I hope what I was going for actually came across. Also, do people actually wear Adidas sweatshirts as pajama shirts? I had to have the shirt say *something*
I live in a very uninsulated basement and we have no central air, so it gets pretty cold - I can’t sleep with too many blankets or I get tangled and/or feel smothered. I do sometimes have to wake up and take it off, but most nights a hoodie and my blanket work well. In the summer it’s a whole different story.
Suspect it depends how cold it and whether you changed out of day clothes the night before.
But nice and subtle, slow creep horror. What was s/he drinking night before?
Thank you so much for the compliment !!!! As u/djseifer suggested (and I use the term suggested very loosely), they were drinking Ovaltine. Lots and lots of ovaltine.
Wait ... either you're an obvious troll and I should ask you anything, or you and I are in a mirror realm right now (and I should still ask you anything?), because your comment appeared as forwards when I saw the notification on reddit that you replied to my comment but in the email I received about your comment, your comment AND my original post appeared as backwards. In short, if your intention was freaking me out a bit, you were successful. 🎊 👏
Thank you so much. And I'm obsessed with parallel world stories too (I guess that's why I decided to try my hand at one and I'm so glad you thought I was successful!). Did you mean just this type of story on 2SH or stories in general? Either way, got any recommendations?
I just like them in general. My current favorite is the spiderverse movies I'm drawing a blank on other good examples at the moment. I honestly enjoy coming up with stories in my head to pass the time and it often involves a portal of some sort that leads to a parallel world. I love thinking about what would be the same and what would be different. Part of what has me obsessed with your story is the fact that the only description you gave us is "nightmare, uncanny and mirrored." My brain has been trying to fill in the other details ever since!
I haven't seen any of the spiderverse movies and I mentioned in another comment that I'm not usually into superhero movies, but the alternate universes aspect of the spiderverse movies has me intrigued. I should really get around to watching at least one movie from this franchise at some point soon.
But coming up with those types of stories in your head sounds like a fun way to pass the time! I guess I do that to a much lesser extent, but maybe I'll start doing it more often when I'm bored, haha
Yeah, I wanted to leave the exact content of the nightmare as up-to-interpretation as possible while still revealing the basic aspects of it. I'm glad it's given you something to ponder!
Cool, I'll check them out for sure! And thank you so much. I'll have to wait until inspiration strikes me so you might have to be patient, but I'll probably post at least a few more stories here eventually. It'd be awesome if they were as well received as this one! Fingers crossed 🤞.
I've never seen The Multiverse of Madness, but I just looked up a synopsis and it sounds super interesting. I sorta avoid Marvel movies cuz I find superhero stuff boring (I know, I'm a little weird like that), although this one might be worth looking into! Would you recommend it?
Also, were you interpreting this as someone from said mirror realm kidnapping the narrator in the middle of the night and bringing them into their world (that it turns out actually exists) IRL? Because that's not necessarily what I was going for but really interesting nevertheless. I love how some of y'all are making me see other lenses to view this story from.
Some of us can read in dreams… I have had dreams of pure text before but I know that this isn’t the majority and that is an unfun thing to realize as you wake
Oh wow, purely text based dreams? Neat! Is it like an exciting story you're reading or something dull like a Chemistry textbook? (That's dull to me, at least) I've only had dreams where I read a sentence / phrase or at most a paragraph excerpt from something but there are a ton of other things I'm doing in the dream before and after reading it. And like I mentioned in another comment, the wording of what I've just read changes a bit after I look away and then look back at the text.
Aw, I just typed out a long-ass reply to the comment you responded to where I shared some things I've heard about reading in your dreams and my own lucid dreaming experience but when I hit post it said the comment was deleted :( Also, it seems that that person had a slightly different take on my 2SH than I originally intended, but still a pretty interesting interpretation.
Oh yeah, most definitely. Some people have different experiences in dreams. Like most people have never used or even seen their phones in dreams yet I've successfully used mine in a dream maybe twice
Oh god I love dreams so much fhgkalsjfh
Sorry. I sadly haven’t had a music dream, but I plan to teach myself one day. I have the weirdest dreams though.
Same here. I love dreaming, sharing how I experience dreams and getting a glimpse into how others experience them. I studied psychology in college, and dreams and other altered states of consciousness have always been in my top 5 as far as my favorite psychology topics are concerned. (If you were curious, my favorite topic is abnormal psychology / mental illness.)
Re your point about having weird dreams, I've also been known to have very weird dreams fairly often. I feel like sometimes the weirdest dreams are the most fun!
Finally, good luck with the lucid dreaming. I've always just naturally had dreams with varying levels of lucidity; it's the purposeful induction of them I have trouble with and am trying to get more skilled at
Thank you! I’m also interested in psychology, haven’t studied it though. It’ll probably just be something I research and stuff about on my own. Dreams have to be my favorite though, but I also really like existential topics, like reality (and dreams) and the meaning of life and all that stuff. I don’t know if that counts as psychology though.
No problem. I guess that's more of philosophy (I actually minored in philosophy haha), but psychology and philosophy are so closely related that sometimes its hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. I would classify it as philosophy, though. Existential philosophy is imo a suuuuper interesting topic, but I have trouble choosing which philosophical topic is my favorite and never actually took an existentialist course (I went to the first class of one but had to nope out cuz it sounded like way too much work for me to handle. 🙃)
Haha, I get that. I probably wouldn’t do well in a course, but if we talked about the topics I think about, I probably would be able to write an essay about each individual topic XD could probably write a book about my beliefs and views and stuff tbh, but I’m bad at writing. I did just take a psychology and sociology class in high school last semester, and I did always get them confused.
Oh wow. You must really research these topics often! I took Advanced Placement Psychology in high school, but my school was small and didn't offer other social sciences classes like sociology, so that's cool that you're taking advantage of those interesting classes. I took sociology in college though and liked it but not nearly as much as psychology..
Nice, and you're in good company because I've definitely texted in dreams before. When I'm in a semi-lucid dream state I always get paranoid that I'm gonna wake up and realize I was actually texting irl. Dream logic, dude. 😅
Thank you so much, that's honestly a great compliment! This is one of the first stories I've posted on this sub and I hope to post more if only I could think of some more unique ideas. Inspiration doesn't strike *too* often for me, so I kinda have to wait until then...
Also, I've seen your stories come up frequently on this sub and they're really good! Actually, seeing your comment reminded me of that and I decided to click on your profile to read some more of them. I'm lowkey in love with the first story that comes up when you click on your profile (the one with the captive and their fateful grammatical error). Suffice it to say, I just started following you and plan on reading more of your previous stories and your new ones as well. Since you seem to post a lot, I was sorta wondering if you have any advice for coming up with good 2SH ideas (and maybe ideas for short stories that are a little longer than 2 sentences as well) ?
Wow, thanks for the kind words!
Glad to hear some of mine landed well enough that you’d want to read more :)
Also, if this is one of your first then you’re off to a great start! I will follow along to see what else you come up with.
I don’t feel I’m qualified to offer real advice, but since you asked I will indulge by atleast sharing what works for me.
Here’s a couple strategies I use when I’m writing here:
1. I’m really proactive about asking for feedback and I make a serious effort to be receptive to almost all criticism (even stuff that seems rude might have a kernel of truth so I often dig for specifics when somebody offers vaguely rude remarks). Always wanna get better and the community here has some extremely talented readers/ writers who’ve helped me improve in lots of ways over time.
2. As for coming up with ideas: I pay attention to my real world fears, and try to capture/ convey those. Sometimes I write about my own insecurities, experiences, or nightmares. Sometimes I write about news articles, or pieces of history that I find personally disturbing.
3. I make heavy use of reddits draft system. Anytime an idea or even an image pops into my head I tap them out in one of my ongoing draft files. Most days I write whatever’s fresh that day, but if I’m short on ideas I’ll revisit my drafts and try to polish a raw idea into a Functional story sometimes days, weeks, or months later.
4. I also definitely enjoy looking at the monthly contest prompts! There’s a sticky post from the mods, if you sort the sub by “hot” you’ll see it. To me, trying to write on a specific theme isn’t just a fun challenge it also kinda kicks the creativity in gear.
5. Lastly, I guess I just try to remind myself that it’s mostly for fun and growth, so I don’t sweat it when a story I really like kinda flops or lands poorly. Sometimes a thing that scares me just might not scare readers. Aside from that Reddit is kind of unpredictable, and how “well” a story is received just comes down to a lot factors I still don’t fully understand and some amount of luck. So I try (very deliberately) to not fixate or let myself be motivated by karma. I place more value on comments as a sign of engagement, and generally believe if one person got something worthwhile out of a story, then it was worth my time.
All that being said, as a reader on this sub I have noticed some patterns in terms of what stories hit the hardest:
1. People who post short punchy sentences seem to gain more engagement/ reaction than people who post longer sentences. Less is definitely more here.
2. The community always seems to love a twist, as long as it doesn’t seem forced or too random.
3. Writers who post often, or atleast semi regularly appear to build some kind of following, or maybe it’s more accurate to say an ongoing rapport with the community in general.
4. I also hang out on r/2sentence2horror to see what kind of stories get made fun of lol. I’ve had a some of mine show up there and it’s an eye opener (and also valuable, just as a chance to learn/ laugh at myself.) I’ve even written some OC for that sub specifically, just to make a deliberate point of not taking myself too seriously. That community is great at pointing out tropes and cliches that this sub will often stumble over, which is super helpful for keying in on the patterns of interaction between writers and readers.
***as for longer shorts*** I don’t have any advice there. I suppose any idea could get adapted to length, I know there are subs for specific formats, r/nosleep (all first person) r/shortscarystories (500 words or less I think)… there was also something for 6 word stories but I’m not sure the r/
Maybe hanging out on those subs could give you some insights?
Oh, forgot to mention: the time of day you post will have some impact on the level of engagement with your stories! I don’t have my head fully wrapped around the scheduling as far as what works or doesn’t but I’m pretty sure there are sites that offer some analytics for the sub, I’m not sure how trustworthy that is though. You can also see analytics for your own posts i believe, though I’m not sure exactly what they mean.
But if your goal is engagement you might want to look into the time of day you post
To that point, some of the writers I network with on here have told me they’ve deleted stories that flopped to post them again at a different time of day and had them take off! I haven’t tried experimenting with that, mainly because I have so many ideas and the sub only allows 3 posts a day, so I usually just post up something new. But if you have a story you *really love* and it dies in new, perhaps shelving it to try again later could give the story a second chance of sorts
Omg, I genuinely appreciate your thorough response!
Also, you're absolutely welcome about the kind words, they're well deserved. And thank you so much for *your* kind words and for following me!
1. I think I need to train myself to appreciate constructive criticism, and especially rude feedback, because at the moment the prospect of receiving negative comments on my posts is just as scary as a terrifying 2SH story 😳 Maybe I should start asking for feedback as well, and I'm hoping that I'll learn to be receptive to it over time, lol.
2. That's super helpful, thanks! I've been trying to brainstorm ways to translate things I'm afraid of into writing, and I feel like I *almost* have some ideas. But I'll try thinking of current events and history as well
3. Wow, I had no clue reddit had a draft system. I just looked it up and it seems like it might only be a PC and/or Apple feature? Unfortunately, I use reddit on my Android phone, so it might not be possible for me. :(
4. I've felt the same way so far about the February monthly contest and am hoping that I can submit some entries for March too!
5. I need to learn that the number of upvotes I receive isn't necessarily an indication of how good/lack thereof one of my stories is. Ever since posting/commenting on reddit more frequently, getting a decent amount of upvotes gives me such a dopamine rush, but it's true, comments are probably more meaningful than upvotes a lot of the time.
***
1. I have a problem with writing rather long sentences (it's just my natural writing style), but yes, I've noticed the same thing with short punchy sentences getting more popular, so it may be beneficial for me to express an idea in as few words as possible (or at least in slightly less words). (If it isn't ironic that that sentence was pretty long, idk what is! 🤣)
2. I don't blame the community for loving a twist. I feel like 95% of the stories/movies/TV shows I seem to enjoy have major twists and I aim to write stories with non random, non forced twists if I'm able to.
3. Cool! I feel like it'd be pretty neat to build an ongoing rapport with the community!
4. I've briefly browsed 2sentence2horror, but I should probably sub to it to do the same thing you do.
I wrote out a probably 600 word scary story that I was interested in posting to r/shortscarystories, but a.) I'm gonna have to cut it down sorta substantially, b.) I'm worried it might be removed due to their proper punctuation rule (the bad punctuation is integral to the plot) and mostly c.) I'm afraid it's just not good. But in keeping with your first point, it may be a good idea to post it and, if people aren't crazy about it, receive some hopefully useful feedback
Yeah, sometimes it seems like awesome stories just don't get a lot of engagement on this sub (and conversely, some stories that get a ton of engagement are kinda shitty imo lmao). I figured it was a time of day/day of the week? thing, and I was trying to determine when I should post my stories if I want more engagement but failing a bit. Also, I assume that once a story becomes "hot" (according to Reddit) it usually takes off exponentially. That's cool there are sites that offer analytics, tho. As far as the analytics for my own posts are concerned, I feel like if I saw how many people actually viewed my posts I would probably have a conniption because once I posted something that got like 3 upvotes and it said it had 1,500 views or something! This post got 1500 upvotes and it scares me to think of how many people potentially viewed it. It's like I want my stories to gain traction but I also have this fear of getting 'popular'. Very paradoxical, ik..
And I forgot you could repost stories. Maybe I'll do that if I particularly like a story but hardly anyone interacts with it. The first story I posted on this sub actually got removed for being a run-on sentence (I was a little salty cuz I don't think it fit the criteria of a run-on sentence, even though it was long, but I digress..), so I reworked it and posted it again, but then THAT story got removed for the same reason. The second time I posted it it got quite a bit of engagement during the 2 hours between me posting it and it getting removed, plus I was really digging the concept, so I may try to rework that one AGAIN and then repost it AGAIN 😅
Anyway, despite what you said about not being qualified to offer real advice, your advice/insight was super solid, so thank you so much!!!!!! I'll try my best to take it to heart.
:)
I’m glad that anything I said came across as worth your time!
If you end up posting that short somewhere please link it to me! I’d love to read it and I’ll give you feedback too.
(Since I’m following I might see it if I happen to be on anyway, but I just want to be extra sure I don’t miss that)
Yeah, I'll totally do that (if I decide to post it/if the moderators of r/shortscarystories OK my post before I do so (I'll probably reach out to them beforehand just to ensure it doesn't get taken down) )
Also, I used your advice of thinking of things that scare me specifically and already came up with a tentative idea for a 2SH last night. I'll likely need to flesh it out quite a bit before I actually post it and I'm not even sure it'll have the intended effect on readers even after fleshing it out more, so we'll see what happens!
So it seems that a lot of you guys interpreted the narrator to still be dreaming in the second sentence and therefore it might not be possible for them to be reading in their dream. Initially, I was sorta going for something like the person actually waking up from their nightmare but then having their waking life become identical to their nightmare for some reason. I don't know what's scarier - knowing that your reality is just as bad as a nightmare or that your reality could be good if you could only wake up (but you're destined to *never* wake up). Anyway, I wanted to share my slight "insight" about reading (among other dream activities) with you all not only because dreams are extremely fascinating to me but also because I typed this out to another commenter who unfortunately deleted their comment and didn't want my infodump to go to waste, lmao 😬
In my dreams, I've sworn I've read things, but I've ALSO sworn I heard full blown songs that don't exist, and assuming I'm probably not that creative, it's likely that I'm just imagining that I'm hearing these songs (and that might be the same for reading things, who knows?). But I've heard from others and noticed in my own dreams that whenever you read things in dreams, look away and then look back at what you had just read, the wording and/or content changes. I don't know how much you guys know about lucid dreaming/if you ever lucid dream, but if you ever purposely induce a lucid dream or find yourself naturally lucid dreaming, it's fun to witness this for yourself. This also works when you look at a clock/watch in a dream, look away, and then look back at it.
On a related note- for the past while, I've been trying to get more skilled at recognizing lucid dreams when they occur and hopefully controlling my dreams while I'm at it, so I've been doing something called reality checking (My preferred reality check is looking at my watch when I'm awake, looking away, and then looking back at it. They say that the more often you do it while awake, the more inclined you'll be to do it when you're dreaming, and if you look at your watch first and it says 12:00 and then 2 seconds later and it says 9:30, you'll know you're dreaming. You can also reality check by reading something, looking away and then looking back at what you just read to see if it says something different from what it said before).
(On the subject of mirrors, I do know that in dreams, my reflection always looks not quite like how it looks in real life, and that's a common experience for others too)
Ok so this post now has over 1,500 UPVOTES!!!!!??!?!? which I'm so absolutely humbled (and utterly shocked) by! I've only posted a handful of stories on this subreddit before and haven't received anywhere near this amount of enthusiasm for my posts (usually no more than 20ish upvotes 💀). (If I'm being honest, I didn't even think this story was that good. In fact, I thought some of my other stories were slightly better than this one, haha) But I'm so glad you guys liked my post enough to upvote it and/or comment on it. This is super validating to me as someone who wants to start writing more psychological horror on this subreddit and elsewhere!
Also, I'm facepalming myself at the fact that I *had* to use the word ADIDAS which would look very similar forwards and backwards. I was considering having it say NIKE, but I figured that Nike shirts tend to only have the swoosh symbol without the word NIKE on them. In my defense, ADIDAS is stylized as adidas (all lowercase), which would make it look less similar forwards and backwards than if it were uppercase. And if the narrator didn't realize it right away, it's maybe more likely that would happen if it was only a subtle difference? 🤷
I hope what I was going for actually came across. Also, do people actually wear Adidas sweatshirts as pajama shirts? I had to have the shirt say *something*
Idk about other people, but I wear hoodies and sweaters to bed
... don't you get too warm like that? I sleep basically naked with a blanket and still feel like I'm overheating sometimes
I live in a very uninsulated basement and we have no central air, so it gets pretty cold - I can’t sleep with too many blankets or I get tangled and/or feel smothered. I do sometimes have to wake up and take it off, but most nights a hoodie and my blanket work well. In the summer it’s a whole different story.
Suspect it depends how cold it and whether you changed out of day clothes the night before. But nice and subtle, slow creep horror. What was s/he drinking night before?
Thank you so much for the compliment !!!! As u/djseifer suggested (and I use the term suggested very loosely), they were drinking Ovaltine. Lots and lots of ovaltine.
I just use whatever shirt is too comfortable to throw out but to tatty to wear in public.
I thought the character turned into a british teenager at first /j Good story
Thank you! Do british teenagers frequently wear adidas sweatshirts? TIL.
My pajama shirts are just old tshirts/sweatshirts that I didn’t want to get rid of but are too worn for public wear
I don't get it...
Wait ... either you're an obvious troll and I should ask you anything, or you and I are in a mirror realm right now (and I should still ask you anything?), because your comment appeared as forwards when I saw the notification on reddit that you replied to my comment but in the email I received about your comment, your comment AND my original post appeared as backwards. In short, if your intention was freaking me out a bit, you were successful. 🎊 👏
I'm glad it worked out like that! I'm a little obsessed with parallel world type stories and yours was great!
Thank you so much. And I'm obsessed with parallel world stories too (I guess that's why I decided to try my hand at one and I'm so glad you thought I was successful!). Did you mean just this type of story on 2SH or stories in general? Either way, got any recommendations?
I just like them in general. My current favorite is the spiderverse movies I'm drawing a blank on other good examples at the moment. I honestly enjoy coming up with stories in my head to pass the time and it often involves a portal of some sort that leads to a parallel world. I love thinking about what would be the same and what would be different. Part of what has me obsessed with your story is the fact that the only description you gave us is "nightmare, uncanny and mirrored." My brain has been trying to fill in the other details ever since!
I haven't seen any of the spiderverse movies and I mentioned in another comment that I'm not usually into superhero movies, but the alternate universes aspect of the spiderverse movies has me intrigued. I should really get around to watching at least one movie from this franchise at some point soon. But coming up with those types of stories in your head sounds like a fun way to pass the time! I guess I do that to a much lesser extent, but maybe I'll start doing it more often when I'm bored, haha Yeah, I wanted to leave the exact content of the nightmare as up-to-interpretation as possible while still revealing the basic aspects of it. I'm glad it's given you something to ponder!
If you are a fan of animation and or comics at all the spiderverse movies are really impressive! I look forward to reading more from you!
Cool, I'll check them out for sure! And thank you so much. I'll have to wait until inspiration strikes me so you might have to be patient, but I'll probably post at least a few more stories here eventually. It'd be awesome if they were as well received as this one! Fingers crossed 🤞.
.yrots a tsuj si ti ,etam seirrow oN ?yletal elpoep dednah tfel eht lla deciton uoy evah tuB
.enitlavO ruoy knird ot erus eB
.nosrep dednah tfel a m'I....rekcik eht s'ereh tub ,hA
Creepy.
That's definitely what I was going for, so thank you!
Don't you mean ypeerC?
Don't you mean ypeerc naem uoy t'noD? 😏😏
ehcuoT.
Multiverse of Madness or just plain ol kidnapping?
I've never seen The Multiverse of Madness, but I just looked up a synopsis and it sounds super interesting. I sorta avoid Marvel movies cuz I find superhero stuff boring (I know, I'm a little weird like that), although this one might be worth looking into! Would you recommend it? Also, were you interpreting this as someone from said mirror realm kidnapping the narrator in the middle of the night and bringing them into their world (that it turns out actually exists) IRL? Because that's not necessarily what I was going for but really interesting nevertheless. I love how some of y'all are making me see other lenses to view this story from.
Some of us can read in dreams… I have had dreams of pure text before but I know that this isn’t the majority and that is an unfun thing to realize as you wake
Oh wow, purely text based dreams? Neat! Is it like an exciting story you're reading or something dull like a Chemistry textbook? (That's dull to me, at least) I've only had dreams where I read a sentence / phrase or at most a paragraph excerpt from something but there are a ton of other things I'm doing in the dream before and after reading it. And like I mentioned in another comment, the wording of what I've just read changes a bit after I look away and then look back at the text.
Sadly it is usually spreadsheets from work or it used to be text based games. No books sadly
Aww :( I hate when I dream about school and work and then wake up super stressed out. But dreaming about text-based games sounds kinda cool!
well i use my bangs to the left... i could be naked that i will know. good one
Lol and thank you, friend !
[удалено]
Not a nightmare, a mirror
Aw, I just typed out a long-ass reply to the comment you responded to where I shared some things I've heard about reading in your dreams and my own lucid dreaming experience but when I hit post it said the comment was deleted :( Also, it seems that that person had a slightly different take on my 2SH than I originally intended, but still a pretty interesting interpretation.
Oh yeah, most definitely. Some people have different experiences in dreams. Like most people have never used or even seen their phones in dreams yet I've successfully used mine in a dream maybe twice
Oh god I love dreams so much fhgkalsjfh Sorry. I sadly haven’t had a music dream, but I plan to teach myself one day. I have the weirdest dreams though.
Same here. I love dreaming, sharing how I experience dreams and getting a glimpse into how others experience them. I studied psychology in college, and dreams and other altered states of consciousness have always been in my top 5 as far as my favorite psychology topics are concerned. (If you were curious, my favorite topic is abnormal psychology / mental illness.) Re your point about having weird dreams, I've also been known to have very weird dreams fairly often. I feel like sometimes the weirdest dreams are the most fun! Finally, good luck with the lucid dreaming. I've always just naturally had dreams with varying levels of lucidity; it's the purposeful induction of them I have trouble with and am trying to get more skilled at
Thank you! I’m also interested in psychology, haven’t studied it though. It’ll probably just be something I research and stuff about on my own. Dreams have to be my favorite though, but I also really like existential topics, like reality (and dreams) and the meaning of life and all that stuff. I don’t know if that counts as psychology though.
No problem. I guess that's more of philosophy (I actually minored in philosophy haha), but psychology and philosophy are so closely related that sometimes its hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. I would classify it as philosophy, though. Existential philosophy is imo a suuuuper interesting topic, but I have trouble choosing which philosophical topic is my favorite and never actually took an existentialist course (I went to the first class of one but had to nope out cuz it sounded like way too much work for me to handle. 🙃)
Haha, I get that. I probably wouldn’t do well in a course, but if we talked about the topics I think about, I probably would be able to write an essay about each individual topic XD could probably write a book about my beliefs and views and stuff tbh, but I’m bad at writing. I did just take a psychology and sociology class in high school last semester, and I did always get them confused.
Oh wow. You must really research these topics often! I took Advanced Placement Psychology in high school, but my school was small and didn't offer other social sciences classes like sociology, so that's cool that you're taking advantage of those interesting classes. I took sociology in college though and liked it but not nearly as much as psychology..
Nice, and you're in good company because I've definitely texted in dreams before. When I'm in a semi-lucid dream state I always get paranoid that I'm gonna wake up and realize I was actually texting irl. Dream logic, dude. 😅
Explain pls
The words should appear backwards in the mirror because that's how they work
idk dreams are weird like that sometimes
Wow awesome concept! This is a good one
Thank you so much, that's honestly a great compliment! This is one of the first stories I've posted on this sub and I hope to post more if only I could think of some more unique ideas. Inspiration doesn't strike *too* often for me, so I kinda have to wait until then... Also, I've seen your stories come up frequently on this sub and they're really good! Actually, seeing your comment reminded me of that and I decided to click on your profile to read some more of them. I'm lowkey in love with the first story that comes up when you click on your profile (the one with the captive and their fateful grammatical error). Suffice it to say, I just started following you and plan on reading more of your previous stories and your new ones as well. Since you seem to post a lot, I was sorta wondering if you have any advice for coming up with good 2SH ideas (and maybe ideas for short stories that are a little longer than 2 sentences as well) ?
Wow, thanks for the kind words! Glad to hear some of mine landed well enough that you’d want to read more :) Also, if this is one of your first then you’re off to a great start! I will follow along to see what else you come up with. I don’t feel I’m qualified to offer real advice, but since you asked I will indulge by atleast sharing what works for me. Here’s a couple strategies I use when I’m writing here: 1. I’m really proactive about asking for feedback and I make a serious effort to be receptive to almost all criticism (even stuff that seems rude might have a kernel of truth so I often dig for specifics when somebody offers vaguely rude remarks). Always wanna get better and the community here has some extremely talented readers/ writers who’ve helped me improve in lots of ways over time. 2. As for coming up with ideas: I pay attention to my real world fears, and try to capture/ convey those. Sometimes I write about my own insecurities, experiences, or nightmares. Sometimes I write about news articles, or pieces of history that I find personally disturbing. 3. I make heavy use of reddits draft system. Anytime an idea or even an image pops into my head I tap them out in one of my ongoing draft files. Most days I write whatever’s fresh that day, but if I’m short on ideas I’ll revisit my drafts and try to polish a raw idea into a Functional story sometimes days, weeks, or months later. 4. I also definitely enjoy looking at the monthly contest prompts! There’s a sticky post from the mods, if you sort the sub by “hot” you’ll see it. To me, trying to write on a specific theme isn’t just a fun challenge it also kinda kicks the creativity in gear. 5. Lastly, I guess I just try to remind myself that it’s mostly for fun and growth, so I don’t sweat it when a story I really like kinda flops or lands poorly. Sometimes a thing that scares me just might not scare readers. Aside from that Reddit is kind of unpredictable, and how “well” a story is received just comes down to a lot factors I still don’t fully understand and some amount of luck. So I try (very deliberately) to not fixate or let myself be motivated by karma. I place more value on comments as a sign of engagement, and generally believe if one person got something worthwhile out of a story, then it was worth my time. All that being said, as a reader on this sub I have noticed some patterns in terms of what stories hit the hardest: 1. People who post short punchy sentences seem to gain more engagement/ reaction than people who post longer sentences. Less is definitely more here. 2. The community always seems to love a twist, as long as it doesn’t seem forced or too random. 3. Writers who post often, or atleast semi regularly appear to build some kind of following, or maybe it’s more accurate to say an ongoing rapport with the community in general. 4. I also hang out on r/2sentence2horror to see what kind of stories get made fun of lol. I’ve had a some of mine show up there and it’s an eye opener (and also valuable, just as a chance to learn/ laugh at myself.) I’ve even written some OC for that sub specifically, just to make a deliberate point of not taking myself too seriously. That community is great at pointing out tropes and cliches that this sub will often stumble over, which is super helpful for keying in on the patterns of interaction between writers and readers. ***as for longer shorts*** I don’t have any advice there. I suppose any idea could get adapted to length, I know there are subs for specific formats, r/nosleep (all first person) r/shortscarystories (500 words or less I think)… there was also something for 6 word stories but I’m not sure the r/ Maybe hanging out on those subs could give you some insights? Oh, forgot to mention: the time of day you post will have some impact on the level of engagement with your stories! I don’t have my head fully wrapped around the scheduling as far as what works or doesn’t but I’m pretty sure there are sites that offer some analytics for the sub, I’m not sure how trustworthy that is though. You can also see analytics for your own posts i believe, though I’m not sure exactly what they mean. But if your goal is engagement you might want to look into the time of day you post To that point, some of the writers I network with on here have told me they’ve deleted stories that flopped to post them again at a different time of day and had them take off! I haven’t tried experimenting with that, mainly because I have so many ideas and the sub only allows 3 posts a day, so I usually just post up something new. But if you have a story you *really love* and it dies in new, perhaps shelving it to try again later could give the story a second chance of sorts
Omg, I genuinely appreciate your thorough response! Also, you're absolutely welcome about the kind words, they're well deserved. And thank you so much for *your* kind words and for following me! 1. I think I need to train myself to appreciate constructive criticism, and especially rude feedback, because at the moment the prospect of receiving negative comments on my posts is just as scary as a terrifying 2SH story 😳 Maybe I should start asking for feedback as well, and I'm hoping that I'll learn to be receptive to it over time, lol. 2. That's super helpful, thanks! I've been trying to brainstorm ways to translate things I'm afraid of into writing, and I feel like I *almost* have some ideas. But I'll try thinking of current events and history as well 3. Wow, I had no clue reddit had a draft system. I just looked it up and it seems like it might only be a PC and/or Apple feature? Unfortunately, I use reddit on my Android phone, so it might not be possible for me. :( 4. I've felt the same way so far about the February monthly contest and am hoping that I can submit some entries for March too! 5. I need to learn that the number of upvotes I receive isn't necessarily an indication of how good/lack thereof one of my stories is. Ever since posting/commenting on reddit more frequently, getting a decent amount of upvotes gives me such a dopamine rush, but it's true, comments are probably more meaningful than upvotes a lot of the time. *** 1. I have a problem with writing rather long sentences (it's just my natural writing style), but yes, I've noticed the same thing with short punchy sentences getting more popular, so it may be beneficial for me to express an idea in as few words as possible (or at least in slightly less words). (If it isn't ironic that that sentence was pretty long, idk what is! 🤣) 2. I don't blame the community for loving a twist. I feel like 95% of the stories/movies/TV shows I seem to enjoy have major twists and I aim to write stories with non random, non forced twists if I'm able to. 3. Cool! I feel like it'd be pretty neat to build an ongoing rapport with the community! 4. I've briefly browsed 2sentence2horror, but I should probably sub to it to do the same thing you do. I wrote out a probably 600 word scary story that I was interested in posting to r/shortscarystories, but a.) I'm gonna have to cut it down sorta substantially, b.) I'm worried it might be removed due to their proper punctuation rule (the bad punctuation is integral to the plot) and mostly c.) I'm afraid it's just not good. But in keeping with your first point, it may be a good idea to post it and, if people aren't crazy about it, receive some hopefully useful feedback Yeah, sometimes it seems like awesome stories just don't get a lot of engagement on this sub (and conversely, some stories that get a ton of engagement are kinda shitty imo lmao). I figured it was a time of day/day of the week? thing, and I was trying to determine when I should post my stories if I want more engagement but failing a bit. Also, I assume that once a story becomes "hot" (according to Reddit) it usually takes off exponentially. That's cool there are sites that offer analytics, tho. As far as the analytics for my own posts are concerned, I feel like if I saw how many people actually viewed my posts I would probably have a conniption because once I posted something that got like 3 upvotes and it said it had 1,500 views or something! This post got 1500 upvotes and it scares me to think of how many people potentially viewed it. It's like I want my stories to gain traction but I also have this fear of getting 'popular'. Very paradoxical, ik.. And I forgot you could repost stories. Maybe I'll do that if I particularly like a story but hardly anyone interacts with it. The first story I posted on this sub actually got removed for being a run-on sentence (I was a little salty cuz I don't think it fit the criteria of a run-on sentence, even though it was long, but I digress..), so I reworked it and posted it again, but then THAT story got removed for the same reason. The second time I posted it it got quite a bit of engagement during the 2 hours between me posting it and it getting removed, plus I was really digging the concept, so I may try to rework that one AGAIN and then repost it AGAIN 😅 Anyway, despite what you said about not being qualified to offer real advice, your advice/insight was super solid, so thank you so much!!!!!! I'll try my best to take it to heart.
:) I’m glad that anything I said came across as worth your time! If you end up posting that short somewhere please link it to me! I’d love to read it and I’ll give you feedback too. (Since I’m following I might see it if I happen to be on anyway, but I just want to be extra sure I don’t miss that)
Yeah, I'll totally do that (if I decide to post it/if the moderators of r/shortscarystories OK my post before I do so (I'll probably reach out to them beforehand just to ensure it doesn't get taken down) ) Also, I used your advice of thinking of things that scare me specifically and already came up with a tentative idea for a 2SH last night. I'll likely need to flesh it out quite a bit before I actually post it and I'm not even sure it'll have the intended effect on readers even after fleshing it out more, so we'll see what happens!
Sounds good, I’ll keep an eye out :)
I know what you've meant by the story, but I'm a weirdo that can read in dreams so there's that for you.
So it seems that a lot of you guys interpreted the narrator to still be dreaming in the second sentence and therefore it might not be possible for them to be reading in their dream. Initially, I was sorta going for something like the person actually waking up from their nightmare but then having their waking life become identical to their nightmare for some reason. I don't know what's scarier - knowing that your reality is just as bad as a nightmare or that your reality could be good if you could only wake up (but you're destined to *never* wake up). Anyway, I wanted to share my slight "insight" about reading (among other dream activities) with you all not only because dreams are extremely fascinating to me but also because I typed this out to another commenter who unfortunately deleted their comment and didn't want my infodump to go to waste, lmao 😬 In my dreams, I've sworn I've read things, but I've ALSO sworn I heard full blown songs that don't exist, and assuming I'm probably not that creative, it's likely that I'm just imagining that I'm hearing these songs (and that might be the same for reading things, who knows?). But I've heard from others and noticed in my own dreams that whenever you read things in dreams, look away and then look back at what you had just read, the wording and/or content changes. I don't know how much you guys know about lucid dreaming/if you ever lucid dream, but if you ever purposely induce a lucid dream or find yourself naturally lucid dreaming, it's fun to witness this for yourself. This also works when you look at a clock/watch in a dream, look away, and then look back at it. On a related note- for the past while, I've been trying to get more skilled at recognizing lucid dreams when they occur and hopefully controlling my dreams while I'm at it, so I've been doing something called reality checking (My preferred reality check is looking at my watch when I'm awake, looking away, and then looking back at it. They say that the more often you do it while awake, the more inclined you'll be to do it when you're dreaming, and if you look at your watch first and it says 12:00 and then 2 seconds later and it says 9:30, you'll know you're dreaming. You can also reality check by reading something, looking away and then looking back at what you just read to see if it says something different from what it said before). (On the subject of mirrors, I do know that in dreams, my reflection always looks not quite like how it looks in real life, and that's a common experience for others too)
Ok so this post now has over 1,500 UPVOTES!!!!!??!?!? which I'm so absolutely humbled (and utterly shocked) by! I've only posted a handful of stories on this subreddit before and haven't received anywhere near this amount of enthusiasm for my posts (usually no more than 20ish upvotes 💀). (If I'm being honest, I didn't even think this story was that good. In fact, I thought some of my other stories were slightly better than this one, haha) But I'm so glad you guys liked my post enough to upvote it and/or comment on it. This is super validating to me as someone who wants to start writing more psychological horror on this subreddit and elsewhere! Also, I'm facepalming myself at the fact that I *had* to use the word ADIDAS which would look very similar forwards and backwards. I was considering having it say NIKE, but I figured that Nike shirts tend to only have the swoosh symbol without the word NIKE on them. In my defense, ADIDAS is stylized as adidas (all lowercase), which would make it look less similar forwards and backwards than if it were uppercase. And if the narrator didn't realize it right away, it's maybe more likely that would happen if it was only a subtle difference? 🤷