Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24443969-20141030104527

The Critic



by Daniel Williams ____________________________________________________________________

Have you ever read one of those stories? By “those stories” I mean the ones that make you want to rip your hair out by the roots because of how impotently written the sickeningly awful content of the story is? stories where haunted marios pop out of demonic, “spooky” game cartridges and the television screen displays the writer’s corpse mangled in high quality, bloody, “hyper-realistic” fashions? Stories where the writer finds himself dead on the side of the road and he still somehow tells his tale about how he was torn into fifty pieces by Slenderman on the night of Friday the 13th, and also his family was eaten by the Rake? Yeah, I thought you have. I am cursed to live a life where I have to sit and experience every single stupid, loathsome, pathetic creepypasta ever submitted to my website, and I have the privilege to rip them apart and remove them all I want. The problem with my job is that it demands me sit in a stuffy office 10 hours a day reading what the mindless youth of the world have to spew out onto the internet and give each other the “heebie jeebies” with.

No, its not the worst job in the world, granted, but it is becoming hard to cope with at times. These writers just never learn from their mistakes! Time and time again I find the same submissions being tweaked and re-drafted to me, changing the least of these stories’ issues, but never addressing anything that actually matter within them. They change a capital letter here and there. So what? That doesn’t change that your Jeff the killer sex fantasy part 7 has any more or less meaning to the world. You’d think that these artists, if I can call them that, would have some integrity in writing something with a bit more of a clear standard of concept and poise?

Just the other day I came across this one story where the writer murders his entire family and then commits suicide, leaving the creepypasta up as his last word to the world. What sense does that make? who goes on the internet and leaves their suicide note on a scary stories website? who would go around admitting their crimes on paper in order to get a quick cringe from some 12 year old who likes the morbid and sits up late staring at text? The suspension of disbelief is torn asunder by these huge flaws in what people call “credible horror writing”. The worst feeling of all is knowing that people will continue to praise its credibility. People will continue to get scared and piss themselves to the pitter patter of their insipid, disgusting attempt at literature on a keyboard as they type their masturbatory fantasies of gore away on the internet.

I’m getting sick of the entire idea behind these stories. I used to like their twists and turns of characters becoming something different or giving the audience something new to feel. Some new experience of being, but pokemon games being bloody and glitchy is not that. Give me something I love back to me! I don’t love your dribbling nonsense and your empty, thoughtless writing. I just want someone to actually listen for once in my god damned life and write something with some passion for the craft of horror. The feeling of being someone in their darkest hour. The feeling of loss and torture. I crave it. I crave it even now. Typing every crackling letter on my keyboard moves me one inch closer to waves of madness. I see it already.

My friend just came over and he’s sitting in the other room, typing his story. I asked him what kind of story it was and he told me it was a creepypasta. He knew I did this kind of thing for a job, and he’d like to contribute. I told him that I didn’t mind even though, I was kind of cautious. He wasn’t as literate or as cultured as I am, so I didn’t think it would be top notch or anything, but I’d give him a try at the old fiction.

He returned about 20 minutes after I wrote the last paragraph, saying his story was all finished. I read it through, and my face went from a deadpan stare to a gaping jaw as my eyes scrolled from left to right on his horribly contrived nonsense. I felt like my skin was going to tighten so much that it would rip off my muscles. The anger. The hatred of this pathetic work is impossible for me to convey. Another slenderman story? One where slenderman is in a cabin in the woods hanging children from trees in order to appease some god? How cliche can you become!? How sickeningly idiotic a concept that i’m forced to stomach because he’s my friend. I can’t bear it any more. I told him. I told him how awful every single line of text was. How empty the idea was and how ashamed he should be that he would even attempt to write such filth.

He got incredibly upset and began to get belligerent. I couldn’t have that in my house. The landlord would rip me a new one if I got into a fight and broke anything. So I did what any sensible man in an issue would do. I knocked him out and drove him home. Well, it wasn’t his home, but it was going to be, for a little while at least. I locked him in my shed and while he was out I tied him to a chair with a few of my sturdy ropes so he could sit and calm himself down and I could try to explain myself. I love great writing and he simply needed to get better ideas. I talked to him while he glared at me and tried to make muffled noises into the gag. I told him not to worry about all of this. He was going to be just fine. He just got incredibly angry and I didn’t want him to break anything in my house.

I may have… Gotten a tiny bit carried away. I talked to him for a solid 30 minutes when I thought of a nice little game. I like to call it “the writing game”! Its where you write 3 paragraphs of a story you think will scare me or make me feel something, and if you get it right, you may continue with 1 less rope tied around you. If you finish the whole story and conclude it satisfactorily, or get enough of the paragraphs done to get the ropes off and you can go home! If you fail to appease me though, you lose one of your writing utensils! The funny thing is, we were using a keyboard. The only writing utensils we were using were our fingers! He tried making some noise but being struck by a Tazer made him quiet down a little bit. Couldn’t have those neighbors thinking there’s something bad going on and calling the cops over nothing.

The game began and he started writing expletive after expletive. ‘help me’s after ‘help me’s. He wrote and wrote until he started sweating. I knew he’d have writer’s block, but it was no big deal. I could wait a few more minutes. Finally he finished his first few paragraphs and made some noises under the gag to tell me he did it. I read his little tale of woe and pleas for escape, and it wasn’t very convincing. I thought it was too whiny and pathetic. Nothing a real horror hound wouldn’t just chalk up to cheap writing gimmicks. Even though it felt sincere, I thought that round 1 he could afford to lose. I took my shears out and took his left ring finger. After patching up the wound and hearing him cry and cry I told him to try again.

He tried a few more times, he did well after the 3rd attempt, which I suppose is something, but when I let him have his right arm free he started untying himself and we couldn’t keep playing if he wasn’t going to follow the rules, would we? I thought up a special punishment for rule breakers. When he broke a rule of the game, I would use my handy, dandy, nail gun to shoot a nail through his foot to the wooden floorboards. That way if he started to escape again, he’d have a nasty little bit of extra work to slow him down. I really want to see the creative talents of my friend flourish. I can’t be satisfied by his horror gimmicks and cheap slenderman gags forever, could I? I really hope he starts trying better… We’re already 3 fingers down on his left hand by now!

Alright, since the last paragraph, he’s failed 7 times. He only has his thumbs and his index finger on his right hand left. I’m a bit worn out and I think he keeps passing out from lack of blood or something. Eh, i’m not too worried. He’ll be able to type something soon. In the mean time, I was meaning to tell you about this one story series I read recently where a theater from the 1930’s has some paranormal happenings within it and how its influenced by a puppet god. Its pretty well crafted for the most part, but there’s this one flaw that ruins it completely and its the fact that he destroyed the audio evidence at the end. Seriously? who would go to all that trouble to record and document the events on stage and then destroy all of the evidence of it ever happening? It ruins the entire point of making it feel real! it just crossed my mind while I was sitting here next to my friend. He’s waking up now. I hope he has some energy left in him.

Ok, so after 9 attempts, he’s finally gotten a few working paragraphs going. Its looking pretty decent so far. I keep getting distracted by some odd bright lights outside though. Its really amazing that with his hands being soaked with warm, dry blood he can still type with just one thumb. There’s a few spelling errors popping up, but I help him out with them. I know its not easy working with so little, but I think he’s got himself a story going. He calls it “the critic”. I hope I see it up on my website soon! Good work Daniel! I think its just about finished.  </ac_metadata>