Campfire Creepy Story

In your childhood, a campfire creepy story gave you the creeps, goose bumps and many sleepless nights.

Now it’s your turn to share those camp fire stories with your kids. Though a kid campfire story need not be really scary, still a scary campfire story always spices things up a bit for campers.

Photo by Joel Rorabaugh

Creepy camp fire storytelling is an art. In addition, there are many creepy tricks you can introduce to make your scary campfire story a hit amongst the campers. However, you need to remember that a kid campfire story need not necessarily be a “Friday the 13th” type scary story full of bloodshed. An adult scary story may prove too much for kids. So carefully select your camp creepy story for the kids, keeping their over-imaginative minds in consideration.

Creepy camp fire storytelling to a kid may be more fun for them if you do it via a puppet, or a toy. It arouses the kids’ attention and makes it easy for you to narrate if you feel too nervous in front of an audience. Also, try starting your creepy camp fire story differently instead of the clichéd and boring “Once upon a time…”

A kid’s scary camp fire story could be more effective with creepy sounds, scary gestures and simple language. Speak softly, give pauses within your narrative, and look straight in the listener’s eyes. This tends to make the camping kids believe in your creepy story for real. Emphasize on certain adjectives and descriptive verbs and for the best creepy effect keep the camp fire burning with dancing shadows. Finally, make sure you tell the camp creepy story as if it happened to you.

It’s essential to get an idea about your audiences’ age group before deciding on a campfire creepy story. If the kids are below the age of 8, be careful not to scare them too much. Properly done, a creepy “jump tale” can be fun for both the kids and the creepy storyteller.

Kids above the age of 8 can, however, better appreciate a scary story and do have some amount of reasoning power to know that the creepy tale is only fiction. So decide on your spook tale accordingly.

The older the age, the wider range of creepy stories you have. Kids in junior high can be told scary urban legends and you do not have to invent so much. It is almost impossible for you to have new stocks of creepy stories each time so try to draw from your own scary experience when books fail to inspire you.

Make your creepy narrative more interesting by narrating in the second person. A further reminder would be not to ramble in your creepy story. The idea is to be precise and to the point without being too plain.

Before starting your creepy story telling, a few practices in front of the mirror will do you a lot of good. Get the right scary expression, the perfect timing, good posture, and the correct articulation of the important words.

For a more creepy and dramatic effect for these older kids let the camp fire burn out and ask them to share a few of their creepy scary stories. You could even have a game where paper chits with everyone’s name written on it are kept in a box. Someone picks a random chit of paper and the person whose name comes up has to tell a scary story, with the degree of eeriness increasing with each draw.

Remember the key to successful adult campfire creepy story telling is to leave an open end. The suspense and suppressed excitement can leave the campers guessing about the creepy story for a long time. Alternatively, if open ends are not your style then give a twist to the creepy tale and add an unimaginably scary surprising element at the end. If you have seen the movie, “The Sixth Sense” you will get the idea.

Draw on your imagination to make up chilling narratives. Then you can keep all the campers on the edge of their seats with your creepy campfire story.