Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25036236-20140616230141/@comment-25074573-20140618083854

CassistRabbit wrote: Hm...

Maybe instead of going nuts, she kills parents who treat their kids like shit? So the kid doesn't have to suffer what she did?

Also, her mother was fine until the baby sister died. That's when the mother became a douchenipple. If it's at all possible, just don't use parental mistreatment at all. That's been done way too many times and you should think of something else. Like I said, there are many, many more things that can be used to alter your characters' pshyches.

And by the way, what you showed her isn't abuse. It's a mom and dad yelling at their daughter, that happens to many, many teenagers and they don't go insane.

How about nobody gets killed? How about something other than the fear of death motivates your protagonist- such as the love of a friend or a desire to suceed at something? Broaden your perspectives. Be original. The possibilities might seem limited, but they're only as narrow as your own imagination in the end. I guess one reason for the creation of this story might be the creators own experiences. A lot of Creepy Pasta readers are in an age where one usually struggles with ones parents. Having a lot of writers trying to use the subject usually means that there is a broad audience. Teenagers or victims of different sorts of abuse or bad parenting want to read these stories and feel like there is someone related. They want to have confirmed what they already feel; that these kinds of mistakes are especially reprehensible.

So there he is, besides the "cheater-bitch-that-will-die-because-she's-a-cheater-bitch" we have the "jock-victim-to-be" and all kinds of figures that some of us have a grudge for and want to see dying in a story. These like all stereotypes serve one purpose: To act as targets for repressed emotions. Some Stereotypes are overly romantized, some are just helpless and need the main character's help and some have to die per definition. They do exactly require the treatment a part of us wants to deliver but can't for obvious or less obvious reasons

Im all for more depth in characters but making them more complex or realistic or giving them an actual reason for their actions would destroy their usability as quick, emotional garbage bins. And we need those. I have a theory that the reason why metalheads are usually very friendly people because they have a very good way of dealing with their darker side and dont have to repress it that much. But thats just a theory.