Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25301975-20140902065241/@comment-25558572-20140903072901

So in the first paragraph, you pretty much tell me everything I’ll need to know about this story- it’s written by a murderer. If you must use this premise in a story, don’t give it away right in the very first sentences, or no one will read the whole thing because it’s far too clichéd to be scary.

Why did the MC find the dead deer to be so “perfect”? What did he like about it? I’m pretty sure even someone who works in a slaughterhouse wouldn’t exactly relish the sight of a large animal dying, so it’s impossible to believe in the case of a twelve-year-old.

The problem gets much worse in the next paragraph. Again, why does he enjoy the sight of this dying man? Does he at least feel guilty for just letting him die?

That last sentence really threw me off. And by the way, you should use a number’s word form in writing most of the time; seeing numbers like “5 bodies” in creepypastas is a pet peeve of mine.

If you’re going to call someone absolutely beautiful, we should get a better description than a basic summary of what they look like. You should use specifics like the shape of their lips, slant in their eyes, how the hair sits on the forehead. Use photographs to go off of if you need help with this.

How does this girl not know that the MC is a killer? If there’s twenty-five bodies in his basement, then how are they hidden?

Why does the MC want to kill her all of a sudden? If he’s going to have feelings like this, there must be SOME kind of reason for them. Even a slightly vague or extremely bizarre motive, such as thinking she’s the reincarnation of a serial killer, can make murder far scarier because people don’t usually do things without some kind of reason, especially not something as unorthodox as murder.

How is he simultaneously gripped by a desire to kill her and a reason not to? Again, without a reason of some kind, this makes no sense.

<span style="font-family:"Constantia","serif"">Remember to space out dialogue. Indent a new paragraph every time someone else speaks or else your story is difficult to read.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Constantia","serif"">How are people finding the MC a likeable guy when he’s a serial killer? You haven’t established any reason so far for other characters to like him. We literally know nothing except that he has a love for killing and seeing dead beings.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Constantia","serif"">The sadism employed here doesn’t make it scary; it just makes your MC completely one-sided. It’s frankly dull to read.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Constantia","serif"">I can’t comment much on this story further, because there’s really nothing else to say. The premise is generic, the characters are completely flat, and the description that ties it together is rushed and relies on telling and glossing over mundane details.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Constantia","serif"">The errors weren’t bad enough to seriously impede reading; spacing was the only really error here.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Constantia","serif"">Murder really shouldn’t be used as the central theme to a creepypasta. It’s been done to death and, therefore, is very hard to make scary. I wouldn’t advise using serial killers at all for the same reason.