Horror Writers

Hey guys! I’ve never read any horror novel per se, but I kind of find the book I’m writing turning into some kind of psychological/supernatural-ish thriller. I can’t quite tell if it’s actually scary or not, but that’s probably because I’ve read it a bazillion times.

I don’t write much horror other than some supernatural themed books which could freak someone out, but they’re more fantasy than horror. I love the It movies, and I can’t find anyone else in my bubble who does, so… yep.

@taylorclogston

I’m more amused than worried, but that is good to know.

@sam-m

Those are good points. Thank you for reading the story!

@vivian-grant I really don’t think what seem like similarities to ET matter at all. You really only have a few surface level similarities. Even the “sharing wounds” is more like “when the alien gets sick, the main character gets sick” in the movie.

@vivian-grant

First off, I enjoyed your story -thanks for letting me read it. 🙂

I do have a few suggestions:

#1 I feel like your story could benefit from more showing and less telling. For example, when Wendy is in the woods, instead of saying she’s scared, you could do something like: “Wendy’s breath became strained as they rushed further…[Read more]

@phoenix

Thank you! You may tell me what I did right (what writer doesn’t want to hear that?), but please don’t hold back if you see something problematic.

@taylorclogston

I haven’t seen ET, and naturally get a lot of fire for that. That being said, the story plot for ET sounds a LOT like my story. They even share wounds? I actually based the monster’s appearance more off of a thumbnail I had seen of Slenderman.

Well, in the early stages of writing the story, I had several directions I could go for…[Read more]

@vivian-grant I’m glad I could be useful! By ET, I meant the movie, not trying to imply the creature was an alien. Like, the “befriend a child, share wounds with it, looong fingers, adults don’t really know what’s going on, hospital tries to contain it, escape, happy ending for benevolent misunderstood creature.” Which is also very different from…[Read more]

@taylorclogston

Thank you for the feedback! It was extremely helpful, and I admit I laughed a couple of times at the way you phrased some of the flaws. I was not ever trying to be corny, but now I certainly see it. The alternate ending with Olivia sounds appealing, but it also sounds a bit convenient, not to mention a tad outside her character to…[Read more]

Good job on not showing the “friend” for a while. The suspense is good. Mentioning the snake made me wonder if it was tied to the monster, and then the ugliness and the burning had me wondering what sort of monster we were dealing with. I like the gradual pace of introducing characters, and that you attach them to a genre archetype so the reader…[Read more]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gdmvzwkkj5z8ndm/The%20Friend.docx?dl=0

@taylorclogston Thank you for the alternatives, and for pointing out that the link didn’t work.

@vivian-grant As far as I’m aware, not in the same exact functionality with editing and commenting and decent privacy settings built into a tolerantly responsive editor.

There’s always pastebin for simple sharing, though other people can’t comment on the page. There’s the online version of MS Word, which probably functions similarly to Google…[Read more]

@taylorclogston

Thank you. Are there alternatives for people who don’t have a Google account?

@vivian-grant That link doesn’t work. It looks like a download link from an email inbox, which isn’t going to work for anyone not logged into your account. Most people around here host on Google Docs and then use the link sharing function in it.

https://dl-mail.ymail.com/ws/download/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-5ddQNCZJVGeCmJqzRi7RTPYFN0Ct03fcSHneDBeV_w3y-2QqdJ6rv83o8jDt6UkYOstHGQ2SvOzuBlPC52QM-g/messages/@.id==AEjNDcdz5Y6iXnAougymSH941jw/content/parts/@.id==3/raw?appid=YMailNodin&ymreqid=e0659ccd-63ec-97cb-1ccb-f8000001a600&token=zitEzqOML3j84e6ealFTT5U7-km5qEQF52lp7AcCuBYwtMyO26yH0Bbh4y5OqUbN0Wq0…[Read more]