Submitted by veriverd t3_z7un1j in WritingPrompts
AdmiralAthena t1_iy994ad wrote
Reply to comment by sufrt in [WP] Your Significant Other has landed a book publishing deal! You're very proud of them, even if you don't actually enjoy their writing. One day, on a whim, you buy an actual copy in a book store. It's nothing like the pages they gave you to read. Nothing. by veriverd
Too short, doesn't really go anywhere, or explain why they reacted with terror. Confusion would make much more sense.
I mean, it could easily be explained as "this is actually someone else's book, and some prankster switched the dust covers." No reason for horror to be the first reaction.
sufrt t1_iy9ckvp wrote
Sorry, not sure I follow? It’s a horror story
UserMaatRe t1_iy9dpv3 wrote
What is the terrible thing that causes fear and can not be explained by mundane reasons (like someone switching the book covers)
sufrt t1_iy9f8zh wrote
Does it really have to be spelled out? It's heavily implied
UserMaatRe t1_iybvhkq wrote
Please spell it out for me here in a reply, because I genuinely don't understand what you were going for, and am trying to help.
EllipsisMark t1_iy9srtl wrote
You might need to... I don't know how to say it "Sharpen the implication?" I don't know. I didn't read it because formatting. It's just a wall of text. You need to double space your paragraphs.
Like this to make them drop lines.
AdmiralAthena t1_iy9x0me wrote
But where's the horror? The character feels horror, but we don't, because we don't have enough context to know why they're horrified.
Was the book about a wife murdering their spouse, and they realize the murder victim represents them, and their wife might be planning to kill them?
sufrt t1_iy9xb17 wrote
Where's the horror? It's all right there in the text. You'll note that the narrator feels "terror and fear", as well as "shock". He starts stammering, indicating even further that he's unpleasantly stunned by his discovery. He even throws the book on the floor, which no one would do if they weren't feeling strong negative emotions they couldn't control. These are all elements pointing towards the horror being experienced. You'll often find the same emotions in Stephen King, etc.
AdmiralAthena t1_iy9y5r0 wrote
He feels horror, we don't. The point of horror isn't to scare the characters, it's to scare the audience.
sufrt t1_iy9zgox wrote
The audience is scared, of course, by the horrific ending of the story. And empathy for the narrator only adds to the horror. Thus, given that both the audience and character are scared, as opposed to just one or the other, this falls into a category that can only be called "perfect horror".
Dry_Marzipan7811 t1_iya3r7g wrote
if your audience is telling you they’re not scared, the audience isn’t as scared as you intended. this concept may have gone over better in your head, but it’s not exactly fleshed out enough to elicit fear in your readers. maybe if you expanded further on your idea and shown the narrator gradually realizing the books are changing or having that experience with more books, the audience could better feel what you’re going for.
pyrodice t1_iya2lbk wrote
Ah. I see you're just trolling and this is a riff on the Geico commercial where they're scared of how happy the savings make them feel.
[deleted] t1_iy9ftg2 wrote
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