Talk:Silence is Key/@comment-26054278-20170115211203

A common belief that I stand by in almost every situation is that any person can tell a story. I can, you can, and every single person any of us know have our own tales to tell. What matters is how such a narrative is put together and executed; for, while we all have our stories, that does not guarantee that they are quality or satisfactory works to begin with. Hence, that is where this Creepypasta comes into the conversation.

I see potential in "Silence is Key", but I found the execution to be much too basic, incomprehensible, and riddled with errors to feel much of an impact. In some ways, I wish this same (or, at least, a similar) idea had been refined and gone through several drafts. A simple revision could clear up some of the mistakes in the story; given that several appear in the first three sentences:

''She opened her eyes, although, that didn’t do much of a help. It was dark all around, she couldn’t see anything. She looked at sides, trying to understand where she was and what happened.''

The first sentence is grammatically incorrect and a rather weak way to begin the story. The second sentence flows awkwardly and the addition of "she couldn't see anything" seems rather redundant. Not only that, but the usage of "all around" makes the tone feel casual as opposed to "suspense-building". Lastly, the third sentence forgets to include the "her" before the word "sides", so it is also grammatically wrong.

Errors like these are throughout the whole piece, and, oftentimes, distract from the horror the pasta is attempting to create. A solid proofreader or some form of revision would have done a great deal in improving the experience the author of this story is trying to present.

An editor would also have come in handy in the case of language choice. This story uses simplistic words and boring descriptions that I've, for the most part, seen in other works. I think the sentence, "Terror stepped in," is actually a decent one (as it uses a bit of figurative language and is a welcome step-up from just saying "she was scared"), but other than that, there's not a lot of creative or original phrases here. Short sentences (such as the aforementioned "she was scared") are used, and while that's not bad in concept, it makes the flow feel stilted, and, without many words to color the story with, the pasta feels as though a younger child had written it.

Lastly, though, this story simply doesn't go much of anywhere or do much. The idea of a girl being captured and trying to get out of the situation only to fail is not new, and this story takes the concept nowhere new. The work's title really doesn't mean a lot to me, and the ending isn't impactful at all. I feel like the author wanted to include a form of twist but wasn't able to think of one, and thus decided to just state what the reader already assumed in hopes that it would come across as a huge revelation. Unfortunately, it did not, and just made the story feel like a waste of time.

I hate wasted effort and potential. However, while I believe the latter was involved in this story, I'm not sure the former was very much in mind. With more effort, this could have at least been semi-passable, but as is, the story refuses to do the bare minimum and becomes dull. 2/10.

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