User blog comment:Arcane Spork/Hierarchy of Fears/@comment-24399271-20140119155022/@comment-11170851-20140119180046

My first piece of advice is read before you even start to write.

(I am a huge advocate of researched fiction writing)

Read other people's blogs, read the creepypastas for the Fears that interest you, read mythologies from other worlds...Because it means you get how other people treat the Fears and what you can do to construct YOUR interpretations of them.

Using Pulling off Masks (which was my first blog) as an example, I found that I was getting tired of seeing the Plague Doctor written as the representation of how biomedicine (of the body) can be a scary thing...because, well, I don't find it that unsettling.

However, what I do find terrifying is the fact that the biomedicine of the mind/treatment of mental healt/treatment of the doctor as God is used to control how individuals work within society.

So, from that the main idea of Pulling off Masks was derived.

My second piece of advice is '''Fuck what everyone else has done and go with your gut feeling. '''

(Yes, I realize that is a bit of a contradiction with the advice given above, but bear with me)

A lot of stories, especially with both the Fear and Slender Mythos, tend to follow the same basic guideline of plot. All of us have done it, and it's both really good...and kinda terrible at the same time.

For the Fear Mythos, a good number of blogs follow the: "Individual finds out/has Masqurade broken in front of them, gets stalked, starts Running, shit happens, and they either die/have their mind broken and/or become a Servant...(Or all three)"

(And yes, I'm guilty of doing this...more than once)

There's LOTS of other things you can do with the Mythos.

What about a world where they are fully worshiped and it's an honour to be taken? (Which could tie into a hierarcical concepting)

What about a world where everyone knows about the Fears, and they're just another health hazard, like bears or venom bearing snakes?

Etc, etc, etc.

There's lots that can be done that doesn't follow the same rough guidelines that we all tend to fall into.