Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25477067-20140929050232/@comment-25393922-20140929200703

"F*ck,F*ck,F*ck F*CK! Please, if anyone reads this, I live at 209 Olvera Street in Hollywood, California. I don’t know what is after me. It seems to like the shadows, but it is definitely getting bolder. I am a relatively normal guy, living in an apartment until his luck turns around. I did embezzle a small amount of money from a company, so I do have a new computer...at least, I did. I don’t care if you judge me, I was on hard times. I know you have your own sins…"

For one thing, there is no necessary reason to censor "fuck". Frankly, it makes your writing look silly. It's pointless. For a second thing, you jumped from one topic to another. There was no transition and it makes me wonder if your entire first paragraph had a point at all. It's a seemingly pointless addition to add that the narrator got his computer by committing a crime.

"My story started six days ago. I was searching up some coding stuff,and all of a sudden, I stumbled upon a small file titled SOURCECODE01. I ignored it for a while, but I started to notice that as I surfed the web, It would pop up at random times in the corners of my pages, such as in a link at the bottom of a gaming page, and so on. I was getting slightly exasperated with the small, seemingly indestructible file, and the final straw came when I exited the web and found it installed onto my desktop. I gave in and decided to click back to the file’s web-page to read about it and possibly delete it. When I reentered the website into my search box and hit enter, the page could no longer be found. Google and Bing, as well as three other smaller search engines came up black, except of course snippets or code speak in random “learn how-to-code blogs.” I was confused, but it was getting late, so I went out for my evening walk. Maybe an long shutdown would cure my computer."

You're relating the file to us, but it doesn't appear to be something to worry about. You've jumped right into talking about the file without even giving us an idea of what it is other than a coding snippet. Plus, wouldn't someone with knowledge in coding try other solutions to getting rid of the file first, before just shutting down the computer? Sure, he tried deleting it, but that's something everyone would do. It doesn't make sense to me that a computer guy doesn't know how to get rid of a coding snippet.

"The air felt...oppressive and thick on my walk. It prickled, as if my skin had suddenly become super sensitive. It was mid-summer, but the sun was hidden behind the clouds, and the wind was so cold, it hurt your lungs. Unusual weather for Hollywood, you would think, and I am horrified that I didn’t see it sooner. As I finished(which was uneventful other than the wind and weather)a small plaque on a nearby museum caught my eye. It read “Something wicked this way comes” Looking back, I laugh with a sense of fatalism. There was nothing abnormal or paranormal about that sign, yet it seemed the perfect quote for what lay ahead."

This seems like an awkward attempt at foreshadowing. You're on a horror website. There's no reason to foreshadow that something bad is going to happen; we already know that. It's silly to foreshadow something horrific in a horror story - particularly when it's as vague as that.

"When I got back to my home, and turned the computer back on, it started to lag the second I got on the internet. Being a DIY Programmer, I dug through the computer’s history and task manager in search of something, anything that would be lagging the computer and after that turned up nothing, I rebooted my computer. Upon startup, I was greeted with this scrolling green text, seemingly repeating in endless waves. It was soothing and terrifying at the same time. I still remember some of the writing...part of it looked like this:

.. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- .. ... . . -.-- --- ..- "

There's an incorrectly used ellipses. Also, where's the explanation for this? At this point it seems unbelievable - the problem being that the endless green waves could be attributed to anything: a computer crash, a code misfire, any number of technological problems. You need to delve deeper into them.

"After about five to ten minutes of this, the computer booted up normally, but the sight I was shown when it went to my home screen was worse than the symbols. All my work folders had been deleted and replaced with a single file, in the center of my screen reading:

... --- ..- .-. -.-. . -.-. --- -.. . - ."

The whole file thing, morse code or no, still isn't something that I can make much sense of while reading your story. How does this contribute? Is there a point to the text? What is that point?

Another problem is the fact that there was almost no build-up to this part of the story. It's confusing to think that something bad will happen when the guy only shut his computer down. He didn't open a file or do anything else. He tried to delete a file (which you would think isn't a good idea without looking at it first, another thing you neglected to explain.)

"My background had been changed to a live stream of me. I have no idea how the hell that was possible, but as I watched my self, I started to notice shadows behind me that weren’t mine.Whenever I turned around, they would be nothing, a lamp or a chair, moved just a tiny bit, enough to make me paranoid. No matter where I clicked (besides the icon in the center) It would simply make the classic error sound and display a small message:

01001110 01001111"

This is where common sense would dictate getting the hell out of there. You've stuck your character in an easily escapable situation with little to no explanation of why he's still there. It takes off of the believability and realism that is needed in a story like this. It's almost as though you're trying to make a "Stupid is as the main character does" situation, and that trope is all too common.

"I read creepypasta often and this seemed like the perfect setup, so I tried to call my friend over the phone and when I got static, I panicked and called as many numbers as I could. I sprang up, knocking my chair over. The computer would bing, louder and louder with each failed call, heightening my fear. I live in a high state of security, and all my doors were heavy bolted and locked. My heart turned to ice the moment I heard those deadbolt locks sliding smoothly into their place, and then the sharp snap of the handles breaking. My heart was a single, cold, continuous beat of terror, and the sweat sliding down my neck would have frozen before it hit the ground it not for the heat in my apartment. I was standing there, when an error message popped onto my screen, this time with the message:

3351-1212"

This is a fatal flaw. Never, ever mention creepypasta in your story. It's cliche and it kills all believability. And now, you've suddenly made the situation inescapable - but why would there be an outside lock on his apartment door? That's silly, highly secure apartment or not. I'm assuming it's outside, considering he hasn't run for the door and tried to unlock it yet. Plus, some of us don't understand binary code - or the particular message you listed on this paragraph. You keep using the code type things, but you need to remember that a reader needs to be able to read your story. To those who don't understand it, it means nothing. You need to add some meaning for it.

"My brain made the connection before my consciousness did, and was already screaming for me to dial the phone number. My rational side intervened, luckily, and I cemented my position standing by the door. After the blender in the other room started and the oven began firing randomly, I broke and reached for the phone. A cold sense of fatalism had settled over me. I was going to die, I thought. All other noises stopped, as if waiting for my death. The phone ringing was the only thing to be heard.

Someone picked up

“I...see...your...sins”

And the phone went dead."

And this completely kills your story. I now see the reason for the message up above - nice slip around, but cliche is cliche. 666 makes me sick sick sick. Also, didn't you say the phones came up static?

The next couple dialogue lines seem pointless, so I'm going to skip ahead to the final paragraph.

"My computer began to melt from the inside out, bubbling as though something was trying to escape. An oily black substance dripped off the table and pooled at my feet, burbling and churning itself like a neverending geyser. A single red eye opened in a slit of the ooze, and soon a dozen were staring at me. The deadbolts slid free, and I finally let out all my terror. I screamed and ran down the hall like a maniac, which I probably was at that point.It took me the rest of the day to calm down. My house burned down, no doubt due to that thing. A psychiatrist was asked to take a look at me, but even so, he doesn’t understand that what I saw was no dream or hallucination. Now, it haunts me.  Even though I have changed apartments so many times in just these past few days, I still see in the corners and alleyways of the city. Last night, in my sleep, I dreamt of symbols, repeating,over and over."

The ending is rather unrewarding. It seems... well, silly. The whole "it was hallucination but it wasn't" hardly ever works.

The overall writing mechanic lacks explanation and build-up, and as sneaky as it may be, 666 is still a cliche. It's not quite good enough to be posted - you got a huge amount of work to do.