Rant: Stop using 'the door creaked open' in every single horror story you write

I was reading through prompts in a contest last week and counted 14 stories that started with a door creaking. That was just in one batch of 30 entries. Creaking doors are fine once in a while, but there are so many other sounds a house makes. Like the groan of old pipes when heat kicks on, or the scratch of a tree branch against a window. Even the buzz of a dying lightbulb is creepier to me. I think people default to creaky doors because they heard it in movies, not because they actually pay attention to real spaces. Has anyone else noticed this specific lazy writing habit showing up in prompts lately? What other overused sound effects are you tired of seeing?

2 comments

2 Comments

patb8617d ago

Has anyone ever noticed how many stories use a creaking door as a shortcut for tension instead of actually building it through pacing? I mean, a refrigerator clicking on in a dead silence is way more unsettling to me because it feels like something is wrong with the world, not just a rusty hinge. Or the sound of a house settling, which is just a random pop that makes you jump for no real reason. It seems like people lean on creaking because it's a cheap trigger, not because they've sat alone in an old house at 2 AM and listened to the actual noises.

jordan_webb4917d ago

My buddy Mike once jumped out of his chair when his ice maker made a single clunk at 3 AM.