The heart-racing, seat-clenching, scream-inducing movie genre known as horror has long been a part of pop culture. Fans tend to flood the theater every time a new horror movie promises to fill the theater with screams and gasps of shock. However, what do those fans do when October passes and the horror movie supply dries up or when no current horror movie captures their attention?

Some may find solace at the site creepypasta.com. Instead of going to the movies, they chose to write the horror stories themselves.

Creepy Pasta is a site made for and run by horror genre lovers. Readers can submit or just read the stories posted on the site regularly.

For readers, the site separates each pasta (or story) by horror subgenres in easy-to-access linked categories. From stories about the paranormal to stories about rampant serial killers, readers can find any horror genre on the site. The most popular Creepy Pasta category is “Beings and Entities,” where many ghost or monster stories reside.

Writers can submit their stories to the main moderator during submission periods. The moderator will select which ones will be published on Creepy Pasta. Submissions may take a few weeks to be approved, depending on the amount of stories the moderator has to look through. Most stories enjoy at least a couple of comments or ratings.

Some submissions appear on Crappy Pasta, Creepy Pasta’s sister site for poorly-written stories. If the moderators think a story is terrible, they will post it on the sister site instead of the main one. The public gets to rate the pasta to show their agreement or disagreement with the moderators’ judgement. They can also help the writer take their story from “crappy” to excellent with critiques of their work.

Any horror lovers who do not mind reading their favorite genre instead of watching it may enjoy this site. The first story a visitor reads may be the one that makes him or her trade a peaceful sleep for vivid nightmares.