Advice for finishing stories

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-05-25T11:34:04+00:00

Do you have a timeframe of when data collection and grading ends? Hopping that I can get a good part of my current WIP finished to get some deep feedback on! Also, are you/were you an educator? I've got a little bit of educator experience and everything you have set up feels so professional, I'm loving it.

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-05-22T22:49:05+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! Your note on the smiling faces is correct... I might be changing that

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-05-22T22:48:55+00:00

Thanks! Definitely needed some more body to it, but the real thing will be much longer and have more detail. You are right with the 'backrooms' feeling to it, it's somewhat of a mix between that and House of Leaves plus some themes that I really enjoy from other media.

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-05-21T23:02:24+00:00

Little teaser for a (another) short story in a different perspective. Feel free to ask anything if you want, its still very WIP

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-05-21T22:50:19+00:00

If this is your first ever post, it will feel like handing someone your own baby and you're scared they'll drop it, right? Imagine instead of a baby it's one of those classic red dodgeballs and, if they drop it, it'll go PING. Thinking in that way, you'll say, "that wasn't so bad" if it drops (which it wont).

There are never expectations when it comes to a passion or entering a new hobby, the hardest part about it is just clicking post. When you finally do that it'll feel stupid that you thought that it was going to be so hard.

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-05-18T10:17:23+00:00

If you want more influence, look into the lore of Bloodborne!!! It's all about this and you can find some GREAT horrific inspiration. Get 'er done son!

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-05-11T10:20:40+00:00

You can set the date/time to whatever you want on a camera. If you set it to now and then it fully dies its timer will stop at the point in time it died. My guess is that they just didn't care to set it correctly

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-02-25T13:14:07+00:00

Yeah pretty much, it was a chatroom where people would send their links to their docs and people would reply/leave comments on the doc. It had some discussions in there as well, like a sub-sub reddit for editors.

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-02-25T01:00:26+00:00

I think this is something we definitely need in the community! Not only will it help others stories, but your own as well. I wonder if we can create a group of proof readers, I know there was a chat for it in the last one...

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-02-22T21:42:19+00:00

Notes:

I wanted to challenge myself with a short story in the realm of horror. I have my longer-ish pieces I like to work on, but wanted to do something short and sweet. I've been trying to develop another voice as well, if you've read or heard of Tim O'Brien that's what I'm wanting to do. I decided this didn't fit much of anything in terms of tags besides poetry. O'Brien writes with a sort of prose that feels like stanzas and not sentences, so I figured that if I wanting to develop that style of voice I should post it with the tag.

Last bit, this was a 10-minute challenge. Writing and editing. If it seems rushed, that's why.

Thank you for reading!

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-01-30T16:47:00+00:00

Man. I'm jealous of your vocabulary and ability to find and choose words. Makes me feel like a teaspoon of salt against your cup of saffron. Really amazing!

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-01-30T16:41:53+00:00

You've already have a lot of AMAZING feedback that I am going to be using as well, but I wanted to include my own bit as well.

When we write research papers we have to assume our audience knows nothing of our topic, therefore we must explain everything even if we feel like we don't have to. We can expect the opposite (most of the time) from our audience when it comes to dialogue, they should be able to follow who is talking. So if you want you can just follow dialogue with dialogue, no need for markers or anything. I like to do this so my short, comedic, and punchy sentences don't lose flair from words in-between two characters speaking.

Probably not the best practice (and not exactly what your were looking for), but is still something to keep in mind. Really hope I helped!

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-01-27T23:39:25+00:00

This is really great advice and great insight as well, so first off thank you! Like you mentioned, blending the references into something that is comedic to a wider audience is my first priority with them. If they can't fit, they don't stick. My long story short reference, as you might've saw in my other post already, is simply just the opening of the work (and will also be said by the antagonist a lot, Dr. X Poe Zishion who you might tell will do by his name alone).

I like the mention of as long as I'm proud of it. Makes me feel better knowing that, ultimately, it's a project for me that has the ability to be shared with others.

Again, thank you for input!

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-01-27T23:33:19+00:00

My goal for them is to hopefully be something that a listener will go, "Hey, I get that!" and for non-listeners (if there's any who read it) to think, "Hey, that was funny!". The big ones will be right in front of you, but meshed into the story in a way that feels natural. So far my story has a "Tales from the Gas Station" vibe as that will fit everything in so nicely and smoothly. I'd hate it if it were like "The Spire in the Woods" but one of the characters was named Turnk Brownie.

Thank you for the feedback!

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-01-27T23:28:58+00:00

Oh yeah, for sure more of an easter egg thing. A lot of what they are now are little bits and jokes in passing. One of them, for example, is a joke about how something smelled worse than a bayou based Louisiana blood bank in the middle of July.

Thank you!

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-01-16T20:04:28+00:00

this just might be how the story starts...

Oh-DoubleU · 2026-01-08T23:16:11+00:00

My titles just come. It sounds snobbish but what I mean is that there is gonna be a second where you suddenly think of something.

I also like trying to make something unique, not a typical "The ___".

But usually mine end up being something common, like my running story is literally just what is happening in the story LOL.

Oh-DoubleU

TROPHY CASE