You know the deal. Review one, post one. Pic not related.
>>7725532
so post one
I awaken to a sea of red lights. A stationary blue reflection tells me we are standing idle. "München 21 km" is what I read while slowly blinking my vision into possession of clear margins. Turning left, i notice Vic's expression. His mouth slightly opened, eyes clear and focused; A blend of annoyance and concern. I am inclined to this interpretation because this is how I feel, too. The hour-long traffic jam has thrown a wrench in our plan. Until the fucking jam, every little thing went according to our expectations. Perfectly. The mass, the bomb, the panick, down to our escape by scooter. Al-Fah - the damned lunatic - is sure as hell laughing his extremist ass off right now. But for us two, a good mood like that is a long shot away. I've asked myself each question maybe a thousand times, but again the thoughts go through my head: Did anyone tail us? Did anyone read our license plate while we dumped our scooters into the tiber? Does anyone know who they are in a fucking traffic jam with? Everything not concerned with escaping is relegeated to the back of my head at the moment. Guilt and remorse are apparently not what one feels while fleeing the crime of a decade. Because of thinking ahead, I am not nervous. I am commited even more. Guilt is eventually going to catch up with me, I am sure. But until then, i will do all I can to cover for myself, for the rest of my life. Its funny and kind of ironic how little meaning life has after taking so many. Slipping into remorse. Into feeling guilt. Thats what I am doing? Be the guy you thought you were, you fuck. Vic turns toward me, asking what the hell i was saying. Uh, it dont matter man. Talkin to myself. All nervous and stuff, you know. He nods and turns his head back toward the torpid road, audibly gritting his teeth. Does this heartless asshole think like me? Does he dare to think he is like me? Just going according to plan, not hesitating for one step along the way? He just does it for himself; he wants to live in a mansion in the carribean for the rest of his life? Poor Joey will never know what i did for him. What else can a former convict do to get a good life for his family and himself, huh? I know I could have prevented this. But how can one survive in my situation without being self-reliant? Like I cared for any one of those deluded faggots anyway. I cared less than the motherfucker Al-Fah for sure. He is fueled by hatred, I am fueled by love for my son and my life. My right to live. We start moving again. I think about how I am going to do it. Should I wait until we are past Germany? Would the job still be worth it without one more kill? Isn't one more a ridiculously low price for doubling my fee? Sure is. Why the hell am I such a wuss again? I will be in papers for centuries to come. Rich and famous. Good to my son. Desiree would be so proud. I am not a no-good yardbird anymore. I am providing for Joey. I wonder if she looks upon me now.
>>7726045
2/2 Everything is going to be alright. Ay, Vic? Yeah? Take the next exit, i need to piss. Vic looks at me intently, then grumbles, signalling his giving in. I wonder why I dont feel anything right now. So this is cold blood isn't it. Or is it because I am as righteous as I could be in my situation? Killing another damned murderer. Only one bad human being left from a deed of two. We come to a halt. A small forest. Only one truck at the roadside. The driver is surely sleeping. I get out and after I open my pants, everything goes as planned once again. Vic runs toward me. The pitiful ass really expected me to be distracted. As if I'd trust an imbecile like him. I turn around shortly before he hits me, and grab him by the neck. I bring the fuck to the ground as hard as I can and hear a soft crack. I stomp on his skull until it changes form and produces a mushy sound. I look around. My vision fixes on the bystanding truck; I panick and get into the car, driving away as fast as I can. After a few mind-numbed miles, tears well up. Why the fuck am I crying? Why! The! Fuck! 30 Million fucking Dollar for myself! I notice I am screaming. Tears blurr my vision. Still screaming i turn the wheel left and left, until i don't see red lights anymore.
Something I've been working on.
Far away in Switzerland, New Years is about to be cut short of morning by a gypsum guillotine. Midnight’s dividing line cuts over the Alps and kills the old year, rising up over borders and drawing balls and confetti down with it, murdering the past as it goes. Foxes hide and owls flee, and all the spies can feel it coming. This is the year. There is no way to stop it. The New Year clips a summit, trailing spiral smoke invisible to the human eye except for the stars it hides, and crashes into a snow bank. On the mountainside it begins to slide. The New Year rumbles with a sound like radio static, only much louder, and rolls without tone or timber to wipe the ridge clean of all things Progress. Gravity pulls it down into Larry Scrimshaw’s singularity, The Happy Pine Triple Diamond Ski-Resort, which was supposedly one diamond more dangerous than every other ski resort in the Alps. All that extra time piled on the wood fire Schwarzchild makes the falling slow, and Larry Scrimshaw doesn’t even know he’s dead. There is a long moment of existential dread.
“My water, Larry. I think my water broke.” The Dallas lumber mogul’s pregnant wife holds her belly. She can feel the extra aging. Due to time dilation, the kids on the chairlift have already hit the ball drop and are tongue deep in one another. Inside, the band hasn’t even started counting.
>>7726315
(2)
“Hmmmm?” Larry absently pats Josephine’s hand, absorbed as he is in thinking about the supposedly happy pine the lodge is made of. Weak stuff, but the varnish is nice. Rustic. Josephine swats at him, succeeding only in spilling champagne on herself. He can’t hear a thing over Auld Lang Syne.
“Larry!”
“What, what?” He turns to her, anger eating up her face. The lines look so much deeper tonight, the hair so much paler. He places a hand on her cheek and brings her close so he can hear.
“The baby. The baby is coming now.” The great eraser picks up speed and begins to sanitize the mountain.
“A damn Swiss baby? God no.”
First a Ranger station, wholly buried under the crush of fast glaciers. Second the lift, the two teenagers for a moment riding a white, horseless chariot down the triple black diamond. Third the plastic Christmas village, swept away by verticality. The distant thunder becomes not just gut noise, but brief background as it rushes to catch up to the part the band is playing. The singularity collapses and the mountain plays its best Greig impression. It fails impressively, coming in too early, now a soli performance of just one long chord of octaves at peak crescendo. The Scrimshaws suffocate embracing under a broken Santa Claus. All light is gone and they say nothing, slowly say nothing, see nothing, hear nothing at all; the drummers lost their place and threw the whole band off. White is a dark colour. Saint Bernards and their French brandy smelling masters find the Scrimshaws and the others hours later, not even twitching, fresh as newborns. (Ah, but they cannot be dead, Jacque, look at their crowns, they twinkle like crystal glass). But Leopold is wrong; the Scrimshaws and all the rest are dead, still very much as they were before conception, only this time formed in adult bodies.
>>7726057
it reads a little heavy handed - the short. abrupt. concise. sentencing is quite faulkner-esque, but yeah heavy.
and one for the folks:
His body enveloped in ecru hued tears
gentle whipsers escaping his disjointed mind
screaming his name
my voice, a familiar landmark
to help guide him though the haze
i wish i knew
the nascent idea of a lonely soul
wandering
i too just as displaced
>>7726417
shit
>>7726319
I like the different dimensions you used. Makes it a good read and nice to think about. But I don't like the useless cliche opening line. Also, I dont get how someone can "slowly say nothing". Lastly, the vocabulary is full of facets but I think it could be better if you focus on one motif to conceive a clearer overall meaning. Maybe focus on the medical vocab for an impersonal, analytical and objective atmosphere.
>>7726441
Thanks, man. I appreciate the response.
As far as the cliche, do you mean the opening line of the first part or the opening line of the second part?
I see what you mean about "slowly say nothing."
>>7726495
First part. And if you say nothing thats a finished action for me. It cannot be temporally modified. So slowly saying nothing defies basic linguistic logic.
Another assignment for my playwriting class where I had to do a one page play.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t_GzgtDi6aDojYRFSXTufycTCD3r4NJHHcPHw-dZtCE/edit?usp=sharing
>>7727435
how does this "play out" on stage?
will start commenting on other ppls shit in un segundo but hurrs mine atm
>>7727458
Dark stage, screen behind has chrome open, guy in bed on laptop with laptop lighting face, two people off to the side doing voices for website and stranger. This is only one scene but yeah. Loud clicking sounds from sound system.
>>7727458
This isn't very good. The formatting is childish and even though it sounds decent out loud it's boring and feels dictionary definition pretentious.
>>7727458
What the fuck did I just read?
I got quite a few of the references (or some of them, anyway) but I don't understand what the hell any of it means.
>>7726437
Super insightful, please more.
>>7726057
generally this reads p. dope but u've got a few extraneous/pleonastic exclamations like the "huh" in "for his family and himself" and the "isn't it" following "So this is cold blood". Excise those n expand eet n ur on ur way 2 somethin marketable n solid
>>7726319
expand eet IMO - seems like you've imagined a series of vignettes where u could expand n foster tension precipitated on the continued delay of the inevitable catastrophe comin (the avalanche) but race ahead 2 the denouement far b4 ne1 wants 2 give a fuck.
>>7726417
im not fuccin w/ line breaks as simply comma substitutions unless the enjambment helps something else, i.e. adds a layer of interpretation to a line or makes subject/object reference uncertain. why "ecru" as tear color? does the young don got dysentery/is of a more swarthy complexion or somethin?
also expunge "too" from that last line n u got somethin a hell of a lot more evocative than what ur indicatin atm
>>7727490
wat du u mean by childish?
can u elucidate y its "dictionary definition pretentious" bsides sayin it feels that way? n same w/ boring - like what xxactly is iyo?
>>7727559
He's not kidding. It's quite bad.
"Disjointed mind" is juvenile, and doesn't paint a picture at all. You need strong images, friendo.
This part isn't a stylistic critique, rather a personal opinion.
Insanity is a boring topic when dealt with this way. You're simply describing it, not doing anything with it as far as I can tell.
I'm sorry if this is harsh. You really need to work at your stuff. Read some more first.
>>7727664
Avalanchefaggot here.
Thanks mang. The section I posted is actually the rough beginning to a longer piece made up of vignettes that deal with inevitability.
The next section has a gypsy tell one of the protagonists that the price of lumber just shot up. I'm planning on having the piece go back to Larry and his wife at an earlier date later on.
I will see about fostering tension, as you said.
>>7727691
np, u just gotta give us a small insight in2 wtf these ppl r actually doin b4 u bring in the murder stuff. it dont even gotta b 2 garrulous IMO - just like a few sentences describing each scene setting up, then the avalanche annihilating 2 tabula rasa.
also u got an opinion on wut i wrote? >>7727458
>>7726045
honestly, this is pretty poor
the tone is all over the place
the formatting, punctuation, and general grammar is also very poor and unclear
>>7726315
show, don't tell
this is particularly true because you spend so much time "show"ing the environment
but then you just outright define characters (Dallas lumber mogul's pregnant wife, really) and do infodumps
also, your excerpt is pretty fucking confusing and I can barely follow it
>>7727664
Thanks alot for the criticism. I've been working on a novel for a few months and I'm nervous as to the quality of my writing in general. The "for my family and myself" is kinda redundant but I just wanted to highlight the I's hypocrisy
>>7727965
Also, thanks to you. I actually wanted to use the vastly differing styles to point to the inner conflict of the I, but maybe i went a bit too far. Luckily, punctuation is an easy thing to fix.
>>7726315
>>7726319
You could cut down on the descriptions a bit (a lot), they are not very evocative and contribute to the clumsiness of the prose (though I doubt taking out only those descriptions would detract much from the overall purpleness of the whole thing). Here's mine, I posted it in another thread and was very rudely ignored.
John scanned the mountains in the dark. There were a few lights in the distance and the chirping of crickets. It was vast but they were warm and safe in the car. John, the man, rugged and old, in his battered jeans and a beer can in his hand. In his shaking hand. As he tried to calm himself, he looked sidewise. The girl was soundly resting. Her bare soft foot touched his leg. His heart beat faster and blood rushed to his loins. He gently moved her away from him and then took a beer. He took a swig from the can and absorbed the landscape and the darkness and the gentle hum of the wind and the rhythmic buzzing of the insects and was lulled to sleep.
When he woke to have his morning piss and cigarette, the girl was no longer lying there were she had been when he had fallen asleep. John looked around. The landscape was beautiful. He pissed next to the car and lit his cigarette, breathed heavily, patiently waiting for the girl to return. She came out of a bushes, her lightly freckled face blushing as she saw the man standing by the car. Her dirtied dress clung tightly to her small body.
>>7728528
Morning, he said. And yawned. What a beautiful day it is.
Morning, the child replied.
We've got a lot of driving to do, but let's get some breakfast first.
And break fast indeed they did. They stopped at a quiet cafe in the road. It was a hot morning and bright and the ground under their feet dusty. There were trees and a few old houses and the big mountains around them. John let the little girl put on her sandals and hop out of the car and turn back to look at him before he got out. He liked watching her turn around and look at him. John smoked a cigarette and drank coffee while the girl ate toast and milk. Inside of the small and empty cafe, looking at the child focused entirely on consuming her food, he was aware of the unreality of that moment, of the vastness of the outside and insignificance of the two people involved in this scene. He felt how these moments of beauty and quietude seemed to last for so long yet passed so quickly, fading into memory. And then passing on to death. It was a moment only they would share, and it would die with them. And it was perfect indeed. But such thoughts shifted quickly from his mind as his eyes traced the tight green dress, barely conceal the small perfect flatness hidden there and he thought excitedly about what lay ahead of them.
Well I don't know about you, started Josh, But this is absolutely terrible story.
No, It isn't! It's a great story. I love it. The child gleamed. And sipped from her milk.
James paused and thought pensively for a moment. Well, even if I don't like it, somebody else might. As a matter of fact, someone does.
Well, next time I'll tell it better, he said.
You haven't finished telling it the first time yet!
I'll finish it soon, and that's a promise.
I don't want it to finish.
Nor do I, thought Juan. Nor do I. But he kept that thought to himself.
babump
>>7728531
Just doesnt seem special in any way. You skip logical parts of the plot (ordering?). That makes the reader stop and wonder, resulting in a non-fluid experience. Also some of the Syntax is really weird ("It was a hot morning [...] feet dusty"). And, to be honest I dont really get the point. Is it just some pretentious philosophical crap or did i miss something?
>>7732917
>>7732917
I'm aiming for a dream-like quality so I guess non-fluidity is fitting for what I'm trying to achieve. I'm also aiming for ambiguity at the start of the story, and for things to be revealed gradually and subtly, so the leaving out of important information that would give context to the beginning of the story is intentional.
