Your best, two-sentence horror story

This was a pretty popular idea on a certain other site, and I figured it could either be a forum game, or a thread in the literature section. It will be adjusted accordingly, either way.

So what's the objective?

Write a horror story in two sentences, nothing more, nothing less. Critique, rate, thumbs up, throw tomatoes while supplies last.

-extremely obnoxious cough-

edited 3rd Feb '14 6:49:31 AM by FOFD

Hmm, and interesting game — but perhaps better suited to the Writer's Block sub-forum?

At any rate, your story seems like a decent start, although I'll confess that it feels unfinished to me — two sentences doesn't seem like quite enough there.

My attempt:

(I would have liked to have "shown" the nightmares rather than "told" them, but I didn't want to push that first sentence too far and wanted the second sentence for the use that I put it to; this game can be tricky!)

edited 3rd Feb '14 8:08:07 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

This is an interesting challenge. I'll have to try again. :)

edited 3rd Feb '14 9:45:57 AM by Noaqiyeum

I would adjust the tenses in the second sentence, but the premise is intriguing.

Here goes nothing...

So, basically what I normally do with erotic fanfiction, except with horror. Got it.

Okay, obviously I suck at this.

Well, the prospect horrifies me...

There once was a woman named Stephanie Meyer. She wrote a book series called Twilight.

Before I post my next idea, should we have any guidelines for unpleasant imagery? I'm hesitant to post because I don't know where the boundaries are for this thread...

(I mean, that one about the Prime Minister -- steady on, man, there's only so much one can take! ;P)

(If I do post my idea, I might post it in a spoiler, with a general warning, just to be safe. It may not be that bad, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, I think.)

The original post suggested posting feedback, so let me try to respond to a few:

@Noaqiyeum: That is interesting, although I feel that the second part of the second sentence might lack a little in punch.

@JHM: I rather like that. ^_^

@Little Billy Haggardy: I wonder whether it might not have been better to have started with the idea in the second sentence — becoming stuck — and then used the new second sentence to describe the character's reaction to it? Tight spaces and being trapped like that could be pretty effective, I think, but the character's reactions might help to convey the horror of it.

@Wolf: That was hilarious. XD

edited 4th Feb '14 7:28:10 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

Hmm, horror's not usually my thing, but here goes:

Punch is hard. :P I was having trouble just trying to convey the situation in two sentences... I wasn't really sure what to do with the tense, as JHM pointed out, either. Suggestions? I think maybe it might work better if it were to end "...and I told him so, but he only started to prepare another dose."

As for your question, I don't think this thread needs special content restrictions - the forum overall already has those anyway - but we should probably keep in mind that it's really easy to try using excessive imagery to get fear and only inspire disgust instead. If you're still really worried about it, though, spoilers are probably fair.

edited 4th Feb '14 9:26:22 AM by Noaqiyeum

Regarding your story, I'm not sure of the best way to change it, in part because I think that it depends on the reaction that you want the "killer" character to have; at the moment he seems to me to be indifferent to the narrator's pleas. Perhaps it might help to merge the narrator's decision to live into the first sentence, allowing more "room" in the second for a description of the narrator's actions and the "killer"'s reactions (or lacks thereof)?

Regarding my question, thank you for your points. ^_^

You make a good point regarding excessive imagery. I've changed my story somewhat (see below) — making it perhaps the first entry here that has been commented on before it was posted. ;)

I'd also forgotten that we have content restrictions, so thank you for mentioning that. ^^; Come to that, do you have a link to the content rules? I may have simply missed them, but I didn't manage to find rules regarding content other than sexual (which is mentioned in the "Forum Rules" thread, I believe).

My next entry:

Horror is supposed to be scary, but two sentences is so short, so I figured . . . Body Horror [consider that my "warning"]:

> "Come on, surely there's something else you can do, Doc!" I shrieked; suddenly yelping as my arm twisted all the way around a third time.
> "I'm . . . I'm so sorry," said the doctor, tears welling in his eyes as he raised the axe.

edited 4th Feb '14 4:28:00 PM by Kelnius

edited 5th Feb '14 9:16:49 AM by DrStarky

Oh, thanks ever so much, carbon-mantis, now I'll never get to sleep tonight!

Less of a horror, but more of black humor, but hey.

edited 9th Feb '14 2:25:25 PM by dRoy

There was nothing in that dark room, of that I was certain. So who, or what, was breathing into my ear?

edited 11th Feb '14 6:50:09 AM by AtomJames

My hand lowered onto her chest, caressing her. And then, a hand reached out of her chest and grabbed mine.

I wonder where Pete had gone I thought before taking another bite out of a pork bun. Pete was much closer than I expected.

Pretty lame I guess.