27 Scary Story Ideas

All writers will experience times when ideas for stories are just not coming to them, it happens to the best of us. This lack of inspiration will cause many writers to make Excuses for not writing. If we just stop thinking about our lack of ideas and just get to work, the ideas will flow to us.

Our ideas can come from our life experiences, news stories, dreams, even from art such as paintings, or even from movies.

People want to feel emotion, and if we can scare them so much they can’t sleep without the lights on than we have done our job well. Use your creativity to scare your readers, and they will keep coming back for more.

Here are 27 horror story ideas to give your readers nightmares.

1: Someone has a reoccurring nightmare about demons trying to take their soul, but they soon discover, they are a demon who believes they are human.

2: A woman reads a novel about a man that charms a woman, and then brutally kills her. Her best friend introduces her to the man she just met. Their relationship starts to unfold exactly as the story she just read did.

3: The scarecrow in the woods becomes possessed by the spirit of a man accidentally killed by the farmer years ago. This man finally gets his revenge against the farmer and his whole family.

4: A man frequently suffers from sleep paralysis. He always feels like there is an otherworldly being in the room with him when he awakens. What is it, and what does it want?

5: Gargoyles at the museum all come to life for one night and terrorize the city. People try to hide, and they accuse the new family that just moved in of witchcraft.

6: A man sees his reflection in the mirror mouth the words, “Help Me,” as he is combing his hair.

7: Your character is watching old home movies of themselves, but they do not recognize the people in the videos with them. They only remember them from dreams.

8: Where do we go when we dream? The dream master takes us into the realms of hell, and he has become more and more sinister. How is the dream master terrorizing the dreamers in your story?

9: A girl goes into the woods with a neighbor boy. Together they discover a cave that they explore. They are frightened out of the cave by strange creatures in the darkness. When they emerge twenty years have passed.

10: After walking through a rough neighborhood, a man discovers an evil presence there. Everyone appears to be possessed by evil forces. Will he make it out of there alive, or will the evil possess him too?

11: A man wakes up in a dark damp dungeon-like area with a chain around his neck, and no memory of how he got there. He only hears the sound of water dripping and a child’s laughter echoing through the hallway.

12: An explorer finds a cave with what looks like an alien spaceship inside of it. He goes inside of the spacecraft, and the door closes behind him trapping him inside with just a faint blue light and rattling noises.

13: Large bats two meters long have flown into the city. Thousands of them, all of them are hungry for human blood.

14: A man finds pictures of himself as a teenager being tortured by men dressed in camouflage, but has no memory of it. The next day he sees the same men following him around town just staring at him.

15: A man discovers the new woman living next door to him is a witch who practices black magic and conjuring evil spirits. Will he help her, or stop her?



16: A boy finds out his step-sister is a werewolf when he sees her change, but he is too afraid to tell anybody. Who would believe him, and what will she do to him if he does?

17: A man is terrified by the child who lives in the apartment above him. He has nightmares about her every night, but she seems so sweet and innocent during the day.

18: A group of friends go on a road trip, and stop for gas in a ghost town, only to learn they are the only living things there. The dead want their bodies so they can walk the earth as humans again.

19: An extra room was found under the basement floor. A bomb shelter maybe? Why was it sealed, and what happened down there that they wanted to hide?

20: Young children are awakened by their father who has turned into a zombie-like creature, and their mother has vanished. How will they get away from him, and where is their mother?



21: A woman is wrongfully declared insane, and sent to an institution by her husband so he can live with his mistress, but what horrors will she experience there.

22: Grampa led a double life. Secretly he is a serial killer and disposes the bodies in a field behind his house. He is also a doll maker who uses the blood of his victims to paint his dolls. Until one day the dolls came to life.

23: A nuclear reactor leaks, and causes spiders to grow to enormous sizes. The only thing big enough for them to eat is animals and humans.

24: Aliens have come to earth, and assumed the form of children. They are taken to orphanages, waiting until enough of them are there to reveal their true identity.

25: Clowns at the carnival have a friendly and pleasant demeanor as they make balloon animals for children, but soon reveal their true identity. They all become hideous creatures that try to eat the children.

26: A mother hears laughter coming from her baby’s room. She goes in to check on him and finds him asleep. Then the laughter continues with footsteps being heard going down the hallway.

27: A man is reading a book when he notices his curtains flopping back and forth. He gets up to inspect it, but nothing is there and the window is closed. As he is peering out the window, the bathroom door slams shut and locks. He forces the door open, but nobody is inside.

Thank you for reading my 27 ideas for writing scary stories.

If you found one of these useful please link back to us so others may discover new ideas too.

R.G. Ramsey

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