Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-10502460-20190514105310/@comment-35911608-20190514182534

HopelessNightOwl wrote: Thanks for the feedback. I actually thought of this story more than a year ago, before I ever thought of and started working on Lost Episodes Can Be Found Again. You also have to keep in mind that LECBFA was the product of 9 months of laborious effort on my part, whereas this was written in a single night.

The idea of it turning the narrator off gore films is supposed to be that due to the candid and vaguely supernatural nature of the documentary, it returned to him a proper appreciation for the reality of death even though it was relatively tame from a purely visual standpoint. A resensitization effect, if you will.

As for being classed under lost episodes, that did cross my mind. It wasn't my intention or desire to have to make another spin appeal so close on the heels of LECBFA. I've actually been meaning to ask the admins if it's time to reconsider how lost episodes are defined on this wiki, because the line seems to be too blurry. Could Better Films be classed as a lost episode story, for example?

If you want to see the kind of feel I was going for in this story, look up "Real Cop Drama With Officer Glad" by Slimebeast. This story isn't directly inspired by that story, but reading it did give me the inspiration to finally write it out after letting the idea marinate for over a year. I don't say this to offend, but I could definitely tell the difference between LECBFA and this, in regards to work (still well written for one night, I should add). But hey, that's what the workshop is for.

I had an inkling you might have been going for that feeling, but it didn't come across strongly enough for me. I don't how to say "write it bettuh, moar candidly" nor describe it, but that's my recommendation, try to make it feel more candid if that's possible. I think it was the listing section that made it feel quick and glazed over, so it felt more like "here's all the worst bits", so it just makes that the focus. I hope my words are making even a lick of sense.

I haven't read either of those (still new-ish to all this, my first anniversary is coming up next month), but I do agree that lost episodes should be looked at with a harder definition. I look at it as, if there was an old episode/movie that was fucked up and the narrator is writing about it, it's probably a lost episode. I'm pretty sure the problem surrounding Lost Episodes arises from the fact that there seem to be two main types of these stories: you have the 1999/LECBFA variety, and then you have Squidward's Suicide, and sadly we get a lot more of the latter with lower quality.

I won't go too into detail here cuz it's off topic, but yeah. I'll have to give both of those a read. As for this story, I'd definitely add more to that kind of tone you mentioned. It felt to me like the horror was coming from how horrible the scenes were, and not so much how candid the horribleness was. If you get that, I'd probably like this story a lot.