Psychological horror was a foundation for me growing up. I find psychology, and people in general, to be absolutely fascinating! The reason we do things can all be traced backwards; we are scared of fire because we burned ourselves. We are traumatized and terrified of the deep (to the point of having panic attacks and hallucinations) because our mom showed us Jaws on TV as a toddler— you know, normal stuff. But that is just normal stuff. What about someone’s speech patterns or the way they approach stressful situations? Why does one person approach reprimanding an employee like this?
Take Character A, for example:
“So, I need you to be faster. We need to reduce touches, instead of, say, uh, whatever aisle you’re on, you’re grabbing a box. Pickles! You grab the jar with one hand, and you use your other hand to move the other jars, and then another touch to straighten them, and another to bring the box of jars closer. You’re wasting time. Bring the box of pickles close to the shelf and gently place the jar on the others. That’s one touch after bringing the box closer. We need time management. Ok? Do you understand?”
Then, we have another one (say, Character B) going about the exact situation like this:
“So our job is about time management, and to do that: we have to reduce touches. That means touching every product the least amount of times before it gets to the shelf. You watch Spider-Man? You know that octopus guy with the metal arms? Well, he can grab four things at once and place ‘em like that, real fast! But we only have the two, so we need to do everything as efficiently as possible. Bring the box close to where it goes. Find the best, quickest way to open it— they’re all different. Then, in one motion, grab from the box to the shelf.”
Both of those people are incredibly different; one is nervous and is desperately trying to communicate, but struggles to find the words. The other is experienced, knows what they want, and tries to find some common ground to connect with their employee. This is beautiful to me. These two people couldn’t be more different in how they were raised, their experiences, and the reasons they do what they do. As a horror novelist: for now, this is where the fun is. I love taking these beautifully crafted personalities and breaking them. Putting these people into the worst day of their life and seeing how they react to it is fun; their being, their whole life has led to this moment I have crafted for them… and everything they are comes out.
How do you think that first person (the nervous one) would react to an intrusion by a gunman, late at night, as they are shutting down their business? What about the second one? I bet you can already imagine the first screaming feverishly, while the second (though definitely still scared) is determined to get through it smoothly without violence. Those are just small examples of people and who we are: the dangers we face are the same, but how we go through them will always be different.