Shirley Jackson and the Geometry of Fear

Psychological Architecture

I’ve been re-reading the opening of The Haunting of Hill House this morning. Shirley Jackson was a master of what I call “psychological architecture.” She understood that a house doesn’t need to be haunted by ghosts to be terrifying; it only needs to be slightly “wrong”—a door that hangs at a fraction of an angle, a hallway that is an inch too long.

In our writing, we often reach for the dramatic when we want to create tension. But Jackson teaches us that the uncanny lives in the details. It is the subtle distortion of the everyday that lingers in the reader’s mind. When the familiar becomes unfamiliar, the reader loses their footing. That is where the real story begins.

The Monroe Minute
Describe a room you know well, but change one small, physical detail to make it feel slightly threatening.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

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Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.