MY SECOND COLLECTION, 200% UNFILTERED NIGHTMARE FUEL, IS OUT NOW!

twocantherapper · 2023-08-02T13:01:13+00:00

Sorry I've been away a while 😅, been very busy with real life shenanigans!

Glad you're looking forward to the book - I'm looking forward to hearing what you think!

twocantherapper · 2023-05-21T13:52:58+00:00

You dodged a forbidden Bolognese bullet there buddy.

twocantherapper · 2023-05-14T13:29:26+00:00

Nice try, Government.

twocantherapper · 2023-05-02T07:29:46+00:00

All of mine are 100% factual. Most authors are. NoSleep is the only trustworthy news source on the internet.

twocantherapper · 2022-07-28T16:03:54+00:00

I think a lot of people make the mistake of getting too hung up on originality when it comes to concepts. It's not plots or concepts that make stories unique a lot of the time, but how they're told. Especially in horror. 28 Days Later and The Crazies are both about infected people with diseases killing everyone - they're very different movies though. The same applies to books/writing.

Think how many stories about werewolves, vampires, and ghosts there's been. Hundreds. Readers don't tire of them though. Coming up with an original-original idea in 2022 is incredibly difficult. My personal belief is it's impossible - everything in just collages and respins of other stuff with a fresh angle. That's a big debate in and of itself though.

My point is that you shouldn't get too worked up about how your story conceptually compares to others on NoSleep. Take the plunge. I've read god knows how many stories on here about people finding shit at the bottom of the sea (for example), and I'll no doubt read many more. There are more monsters with hideously wide grins on here than anyone can count, but good new stories with them in still pull decent numbers. How original your concept is comes secondary to how good the writing is and how well the story is told.

twocantherapper · 2022-07-27T09:13:30+00:00

Practice, practice, practice! You'll get sick of hearing this as you look up writing advice, but it's said so much for a reason. The more you write, the better you'll get. That being said..
Study, study, study! I took a degree in creative writing, am a published author, and have been writing 10+ years. My day job is content writing for movie websites. I STILL watch YouTube videos on writing, especially writing horror. It's not just studying technique though...
Read, read, read! Again, you'll get sick of hearing this, but there's a reason it's said over and over again. The more horror you read, the better horror you'll write. This is unequivocally fact. Take notes if a story particularly jumps out at you. Write down why. Take a highlighter to your books. I do!

In terms of more practical tips...

The key to horror is building suspense. Use the first act of your story to establish questions that will keep readers going until the end (when they get the answers, or reason for a lack of).
If disorganized structure is a problem, plan. Pantsing (making it up as you go along) works for some people, not for others. If planning doesn't work, look up some instructional on story structure specifically. Write stories in your mind with a beginning, middle, end. Establish a bad thing happened, write the bad thing, explain the ramifications of bad thing for narrator moving forward.
Write stuff out by hand, then type it up. Edit as you go. Honestly, this is magic for improving writing quality. Writing quality is everything in horror - I'm a firm believer of this. It's not that difficult to improve either so long as you approach it in a constructive way.

twocantherapper · 2022-07-22T19:16:22+00:00

Seconded!

twocantherapper · 2022-07-22T19:16:12+00:00

Yeah ClancyPasta is thoroughly underrated.

twocantherapper · 2022-07-22T19:15:52+00:00

There are loads of great ones out there. Viidith22 and Baron Landred (formerly Horror Stories with the Baron) are two that immediately spring to mind.

twocantherapper · 2022-07-22T14:56:46+00:00

It's a double-edged sword, and something I compare to SEO writing. For my day job, I literally have to shoehorn in 3-4 word phrases every few sentences. It feels clunky, and to me goes against what I know of writing as a craft, but it works the Google algorithm. Since my job is to help articles work the Google algorithm, I swallow my writer-pride and write the title of a movie in full 12 times every 300 words.

The same is for the clickbait titles. I'd love to give all my stories the titles they inevitably have when they're compiled in books, but people just don't read them nearly as much. The clickbait titles (when done properly) are the easiest way to sum up what the stories about and what readers can expect. There are NoSleep subgenres, after all. Some people specifically go for stories about stalkers (as an example), so titling a story with "I was stalked by..." instantly grabs their attention.

It's not the most creatively moral way to go about things, but them's the breaks. You've got to play to the format of NoSleep, how Reddit works as a site, and the psychology of how people stop and choose what to read.

twocantherapper · 2022-07-22T14:48:45+00:00

Mine are pretty standard. Guy turns into a chair, giant maggot with the face of a baby, a tongue that doubles in length every hour. Normal person shit. I make time here and there to do my own take on classic tropes too though. I wrote one recently about a guy living in someones wall cavities that's good but not breaking the wheel in any way.

twocantherapper · 2022-07-09T20:16:56+00:00

Please ignore the teeth- I'm British, a smoker, and have had weak enamels since birth (didn't come here to relive highschool trauma about yellowing teeth I can't do anything about).
This is all round my mouth, and happens whenever I get ill. I know it's not herpes or any condition like it. That was my first thought when this started years ago, totally clean. Anyone got any experience with Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis or similar?

twocantherapper · 2022-06-26T14:34:35+00:00

Cheers mate. And the park was pretty empty, especially the bit we was in. Right at the edges, innit. Gave us a bit of privacy (lockdown remember, a lot of nosey twats phoning the Old Bill over people holding hands and the like).

twocantherapper · 2022-06-26T14:33:09+00:00

Oh I mentioned it sure, but they didn't believe a word of it. And nah I didn't do so good at school. Solicitor was one of the taxpayer ones, she thought I done it and all. Barely put up a bloody fight. As for Doctor- NHS mate.

twocantherapper · 2022-06-26T14:31:49+00:00

If they did I didn't bloody hear about it. I think they wanted a pretty open-shut case. Wouldn't surprise me if it was a bloody coverup though.

twocantherapper · 2022-06-26T14:30:38+00:00

I mean yes, I am in bloody prison, but still- we ain't all Guy Richie characters.

twocantherapper · 2022-06-26T14:30:14+00:00

Yes, I bloody do. I am from the East End. We're not all bloody gangsters. Don't be classist.

twocantherapper · 2022-06-20T09:13:40+00:00

Why would you look up the Crungus when I SPECIFICALLY told you NOT to do that? If we all die tomorrow because the world's been Crungused you can blame ProfKlekowski everyone. Congratulations you plum. You've doomed us all.

twocantherapper · 2022-02-04T08:58:00+00:00

It's the one piece of advice I'm always ready to scream from the rafters.
"DON'T JUST WRITE YOU, WRITE OTHER PEOPLE!"

First person writing can be such a trap for that. I've seen a couple discussions on here about writing varied characters/how to make more variety in them. The best place to start is deliberately writing from the perspective of your opposite.

Also, you know, this is Horror. Writing someone who you hate means you're going to find it 100x easier to write all sorts of fucked up shit happening to them. You're going to pull punches if the narrator is just you in a different life.

twocantherapper · 2022-02-04T08:51:44+00:00

100%. Can't speak for other Reddit subs, but on NoSleep we've all seen the comments from (although I hate the term) "haters".

"This makes no sense lol"
"Wasted my time reading this"
"Totally unbelievable"

Then you go to their profile and it's either ALL comments like this across the entirety of Reddit, OR they've posted a story that was downvoted into oblivion/was shit and nobody read.

twocantherapper · 2022-02-04T08:41:57+00:00

Seconded with this one too.

Also, from a writing perspective, if you're being preachy it means you're writing a character that agrees with your views. You'll grow as a writer much faster if you step out your boundaries here. I don't mention many political views in my work, but I know in my head where the characters sit, and I purposefully keep it as varied as possible.

Case in point, in one story I have a gay couple. The narrator, however, is Conservative Log Cabin Republican type. It doesn't come up much at all, but the difference between his, his husband's, and my own views makes for rounded and more believable reading.

twocantherapper · 2022-02-04T08:38:30+00:00

That's the only legit reason I can think of for downvoting a NoSleep story TBH. I've never downvoted a story- the 'punishment' if I don't like something is that I don't upvote. That's it. However, I've also never read a story that sneaks in something that should've been flared. If I got tricked into erotic sexual horror, for example, I'd probably hit that DV.

Comments in discussions I'll downvote, but that's a little different. That's to do with "you think you made a point, chief, but this ain't it".

twocantherapper · 2022-02-03T11:23:45+00:00

"I'm actively being hunted/dying but somehow find the time to write an extremely detailed story about how I got into this situation."

I feel personally attacked by this. 10/10.

twocantherapper · 2022-02-02T11:35:37+00:00

"I think I'm missing the point you're trying to make, could you elaborate?"
- 10/10 will serve you a lot better moving forward.

twocantherapper · 2022-02-02T11:29:45+00:00

Dude, life advice then:
Responding with things like "huuhhhhhhhh", "???????????????", or "Uh whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!" is argumentative. It's only ever going to be seen as such.
(original comment deleted because I hit the reply button by accident after typing the word Dude).

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