: Re: Good examples of fear/terror inducing techniques used with enemies What good examples of fear/terror inducing techniques do you know? Off the top of my head I am thinking of: the Apache Indians

@Ravi5107385

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First, must wholeheartedly agree with Lauren Ipsum's observation that the unknown works best, and Lexi's point that the character also needs to be convincingly afraid.

Since you mention enemies, I assume you're referring to antagonists. If that's the case, then there are a few devices you can employ.

The first is rumour and hearsay, where other characters reveal the person's character through details that may or may not be true. This demonstrates the person's reputation amongst others, and their obvious fear/revulsion helps create the mood you desire.

The second is to demonstrate the antagonist's inhumanity, lack of empathy and feeling; for full effect, contrast it sharply with traces of humanity (as an example, someone who is a loving father and family man, contrasted sharply by his propensity to torture people to death with a pair of pliers and a blow-torch).

A third device is to reveal the antagonist's actions through the objective third-person narration. In other words, show what he says and does, but don't delve into his mind. This can help create a sense of foreboding and fear while witnessing someone cold and methodical at work. It can also create foreboding since you can show him putting some plan in action (you don't know what exactly) but you know that the protagonist is in danger.

A fourth device is to take something audiences are familiar with, and twist it to an unnatural state. There are many different ways of doing this. At a basic level, point two above is related to this, whereby someone acts contrary to some "norm", and this makes us fearful of them, because they are immediately unpredictable because they behave contrary to what we expect e.g. violent outbursts; pleasure from torture or sadism; or even cold, clinical and logical thinking over-riding normal human emotions. However, there are other related methods. There is also theory called The Uncanny Valley (from robotics) which suggests that when "human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers". This sort of fear goes beyond robotics however; consider the appearance of Voldemort - someone that is almost human in appearance, but not quite.

There are hundreds of other examples where the familiar has been transformed into something fearful. Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", Stephen King's "Pet Cemetery" or "Christine" - all of these took normal, every day things (birds, pets, a car) and transformed them into something malevolent and evil.

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