Creepypasta Wiki:Writing Advice/How to Keep Your Story From Being Deleted

HOW NOT TO GET YOUR STORY DELETED

or

WHEN NOT TO WRITE

INTRO
At least a dozen stories get deleted every day, often within only a few minutes of being posted. This leads to a lot of upset people who don't understand why their work was deleted. It should be clear, but if you don't know what's right how are you going to know what's wrong?

So, here's a list of steps you should take to ensure that your story doesn't get removed.

1. DO YOU KNOW HOW TO WRITE?
This is the most important and it requires you to be honest with yourself. There are a lot of rules for writing and if you don't know these rules your writing will be bad and it will be deleted.

Now, I'm not talking about typing. Anyone can hit buttons on a keyboard. I'm talking about grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and word usage. Here's a short checklist of really common problems. If you're confused by anything on this list you should stop writing and do some research.

-Do you know how to punctuate dialogue?

-Do you know when to capitalize letters?

-Do you understand what paragraphs are and when you should start a new one?

-Do you understand what the words you're using mean?

-Do you understand the difference between there, their and they're? Also, the difference between its and it's.

That's not all there is, but those are the things I see the most often and things that really jump out. These are really basic things and if you can't master them your story won't last.

This page: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Creepypasta_Wiki:Style_Guide_for_Writing will help you a lot. If you look at it and think, "Man, that's too much trouble," then don't bother writing. If you don't know and won't learn, then what's the point. Your story will get deleted and you'll bitch and nobody will care.

2. EDIT BEFORE YOU POST
I will never understand why people write something in the editor and as soon as the last word is typed they hit post. I see so many people saying, "Why'd you delete my story? I was in the process of editing it!!!" There's a simple solution:

Look over your story before you publish it.

It's that easy. Read it out loud, line by line, so you can catch most of your errors. Once you post it, your story is subject to the quality standards. Nobody is obligated to give you time to do what you should already have done.

If your story isn't terrible and the errors aren't terminal, somebody might edit your story for you. First, you should thank that person. After that, you should click the arrow beside the EDIT button and select HISTORY. Compare the edits, all the changes will be marked in red. That way you can see what YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE.

If the story is bad and is basically DOA, it's unlikely anyone will try to salvage it. It's not worth it. So, if you can't or don't know how to check your own story don't write one. Don't waste your time.

http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Creepypasta_Wiki:Quality_Standards

3. KNOW HOW TO TELL A STORY
Now, grammar and paragraphs and general mechanics aren't the only reason for a story getting deleted. A pasta can also be deleted if the story isn't told well.

Now, this is a lot harder than grammer, because there are no hard and fast rules for what makes a good story. It might seem really unfair that your pasta could be deleted just because someone else thinks the plot isn't good. Don't worry, deletions for this reason are much less common than for grammar reasons.

Think about these things when you're writing a plot:

-What are your characters going through? A good plot involves characters being involved in something that grabs the reader. Imagine if BEN DROWNED was just about a guy buying a game and it turned out be really glitchy. That's not a good plot. Nothing interesting happens. Or imagine a story where someone buys a mattress. . . A REALLY ITCHY MATTRESS. And it's driving him crazy, he can't sleep. So, he gets a new mattress. The end. Minor annoyances aren't engaging.

-Think about what percentage of the lines in your story matter. As in, how many actually contribute to the story? If you have a pasta that's 100 lines and 90 of them are about someone going to the mall before they come home and get murdered by a monster, well, that's not good. If those 90 lines have no connection to the story you need to trim it down. The shorter your story is the more each sentence matters.

-Do the actions of your characters make sense? So, if your story involves someone becoming a killer they should have a good reason for it. Think about why someone is doing something. If YOU don't understand why then no one else will. Don't write something just because it's convenient or because you think it's totally awesome, that makes for a really weak story and you end up looking silly. You don't need to explain everything, mystery is good for big things and if little things make sense it will be obvious. Just think about what a real person would do in a situation like that. And even if you don't explain something in the story, YOU should know why it's happening.

-Does your story raise good questions or bad questions? Good questions are the ones that people ask because they want to know more. Bad questions are ones that come because people don't understand what's going on. This ties in with things making sense, but it also comes from not giving important information. This is tricky to explain, because the line between good vagueness and bad vagueness is very, very thin. The best thing to do is to read your story as if you didn't write it. What questions would they ask and are they the ones you want them to ask?

Telling stories is something you get better at with practice. If you're not sure how to tell a story, keep writing and more importantly READ. Reading is the best way to learn how to write.

Those are the best ways to avoid immediate story deletions. If you take these things into consideration your pasta is much more likely to survive and be seen.

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