Talk:The Unfortunate Last Name/@comment-24139390-20131107152356/@comment-7706473-20131108073610

You're quite welcome! Generally, I find that people won't tell you what to do in life unless they're trying to tell you everything you must do, the way you have to do it, etc... It's unfortunate that such a dichotomy exists, alas - but generally people are more willing to help if you've fooled around on your own. That mild complaint of mine about the world aside - if you'd like, I can give some (probably bad) advice! First, something personal -

Did you enjoy writing this?

If so, never stop writing creepypasta. Write only for yourself, and if you enjoy it do as much as you can, until your fingers are sore at the bone. Comments are a rare thing indeed - and meaningful ones rarer still. You know - if you think you had no idea what you were doing here, you should try looking at some of my earlier work, thankfully not present here. It was horrifying in an entirely different way!... ;P

I actually think the story is pretty good. You do a good job establishing that Alma wants to terrorize the narrator, and making the narrators actions believable without using gore or jump scares - that's a very good start. The problem, and what confused me wasn't even really questions about whether or not the costume was cursed - it was more a question similar to the one the narrator had, why was Alma attacking? I assumed it must have been the costume - and I had to re-read it a few times for it to really click that it was just because Alma thought the narrator was mocking her.

That and the fact the narrator speaks even while she is dying are a bit stretchy on the readers suspension of disbelief - they make us think instead of sinking into the atmosphere and looking over our shoulders, ahaha. The way our narrator dies - of brain hemorrhage - is pretty creepy and appropriatley supernatural, and Alice's reaction is pretty good - but it raises the question of how the narrator told us the story after her death - is she a ghost in the machine..?

Despite that, I think you did a good job of fleshing out the characters in your story, and wouldn't change too much in it proper - I might build up more punch to who Alma is, and allude to more hauntings beforehand, but that's a matter of personal taste. Good 'subtle' things are headaches, strange pains, unexplainable cuts or bruises - little things that the narrator could blame on lack of sleep from excitement about Halloween or something, anything other than Alma.

And perhaps Alice is the one 'telling' the story at the end, either as some sort of spirit medium or simply knowing there was more to her friends death then just sudden shock. Keep in mind that these are only ideas, and they might make things worse - I have a tendancy to ramble on somewhat, and am never sure if I'm helping, ahahaha.

Finally - again, if you enjoy writing spooky stories, don't let an old goat like me stop you - though it might not be apparent, I enjoyed this and am always glad to see more writers! Here, have a shellflower - for good luck!