I need a really creepy setting

this may not fit (or it may) thought Id throw it out there anyway... when I was a child, there was a children's playground near my house where everything was covered in rust... the ground was rocky dirt, a couple of abandoned buildings with creepy clown faces painted on rested on broken foundations. It was the playground of lost nightmares. Children skirted it as they would a dark closet or the space under their beds. I dont think I ever saw a child actually approach it.

Just a thought.
LizzyB

Lizzy Bathory
*so many bloodbaths, so little time*

A "badlands" type setting... not a lot of undergrowth and the trees, rocks, etc all seem to have a sentience about them. Something a little sinister I am thinking. It never really becomes day there, but sits in a constant twilight. You never see anything outwardly antagonistic (at first), but there is always something moving or slithering in the corner of your eye, just out of sight.

Add a swarm or infestation.

NaNo Winner

2007 - Zion Andrews

---
Mini excerpt-

“The dead can’t die!” Maggie objected.
Dow sighed. “Oh now you’re just being didactic.”

A maze-like building that your MC can't find his way out of, with nothing that points towards any exits. A window that the sun seems to shine through only leads to another brightly painted room full of lamps. Etc. Throw some other vaguely spooky things in. Loudly ticking clocks, the sound of bird's wings flapping a few rooms away, engines starting, other stuff that's more likely to spook your MC or reader.
I think mazey buildings and I think of hospitals. Maybe one of them, empty of patients but full of doctors, nurses, surgeons and specialists who are anxious for someone to treat.

An expansive hall with it's walls covered in masks. Smooth, minimal and expressionless/snarling/whichever would be creepier. Maybe he thinks he sees them move out of the corner of his eye, or he's convinced he heard something speak.

Vast garden full of greenhouses and plastic tunnels full of dried plants and ponds of stagnant water. Piles of uprooted vegetables left to rot. Handwritten markers to label rows of dead plants - labels describing unnatural, disgusting or outright weird things.

Locked room that seemingly has everything MC would need - food, drink, fresh water etc - except nothing behaves how it's supposed to. He leans on table - it crumples down to the floor and has all the sturdiness of a pillow. He pours himself a drink and the cup behaves more like paper, soaking through and dripping. You could make these things more and more disturbing to the point where MC isn't trusting anything in the room/his senses.

Any setting, any setting at all can be MADE creepy - it's all in how you describe it. The scariest place in my novel last year was a gamezone that looked just like 1970's small town America - but where the rules of play were very, very different! The greatest art of horror writers like Lovecraft, King and Koontz in my opinion is in taking settings that seem perfectly ordinary and turning them into something terrifying, whether it's a University in Massachusetts, or a small town in Maine, or an ice cream parlor or tire warehouse in the Southwest. And if it's a place we normally find comfort in, seek safety and security in, or at least consider innocuous, that makes the monster or danger all the more terrifying. In the movies, was there ever a scarier location than a motel bathroom in Psycho or a young child's bedroom in The Exorcist?

If you really want to be effective at ripping the scabs off your readers' psychic wounds, make your hero (and them) think they're someplace safe and warm - then pull the ripcord!

__________________________________________________
"Tune in next week, for another exciting episode!"

A decaying suburban area. Kind of like a rotting Mayberry.

I always thought something like that, with a bunch of the children from a Wrinkle in Time would really be creepy. One can never underestimate the horror of perfect unison. It's just unnatural.

Perhaps scenery that appears to be the open chest cavity a person.

Cathedrals usually give me the heebie jeebies. It's just all that beauty dedicated to the suffering of a man. I mean, the crucifix was used as a means to end a persons life, right? Kind of like wearing a little electric chair around your neck.

Dark and dull utlitarianism. That's creepy.

My first thought was an endless garden maze type thing, but that may be covered in your forest idea? I'm not sure, but I was thinking of a beautiful garden in which there's one of those life-size mazes that you can't find your way out of.. and have your MC go in there, and with every turn, there's a black hole, or a portal to another realm, or a scary person/animal/creature, or quicksand, or something he's extremely afraid of. Make it so that there's no way out until something specific happens, or until he does something..

I hope that didn't sound as weird and confusing as I thought it sounded! :)

at one point my MC is going to be in a forest being chased by the GIGGLY THING which is simply that a voice giggling, he never sees what it is all he ever hears over his shoulder, behind a tree, in that tent, is a giggle, that is a creepy setting, mix a forest with trees and paths, which are always in a world of there own with a an invisible thing laughing at every move my mC makes should hopefully be scary for a coupleof thousand words at least.

When I was about 5 years old, my Mom took me to the supermarket with her. At some point, we got separated-- I didn't see her anywhere, and I spent a frantic couple of minutes trying to find her. That's what's really creepy to me: being scared in someplace as normal and non-scary as a supermarket.

You already have a city and a forest. How about water or desert? The desert dunes would shift instantly and constantly, making the wanderer confused. The shifting sands could bring up old buildings/ ships/ relicts from different eras. A ghost town in a desert is pretty creepy for me (tumble weeds, warm breeze, whispers and creaks).

The playground thing made me think of "The Killing Joke," by Alan Moore. The Joker...acquires...an old, abandoned amusement park, all peeling paint and half-rotten rides.

Some places are just...places where people don't go. I can think of a place I used to live where no on in my family ever went into a certain corner of the yard. No one ever talked about it...but it just happened that way.

i like the scary playground... for one, it takes some good and wholesome, and twists it into something unfamiliar and tainted. even better, have the equipment move on it's own... slowly, creaking... and if your MC touches it, maybe she feels some of the taint. like the rust clings to her fingers, seeps into her skin, etc...

just a thought...

sili

"I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me." -- Harry Potter

A cave. No light, the sound of something breathing. Perfectly still, freezing cold pools; the sound of something occasionally surfacing in them. Tiny passages that squeeze you till you can't move your arms.

oh, man. I'm doing the cave. That's so cool

I also want to figure out some way to do the playground. It'll fit in there somewhere

Hoorah! My NaNo is saved!

2007: The Fallacy of Isaac Brenner
2006: Lab Rats (winner)

Hopefully this year, it won't suck so bad. (my motto)

The mall!

Reminds me of Nightmare on Elm Street. Heheh. Well the creepiest settings are the one's that are the most clashing. For example, a pretty garden with singing children...that are dancing around a rotting corpse.

Ooh. Actually, that isn't a bad idea. Disturbing and dreamlike at the same time.

SardonicSteve
Current Projects:

Lord of the Masks

I wrote a short story once set in the most terrifying locale ever--- The Republican Convention.

I love these, I want to add my own ideas, if it's all right....
1. The Maze-like building- I love the idea of the clocks ticking....but if I used that (to fit my latest story) I would have the MC (who has an enchantment and only needs to sleep three hours/week) wander through rooms until he comes to a white room. It has no clocks, he can't find the door....and the clock is ticking. Since he only needs to sleep so little, he would be awake, hearing the ticking....and for suspense, maybe make sure he had a weapon to put himself out of his misery, and then when he's debated and debated and decided to finish it, THAT DESPERATION IS THE KEY TO REVEAL THE DOOR.

2. The Hospital- Ugh. Just ugh. That alone would creep out me and most people I know, especially if the doctors were acting like they ignored you, then you got to a door and started to go into the room....and there was a doctor there. Just standing. Just staring at you. And you turned to go back, and they were all staring at you. Just standing. Just staring at you. And then you started to run, and they put out their arms as you go by, like they want to take you BACK with them.

3. Hall of Masks- Already creepy, but I would use expressionless masks. I've had people tell me that it creeps them out more when I stare at them, not blinking, when i'm mad, instead of scowling at them. Expressions make them more human, I think. If it has no expression, no feelings, it seems like it's more consciousless, more dangerous. And moving and whispering would make it better IF it wasn't over-the-top. I read a lot of this kind of thing, and I hate it when the author throws in all of the imaginable "scares" instead of making them more subtle and subconcious..

4. "Good-Bye, Laws of Physics" Room- I just fell in love with this idea. My only thing to add is that a primal human fear is being enclosed/trapped with no way to move. So I might add a bed that they lay on, and start to go to sleep, and they get that feeling like you're sinking into your bed, which means you're about to fall asleep. So the MC starts to turn over, and his arm seems stuck to the mattress. He wakes up a bit more, and realizes that the mattress is ABSORBING him. Then maybe, for maximum suspense, have his head start to go under, describe how he feels paralyzed and can't open his mouth to yell....This paralyzed thing might just be me, since I love to dance and act and do all this physical, expressive activity. And I read a line in Artemis Fowl 5, something about holding that scream inside forever would be the ultimate torture. I think around page 175, 180? I love that, since it's true, for me, at least.

An abandoned city. If you've ever seen pictures of chernobyl, that's kind of what I'm thinking of. Everything's overgrown, there's no people, everything's just as it was left, in a state of disarray, like everyone left in a panic. Everything's the way it was however many years ago. To make it creepier, make the MC think he hears things, or see things out of the corner of his eye. He passes an old park, he hears children laughing, or the sounds of a swingset, and he turns around, there's nothing there, but maybe the swing is swaying a bit. Or he looks in a mirror, and sees someone through a doorway and turns around and they're not there. Maybe he sees someone in a kitchen, cooking something, and he finds the old stove is warm. Or he's walking and he feels heat at his back and turns around to see a burned building, or he sees a corpse on the floor out of the corner of his eye... all sorts of weird things.

Or maybe you're in a house where every room you walk into is exactly the same, every door leads to the same room and you can't find a way out. Maybe you do something in one of the rooms- break a lamp or something- and the next room you go into, the damage is there, too.

NaNoWriMo '07: Thicker than Blood
Blood is thicker than water. Love is thicker than blood.

I'm not too fond of human bodily fluids.

Perhaps an entire world composed of human flesh. Everything seen would have some extent to a biological creature of sorts. For grass and trees, there would be hairs, the soil would be clamy epideral tissues. Buildings modified from tumors, that kind of thing just leaves me creeped out to no end.

I only have one thing to say:

Abandoned amusement park.

Trust me, those places are friggin creepy at night, or even on a cloudy day!

AIM- writersbane
MSN- Sorinchako@hotmail.com

Personally, I've always thought that carnivals can be extremely creepy. Carnival music can be incredibly sinister... combine that with the low, indistinct sounds of a sparse crowd, low light [[just before twilight? I always imagine a dark, almost burnt orange/red light]], big tents, sinister carnies, a few leaves getting tossed in a nonexistent breeze... tres creepy. The crowd can be a spooky-looking bunch, too.

"Life soggies too fast when you put milk in it."