Nothing Is Scarier: Difference between revisions

** He's probably at his scariest when he tells you ''absolutely nothing'' about what's happening; see "[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Music_of_Erich_Zann The Music of Erich Zann]" for an example.

** At other times, on the other hand, he gives meticulous, almost clinically scientific descriptions of what the creatures are like. But in ''[[At the Mountains of Madness]]'' he combines the two ways of storytelling, and describes the creatures to the most minute detail when they are in hibernating state and assumed dead, but at no point does the narrator see them move or do anything - he only sees the results of the massacre that took place once they woke up on autopsy table.

* In ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'', the Baudelaire children experience this trope when {{spoiler|they are shoved down a dark, empty elevator shaft}}. The following two pages are filled entirely in black, after which the author writes that he couldn't write anything describing what their screaming sounded like.

* This is actually fairly common in Gothic Romanticism. Ann Radcliffe wrote what amounted to a treaty on horror writing. Essentially, "terror" is the feeling that precedes an event, while "horror" is the revulsion felt during/after said event. The former is, by far, more difficult to pull off. Scaring the audience without a visible threat is no small feat, but, as the other examples show, it tends to be much, much more effective.