A24 makes films that haunt you for weeks. Turns out they're using the exact same techniques that best-selling novelists used to mess with your head. Hey, I'm Lucas Alpai.
I've been writing fiction for 17 years, and I just spent way too much time analyzing why A24 movies stick in your brain like a psychological glue. So, what did I find? Five storytelling techniques that separate A24 from every other studio.
and they're the same techniques that separate great novels from forgettable ones. By the end of this video, you'll know exactly how to make your fiction as addictive, as hereditary, and as unforgettable as Everything Everywhere All at once. Technique one is the slow burn trap.
And this is where most writers completely shoot themselves in the foot. See, we think good storytelling means constant action. jump scares every five minutes, plot twist every chapter.
A24 does the complete opposite. They build dread like a gathering storm. The witch spends an entire hour just watching a family slowly fall apart.
No monsters jumping out of closets, just paranoia, suspicion, and that creeping feeling that something is very, very wrong. And it works because of something psychologists call anticipatory anxiety. Your brain is literally more terrified of what might happen than what actually does.
But here's the genius part. They layer tiny unsettling details like breadcrumbs. In Hereditary, before anything supernatural even happens, we get strange symbols carved into trees, a creepy dollhouse, an old woman who smiles too long at a funeral.
Each detail means nothing alone. Together, they program your subconscious to expect disaster. In your fiction, resist the urge to rush to your big reveal.
Instead, plant small wrong feeding details throughout normal scenes. Maybe your protagonist keeps finding their coffee mug in different places than they left it alone. It's a weird coincidence happening five times.
Reader skin is crawling. But slow burns only work if readers care about who's burning. Technique number two is character destruction psychology.
This one is straight up psychological warfare. Most writers give their characters problems. A24 gives their characters trauma.
Every single A24 protagonist starts fundamentally broken. Not the I'm sad about my breakup broken, but I've inherited generational trauma that's literally cursing my bloodline. Broken.
But here's where it gets brilliant. They make the trauma into this superpower. In Hereditary, the mother's obsessive dollhouse building isn't just a quirky character detail.
It mirrors how she's trying to control her family's fate. And when she finally snaps, that artistic precision becomes terrifying. This actually mirrors real psychological research.
UCLA study shows that readers connect more deeply with traumatized characters who grow stronger because it gives us hope for our own healing. But A24 doesn't just heal their characters. They make them earn every breakthrough.
Phase one is denial. Everything's fine. Phase two, breakdown.
Nothing's fine. Phase three is rock bottom. It's all my fault.
Phase four is acceptance. Maybe I can change. Phase five is the transformation.
I'm not who I was. In your writing, don't just give your character a sad backstory. give them a wound that actively makes their current situation worse.
Just like a protagonist who lost a child and now can't bear to be around other people's kids, but the story forces them to babysit their niece. The external conflict becomes inseparable from the internal healing just like A24 does it. But even perfectly broken characters won't keep readers up all night.
For that, you need technique number three. Technique number three is genre whiplash. This is why you never know what emotional punch is coming next.
A24 films refuse to stay in their lane. The Lighthouse is a psychological horror, but also slapstick comedy. Everything everywhere all at once is sci-fi action, family drama, and existential philosophy.
One minute you're laughing at hot dog fingers. The next you're crying about mother daughter trauma. It's emotional whiplash in the best possible way.
This works because of something called emotional contrast enhancement. When you shift between tones, each emotion hits harder because it's unexpected. Just like Midsummer, a breakup movie disguised as a folk horror.
Moonlight, a coming of age story told like a quiet poem. Uncut Gems, an anxiety attack disguised as a crime thriller. The key is that the tonal shifts serves the story's theme.
They're not random. They reflect how real life actually feels. Think about your worst day ever.
Did it feel like pure tragedy from start to finish? Or were there moments of absurd humor, unexpected kindness, or weird coincidences? In your fiction, don't be afraid to inject dark humor into scary scenes, or moments of beauty into ugly situations.
A character having a panic attack while stuck in line at the DMV. That's both terrifying and absurdly relatable. But tonal shifts are just the surface.
The real magic happens with technique 4. Metaphor bombs. This is where A24 goes from entertaining to haunting.
A24 films are never just about what's happening on screen. Hereditary isn't really about demons. It's about inherited family trauma.
The Witch isn't about Satan. It's about female oppression and religious paranoia. Every single supernatural element is a metaphor for something devastatingly human.
The genius is that the metaphor works on multiple levels. You can enjoy the surface story, but the deeper meaning is what makes it stick in your brain for months. In Everything Everywhere All at Once, the Everything Bagel that threatens to destroy reality.
It's literally a visual metaphor for overwhelming depression and suicidal ideiation, but it's also just a funny sci-fi plot device. In your fiction, ask yourself, what is this story really about underneath? If you're writing about a haunted house, maybe the ghost represents guilt the protagonist can't let go of.
Each supernatural manifestation could mirror their psychological state. The house gets more chaotic as they avoid dealing with their past. The haunting only stops when they finally confess what they did.
Suddenly, your ghost story becomes a story about forgiveness. That's what makes readers recommend your book to friends. It meant something.
But even perfect metaphors fall flat if you explain them too much. Which bring us to technique number five, the trust technique. This separates amateur writers from the pros.
A24 films trust their audience to be smart. They don't explain everything. The witch drops you into 1630s New England with authentic period dialogue and zero exposition about witch trials.
Under the skin barely has any dialogue at all. You have to figure out that Scarlett Johansson is an alien through pure observation. Hollywood thinks audiences are stupid.
A24 thinks audiences are detectives. Instead of Sarah was afraid because her childhood trauma made her distrust men, A24 shows Sarah's hands shaking whenever her male coworker gets too close. She always sits with her back to the wall.
She keeps pepper spray on her keychain. Basically, the reader pieces together her history from behavioral clues. They feel smart for figuring it out, which makes them more invested in the story.
In your current work, find three places where you tell the reader something about a character or a plot point. Now, rewrite those as showing through action, dialogue, or environmental details. Don't write, "The house felt haunted.
" Write, "The thermostat read 72, but she could see her breath. " Trust your reader intelligence. They'll reward you with deeper engagement.
But there's one more element that ties all these techniques together. The A24 effect. What happens when you combine all five techniques?
Slow burn pacing creates anticipation. Psychological character depth creates investment. Genre blending creates surprise.
Metaphorical layers create meaning and trusting the reader creates engagement. Together they create what 824 fans call elevated storytelling. stories that work on multiple levels simultaneously.
People don't just watch A24 films, they analyze them. Reddit threads, video essays, friend group debates that last for hours. A24 films generate 400% more online discussions per viewer than typical Hollywood movies.
That's the power of giving people something to think about. Your fiction can do the same thing. When readers finish your story, they should immediately want to discuss it with someone else.
Ask yourself, what will readers be debating about my story? Is there enough ambiguity to spark interpretation? Are there layers they might miss on the first read?
Because here's what A24 really teaches us about storytelling. The goal isn't just to entertain. It's to create an experience that changes how readers see themselves and the world.
So, there's your complete A24 toolkit. Slowburning tension, character destruction psychology, genre whiplash, metaphor bombs, and the trust technique. Here's your homework.
Pick your current work in progress and apply just one of these techniques this week. Maybe slow down your opening chapter pacing. Maybe add a metaphorical layer to your main conflict.
Maybe trust your reader enough to cut out some expositions. Try it, then come back and tell me in the comments which technique you choose and how it changed your story. If you want more storytelling breakdowns like this, where we steal techniques from the masters and apply them to your fiction, make sure you're subscribed.
And remember, great stories don't just happen to readers, they happen inside readers. Go make something that haunts people in the best way possible.
