User blog comment:Urkelbot666/Experiments./@comment-5934310-20140707204457/@comment-7706473-20140711111624

Now this is a delicious thread. I really love the Ring, by the by. The books more so then the movie.

Honestly, I think the problem is two-fold. One, as Chesu says, is that creepypasta protags tend to be dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I hate it, and that's the reason the protaganist of Fanatics *is* an old man, specifically an old man who sells a spooooky(?) game to a young woman. There's quite a bit more to it then that, but I've also written a lot of pastas that touch on my dislike of the idea that the story and the reader both need to be dumb for something horrific to happen. Honestly, something that's more frightening is when intelligent people have all the reason to keep going. Maybe whatever is frightening can't *physically* effect them, or they know it won't affect them... But it will effect someone they know, adding a moral element to the mix.

The other is that a lot of plots, even good ones, have a sudden jump into the territory of silliness with games or events affecting the player. This can be done right too, sure - almost anything can. But honestly, I'm not too scared of some sort of gaming devil knock-off warping into my house; chances are I'd just ask if they want some tea. That means there's a fine line between spooky and stupid, and I think it's very easy to cross, especially by newer writers who might be good writers, but are trying to base their stories around cliches instead of writing their own groove.

I'm a large fan of the supernatural, for example - but the supernatural itself isn't that frightening. People are frightening. What people do to other people is frightening. Trick the readers, grab them by the throat and make them see things differently. They might not be scared - but if they walk out thinking, that's a good start.