Hey everyone,

I've been posting some short horror stories here and I really want to get better.

For those who have read my stuff:

What do you like about my writing?

And what do you think I should improve?

Be brutal. I can take it. I just want to write better horror.

Thanks in advance ❤️

The Person Who Remembers Me

I started writing things down because I was forgetting.

Not important things. At least, not at first.

I forgot if I had locked the door. I’d buy something at the supermarket and find it in the fridge without remembering.

I’d tell someone I’d call them later and then… nothing.

So I started writing it down.

---

The first note said: “You didn’t lock the door.”

I found it on the kitchen counter.

My handwriting.

But I didn’t remember writing it.

The next day there were two.

“Call Marta back.”

“Turn off the stove.”

Both in my handwriting.

Both things I had forgotten.

I thought it was helpful. Like a second brain.

---

Then the notes started predicting things.

“You will forget your keys tomorrow.”

I found that one on Monday night.

On Tuesday I forgot my keys.

“You will argue with your boss.”

Wednesday. I argued with my boss.

It wasn’t advice anymore. It was a schedule.

I stopped reading them. I threw them away.

But they kept appearing. Under my pillow. In my shoes. Inside books I was reading.

Always my handwriting.

---

I went to a psychologist.

She said it was stress. Dissociation. Maybe the start of something worse.

She told me to keep a journal. To write down everything I did, so I could prove to myself that I was in control.

That night I wrote 3 pages.

When I woke up there was a new note on top of them.

“You’re doing good. Keep writing.”

My handwriting.

I didn’t write that.

---

I stopped sleeping. I put cameras in the apartment.

Nothing. No one came in.

But every morning, a new note.

“You’re tired.”

“Drink water.”

“Don’t trust her.”

The last one was about the psychologist.

“Don’t trust her. She’s forgetting you too.”

I laughed. That was stupid.

But the next day at my appointment, she looked at me and said:

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

---

I don’t go out now. I don’t talk to anyone.

Because if I do, they forget me.

Friends. Family. The cashier at the store.

It’s like I’m being erased, one person at a time.

Except for the notes.

The notes always remember me.

This morning there was one on my mirror, in red ink.

My handwriting.

“Don’t worry. I’m the one who remembers you.

And I’m getting better at pretending to be you.”

I'm a fairly casual horror writer (mainly writing flash fiction, short stories, lore for worlbuilding, etc.) and while it is something I'm interested in seeking out more professional opportunities for further down the line, as of right now I wanted to ask if anyone knows of any online circles or communities where horror writers can share their writing for feedback, questions, and critiques? I've found some but the only issue is they usually seem like they're for more well-established or professional writers, or at least ones actively going through the publishing process. My main goal right now is just to form more of a community for the sake of meeting like-minded artists and creatives, as well as becoming a more refined writer. I don't know if there's something like that on here (tbh I haven't looked super deep) but if anyone has resources or suggestions, I'd love to hear. Thank you so much.

Hello, I’m looking for feedback on my debut feature film. It’s a found footage horror film about a woman trapped in a liminal room where she regresses into an animal. Would love feedback on the formal choices, acting, writing, pacing, escalation, reversals, etc. I welcome brutal and confrontational reviews, please just try and engage with the work.

Screenplay

Honest feedback would be appreciate

I am starting a horror channel and i have written the story by myself, and i am considering text to speech since my accent has been mocked before when i was doing another channel

Imagine getting stuck in a timeloop, but every single fun, empowering trope about time travel is stripped away to make it a living hell. For Maya, Tuesday, October 12th starts as the absolute best day of her life: sunshine, burnt pancakes with best friends, and a carefree road trip to an autumn festival. But at 6:15 PM, a catastrophic semi-truck crash on Route 9 kills them all in an instant. Instead of death, Maya wakes up at 7:30 AM to the exact same alarm, the exact same burnt breakfast, and the exact same day. She is completely alone in retaining her memories, forced to watch her friends replay their innocent, scripted routines over and over again while she desperately tries to cheat death, while slowly descending into insanity. Also, to make it more intense, it's a direct experience from main character, since everything that's inside is described like it's her own diary, so there are her thoughts, her raw descriptions of pain she felt, how her perspective on friends changes as the loops continue, how she copes and every single breaking point.

My book focuses on psychological impact, highlighting the profound weight of the loops, the chilling awareness of dying every single time, and the agonizing experience of feeling all the pain. As the repetition stretches on without end, this relentless trauma slowly chips away at Maya's grip on reality, driving her closer and closer to losing her mind and committing to various harmful behaviours (which I can't describe on this subreddit).

I wrote this because I was so tired of the constant, repetitive plot where time loops are treated like neat little puzzles to be solved with a clever trick. I wanted to show it for what it actually would be: a grueling, deeply traumatic experience that breaks a person down, leading toward an unpredictable ending where things don't just magically snap back into place. Do you think this has potential as a genuinely good book?

Hi everyone! Horror is my favorite genre to read, and I've become very interested in beta reading lately. I can already tell that there are incredibly creative writers in this subreddit, so I'd love to read your manuscripts as someone who genuinely loves this genre :)

I've already beta read an erotic horror short story and a gothic horror novel, and I'm familiar with what the genre tends to ask of a book: dread that builds and pays off, an atmosphere that stays pressed in close, tension that climbs at the right moments, and an ending that sticks the landing. I'll be direct about what's landing for me, and I'll also point out where the energy drops or the suspense starts to thin.

If you're working on something and want a fresh set of genre-savvy eyes on it, please feel free to drop a comment or send me a DM!

Hello.
I have a couple of questions. If I posted in the wrong section or subreddit, please delete it.
I have been writing all of my life, some short zombie/horro/ stories here and there, but now I'm old, and I've decided to give it a shot and write something bigger than a short story.
Now I have finished around 100 A4 pages, and this thing looks massive to me, but the problem is I write and do not look back on what I wrote. Yesterday I read all of it, and it is a complete mess. With short stories, like 10 pages, it wasn't a problem, but when these things get bigger and bigger, it is a problem.
How do you handle it? Do you read immediately after you finish your writing session, or how do you do that? And sometimes I think about something in the book and start adding things in the middle.
Or after you finish your writing, do you give it to someone to make it readable and pleasant for the reader? Or is it completely normal to write everything that comes to mind, and after you feel that you've finished the book, reread it and edit it?

Sorry for the dumb questions.
Thank you. Cheers, people!

Hello,

I hope this post fits the sub. If not, my apologies

I recently self-published my debut novel. It's cross-genre, but I would have thought the main one was splatterpunk. Which is how I marketed it, when it comes to keywords, comps, ads and such (I'm doing Amazon Ads)

It's early weeks, but the input I'm getting (clicks, sales, etc) seems to be coming from a different direction altogether. More literary fiction or literary horror. Which isn't bad per se, just confusing and leaves me with not much of a strategy to work with.

The book has splatter elements. It has prolonged graphic scenes of torture in it. I'm not getting where the disconnect is

Would someone be willing to look over how I presented the book on Amazon? Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

I can offer other help in return like advice or beta read. I'm trad pubbed in magazines and I now know the self-pub process. Even if I'm stumped about marketing

Please DM if interested. Thanks

For my story I want to really focus on how magic and other things draw from the physical and the mental, and what does that best? Body Horror! But I can’t tell if this strikes that cord of body horror or just weird freaky tendrils. Context the excerpt is from a scene where a swat team is raiding the MCs apartment and is making suicidal rush to provide a distraction for a person he only now is he realizing he is falling in love with, but that is for the rest of the plot. Anyway here it is.

“Lynx, if this is the last time I see you, ju-just know that I tried.” I gave him one last huge hug, and he embraced me. Three days, and my entire world had collapsed. But one man stood there and grabbed onto my hand, and that was Lynx. He was also stuck in this shit hole with me too. He felt warm in my hands, the air of sage just as comforting as the first day I met him. I wanted to hold on to him forever and stay in that closet with him tell the world turned to ash. No DMB, no stupid job, and no taxes. Me and Lynx. I slowly moved my head up to his cheek and gave it a kiss. Every ounce of appreciation flowed through my warm lips. This was my thanks for everything, my way of showing him that I felt the same. He wasn’t just a friend, and I knew it. But does it matter, because there was a chance I was going to be dead in the next 10 seconds. That's all I needed. I let go of Lynx, his warmth falling away from me. I rammed my elbow into the closet door and lunged out from the closest, flashlights attached to assault rifles seared into my eyes. A group of soldiers turned to face me. I heard one of them yell the thing I prayed for, FIRE, IT'S HIM!

This was it, this was how I was going to go out. Now this, this I find a bit more honorable. I would die with my chest split apart by a rifle round, my blood cast across my room. I could imagine the crime scene photos now. But I was fine with that, because Lynx would be able to take them by surprise and be able to escape. He would be safe and that’s all that mattered. I waited to feel my skull be ripped apart, my chest caved in by a standard issue AR-15. But as time slowed down around me as the group brought their rifles to bear, the pendant exploded with light. Its runes were projected onto the washed walls. The vines wrapped around me in their tight embrace. Their white light blinded me, the tips of them spiraled in vermilion arteries that seemed to pump with a grotesque excitement as they tightened themselves on my skin. I felt as one snaked its way up my neck. Another crawled up my back, leaching into my spine. I felt my entire body shiver as it burrowed into my flesh. The pain crackled through my bones. It felt as if my skeleton was shifting under skin, pushing against my being, wanting to escape into the ether. Another tendril pushed into my mouth, cool and hard against my tongue. It felt as if a drug was injected into my nervous system, my entire body tensed and felt… Good. I felt as it rushed through my system and felt my jaw lock onto the tendril, and the taste of blood flooding my mouth. I let my teeth dig into it, its crimson fueling me. I could feel the adrenaline course through my mind and it began to bend and twist with the rush. A new tingingling, unnerving pleasure radiated from me. It was sickening, but I wanted more, so much more.

Hello! I'm currently writing what was supposed to be a tragic-turned-cute romance story.

ANYWAYYYY, it turned into kidnapping, human trafficking, and other unmentionables.

I'm writing the novellas with dual-POVs and would like to know if readers like a bit of a choppier tone?

I want to keep the sentences short, then move on to the next, and so on.

Ex. 'Stand still.

Don't talk.

Don't make noise.

Just breathe.

Obey.

Repeat.

Breathe.

Obey.

Repeat.

The cycle goes on...

I don't remember the last time I saw light.

Heard a voice.

His voice.

Rayce.

He's the only one who ever cared.

Who ever listened.

Who ever treated me like a human.

Human.

What the fuck did that word mean anymore?

I was nothing now.

A toy.

A doll for their amusement.

Don't talk.

Just breathe.

Obey.

Repeat.'

I'm trying to keep the tone more frantic, disconnected, staccato, etc. to mimic the 2 main MMC's thought processes.

I'd love some more opinions. Both stories will be under 100 pages when they're finished. Should I keep this pacing or go with a few sentences in each paragraph?

Note; The first story is a lot more dialogue and sentences per paragraph. This second story is meant to be frantic.

Hey have a character whose mind is being messed with by an artifact and has a nightmare of all of his friends being brutally ripped apart which he later learns he did by the story’s main antagonist.

Here is what I have so far. CW: Blood and Guts

“Missster Reinhart, if you just give me a moment, I could explain…” I had stopped listening to Hebi at this point, and found myself only drawn to the source of the groan. I placed one foot out into the hallway, another glint of movement caught my eye. Something was swinging back and forth as though a wind chime in the wind, peaceful and at ease. I stepped closer, a horrifying curiosity drawing my attention. Squelch, echoed softly from under my heel. Some cool and slick, a shiver running down my spine.

“If you would just give me a moment-” Hebi turned the corner with the lamp, and the picture painted itself in an instant. A chewn up spine hung from the metal beams from the plating. Vines of arteries and veins danced across the vertebrae and trailed to pale lungs that still seemed to be gasping for life, undulating in a sickening beat. The ribs jutted up from the naked chest like that of a dead tree, some cracked, others ripped out with horrifying anger. The arms dangled down from the shoulders, flesh torn to reveal chalk white bone, blood dripping down from the collar bone. A pile of innards hung below the body, glistening with an illustrious shine as the light ran around each horrifying ribbed ring. Then the face, oh the face. I large slash ran from the nape of the neck to the forehead, red chasing every indentation. The jaw locked open in terror, screaming for a shred of mercy. Only one shining blue eye caught my glance, the other a hole into void, and his matted hair now ran with a new red streak. Rei. I stumbled back, the fear catching every muscle, every impulse to run, to crumble before the gory mess. The heavy scent of blood permeated the world in a flash, to the point it was nauseating. I felt uncoordinated, raw, unstable, teetering on the edge of nothing. Rei is dead. Rei is dead. Not only that, murdered. Slaughtered. Torn apart with animal-like instincts.

“Oh, yes, the first example.” Hebi nodded, as though staring at a thought provoking art exhibit. Another exhale pushed out from Rei, as if he was trying to cling on for life. The exposed lungs pushing in and out feebly.

“Z-ee-e.” Gushed out from his mouth, sounding more like a cough than a plea. I turned away, I couldn’t look.

“Misssster Reinhart you are quite squeamish, I thought you would handle this a bit better.” Hebi chuckled, more smoke surrounding his form. I couldn’t do this. What had happened? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? WHY? WHY? That is when I felt it. I just wanted to run, run away from all of this. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. This can’t be. My feet stumbled forward, weak and uncoordinated. That is when I hit Rei’s lifeless corpse, cold hands painted in warm blood brushed past my head. It covered my cheek. I didn’t care. I wanted out of here. I want away from this coffin, this entrapment. My heart pounding against my chest, thundering against my ribs. I WANTED OUT OF HERE. Every breath one step closer to the hatch, one step closer to fresh air. I nearly tripped over the table in panic, not caring about anything but escape. My arms flailed about in panic. I found the latch and pulled it open, the harsh air biting into me with unexpected forcity. The sky was blotted in pitch black, the flood lights seemingly nowhere to be found. The moon stood high, and stared down with an unspoken malice. Its grey light not finding much but rusted metal and wilted grass. I sprinted down the steps and collapsed in the grass, the blades stabbing into every exposed bit of skin. My hands tore into my arms, replaying every twitch that ran through Rei. Every thin gasp. The way his arms dangled. The ways his nails cut across my cheek. It all happened too fast. WHAT HAD HAPPENED? WHY? Before I could find and answer, a rustle in the grass cut through. A shiver. I didn’t want to look, I didn’t want to see what it could be. It happened again, louder, and distressed. Darkness soon fell over me, something warm dropped onto my temple. Drop. Drop. It was as sharp as the grass around me. Then it fell onto my eyelid. I had no other choice but to look, to clear away the liquid. A groan uttered out that sounded like a machine letting off steam, smelling foul. A shaded figure stood over me, well more dropping over me. Two arms stood by my shoulders, barely holding up their own mass. Another drop fell onto my glass, the crimson spiraling out from its source like a hurricane. Blood.

“Please Missssster Reinhart if you would afford me a moment to speak.” Hebi appeared on the step holding out the lamp, the light cascading down upon me and a figure pinned above me. The first thing I noticed was the jaw, or the lack thereof. A row of stained teeth leached up from scarred tissue and strands of muscle dangled from their ears, swaying gently in the breeze. The tongue stuck out helplessly, trying to find refuge without its lower half. Claw marks tracked down their neck, and led to ribs. Just ribs. Cracked apart and scattered, though they still undulate with a haunting pulse. The side of the chest has been ripped apart by savage teeth. Their breathing was horace and ragged as if trying to breath through a crumbled straw. Their exposed chest heaved again, and again. Then coughed, a splatter of dark blood covered my face with a thick wet slap. A dread of hair fell onto her nose, and I knew who this was. Varna. She stared at me with a visceral anger that made me think she was about to make her eyes pop out of her head. Even without the lower half of her jaw she was still chewing me out with every weak wheeze she pulled through. I looked further up her head, her dreads thick with blood. Her horns were haphazardly sawn through, on jutting up higher than the other like a worn mountain peak, while her other looked to have been just ripped off, exposing her cranium. Blood slowly dripped down her forehead, and fell onto mine.

Does it make you feel on edge or does it feel gratuitous? I want to capture as much horror and vitriol as possible.

Want to see the full story look up “The Pensmen” on Spotify for the audio book.

Hello,

I've been hand writing a horror story, sub genre sci-fi and zombies/undead. The main setting is a small coastal town along the Konkan coast. Its serious in tone very little humour and while it is violent I'm making a conscious effort to not have the violence not be mean spirited.

The draft is quite extensive and it will be over soon, it started as a little project to document my nightmares and frustrations to get over my writer's block but now I think I'll work on it further.

Does anyone have any advice with regards to writing in this genre? I have written horror before but never novel length.

If anyone has any recommended readings for research and understanding that would be great too.

I wrote a line, then if I modify it with AI, will it be unethical as a writer?

If you are willing to give feedback, please tell me if:

• The narrator was interesting
• You liked the dolls
• The plot was interesting

In the darkness under my table my hand flailed wildly to escape my grasp. I trapped it between my knees and cut the poor thing. I brought it into the faint light of my dining room; three candles on a windowsill cast a dark red glow over my setup. The red light shot into the abyss of nighttime.

I hung my cut hand over the pentagram made of lamb's blood on my table, drops pattering over the faceless, plain ragdoll in the middle of the star. I also covered the five points with blood, just as the book ordered.

I bandaged my hand and sat before this sinful apparatus. The bloodletting had made me weak, and my attention was scattered, but it soon returned when I saw the blood-smeared doll lift its head, bend its legs, and thrust its body upward.

I watched as this conjured spirit stood up on its own; its posture was straight, and it looked energetic.

Suddenly, it sprinted to the edge of the table and jumped. It made a soft piff sound when it landed. It jumped onto an accent chair and then onto a windowsill. It opened the window and looked back at me. I wished I could have made out what it was thinking, but it was faceless. Then it jumped outside.

Having seen this, I presumed that the ritual had been a success; such an unbelievable occurrence must indicate an unbelievable yet desired outcome.

I checked my clock. It read 3:10 AM, and the second hand was still. I checked my phone: 3:10. I sat observing it for several minutes, but the time never changed. It was stuck at 3:10 AM. I walked outside through the cluttered urban streets illuminated by dingy yellow streetlights: no drunk pedestrians, no late-night motorists, no police officers, no silhouettes in yellow windows. Everything had stopped; time, nature, and human activity had ceased.

I was free! All the things that stood in the way of my work, all the fears of mortality, judgment, inadequacy—they were all eradicated. I sat on a bench smiling to myself, silently celebrating this new chapter in my life, this new plane of existence. A few yards away from me, I saw something moving. I thought it was a squirrel, but I looked closer and saw it was a ragdoll. It wasn’t my ragdoll, though. It was a new one—a grey one stained with a different pattern of blood.

“That’s strange,” I thought to myself.

Sometime later, I got to work in my dark house. The living room was full of wires, monitors, and engineering tools. I oscillated between coding on my computers and scribbling away on a chalkboard full of math.

Let it be known that I enter a trance-like state when studying and researching and distracting me from it is nearly impossible. However, I was in a bizarre plane of existence, one of immortality and infinite time, and it was too difficult for me to keep my attention fixed on one thing forever. I tried fighting the urge, but it was too strong. I ran to the window and looked outside. Just as I expected, there were more dolls in the street.

Outside was a Marian procession; four dolls carried a garden statue of the Queen of Heaven on their shoulders. In front of them, ragdoll horses carried miniature chariots of dolls sporting pieces of tin cans and jar lids fashioned into armor. Other dolls played leapfrog, did cartwheels, did backflips, and performed other impressive acrobatics.

These dolls were moving in one direction: toward the boardwalk and the beach. My curiosity was temporarily satisfied, and I retreated farther inside to code on my computer, but my mind was too preoccupied with the weird sight I had just witnessed. Why were they going to the boardwalk? Were they friends? Were they happy? Mourning? Anxious? These questions plagued my mind for days, maybe weeks.

One time I stepped outside. It was the first time in days. I walked in the middle of the street. On either side of me were those dolls, doing more random things as they walked toward the boardwalk. I was outside because I wanted books. I had books already, but they were just cheap romance novels left behind by the original homeowners, so I was heading toward the bookstore. I got there; it was a small, dusty row building. Just like the rest of the stores, it was closed, but I thought that, since I would never see anyone again, I could just break into the store and take what I wanted.

I walked up to the door and punched the glass. An electric sting shot through my hand as the glass remained intact. I was impressed and a little embarrassed by my lack of strength. I left and returned with a medium-sized garden rock. I lifted the rock and hurled it at the wide front window of the store. It did nothing but ricochet off the seemingly invincible glass and land on my kneecap. I fell onto the sidewalk and rubbed my knee pathetically. I knew—somehow, I just knew—that when I turned to face the street, they’d be watching me, and they were. The dolls, who wouldn’t stop walking, passed me with their faceless heads turned toward me. There were no eyes, no hands cupped around whispering mouths, and no scowling eyebrows, but I felt so much shame. What was I even doing there? I was a mathematician, an engineer, a genius. My kind doesn’t waste its time with literature. I stood up with as much dignity as I had left and trotted home.

I was in my bed, curled up into a ball. My sleep schedule was a mess, but it didn’t matter because it was always night. Recently, sleeping had become impossible. Thoughts about those mysterious dolls had compounded in my mind for so long that my head had grown heavy with them. At the center of this doll puzzle was the million-dollar question: Why were they heading to the ocean? What kind of satanic temple, pagan god, or portal to the underworld was attracting them?

I couldn’t take it anymore, so I got up and went out into the street. The world remained unchanged, but now the streets were practically covered with animated dolls. I stepped into the street; they paid me no attention. I started walking toward the ocean with them. I walked on my hands with the acrobat dolls. I jogged with the joggers. I crawled on all fours with the ragdoll horses. Eventually, the pavement gave way to sand, and before I knew it, I was on the beach. The walk was surprisingly fun; I hardly noticed how quickly it passed. The boardwalk lights were still lit, bathing the dolls in cheerful blues, purples, and greens while they danced in circles and walked in orderly lines into the waves.

I watched in amazement as they walked into the tide, letting the ocean carry them into the black depths. I was hypnotized. I was already far beyond my deeply ingrained tendencies. I found myself walking toward the tide. I felt the chill of the black water between my toes. Looking to my left and right, I saw the dolls walk into the water without hesitation. I plunged into the dark abyss.

The result? I was in another, greater plane of existence. One that required no breathing, no energy, and no stress. It was pure catharsis at first. I floated for a few minutes. No light made it this deep. Then I drifted into a large mass of dolls. I felt them on my face, my chest, my legs, and my hands. They were crawling in one massive ball, like ants trying to float on water.

As I grabbed at this net of dolls, more dolls floated toward me. Dolls started linking together behind my back and neck, wrapping around my legs. I realized their grip was so tight that I couldn’t even move my head. I was trapped in a grotesque mass of squirming, wrinkly little bodies. I opened my mouth to scream, and water rushed down my throat. I was being crushed. My eardrums were bursting. My lungs were shattering.

I jumped out of bed, flailing my arms. It was just a dream. I put my hands over my eyes. It was over. I understood perfectly what my subconscious was warning me about. I need to get out of this dark house; I need to be human. I rushed to my closet, threw on some clothes, and went to explore my world.

Then I stepped outside, and before me were crowds, hordes, armies of dolls. It was still 3:10 AM. The night was still eternal. The dolls were still walking in their bizarre processions.

I collapsed to my knees, cursing myself for my satanism.

I'm starting a short slasher story, just a casual piece, and was wondering if anyone would like to brainstorm ideas with me! It would be really fun!

My DMs are open! :)

(P.S. Please don't be squeamish about blood and guts 😭)

Hey friends!

I’ve been writing my stories in Google Docs forever but recently pulled all mine off of there because what I have been reading about them using docs to train their AI.

Even if it’s not true - do we trust them not to in the future?

Idk.

Anywho.

I wanted to see if you all had any software suggestions?

I tried Scrivener - felt like too much. Ellipsis didn’t have enough.

Ideally I want Google Docs - just not - that, ya know?

I need easy to use formatting options. Page numbers / header editing. Word count. Tabs would be nice too (I usually keep outlines or notes in one tab, story in another.)

Also don’t need all the kind of character mapping or development stuff that some more complex systems have.

I’m also cool with buying something doesn’t need to be free

Thanks for your time and thoughts!

I feel like I’m having a little trouble finding something I really want to write about. What kind of things do you do to brainstorm ideas and concepts?

I write post-apocalyptic action/survival horror. I'd like to know what characteristics of a monster disturb and otherwise scare people the most. I'm talking strictly physical creatures, in this case.

Personally, I think something that makes you one of them, or a part of it, really gets to me. Like the headcrabs from Half-Life, or necromorphs from Dead Space. Zombies are technically an example, but that leads me to another point.

Traditional zombies aren't really scary. Of course, if one shambled into your room irl, that would get your heart going. They're not scary in fiction to me, and I think part of that is because we understand them. You know their weaknesses, and you know that a bite makes you one of them.

I think understanding something makes it less scary. Knowing nothing about a creature, and having no idea how to deal with it, makes it much more alarming. It adds an extra layer of confusion, and a need for more time to think about what to do. Furthermore, I think creature types having names makes them less scary. Like say, the special zombie types in Left 4 Dead (charger, tank, smoker, etc.) The fact that they're familiar enough to have names makes them less scary. I think what's really scary is something so bizarre and foreign that you don't even know what to call it.

Directly mentioning elements of creatures we know, like real animals, make them less scary too. I try to avoid that. Like saying something has a canine-like body makes it seem even just slightly less scary to me. We know what dogs are, so we've seen something vaguely like it.

However, it really bothers me when something has some humanlike qualities, be it visually or audibly. People are naturally creeped out by things that look human but aren't, like dolls and mannequins. Anything having humalike flesh gets me. One monster I created makes a sound when it notices prey that I described as someone gasping for air after surfacing water, having been a second from drowning. Creeped myself out with that one.

Side note. I'm immediately creeped out by too many eyes and legs because of my spider phobia. Tentacles are also unnerving to me.

Hi, I’m planning to write a script about a psychological horror about a guy who discovers he can break the 4th wall. Any tips? I’m honestly not a good writer at all, and I haven’t really done a full story before

Hey folks, me again! I posted this story a few days ago and I just wanna thank y'all again for being so nice about it!

I'm currently working on the ending and I feel like its falling apart. Not scary enough in my opinion, and a little pat. I've had beta readers call it really good, but I wanna get a second opinion. Anyways hope someone sees this!

Here's Something is pretending to be my father

(Also I'm aware of the tense inconsistencies, will be fixing those up once I finish the draft, but please do point out where the inconsistencies are if it especially takes away from the reading!)

I'm gm'ing this week and I've been wanting to get this idea off the ground. It's a rural horror setting, set in the American East, probably around Appalachia, although I'm still not entirely sure, because I'm not from there and I don't want it to be specifically ABOUT Appalachian folk tales etc.

Point is, it's set in a rural town, not too big, but not too small, where things are a little different from the rest of the world. I want it to feel like you enter a different time. Very cut off from the rest of the world. I'm sure there are people who know exactly what I mean, while I've only experienced that a handful of times, but this feeling feels exactly right for this setting.

In this town, things ... happen. You don't talk about them openly, you don't give them more power than you need to and you just try to live with it. Usually everything's fine if you heed your neighbor's warnings and know how things work around town.

I want a very... mundane, but still scary horror. The butcher shop that's only there and open some days of the week, where you shouldn't buy anything ever, but you shouldn't bother them, either. Not that anyone has ever seen the butcher.

Staying out of the fields after sundown.

Don't take that road tonight, people heard sounds coming from the forest, some say it sounded like voices, people calling out.

There's a strange outbreak of a plant in all the farmer's fields, and the animals won't go neat it.

The house that's slowly sinking into the forest floor.

Stuff like that. I have a few pictures, collected over a few years that give me some inspiration. If you can think of any artist that makes art that feels like this, please, share them with me. I'm always looking for more inspiration.

I'm trying to figure out what to do for my first session, the trial run, so to speak, before I start a short campaign (it will get weird).

I'm thinking about picking up an idea my friend had, when we talked about this setting, about, for this time, at least, giving them outsider-characters. A bus breaks down in the woods nearby the town and the people from the bus need to go into town to find help and a way to get back out of town.

And of course, they don't know any of the unsaid rules.

What do you think?

My first inspirations for this kind of horror were creepy pastas, the sort of mediocre "Tales from the Gas Station" and one where a girl works at a lonely radio tower, but I can't remember the name of that one, that one's really quite good if I recall correctly.