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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24958
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Seeing an axe murderer at the end of a hallway is scary, but not seeing them and knowing they're somewhere nearby, maybe round the corner, or maybe behind you, is much scarier. This is because, as you said in the question, the fear of the unknown is something that the majority of people have in some capacity.

I wrote in [this answer](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/19371/how-to-make-horror-events-more-interesting-in-daytime/19404#19404) about the scariest scene I've ever read, but that is because the character cannot see what is happening around them, and does not know what will happen if they are caught, therefore our brains fill the space with worst-case scenarios. But seeing the scene from a third person perspective would make the scene look quite silly.

This is what separates good horror writing from bad: Good horror will have us hiding behind our fingers barely able to watch, as we empathize with the fears of the character, whereas bad horror will have us shouting "just get up and run! Don't hide in the closet, the killer will find you! Jump out of the window and get to the police station!"

To make sure you are not drawn into the horror scenario yourself is to eliminate the horrifying aspect: The Unknown. As you're writing the story, think to yourself about the hows and the whys, so that you know more than the reader will. It may even be beneficial to picture the scene in a less then serious way, so long as you don't let that bleed through into your writing, as it will cause it to change from the good type of horror to the bad.

For example, instead of picturing yourself as the character running through the house with a murderer behind you, imagine the house from a bird's-eye perspective, and have the scene unfold like some sort of Benny Hill sketch. This should at least help with the issue of needing to look over your shoulder when writing, as it will be easier to visualize exactly where the character and the thing they are afraid of are, as opposed to "they could be anywhere".

Or take a leaf out of the book of [Dead by Daylight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_by_Daylight) and try to see the scene from the perspective of the murderer. They're unlikely to be afraid, so examine the situation from their point of view. Once you've experienced the situation in the position of power, the vulnerable position becomes less frightening.

Alternatively get into the head of the thing causing the fear. Why is this person a murderer? Why did they choose this victim? Why is this big scary cloud monster harvesting souls? We tend to dehumanize things when they're scary, but if a person has a motive, and a backstory, then they are just another person who just happens to kill people. Perhaps it would be possible to reason with them, but the potential victim just never gets the opportunity.

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**Edit:** Adding a summary, all of my suggestions really boil down to the same thing: recognizing that the frightening scenarios are not actually very realistic.

Experiencing the horror feels realistic in the moment, because it preys on our deepest fears. But our fears tend to be unrealistic and expanded inside our own heads anyway, being in the actual situation is much less frightening than what we imagine it would be like inside of our own minds.

The more you focus on the reality of the fictional situation, the more you will come to realize how the most realistic frightening situations are actually just fiction invented by our own brains. So then when you're looking over your shoulder and into dark corners, it will be easier to feel like the real fears are just fictional.

Original score: 17