What do you do if you cannot envision a better version of the thing you're writing?

[JoshRaed]

I want to rewrite a short one-shot horror comic script, but I can't even think of what the bad parts of it even are or how to change them, it just is bad and is unscary and no one likes it, but not only can I not think of any real fixes, the criticism is exclusively about the logistics of a character having a lighter or having a bucket or running away, and the story is still bad after fixing those issues.

[An_Alias]

Honestly (if I was in that scenario) I would take a break from writing in general and read books within the genre I want to write. If that doesn’t fix the writer’s block then I’d look for a new idea and write something else! No shame in scraping a project

[JoshRaed]

It's not writers block I was in the process of dramatically rewriting the story again, they're jut not changes that would actually make the story better.

[An_Alias]

Even more of a reason to step back from it to get some perspective and assess what it is you want out of it as a piece. What similar works are out there that you could study to see how they did it?

For short horror there is usually one central theme or concept that is inherently scary and then it’s dialed up to an extreme. Maybe try and refine what that concept is in yours?

Sometimes you gotta delete a few thousand words and move on as well.

[julias_art_universe]

Get outside perspective like ask a friend or family member to take a look maybe they have some ideas

[Lensing]

I can only tell you that I was in a very similiar situation.
Most of my stories were just situations, then I came up with other
storiy ideas but they had no real resolution, so I just came up with
something to end the story. The resolutions I came up with were
ridiculous.

I took a step back from writing and did exactly what @An_Alias wrote.
Find out what I like about other stories and how the writers handle story
writing. Some people (me) also find out that they are not writing in genre they
should write in

[JoshRaed]

Do you know any short stories that are similar to and better than the short story I made about the spiders? Because I wouldn't know where to find something like that.

[Lensing]

What are the stories that inspire you? That´s all part of what people mean when they give you
the advice to read and study. I don´t know what inspires you

[JoshRaed]

Well Penelope dreadful, the comic it’s a one-shot for, is a lot like children’s action cartoons and the haunting hour with the traveling hero fighting monsters but also the episodic horror plots. But I don’t want to take too much action hero stuff from it and I don’t think I like even half of the episodes of haunting hour.

I guess the thing the pilot is most similar to is honestly “the other lily” by david romero as it’s this thing that does have a plot kind of but it’s literally just an excuse for scary things to happen with no emotional core or larger point to existing, It’s actually even less coherent than my own writing as “other lily” just does whatever the writers decide for the purposes of the next scare with no reason to do it or real goal.

This is actually why I asked you, I don’t want to look into any of the things that inspired me for this specific story, it has to be a separate thing.

[JoshRaed]

The actual origin of the one shot story was that I vaguely took the plot of a chapter I wanted to make called “spiderbites” and turn that into a one-shot. spiderbites was something I thought of after watching a movie called the bay, about a plague of flesh eating isopods, and realizing my own story has a bug themed villain and bugs are kind of like isopods so she could start a plague of flesh eating spiders. But the one-shot could hardly be about this massive city-wide conflict with thousands of deaths and our main character in the middle of it, not in 16 pages with her being fully unestablished. So it turned into this.

I don’t know if it helps but maybe it will.

[Lensing]

What were the last books and stories that you read?

[JoshRaed]

Dracula and Catching fire in terms of novels. For TV it was spongebob and chainsaw man. For podcasts, batman unburied and Alice isn’t dead. The movies, Scream 5 and wendell and wild. In webcomics, The egg project and After Dark.

Do any of these help?

[Lensing]

That´s why I was asking, I was in a similiar situation but in a different genre.
I wanted to write short erotic stories. The first stories that I wrote and published
were not good and were situations or poems or dialogue.
I started reading other erotic short stories. I read hundreds of the genre
and all that I could find of the niche of that genre I wanted to write in
and compared them to my stories. That´s how I found out what you were
asking in this topic.

You listed all the things you read and watched and there is not one which
can be compared to what you want to write. 2 long novels, tv shows,
podcasts, movies, not one short stories. That´s pretty much the core
of the problem, that´s like someone who says they don´t know why
their comics don´t work and they don´t read comics

[An_Alias]

Horror has a lot of nuance, like any other genre. There’s no amount of advice that will help you understand stand it, you do have to read it and read it often (like @Lensing said). It’s like going to the gym: you can’t lift weights once or twice and expect results.

Here are a few short horror stories that I recommend to anyone who wants to start reading horror. It’ll give you a place to start! I do recommend reading published works for learning and not self published stories online for quality control.

> Click-clack the rattle bags

CommonLit | Click-Clack the Rattlebag by Neil Gaiman | CommonLit Library

This one is really short and a great example of how what you don’t say (implications) is what makes it scary

> Masque of the Red Death
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1064/1064-h/1064-h.htm

Really can’t go wrong with reading Edgar Allen Poe for learning the basics/classics.

> Tell Tale Heart
https://poemuseum.org/the-tell-tale-heart/

> What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher is a great horror novella! A novella is a length of story between short stories and novels. (this one is not free to read because it’s a newer published novella)

[NickRowler]

There is a saying that you need to sleep on ideas.

If you don’t know what you want to write or what direction, maybe you need to take a break from your story and do something else in the meantime. It could be writing a different story or doing other activities. Heck, a lot if my ideas for one of my series came to me when I was stuck on the subway train, didn’t have much else to do so I just daydreamed.

[JoshRaed]

The one short story I can think of as a positive model for my story is the backwater gospel but I don’t have any idea how i’d take any sort of lessons from backwater gospel to apply to my story, just that it’s proof that my story could be something interesting and scary.

[2DLenzy]

Maybe it's ready to publish?
I know you're hung up about the logic, every author has this problem. They're afraid their readers would solve the mystery/laugh at their story.
Frankly, I find most horror movies amusing. I often think, 'i would've done that differently', 'I can escape that situation', 'theses people are dumb', but that's what adds to the reader's/viewer's experience, even if it feels kinda negative to the creator.
I am currently writing a noir(comic, episodic), and I've thought up ways for the criminal to do a crime better, cover ups, better ways for a vic to escape, even thought myself 'this episode is stupid/nonsense', but as a reader, I would LOVE IT! I'd suspend my disbelief and take in the experience. Sure, we like to think about things, and overthink to the point where writing the story, or reading, can become painful. But it's also inevitable, on both sides. There will always be better ways to do something, but if it's making you hate your creation or discoraging you, then it isn't worth comparison.
I'd say take the risk, take whatever criticisms, and use these lessons to write a better story, despite how discouraged it'll feel...It's the best way I can think of to improve.

*Take my bad advice with caution, I'm a comic artist trying to build up her ego, but I do have a short psych thriller story I could publish here. It'll be called Dead Ringer. Wrote it few years ago, kept it in my Drive. I'm gonna try what I just preached. Gonna take a moment, though, figure out the whole webnovel thing, but I'll let ya know, if you are remotely interested. There's also a medieval murder mystery, but i gotta finish that one too. Yeah, been hesitating on dozens of stories for over 15 years. Tired of it now. That's why I joined. I'm ready to go manic apes$t on Tapas XD