: Re: How to build suspense or so to establish and justify xenophobia of characters in the eyes of the reader? I am asking this as a general thing, be it a race that is never seen but heard about

@Carla500

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Xenophobia can efficiently arise from an Us vs Them mentality. To allow a reader to sympathize with a character who holds such feelings, you can present the situation as "They are against Us". Some ways would be to give the appearance of:

They help each other out a lot (but won't appear to help the majority group)
They keep to themselves. Maybe they feel safer among themselves as a result of persecution, but then when someone is bold enough to deal outside of their circle, it is for trouble.
They won't marry outside of their group. This can anger a majority group character more if the outsider group would date a majority group individual with no intention of marriage
They may actually hold some power: political, business...thus making some feel threatened by them
Give the majority group troubles of their own. If they feel they are in a precarious position, an outside group can be perceived as a usurper. Play on these anxieties hard but implicitly
They don't hold sacred what the majority group does. So when there are tensions a few of the outsiders might target those icons the majority holds dear, and in their anger categorize the majority in broad, sweeping, ugly ways

In short, apply filters to the perception of a group to make it seem like the other group has posed themselves as the enemy. "They started it". So when a theft occurs and they are enraged, it is not about the theft, but a litany of offenses that members of the outside group had committed against the members of the majority.
Sadly, history is full of examples of these cases, and worse, not just history

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