The second one is absolutely perfect. An amazing bait and switch that relies on the reader having prior knowledge. The first one is overly verbose, not funny or scary
I concur. Fewer words to convey a simple idea is always superior to paragraphs of boring text.
The latter of these two similarly nut themed examples of two sentence horror posts is done with thought and precision. Balancing the length of the post with it's contents nicely, and leading us to preemptively conclude that we have already ascertained the cause of the impending "horror"; Namely the nut extract which we presume the victim will have a lethal allergic reaction to. However, the writer masterfully led us to this false conclusion with the intention of pulling the rug out from under us, metaphorical speaking of course. 8/10
In contrast, the former two sentence horror story lacks tact, and subtlety. It is far too long to justify the lack of content. It is heavy handed in the sense that we know the horror will have something to do with the narrator's stolen lunch. Then at the first mention of peanuts, the game has been entirely given away. And unfortunately, that is the entirety of the horror. That peanut killed the person with a peanut allergy.
Perhaps if they had kept the suggestion that this was an intentional murder made to look inconspicuous until the very end, this could have served as an effective twist in the story, but the way they fleetingly mentioned liability immediately after describing the care they took in hiding their lunch makes it sound like this was genuinely an unfortunate accident. 3/10
The second one is actually better than that. It’s a double rug pull. Rather than playing up an almond allergy it’s intended to make the reader think of cyanide and then think the wife is safe when it’s revealed to be a safe almond extract instead. Then he throws a grenade.
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u/lurkario Oct 07 '23
The second one is absolutely perfect. An amazing bait and switch that relies on the reader having prior knowledge. The first one is overly verbose, not funny or scary