Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28467653-20160515214806/@comment-28467653-20160517190035

Woah, thanks! Didn't expect something this detailed, I'm grateful for that. :)

Concerning important details that were absent, I've actually felt that giving them out later in the story is a more interesting way (slowly letting the reader know what's going on) than stating them right in the beginning, but yeah, I can see how this (combined with my not-so-great skills in writing stories in English) made the story confusing and incomprehensible. I still feel that way, but I guess until I cannot write a short story without all kinds of errors, I'll have to stick with the normal, non-confusing way.

About the plot: maybe it's a cultural thing, or something related to my generation (I'm 18), but the kind of mystery and ambiguity that I was aiming for (clearly, I haven't achieved that, but still) is actually much more terrifying to me, than, for example, what you have written. Yes, I can see how your hypothetical story could be a great story full of horrors and terror, but to me, it would be a simple story about a monster, with predictable outcomes: the heroes either defeat the monster, or all of them dies. For example, if they are sneaking in a dimly lit hallway, I know that either nothing will hapen, or the monster will attack them from an unexpected place, like the ceiling, or something like that. But I already suspect what's going to happen next, and there is a good chance that I'll be right. To me, the scariest horror stories are the ones when I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen in the next scene, on the next page, etc. This is true in all mediums, but it's especially true in written stories, where you can't really scare your audience with a jumpscare, not like in movies or videogames.

But anyway, I see your point. I guess writing my story in my native language first, then translating it...yeah, it was a pretty bad idea. It seems that it's not just confusing, it can be also downright misleading: at the end of the story, Catherine didn't scream at the mirror, she went downstairs, eat her breakfast with her brother and his wife, while her brother was telling her the news about Billy, who heard a woman screaming last night, from the middle of the town, where there was no hole at all. At least, that's what I had intended to write; in the original, hungarian version, it was more or less clear, but it seems the poor translation screwed up the ending. Oh well, I'll try to make it better next time.

So anyway, thanks for all the advice you gave me! Writing these stories in English from the beginning is such a simple but great idea, I can't believe how I hadn't thought of it myself. I'll go back to the basics, it seems, and I'll try to come up with something better and (hopefully) more comprehensible next time.

One last question, if you're still capable of answering my stupid-ass questions: I should delete this forum/discussion, right? I'm pretty sure I should, but since I'm new here, I'd like to be certain.