Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26268080-20150313154839/@comment-26268080-20150316222538

Banningk1979 wrote: In all honesty, I would say this this needs a good deal of work before it would make it on the main site.

Now, I do like the fact that you used real life concepts, like the city of Centralia, (the inspiration for Silent Hill, as I am sure you know) and such in this.

Where this story lacks though is as follows:

-This reads more like a new paper article than a Creepypasta. People in the neighborhood die of gas exposure. There really isn't anything supernatural or otherworldy about it, and while the idea of people dying in their sleep is unnerving, it isn't really grounds for  a Creepypasta.

-With all the attention that the deaths were receiving, especially to the point where police kurfews were in place, there is no way that a simple gas like carbon monoxide wouldn't have been detected right away. There are over the counter kits that people can buy to find these gas leaks in their homes, so an entire police department would have discovered them in a moment. Plus, any trained investigator would have noticed the smell and identified it right away. So in reality, this story would have ended when the old woman's body was discovered.

-The audio clip of the two kids playing video games didn't really have an impact on the story at all.

-Inserting the doctor's soon and having him discover the firefighter's log is just far too obvious a plot hole. In an event this major, there is no way that a firefighter would have found the source of the smell and the deaths, written it down, and then just mysteriously forgotten to turn it in or tell anyone that he discovered the entire cause.

My advice here is to take your original opener, the idea of people dying in their sleep, and build an actual pasta from that. It's a creepy concept, since going to sleep is always associated with leaving yourself open for any sort of ghoulish fiend to come in and mess with you, but the rest of it reads very much like a news article, with no real elements of mysetry or esotetica.

Just my advice though. I will commend you though for using the Writer's Workshop and the blogs for their intended purpose. As I said, this story needs a lot of work, but I wouldn't give up on it. Use the resources and ask for help, and I assure you that we will help you all we can with succeeding here. Thanks, I shall get to work on it.