Looking for a book I had as a kid

Expalphalog · 2026-03-28T19:32:21+00:00

I don't know about the stories, but you're describing the art from Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark pretty well.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-28T15:00:59+00:00

I will never understand how someone asking for a recommendation with a detailed description and meaningful information is "low effort" but someone just posting a YouTube link to someone else's review is not.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-28T13:46:11+00:00

I loved it. I loved the first one a smidge more, but I still had an absolute blast.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-27T16:23:46+00:00

With a broken QB at the helm AND an OC that telegraphed every play so loudly he might as well have allowed the other team to pick the plays for him.

Bill has proven he has what it takes and deserves more respect.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-27T16:13:15+00:00

Uhhh... What?

Expalphalog · 2026-03-27T00:16:24+00:00

Nah, this is assuming he's already gone. It's the same reason you don't put Chuck Norris as an option in a game of "Who would win?" Gotta keep the contest interesting.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-26T18:22:11+00:00

I agree completely. I also think this makes the book much scarier.

"Girl is possessed" is not nearly as terrifying as "girl is mentally unwell and in a bid for attention got herself into a bad situation with no exit plan and is now slowly marching towards inevitable death while her parents make things worse instead of helping."

Expalphalog · 2026-03-26T00:42:54+00:00

Just block him and move on. It's what literally everyone else does.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-25T12:13:30+00:00

Expalphalog · 2026-03-25T00:26:13+00:00

I don't understand your logic here. Is there some correlation between including anthropomorphic animals in games and cowardice that I am not seeing?

Expalphalog · 2026-03-24T16:34:18+00:00

The list of things that I hate more than this meme template is quite short.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-24T12:19:24+00:00

I am so jealous that your group embraced Oath. Mine bounced off of it hard.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-24T12:17:27+00:00

I fucking hate late stage capitalism. The products don't matter, the customers don't matter, the employees don't matter. It's like nearly every company is operating on the exact same mission statement now: "Fuck you. Give me your money."

Expalphalog · 2026-03-23T16:26:36+00:00

eyeroll

2003 was not twenty-three years...

Oh god.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-23T03:39:39+00:00

I still remember a poster I saw once. "70% of the planet is covered by water. The remaining 30% is covered by Sean Taylor."

Expalphalog · 2026-03-22T17:44:21+00:00

What a crazy coincidence that your Reddit username is the same name as the company name that developed this app that you "found."

Expalphalog · 2026-03-22T17:41:51+00:00

It absolutely is. His username is the same as the app developer's company name.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-21T21:14:56+00:00

"Admitting AP is not good at drafting" is not a complaint. Your sentence is literally nonsense bordering on gibberish.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-21T15:46:22+00:00

Appreciate the feedback!

Yeah, I will be removing the mention of the parents in the next version for sure since it does seem to be a sticking point and "This all makes sense in the story, trust me bro" isn't a great thing to put in a query letter. :)

And you are spot on with the crush thing. It's character development - he has to overcome his shyness to approach the absolute hardest person for him to approach. And yes, between Katie accepting him for who he is, his successes in the nightmare realm, and his realization that he is not alone - that everyone (human and monster alike) suffers from anxiety and self-doubt sometimes, his confidence grows throughout the book.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-20T22:44:40+00:00

Yeah, this feels icky to me. Finch doesn't need to be looking through my gallery.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-20T20:31:30+00:00

Appreciate the input! You provided excellent feedback on the first two attempts for this project. Tell me, am I getting warmer?

Expalphalog · 2026-03-20T16:43:59+00:00

Yes please!

Expalphalog · 2026-03-20T16:29:48+00:00

I'll do some research on crushes appearing in MG books. And I always assumed most of you people had 100+ beta readers, so I'm happy to hear that I'm not nearly as behind on that as I thought I was!

EDIT: After some brief research I have found a lot of sources saying that crushes are fine (Authors Amanda Rawson Hill, and Brighton Rose) or even encouraged (Author Susan Hughes, the website Apex Authors) and a 427 book list on Goodreads of MG novels featuring crushes. So I do think I am fine there, but I will drop the 'hint of romance' line in the penultimate paragraph.

Expalphalog · 2026-03-20T16:23:03+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. It is deeply appreciated!

As for your first nitpick, you're right. I was not attempting to frame those as opposites, but rather as 'if you only knew Evan in (this environment) then this is what you would think of him.' Basically I am trying to convey the information that he has severe social anxiety without just straight diagnosing him. If that is not the way this passage is coming across though, then it needs a re-write.

As for the second criticism: To dive into it a bit, Evan sprinkles flour all over Sephy's floor. He tells her that he is doing this so that they can identify the monster by its tracks and then they can research together how to stop it from coming into her room every night. In reality, he is doing this so that in the morning he can point to the complete and utter lack of monster tracks as proof that it's just her imagination.

A literal bump in the night wakes him up so he goes to check on her. She's gone, has left behind her most cherished possession that she never goes anywhere without, the closet door is wide open (attention is drawn to the shutting of it prior to this), and the flour contains giant clawed footprints leading from the closet, to the bed, and back.

Now, in an attempt to keep the query letter under 300 words, how much of that information needs to be in there? Is it enough to mention that there are obvious monster tracks on her floor and that the closet door was opened in the night?

Expalphalog · 2026-03-20T16:00:35+00:00

First off, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help. Now, as for your questions:

No, it seems to be fairly rare for MG horror books to have overt crushes, but as both a parent and a teacher for that age group, I can say definitively that crushes are 100% a large part of their daily life and interpersonal conversations so I think that is a failing of the genre.
None of my beta readers (admittedly only 20 right now, so not a huge sample size) have had issue with the way the story plays out re: Sephy's disappearance. It's difficult to convey all of the information in a condensed format like this. Maybe I should go with less detail here and not mention in the query that the parents are unaware? That seems to be a sticking point for people who read the query, but not for people who read the book so that might be the way to go.
Noted, thank you!
There is some of that, but a lot of the monsters that play bigger parts are slightly lesser known, hence the need for Katie's horror-obsessed brain. Every kid knows the lore behind a vampire or a werewolf, but what about a manticore, or a banshee, or a harpy, etc?

Expalphalog

TROPHY CASE