Sara Hills

Sara Hills has words at SmokeLong Quarterly, Cheap Pop, and New Flash Fiction Review. Her work has been included in the BIFFY50 and twice shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award and the Bridport Prize. Originally from America’s Desert Southwest, she lives in Warwickshire, England and tweets from @sarahillswrites.

HOW TO TELL A SCARY STORY by Sara Hills

Start with setting Think about someplace you know. A lonely walk to school, the back alleyways downtown, the dark crevices under the high school bleachers, a house from your childhood. Remember the sodium-yellow haze over the empty parking lot that time in college when a rugby player refused to get out of your car, and decide, instead, to catch the reader off-guard. Think about places that should be more comforting and familiar—a clean ribbon of asphalt under a cloudless sky, the upstairs bathroom at a family Christmas party, a sleepover at your best friend’s house, a city bus. Add in…

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