Advertisement
Please wait...

October Discussion Post: Tips & Tricks for Aspiring Creepypasta Writers



Estimated reading time — < 1 minute

It’s been made clear to me that for many of you guys, writing a Creepypasta is your first foray into non-school-mandated creative writing. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and distinctly not-creepy inside, because I like having a hand – however small – in encouraging people to do more reading and writing. I know that many of the people who leave comments here and over at Crappypasta seem to really enjoy helping aspiring writers grow as well, so I thought that it might be nice for us to have a place where we can leave our favorite tips and tricks in regards to writing Creepypastas.

So please, go ahead and leave a comment with anything that you think might be useful for someone considering writing and submitting their very own Creepypasta. Whether it’s as simple as “Remember paragraphs because walls of text suck and nobody enjoys them” or linking us to specific mood music that you listen to while writing, if you’ve got advice, this is the right place for it.

Advertisements
Advertisements
Please wait...

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.

110 thoughts on “October Discussion Post: Tips & Tricks for Aspiring Creepypasta Writers”

  1. Angel “Shadow” Valentine

    i usually listen to Lindsey Stirling (dubstep violin) when i write and read, since it doesnt have vocals, i find it easier to focus on the writing instead of the lyrics to the song, and she doesnt have typical slow violin songs, they’re very upbeat and they are great! So i really recommend Lindsey Stirling for when you read or write

  2. I want to read about a new gaming creepypasta. Forget the “Sonic.exe!” Bologna! .exe or .avi is a chle che in gaming creepypastas and know-one really wants tto see that malarkey!

  3. Im kinda tired of all the demons lurking in the basements and attics. I want to read about a serial killer…those sound the most interesting to me. I dont think that cussing is needed in the stories, if you feel like you need to cuss in your story, then it is probably not that scary and you are trying too hard. All the demon stories that are being told are basically the same thing…you see a demon, it sees you, you get scared…thats it. I want a story that i can read in the morning and still be afraid of when i go to bed that night. Again, serial killers are what interest me. Maybe things that sneak into your house while your busy doing something. NO DEMONS!! They are BORING!!

  4. I have a few ideas that may or may not have been brought up. This is an old post, but I’ll add my 5 cents anyway. I love to write. Short stories, long stories, poems, songs, etc… I also kept a journal of my dreams at one point and did research on my own dreams. I noticed that when it was cold, I always had nightmares. I got in the habit of writing everything I could remember the moment I woke up. After a few weeks, I remembered more and more from said dreams. It became a creepy journal of bad dreams that were extremely demented, vivid, creepy, weird, and whatever else comes to mind. So that could be one way to go. Also, if writing creepy stories, go outside at night by yourself and walk around. Close your eyes and listen to things around you. I live in the country so I always hear wild animals walking around or making noises and it sparks my imagination. If you don’t have that option, read about something morbid or scary or watch creepy videos online. That always helps me, too.
    This may be the most helpful thing I can tell you, so read carefully and pay attention…
    Write and rewrite your story. Double check everything. Then proof read it as if you are the reader. See if you (as the reader) can understand the concept and storylines and charachters. Use very descriptive words, but don’t drag it on. Also, try to have the main character (victim, not creepy thing/man/whathaveyou) be relatable to on some level. Try to make the story or stories seem plausible.
    Good luck and break a – a wrist? Lol

  5. I am so glad I read this! I have only known about this sight for a few days and have been loving the stories so much that I started writing my own for the next submission period. Seeing all of this advice is helping me out so much! I was actually kind of saddened because I honestly believed that my original story was probably going to go straight to crappypasta before I could get the advice to turn it into something better, and I knew that the moderators wouldn’t want me to send in anything of low quality. Now I know for sure some things that should be edited or replaced. If anyone knows of a sight I could post my story to for some proofreading or wouldn’t mind reading it themselves and giving some helpful unbiased advice please let me know. Again thank you all so much for the insight you have given me!

  6. If you want an idea on how to come up with a Creepypasta story heres a tip. If you ever have dream thats scary you know its just a dream, that its imaginary. So write it down add to it develop it and there you go you have your story :)

  7. I just recently started writing again and the best tip I can give to upcoming writers is to just dwell on things that come to you.Whether it be a nightmare, a vision you get, ANYTHING.Just write what you feel could be a best selling story.Sorry if this made no sense to you, it did to me.:p

  8. I would use inspiration from nightmares you’ve had before I just recently had the guts to make one read it to my friend and she had nightmares about it. so I would use your nightmares. :)

  9. As far as my standalone advice goes, The main thing I have to say is look at the different successful writing styles, and then look at the writing styles of Crappypastas. If you can recognize that difference, you are well on your way to writing a decent Creepypasta.

    1. For the record, I forgot to proofread my comment. I can see I have one definite grammatical error, and two debatable grammatical errors. Always proofread what you write. ALWAYS.

  10. Grammar, spelling, and get your story out without trying to be pretentious or ridiculously poetic. Remember that people are looking for a thrill and want a piece to read, but one can only be brought up to so much suspense without it becoming a chore to keep reading. Also, don’t steer away from cliches, but use them wisely, because those are what people identify with, and they are cliches for a reason

  11. First of all, to any aspiring writers: know that we aren’t (or most of us aren’t) posting these tips because we hate you and want to scare you away from writing. It’s because we know how much fun it is to write and read CreepyPasta, and we just want to help!
    I haven’t submitted to the site yet, although I’ve written pasta for elsewhere. My tips are mostly the same as anyone’s.
    –I won’t tell you “don’t write about this or that”, just understand that if you pick a common theme (slenderman, for instance) it might be judged against higher standards.
    –When first writing a story, focus on getting it down, then worry about language when revising.
    –Vary your phrases in length and style. It both makes it read better, and helps to emphasize what’s truly important. Lull a reader by providing a lengthy, pause-filled, and melodic description of a dingy room, a phrase that takes twenty words.
    Then mention the corpse in three.
    –Grammar: it’s about context. Decent grammar should be your default, but an old man’s rambling or a teen girl’s text messages will have distinctly different styles.
    –My pet peeve is people unsure of whether they’re narrating a memory, or an event as it occurs. Please, stick with either the past tense or the present tense, don’t switch back and forth.
    And, as a great poster once said,
    “Keep clam and proofread.”

  12. Well I have not wrote anything yet, but I find it really helpful if I put myself in the position of any character really…I mean you got to really think in the mind of a "Monster".It helps if you really get to know about the person you are talking about and try to be in there position.

  13. how do we make a creepy pasta. i never seen create topic or create creepy pasta or post topic. what ever you do to make them

  14. I don’t think it’s quite fair to say what monsters people should avoid. I’ve noticed several posts saying "Don’t make monsters with [Insert attribute here] because it’s done to death". That’s extremely limiting to a new writer, or any artist for that matter.

    It’s good to start with the basics, especially when some of these common monsters offer something very important to new writers, a deep understanding of fear. You can’t understand why some complex monsters or psychologies scare us and some don’t if you don’t understand why the simplest one’s can make us shiver. I’m not saying start with Slenderman, because he is a very specific fear. Young writers need to experiment and find out what really terrifies them and their readers.

    So if you find a monster with no eyes frightful, then by all means use that characteristic. If you’re character is suited by being painfully thin then that’s probably for the best. Young writers need to tread water in the shallow end for some time before they can learn to swim in deeper waters. Don’t be afraid of being judged in your earliest stages, if writing is truly for you then your own creativity will spring forth soon enough.

  15. I’ll just mention two things that annoy me that haven’t already been covered multiple times over:

    -Please only use the journal entry style if it benefits the plot. I see so many submissions where the journal style adds nothing to the actual story and it seems more like it was only chosen so that the author could be lazy and not bother with writing transitions between scenes. It makes the entire pasta feel stale and low-effort, so please, if you’re tempted to use the journal style, make sure that you’re using it because it actually brings something to the table and not just so you don’t have to write as much.

    -Stop submitting unfinished pastas. When you send me something called ‘[INSERT RANDOM TITLE] part one’ there’s about a 99% chance that I won’t post it. First of all, I have no idea if you’ll ever bother writing the rest of the story. Secondly, even if you do write more, I have no guarantee that the follow-up will be good.

    When people do this, to me it usually reads like the author hit a certain point, went "eh I’m bored of writing now I’ll finish this later" and then for some reason proceeded to submit the unfinished product anyhow instead of just saving it to notepad or something and working on it later. It feels like some of you are in such a huge rush to submit pastas that you don’t even care if they’re finished and I just don’t understand that mindset at all.

    I’m not going to accept something that doesn’t have any sort of resolution. Finish your story first, proofread, edit, and AFTER IT IS DONE, submit the entire thing.

    If there’s a legitimate reasoning for having the story published in multiple parts, tell me so, but I need to be able to read the entire thing before I can decide if I want to post it.

  16. Also.
    The beginning of your story is just as important as the ending to your story. If the reader isn’t interested by the first few lines, the rest of your story will read as utter shit.
    Avoid starting lines such as,"I was always afraid of ___" because now we know that the ___ is going to attack our hero. Unless,"I was always afraid of drowning," ends in someone being burned alive. Because that would be cool. Also,"I was always unusual because," well now we are unable to relate because maybe we’re not all beautiful and unique snowflakes.
    Remember its a short story. If what you’re writing doesn’t directly affect the plot, get rid of it.

  17. Reading a story out loud helps clear up grammar issues, word monotony, or typos etc. Being influenced is different from plagiarism. Don’t try so hard to be original that your story becomes convoluted. Listen to the critique that’s already been given here! Pinpoint what bothers you in a story. Relax before writing, so you’re more creative. Also, no one wants too much detail about your character’s rugged good looks and sparkling blue eyes. If it doesn’t follow the story naturally, it’s out of place.
    "But Sarah was too short to reach the top shelf," vs. "Sarah is 5’2."

  18. i would appreciate if you could open up the submissions thing again. I have a demon i’d like to get off my chest. so…. open up. there’s no need to be afraid

  19. You know what?

    Reading all these "tips" is not really motivating. It feels like being bashed before even writing a single word. Some faults that are being mentioned are not bad persé, but what’s even more important, we might be missing out on talent scared from posting by these wel meant pointers.

    Clichés can be a tool, you create a sense of knowing what’s coming next, which you can use and abuse in various ways.

    Greatly appreciated works have been completely booed of the bookshelf for being badly written, Lord of the rings for one.

    Making your story readable is important, but a few minor flaws don’t instantly make a story bad or illegible.

    Creativity is key, knowing how to set a mood and coming up with interesting concepts makes it easier to score. But hey, I watch plenty of re-runs and not every good story is an original.

    To all you writers on here, celebrate creativity, do not scare people away from posting.

    (and keep in mind that English is not everybody’s native tongue)

    my two cents,

  20. No one’s going to read a comment this far down the line, but:

    Grammar and spelling are your friends. Really, they are, and I don’t mean this in a ‘razor-toothed monstrosity from hell is your friend’ way.

    Pacing in a story is also your friend. Creepypasta does not have the benefits of other mediums, such as videos or games. You can’t manage a jump scare with it. You won’t conjure images of terror and gore by saying ‘and his guts were all over the walls.’ You’re going to have to depend on being able to pull up disturbing descriptions and pacing the story to build tension.

    While I suppose you can breathe new breath into a tired trope, it’s hard and most people don’t do it right. Unless you have a very good idea of what you’re doing, I’d suggest trying to avoid the obvious stuff.

    Obvious stuff (at least to me):
    Mirrors. Yes, okay, there’s a thing in your mirror and it wants to murder you. We get it. It’s really not scary anymore, just annoying. How the hell am I supposed to brush my teeth if my blood-caked reflection/doppleganger is going to make faces at me all day?

    Pop culture. This one can be worked with, for sure, but using pop culture (ie, Pokemon, Cartoons, etc) is just starting you off in a minefield of awful cliches. Hyperrealism. Something popping out of the game to eat your face. The children’s show of all the blood. Slenderman hanging around the background of a show you’ve never seen before but found on an unlabeled DVD. You get the point.

    Creatures. I swear to God I am beyond sick of your standard gaunt, faceless creature. Yes, we know why they’re scary, but at this point reading the words ‘skeletal’ ‘eyeless’ or ‘pale skinned’ immediately turns off any fear I had. It’s just Slenderman’s poor inbred cousin at this point, and even Slendy really isn’t scary anymore.

    Surprise endings. This one is really iffy, to be honest. Surprise endings are great…unless you tell me how now that I’ve read your pasta, I’m going to die, or your hillbilly Slenderman knockoff is right behind me, or just. Ugh. No, that’s really just an asshole move and it’s not even funny anymore.

    Insanity. This one is another iffy one. It’s workable, to be sure, but there is nothing that takes me out of a story faster than ‘I was diagnosed with insanity.’ That’s not even a real diagnosis, you twit. And going on about how your sanity is teetering on a thread or something is really just making my patience do the same. Actually, let’s segue into:

    Not doing your research. If you’re going to write a horror story set in, say, China, for fuckssake do your research. Please. Because I’m sorry, but room 66 of floor 6 would mean absolutely nothing to most people over there. Nor would room 13 of floor 13. There’s no cultural basis to fear those numbers, and having your protagonist have a stroke over the whole thing is ridiculous.

    Here’s a few tips and tricks:
    When writing descriptions, don’t just talk about how things look. Engage the reader’s other senses, too. The organic crunch-squish sound of someone’s leg breaking, the strangely meaty smell of a dismembered corpse, the stickiness of drying blood – all of these are going to get your point across better than just going on and on and on about how gross the room looked. Be detailed, and be surprising too, or it’ll really just get boring fast.

    A small, neat twist on a trope can refresh your reader. See something in the mirror? Make it something that’s not just the protagonist’s ‘imagination’ (or Slenderman’s dim-witted cousin, for that matter).

    Make the protagonist human. Please. You want your reader to empathize with your protagonist, and if your protagonist is a complete dipshit, your reader is going to be too busy facepalming to be scared.

    1. Hey, everyone who just skipped Scyllarus’ comment because it looked long, go back and read it. There is some good advice there.

    2. Scyllarus’s Tips are quite good, as I myself want to write a CreepPasta about particlular demon from Japanese mythology.

      So, thanks Scyllarus!

      P.S I think I’ll post in on CrappyPasta, for some constructive criticism.

  21. Here’s something to note when designing monsters or creatures.

    There are two types of animals that people truly fear, predators and deformed humans. Why are deformed humans considered scary? Well, back in the days when humans had no civilization, a diseased person would start to look deformed. As you know, a disease back then could infect and destroy entire tribes. Our fear of deformity is a natural ‘call to arms’ to quarantine the sick.

    Why does this matter? Think about all the ‘cliche’ characteristics of humanoid monsters..

    1) Gray skin (somebody on their death bed, most likely with a lung infection)

    2) Sunken eyes (too many illnesses to count)

    3) Blisters and boils (smallpox and plague)

    4) ‘Unnaturally’ skinny (pretty much any sickness after a while with improper care)

    And then we have sharp teeth and claws, which are stolen from predators.

    Why did I bring this up? For one thing, all those cliches work, but their worn out. I want to challenge you (yes you!) to look up somewhat obscure deformities and diseases on the internet and write a new, fresh monster from these symptoms.

  22. Concrete descriptions are always better then abstract. If something is ugly don’t say its ugly describe how it is ugly, (his face was covered with open sores and his body dripped ooze. A collective puddle of body fluids surrounded his feet and I knew in a moment that there was no escape.) Like that but even more.

  23. Also, make sure that grammar and spelling are in check. Being dyslexic is not an excuse. I’m sure you have friends who can proofread for you. Make your characters dynamic, give them a voice. This helps the reader actually get submerged into the story. Make sure that it actually makes sense. Provide as many details as you can so that we know what’s going on. Also, the story actually has to be creepy. A story about a weird dream (and I have seen this before) is not creepy. Seriously, no one gives a fuck. And lastly, check to make sure your story does not contain the following: Jeff the Killer, SLENDERMAN, Candle Cove, Pokemon (video games in general), lost episodes, journal entry ( unless it’s really good and not a cheap knockoff).

  24. The guy who wrote my Pasta was a dick.
    Horrible grammar, made me do medically impossible things…
    Basically, avoid everything he did and you’ll be just fine.

  25. I’m in the process of writing my own Pasta right now.
    Here’s some things I try to remember:

    1. GRAMMAR. ALWAYS. NO EXCUSES UNLESS IT’S THE CHARACTER’S PERSONALITY.

    2. Don’t be afraid to mix in some pastas. It’s good to be original, but it never hurts to read over some Pastas and use inspiration to make your story great.

    3. Not too short, not too long. Too short isn’t enough to fit the creepy in, and too long plain out bores people (Unless you have a giant set of events that compact in one huge story that will catch one’s eye).

    4. Use VARIETY. Different and colorful words amp up the story.

    5. Make sense. Don’t start on something and leave the reader hanging without enough information. It won’t make it a cliffhanger, it’ll make it a “The hell did I just read?”-hanger.

    6. No overlapping. Don’t start with one idea and skip over to the next within a few paragraphs.

    7. DETAIL.

    8. This relates to 2): Don’t start writing right away. Think it over for a little while. In class, at lunch, before bed, anywhere. Try to come up with ideas that a person just scrolling through some Pasta’s wouldn’t expect.

    9. Think the ending through. Happy endings aren’t what most people want to see anymore. Try making it end in the most terrifying way possible, make them imagine the pain the character is going through. If you do put a happy ending, throw in a little creepy to make it seem like the whole thing will be continued.

    10. Be prepared for people who hate it. There is going to be someone out there who bashes on your story. Handle in maturely, and/or don’t give a fuck.

  26. 1) Spelling. Not sure if this is just me, but it pisses me off so much when there are wrong speeding everywhere, although a couple of typos are okay.
    2)Grammar. Just because.
    3) Have a decent idea that you are really interested in, because if you aren’t its going to show.
    4) Don’t copy other people’s ideas. Maybe taking a few small concepts here and there but otherwise, don’t go there.
    5) No more haunted games, lost episodes, mirror stories or slenderman stories. Please. I’m begging you. Unless they are amazingly different to all the other ones, I don’t think anyone wants to hear it.

    I wouldn’t take advice from me, because Im an idiot. But I’ve found that those things tend to annoy quite a few people on creepypasta.

  27. base your grammar on where u put the creepypasta & who is supposed to be writing it. creepys are supposed to be like real stories. so it doesnt make sense for a 16 year old cheerleader narrator to use perfect grammar. but if urs is just fiction & ur not blending it into reality then w/e

  28. If you ask me, the biggest rule to CreepyPAsta is to come up with something creative and original. If you do something even similair to a previous story, people will get bored and not want to read it. But if it’s orignial, it keeps the reader hooked. Originality is one of the things that makes a CreepyPasta a CreepyPasta.

      1. Not sure if someone has answered this, but here’s why I’d avoid it:
        A) The line is used in so very, very many pastas, in every subgenre from lost episodes to murders and deaths, it’s cliché at this point.
        B) It’s obvious. Of course everything started out perfectly normal, otherwise what follows wouldn’t be frightening.
        c) “Perfectly Normal” is a generality that tells the reader nothing. “Perfectly normal” has a completely different definition depending on whether you’re talking about a daycare teacher, a software developer, or a night guard at an abattoir. It’s lazy language.

        1. What’s wrong with cliches? Every fairy tale book for children begins with “Once upon a time…” and ends with “…and they lived happily ever after” so they must all suck!

          No… Cliches have their place in writing.

        2. One of my favorite writers answered this. Roy Peter Clark, in his book, “Writing Tools,” said, “Whoever used [a cliche] first wrote something fresh, but with overuse it became familiar – and stale.”
          George Orwell argued that cliches are an automatic form of writing.

          Try this. “Her gown was white as snow.” You know why that’s stale? Because we’ve heard it before. We know that “White as snow” means pure white, but the image does not conjure the picture of freshly fallen snow, then transpose it to her gown. We know what it looks like already; we don’t need to imagine what the author’s telling us, because we already know.

          Using cliches is an automatic form of writing. It’s easy for us authors, but it comes at a cost. Since we think the phrase automatically, so does the audience. We fail to immerse the audience because they get to indulge in automatic thinking, too.

          tl;dr: avoid cliches like the plague (hah!). Seriously, don’t do them.

  29. Keep this in mind while writing; I find it’s helpful for generating creative ideas and descriptions.

    People don’t fear death. Well, okay, they DO, but not directly. They don’t directly fear monsters, or blood, or murderers, or psychos, and they definitely don’t directly fear suicide. What they fear is tangentially connected to all of them: They fear the unknown. Things which are subtly off, which aren’t quite right, which just shouldn’t be, which are paradoxically existing when they shouldn’t and getting worse by spreading proof of their existence around them via action and presence. People who can nail down that feel of dread, of getting people to lose control of the ability to predict or plan what happens next, especially in the shortest amount of writing, will dominate creepypastas. I quote the best example:
    “The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.”

  30. I personally have yet to write a pasta, but having read through multiple pages I feel as though the first person is a little tricky to make work. Reading a story that has the narrator in a room, or other secluded area, typing on a laptop with a who-knows-what scratching at the door just doesn’t strike me as real. Second person can work, but it has to be well-crafted.

    I feel it’s all about the language and what mood you want to set. Be selective in your details, even the stuff you choose to omit can have great significance. The imagery you use comes from the words you use; so use descriptions but don’t go overboard with a thesaurus. Also, the subtle is good and can add a layer of realism. I think the key to a good pasta is the blend of horror and realism. The pasta, like meat, if it’s marbled well, it will be delicious.

    And, as always, good grammar, spelling, and conventions are important. Sentence structure can add a subconscious layer of creepiness and purposeful mistakes can be used to an advantage.

  31. two fan tips.
    1. i like …love a good slenderman story. especially if it’s literally a true story.
    2. don’t turn around

  32. helpful 3 tips.
    1. don’t troll other people’s “art.” nobody likes a grammar wh*re. and karma is a mean manlady.
    2. spell check. because ur grammar sucks.
    3. your imagination isn’t as endless as u think. Google before you write, because your story is most likely already a story.

  33. The mirror bit just doesn’t work with supernatural horror. You expect a monster from it. Try to make it fit in another genre of horror. Say psychological. Or stick with a monster, but you got to be very damn creative with it. It may be overdone but one of the previous comments made a good point, it’s not done correctly. You got to be out of the box, but still down to earth when doing these things. You got to be descriptive when doing the horror elements and vague to some points when you’re setting it up. If you want to make it somewhat of a long story you want to make the characters complex. You got to feel what the character feels. Describe it in first person. Describe what they feel so well that the reader has no choice but to feel it.

  34. As long as your grammar is passable, don’t worry about it. Style is more important. The story needs to flow. A good idea is to read it out loud. If it sounds awkward, then change it. That’s the most important thing, because it’s what creates atmosphere. Don’t be overly concerned with prescriptive grammar beyond the basics. There are plenty of terrible pastas with perfect grammar. It’s not the key to good writing.

    Don’t overload your pasta with details. Don’t develop your characters unnecessarily or explain minor details about the setting or the events taking place. It’s more important to frighten the reader, and very few pastas can do that after deflating tension by spending two paragraphs describing the personality of the quirky childhood best friend character.

    Also, don’t listen to people who tell you not to write in the second person. Unless you’re being wilfully difficult, putting yourself in the shoes of the main character is way easier when you do this, even if they’re a completely different person. It works better for shorter pasta, though, so if it’s longer, go with the first or third person, but again, don’t overload the story with details.

    Another thing is that there are no clichés. I don’t care how many people write mirror stories, they can still be scary if they’re done right. Art is in the execution. Think of what your favourite song is about and I guarantee I can find you a song about the exact same topic that you hate. If you wanna do a lost episode, go for it, but do it well.

    There is nothing wrong with semi-colons, either; people just don’t know how to use them effectively.

    1. so was the entire point of this post to just undo everyone else’s suggestions?

      You are correct about cliches, semicolons, and second person. Those things work well if done effectively. Unfortunately this is not “tips for effective writers” this is tips for aspiring writers. In other words, people who are new to writing.

      You wouldn’t make someone learn guitar by playing through the fire and flames would you? NO because they haven’t developed the skills. Writing is the same way, if you try to write your first story in a format that is almost impossible to do correctly you will fail.

      From there you will either continue writing bad stories because you never learned the basics, or you will get discouraged and give up.

      Once you’ve written a few stories you might decide to try out second person, like taking the training wheels off your bike.

      The other two comments, grammar and details, are just straight up horrible advice. You will NEVER have to choose between grammar and flow. In fact bad grammar is one of the things that hurts flow the most. Details, I understand that too many details make a pasta soggy, but you need character development for a pasta to be good. The reader has to care about the character or at least see them as a human being. That can’t be accomplished if all you know is their name.

      1. I said as long as your grammar is passable, not non-existant. My point is that writing doesn’t become better the more big words and complex constructions you add to it. Maybe I went somewhat overboard because I’m sick of people pushing grammar advice, but the point still stands. Most people writing these stories don’t need grammar advice. The worst problem with amateur writing is usually overwriting – people adding pointless dialogue tags, usage of ill-chosen, florid language picked out of a thesaurus, and awkward constructions. I can’t help but feel that it’s advice about grammar and spelling is what leads people to conclude that a piece of writing is good because it meets strict standards of prescriptive grammar. Seriously, a vast proportion of stories with terrible grammar are just trolls. Unless you still think "My Immortal" was a real, serious fanfic by a real person, I don’t see how you can think that these people would heed your advice. Even if one out of every few stories is real, you have to be inconceivably bad at writing to think that, ryting liek dis yeah, iz ectually pleasant for most people to read, in which case such advice is probably pointless. You’re not an aspiring writer because you’re just not a writer.

        Obviously the advice about details is horrible if you’re writing a short story or novel, but not if you’re writing a pasta. I’m not going to be invested in characters I know for ten minutes worth of reading if the intention is to scare. Character development isn’t scary unless the character themselves is meant to inspire e.g. a serial killer or monster. A pasta is not a short story. It’s a snapshot of fear.

  35. Here’s a more general writing tip. Make your prose sound ‘nice’. Here’s what I mean.

    1) Never start a sentence with the same word twice in one paragraph. Hearing ‘I’ a million times at the beginning of every sentence wears on you after a while.

    2) Use synonyms, but not to an extreme. If you have a ‘big monster chasing’ you, maybe mix it up a little. Perhaps you could say ‘A gargantuan beast was pursing me’. Don’t overdo this, though. You could refer to a ‘monster’ as a monster at first, then a creature, then maybe a beast. This isn’t about showing your thesaurus skills off, but breaking word monotony. My rule of thumb: three synonyms max for every word you will be using over and over again.

    3) Related to the above, don’t use words that only had common use in the Roman Empire.

    4) Please, spell out numbers. Twenty five or twenty-five, not 25.

    5) There are more conjunctions then and/but/or. Yet is an uncommon one, as is nor. Plus, there are many words you might not think of as conjunctions, such as ‘if’, ‘because’, ‘so’, and ‘then’.

    6)Very your sentence structure. Break up big, complex-compound sentences with a short simple sentence in-between. This usually creates a smoother flow.

    7) Grammar and spelling is always mandatory, unless you are writing slang filled dialogue, which shouldn’t be often.

    I could probably think of more, but it’s early in the morning here, so I’m pretty tired.

  36. Write for yourself first. Don’t write for validation from the internet. That doesn’t mean do a crappy job. Just understand getting a creepypasta out there is a months-long process if it happens at all. Even then, people may just think it sucks.

    So it’s important that writing the pasta gives you satisfaction on its own, because the other stuff might not come.

  37. Ok, if you are dead-set on writing a slenderman pasta. I have identified the three worst mistakes you can make.

    1)Do not put any reference to slenderman in the title of your pasta.

    2) do not begin your pasta with “I have always been obsessed with slenderman” or “I was playing slender.”

    3) Do not refer to him as slenderman at all in the pasta if you can help it.

    The reason these rules are important is simple. The biggest mistake people make when writing a slenderman pasta is that they immediately tell you that it is a slenderman pasta. Most pastas don’t tell you exactly what the main character will be dealing for the entire story right at the beginning, why would you?

    the second mistake is having the main character be obsessed with slenderman. Not only is it clear that you wrote this because you are obsessed with slenderman. But the main character of a creepypasta is not supposed to break the fourth wall like that and basically acknowledge that they are in a pasta.

    Think for ten seconds. Slenderman is in creepypasta => I am being hunted by slenderman => I am in a creepypasta

    The third mistake is referring to slenderman by name, or as the main character of slender or creepypastas. The moment you do that, you aren’t writing about the mysterious murderous creature that stalks people, you are writing about the cliche pop-culture monster that everyone is sick of. What makes him scary isn’t his reputation, it’s what he does, so make all effort not to reveal that you are writing about slenderman until the main character comes face-to-face (no pun intended) with him. The best slenderman pastas I’ve read don’t need to use his name, they use descriptions and immediately the image forms in my mind.

  38. When I write, I just kind of mind dump. Sorry for the image, but I literally write until I run out of ideas, not going over it to fix ANYTHING up until then. Also, avoid cliches. Even if ‘it was all a dream’ sounds good and fits the story, things like that are so overused that it kind of kills the whole post. Be original, don’t just rely on those stupid overused cliches and themes to make your story sound good.

      1. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE USERNAME!

        Um, well, sorry there depbutt. Everyone, i’m looking for a good show to do it on (animated), not to make it cliche, to add a bit of vague-ness like candle cove to it, fresh, new scary ideas to make a perfectly innocent show seem horrifying. So, any help now?

        1. the most important thing is to pick a show with some spookiness to begin with.

          So many lost episode pastas end with characters just murdering each other all over the place because that is the only way to get all the way from how the show normally is to creepypasta.

          If you pick something like scooby-doo that already has a little bit of creepiness you have much less distance to cover and can do it in a much more subtle way.

        2. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE USERNAME!

          Aha, thanks shotgunfish. Immediatley after I commented that I realised Scooby Doo. I have a few ideas in mind, but can you gimme a few hints how NOT to make it cliche? (besides the characters not just killing everyone in hyper realistic drawings. -_-?

        3. Well the two other huge mistakes I see in lost episodes are:

          1) Just writing long strings of events. Just because it’s a lost episode doesn’t mean you can just throw normal plot progression and story structure out the window. It still has to build up to something. So often the episode is just a bunch of people acting crazy, and then it ends. It has to build up to something.

          2) The episode has no real-life consequences. This is the other thing that people always do. A lost episode is not scary if it stays confined to your TV. Dead bart had premonitions of the future. Squidward’s suicide had photos of a dead child. You need something that has implications about the real world. If your pasta is nothing but a weird episode of a TV show you have wasted the reader’s time. Maybe the animator had a dark past or some demonic force posessed him to create the episode, maybe the episode contained a hidden message, maybe the episode caused bad things to happen to the person who watched it. It isn’t enough to write a fake TV show episode, you have to make it mean something.

        4. Maybe try an anime or untouched beloved show that everyone knows and, well, loves, and add something that will make them never look at it the same way, like an older show (sorry I don’t have examples)

        5. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE USERNAME!

          Thank you both gents! I’m also going to try and avoid ‘They showed the episode by mistake’ and the ‘i used to work at..’ blah blah. But thanks guys, I have a rough idea. (Rough mind.) Who knows? We could finally get a 3rd lost episode on here! XD

        6. Sorry, I don’t have anything of worth to actually contribue, I just want to see how much I can get this text squished up on the right.

        7. Is it too late to add “what if this light-hearted show were a lot more serious”?

          By that I mean… Sit around awhile and think about ways the show could be creepier or more morbid.

          For example, ever hear about that idea that Pokemon was set after a devastating war?

  39. If you feel like its cliche, then it probably is. Either way, if youre writing on youre own time, you should feel badass.

  40. You can be an amazing pasta author by:

    1) Not listening to Raaxis. Because, honestly, you don’t even know what he said.

    2) Not listening to Lee. He just misspelled the words hell and I’ve. Also he’s a married man and afraid to spell out the word shit.

    3) Not using the word dismissed. Because other people have used it before.

    4) Trope, trope, trope. Isn’t that a funny word?

    5) Writing whatever the fuck you want, but if you going to write something write it well.

    6) Remember paragraphs because walls of text suck and nobody enjoys them.

    7) Not putting yourself in the situation of using a semi-colon.

    http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

    here’s a link to help you stray away from those situations, but if you do use a semi-colon its OK; Virtually no one knows what they mean.

    8) Fuck Lee.

    9) Remembering that writing in second person is almost specifically for short stories. Don’t be afraid to use it.

    10) Fuck Lee.

    1. Can I add one more? Though I’m no pro, I’d suggest you don’t go all immature with the cursing. A littles okay, like what this is added to, but a lot of readers don’t want every other word being shit or fuck. Just tryin to help so ignore if you want to

    2. Haha, this could have been shortened down to

      “I hate that guy, and write how you want to because writing doesn’t need a formula”.

  41. A few things, one: if you are serious about your pasta check the crappypasta checkbox. It is. Good way to get feedback however, remember though that once your pasta is there people can say whatever they want. A good idea would be to comment on your story asking for help, otherwise you will get more wisecracking comments and cague negative reactions than actual advise. Also, if you can’t take (in some cases extreme) negative feedback, it’s as simple as not checking the box.

    Also haunted games (especially Pokemon), lost episodes, and slenderman are all way overdone, if you are serious about writing an awesome pasta try to avoid them. As well as more minor cliches like haunted mirrors, haunted dolls, generic insane ramblings, etc.
    The only exception (except for Pokemon) is if you have a clever spin on the concept you are SURE has never been done before. Make sure it hasn’t but even then it has an inherently lower chance of making the main site than something completely original.

    Also, arguably the worst thing you can do in writing is blatantly rip something off. Whether it be an entire story, or a single concept taken from a tv show. I have read two pastas where the author took elements blatantly from Naruto, I was the first comment on both where I was sure to point it out. That kind of thing doesn’t go unnoticed, someone will always know the source well enough to catch it.

    I could go on but I won’t, these are really the ones that I feel I need to say.

  42. The Mirror thing isn’t overdone, it is done wrong. It’s not about the topic, but about the story. If we pushed away every pasta that was “overdone” we would never eat for all genres and cliches exist on this site. Just make sure that your grammar is correct and that you tell a story, don’t just “man door hand hook car door.”

  43. Ok I’ve never written one but I’ll be as helpful as possible. First be creative(obvious tip is obvious) second don’t steal, I know it’s tempting but you would not believe how many times I’ve heard the phrase ‘don’t look behind you’ think of an original phrase or read the same story with a different title. Three grammar, grammar, grammar! One of the most important thing in writing in general not just a creepypasta! Last is try to relate the story to yourself, ‘if ther is no feeling there is no squealing’ I always say when it comes to horror.
    So there’s my input no go out there and make something scary. :D

  44. tv tropes is an amazing resources

    just remember

    tropes are tools

    tropes are not bad

    and most of all

    tv tropes will ruin your life :P

    1. Tropes are not good, either. TVTropes is probably most useful for learning about the plots that have already been done to death. An important part of creepypasta is surprise, so familiarising yourself with stock horror tropes can keep you from writing cliche stories.

  45. I have not yet written a creepypasta either. However, I’d recommend avoiding second person unless you are a gifted writer, along with avoiding the “I’m the monster and I’m coming to get you” trope. There are some exceptions to terrible pastas written using these; I, for one, liked “You’re not Scared, Right?” which was written in second person, and “Lita a Bak,” that one written by the Icelandic-American monster of looking back.

  46. I haven’t written any yet… although I want to.

    One thing I would advise writers to do though is mind how often they use common creepy pasta language. For example, I got tired of hearing the word “dismissed,” used over and over.

    “I could swear I saw a shadow move in the corner of my eye, but I dismissed the thought, as I was tired.”

    That’s literally in like every pasta…. so choose your words carefully.

  47. Be original. I will repeat… be ORIGINAL.

    The sad part about reading an abundance of pastas (and not-so-pastas) over an extended period of time, is a familiarity with the patterns of how the “creepy formulas” EVERY writer goes by is entirely the same. Basically, after awhile things turn cliche, predictable, and more times than not you can guess how it’s gonna end (if I read one more fucking cut-out ending I will-). Derpbutt of all I sympathize with for having to endure this for so many years, and yes I do admit it is also partial desensitizing on our part.

    You will notice the greatest of pastas are apart from these cliches. Psychosis, Candle Cove, (the original) Slenderman, et cetera, all had a flair to them and a style that was set apart from the other formulatic spooky stories (a fucking skeleton popped out of nowhere!). This depends largely on the author. Mr. Creepypasta, Josef K., and others we all know have become site legends not because they “thought of it first”, but because they truly immersed the reader in their fucked up universe and stylistically created a setting we could understand (and possibly even relate to).

    Point is, think of something new or at least immersing. I know that’s basically asking to try to make a unique Western film, but it’s what is necessary to create a truly magnificent pasta. And yes, much more easily said than done. I’m not going to pretend I have much writing competence at all to be able to do that, but some of you do, and the next Candle Cove might not be far.

  48. Get your mechanics down. Seriously, it makes a HUGE difference in how your writing is received. The semi-colon is especially important – virtually nobody ever uses it correctly, and if you DO use it correctly it will make you look awesome.

    http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

    While you’re at it, I guarantee that reading their other grammar comics WILL NOT HURT YOUR WRITING.

    http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling
    http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

    Grammar and spelling are the bricks and mortar of your stories. It doesn’t matter if you build the greatest structure ever seen – if the mechanics are sloppy it will be blown over next time there’s a breeze.

  49. Stop using second person, especially if you’re going to tell me a long list of things that I’m supposedly feeling. You tell me I’m alone and scared in the middle of the night when in fact I’m in a crowded restaurant or in a bright classroom and couldn’t be less scared. It’s easier to be creeped out if I put myself in someone else’s shoes on my own, in a first- or third-person story. I just feel like second-person is forcing it.

    Stop ripping off movies and other stories. More so, do not do a spin on Slenderman or do a Jeff sequel.

    Stop using mirrors, especially creatures in them. This is annoyingly popular as of late.

    I could think of a million but I’ll quit there.

    1. As far as the mirrors go, those are just old news. No Bloody Mary, no Candyman, no Dopplegangers (unless you can really, REALLY, do it well, which means no mirror anyway), no hand pooping out to scratch your eyes out, or seeing the ghost of the last person to die in the house you just moved into. Just no. A mirror is an object. People have turned mirrors into homes for all kinds of ghouls, mostly crappy ones. If you are going to use a mirror, use it to see something, preferably alive and not in front of you.

      1. A hand POOPING out….Eek. I would find that the scariest thing a hand to do. Sorry for making fun of your spelling, bro.
        Anyways, I’d have to say avoiding “hyper-realistic” anything or avoiding the whole “I went to the woods at night and boom! Ghosties!” scenario. Or the “Oh god this game isn’t scary enough! I know! Everyone is homicidal!” scenario. Also I personally find rituals to be the creepiest, however don’t overdo anything. Ever. A cool idea would be to hide a secret code in all stories that would spell out something or lead someone somewhere online. No spam though.

  50. Stop saying things like ‘don’t look behind you’re. It is a super-cliche and an obvious hint that you’re reaching. And stay away from mirrors. No, not the physical bathroom looking glasses; I mean the concept is done, chewed to sh*t.
    My only tips are in concepts. Honestly, everyone has a different method on ‘getting ready to write’. Some rare people can force it, others take hours or even days to get in the mood. He’ll, i’ce been trying to write chapter one for months, decided to scrap it and take it all back to the planning board as my wife suggested

    1. That’s not to sat you should avoid a cliche’d subject like the plague. Just don’t center a story around one. For example, you can have a mirror in your story, but it should strictly be a mirror, and not a portal to the land of Crappypastas. Although one should in general just stay away from haunted cartridges, lost episodes, etc. as those are central ideas that have been used more than… well I’ll leave out the blatant innuendo. To sum it up, don’t avoid the object, but stay the heck away from the cliched use.

  51. To dovetail off of what Lily so succinctly said, I’ll add mechanics on top of grammatical syntax. Whether you’re writing a novel or a creepypasta, nothing yanks a reader out of the universe you’re trying to create quite as badly as mechanical errors.

    Even if you have a haunting narrative, creepy critters, and a truly horrifying setting, your readers will ALWAYS be distracted by mechanical flubs. Things like proper spelling, punctuation, and grammatical syntax are absolutely critical to any piece of literature. And despite the effectiveness of tools like spell check and other technological means of editing, absolutely nothing beats a human peer reviewer. Find one of your favorite anal-retentive grammarians (the Internet, it just so happens, is full of them) and have them go through your work with a fine-toothed comb to weed out any awkward sentences or jilted syntax. Then, once they’re done red-inking your work, make your corrections and send it to another grammar Nazi. The more critical eyes your work passes under, the better it will be.

    One caveat, however: don’t use your friends to review your work. As wonderful as it is to have my buddies stroke my ego until I reach wordgasm, their opinions are inherently subjective. They’re going to avoid honesty in order to preserve your friendship. The best editor is essentially a stranger who isn’t afraid to tell you that your work is a hot mess. Their corrections are going to refine your work, not inflate your ego.

    Ultimately, any piece of literature should go through several levels of editing before being considered “finished”. And that’s not counting the stylistic and narrative editing.

    TL;DR Peer review your work to fix mechanical errors

    1. Entirely true, and not just about mechanical errors. Some of the veterans who browse the forums can tell you on the spot my first few submissions were absolute dreck. It was a hard blow to my pride and took all my humility to suck it up, but their criticism is what allowed me to write the only quality creepypasta I’ve submitted to the site’s front page so far.

    1. I would agree with lily. I would also like to address the cliche issue. We must realize that things become cliche for a reason. Because they work, and we love them. To a point. Getting inspiration from something popular is fine, and is pretty much unstoppable. But that doesn’t mean your story has to be just like it. Imitation is a form of flattery, but that’s all it is. You have to find your own vein, your own way, your own story. As long as you do that the cliche issue should work itself out.

  52. I haven’t really written a creepypasta yet, but after reading some of them on here I might try in the future. I have, however, written a lot of poetry, some of which is rather eerie and dark.

    I like listening to lots of dark ambient music when I write, such as Lustmord, Lull, or Kerovnian. Definitely very effective for getting into the mood.

    As a poet, I think the most important thing is to really feel the mood you’re trying to set, and I mean really feel it. The tone of a work is often much more complicated than just “scary,” for example, it could be something like “ominous with desolate/bleak overtones” (which I’m totally pulling out of my ass). The ability to really put your finger exactly on the mood you’re trying to convey, and to find the right words to express it, will take your writing a LONG way.

    Anyway, that’s my two cents. I know poetry is a lot different from short story writing, but hopefully someone finds this useful.

    1. On the contrary, a poem is a form of telling a story. In fact, poetry is essentially the art of painting a scene with words. Although it isn’t a good idea to write a Creepypasta in the form of a Shakespearean Sonnet, there are many subtle poetic tools that can be used to create a powerful feeling of what the story is telling. However, as you incorporate some of the more complex aspects, a writing-poet must be increasingly subtle to make it not immediately seem like poetry, so it might be a good idea to start out small with imagery, which would still be a big step towards good writing. I cannot even begin to express how many writers of Creepy/Crappypastas do not even begin to do their ideas justice by being nondescriptive. The rest is up to the writer to experiment with, so that they can find the way they best write. Ultimately, I feel you make a good point, but you shouldn’t say that poetry is different from story writing. After all, anybody can tell a story, but not everyone can breathe life into their words.

Leave a Reply to Aleron XIV Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top