action itself is not (yet) terrifying. It works like this:

Very early in the story, the author presents the reader with a flashback or with the memory of some horrific event which, although it may not actually be integral to the direct plot of the story to come, sets the bar in terms of the author's "limits" and sets the expectation within the reader that he or she is in for some strong medicine.

Perhaps the best example I've seen of this technique occurs in the opening chapters of Dean Koontz's thriller "Intensity." After a brief prologue in which we see the killer standing on a hillside savoring the horror to come, we join two college students, Laura Templeton and Chyna Shepherd, as they speed along the curving back-roads on their way to spend a weekend at the home of Laura's family.

Laura is an impatient driver, and she pulls up close behind a slow driver on the road. This event triggers a traumatic memory from Chyna's past, which she relates to Laura in detail.

In relating this story from the past (a horrific episode in which a drug-addled sociopath--and the boyfriend of Chyna's mother--runs an elderly couple off the road, causing their car to sink into murky waters as the hapless victims press against their car windows helplessly), Koontz is in effect firing a warning shot across the reader's bow. The episode itself is so disturbing (and so vividly wrought) that the reader is left with a complete dread of what is to come.

The girls reach the Templeton home with no problems, and Chyna is treated as part of their extended, loving family. The house is a comfortable, inviting place in the Napa Valley. The food is delicious. But the vivid imagery of Chyna's horrific flashback (coupled with the prologue that tells us a killer is waiting in the hills), leaves the reader with the powerful feeling that this entire bucolic scene is about to be shattered horribly.

Which, of course, it is.