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Post by Salzmark on Feb 9, 2019 17:10:43 GMT -6
^^^So much for this. A few hours, and all it gets is 2 upvotes and no comments. I’m not sure why I bother.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 9, 2019 18:02:31 GMT -6
Yet another horror piece I did, also for a contest on Reddit, also tailored for the audience there (my preëmptive apologies to Messrs. Rodgers and Hart for abusing their lovely song): That's a new twist. A man who throws himself into joining the bloodsuckers so willingly. I love it.
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Post by Salzmark on Feb 9, 2019 18:11:54 GMT -6
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 9, 2019 18:18:58 GMT -6
You're welcome. Maybe there's a pattern to recognizing which stories get more attention. I know a number of them tend to be longer, but that's all I've gleaned so far.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 15, 2019 0:13:39 GMT -6
Hey, Salzmark, have you ever noticed a curious tendency when it comes to readers of online horror stories, or Creepypasta, or whatever we're preferring to call it these days? Whenever one of these online stories ends on anything that's less than a bitter-bitter note, the readers will tend to go absolutely ballistic saying that the writer "copped out" even if the not-altogether-bad ending was actually earned. And no amount of pointing out that not all horror ends bitterly, nor ever has, does any good. My personal take on the issue is that a handful of these creepy little stories HAVE to end at least bittersweetly so that the rest can dangle just that tiny glimmer of hope for readers to keep them invested. After all, if all these stories ended uniformly, there'd be no point. It'd alienate the readership. If I already know there is literally 0% hope, I'd probably not bother staying in the online horror fandom.
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Post by Salzmark on Feb 15, 2019 7:49:59 GMT -6
Hey, Salzmark , have you ever noticed a curious tendency when it comes to readers of online horror stories, or Creepypasta, or whatever we're preferring to call it these days? Whenever one of these online stories ends on anything that's less than a bitter-bitter note, the readers will tend to go absolutely ballistic saying that the writer "copped out" even if the not-altogether-bad ending was actually earned. And no amount of pointing out that not all horror ends bitterly, nor ever has, does any good. My personal take on the issue is that a handful of these creepy little stories HAVE to end at least bittersweetly so that the rest can dangle just that tiny glimmer of hope for readers to keep them invested. After all, if all these stories ended uniformly, there'd be no point. It'd alienate the readership. If I already know there is literally 0% hope, I'd probably not bother staying in the online horror fandom. Yes, very much so, though it also seems to apply for horror in general nowadays… Anything less than doom and gloom and abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter is considered not horrifying enough. And I hate that tendency. Is the Lovecraft effect? “Live is not worth living, and there’s no God in the heavens caring about us, there’s just a cold, indifferent universe, and we’re just meaningless specks of dust, and if we realize this, we’ll all go mad,” etc., etc., etc.? Because, pre-Lovecraft (or, at least, pre-Lovecraft-rediscovery), horror was fairly divided between happy and sad endings. It’s also a question of taste (or lack thereof). The people online seem to want to compete to be the most disgusting, the most over-the-top, the most depressing. There was a horrible one on “Short Scary Stories” in which the narrator and his wife go to some restaurant and eat people, and of course all the blood squirting and hacking up the body are described in exacting detail (the twist, God help us all, is that they end up eating their kid). Do people actually want to read that? Maybe we’ve already met Cthulhu and gone mad. You’re right about the glimmer of hope’s allowing reader investment, as the reader doesn’t know how it will turn out. Depressing and gruesome stories are never my cup of tea; I like atmosphere, mystery, cold frisson up the spine. But all of that’s thrown to the wayside for gore, body horror, and endings with no hope. (To get a tad philosophical about it, it seems to be connected to the abandonment of religion—going back to the Lovecraft point. If there’s ultimately no hope and no morality, then why would there ever be a happy ending? And why bother abiding by “conventional morality” at all?)
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Post by Salzmark on Feb 15, 2019 7:56:29 GMT -6
Apropos of all this, the vampire story bombed too. Oh well.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 15, 2019 12:28:46 GMT -6
Hey, Salzmark , have you ever noticed a curious tendency when it comes to readers of online horror stories, or Creepypasta, or whatever we're preferring to call it these days? Whenever one of these online stories ends on anything that's less than a bitter-bitter note, the readers will tend to go absolutely ballistic saying that the writer "copped out" even if the not-altogether-bad ending was actually earned. And no amount of pointing out that not all horror ends bitterly, nor ever has, does any good. My personal take on the issue is that a handful of these creepy little stories HAVE to end at least bittersweetly so that the rest can dangle just that tiny glimmer of hope for readers to keep them invested. After all, if all these stories ended uniformly, there'd be no point. It'd alienate the readership. If I already know there is literally 0% hope, I'd probably not bother staying in the online horror fandom. Yes, very much so, though it also seems to apply for horror in general nowadays… Anything less than doom and gloom and abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter is considered not horrifying enough. And I hate that tendency. Is the Lovecraft effect? “Live is not worth living, and there’s no God in the heavens caring about us, there’s just a cold, indifferent universe, and we’re just meaningless specks of dust, and if we realize this, we’ll all go mad,” etc., etc., etc.? Because, pre-Lovecraft (or, at least, pre-Lovecraft-rediscovery), horror was fairly divided between happy and sad endings. It’s also a question of taste (or lack thereof). The people online seem to want to compete to be the most disgusting, the most over-the-top, the most depressing. There was a horrible one on “Short Scary Stories” in which the narrator and his wife go to some restaurant and eat people, and of course all the blood squirting and hacking up the body are described in exacting detail (the twist, God help us all, is that they end up eating their kid). Do people actually want to read that? Maybe we’ve already met Cthulhu and gone mad. You’re right about the glimmer of hope’s allowing reader investment, as the reader doesn’t know how it will turn out. Depressing and gruesome stories are never my cup of tea; I like atmosphere, mystery, cold frisson up the spine. But all of that’s thrown to the wayside for gore, body horror, and endings with no hope. (To get a tad philosophical about it, it seems to be connected to the abandonment of religion—going back to the Lovecraft point. If there’s ultimately no hope and no morality, then why would there ever be a happy ending? And why bother abiding by “conventional morality” at all?) Yes, exactly. Though I wouldn't get too upset by it. Horror Stories with bittersweet, even happy, or just ambiguous endings, despite the noise of their critics, continue to be made and survive. So there is a bright side. Many of them are even successful. On reflection, I think a lot of it has to do with a lot of the loudest voices being younger people in their edgelord phase. And after posting this question, I went back to one such 'happy ending' horror tale and noted all the positivity it also received from other people, so I hope that cheers you up a bit. Yes, we doth borrow and rely on H.P. Lovecraft too much many times.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 15, 2019 12:30:50 GMT -6
Apropos of all this, the vampire story bombed too. Oh well. Really? That's odd, considering how people generally seem to like "Let the Right One In"/"Let Me In", which you are story was somewhat similar to in all the right ways.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 15, 2019 12:37:58 GMT -6
This, by the way, is the story with the happy ending I told you about, Salzmark. Granted, the source I original went back to was an narration on YouTube, the response was actually quite positive to the story as a whole as well as the ending: Fenter Woods, by Mr. Twelve
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Post by Salzmark on Feb 15, 2019 12:52:23 GMT -6
It’s not really that I’m upset by it, WeirdRaptor… It’s just that the sorts of things I like in the genre (and, heh, in most genres) aren’t what most people like nowadays, so I often feel out of the loop even when talking about genres and topics I like. I like Lovecraft a lot, though his stories rarely live up to the introductions. (“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut…” I love that sort of thing.) And his Old New England settings are wonderful. Stylistically, though, he’s an awful choice to imitate, and imitating his shallow worldview is even worse. (By “worldview,” I’m referring to man-is-a-meaningless-speck “cosmicism,” not the racism, which I hope no one wants to imitate.) The vampire story is here on Reddit. (I’m “nalkarj” there.) It’s barely doing better than the cathedral story. I’ll take a look at “Fenter Woods”—I like that title. I had an idea for a NoSleep story/series based on when I was in my junior year in college and I somehow had the dorm room all to myself—I’ll let you know if/when I get around to writing it.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 15, 2019 13:00:25 GMT -6
It’s not really that I’m upset by it, WeirdRaptor … It’s just that the sorts of things I like in the genre (and, heh, in most genres) aren’t what most people like nowadays, so I often feel out of the loop even when talking about genres and topics I like. I like Lovecraft a lot, though his stories rarely live up to the introductions. (“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut…” I love that sort of thing.) And his Old New England settings are wonderful. Stylistically, though, he’s an awful choice to imitate, and imitating his shallow worldview is even worse. (By “worldview,” I’m referring to man-is-a-meaningless-speck “cosmicism,” not the racism, which I hope no one wants to imitate.) The vampire story is here on Reddit. (I’m “nalkarj” there.) It’s barely doing better than the cathedral story. I’ll take a look at “Fenter Woods”—I like that title. I had an idea for a NoSleep story/series based on when I was in my junior year in college and I somehow had the dorm room all to myself—I’ll let you know if/when I get around to writing it. Lovecraft is a double-edged sword to follow. His writing definitely had its strong suits which deserve to be remembered, and then there's his, as you said, shallow worldview, which doesn't lend itself to a wide variety of stories. It's hard to figure out how to get in touch with readers, and I do hope you hit that sweet spot sooner than later. "Fenter Woods" isn't a 'great' story, but I certainly enjoy it a lot. It's a fairly typical creature feature, but it has a strong base, and it was fun.
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Post by Salzmark on Feb 15, 2019 13:10:19 GMT -6
Oh, I liked it, WeirdRaptor! Particularly how the narrator gets up the courage to go after his friend—it somewhat reminded me of Tom Sawyer, when Tom is trying to reassure Becky and Injun Joe is chasing them in the cave. Regarding the ending, it’s the perfect ending for the story; if it had been some miserable there-is-no-point-to-life ending, it wouldn’t have been dramatically satisfying.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 15, 2019 13:16:45 GMT -6
Oh, I liked it, WeirdRaptor ! Particularly how the narrator gets up the courage to go after his friend—it somewhat reminded me of Tom Sawyer, when Tom is trying to reassure Becky and Injun Joe is chasing them in the cave. Regarding the ending, it’s the perfect ending for the story; if it had been some miserable there-is-no-point-to-life ending, it wouldn’t have been dramatically satisfying. YES! I can't believe I didn't think of it before! But yes, this is very much a Tom Sawyer-style horror story. And yes, it ended how it needed to. The boy saves the girl, but the monsters survives and leaves, probably never to return.
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Post by Salzmark on Feb 15, 2019 13:31:46 GMT -6
This is funny (for me, at least). You know what one of my highest-rated scary “stories” on Reddit is? I didn’t even have to think about it.
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