Talk:Don't Trust Anyone/@comment-27794270-20160217080953/@comment-26160987-20160217094327

I couldn't even finish it. As someone who enjoys great length to a story, I found this an incredibly tedious read and at the halfway mark began to skim.

Advice: ditch the dictionary and stop adding in random adjectives. You (or this writer) is not Stephen King and if you were, I'd rather bash my head against a wall than suffer through the repetitive excess and pitiable attempts at pretension. The implication is that this is written by someone young, the narrator -- would the narrator describe things like this, speak like this? Would they add these unnecessary details like "gleaming new shoes"? Who even describes their new shoes like that, especially if it's a kid, even if they're excited or proud of them? Hell, I have an excessive collection of heels and I don't think I've ever described even patent leather that way. Some of the descriptions are awkward and clumsy, attempting to be grand(? it's all I can assume). It would be far more terrifying if described like someone the age of the narrator is was writing it. First person, in particular, doesn't suit this. You can even include most of the descriptions as is if done in third person -- or maybe try second person, which can give a really eerie quality to a piece.

It isn't terrible, but I see this in a ton of creepypasta and amateur writing. It's like collectively people have decided that purple prose and Young Adult style excess and descriptions make a piece look more polished when less is more, especially when you're doing horror. Think of all the times you see a monster and you think to yourself, "man if they just kept with the flashes of the werewolf/lake monster/giant snake it would've been so much more unnerving!", think of what would be important to the one doing t he narrating. If they're proud of those new shoes, why gleaming? Why not freshly polished, describing how they received them only recently and they hoped they wouldn't get messed up as they try to rush home? What kind of kid refers to their shoulders as weary? Say their shoulders are straining to carry the wait, they have to swap it so it hangs on one shoulder then the other. I remember doing that as a child, I certainly didn't monologue like I was in a Faulkner novel.

More importantly, maybe think of changing the character's age. While it is griping and everyone can relate to the fear of being a child, this style of writing and the journey they go through and their resposnes are more suited to a much older adult character. The ending, in particular, doesn't really suit a child character in any way and the fact that a child character is refering to their hope as "childish" is odd.

Honestly, I think it could be good but you really, really need to focus on the character and how they would act, react, or describe things. While first person can be a powerful tool in creepypastas, using third person would make a world of a difference in this if you wanted to do minimal editing and also  involve less stylistic changes.

Idk. I stuck it out and I'm here because I think it has potential. Good luck, but just remember the golden rule in spooky: less is more, less is more, LESS. IS. MORE.