Good Qualities in a Manga

I need some help and ideas...
What are some good qualities in a manga that interests you? Preferably Horror but I'm willing to take in anything!

 

It's the best choice of words as this is more of a collaboration of opinions that I can use and be helpful. Thank you! You have been extremely helpful!
Would would you consider an Interesting character/s?

 

When I preferably think of Horror what immediately comes to my mind first is the Story & Characters. Depending upon the direction you take you can empathize by slowly progressing the story by implementing screen time with said characters. This allows time for the reader to build up a degree of attachment to your characters and bridges another building block to help maintain their interest.

Now to be more down to earth with what you should considering looking for I think of these things when I think of Horror.

The first is "Fear". This to me is by far the most important aspect for Horror. Now the difficult part resides in how to scare your audience. Depending on what angle you take it can sway things immensely. What I mean by that is say you chose snakes as your method of fear. Now you should know not all people are afraid of snakes so how do you scare those people? How do you fabricate a story to scare people with fears they don't have? Well to do this you first need to establish what it is the audience should fear and make that connection to your audience. It's also important you should keep them on their toes with a few surprises. Think of Pennywise the clown. Some of us may not fear clowns, but we can agree Pennywise would scare the daylights out of us.

The second element is "Surprise". Believe it or not getting someone to fear what you created isn't the hardest part; making the fear surprising is. Before I used the example of snakes and I'll likely come back to it later. For now once you can make people fear what you created you need to keep the surprises coming. To start you off on the right foot think of how many different ways your story can go. Jot them all down even if you don't think there good ideas. From here is where your imagination takes over. The cool thing about horror novels versus movies is that you can toy with someone's imagination a lot further. With a manga though you get the best of both worlds.You paint a picture in such a way that the reader's mind can become lost in thought the same way we might think there's a monster in the closet. Likewise, suspense is mostly created through the reader's imagination. It's a engine that must be tuned to work. At worst, a monster means a bunch of strange sounds, strange odors, and other odd phenomenons. Just remember expanding on a fear often contributes to surprise. Establish fears from the usual tropes, then soil the audience's pants with an extensive amount of shock & terror that'll leave them unable to sleep for days.. Of course, surprise after surprise can grow tiresome. Sometimes you must make the reader want more scares, and this is the beauty of suspense in horror stories.

As you have likely guessed the next key element is "Suspense". Some of those earlier surprises may come after long suspense. The best scenarios to me consists of someone waiting for something to happen, and when it does it's completely unexpected. An expansion on the same scenario includes fear. We might even know what will happen to a character based on their fears, but there's still that anxiety of waiting. If things are constantly popping out in order to scare or surprise us, we'll eventually grow wise to the act and find it less appealing. Now a masterful horror story is one that builds up the suspense. We don't just want minor chords and pop-out scary faces, we emotional connect with the characters and we want to live out their stress.

Lastly on my list is "Spoilers". WAIT! Before you turn tail and run off let me explain what I mean by this. You may or may have not come to realize this, but you love spoilers. From my before example I'm going to say our main character freaks out at the sight of snakes, so you & I both know they'll face one at some point. This is what is known as a positive anticipation with surprise & suspense thrown in. This adds a even greater element, especially if it's mystery. Still, spoilers are those little things authors give away at the start of their tales. For example Bruce Wayne is Batman or Peter Parker is Spiderman. This plays into fears, anxieties, likes, dislikes, and so much more. When you as a reader knows something about the story from the beginning that would normally be at the end of a story, your instead able to look deeper into the story itself. Your eyes are open to more detail because you actively expect a outcome of events. These types of stories are my favorite because they force us the readers to pay attention to every word said or written. Once you notice a focus point, you might expect what's soon to come, but there can still be those hidden elements of fear, surprise, suspense, & mystery woven in.

The ideal story in my eyes spoils how it's constructed, still holds several mysteries, keeps my suspense based on fears, and surprises me by going beyond tradition to create new views on horror and the way it can scare someone. ​

 

Thank you!!