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July Discussion Post: Worst Creepypasta Tropes



Estimated reading time — < 1 minute

Hello, your lovely mod derpbutt here~ My co-admin predhead and I have been going through plenty of submissions over the past few weeks since relaunching this website, and we’ve discovered a mutual annoyance: The over-reliance on certain “creepy tropes” that crops up in many submissions.

Now, we just shitcan the worst offenders, but sometimes we do allow stories through that prompt similar complaints from readers. We thought that we’d try and experiment this month and create a space where everyone, readers and writer alike, could talk about which creepypasta cliches are their absolute least favorite and why.

For those of you who aren’t sure what we mean, cliche is defined “A trite or overused expression or idea” – an example in the world of Creepypasta would be a note found next to a dead body, a haunted doll, or a meme, image, or video on the internet that makes people go insane. You probably thought of multiple pastas that used each example already, right?

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So here is your chance, as readers, to speak up and let any writers skulking around Creepypasta to know which cliches and tropes that you absolutely hate and wish they’d toss out with the garbage, never to be used again. Writers, feel free to weigh in on why so many of you resort to tired tropes (or, if you don’t, spill the beans on how you resist that temptation and know what to avoid) – and use the comments here as a possible resource for helping you make better editing decisions!

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If this post goes well, we may make this a monthly thing (assuming we can come up with discussion topics, of course) – so please do participate and let us know if this sort of post is something you’d like to see continue!

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Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

85 thoughts on “July Discussion Post: Worst Creepypasta Tropes”

  1. Is it just me, or is it that sometimes I get so distracted by bad writing that it doesn’t even matter how cliche the story is?! This site is pretty good about keeping badly written pastas out, and the ratings are pretty trusworthy, but sometimes you’ll stumble on what even may be a good story but the writer keeps using phrases that begin with “eventually”, or ” it was thoroughly…”etc. Repetitive text and phrasing can ruin a whole story for me. Know when to be descriptive and when to just get to the point people! Lol.

  2. this might not be a cliche… but i absoloutley HATE it when people dothis. “And he stabbed her untill she died” “and he ate her internal organs untill she died. I even read one pasta with “He killed her to death” at the end…. i just hat it.
    Or this.. “and her hyper realistic eyes looked sohyper realistic that no other video game could beatthehyper realism.
    sorry if theres any typos or lack of spaces, im on a laggy tablet.

  3. My biggest pet peeve is Lack of detail, and using the same words over and over again.

    Another pet peeve of mine is people who don’t properly use Timely transition uses transitional words when you write to help your paragraphs flow smoothly from one to another. I also do not like it when people do not stimulate my mind. I want to be scared, so scared I am hiding under the sheets of my cover. If the story is lacking in the five senses, then it is hard for me to keep interested. Creating a sensory image in the readers’ mind will enhance your writing as it makes the topic explicit and clearer for the reader. Describe all the details to the reader, a descriptive book describes how a person/things looks, feels, smells, sounds or taste. The main purpose is to create an image in reader’s minds. In short, it is like painting with words. A descriptive story cannot be thought of without adjectives. Most writers use a variety of articles in order to make their writing more interesting.

    Picture what you describe, but be careful what you write. Examples are ”He looked like a red beast, with long fangs and claws like a cat.”-Okay that is a bit boring to me, add a bit more details to it. Paint a image in my head for me.

  4. As many people have already mentioned, I am sick of the gouged out eyes and the big smiles/grins. A pasta doesn’t need a grinning antagonist to be creepy

  5. I hate when someone doesn’t give anything to the reader other than “oh here’s akiller that does this” and its just like… Why?! DX Like I think Eyeless Jack is interesting but all that happens is he breaks in, eats a kidney, and leaves. Then there’s the thing with the dead body of the guy’s bro just appearing in the house again and he tells no one. Yeah that doesn’t happen lol

    Like I get its fiction so it doesn’t have to be realistic but its when they make things so mind numbingly fiction it doesn’t even seem real so it doesn’t scare me lol

  6. Well, I have a few. These are mostly used by very young, or inexperienced writers who don’t know how to write horror. I honestly hate Pastas that use mostly gore to be scary. If a story has gore then I’m ok as long as it adds to it, not revolve around it like a lame Hostel fanfiction. I also do not like really any video game pastas that just ride the coattails of Ben, or the Nes Godzilla story. Same with “Lost Episodes”

    I’m probably the only one, but I honestly hate Jeff the Killer/Slenderman creepypastas. Mostly angsty kids emulate through a Jeff pasta so it’s edgy and gory and Slenderman is just boring, due to oversaturation dunno if that’s a cliche but the specific is played out and needs to be given a rest..

  7. Do you like Nightmares

    At first hyperrealism was kinda creepy but now it’s just stupid, blood and gore can also be bad but it just depends on how you use it. The numbers 6,13,and 666 just aren’t scary and haven’t really been in any scary pastas sorry but Username 666 isn’t scary. Haunted game cartridges and files aren’t very scary anymore some haunted game pastas are scary it’s just that most haunted game pastas aren’t. Anyway that’s all i really don’t like in pasta.

  8. Jester the Joker 0U0

    In all honesty, what stories REALLY annoy me are the ones that make no sense or the plot and resolution don’t connect. It irritates me to no end Dx

  9. I like a story that seems to open up to the main idea with a sort of introduction to the subject, but when they spend half the story just going “oh well you see, shit comes in many variety’s, green, brown, sometimes black…blah blah…” it just ruins the whole thing for me. on another note, i hate lost episodes and gaming creepy pasta now, because a lot of authors out there use the “it was sooo real” term, and the word “hyper-realistic” is getting pretty old to.

  10. One cliche that really gets on my nerves is when people directly reference creepypasta, like “I know this sounds creepypasta-ish but…” or “usually I’m used to things like this because I read a lot of creepypasta.” it completely pulls me out of the story and takes away from the realism. You’re already trying to get your work on the website, is it really necessary to give them a shoutout too?

  11. Some Cliches are okayy
    The only ones i hate are
    “I sat there holding my entrails even though i should be dead”
    or
    “Theres a Denomic Being in my Game telling me to turn back or i will die,LETS KEEP PLAYING ANYWAYS”

  12. Off the top of my head:

    – “He/she laughed through a sick smile”
    – Trying to pull a Shyamalan. “The whole time, the killer was ME. I’m just a very forgetful person.”
    – References to obvious media/culture especially to this site. “Sifting through CreepyPasta reading about Candlecove”
    – Using words that require a specific connotation by the reader. “I looked into my bowl of cereal and I can see HELL” (this can be pulled off, for example I am horrified by the word marionette. Very rarely do I see this in a piece of work)
    – Lost Episodes.
    – Vague endings. No, not surprise endings. The ones where they genuinely don’t make sense. The comments that usually follow are: “This story is a work of art, of course the dog murdered his owner in order to establish a relationship with his spirit.”…. NO. NO IT’S NOT. IT CAN NOT BE UNDERSTOOD.

    Anything else, it was too painful to read and I probably bashed my head into the nearest corner repeatedly, until I couldn’t remember it anymore.

  13. Hey, I’m one of the regulars from Crappypasta.com, and I’ve been seeing a few recurring problems. Quite a fair few of them (possibly all of them) have already been listed, but I’m just going to try and put all of them into one big comment-

    1: OVERUSED CHARACTERS. Jeff is not scary. Slenderman is only scary if it is MH, it is not scary in anything else. The Rake just kind of sucks overall.

    2: LAZY WRITING. We don’t want to read something that is all one massive sentence, or something with a spelling mistake every single word.

    3: CUSSNASTY. One or two swears may add to the atmosphere (and can help stop Trope #4), but swearing all the time just puts people off your story.

    4: CHARACTER APATHY, AND RELATED PROBLEMS. If your family dies, or Slendy turns up next to you, you don’t stay calm. You flip your shit. Make the character do this, or they just seem false. Similarly, if a character is playing a haunted game (which is a bad idea in the first place – see #5), and realise that it’s not normal, they’re not going to keep playing, are they? They are going to put down the game, and never speak of it again.

    5: HAUNTED GAMES/LOST EPISODES. These were only successfully pulled off by their kickstarters – Haunted Games had Ben Drowned and Pokemon Creepy Black, where Lost Episodes had Dead Bart and Squidward’s Suicide. Everything else is crap. DON’T WRITE THEM.

    6: GORE BAD. There’s a ‘less gore more creepy’ category on crappypasta for a reason, y’know. Don’t just throw buckets of blood at us.

    7: OVER-DESCRIPTION. This has been covered already, but basically, keep it atmospheric. Describing every single thing in detail doesn’t make you seem smart, it just ruins the atmosphere.

    8: UNREALISTIC TECH/HYPER-REALISTIC. Every time I see the words ‘hyper-realistic’ in a lost episode, etc. creepypasta I feel like I’m going to throw up. This is used so freakin’ much! If it’s a NES game, it isn’t going to have smooth pictures of dead corpses!

    9: FILE EXTENSIONS: .exe and .avi being two particular offenders. These have been used so many times, they aren’t scary whatsoever. Also, they’re not needed.

    10: MIRRORS AND DOLLS. Yes, we get it, these are kind of creepy. It’s just that so, so many people have written about them, that your mirrorpasta/dollpasta will not be bringing anything new to the table whatsoever.

    11: YOU’RE NEXT/LOOK BEHIND YOU: This is not scary. The latter becomes about 9001 times funnier if the reader is sitting by a wall.

    12: JOURNAL ENTRIES: I’ve seen a few good journal entries, but at the moment Crappypasta is absolutely swamped with them. Please stop.

    Yeah. Just try and avoid all of them, and you’ll be good to go. Maybe.
    (If you’ve read everything up to here, you get a cookie.)

  14. I hate the fucked up spin offs, with the horrible grammar. I like the ones where it seems calm then bam the scary thing pulls the rug out from behind you., not like “I heard a creak and began to shiver, A man out of nowhere said ‘Time to die.’ AMNd I dioed.” I cough up better pasta. “I stared in horror as I as I couldn’t move. The dark figure loomed over me from a distance meancingly.”

  15. i think its slender man cause he isn’t feared anymore the mainstream has made him look like a children’s show character rather than a man who picks you up and does unknown things to you

  16. This isn’t really a cliche but more a type of writing–I HATE long winded stories! Mainly the kind that overly explain things that don’t matter to the story. Like ‘When I was a kid we lived in a small town. So small. The smallest ever. It was so small that when the creepy thing happened we all knew…etc’
    That’s why I love the short ones. They stick to the story and don’t use superfluous filler.

  17. Alright these are some great notes guys, I’m definitely going to go out a write a story containing second-person journal entries about a lost episode and a haunted video game with lots of … And a twist ending where you find out you’re the monster.

  18. The only tropes I truly hate are:

    Haunted files, because they always end up just a series of events with no particular pattern or conclusion

    Zombie stories without zombies, as in stories where something (crazy religion, thirst, hunger, disease that is slowed down by consumption of flesh) convinced people to start eating each other, but the scary part is supposed to be that they aren’t zombies, just desperate people. Then at the end the narrator decides to join them… Yawn

  19. AND THEN YOU FORGOT THAT YOU WERE THE MONSTER SO YOU ATE YOUR OWN HAND WITH THE CLOWNS.

    Things like that really. Honestly, anything that involves the capslock key.

  20. A little late, but I absolutely abhor the pastas that are like those chain e-mails where if you don’t forward it on, or repost somewhere, or for simply reading the damn thing, something terrible is going to happen to you. For me, something is creepy if it can actually happen to me. Going by these types of pastas, I should have met a horrifying fate a long time ago, and by countless different avenues.

    It also seems as though the authors go into excruciating detail over the monster or killer, I feel like a readers own imagination can aid in how scared they feel when reading something. Not knowing exactly what is the cause of destruction can lead to a reader saying ‘what if…’ to themselves.

  21. why the fuck do all the pastas suck like shit now? is the website owned by new people? Because the quality of pastas is too….SUBPAR. I guess its because more are being accepted regardless of quality, so there’ll be more mediocre ones against the tasty spaghetti’s.

  22. Why is everyone tearing down Journal Entry stories? They’re some of my favorites.

    Oh, and the people claiming that ALL “haunted game” stories are bad should go read “Ben Drowned.” Just saying.

  23. Glad you asked. Here’s a few pointers I think anyone writing pastas should take into consideration:

    1. Stop Trying So Damn Hard.

    This isn’t a cliché in itself, but rather more the overarching cause of so many clichés. Most pasta writers are amateurs, a great many of them young people still in high school or even junior high. There is often not much subtlety or deftness to the stories, and even the good ones hamstring themselves by going to ridiculous lengths. Here’s an example from a pasta we’ve probably all read. It’s a good story overall, but it’s a typical illustration of the problem I’m talking about:

    “As he looked around the inside of the cabin, he was surprised to see the walls adorned by several portraits, all painted in incredible detail. Without exception, they appeared to be staring down at him, their features twisted into looks of hatred and malice.”

    Here we get the old, tired “incredible detail” business, but we also get this rather ham-fisted line about “looks of hatred and malice.” Why is this bad? Well, it doesn’t really add anything to the story, now does it? We’ve all read this one and we all know how it ends, and honestly, would it be any less effective if the people in the portraits had had no particular expressions at all? Or even if they’d simply been described as “unsettling” or something to a much less extravagant effect? The only reason to include this detail is because the original author, whosoever it was, was simply Trying Too Damn Hard to make the story scary. It’s amateur shit.

    2. No More Gore.

    This is the biggest one, and it’s the most common and tiresome example of Trying So Damn Hard. A lot of writers feel they must throw around buckets of blood in their stories, regaling us with absurdly detailed descriptors of severed limbs, ripped out hearts, gouged eye sockets, and other things that Clive Barker masturbates to. For crying out loud, do NOT do this in your story.

    Now, this, like all of my “rules”, is what you might call a 90% rule, which is to say, it’s only true 90% of the time. I’m sure we can all think of some truly great, truly effective stories from both professional and amateur writers that use graphic violence to great effect. But 90% of the time, this is a mistake. Ideally, your story should have not a drop of blood in it. Gore makes things concrete, and when things are concrete they’re less scary. Here’s another example from a fairly well-known pasta. It’s a good story, but it makes one critical error:

    “The phone beeps again, and you’re not prepared for what comes next. Screaming. You spin around, thinking that she’s standing right behind you. There’s pure terror in her screams, accompanied by other disturbing noises. You stand there, horrified, for about ten seconds. Screaming gives way to hysterical, garbled crying before dying out with the sounds of spilling meat and tearing flesh.”

    Notice that, once again, this story is Trying Too Damn Hard by telling us that there is “pure terror in her screams” (ya know, to differentiate them from those happy-go-lucky screams you sometimes hear…). But the worst part is this business about “spilling meat and tearing flesh.” Why is this lame? Well, if you take that line out, this scenario presents a mystery: Why is this person screaming? What’s going on? What does it mean? Is this even a person at all? It’s enthralling and unsettling in the lack of specificity. But then you add this business at the end and suddenly it’s just the sound of someone being murdered. That’s less interesting, isn’t it? Because it’s taken a host of possibilities and narrowed it down to just one, and the most obvious and shallow one to boot. It’s still an okay story, but not as good as it could be.

    Often the violence is taken to such extremes that it’s just plain silly. I’m sure we can all think of many examples. But even when the violence is relatively understated, oftentimes any degree of specificity brings a story down. Here’s yet another example from yet another story we’ve probably all read before:

    “It propped my dad up on the edge of my bed, and made him face me. It then sat my mother down in the chair and positioned her towards me as well. It then started rubbing its hands upon the wall, staining them with blood and then drew a circle with the devil’s pentagram on it. This thing had made what it probably would call a masterpiece.”

    …really? A “masterpiece”? Two dead bodies and a “pentagram”, that’s the monster’s idea of a “masterpiece”, that’s all you got for me? Gotta tell ya, I would expect a little bit more from a homicidal monster. It must not have been on the job for very long. Probably some kind of art student monster still in its first year, just learning its craft.

    The author was wise not to do anything more elaborate (which is almost always funny rather than horrifying), but even this minimalist approach just ruins the story’s tension. If the author had simply not described the scene at all and left it up to the reader what the monster’s masterpiece actually was, the story would be much scarier. As it is, it’s downright flaccid.

    One more example, this time a positive one: Everyone has read “Candle Cove”, right? It’s a pretty good story, and the lack of specificity is what’s best about it. The physical violence is implicit; while I think the notion of the “Skin Taker” is, once again, Trying Too Damn Hard, the figure in question exists as an abstract even within the story. There’s no indication that it actually poses a physical threat to anyone, merely that it wants to appear as if it does. That’s far more effective, if you ask me. Don’t think so? Well, imagine if the story had ended like this: “Note: All of the people posting on this message board were found the next day, brutally murdered, with their skin removed. The police said the strange thing was that it almost looked as if the skin had been stripped off by long, uneven teeth……”

    Lame, right? Yeah. See what I mean? Keep your story dry. The less blood, the better. Having none at all is usually idea.

    3. Do Note Write in the Second Person.

    Again, a 90% rule; there are a few stories told in the second person that are very effective and would be less so if they were not. But more often than not this is the worst form of Trying Too Damn Hard. It’s particularly bad if told in the future tense: “You will do this, then this will happen,” etc. Why is this a bad call? Well, obviously a big part of the way a scary story scares the reader (if it does) is by making them imagine that such a thing could happen to them. By using the second person narration, you’re trying to force them to make that connection. It’s ham-fisted and it lacks any degree of artistry. You may as well just come up behind the reader and yell in their ear. This is particularly bad when it’s combined with the use of excessive gore. And the real irony is, oftentimes you’ll almost immediately blow the effect right out the gate. We’ll got to an example from a story that, once again, I think is actually a fantastic little tale, one that really gave me a jolt of live-wire fear, but one that, nevertheless, makes a cardinal error:

    “The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter’s pale form in the darkness of your room. ‘Why not, sweetie?'”

    Wait, my what? Daughter? Uh, I don’t have a daughter, who the fuck are you talking to? Plainly you’ve got the wrong guy.

    Here’s an even worse example from a story that is just plain stupid:

    “Do you recall the night when you were laying in bed and you heard something like footsteps in your house and you shrugged it off, saying in your head that is nothing, and fell asleep? And the next morning after your shower you walked downstairs and saw the dead body of a man with a knife, and noticed his throat was cut just right so he couldn’t make a sound as he died?”

    …no. No I do not remember that. Odd that I’d forget such a singular occasion, don’t you think?

    4. Do Note Use Pop Culture References.

    Nothing dates your story faster and more effectively than a needless pop culture reference. And nine times out of ten, nothing kills the atmosphere faster. There are a few well-known and effective Haunted Video Game and Lost Episode pastas, but just a few. More often than not, tying your story in to some seemingly unrelated pop culture phenomena will simply distract. Here’s an example from a rather lazy pasta that embodies almost everything problematic about this approach:

    “If you listen to every song Placebo ever sang in the right order backwards (up to their most recent album), you will receive secret instructions on how to summon and control the shadow people.”

    Wait, Placebo? Why Placebo? What the hell do they have to do with anything? If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t like Placebo this story automatically becomes funny as soon as the reference is made. Even if you do like them (or don’t care), it’s simply confusing: What’s so special about this one band? Why that band rather than any other? You’ll notice that I’m asking all of these questions rather than any related to the supposedly scary “shadow people”, which cannot be what the author intended.

    Here’s one from a well-known, oft-copied pasta that just pisses me off because, frankly, it’s complete shit:

    “Many classic horror icons, such as Geger’s [sic] xenomorphs, Silent Hill’s Pyramid Head, and other disturbing creatures, share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.”

    Okay, stop. What’s wrong with this? Other than that it’s rubbish, I mean? Anyone who has ever seen any “Alien” movie or played the relevant “Silent Hill” games will be able to tell you that this description doesn’t match the cited creatures at all: Xenomorphs do not have “pale skin” (they’re black all over) or “sunken eyes” (they have no eyes at all). Pyramid Head also does not have “sunken eyes” (his eyes are not visible) or “sharp teeth” (teeth are also not visible). I’m not sure what creatures the author thinks they’re describing, but they’re not any of the ones they’ve referenced. Singling out these two well-known (but apparently not well known enough for the author to have actually seen them?) pop culture figures completely tanks this stupid story because the reader knows right off the bat that what the story is saying is simply not so.

    5. Do Not Use Mirrors.

    Mirrors are inherently creepy. We all know this, and we’ve all spooked ourselves with mirrors at least once or twice. It’s a good device to use in a scary story. That’s why everyone has used it. And used it. And used it.

    No more mirrors. It’s been done. It’s a shame, since, as mentioned, it’s a very effective device, but there’s simply no more gas left in that particular tank.

    6. Do Not Use Media Reports.

    Often a pasta will take the form of a supposed newspaper or news site story, or will feature excerpts from a supposed media story. Why is this a bad thing? Because most people who write pastas don’t know shit about writing the news. More often than not your “newspaper” story will sound not like it was written by a professional reporter or editor but instead like it was written by, well, you. I guess if you actually are a reporter or news editor you can feel free to ignore this one. Everyone else, though, is just killing their story’s sense of verisimilitude with their inability to write a plausible lede or nut graph.

    7. Do Not Threaten the Reader.

    How often have we all read a story that, in brief, ends like this:

    “Because you read this, you will now die!”

    Honestly, the whole story could be pared down to that one sentence most of the time. Sometimes it’s not death that’s threatened but instead madness or some kind of curse, but the variation hardly matters. This is actually an offshoot of the reviled Second Person Narration in that it takes what should be the implicit nature of the reader’s fear and tries to make it explicit. It’s very common and very tiresome. Worse, your reader will usually not realize that you’re doing it until the story is over, leaving them feeling cheated.

  24. Glad you asked. Here’s a few pointers I think anyone writing pastas should take into consideration:

    1. Stop Trying So Damn Hard.

    This isn’t a cliché in itself, but rather more the overarching cause of so many clichés. Most pasta writers are amateurs, a great many of them young people still in high school or even junior high. There is often not much subtlety or deftness to the stories, and even the good ones hamstring themselves by going to ridiculous lengths. Here’s an example from a pasta we’ve probably all read. It’s a good story overall, but it’s a typical illustration of the problem I’m talking about:

    “As he looked around the inside of the cabin, he was surprised to see the walls adorned by several portraits, all painted in incredible detail. Without exception, they appeared to be staring down at him, their features twisted into looks of hatred and malice.”

    Here we get the old, tired “incredible detail” business, but we also get this rather ham-fisted line about “looks of hatred and malice.” Why is this bad? Well, it doesn’t really add anything to the story, now does it? We’ve all read this one and we all know how it ends, and honestly, would it be any less effective if the people in the portraits had had no particular expressions at all? Or even if they’d simply been described as “unsettling” or something to a much less extravagant effect? The only reason to include this detail is because the original author, whosoever it was, was simply Trying Too Damn Hard to make the story scary. It’s amateur shit.

    2. No More Gore.

    This is the biggest one, and it’s the most common and tiresome example of Trying So Damn Hard. A lot of writers feel they must throw around buckets of blood in their stories, regaling us with absurdly detailed descriptors of severed limbs, ripped out hearts, gouged eye sockets, and other things that Clive Barker masturbates too. For crying out loud, do NOT do this in your story.

    Now, this, like all of my “rules”, is what you might call a 90% rule, which is to say, it’s only true 90% of the time. I’m sure we can all think of some truly great, truly effective stories from both professional and amateur writers that use graphic violence to great effect. But 90% of the time, this is a mistake. Ideally, your story should have not a drop of blood in it. Gore makes things concrete, and when things are concrete they’re less scary. Here’s another example from a fairly well-known pasta. It’s a good story, but it makes one critical error:

    “The phone beeps again, and you’re not prepared for what comes next. Screaming. You spin around, thinking that she’s standing right behind you. There’s pure terror in her screams, accompanied by other disturbing noises. You stand there, horrified, for about ten seconds. Screaming gives way to hysterical, garbled crying before dying out with the sounds of spilling meat and tearing flesh.”

    Notice that, once again, this story is Trying Too Damn Hard by telling us that there is “pure terror in her screams” (ya know, to differentiate them from those happy-go-lucky screams you sometimes hear…). But the worst part is this business about “spilling meat and tearing flesh.” Why is this lame? Well, if you take that line out, this scenario presents a mystery: Why is this person screaming? What’s going on? What does it mean? Is this even a person at all? It’s enthralling and unsettling in the lack of specificity. But then you add this business at the end and suddenly it’s just the sound of someone being murdered. That’s less interesting, isn’t it? Because it’s taken a host of possibilities and narrowed it down to just one, and the most obvious and shallow one to boot. It’s still an okay story, but not as good as it could be.

    Often the violence is taken to such extremes that it’s just plain silly. I’m sure we can all think of many examples. But even when the violence is relatively understated, oftentimes any degree of specificity brings a story down. Here’s yet another example from yet another story we’ve probably all read before:

    “It propped my dad up on the edge of my bed, and made him face me. It then sat my mother down in the chair and positioned her towards me as well. It then started rubbing its hands upon the wall, staining them with blood and then drew a circle with the devil’s pentagram on it. This thing had made what it probably would call a masterpiece.”

    …really? A “masterpiece”? Two dead bodies and a “pentagram”, that’s the monster’s idea of a “masterpiece”, that’s all you got for me? Gotta tell ya, I would expect a little bit more from a homicidal monster. It must not have been on the job for very long. Probably some kind of art student monster still in its first year, just learning its craft.

    The author was wise not to do anything more elaborate (which is almost always funny rather than horrifying), but even this minimalist approach just ruins the stories tension. If the author had simply not described the scene at all and left it up to the reader what the monster’s masterpiece actually was, the story would be much scarier. As it is, it’s downright flaccid.

    One more example, this time a positive one: everyone had read “Candle Cove”, right? It’s a pretty good story, and the lack of specificity is what’s best. The physical violence is implicit; while I think the notion of the “Skin Taker” is, once again, Trying Too Damn Hard, the figure in question exists as an abstract even within the story; there’s no indication that it actually poses a physical threat to anyone, merely that it wants to appear as if it does. That’s far more effective, if you ask me. Don’t think so? Well, imagine if the story had ended like this: “Note: All of the people posting on this message board were found the next day, brutally murdered, with their skin removed. The police said the strange thing was that it almost looked as if the skin had been stripped off by long, uneven teeth……”

    Lame, right? Yeah. See what I mean? Keep your story dry. The less blood, the better. Having none at all is usually idea.

    3. Do Note Write in the Second Person.

    Again, a 90% rule; there are a few stories told in the second person that are very effective and would be less so if they were not. But more often than not this is the worst form of Trying Too Damn Hard. It’s particularly bad if told in the future tense: “You will do this, then this will happen,” etc. Why is this a bad call? Well, obviously a big part of the way a scary story scares the reader (if it does) is by making them imagine that such a thing could happen to them. By using the second person narration, you’re trying to force them to make that connection. It’s ham-fisted and it lacks any degree of artistry. You may as well just come up behind the reader and yell in their ear. This is particularly bad when it’s combined with the use of excessive gore. And the real irony is, oftentimes you’ll almost immediately blow the effect right out the gate. We’ll got to an example from a story that, once again, I think is actually a fantastic little tale, one that really gave me a jolt of live-wire fear, but one that, nevertheless, makes a cardinal error:

    “The oddness of the situation wakes you up more fully. You can barely make out your daughter’s pale form in the darkness of your room. ‘Why not, sweetie?'”

    Wait, my what? Daughter? Uh, I don’t have a daughter, who the fuck are you talking to? Plainly you’ve got the wrong guy.

    Here’s an even worse example from a story that is just plain stupid:

    “Do you recall the night when you were laying in bed and you heard something like footsteps in your house and you shrugged it off, saying in your head that is nothing, and fell asleep? And the next morning after your shower you walked downstairs and saw the dead body of a man with a knife, and noticed his throat was cut just right so he couldn’t make a sound as he died?”

    …no. No I do not remember that. Odd that I’d forget such a singular occasion, don’t you think?

    4. Do Note Use Pop Culture References.

    Nothing dates your story faster and more effectively than a needless pop culture reference. And nine times out of ten, nothing kills the atmosphere faster. There are a few well-known and effective Haunted Video Game and Lost Episode pastas, but just a few. More often than not, tying your story in to some seemingly unrelated pop culture phenomena will simply distract. Here’s an example from a rather lazy pasta that embodies almost everything problematic about this approach:

    “you listen to every song Placebo ever sang in the right order backwards (up to their most recent album), you will receive secret instructions on how to summon and control the shadow people.”

    Wait, Placebo? Why Placebo? What the hell do they have to do with anything? If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t like Placebo, this story automatically becomes funny as soon as the reference is made. Even if you do like them (or don’t care), it’s simply confusing: What’s so special about this one band? Why that band rather than any other? You’ll notice that I’m asking all of these questions rather than any related to the supposedly scary “shadow people”, which cannot be what the author intended.

    Here’s one from a well-known, oft-copied pasta that just pisses me off because, frankly, it’s complete shit:

    “Many classic horror icons, such as Geger’s xenomorphs, Silent Hill’s Pyramid Head, and other disturbing creatures, share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.”

    Okay, stop. What’s wrong with this? Other than that it’s rubbish, I mean? Anyone who has ever seen any “Alien” movie or played the relevant “Silent Hill” games will be able to tell you that this description doesn’t match the cited creatures at all: Xenomorphs do not have “pale skin” (they’re black all over) or “sunken eyes” (they have no eyes at all). Pyramid Head also does not have “sunken eyes” (his eyes are not visible) or “sharp teeth” (teeth are also not visible). I’m not sure what creatures the author thinks they’re describing, but they’re not any of the ones they’ve referenced. Singling out these two well-known (but apparently not well known enough for the author to have actually seen them?) pop culture figures completely tanks this stupid story because the reader knows right off the bat that what the story is saying is simply not so.

    5. Do Not Use Mirrors.

    Mirrors are inherently creepy. We all know this, and we’ve all spooked ourselves with mirrors at least once or twice. It’s a good device to use in a scary story. That’s why everyone has used it. And used it. And used it.

    No more mirrors. It’s been done. It’s a shame, since, as mentioned, it’s a very effective device, but there’s simply no more gas left in that particular tank.

    6. Do Not Use Media Reports.

    Often a pasta will take the form of a supposed newspaper or news site story, or will feature excerpts from a supposed media story. Why is this a bad thing? Because most people who write pastas don’t know shit about writing the news. More often than not your “newspaper” story will sound not like it was written by a professional reporter or editor but instead like it was written by, well, you. I guess if you actually are a reporter or news editor you can feel free to ignore this one. Everyone else, though, is just killing their story’s sense of verisimilitude with their inability to write a plausible lede or nut graph.

    7. Do Not Threaten the Reader.

    How often have we all read a story that, in brief, ends like this:

    “Because you read this, you will now die!”

    Honestly, the whole story could be pared down to that one sentence most of the time. Sometimes it’s not death that’s threatened but instead madness or some kind of curse, but the variation hardly matters. This is actually an offshoot of the reviled Second Person Narration in that it takes what should be the implicit nature of the reader’s fear and tries to make it explicit. It’s very common and very tiresome. Worse, your reader will usually not realize that you’re doing it until the story is over, leaving them feeling cheated.

    1. I agree totally with the last one. I just hate it when a story ends like that, and, because of it, I have taken to the bad habit of reading the last sentance first. Its not because I judge the whole story on that, but honestly, most anything that ends like that I really consider to just be a crappy story. I mean, honestly guys, when you end something off like that, its as bad as the “and they lived happily ever after” at the end of childrens’ books.

  25. well shit…no wonder ares wasnt submited. well ya i can understand same old same old gets boring ..i guess to some people that truley are afriad of a certain thing it wouldnt be boring to them but as to the rest of us ya. But really people have certainly touched every aspect of everything and used it to be creepy or just downright demented its just the process of coming up with better stuff or using a whole new concept i guess in this matter . yall say the same old arent creepy enough but at the same time people spice it up and add or delete things from the most common of stories or old wive tales ..i think in the end everything goes through the grinder but it just takes that one spice to make it better.

  26. I’ve just started reading stories on here and there is one thing that I come across, and when I do get to this part, I lose all interest.
    The annoying “Evil smile” or “Large grin” or “Smirk” on the antagonist…
    This just pulls me right out of the story…not everyone is a super villian.

  27. i’d like to say that i quite enjoy haunted video game pastas, especialy believable ones like lsd dream emulator and herobrine. also hacks and mods can make these things happen so i really do enjoy them.

  28. If the monster, villain or mysterious force in your story already has a name – like “demon” or “ghost” or “alien” – I would almost always prefer you to throw that out and leave it ambiguous. I know what a ghost is. I know what an alien is.

    Slenderman, the Rake, Smile dog and loads of SCP’s were only ever cool at all because they didn’t fit into an existing category, even though they can be simple, iconic ideas, easy to come up with.

  29. Ultra badass deep-sea alien fighter

    I think my least favorite thing in pasta is when we see a hospital, in which doctors repeatedly fail to sedate and are soon mutilated by a patient. It’s as common as the bad gore scenes, and requires little imagination to use. Worse than cilantro.

  30. I don’t mind cliches as long as they still add to the affect, in other words, as long as the story is still scary. I mean isn’t that all that really matters?

  31. What really pulls me out a story is when things are described as “Hyper Realistic!” like in pretty much all the lost episodes or in the haunted game stories.

  32. I mainly write psychological horrors, so I don’t really have the issue of running into these tropes in my writing. Or maybe that’s just because my stories are a little unusual. But I do read a lot of horror…or rather, things that *attempt* to be scary. The worst part of that is these over-used tropes that drive me crazy. I hate reading something that seems promising, then all of a sudden it’s totally fucked because of a ridiculously stupid plot device that’s all over the place. My least favorite are the evil doll ones, or the “I’m watching you” type ones. They need to stop.

  33. The video game ones and “lost episode” craps. By far the worst has to be “an now I am one”/ “Now they’re coming for you”. You can pretty much tell from the beginning which ones are going to end like that.

  34. One phrase that will get me to stop reading any pasta, despite the quality be it great or tolerable is “blah blah blah hyperrealistic gore… I THREW UP”. Now I am in no way claiming to have immeasurable fortitude but lets be realistic here im going to go out on a limb and guess a good amount of readers and writers have seen or at least heard of the faces of death videos now when you watched them and believed them to be real did you throw up did you heave blow chunks i can understand the difference of on video and in person but being an on call paramedic and seen suicide victims i have never thrown up, yeah i cant sleep some nights but im a firm believer that visual stimuli can cause that kind of a reaction. the i threw up routine is just a crutch used by uncreative writers. i apologize for the run on sentence but you cant stop a rage inspired rant

  35. idontfuckbitchesbecauseiamawatermelon

    I hate when a story is an ‘excerpt’ from a newspaper. It’s terribly overused. It makes it less frightening that way, because it lets people know authorities have already made a discovery. Mystery is best.
    I also dislike when the narrator is an intern for a major organization. There’s know way a low-placed member could ever get their hands on a crazy story. It should be more of a guy who just got put into a high position, or maybe a person who inherited it.

  36. I love a good classic, but, seriously people, don’t do the same story over and over again. God blessed (most people) us with an imagination, so goddamnit people, use it! Also, I have read some great stories in Rites and Rituals but some leave me bored to death. Or, those who say “Now, stand in the circle, and if you don’t do it right, YOUR MOM WILL JUMP OUT OF YOUR CLOSET AND SLIT YOUR THROAT!”

  37. not really a trope but can people please stop using the phrase “it seemed like hours but was probably only 2-3 minutes” OMG it shows up in every other story. It is like nails on chalk board when I see it.

    Also… see the way I spelt probably, that is the CORRECT spelling, it is prolly or probly or any other variation. Spelling counts for so so much.

  38. i agree with the posters calling out for pointless gore/mutilation tropes. especially ones that have to do with computer/game glitches or experiments. i have a weak stomach, so maybe it’s just me, but when the gore gets so bad that i don’t even want to follow the plot anymore, you’re doing something wrong.

  39. Scary video games that are “realistic” and most creepypasta dealing with mirrors. I’m sick of mirror creepypasta.

  40. The three things I hate most in a creepypasta:

    1. Horribly bad grammar
    2. A few changes to another creepypasta
    3. Anything “hyperrealistic.”

    I’m alright with a few mistakes or, like, a lack of capitalization, but when it’s like “blah blah blah n thn blah blah so u shud not ”

    And in copies, it’s the most annoying when you don’t notice the over-similarity until near the end, because then you’ve just wasted a few minutes of your life reading a story a second time.

    And finally “hyperrealistic” is overused, and doesn’t even make much sense to me… does it mean it’s REALLY realistic? Or so realistic, it’s not realistic at all? (Like the Squidward’s Suicide red-eye pictures or the Simpsons lost episode video) IT’S SO CONFUSING! There was even one that I read where it says “I didn’t want to use this word, but… HYPERREALISTIC!”

  41. There aren’t too many of the cliches that really get on my nerves. I’m not a huge fan of the “lost episode” or “possessed video game” ones. Almost inevitably they use the tired-as-hell “Impossibly-hyper-realistic gore” trope, which is really the only one I can’t stand.

  42. I think that my least favorite cliche is when the author writes in first person that he or she is a ‘ghost’ or ‘scary being’ and that this ‘ghost’ or ‘scary being’ is watching me. The entire story doesn’t scare me at all because I know the author is a human being just like all of us.

  43. I absolutely hate it when the story goes “derp there’s something in your peripheral vision”. Come on, guys. I’m sure there are better ways to build tension than that.

  44. I am tired of the whole ”gray monster with sunken eyes and a wide, unnatural grin with sharp teeth etc”. Come up with your own monsters. Every time I read those sentences in my mind I come up with the same looking monster.

  45. In a ritual pasta: “don’t do this or you die/go insane” ala the holders. There is no reason to do this in a good ritual pasta. Either the method and reason for your demise should be explained in detail to add character, or the symbolism should be obvious enough that in giving the instrucions you know why the wrong choice was bad.

    In the same vein, magic, especially ritual magic, is built on context and symbolism. A ritual pasta should not read like a cake recipe, it should have a coherent theme and every action you take should make sense w.r.t. the purpose of the ritual. A bad example of this is the post office pasta, which involves drinking your nosebleed to make a tooth fall out, waiting in silence because of how long it’s been since you saw your patents, and losing your ring finger to prosper in everything you do except romance. WHY IS IT SET IN A POST OFFICE?!

    In general: Journal entries are bad. They suck in videogames, they suck in television, they suck in pasta. Never have I found a more transparent excuse to have someone’s thoughts written down. There are dozens of ways to achieve the same end (send a letter, write a blog, leave a manifesto, ect) that add much more character to the text becauae they are conveyed to someone else.

    In a first person pasta: saying “you’ll never believe me/it’s really true”.
    When I look for creepypasta, I am already primed to suspend disbelief.
    Saying this only serves to remind me the author is trying too hard to get me immersed and failing.

    In an internet pasta: Magical viruses suck. Changing my wallpaper to slenderman’s taint is something a 15 year old kid would do, not an eldritch internet thought entity. When you deal with creepy shit, the state of your wallpaper shouldn’t be your primary concern.

    Also, scaryfile.jpg.wvm.png.mp3.gif.ogg.ape.flv.avi.flac.exe should not be somebody being killed or mutilated. This is the creepypasta version of premature ejeculation. Normal porn for normal people took a long time to develop ambiance before it did this, and so should you.

    That’s it I guess.

  46. Man, I love some game creepypastas, but that thing of “oh horrible mutilation scenes popping out mario’s butt” is just too damn overused. I TRULY HATE these “mutilation scenes” as a factor of fear, the amount of these is TOO DAMN HIGH.

  47. I just dont like it when all the story is piece by piece, extremely detailed gore blood and guts. now when its part of a bigger scary plot, i dont care, but when its just gore, gore, and more gore, without any real plot or story, its just unoriginal and boreing.

  48. Who the hell cares if it follows a cliche? Either it’s good or it’s not good, that should be the only standard, and besides, that’s all up to the mods anyway.

  49. I’m fine with cliches as long as the story is written well. and by that I mean spelling for the most part correct, few grammar mistakes, and NO HUGE RUN-ON SENTENCES. For example, “It chased her and she ran she was crying because it was so scary but she knew she had to keep running or it would get her and she would die and she didn’t want to die and she ran faster but the steps behind her kept getting louder and closer and she couldn’t run fast enough and then she heard a growl and then she died.” AHHHHHHHH!!! That crap makes me want to kill someone!

  50. The Awkward Dancer

    Reading through these comments, I never realised I had so many cliches in the last 2 pastas I submitted…

  51. I hate the “help! I’m trapped in my -blank- with nothing but this laptop to tell my story with!” Cliches. It ruins the entire story for me. >.<

  52. To be honest, a story has to be written good. Plain and simple. I’m not speaking out of my ass here, I’m talking from experience. Cliches- eh- not that bad compared to how some stories are written. As someone already stated, as long as the story is written fine, everything’s alright.

    Here’s an example: Anyone can pull off an excellent Slenderman pasta.
    Another example: Anyone can pull off an amazing apocalypse pasta. I’m an doomsday buff myself. I recall reading a story in which all water on the face of the Earth simply vanishes. Everyone launches into hysterics. The end of the story was a bit choppy and some parts could have used a bit of work but- wow! It was good.

  53. Personally I’d have to say the journal entry ones are probably my least favorite, but it can be pulled off in some ways. I think the thing that makes them not- so- great is when they’re really long and drawn out. I don’t need to know much about the character’s personal life, especially when it has nothing to do with the plot.

  54. I would agree with the journal one, but thats not always a bad thing. Stephen King has a story called “N” which is written in the form of a letter and a journal and that story is pretty well written. Obviously Stephen King isn’t on Creepypasta but I thought he was a nice example. Personally, I don’t like the idiot narrator thing. Where the narrator sees or hears something creepy repeatedly (someone outside the house that gets closer each time they look, creepy notes in their house, written in blood,ect) and doesn’t think to call police, arm themselves, lock doors, ect. They only think to do something when it’s too late. People have called the police because a cat ate their Whopper, you have the right, believe it or not, to call the police if someone is creeping around your house.

  55. To be honest, I’m not really critical, but I am getting a little tired of the gouged out eyes, hollow eye sockets and pretty much any computer malware. However, as a writer, (I’d like to think I’m a wonderful horror writer, but I don’t entirely believe it. That’s why I haven’t posted anything yet.) I would definitely like to stress subtlety, psychology and originality. Originality doesn’t have to be thinking of something wild and crazy that is so impossible that no one can ever have done anything like it, but rather something underused, perhaps even common. One of the best things I’ve ever written (based on reception from other people) was about how the memory of a hit and run plagued a man for the rest of his life. Another thing: personally, I like to use and interpret music without words into writing. Psychology, as I said before is important as well. Basis on guilt, betrayal by a friend and even ignorance have made wonderful premises for some of my masterpieces. There is of course the outright gruesome description, which can be effective, but is more than a little bit overused, especially by those who cannot comprehend the inner workings of the mind or are simply bad writers. Loss of loved ones work in tragic tales, though I write of people who are alone. Stories in which people become trapped are effective, but common. 2nd person, as stated by other comments, can be done brilliantly, but should not be tackled by all but the best writers. I hope my input can be of use to other aspiring writers and the filterers of this site, which I have enjoyed.

  56. What I don’t like isn’t the cliches, sometimes if they’re well written they can be great, what I don’t like is the ones that write like “You see blah blah blah” I’ve yet to find a good story written in this perspective.

  57. I don’t think it actually counts as a cliche, but I hate when a story tries too hard to be scary. Usually it’s excessively dramatic, or will use “…” as a substitute for suspense. (this is lazy writing!) Also, a lot of stories will tell you what is scary, i.e. “…the door swung open with a terrifying crash!” or “John had never seen anything so scary!” This kind of writing goes against what a LOT of writing teachers and authors will tell you with stories – show (through actions) don’t tell.

    Since a lot of creepypasta is also in the form of images, my pet peeve with those are the ones that are very, very obviously (and poorly) photoshopped. Also, overused ideas such as bloody eyes, gaping mouths, and brandishing weapons with an evil grin are just plain boring most of the time. Overall, I think I really prefer subtlety, in both writing and images, though this isn’t to say those are the only good kinds out there.

    I do agree with a lot of posters that what you find scary depends on your personal tastes, but I tend to rate stuff a lot more on quality rather than content, so some cliches can be easy for me to get past.

    1. You sir/ma’am, know your Pasta, and I agree completely. Especially your “Show, don’t tell” comment. For, subtlety is so key in really illustrating a great suspense. When something is just overtly exposed and shoved into your face, it has very little affect for me. But a distant silhouette in the darkness or fog, or a distorted, unidentifiable reflection in the water or window, the gentle tug on your sleeve to look and see nothing there… those are the kinds of elements that chill my spine. Not reading of something bleeding from the eyes, holding your head, and screaming. It’s too much exposure and simply has no suspense, which to me is at the very core of Creepy.

  58. I am sick and tired of people just happening upon random video files, which tend to include things like gouged-out eyes, someone being brutally murdered, etc. And then the video file somehow changes the screensaver of the narrator’s computer to some horrifying image. SICK AND TIRED, PEOPLE.

  59. Not exactly a cliche, per se, but I’m so tired of the reliance on the epistolary format. Letters, blogs, journals and all that. Needs to stop, mostly because nearly everyone who uses it also ends up with a narrator that does nothing but further the plot instead of a vivid first person character.

    I’d also probably slaughter a goat in the name of any god that would keep people from writing in second person. Yes, it can be done well, but it’s incredibly difficult. I’ve gotten to the point that I just don’t read those at all. Too many crap ones.

  60. The most ANNOYING cliché has to be the “Lost Episode”s. OK, I admit some are good, such as suicidemouse.avi, Dead Bart and Squidward’s Suicide. But please, please, PLEASE stop making terrible ones which follow the exact same plotline as some of the others (especially the Family Guy ones).

  61. GordonTheFreeMan

    What scares people is different from person to person. Some of the best pastas I’ve ever read were filled to the brim with “cliches”. I agree with the comments above, that they play little part in the fear inducing factors. I am totally digging this site though, I personally appreciate all the filtering that occurs considering that I often don’t stumble upon crappypastas much here.
    In essence, keep the cliches coming, and keep the old filters. That is, unless you come across something like… well, I’ll make an example of it, right here.

    A day, just like any other. John headed toward the automatic subway doors and progressed to his usual seat; between those facing forward and back his seat faced side to side. John enjoyed making eye contact.
    “Now arriving at Gresham transit centre” the automated voice spoke softly. A park John crosses daily on his way to work had the usual visitors. The man with the douchy fedora, the old woman in white seated at the bench nearest the fountain with her dalmation and the sketchy, tall, lanky man in his trench coat taking a call on his cell phone.
    John’s arrival was greeted by the off-putting stares and murmurs of the tired couple John was relieving. Darkness enveloped, nearly consumed John as his head begins to burn. Desperately reaching for his pain meds, scratching the bottoms of his pockets. Forgot them today. John’s migraine grows more subtle as the lights dim even farther. Lighting conditions are critical in John’s line of work, as he quality checks paper products with certain low-voltage lights. These lights bring a contrast to flaws and imperfections on the surface. The speaker system above John bellows “John, please come to HR Department as soon as possible, you have a visitor.” With no task at hand, John sauntered to the human resources department to find a dog-like apparition standing before him, blocking his path to the exit door. The dog’s movement told of a synthetic or robotic origin. It carried a lanyard in its mouth with a black flash drive attached. Slowly, the dog advanced toward me. It made a strange wurring sound with each step and came to a sudden halt. John stepped forward and quickly snatched the flash drive from the mouth of the artificial beast.
    The HR Department was empty. There was absolutely no one and the silence was eerie. The typical ambience of key-strokes and clicks was replaced by the small ringing one may hear in total silence. Implicit was his was his freedom to use the terminals the receptionists usually used. With ease, the company computer installs the required drivers and opens the only folder, it was titled “we_know_you” inside was an executable file. John does a double-take, assures himself that it will not matter if it happened to be mal-ware. The tune of twinkle twinkle little star, ABC song, however you want to hear it had begun to play. The wallpaper turned black and a timer began to count down from two minutes. The screen flashed. Bright. The screen then slowly becomes distorted, as if it were made of wax and set aflame. A shade of violet, flashing to green. Then a picture. The screen freezes with the timer at 33 seconds and displays a little girl’s smile, exposed between curtains of black hair. John was becoming nervous. He knew he’d ruined the computer. “Hey, anyone? Hello!” no response. John was definitely alone. John swallows saliva that’d accumulated in his mouth, clears his throat and turns his face back to the distorted screen. The hair was gone and where there should be a face there were but hollow dark spaces of eye sockets. John’s heart skipped and he pulled the plug on the computer tower. “Fuck. That.” John said quietly under his breath in an exhaustive tone. We know you. John stepped outside through the large doors with the illuminated green sign posted above it “EXIT”. John’s smart shoes made a familiar sound of footsteps as he made a very cautious walk to the park. His mind in a fog, hazy. He notices there are no cars. No people. No honking, no anything; his eyes begin to burn. They grow dry, red and irritated. John was flexing the muscles in his forhead, trying to close his eyes as hard as possible. John begins writhing in pain on the grass of the park and momentarily breaks, accepting fate. His racing, pounding heart like a hammer to cloth had come to a slow, regular beat. The familiar pitter-patter of dogs’ feet draw near…
    And then John was a alien.

    1. I agree while shaggy dog stories may sometimes be amusing (liked yours!) it is annoying to find out your were reading one of them when you were looking for a good scare.

  62. I second the haunted video game trope…I am REALLY sick of various haunted Pokemon games, Zelda games, or whatever. Especially since they tend to describe the game in punishing detail.

  63. ProfessorChaos

    I don’t realy mind the cliches that much, i just care about how the story is written and how the writer introduces me to it… but i rly do hate the haunted dolls/video games/ videos/ images ones that are realy crappy and sucky and just taste bad…so yea.

  64. what is my least favorite cliche is that “we are watching” or “they are watching” but i wouldn’t trash the cliches they are the soul behind the pasta good or bad

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