Post yr shit (and it is probably shit) in here && get it buttblasted!!!
(critique some shit before you post obvious exception for the first poster be constructive//more detailed than "ayy ura shit" have fun or dont im not yr daddy lol)
You're pathetic, the voice said. I know, thought Virginia in response. She had been sitting refreshing the same websites over and over again for three hours. She didn't know what the voice was. It was powerful, overwhelming even, and she wasn't sure whether it was herself or something else. If you know then why aren't you doing anything about it? asked the voice. Start your assigned reading, it demanded. Virginia complied. It was actually quite motivating to have such a strong personality making demands of her. It made her feel like it was possible for her to be useful. She hadn't felt this way in a long time.
She read the computer science textbook, and whenever she had a question she found the voice answering. In general, the voice was correct. It seemed smarter than her, more capable, more assertive. Yet it didn't truly hate her, even though it held her in low regard. Whenever she found herself distracted by someone whistling or making weird noises, the voice asked Shall I kill him for you? Virginia would say no, and the voice would politely obey.
When Virginia was especially pathetic, the voice would take over completely and push Virginia to the side. This only happened on rare occasions, but was always an odd mixture of extremely uncomfortable and purely exhilarating. It was likely as a consequence of these occasions that Virginia learned the voice in her head was a dragon.At the time, Virginia was only on Lithium for depression. This was the depression that had accompanied her to within a hair of murder, until at last she had broken so thoroughly she became nearly catatonic. At this point, the noise had started to set in; the jumbled mixture of fragmentary thoughts and feelings that overlapped, contorted, connected, diverted, and at last scattered like shards of glass through her mind, causing sharp pains in her consciousness. The noise had come first. The dragon had come second.
Virginia hated the noise. She loved the dragon. It had been such a long time since she'd seen a friend, and in truth it was difficult to say anymore who counted as her friend and who didn't. Besides coming out as trans, she was beginning to realize her friendship wasn't highly valued to begin with. Much of this was undoubtedly her own fault.The dragon was there for her, whether she wanted to be or not by all appearances. She was a source of tough love, someone to bounce ideas off of, and she granted a sense of meaning and comfort to Virginia.
Later, after Virginia was placed on antipsychotics, she would sometimes intentionally go out of her way to try and reach the dragon again. The pills had put her out of reach, had made her sleep. Virginia found caffiene and cigarettes to be an effective combination in this respect. It hurt Virginia to be without her friend, but she knew it was her own choice to pursue treatment which had resulted in the absence. But even so, she heard whispers sometimes, saw shadows. The relief this brought to Virginia was indescribable.
>>7501846
It feels very disaffected, and not in a good way. The language is a bit too homogeneous: almost every sentence begins with a pronoun or a very obvious transitional phrase. Mix things up a bit. Use a more active voice in places. Read more and don't be afraid to copy other people's styles: you'll eventually synthesize it into something all your own.
I speak in innuendo and smells and swears. Homies like to say I’ll die young, before I finish my masterpiece or whatever, but that’s aight: talk to me for a tiny bit and you got a part of it right there. My vibrations will live on. Bitch.
I’m an angle
I act like I can sleep on an airplane, and who knows the difference? Not even the fuckboy in the next seat, trying to feel me up. Let’s say now that I stage a fake kidnapping: what then? Damn, assuming perfect actors, I’d get shot and pulled in just like a real criminal. Who’s to say any of the shit I done’s real, then? Yeah, mom, I was just pretending to sling dope.
I’m a fucking angel
Fucking
There’s this kid Atilla. 4’11”, seems hyperactive, kinda permanently caffeinated. He’s kind of cute, though, so I drop by one day and find that he has every mirror in his house turned against the wall. Funny—so do I. I get the fuck out of there as soon as I possibly can.
Plane’s going through turbulence. The stewardess runs up to me and pulls up my blanket, all like Ceinture, madame? She really just trynna to see my big fat dick. I wasn’t even sleeping, anyway.
Like so many of you I had my doubts about how much to contribute to
... Just like faking an orgasm
“I pretend I matter for a moment.” like fuck—of course I matter. The fuck do they think?
I taught that boy guitar. I fucking claimed him yeah? He had a different name back then.
I—I—I. Je—je—je. Yo—yo—yo. All these sentences begin with...
I work hard I think. I really I’m a slacker I—ayy—yïI—
I feel my way around the ground where I fell flat on my face. I didn’t really fall flat on my face this didn’t happen I
I want to cry I want
Iiiiiiiiaiiii in pain she leaps in pain the hot pan on her arm must have burned pretty fucking badly chuckles about it later though
I —nah son—nah boi.
ayy bich want some fuck?
Eyes on it I rush to the station meet meat fresh as ever fresh and fucking for you local four loko come on grab me and take
I said go fuck yourself boi
I yeah I heard, some little bitch Eliza thinks she’s God, like literally God. I read online—she changed her profile to all crosses and shit and now she’s saying all
I don’t even want to go there
He—I—he said that my picture looked nice. I held a big cardboard cutout there, blunt hanging out, fill flash coming from the phone, forward, forward, for me formally only for me forest of hair in the wind really it was a fan but.
We’re landing now. We’ve landed. We’re taxiing. We’ve stopped. The same stewardess comes running and shakes me Madame, madame, reveillez, s’il vous plait, n’oubliez votre baggage, s’il vous plait.
I don’t fucking speak frogtalk. She really want the D.
Immediately following >>7501868 :
— big & strong & strong & fast & big & strong & strung & fat & big & big & big & strong & strong & fat & big & fast & fat & strong & bug &
— Wtf lol
— thts just how i say Hi Bitch
— K
— r u big
— tf
nah
im pretty small actually ;^)
— r u a big deal
— no lol
not yet
someday
still the real deal ;^)
Wbu
— speak softly and carry a big stick
— wut lol
— big politics
— Riiiiiiiiiight...
— ...thgiiiiiiiiiiR
big red dog
bitch
— wtf are you even saying
— I just wanna know how fucking big you are
*
I don’t even need to get laid, I think to myself.
>>7501925
How many people are doing this dashes for dialogue thing now? I get that your cool Spanish writers do it, but this is English, and you're only being annoying and distracting.
>>7501868
>>7501925
I won't lie I have no idea what's going on. But it's actually pretty readable. This some Burroughs shit. I like your use of modern internet slang and meme stuff too. What is this? A short story, a novel, some random bullshit you did like ten minutes ago for kicks?
This is another random bit from my ongoing science fiction novel about a future utopian society based off of 90s/2000s pop culture and video games.
http://pastebin.com/nfCLFCKa
Kieran was found by his partner in the cold hours of a Thursday morning. Mel walked in, found the red embroidery thread from her sewing box around his neck, which he had knotted around the index finger of his right hand and pulled tight until his lips turned blue and his breathing stopped. The folded yellow paper was tucked under his knee as his back crumpled, cross-legged on the living room floor, skinny hip bones protected from the thinning carpet by two throw cushions which Mel had worked on.
Reading the note was like trying to decipher a codex in a dream. Everything was misty: I was reeling in shock and I could barely make out what Kieran had been saying. The last sentence stuck in my head like nothing else. It was written in Kieran's weird, sloping hand. Calm down. It read If everything goes according to plan, I'll be back soon enough.
"What does that even fucking mean?" Mel had been close to hysterics when I'd shared it with her. I shook my head, lost for words. Kieran had always been a little odd: a bit of a loner, sticking on the sidelines, never taking part in the loudest and rudest of jokes our friendship group shared. In the last few months he'd been downright reclusive, though suicide? No one saw it coming, least of all me. He'd found a good partner in Mel, and for her to not understand his last words: well, she was beyond emotion.
When, three days later, Kieran turned back up at my house, I attributed it to the half-bottle of Jameson that I'd been working my way through since his death. I had stepped through to the kitchen, my seat on the sofa only lit by a small spot-lamp. The rest of the room was thrown into darkness; it took me a moment to work out that the tall shadow by the bricked-up fireplace was a human. My first thought was panic, my second acceptance. I walked back into the lounge, squinting and fearing the worst while hoping for the best. Kieran stepped into the glow thrown by the little lamp and bent towards the coffee table.
"This is touching," he pressed the standby button on my laptop. I'd been going through old photos of us two: reliving the good times. "I'm sorry to have scared you."
"I--" temporarily lost for words, I moved around the back of the sofa and approached my friend. I had one hand stretched before me; like Lady Macbeth with her dagger I took him for a dreadful illusion. He looked thinner--if that was possible--than usual. Dark circles ringed his eyes and he wore a thick black scarf around his neck.
The slideshow on the laptop hummed to life, moving through mine and Kieran's school days. Both clearing our throats, we looked at them as they flicked through blurry pictures of Kieran's old gaming group. He was dressed in all black there, a huge grin on his face as he played the Necromancer: the strongest card in the deck.
>>7501941
I like it, bitch
>>7501965
It's a sort of stream of consciousness meditation on social sexuality in the internet age, continually shifting genders and viewpoints—like so many people actually do.
Your sci-fi thing kind of leans towards the dramatic. Read it out loud: I can't emphasize this enough. Read it out loud, then read it out loud again, sentence-by-sentence, from the last sentence to the first one. This will help you a shit-ton. Try to use different voices too, if you can. Speech is our reference for written language, so appreciate it.
>>7501981
It feels like I'm talking to a self-righteous little white nerd desperate to tell me his (and it is definitely a he) life story because nobody has ever given a shit and nobody really will. This effect is fine, but if you're going to do it, you really gotta own it.
>>7501846
>Virginia
>Virgini
>Virgin
Even the character's name is self projecting
Some of you have probably read my shit here before. I'm working on a novel about kids growing up in gentrified Manhattan and having pretensions of being a great artists without fully comprehending what it means and entails. This is all stuff that I've posted already: just got it all in one place to see how it meshes. Feel free to skim through it, or don't. I'd appreciate any criticism you can give, even "eat shit u fuckkn jew lol."
http://pastebin.com/mJi7RawM
Suckers stay talking on them Internet comments
Mad cause I'm most wanted like Osama
Please bitch, you haters don't got no felonies
Young Basedgod flex 10 armed robberies
Young Basedgod been breaking & entering
Young Basedgod ride hot when you bought it
30 on my dick on that court like Spalding
Bitches suck my dick because I look like JK Rowling
Harry Pot my bitch I fuck my ho her brain is awesome
Fuck my damn ring, bitch I pay what it's costing
Jewelry is awesome, Basedgod is gorgeous
Going down to Georgia to fuck my thick bitch
Mane fuck her cuz she gorgeous, young Basedgod stay posted in the fortress
Fuck my main bitch then I dumped her in the forest
You niggas know I got money bitch one hundred thousand Basedgod nigga
Invigorated by the chill and exhaling loudly through an open grin, Papa strode out with increasing pace into the wide green expanse of the island, rolled flat by its infamous gusty swells (though, of course, the stormy moments are neatly intermingled with days of wonderful sunshine, how could this be such a brilliant place to live without a little violent ritual?). No trees grow here. The fields of long pale grass are peppered with thistle and machair, and on the far arm of the bay the land sweeps up and peaks into a sheer cliff face, gently washed today, worn down tomorrow. Follow the edge and it softens into the backbone of a primordial monster submerged beneath the green, a lizard in hibernation so long its body became subsumed by the earthy cycle it was raised from, segments of sand and stone and cold scaly flesh eroded as the waves pressed into the curve of its sweeping tail. A golfball sits atop the highest point - some newfangled Norwegian aviation radar device scanning out into the atlantic apparently, father’s voice forcibly reaching me through the wind as his body sped onwards - while on occasion speckled flecks of sheep are seen to trek down its inland side, their passage sheltered by the slope of the hill.
The cafe was settled in a nook not far past the cliff face, a quiet and homely sort of affair which anchored the neighbouring pier to the shore and attracted plenty of bubbly and well-meaning families on holiday to its Sunday teas. The budding community of summer sporting types was increasing, a fact which Papa took no effort in repeating tirelessly - it seemed as though they were drawn to the inconspicuous and unpredictable nature of the terrain, conditions which produced both terrifying storms and perfect watersporting conditions in equal measure - but inevitably engaged them in conversation concerning which beaches would be the must suitable for cross-on or cross-shore conditions, perhaps about windspeed, gust peaks, swell, wave height, even the minute possibility of basking sharks being drawn in by the masses of plankton drifting inland.
>>7501868
This was vividly enjoyable, but the second half didn't really do it for me.
>>7502042
>http://pastebin.com/mJi7RawM
ill look at it mirg
>>7502164
This is called purple prose. You're just spewing what you think is imaginative writing into a convoluted clusterfuck.
>>7502044
It's not really as based as you think, which means it's just crap. There is a flow style to B that you don't have. Give up.
>>7502042
Is this shit posting?
>>7501981
You're trying to get too creative with your sentence structure and it's obnoxious. You're using a lot of cliches -- that is things like "like nothing else". Also, the narrator voice is inconsistent. Sometimes it's talking to itself and other times it's talking to a reader and still other times it's just narrating.
Also, you're picking some strange ass verbage and your dialogue syntax is not proper. This isn't the worst thing I've ever read, but you need to tighten it up. You can cut a decent amount of this "talking to self" shit and still have a narrative. Stop stalling.
>>7501965
Is this a screen play or more shit posting? What the fuck is this?
>>7501868
Is this a rap or more shit posting?
>>7501846
This is on the right track, but still utter shit. You've got the grammar down pretty decently, but you have narrator voice problems. This is what we call info-dumping. You're just telling me shit. There is zero imagery. Zero plot. It's just floating in negative/vapid headspace. Literally every other sentence you snap away to tell shit at me that could either be inferred or just has no relevance to the plot or lackthereof.
This reads like character notes, not a novel or prose.
>>7502247
you're the hero that creative writing workshops need
>>7502247
>purple prose
Yeah, it goes a little too far at points, but it isn't 'imaginative' - the place is real enough
There once was a man from the coast
Who'd fuck anything with two tits and a pulse
Until some lass
Whipped a dick out her pants
About that he will not boast
This limerick mildly enjoyable? I feel like I need to improve the last line.
http://pastebin.com/CMxjyRUj
Got some help before but still looking for critique
>>7502301
I feel the middle line is one syllable short
He had hands which grimaced, hands which sneered; he had hands which explained, expostulated, threatened, wept; which touched like buttocks in apparent prayer, which joked, which jeered; hands that danced and sang and held the dagger—creating, conducting, eliciting the word—hands which uttered every innuendo, misled, lied, which latched and locked, insulted and defied; hands which greeted one another like old boozing friends, which squeezed yours unexpectedly and left them wet; outstretched, open, pleading hands crisscrossed by lines for life and love and fate, runnels rushing toward the twiddle finger, fat and ringed, the Mounts of Moon and Mercury rising from a plain of soft pink skin, the Girdle of Venus, too, a Via Lasciva like some Gasse in Hamburg; head, health, heart lines, and all the pulpy cushions of the palm, etched as finely as a counterfeiter's plate; hands wholly unlike mine, like Pilate's, water and towel to one another, thumbs and fingers disappearing into the shadow of a duck, a fox, a bear, a skirt; hands which were equal of another's eye; which were, from time to time, I'm sure, both cock and cunt.
>>7501846
It's not bad (which is not very consoling, I guess), but (this will be worse) it's not good either: it's simplistic, basic, lacking in style and deprived of content; it's hollow, empty, but a thin veil embarrassingly draped, like the blue before black which dissolves from even the earliest of night's breaths, over an infinite void, an infinite nothing; it's overflowing with words worth no more than the air spent on their utterance, spilling with sounds with as little substance to chew as dust trickling through the hourglass.
>>7502301
Change it to something along the lines of "and came all over like butter on toast."
>>7502408
This feels very middle school in style and subjectmatter. If that's your intention, cool, but to me it's unreadable.
>>7502493
Well you started to tell a story using just the description of hands, and I liked that, but somewhere near the end it fell short. It works for what it is since it's understandable, but I honestly wasn't that interested in reading it after the first 2 lines.
it was friday night and i didn't have to go to work tomorrow at my fuck-boring job as a cashier at the new restaurant in the mall. i honestly couldn't wait for this chick to hurry up and order her damn bread bowl so i could go home and sleep until noon. if only i knew what my sorry ass was going to get into in the next few hours. but hey, some people spend their fridays ordering hot bread at 9 pm, and other people decide to stick their nose into the business of a potential murder scene. honestly i can't really say much since i've done both and worse, but the latter isn't really an accurate way of putting it ...or rather that's putting it /really/ lightly.
the night started with a cliche when i got home from work. i received a suspicious text from an unknown number that read, "if you get an e-mail about being accepted into a college, be careful." ...the fuck? Is this supposed to be a warning? it doesn't even say what i should be worried about, just to "be careful" as if getting this e-mail is somehow dangerous. I dismissed it as being textual garbage.
since i'm already 18 and dropped out of high school during my senior year, i never felt the need to continue schooling. and hey, i think i'm doing pretty well for myself considering that i'm now living in a modest apartment. I unlocked the door and plopped straight onto the nearby couch in the combined living room/kitchen area. after relaxing for a total of two seconds i hear a buzz from my smartphone and unlocked the screen. There wasn't any new text messages so i assumed it was an e-mail. Lo and behold i actually got that e-mail about the college thing. as i was scrolling through it, i found the usual jazz about where and when to sign up for classes even though i've never registered in the first place. something about the formatting or the flashy visuals seemed off-putting though.
it got really cold all of a sudden even though the thermostat clearly reads 70 degrees. i naturally felt a little anxious and on edge, like that warning from before actually held up some kind of intentional truth.
living by myself can get a little lonely sometimes, so small bursts of anxiety are a norm for me, but something about this time felt a little more ...intense.
>>7503007
Feels like the beginning of something. Good in that it makes me want to read more, but it feels incomplete.
>>7502997
Nigga, that's copy and paste from The Tunnel by Gass.
( i couldn't fit the sentence before, but he's in a nasty bus-stop at night)
He entered, barely able to discern the plywood seat from the rest of the shrouded interior, and from his dull sharp footsteps he could tell the floor was concrete. He turned around and sat down, the vertical strip of treefiltered light confirming his suspicions about the floor, presenting a luminous strip of orange-tinged concrete, pockmarked and dusted with old dirt as though for for prints. The upturned churchhouse bodies of long-dead spiders lay capsized casting ribcage shadows through their diamondtapered legs. It almost looked like they had assumed complex positions for nighttime meditation, and that they were simply lost in their tiny spider thoughts. He could very easily see his face bathed in white winter light bursting through the door several months later, the snowcapped evergreens bustling to the curb hidden beneath banks of iced-over snow, the choppy steel river visible through his vaporous breath, both barely distinguished from the sky’s iron sheet. The light would fill the bus stop, he would feel like water was dripping somewhere, like he was on some kind of homestead and his mother filled the kitchen with steam from kettles and heat from dutch ovens and his father was trudging to his knees somewhere off and when he’d trudged back through his parallel canals he would redfaced unravel the damp clothing and leave it in the front room, maybe on the floor, and sit pensively by the window with a cup of something hot exhaling his same vapor, viewing through the steam the ochre windowframe, the snowy plain and its single bowed and naked tree, the old one which was verdant and caring in springtime among its congregation of grass blades all shouting color, the thought welled in him and shook like a shark that somewhere they and he could live in winter and they could sleep satisfied facing each other as proud country hillocks beneath the covers rather than tumescent growths stretching skin, it welled in him that souls could be satisfied while tethered to each other, that there wasn’t just a straining choking forceful third attached between the two bolting from its post. It was positively ideal and the juxtaposition between the glaring snowlight and the dulcet gloom brought him very close to tears for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, much like how at times a child will be presented with a situation his faculties cannot comprehend, but from the wordless wrongthread running through and binding the whole thing built the pressure in his sinuses and let loose tears and wailing because he could just feel something was wrong, faces were wrong, postures were wrong, the light was pale and sickly, the trees were slouched in the mist, his eyes were behind cellophane, all of it felt wrong, just as it did now.
>>7503007
However, on Friday night, a lot of my shopping in one of the new restaurants, not boring tool moved in days. The answer to this question the girls, I wanted to send a quick bowl of food goes to sleep until noon and from home. In time before that happened my ass, you shame. But hey, some people 21:00, and bread daily, five of them, business clubs, you can put his eyes closed. I've got to tell you the truth, that's about how I absolutely expect true, that can not ...... I / Month / door.
I was off slowly cliche. "You can go to school, get an e-mail will be taken care of." Number and see to read unknown words ... what the hell? There is this idea? However, it is possible, they do not worry, do not say why, although "listen" to this email. I will send this song does.
I'm 18, I want to go to school for the first year of high school. But hey, I've got right now, I think we are living in the building. I have the right sofa / near nonsense kitchen, open plan living. 2 seconds to lock the screen after hearing a festival full smartphone. The new head of my e-mail. You see, I really need to run a university e-mail. When I signed the first time in my side, whose names and organization as a whole frame. Now, you can create the image above, you can give it.
This means that cool, swallow read 70 degrees. Warning, before creation, simple small screen without concern.
The oerounreul, break alarm early Gill, but the time of my life, a little ...... on the will of the name.
FTFY
Merry Christmas.
Any feedback would be appreciated. This is the first chapter of my story about missionaries visiting a rural country, only to have to face rejection of their own faith.
A poem for you on Christmas. Any critique would be widely appreciated
It was an evening downpour,
You were placing fingers through the notches in my spine, blossoming a snowflake in my empty lungs while I was sinking nails into you castle made of glass.
You are where you drive to your whole life to never catch the shadow of the sun under the sky by which you were left behind.
Restless needles in your heart drain all the pain out and sink it into the ground.
May it be your marrow that makes it out alongside pain so that my fingers could fit too into your untroubled spine.
And when we both stray straight, we’ll be as upward as our backs raining down in blood drops from the hazy skyline
On a stormy night.
>>7504635
It was alright. Some janky sentences, like "you are where you drive to your whole life to never..." That and the last few lines just didn't flow well at all. It didnt feel much like a poem, but it built a sirt of atmosphere. Try using more words that are similar based on their inner letters and sounds rather than their first, get a good mix
Oh, there once was a hero named Ragnar the Red
Who came riding to Whiterun from ole Rorikstead
And the braggart did swagger and brandish his blade
As he told of bold battles and gold he had made
But then he went quiet, did Ragnar the Red
When he met the shield-maiden Matilda, who said;
"Oh, you talk and you lie and you drink all our mead
Now I think it's high time that you lie down and bleed!"
And so then came clashing and slashing of steel
As the brave lass Matilda charged in, full of zeal
And the braggart named Ragnar was boastful no more-
When his ugly red head rolled around on the floor!
>>7504653
Wow! Good Poetry, My Friend! Very Nice, I'll Have To Recite This At My Next RennFaire Living History Orgy!
>>7504681
Why is every first letter of every word in you post capitalism?
>>7504737
because he's preparing for Neo-Chinamerican post-capitalism
No one asks for silence this morning
but we give it without question. The dawn,
long past, brought a haze of heat, laid it down
over us heavy, not at all like your body
over mine. Not at all like that.
Last night, a storm struck us down.
I watched lightning crack the side of the barn,
wind snap the bean trellis, toss it up, spinning.
We salvage what we can.
The sky doesn’t ask if we want our arms
slick with sweat as we pick beans, row on row,
does not ask if we want to kneel in the shade
panting like old house cats, to vomit into the weeds.
July doesn’t ask what we desire.
It only creeps up over the hill each morning,
brings us what we deserve.
>>7502408
>nasuem
It's "nauseum"
>>7504254
I feel a little biased by the awesome graphic design
>>7504768
kek
>>7504254
I don't know, man. It seems really formal. I appreciate the rigor—I guess it's just not my kind of thing.
Shredded and ground in morning light
are reasons not to move.
Every electrically warm, recirculated puff
Is a cushioned shackle, strapping wrist to mattress.
He stares down the implausible slash
Of his aluminum desk lamp, cut stiff
And brightly snaking over more absorptive surfaces
Of cloth.
He smashes the alarm-bar.
His routine’s a guilded corridor, built
To not crumble. Punctuality is never questioned –
Except:
He trades the lobby marble for cement
And finds it damp. Early neons splash
Down gutters; each headlamp’s a fractured spark;
Lit apartment windows scatter over
Black ships of bulky glass, vanishing up.
It’s still too dark to track the figures
Loping over sidewalk rivulets, to register
Whether they’re bearing expressions on
Journeys westward, eastward; elsewhere.
He almost falls in line and traces paths
Spiralling through the high-note alley choruses,
Traffic perfumes; past slap-latch open storefronts.
But he drinks it in; the alley's fruitful mist;
Then boards a cab, and starts again.
"Did ya hear it, captain Big Beard? They sayin there be a witch out on the loose in these parts of the sea!"
Captain Big Beard frowned at One-Legged Jimmy. "Nonsense. Ain't no such thing as witches. This here a pirate story, arr!"
One-Legged Jimmy argued. "There be witches in pirate stories!"
"There be not!"
"Oh yeah? What about all them voodoo ladies from all them pirate stories?" Fatman-John intervened, joining them by the stern.
From the corner, Golden-Tooth Jackson watched them in silence.
"Legend is," One-Legged Jimmy continued, "that them witches in this part of the sea can turn into anyone at will! And fool a whole crew! Bring down the boat!"
"I'll have none of that talk on my ship!" Captain Big Beard yelled, downing a shot of rum. "There be no witches and that be the end of that!"
"Why ya be so defensive, Captain?" Fatman-John asked, in a suspicious tone. "What ya be hidin?"
"Are ya implying something, ya scurvy dog?"
"I'm sayin it be pretty weird that ya never heard of witches in pirate stories," Fatman continued. "And that ya don't let us talk 'bout witches on the boat!"
"Aye!" One-Legged Jimmy agreed.
Bald Nick joined them. "What's this talk about witches?"
From his corner, Golden-Tooth Jackson continued to watch in silence.
"We think the captain be a shape-shifting witch!" One-Legged Jimmy bellowed. "Trying to bring down the ship!"
"That be a pretty big word for a pirate; shape-shifting!"
"One-Legged Jimmy is actually college educated," Fatman-John intervened, with a smile. "We all have a fairly good understanding of grammar and spelling, and the structure of the English language in general. It's just more fun to talk like pirates."
"Aye," One-Legged Jimmy agreed. "Loads more fun."
"Look!" Bellowed Bald Nick, a horrified look on his face as he pointed. Fatman and One-Legged turned to find the Captain… or what used to be the Captain.
In his place, a gray-haired, crooked-nose witch in black robes and a pointy hat hovered a few feet from the ground, green smoke rising from the wood under her feet.
"Told ya! The captain be a witch!"
"Well, that be odd," Fatman said, scratching his head.
"Why?"
"Cause I be a witch too." Fatman said, turning to a witch not unlike the Captain in front of the other's eyes.
"You be a witch? Then why you be arguing that there is witches in pirate stories?" The Captain asked. "Why you not pretending you don't know 'bout witches like me?"
"I be trying to throw you off," Fatman-now-witch replied.
"I'll be darned, me too," One-Legged Jimmy joined, turning into a witch himself.
"Well that makes four of us," Bald Nick intervened, as he too turned to a pointy-hatted old lady.
The four witches exchanged looks. "Guess witches be pretty common in pirate stories, heh?"
"Aye."
"Aye."
"Aye."
From his corner, Golden-Tooth Jackson's eyes were wide like the full moon above.
>>7504803
I didn't like most of the second half, because you slid into exposition and the exposition seemed rote. Also 'haze of heat' is cliche. But I really liked the fifth line.
>>7505073
please xritique my work
>>7505121
what is your work?
>>7505077
Really? You really stole a story from r/writingprompts?
>>7504254
I don't enjoy this. It's hard for me to follow. We may have different sensibilities, but if you're interested, my departure points included:
'A lonely crow pecked at a sapling in the soil, a single darkened shape in a lake of gold...The oven was warm and its fire was left burning, spilling orange light into the room that mixed with the last dying rays of the day's autumnal sun.'
It's a mash of cliches. The cliches are all 'pseudo-poetic.' The barrage of images comes so near the beginning of the story that I have no personal context; none of these observations 'belong' to any character. There is no subtext; there is only generic 'lyricism.'
Going out on a limb, I would tag this page's author as a young writer trying to imitate the 'highbrow' books he or she has read. I would advise trying to write the stories and styles he or she personally enjoys rather than the ones he or she considers 'sophisticated.'
I wrote a silly little poem for history class. Nothing special but I did it in under an hour and I was under pressure.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0tcw476M9dA
>>7505240
Well? Anyone going to take a look at it?
>>7502493
You got some touches here, Joyce. But lets see you make a story out of this.
>>7505400
>look
>>7505446
k
e
k
>>7505240
>http://vocaroo.com/i/s0tcw476M9dA
During your tenure as PM I'd appreciate it if you commissioned /lit/ a fleet of Oxbridge wenches and a knighthood.
Blasted by the engine of booze,
swept and sucked away–by the tide?
No, the surf surfeiting with curious krill
who hide in plain sight, saying things like
I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals.
Please, I'd love another glass–Anis, or Ouzo?
Neither, de Niro and I enjoy chilled martinis
and platters of caviar covered blinis–
I lie as often as I'm sober and rhyming,
it just depends on our mutual timing, I'm Swiss.
Chronological juggernaut catapulting hearts,
I'm a ladykiller and child, let me eat your farts.
Did you get the reference–ahem–book for your thesis?
What, are we having a conversation or flinging feces?
Start filming with your eyes and drop the ball,
we'll all be dead before the fall–eschaton not season.
I forget, but I know I came here for a good reason.
Hmm.
Oh yeah: write drunk, edit sober.
Acid and alkali: crimson and clover.
Let us not overthink it. Enjoy
The loving air, the caressing breeze that tickles
you playfully, boy, the loose leaves that
toy with the air, probing it's ear
Touching slightly inappropriate places in long swooping strokes
And settling down with a final farewell kiss
Dances onto the ground and (eventually) into the mist
But if I am honest, completely honest, it drives me to nothing at all
the dazzling blue skies to spend a day with my
thoughts or the aunts and uncles of green grasses to fly by
on a trip to Omaha
Or Kansas City, the various generic hodgepodges of people
In flyover country
Then would the tender caresses of love soothe you?
A person beside you at all hours,
Sunk into your soul (and smelling vaguely like flowers)
to raise, heal, and enhance, given to you by some greater power?
I would, I would, but it's always I could-
I could go out there and change my faces
To meet other faces and join the races
To feel OK and fine all of the time
Here's no great matter, told by no great prophet
I have given up hope- I have lost it
Somewhere in the lingering hours of the day
And the sleepy corners of a night
What is there to live for if there is no hope then?
You'd ruin everything I'd try to give you.
It'll be what I try to figure every day
As we go our separate ways
Maybe one day the feeling in my chest
Will learned to be controlled, slave, to my behest
And I shall know happiness, know it all
And the voices in the dying Fall
Will be frozen by Winter-
Even if the Spring mud is comfy, I cannot rest;
I must get to the Summer shores.
>>7505773
a highly potent variety of 'bad' tbqhff
>>7505781
what does that even mean desu senpai i'm baka at this criticism tear me a new asshole and brutally fuck it please
>>7504213
Please rape my prose
I saw graffiti today
that said:
Somebody died here,
probably.
I thought it strange for a cemetery,
where people don't go to die
(statistically speaking, of course)
but to simply remain remains: dead–!
A baby cries down the hall.
Sorry, I have to change
his diaper.
TTYL.
>>7504213
Bite the sheets, I'm going in dry (your prose might be but I didn't read it. Consider this a consolation prize.)
Dot, dot, dot.
More time ticks.
Okay so now I actually read (most of) it, and can already tell you that ye must trim, hedge, cut, and tighten! It's generally nice, but requires concision, twine-like cogency, the swift reeling of a mountains scenes out a car window.
Inhale, exhale: prevail.
Cut it like a depressed teen, and let the blood of your mind's arterial roots seep into your lenticularly lilting lines of marmite.
>>7505813
oh my god, stop
>>7505813
Thanks for actually giving something back. This was one of the less concise passages I could have picked, its more of a black sheep than anything else
She continued to stare at me. Then she laughed. It seemed like 3 hours went by, and she did NOT STOP FUCKING LAUGHING!
"SHUT UP!" I finally yelled at her. Then she pulled back her fist and punched me in the face. My eyes went red, and my nose began to bled. I felt a bony pain, but my ears began to shut down, and I blacked out.
Then I saw a white light.
>>7505826
I'm trying to actually give constructive feedback, albeit a tad jocular ;)
What are you doing, miss negative nancy?
>>7505834
Cool–!
And yeah, I just want to mention that I did in fact enjoy it. Definitely keep writing, especially if you derive true pleasure from it which it seems like you do.
>>7505867
>began to bled
shouldnt it be bleed?
Straddling the line between idiocy and genius:
that is all.
>>7505883
probz a typu
>>7505796
I really love the way you write. Great imagery throughout it all, probably the best I've ever seen in a critique thread
>luminous strip of orange-tinged congrete, pockmarked and dusted with old dirt as for prints
>snowcapped evergreens bustling to the curb hidden beneathe banks of ice-covered snow
Absolutely loved these lines. I wasn't really sure what was going on though, you have a nack for painting a picture for the reader and that's awesome, but in excess it can very much distract them from the actual plot itself. Just cut out unnecessary descriptions, or shorten preexisting ones so they don't obscure the main focus point. Feels like this thing needs some kind of context to understand or maybe I'm just autistic, can you explain it?
Back to Shadowland
Seizure, feast and recomposure of eternal darkness is why we live in this sacred land of offended mushrooms
i don't feel sorry yet my dreams are falling asleep in order, one by one and neglected after moments of dismay
why i'm writing in discontempt of my own self-esteem is a mistery to the all-encompassing
so far nothing has changed ever since i left you i met another girl who was just as vile and just as violent to my wondering
how i've met such person in fame which we trust not to be disconnected after all but yet i need it in my bones
because i'm nothing but an amounted amount of amoseurs of dipshit called atom energy which we all agree to ignore
suzaku, haruku an shieru i'm so sorry and please, please be wherever i've left you at the train station or your doorstep
'cause right now all i feel is desensibilization for the world which turns into itself and inside out oh my god
do i need a drink whenever you fall to sleep and back and give me your back all the time which is disgracing or something
all my words are all my worlds the hate and hate and hate and replay. Thick and thin is all I got.
There's nothing worthwhile in this entire thread.
>>7502256
More of an anti-hero, but I am a professional script editor by trade for now.
>>7502408
Someone else described as middle school, but I'd say it's more like college sophomore with depression.
>I tightened the Velcro straps on the light up shoes my mom bought me and went on my journey to the other side of the wall.
Small mistakes not withstanding, this sentences here marks a narrative shift that cannot be overlooked. You've shattered what was a relatively bland analogy (it needs work but it wasn't the worst piece of shit I've ever seen to embody writer's block/self loathing) into a strange pseudo-blog speculative fiction smorgasbord. I thought shit was going to get real, but you went off some tangential bullshit.
The seedy "self-loathing narcissistic archetypal loser" personification derivatives need some work, but you're on the right track -- I should know, I wear the same patches.
You have the makings of something profound but you need .......i just pulled some ninja shit and clapped a mosquito and actually killed it....why the fuck is there a mosquito in here around this time of year? the fuck yo.........anyway, you need to tighten this shit up. You need to pick a focus. Are you blogging like the start? Are you telling a story with a POV character (right now the lens is highly unfocused)? Are you writing poetry (sometimes your narrative gets derailed). I get the metaphors, I'm certain they're familiar to every great writer, but you need to pick which lines on their own are strong enough to survive an editor's pass. A lot of this is just repetitive and trite. I'll leave you to sort out what.
Dialogue grammar is a bit off. It's a comma unless the clause ends. {QUOTE}{DIALOGUE}{COMMA}{CLOSE QUOTE} {ATTRIBUTION} "Words," I said. Unless the clause ends entirely without attribution. "Nigger." The sky was red.
Truthfully, I have no ambition to read more of this pseudo-intellectual garbage so I'll stop there. Trash most of it, pick what parts you need and revise accordingly. You've got too many ideas pressed in. Need focus.
>>7502493
What is this?
>>7503007
Please buy a SHIFT KEY.
>>7504213
You're mixing metaphors in the first sentence. "dull sharp" and you're telling shit at me: "he could tell". You can cut down on adverbs considerably "barely able" should just be able. If it ends with -LY ("very easily") fucking kill yourself and remove it.
Your prose are entirely too fucking long. Half your shit starts with "HE VERBED". Stop trying to sound smart by using words you think are interesting and make this easier to read. You're trying to press so much into these sentences to be flashy and you end up with
>The upturned churchhouse bodies of long-dead spiders lay capsized casting ribcage shadows through their diamondtapered legs.
Like nigga can you even draw that? Read that shit out loud, what teh fuck do you think you are Aesop Rock? This is prose.
Work on making your sentences more basic.
"What I want is a world where I can break anything beautiful, like a glass filled with red wine, and not see it crashing."
"How so?"
"In such a manner that the wine flows instantly and in slow motion, from the cup where it's from, each drop it's own vivid, blossoming world of joy and realization."
"I don't understand this." She rolled her blue eyes up to the ceiling, made a lazy sound with her mouth and curved her body up the white sheets.
"Nevertheless you feel amused by the idea".
"It's such a strange... way to say things, I guess. Don't let me upset you."
"I want a world where everything is lovely to see and break, where I can love and where lust can overflow and nothing is ever wrong."
"But you already live in it."
The opening line.
Would it hook you enough to read the first page / google my shit or search me up if you randomly saw this in the library under new releases?
>Young Ga’ne has been taught, as were those few children of the Aureate’s paramours, that one could perceive glimpses into the future and reveal their destiny and of those around them and because of this only the exceptional ones can alter or enforce it. So he came to believe that he would eventually be the one to usher forth change.
>>7505941
post yours jackass
>>7506003
Just remember: he probably still lives with his mom.
>>7504254
I don't know how to approach this one. It's a unique style, I don't have taste for it. Some of your sentences are well thought out with vibrant imagery, but most are just a convoluted clusterfuck of lit-fic.
It's bordering on purple prose, more of a maroon.
You're also mixing what appears to be ye olden engrish in. "That night the sun did set" etc. That entire sentence confused me. Why would it rise again at night? The follow up is loose. Most of this loose. The sentences don't seem to have cogent ordering. You have a few run-on sentences here and there, but nothing pervasive.
>Then, down the hill. . . . . . run on . . . .
A lot of redundant words stuffed in. Stuff like "stood enveloped in a circle" why not just "encircled".
The narrator style is again just awkward, I don't really know how to approach this. If this came across my desk as a spec I'd trash it just on that criteria.
>>7504635
These are just random words. Stop using random words and make something meaningful. If you can describe in detail why you chose each word the way you did I'd take this seriously, but I seriously doubt you'd be able to.
>>7504803
Similar to the last one, what's the purpose? The first portion seems as disconnected as a severed arm to the last. There was nothing I could find that called back to the start and no profound message to be learned.
>>7505066
The word we use in the industry is 'desperate'.
>>7505073
Did you write the last 2 as well? Same problems.
>>7505077
Mother fuck finally some shit to read. Captain should be caps. I'd add some imagery somewhere, you're just spitting names mostly. For all I know One-Legged Jimmy has two legs.
Also, you're not attributing your dialogue properly in the first part.
Also, they're speaking like niggers, not pirates.
Also, you need to stop trying to be fancy with your attributions. use the word SAID. I shit you the fuck not, if this came across any agent's desk for pub query you'd get the bin on that alone. It's not a small problem. You are to use said unless its a rare occasion where volume is being modified, e.g screamed. None of this intervened, argued, etc.
Also, you're tossing way too many names at me at once.
Also, any competent editor will tell you the same: Stop using ! when a period will work. ! is reserved for extreme situations where plot matters, not just because you imagine the characters are excited or being loud.
Advice: Consider attributing dialogue not by saying "Character said" but instead by just showing us an action. "Aye!" One-Legged Jimmy scratched his chin. "OP is a faggot."
>>7505192
>being on r/*
>>7505954
This reads like a poorly translated anime where the producer didn't get the memo about editing for grammar like periods and commas.
>>7506017
>you need to stop trying to be fancy with your attributions. use the word SAID. I shit you the fuck not, if this came across any agent's desk for pub query you'd get the bin on that alone. It's not a small problem. You are to use said unless its a rare occasion where volume is being modified, e.g screamed. None of this intervened, argued, etc.
Not anon, but this is swell advice. Thanks
>>7505446
He already did.
>>7506050
It weakens the readability. It's like tossing glitter where it's not needed. Your brain needs zero seconds to read "character said" and just understand what's happening. You smash through that immersion when you add anything extra that isn't expected (e.g shouted).
"You're a huge faggot, OP!" Character regaled, puffing his pipe. "And a twat, as well," he surmised.
It's ridiculous. You have to spend like 4 seconds just figuring out what the fuck the words mean and in that time you're now aware you are looking at a page. The best way to do an attribution is to not do it at all unless explicitly necessary following an Antecedent switch. If you must do it, just use an active sentence (with a verb).
Here is the shit list that kills more manuscripts than any other (at least for me).
1) Paragraph size and grammar.
These are always immediately obvious and I'd say burn out 4 out of 10 manuscripts without even doing much more than passively glancing at the first page.
2) Dialogue syntax:
This is the absolute #1 killer. It's the second thing I read. The first thing in quotes. If I have to turn more than 3 pages (250 words aprx) to find dialogue, I usually burn it. If there is any hint of poor attribution or syntax in the dialogue, it's dead. 90% of my sorting work gets done on these two alone.
3) Your opening paragraph needs to be absolutely immaculate.
There goes the 10%...
4) Cliche and Trope watch:
No looking in mirrors, no prologues where POV dies, no waking up dazed and confused...is...is that blood!? (spoiler: I'll never know because you're burned)
5) Info-dumping
If you have a paragraph dedicated to backstory, you're burned. Show don't talk at me. I don't give a mother fuck about what age the first king died, or when the aliens invaded. Expose that through dialogue.
6) Inconsistent narration
Most of the time this happens when someone starts a story in 1st person, but then somehow ends up talking directly to the reader with omnipotent info.
7) Name or glossary bombardment.
There is only so much "in world" garbage a reader can absorb at once. Tossing too many without context is a burn.
That's really about it. There a myriad of other errors (purple prose, thesaurus abuse etc) I burn for but these 7 just on their own make up such a vast majority of the problems I see I'm amazed people don't learn them.
>>7506128
>no prologues where POV dies
what do you mean by POV dies?
>>7505773
pls critique critique anon
please rape
I.
The war has been raging on for ten years now, the walls everywhere are scarred with gunfire, the desert is littered with the remains of artillery convoys and flask jackets, canteens, demolished rifles, shards of tires, glass, shrapnel, helmets, and dismembered limbs. I am a Gleaner, I find the valuable things: the pack of cigarettes, the comb, the photographs, and steal off with them. My sole company are the dead men who I meet on the way and whose pockets I swipe clean; they don’t care about their possessions, it is the look on their frozen faces that tell me what they truly lost.
This one that I stand over is a corpse infused with the warmth of the sand and his eyes possess a strange height and temperament, as if he had climbed the summit of a mountain and looked down to see the great veneer of a thousand civilizations molding the earth beneath their feet into ziggurats and pyramids-- the little men laboring while a bounty of fauna scatters away and a myriad of birds flock the skies, and kings languishing in the sun beneath the canopy of umbrellas held by gorgeous wives and daughters. He had seen how frantic it was and died from his heights ashamed of it all. He did not play the sand games, hunt or be hunted. He was lost in time and did not think to even care for his life a little more in the skirmish.
I touch his immaculate face: his skin is smooth and his cheekbone are soft, but his nose and jaw are chiseled like stone. He smells like a dead man should and I take nothing from him.
II.
We Gleaners of the Sahara only get by on what we kind find in the scrapyard of war...
>>7506343
>shards of tires
This doesn't make much sense to me. Shreds/scraps maybe?
>a corpse infused with the warmth of the sand
Unclear too. Does this mean the corpse is warm? That it's the same color as the sand? What are you getting at here?
>a bounty of fauna scatters away and a myriad of birds flock the skies
The parallelism sounds really forced here. A bounty of fauna? Eh.
>died from his heights
?
>He smells like a dead man should and I take nothing from him.
Like this a lot, probably my favorite sentence you wrote. Reads much more naturally and powerfully than some of the other parts, which were often flowery or contrived. My advice would be to simplify and condense; try to find ways to convey the same images and ideas with punchier, more straightforward prose.
Overall I thought it was pretty good, you have a good instinct for writing I think. It left me interested at least.
P.S.
>get by on what we kind find in the scrapyard
This is clearly a typo, just bringing it to your attention: omit "kind."
>>7506159
It's usually a short story, where the point of view (POV) / protagonist character literally dies, usually at the very end of the prologue. He blinks...the blood is spilling from the wound....cut to darkness....now it was only darkness...omg the horror. So serious. Wow. Wow. Amaze. FADE OUT:
FADE IN:
TRITE ARCHETYPAL ANTAGONISTIC STEP PARENT stands above our hero, MARRY SUE, 17, who is in bed, already staring at a mirror. . . .
and so on with the bullshit narrative we've seen a thousand times in the trash before where it belongs and will stay always . . .
>>7506343
You're listing way too much way too quickly. This isn't a screen play. You can reveal all this bogus imagery later. Also, you need to learn the difference between a full stop (a period) and a comma. most of these are run on sentences. If I met your character on the side of the road (say in Fall Out 4 for example) and he started talking that way, I'd walk away immediately. It's overwhelming, convoluted, and not engaging. There is no story or voice, just basic facts with a " I am " thrown in front of the bullet points.
Your second paragraph starts with a massive run on + same problems as the first.
Seriously, if you met this guy on the side of the road would YOU talk to him? Boooorrrinnnnggg.
Very rough draft of something I've been kicking around in my head for a while. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
>>7506378
You make some good points. Simplify and condense I shall. And, yikes, all those typos. I didn't even see them. Thanks!
>>7505062
thanks :-)
>>7505066
>>7505225
>>7506017
is this any better? I tried to make it a little less dense
>>7506478
i read the first paragraph.
Please dont use "beer-dark" to describe something. And replace scimitar" with crescent.
>>7506526
Absolutely right. I posted this shit without reading over it, can't believe I wrote that. I still kind alike scimitar actually, but beer-dark is dumb.
>>7506528
I liked the part where you describe her being "too old" to think such things like fishermen being monsters. It gives a feeling of nostalgia that people can relate to. I would capitalize on this.
>>7506547
Thank you! I was hoping to convey something like that, I'm glad you liked it! I'll keep this in mind when I revise.
"I'm not a meme. I'm not a meme. I'm NOT a meme." I continued to repeat my mantra to myself-- as if, somehow, they'd make the truth untrue. I kept saying it until my lips were cold and blue, but in the end, I was nothing but a meme. My soul, a meme soul. And my heart, a meme heart. My hopes and dreams? More like my hopes and memes.
I will never escape this dank prison of my own creation. Let no one ever suffer the way I have.
The memes are absorbing me for my active denigration. Pray for me.
>>7506579
I believe you are misusing the word "denigration". More to the point, the bathos of the bit where it switches to " more like hopes and memes" is grating rather than funny.
Anyone got the big list of really shit submissions?
>>7506803
Not him, but you do sound really posh.
>>7506874
Thanks, perhaps. But I'm still common as can be.
Off topic, but I do wonder if my accent is the kind that girls (or boys) in america would find attractive.
>>7501941
I've been doing it my entire life because that's how we do it in Poland
He squats down, beads of sweat already half-formed on his brow, T.P. within reach, magazines at the side, the sort of lowbrow mags enjoyed by the other boys on the vessel, who Slothrop hopes will not interrupt him mid-shit: the lock on the stall door has been busted as long as he can remember. The first brown log comes sliding out, his sphincter moving to push it out into the water below, where it lands in drops with a series of loud splashes, like gumboots on the surface of a puddle.
"Are you about done in there?" sez Heinrich, giving a few sturdy raps that take Slothrop by surprise.
"Just a minute,"
He discharges a further three ovular lumps of slimy shit and wipes the perspiration from his forehead with the T.P. He can tell there's still shit to come, but he's getting nervous and it won't eject. Maybe Heinrich can teach him the proper technique. .
Josephine's father owned the church near the hill and it was at that church that she prayed and wept and hoped that God would provide the comfort and solace that life never seemed to afford her, not as long as she was married to Gabriel, not that mattered considering she had always been destined for a life of servitude and suffering, all under the watchful eye of God, a God she (Josephine) wasn't always sure that she believed in, at least not as much as she believed in the faces of the children that she saw exiting from the school near the church in the afternoon, not that she, a fourth-generation protestant with the same Messianic complex of three generations of Indigos before her, had had any prior attraction to the work and duties of a mother and housewife, but she was reticent to complain or otherwise voice her disapproval about anything that she (Josephine) saw as being out of place or otherwise impossible to reconcile with the tenets of Christianity which she had always been taught, those which she had always knew were untenable but without imperfection there could be no salvation.
>>7506579
>My hopes and dreams? More like my hopes and memes.
This is a horrible way to end that paragraph. You could probably get rid of the last paragraph ("The memes are absorbing me..."), too.
>>7507002
That is one long fucking sentence. See if you can break it into a multi-sentence paragraph and give it a little rhythm. If not, figure out if every word in that sentence is necessary; all words are optional until they're not.
>>7506050
This so much. In middle school we had a published author come in during the creative writing unit and this was one of the 1st things he said. He told us that if diolouge is well written then the reader dosnt need to be told how the character said it. Ironically the next year my English teacher didn't let us use "said" in creative writing because it was too "boring". As a result, I remember that all the diolouge in my story sounded over the top and contrived. This is because most real people in real coversations don't "mutter" or "exclaim" their words except for in very specific situations.
Evil works in ways not meant for logic
dissenting from decency contributing to complacency
Exploiting the exponentially expanding abyss of apathy
Aggravating and egregiously clinging to the only thing we are consistently cleaving
Humanity in a nutshell gives to hyperbole
An asymptote striving for parallel accordance to the standard of living airtight but porous
Always close but ever gently so further
Unobtainable despite undying dedication and fervor
That last millimeter
Harder than diamonds
Screams fail to the deafness of neurotic fears like falling descend into your own darkness
Not one of us can know what hides behind the next second
All we can do is hem haw and reckon
So brace for the best bestowed with your arrogance
Let the waves crack your skull open
Flow free from fairness
If the scales tip beware of the fair weather constant;
Belligerent, morose, hopeless and obstinate.
>>7507528
You can also use description to indicate specific levels of voice or get across the proper mood. Compare:
>"Oh, motherfucking hell!" Jack screamed.
>"Oh, motherfucking hell!" Jack slammed his fist down on the table.
You don't need to do that all the time. But it can help you consider whether a non-"said" dialogue tag is necessary.
The turd in the toilet took two seconds to tear apart. My fingerprints rilled with shit. It was supposed to be inside, but it was all doo doo. I glare at grandma. 'Why?'
Next thing I know, I'm at Romanelli's Scrap Metal arguing with handless cashier over how much grandma's walker is worth. 'Wha? This is aluminium alloy—no, I don't know with what!'
Back at the house grandma beckons. 'It is in my cunt' she whispers against my ear. So I guide her in the bathroom, undo her pants, and help her sit on the toilet. With a breaststroke motion I part her knees, her skin oldwoman soft. I feel my way into her melanin drained bush, of course she's self lubricating, why not? Middle and ring finger, searching. Has she been lying? Is she delusional? Insane?
My name is Alex Trebek, I may have all the Answers, but the real Answers are the Questions.
I was in DC all week. I got to sit next to Pope Francis today flying into JFK. Doing the NYT crossword, he turns to me, 'four letter word for a woman, ending in 'u-n-t'?'
'Aunt'
'Do you have an eraser?'
Now, in my voice: The Questions are the Answers.
Sunbirds
Most days incompetent
scoundrels
about
these routes
at midday
underneath the unlit streetlamps
oblivious to the popsicle pushcarts
high-minded
laconic like me
traipse
in the misery of traffic
perched on the retaining wall
at the edge
of my
vocabulary
http://pastebin.com/B5grsLi8
I wrote sumthin' spoopy. Was inspired by Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Lovecraft and Frankenstien. I've decided I'm not very good. I'm going to keep practicing, reading, daily, as I do, but to write something that satisfies me, and makes me happy. I'm not really in your league, much beneath it. But I think in the end, even if I turn out trash, I can be happy with that trash.
>>7507903
Beautiful, Anon. You touch upon so many human triumphs and falterings in one single shot. In all seriousness, I got a good chuckle from the last part. Is this a serious work or something to just post for laffs?
>>7506518
I really do enjoy this. Especially when the travelers, pilgrims, missionaries? Whoever they are, when they arrive. You just have such an incredible way with words, describing sleep as being "dark freedom". I think what you've chosen perfectly fits the story, tonally.
I can only really put together words, not do works like this.
"You have failed Caesar for the last time," said Legatus Lanius as he held Aurelius of Phoenix up in the air by his throat. There were five men watching Aurelius wriggle and suffocate in the Legate's clutch, one of whom was Caesar himself, who watched with a gleeful smile and a glass of wine in hand. Degeneracy in the Legion is punishable by death; Caesar had just recently found about about all the booze and "strange meat" in Aurelius' office. He deserved the cross, but since he'd served Caesar so well in the past, Caesar decided to give mercy to his esteemed Centurion and give him the honor of dying at the hands of the infamous Monster of the East. Besides, Lanius had gone almost two days without killing a man. As Aurelius took his last futile gasp for air, Caesar took satisfaction in seeing the death of a degenerate in his own ranks, and relief that Lanius would be placated for at least a little while longer. With a lifeless corpse limping in Lanius' grip, Caesar gave the order to throw it down the Grand Canyon, which Lanius did with earnest. Another stain on the Legion has been washed clean. True to Caesar.
Perhaps this is the wrong thread to ask this, but what constitutes a good piece of prose for you, /lit/? I know it's largely subjective, but I want to know if there's any objective elements to it. Things like 'showing, not telling', for example. Do you think it has convey a clear picture of what's happening in a scene? I'm asking mostly because I'm getting back into writing, and usually when I write do so with the intention of 'painting a picture with words', or something like that. Was just curious about people's input in general. Will post elsewhere if this is considering thread jacking too.
I've always wanted to write.
Here's my first attempt.
http://pastebin.com/NG1eWWpg
>>7508454
I like to ask "is it functional?" You could describe a shoe in 20 fucking pages and relate the shoe back to the jobs it's done or the people it's carried, but if describing that shoe ain't your central point or your goal (ie if you're trying to move a character out the door) you're trying too damn hard.
There are ways of doing this that sit in line with the prose, yes, but the part about writing some people forget is that most of it is designed to be consumed by someone else. It takes a pretty huge hipster to sit there and say "ugggh you don't get the importance of the shoe you fucking plebian!" And then write off everything else the author failed with.
Now there are some places where when done consistently, this might work! I'm reminded of American Psycho where the lengthy descriptions of common items are purposefully done to tire the reader and reveal banality.
But the audience can tell when someone is trying to impress them. Make an earnest attempt all over, I say. Or just describe the shoe as your central point.
>>7506803
Americans just think all Brits sound the same m8, you don't sound that posh. you from up north or the Midlands?
>>7508467
Oooookayyyy
Let's learn a little something about exposition and the cardinal rule of "show, don't tell". I respect your ideas and creativity, and I'm not telling you to stop by a long shot. Fantasy is one of my pleasures, no matter who or where it comes from. And the idea of steam Golemns is cool as shit! The execution though, is what needs work.
When you're writing, keep in mind it needs to be readable. I spend years world building but only show enough of what I need in my writing to make things fantastical, sensical, and keep the reader interested. Not to overwhelm them. And who is giving the exposition? Are you, the narrator, telling us about Steam Golemns? Is that part of your prose?
When world building with the express intent of writing stories based off your lore, always practice moderation. Consider the original starwars trilogy. We don't even know what fucking galaxy they're in? We don't know the intricacies of the force even, but those are revealed to us, and the audience, as both exposition and part of Luke's training (or more importantly known as character development).
Pick and choose when to use exposition and you'll be aces.
>>7506518
bumprandt
>>7508507
Can I get your skype or some sort of contact information? I'd really appreciate your help when writing. I want to eventually turn this into a book
>>7508454
>what constitutes a good piece of prose for you, /lit/? I know it's largely subjective, but I want to know if there's any objective elements to it.
Clarity, clarity, clarity.
Verlyn Klinkenborg's book "Several Short Sentences About Writing" contains a section at the end that looks at horribly written sentences and how to fix them for the sake of clarity. That section alone is worth tracking down the book. (I'll do you one better - http://www.mediafire.com/download/lbajjtmhxk155na/ - but keep this in mind: whether you like the rest of the book is highly subjective.) Here is one example:
>The buffet of diseases, cancers, viruses, and overall deteriorations our present world has to offer is impressive and wary.
>Several problems, beginning with an unworkable metaphor: the “wary buffet.” The adjectives at the end of the sentence must modify the subject. The author of this sentence has completely lost track of the beginning by the time he reaches the end.
>>7508572
How much do you have?
>>7506424
>where the point of view (POV) / protagonist character literally dies
thanks for answering it anon. I had an MS with that kind of idea but the POV didn't die and it's not what you described lol.
You didn't mean to recoil at his touch, but the shivering cold ran like sweat down your neck and shoulders; it made you want to puke. His hand on your arm just aggravated that.
"Hey-! Are you all right?" He hurriedly yelled, the reverb of his voice making you stagger away, before falling over onto your side. You could hear his footsteps weakly spading into the sand as he rushed to you.
Curling your body to stay warm, you suddenly remembered the last time you saw a sunset. You remembered the deepening colors - yellow to tangerine to russet - merge together under the wispy clouds far out on the flat horizon.
The memory of the sun dipping out of the sky for the last time made you nauseous again - so you closed your eyes.
The working of a thread is quite simple, yet David didn't quite understand it at first when he read the myth of Dedalus in the labyrinth. When he did, he wished he would have a thread that he could sew through his mind, capturing each idea and tracing them to his own solution. Maybe he could dodge his fears then, dodge it, kill it, tame it. He could forgive anyone who done him harm, yet this was different. Facing himself like a mountain of hatred, ready to unleash a storm so hellish none'd come out alive of it; certainly he'd come out on the daily news, "spree killer strikes terror to the town's suburbs". Though, he didn't gather so much thrist for blood as much as he would for hunt. To feel the fear between his gnaw. His breath swaying with filth, with degeneracy, with hopelessness. Then find the light by grace of any god... Come out of the dark. Free. Well received by the sun in all His glory, to a world without material boundaries.
>>7501830
she’s bare
dreaming of sweet summer
her whispers
delirious beneath the sea
a symphony of shadow
shines on her lust
sleep
the girls a bitter storm
>>7507066
>That is one long fucking sentence.
I thought somebody else would step in here, but FYI, it's a parody of Faulkner, the joke being that somebody would inevitably feel the need to step in and "correct" the idiosyncrasies of one of the greatest authors of all time.
>>7508682That's it
I don't want to write a sack of shit and be laughed at by the editor.
>>7501868
>>7501925
This is hackliterature, abbly yourself
–An admirer (but it really is bad)
>>7508848
This reads like the huge mental fog you had writing it. You could say it's a neat effect but these things are contagious so it's just uncomfortable to read.
>>7508100
Feces
>>7507615
My eyes hurt
>>7507002
65/100. I mean, in the scale of amateur quality.
>>7506343
Try writing about things you know about. It's scary, yes, but it won't hurt you.
>>7505077
Obviously you mean you've surrendered to turning your writing into cinema? — don't ask me what I mean I won't reply
>>7501988
>Speech is our reference for written language
Your choice to put a ¶ between paragraphs is not speech-oriented
>>7501941
IMO it does look and read better, though I have been afraid to use it in my own writing precisely because of the sort of reactions you can see here.
>>7508467
My skype is Fimphiliacsop if anyone would like to help me write this.
If anybody has any experience with writing books and can offer some help to a new author it'd be greatly appreciated.
>>7508263
>his wit's still thawing
24 words until an obvious grammar error
>>7501830
THE FUNERAL OF FULFILLMENT AND THE ETERNAL REPRISE OF LONGING (lit edition)
"in conclusion, 'mad girl love song' is sylvia plath's most popular poem but also one of her worst:
and that's why this poem will fucking suck
because i am consumed by an unadulterated, adulterating compulsion to replicate
movements and sounds manufactured by the public relations industry and military-industrial complex
because for him i would admit defeat and our fornication would be supervised by masculinity of warmongering, powerful institutions of monotheism,
and i would swallow his seed as a vehicle to honor the abstract ideals that it symbolizes"
(and so the Communist Gangster Mad Computer God commanded that the seeds of destruction be sown worldwide into sleeping, unconscious assholes and the furrows of mankind)
my life revolts like a stomach flopping upside-down by the digestive combustion of raw oyster or a looming sensation of dread,
a seasonal lunacy begging for fleeting closeness through corporal heat, he is an insane and beautiful animal
but this love is not real:
the unbearable and mind-fucking obsession with the idea of HIM is the fanaticism to what he poetically represents to me:
sublime and obscure personal have-nots erroneously linked to the indestructible memory of sensory stimuli from his mass of skin and flesh, infinitesimal atoms of symbiotic meaninglessness
YOU, the arch-enemy of my mental well-being and academic-financial success and a kaleidoscope of suffering through my romantic conception of your being,
im NOT in love, im NOT in love, im NOT in love
i'm just retarded, diseased and Quaaluded
>>7501830
A notification from Camila lights up my phone at half-past Hell. "dude lets go hang outt *martini emoji*", she writes, unironically. I shove off the three airplane blankets off of my bed and take 2 human minutes to get the fuck out of bed. I take a Modalert and look at Facebook for like two minutes. After getting a banh bao from the worst Vietnamese restaurant in Toronto I drive to the new Chinese-owned nightclub where all my friends are. (A passing memory of a forgotten reverence towards asceticism I felt in senior year runs through me. Sardonically, but silently, it mocks me.) I walked three blocks in snowless nettle-wind until I reach the entrance, something kitschy enough to be a vaporwave cover. I queue for a few minutes behind five college kids, all dressed in dark denim and with nose rings. As I approached the front of the line, the itch of a person's aura draws my attention to the bouncer: he's a kid I knew from high school. Not a kid anymore, I guess, but you could see some semblance of a videogame-addict reckless Eurasian slouch-giant inside his juice-pumped soul-vessel. Time fast forwards and I find myself in media res, politely shooting the shit with him in front of LUSCIOUS. He says I look like a Vice Reporter. I grin uncomfortably, pretending it's funny. "What happened to going to the army? Korean conscription or something..." I ask. "Oh, I got court martialled for something akin to vehicular manslaughter." "Oh gee." A short interlude of darkwave garbage coming from the nightclub. "Ran over a five year old girl with a SWAT van. A horrible thing. It's alright though, my new faith forbids military service anyway. Five years now since I became a Jehovah's Witness." "Nice."
He's opening some military gear shop out in Alberta next summer. His dad and him think there's a huge market for that stuff.
"Hey, nice talking to you." "Yeah, you too." I go inside. Camila is the first to turn her head, but the last to say hello.
I'm sitting in my girlfriend's bed with her. "Oh, I don't smoke cigarettes after fucking anymore. Phil Elverum made a song about it... oh and no red meat either, it gives cancer, you know." "Hey," I ask her, "did you see Milton outside?" "Yeah, I was so glad to see him.", she said. A pause. "Apparently he killed someone in Korea." I told her. "Hey, it's just his job. The anarchist kids call soldiers 'helpless puppets of the bourgeoisie'. If you can't think of him as a war hero, just remember he's not the one calling the shots, I guess." "It was a five year old girl." "Oh."
"So when's your girlfriend coming back?" I shrug.
Just jotted this down tonight, might start a novel or novelette with it.
Today started out as any other normal day, even if it didn't end like one. First I awoke laying on my back in the dirt. This was the first thing that I noticed as peculiar since I normally sleep on my side in a bed. Secondly it was not the sound of a particularly poorly thought out eighth birthday present in the form of an alarm clock that would go on to serve me my entire life, more out of its sturdiness than any real fondness for such a thing that awoke me but the angry barking of what must be quite a sizable dog. Finally and if I do say so, most importantly I laid eyed upon what might have been the most beautiful woman I had ever come across. Not the traditional concept of beauty, she was short, appeared to be small breasted and not particularly wide of hips but the way the sunlight fell upon her pale skin and brown hair made my heart skip a beat in a way I was sure it never had before.
>>7501941
>tfw you use greentext arrows for dialogue instead
>>7509365
onlierous @ gmail.com
On Containing the Whims of the Female Creature.
There is no question that if a female isn't well contained it will try to escape. This creature is always scheming even if you manage to keep it illiterate. Forever mischivious the weak willed creature is held prisoner to every whim and passion. While the female is trapped in it's anatomy, the man can easily resist and conquer the biological poison that is emotion. In this passage I will lay out my personally tested methods for perserving the inoccence and ignorance of your female.
The first and most important thing any man can do to secure his female, is simply to minimise as much as possible the exsposure to the world that the female is allowed to have. We know the more a female experiences, the more likely she will fantasize for what she shouldn't have, the female is eternally fixcated on baser things. It is also important to remember that the more often you bring a female into the wild, the higher chance's for carnel fueds to arise over your possession. It is all important that you give your female ample busywork to attend to, so her mind is occupied with only what serves you, as it should be. We are in luck in that all these instructions written are easily implemented with little effort, for the female's weak will is easily sieged and destroyed.
My second piece of advice, seems to make some men very upset, and that is why it must be repeated even more so. That advice is that a female no matter how clean a record, should never be trusted, never even for a moment believe the often soothing but misguided words of a female. Time and time again men have fell prey to the passions of the female, many times to never return to the power they once held over her or the world. Every chance you get you must question, poke and prode out all information from your female, while trying to avoid her emotional flares, which only bring about unnecassary stress. Screeching and whining should never be considered as valid if they are presented by a female.
>>7509993
S-Sorry
I thought I squashed those! Did you read past that?
>>7506017
Thanks for taking the time to critique, sweet anon.
>>7501830
http://w.tt/1miUyY9. Here ya go
>>7510470
Bro, if you're under 25, work on getting in shape, take some public speaking courses or something, and consider counseling. If you're over 25, consider checking yourself in somewhere. That's either some serious serial killer shit and/or some forever alone youngster moaning. I am hoping for the latter.
>>7510596
I liked it. Didn't seem like it was trying too hard to have overly verbose words or prose to impress or anything. Just the right content/description balance for me.
http://pastebin.com/Kam47Zsq
The beginning of my novel about China taking over the world and lesbians.
>>7506518
Please, /please/, use italics for when it jumps into someone's head and uses first person. Very confusing narration style, but that little step would clear it up quite a bit.
>>7511917
But why? He gives good advice. You have nothing to lose (other than your pride) and much to gain. Don't take his criticality personal and *Nike slogan*
>>7510596
One of the better posts in this thread.
>>7511917
worst case, he doesn't know what he's talking about and you learn to trust yourself over random online strangers
best case, the harsh criticism increases your writing quality proportionate to the severity of the censure. don't BE A BITCH!!!
>>7511753
excellent. clockwork orange vibes... rising dragon is a meme tho
>>7511997
Aw dude, thanks. Means a lot.
>>7511991
>>7512008
I guess you guys are right. Well, here it is, I've posted it in other threads, but hasn't really been critiqued. Is it not good enough to critique?
I'd fix the indentation length in the paragraphs if I knew how to, I've just been using tab.
>>7512017
I think there's a tense error where you say that "he is sitting". Everything else is past except that. It's like you establish immediacy then immediately take it away.
>>7512011
Oh aye, but I find most authors who try to deal with the topic just use crass stereotypes. As someone who lives and works in China, I want to try to write a more accurate picture of what a hypothetical Chinese hegemony might look like. Thanks for reading, though! Clockwork Orange is a comparison I hadn't considered, but reading over my stuff so far I can totally get it.
>>7512019
Overdone & unpoetic despite clear aspirations to the contrary.
First paragraph too purple, still nothing going on by the second paragraph except the cheesy appeal for me to care about a foreign land being terrorized.
It seems very historically accurate, I guess.
But to me, it's overwritten. Don't show off, tell a story.
>>7512077
Thanks for the critique, the actual story telling picks up on the second page, the first was really just to introduce the world and setting and all. This happens again when a city is revealed, I go through the feel of the city, and it's history, purpose and such.
>>7512062
It's least bad in thread so far.
>>7512188
Hmm. 5/10. The last sentence is really weak, was hard to understand the grammar; usually reusing the same word twice in short succession (e.g. member) comes across as repetitive or in this case, not altogether sensible. Why should their misery be an act of benevolence? Besides that, the sentence structure and grammar is decent. In the third paragraph, I'm not sure I agree with the contention that the average citizen also insists that others conform to society. Isn't that more due to society itself, the institutions, government, the necessity of economics? The fourth/fifth paragraph are good, they give a good feel for the characters' subjective experience, the relationship between the brothers, and the irony or humor of the situation. The main character sounds like kind of a little shit, pretentious and uptight, so that might be something to watch out for if you are trying to make us empathize with him. Maybe tell us more about why he gets so pissed off about the noise, beyond merely stating he is 'sensitive and intelligent'. That comes across as a little bit sniveling and self-inflated.
>>7512242
Why did you delete anon ... take your critique like a man, my boy!
>>7506128
While most of these rules are generally true, there are tons of exceptions. Paragraph size is highly pragmatic and changes drastically between different authors; there is no standard, although the general guideline that you shouldn't have multi-page paragraphs is absolutely true. (Unless you're already a successful writer.)
Dialogue syntax is not always straightforward. There are various rules, such as using the character's name again instead of a pronoun, when another character has come in between. However, it is often clear from context which character is being referred to, and thus the rule is not always necessary.
Info-dumping is extremely ambiguous. It's absolutely true that one must beware of exposition. Regardless, there are tons of examples where exposition works very well; as in most science fiction and fantasy, for starters. I'm currently reading the Silmarillion, which basically starts out at 90% backstory. 'Show not tell' is an overstated dictum; it's good advice for a beginner, but if all stories were completely composed of showing, they would be incredibly tedious and boring.
The point about names is the same; plenty of outstanding works, e.g. Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, which have tons of names (in that case, street names) that fit perfectly well with the story.
I do absolutely agree with the point about grammar, I think that's probably the number one thing you see in these critique threads. Sentences that aren't completely cogent because they have minor grammatical errors, or punctuation type errors. Having these errors in discussion is one thing -- but in a piece of writing these need to be meticulously avoided.
Thanks for the post anon, not being contentious, just adding my two cents.
>>7511081
I really suck at poetry, so take my comments with a huge grain of salt, but I will try to give my basic reactions:
>>7505804
I get the irony ... could it be more enhanced? Seems a little tentative here. The third stanza shifts kind of abruptly? Why is the last line an acronym? The use of the word probably in the first stanza is a little confusing, like why would that be written with the graffiti. I guess that's more of the irony. Also, I get that the writer thought it strange, but to me, I could see it not being strange to say 'Somebody died here' ... although it doesn't make perfect sense, as you point out, it still sort of fits the situation.
>>7505719
I like the first part a lot, but then when it gets to "I lie as often ..." I don't like it nearly as much from then on out. But I like how you come back to the starting theme at the end. In the beginning, I like the metaphor, the interesting play across ideas, the line about Navy Seals was surprising but not unpleasant. It feels controlled but whimsical and playful. But then, in the second half, it kind of just feels more like indulgent wordplay and free association, not really all that much sense making or cogency to the overall theme. "Drop the ball" feels really cliche to me. If I interpret this correctly, this looks like one of the poems where you started out with some inspiration and desire, but then started to run out of ideas and just wrote more and more nonsense as the lines went on. Which that's fun for personal enjoyment, but yeah it comes across clearly to the reader.
>>7505884
I like haikus and short poems but to me this is just like a sentence, can't say much about it, fairly reasonable/insightful sentence but not substantive enough on its own.
>>7506128
you are the reason why literature can´t evolve
>>7504213
Surprisingly not bad, honestly. It's a very descriptive style, obviously, so some won't have the patience for it, but if you had this kind of style consistent in a story I think it could work well. It gets across the texture of the emotion in a distinctive way. Makes me want to know more about what's really going on, who are these people that are being tethered together.
>>7506970
Not bad, anon ... I definitely empathize with that paranoia/fear/annoyance of being in a one-stall bathroom and dreading that someone will knock or make you get up to finish your shit early. 'Gumboot' is a pretty old timey word but I guess it's reasonable enough. I don't like the use of the slang word 'sez' instead of said, but whatever, it's a free country -- just know it sort of interrupts the flow for a reader to be looking at it and then have to take a second to realize you're just being a /b/tard.
>>7510470
Hahaha this is great, please tell me you intend to turn this into a full length book.
It's like reading the SCUM manifesto but with a posh tone.
>>7510596
This isn't bad at all, I especially like the first paragraph, which seems fairly original and insightful. The second paragraph is a great example of what I was saying before
>>7512265
that exposition is not always bad. Here, the exposition of the situation works perfectly, rather than having to go through the tedium of replaying the scene with Roy, it's all spelled out nice and neat for us here. I fear that in the third paragraph and beyond, you are entering fairly well trodden territory. Nothing wrong with that, but the description doesn't particularly move me and my initial reaction is kind of just like 'oh, another drug scene.' I think what can happen in these writing situations sometimes (just my two cents, not sure if that's what's happening here) is that one tends to go for the "cheap thrill", which here is the drug-induced frenzy, because it's easy to imagine and accessible, rather than going for the more difficult but rewarding writing, which would be something more along the lines of the first and second paragraphs: why the character is there in the first place, the real essence of the character's experience, and less of a 'stock scene'. But you haven't made any errors here in this respect; if the third paragraph turned into a full page of description, then you would be entering more questionable territory.
>>7512417
I would have to agree, it's refreshing to read some anti-feminist writing, even if it does have a healthy share of grammatical mistakes.
>>7510885
This sounds like someone who may have never been with a woman. Almost every guy I know who has had serious girlfriends can empathize with
>>7510470
in some fashion. Now, I don't actually think any less of women, but I think men are entitled to some healthy ribbing and interrogation of the pitfalls of the female gender.
>>7510192
Not bad at all. I like this for the most part. I really like that comment 'I grin uncomfortably, pretending it's funny', that's just kind of funny and interesting; makes the character seem interesting and likable, for being self-deprecating. I would say that it seems there's perhaps a little lack of understanding as to why we should care about the story. What is the character's conflict, problem, etc.? Although, given the shortness of the sample, maybe it just hasn't come up yet. Or maybe the point about his girlfriend not coming back yet is meant to be the motive or centrality of the story. Overall, I would keep reading.
>>7510187
Hmmm ... I suck bad at poetry, I find it hard to read. This took me a few tries. I kind of like it but have some reservations. I like the emotion and intensity of it, the passion, especially as it comes out in the third stanza; "the unbearable and ..." line was very strong for me as it helped me really understand what was going on with everything else ... though I feel like that's not how poet readers are supposed to work, but maybe here I was just looking for something to help crystallize the meaning, so that line pops out. Overall that stanza is pretty strong. "by the digestive combustion of raw oyster" is good, but the way it is paired with "looming sensation of dread", they don't seem to pair well to me. In the second stanza, the reference to a Communist didn't seem to jive with me as another adjective to describe (what I imagine as) a distinctly anti-communist pr industry and military complex. (Maybe I'm interpreting wrong.) Unadulterated followed by adulterating felt a little too cutesy or repetitive to me. Overall the language could probably be tightened up a little bit, it feels like the author probably doesn't want to edit or cut out any line because they all feel too precious to them. I didn't like the last line at all, it gave me a bad feeling of sentimentality, self-pity, and self-involvement, which the rest of the poem was nicely free of. The overall poem is obviously very feminine in tone, but I didn't mind that at all, except for that last line which kind of screams "I'm a self-involved girl worrying about my love life". Hope this is helpful. Overall I liked it.
>>7512417
I don't know if I have enough material for a book, but maybe like a pamphlet? I don't actually hate women by the way.
>>7512379
Guys, this is it's never worth posting legitimate work on a critique thread. Somebody who isn't even familiar enough with the most popular book on /lit/ to recognize the blindingly obvious references and style parody feels qualified to dole out advice.
>>7512328
If online criticism is what's stopping lit's evolution, then the forces of evolution must not be that strong
>>7512590
It's a nice double-blind way of assuring critique rigor. I became a lot more rigorous after I realized I'd rated borges as mediocre.
>>7512590
Oh, you mean legitimate work like something good that you yourself wrote...
If the advice has the sting of a real insult, I say take it.
>>7512609
For interest's sake, the Faulkner parody was mine as well. "The sentences are too long!" Wow, the history of literature would have gone a lot differently if this guy had had his way...
>>7512590
Bizarre
“Lenny,” a voice called. “Lenny!”
Lenny’s bloodshot eyes crept around but his head didn’t budge. He was sat in front of the Ferguson 306 television set. Sarah grabbed Lenny’s malnourished mug and pulled it toward her.
“Lenny. . .” said Sarah. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” said Lenny, looking back at the television screen. Nothing but static, again.
Sarah walked out of the lounge into the kitchen. Fuck, it’s ripe as hell in here. After knocking a few pizza boxes over and stepping in last month’s newspaper, Sarah gave up on even thinking she could clean the place up.
“What happened to your eyes, anyway?” asked Sarah. “Lenny, quit letting that idiot box fry your brain.”
Lenny didn’t respond. After a moment Sarah’s eyes widened and she made her way down the corridor. Lenny launched up and followed, nearly falling over. Before he could catch up
Sarah opened the bathroom door.
“Water,” said Sarah. And she wasn’t wrong. Faucet on the bathtub was knocked clean and a bloodstained shower curtain was used to plug it up.
Lenny was exasperated. “Cleaning. I was up there,” said Lenny. “The ceiling! It needed a scrub down.”
(A very short snippet of a short story I'm putting together. Lenny's explanation was a lie but haven't gotten to that yet.)
>>7512019
I've played enough video games to know that dedicating half a page to shitting on bandits is perfectly justifiable. kek.
I understand why >>7512077 could be put off by the gaudy language in the beginning, and that shift of tone is abrupt, but both these issues can be handled well/justified.
This is definitely something worth working on, but expect more "head up your ass" comments unless your style becomes more minimalistic.
>>7512702
Don't you critique my critique, you little fucker. It's way more bad than it is good.
>>7512708
I don't like it either, but the guy doesn't need to uninstall his word processor and never write again.
>>7512739
If he has inner strength, he won't.
Not ready to post something for critique, but I do have a question: how do you guys structure non-dialogue paragraphs in terms of length?
>>7512816
http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html#9
>>7512850
That would be swell advice if I were writing a fifth-grade essay.
But I'm not.
>>7512859
You think that you're better than William Strunk?
>>7512861
Writing fiction is not the same as writing an essay about photosynthesis that has three introductory paragraphs.
From the window so near the Sun began to pour its light, a light natural for once, so natural that her eyes hurt her as they bore witness to the orb in the sky now only at horizon. She never makes it this far. Usually gone to sleep by now, night forgotten, day never happening, night again and then the city where the lights of blues and greens and reds and yellows strobe on and on to the sound of some man's words or thumps of drums or blows of fanfare or what have it be. All the while with others so close, too close, sweaty, then the drugs--whatever the flavor of the night is--coursing through, eyes wide and pupils big, lights lights lights until air in her face and then another spot and soon there becomes here and lights dark. Same thing, different night, never seeing the sun.
But now the sun is here and her eyes hurt. She yawns. Dreams are coming, but not now, not with the sun here. Its pink, the orb, like fire through the Sky. There was a time when day was day and night was night, but now night is day and day is night. When did the vampire win over the smiling youth inside that remembered the warmth of the sun? Another yawn and eyes begin to grow heavy. One last glimpse at the sun, and sleep comes.
>>7513000
didja read it out loud? like hearing someone playing beautiful music who keeps fucking up the notes + rhythm. I wanna hear the real thing. smooth it up
>>7513006
I agree. I was listening to some trap music, trying to get to sleep, and wanted to write something quick just to get an idea down for the general mood of a scene in the future if that makes sense. It turned out so good I figured I would see what other people thought of my quick ramblings. So here we are and i still can't sleep. (Also captcha, I clickwd all the damn street signs.)
>>7513006
Oh, also, how do you think I could smooth it out? Rhythm is a real problem with my more literary prose and is something I've been trying to work on.
he progression of days is not as it once was, as it was in the springs and summers we’ve lived through already, as it was before your host here exhaled the smoke from the herb he knew not what it was. Heat stays stagnant, radiating solar or lunar, we move through it like tar all around us, it moistens and humiliates us until all we know is the great shame. For hours the sun will stay as it should at noon, only to disappear unnoticed and usurped by its envious sister, milkpale Luna. She whizzes and wanders all across darkness, taking whatever she can get from Sol and deflects it upon us so as to keep us subdued within the Cosmic Family Heat Trap.
I can remember with some difficulty (must be the drug, the wretched comedown) when days acted otherwise, in the immature icy death of winter, before this onslaught of dripping tangible heat mess. Huddled inside we would be, myself, Nic, Sarah, Sabre, Terrible Sarah, others, all laughing at ourselves, gargling equal parts mirth and liquor, all was plain and easy to see through, all was base and transparent, all was joy and somber mixed in a frozen mortar with an ignorant pestle. The sun rose at seven and set at six, the moon maintained a sober path across the Night Sea.
Where was there to go but on and on. The resounding flash of A's warning in my minds eye gave me no qualms. I neither faught the well of desire nor hid its grip on my day at hand, boldly aware of myself stepping all over his old earth, dragging shadows behind me, slain to the dust.
The smattering of light through the trees produced patterns on the path before me which I traced with my eyes as I walked. I couldn't stay here.I wanted nothing more than to block everyone out relentlessly. I decided I would sit by the sea and think, because I didn't know where else to go.
The sky was seamless, where a big angry gull circled me in puppetlike motion and let ring in my eardrums a jangling cry, shrieking and disruptive, like a living child in a mortuary. Sometimes, one will experience horrible feelings and events, endured by indulging in violent fantasies; having ones head cut off, or not waking up the next day, for example. Thinking, existing, seemed to too much stress. The frill of exaggeration was there however, as I knew the root of my downer. She cut me open, wide as her own smile, and rubbed salt in where it hurt.
Looking to the shore, I picked out a rock to sit on, one of the oblong grey ones with the grubby black stuff, and wept as I trudged through the sand.
Creased by a low breeze, the sea was calm and subdued. The waves were a muddy and murky against the white of the horizon; impossible to tell season or time. Blunt caws of the gull above me and his nearby accomplices tolled in the dead air. I scanned the sand below me which was pocked with black flies and fragile fish bones, admitting to my heart that I was withering, dispensable and absurd. I sat for a few moments in heavy debate as to what I really wanted to do. I slipped into the gross wades of emotion, where the fatal flaw is blurry; almost frayed by the turbulence things, things I never knew annoyed me that surface from dust like crusty ships after a storm. I missed the hot air of the forest. Nights have become my least favourite time. I was currently uncomfortable because of the siltstone I had plunked my bony body onto. My nose was itchy yet I was too deep in contemplative rage to stir. With mind in serious tumult and body faintly present, I desired the ultimate solution. I wanted to lie on the wet sands edge and disappear into the green glaze that slid back and forth, tempting me with flecks of silver on the foam.
>>7513000
>From the window so near the Sun began to pour its light
What is "pouring" the light, the window or the sun? Clarify your shit, son.
The rest of this reads like the narrator wants to paint a picture instead of telling a story. It's wordy and "poetic" for its own sake. If your narrator is supposed to sound like that, bully for you - but if they're not, you're doing a shit job.
>>7513025
Trying a bit too hard, man. The words feel forced. The beginning was meh, though the second part of the first paragraph had me for a moment. Really disliked the second paragraph, would suggest rewriting it completely.
>>7513032
Lol kinda upset I didn't catch that. But as I mentioned, this was just a little thing jotted down in my phone's notes to try and help me sleep. Thanks for the input though.
>>7513023
read it out and practice total silence of the mind. the true words will spring into action, it's arrogance and big-headedness that fixes mortal folly in the place of divine voice
I used to have self-respect. Who doesn’t enter life with a type of human hubris, an inflated sense of self-worth, and a classic arrogance that is oh so common in a child. I used to think that I was, for lack of a better word, the shit. But the baggage of self-esteem that comes with birth can only last so long under intense adversity before it is destroyed. There needs to be a sense of outside validation to maintain an ego, and when no one in the world is willing to provide that validation for you, your ego deflates. So here I am on my midnight jog- my last jog.
I used to have friends. I remember in elementary school when I still had confidence I had garnered the affection of so many of my peers. I would never be the first person it for tag, wherever I went I had students ready to lay down themselves before me just so I could take advantage of them and they become associated with me, and I was always captain in team sports. I was a king, and the campus was my kingdom. Along with the devoted followers I had a wonderful queen, Rebecca, who stayed by my side. Rebecca was the most beautiful, nicest, and most popular girl in school. She didn’t accept just anyone’s Instagram follow requests. You may wonder what changed, why I am here now just a few years later on my midnight jog.
I used to have love. Then came what can only be explained as regicide. A new boy in school who was taller, fairer, and wittier than my brutish broad Asian self came. He never got picked to be it first in tag, he slowly drew support from my followers, and he was consistently chosen as opposing captain in team sports. The last straw came when he took my precious Rebecca. I spiraled into depression, I lost my friends, Rebecca started hanging out with HIM instead of me. I became a beta.
I used to have a world. My only solitude lay in videogames. I played my pain away. The virtual world was one that accepted me, and I got good at it. I rose ranks in my favorite game, Shovel Warrior X. I was on my way to becoming Shovel Warrior, My highschool days were spent grinding and fighting to become the Ultimate Shovel Warrior. I got to the top of the leaderboards and was invited to participate in the world Shovel Warrior championship. I fought bravely, and made it to the finals. Then in the final game, I was up by double my opponent’s score when I looked into the audience and saw Rebecca sitting with HIM. I choked, and lost the easiest game of my life. My fans hated me for it, I was ridiculed, and I was outcast from the only world that took me in.
Now here I am at the end of my jog. I’m standing looking over the side of the bridge into the unforgiving cold of the waters so far below. I step up on the ledge. I have lost my world. I have lost my love. I have lost my friends. I have lost my self-respect. I take a step forward into nothingness.
I wrote this on a bus at 2am to cyberbully a friend
>>7513032
you may be even dumber than the author. it's a crappy sentence, but it's obvious that the sun is pouring its light. don't critique if you don't know wtf you're talking about
>>7513085
The Clunger popped down upon the Squeelak and emerged from his Newlax brand rocket spaceship. He surveyed the area with narrowed eyes, a sort of 'expression' coming over his face.
"What a strange land..." he remarked, before screaming, screaming suddenly at what he had seen. It was the Gleebor!
"What the fuck, Clunger?" said the Gleebor. "Where's my fuckin' money."
"Oi, no need for that kind of language. What are you, a Xiplorp?
As the Gleebor recoiled from shock, the Clunger drew his Spoolor brand new laser pistol which had several firing cylinders and fired it. Blammo! The lasers come shooting out, small particles of laser beams, forming the laser beam, as it shoots out of the gun.
"Scree!" goes the gun as it fires the strange laser bullet ray.
"Aach!" cries the Gleebor, stumbling backwards. "You motherfucker! Don't you understand that you're a cunt and motherfucker? You fucking cunt?"
"Hey! Shut your cunt mouth!" replied the Clunger with a smirk which spread across his face like a bacterial infection. "There's a reason they call me the Clunger..."
Then he whispered something into the Gleebor's ear and a shock of horrible surprise came over the Gleebor's face.
"N-no, it can't be?" said the Gleebor. "It's fucking impossible! No! It can't be fucking true!"
But it was true. Finally, the Clunger fired his laser pistol and the laser beam came and killed the Gleebor... at last...
Blood ran down his body. He was quivering from the pain.
"So this is what it's like... to die," he exhaled. Then he sneezed because there was a small amount of pepper on the ground where he had fallen.
"There's a reason that they call me... the Clunger."
A look of shock came into Gleebor's eyes. Then, as suddenly as he had lived, he died.
The Clunger spat on him. "Fucking nigger," he smirked, and left the scene.
I came upon Tempelhofer Field right at dusk. The flatness of it all hit me first. I rode down the abandoned runway; there were numbers on the field alongside. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
Families came and went. There was more silence than anything else. Some people came towards me, I think they saw the numbers on the side too. Everyone quiet. I used to think heaven was where Napoleon is buried, but this might be it instead. A runway in a sunset.
Suddenly, thousands of empty benches. Thousands. Some upturned. Some waiting for their chess players. Everything still flat.
>>7513106
>"So this is what it's like... to die," he exhaled. >Then he sneezed because there was a small amount of pepper on the ground where he had fallen.
short list for poet laureate right here boys
>>7513106
(cont)
A great red sky hovered above the barren lands where the Clunger now stood. He stood abreast of his ship and reached down, taking a clump of crimson dirt and smelling it. He was reminded of his childhood, those magical evening spent with his grandfather, being raped by his grandfather.
"Pliknor dirt," he said, a smirk of recognition coming across his face. He looked down at the dirt, which was shaped vaguely like a smirk of recognition. "Looks like we're both smirking now," he commented, wryly smirking at his own remark. "Ha ha ha!" he laughed, jostling his jolly belly. "What a funny old thing!"
He decided to head for the city, crossing the mighty red plains where red, crimson dust blew in great gales, its red color almost crimson-like in terms of the redness of his crimson hue.
"Crimson," he uttered under his breath.
He was reminded of something... yes, being raped by his grandfather. It was funny to be thinking of it, considering he had only just remembered it a few minutes ago. "Hmm," he pondered onerously, with a piquant, porcine lilt of his little hand.
The city was on the horizon. There is was: Blorptown, named after Harold Blorp, who had founded it in 1974. He grimly approached, a grim look on his red, crimson, grim face.
>>7513131
I'm twelve and what is this
>>7513141
parody of shit that hasn't even existed for 60+ years
>>7513131
Blorptown was no place for a rebel such as him. He peered around, squinting his eyes, hands on his hips, crotch pointed outwards. He gave a tip of his hat to young woman who walked past him, who immediately sexually intrigued by him. But he had no time for that -- anyway, he'd been rejected too many times in high school to have any patience for women as an adult, an enormously successful and cool adult, in many respects.
But the Clunger wasn't done yet. No sir. Looking around at things was only the beginning. Soon, he would interact with things and people in the town. Little did they know the power of the Clunger -- the secret, mysterious Clunger. Black-hatted, he strode with long, limbrous strides across the dusty street. He enjoyed it so much that he strode back again. He couldn't help but laugh. It was just so strange to be striding in Blorptown.
"Enough," he said to himself, straightening his jacket. "Enough striding, there is work to do."
>>7513152
>he'd been rejected too many times in high school to have any patience for women as an adult, an enormously successful and cool adult, in many respects.
>projecting this hard
>>7513166
you'd think that the denizens of a board dedicated to literature would be able to detect irony
>>7513167
You didn't
>>7513152
The Clunger smirked as he entered the sherrif's office.
"Yes?" said Sherrif Xiplor as he stood from his desk.
"I'm looking for the sheriff," remarked the smirking Clunger. "Don't tell me you are he?" With that, he let out a monstrous, billowing laugh, one that set his body in motion, gyrating in a strange kind of rhythm along with the laughter. The Sheriff couldn't look away. You never saw things like this in Blorptown.
Finally, he wrestled his eyes away and said, "What is it? Why are you here, stranger?"
The Clunger laughed and smirked. "Somebody sent me a telegram. Yes, that's right, a telegram. They said you need help."
The Sheriff's eyes went saucer wide. His mouth also went saucer wide. His sphincter rapidly contracted. He looked around for somebody to help him, but there was nobody, only him, the Clunger, and his assistant, who was making coffee in the break room.
"There's something you should know about this town," said the Sheriff, leaning in towards the Clunger who suddenly made a face that said 'I am the Clunger, hello everybody, nice to meet you.'
"What is it?" asked the Clunger, smirking widely.
Then, the Sheriff whispered in his ear something that made his sphincter immediately contract. The Clunger quivered in surprise.
"That's right," said the Sheriff, who tipped his hat at the Clunger. "Well, it's about time for me to leave."
"But, no, you can't leave me here!" said the Clunger. Now, the Clunger was not easily spooked. One time, he had killed seventeen men without even batting a single eye. But this was an exception. Whatever had been whispered, it was something that completely changed everything.
"I'm afraid I must," said the Sheriff, tipping his hat several more times before finally leaving.
The Clunger felt like he couldn't breathe. His hands were shaking. He dropped the several coffee cups that he was carrying.
"No! It's not fucking possible..." His sphincter tightened. "They've let me to my doom..."
>>7513175
He strutted outside and looked at the townsfolk. How naive they were. He only wished he could be like him, mindlessly oblivious of what was going to happen, a simple drone with no thoughts or feelings, only a low buzzing sound at a frequency which lulled them into a state of relaxation and low cognitive activity... how sorry he felt for them, those mindless sheep, going to and from their jobs, not even visiting the websites he visited, not even listening to the same music he did. How stupid they were, stupid, stupid people.
He felt a gentle tugging at his shoulder. It was a young lad a-tuggin' down there.
"Mister, are you okay?" said the lad. "You've been staring into space for a long time."
"I'm okay," said the Clunger. "I was just told something that you might say was startling."
The lad frowned loudly. "Aw, Mister, it'll be okay."
"But it won't be okay!" said the Clunger. "Don't you understand? Don't any of you understand?"
Everybody was looking at him now, as if he were a crazy person who had lost his mind.
"Stop staring! All of you! There's nothing wrong with me. You're the crazy ones! I'm the only normal fella here!" He was writhing around on the ground now, kicking his legs and waving his arms madly.
"Don't you judge him!" insisted the lad. "He's just like any of us, don't you see? Now, stranger, on your feet! On your FEET SOLDIER!"
The Clunger leapt to attention. "Uh, what's happening?" he said, a dazed look on his face. "What's going on around here?"
By this point, the townspeople had lost interest and all were leaving.
"You really got me out of a jam," said the Clunger "Thanks."
"That's alright mister," said the lad.
"Hey kid, you looking for work?"
"I am nine years old, aren't I?"
"How about you be my deputy."
"Aw gee mister, that sounds fantastic!"
"So what do I call you, little fella?"
"Call me... Plipgar."
>>7513207
A short seven years later, Plipgar and the Cluncher were the best of friends. They did everything together, showering, bathing, everything. One day, Plipgar emerged from the steaming bathroom with his head in a shower cap.
"Are we still having dinner with the Robinsons on Thursday?" he inquired.
"Quite," said the Clunger, taking a puff from his pipe. "Ho ho ho, merrily so..." He was reading a newspaper and wearing a tweed jacket.
Suddenly, Quiznor entered.
"Quiznor!" said the Clunger, opening his arms wide in celebration. Quiznor immediately went in for the hug. Then Plipgar came in.
"Oh my God, Quiznor!"
"Wow! Plipgar! So good to see you!"
Everybody was hugging and saying hello.
"So, did anybody else see the tennis?"
"Yes," answered Plipgar. "I couldn't believe the result of the match between Muguruza and Williams."
"It was an extraordinary game of tennis," said the Clunger, chuckling to himself. "Now, Quiznor, would you like a tea, coffee, anything...?"
"Well," replied Quiznor, "I'm afraid I've not come today for the happiest of reasons."
Everyone leaned in to see what Quiznor had to say.
>>7513224
"That imminent disaster you warned about?" said Quiznor. "The one that would destroy this town? Well... it's on its way."
Horror came over the Cluncher's face. Fear came across his eyes. His sphincter tightened. How hard he tried to forget this moment would come.
"Well?" inquired Plipgar. "What are we going to do? You always said you had a plan for this, Clunger, and that you would tell us when the time was right... well, don't you think about time to let her rip?"
In reply, the Clunger farted. Everyone laughed because, although it was disgusting, they appreciated the humor of the moment."
"That is a smelly fart," the Clunger wryly remarked. "Anyway... my plan."
They all huddled in together and whispers were heard, but the camera was too far back for you to hear what they were saying.
The next day, the townspeople emerged to find that something strange had happened: their town was in a bubble. Now, you may think: a bubble? What the hell? A town? What on earth are you on about? Well, be patient dear reader, be very patient while I tell you this intriguing tale... come closer, my children, come close and listen, listen to me speak...
Anyway, there was a bubble over the town.
"So this is your big plan?" said Plipgar. "A bubble?"
"Wait," cautioned the Clunger.
The attack was imminent. The Clunger smirked as he looked at his red, crimson watch. "Five... four..."
"Five? Four?" said Plipgar. "What in the blimin' hell are you talkin' about?"
The Clunger smirked. The Xinthar Model X spaceships appeared on the horizon. They fired at the city but it was no use... the bubble deflected the shots. The pilots of the spaceships couldn't believe what was happening and radioed into their commanders, yapping excitedly about what they had seen. It was clear they had been defeated.
The Cluncher smirked.
The invading ships departed, their pilots shaking their fists in defeat.
"Cluncher, you've done it again," said the mayor, who handed him a plauqe. Everyone in the town cheered and started chanting his name: "Cluncher! Cluncher! Cluncher!"
But, what's this? The sounds of the voices changed, from the chants of the townspeople to the voice of a mother. "Cluncher. Cluncher. Time to wake up. Time for school."
The real Cluncher rubbed his eyes. Aw man, school?
Yes, that's right, it was all a dream, a dream by a nine year old named Cluncher.
Little old Cluncher.
>>7513244
If anyone is wondering what I've named that story: "CLUNCH OF THE CLUNCHER."
>>7513264
who's publishing? penguin?
>>7513277
fingers crossed
Opening to a story idea I had about the culture clash between a Catholic priest and a new age cult leader, with ambiguous supernatural stuff. Not sure how long it's gonna be.
Tell me how bad I am: http://pastebin.com/N3sSBMGn
>>7513278
i would buy this stupid book if you could stretch this shit out for 120 pages
>>7513292
I have some fanfiction here in a similar spirit:
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6016387/jamesianmckenzie
>>7513296
>https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6016387/jamesianmckenzie
you have the whitest white person name i've ever seen
good god
I'd love to become a novice in writing, but my inexperience with creative thinking always leads to futile attempts toward creating grandiose worlds and characters, ultimately becoming cluttered and hollow. The tasks were usually too difficult, and as a result, I'm reverting to material I may better write about.
This piece is semi-autobiographical, and quite honestly, its intimate tone may detract an audience. Along with its writing style, my main concern is whether this may serve as a frame to write a short story on. Does the subject merit others' attention? I want to practice writing, but I just need a good base I'm knowledgeable in.
http://pastebin.com/6AFUp6r4
This is non-fiction (not sure if that is posted much in these threads). It's part of an essay for school about popular music in the 20th century.
In the Romantic symphonies of Schubert, Beethoven and the like, we can hear the quiet-loud shifts that would be utilized heavily (though to much less impressive effect) in the rock music of the 1980s and 90s. Though there is a good case for classical music as the most refined type of music, it is clear that what pleases our ears in classical music is much the same as what is enjoyed in the more primal forms of music.
Nevertheless, that rock music’s defining points in those decades (as in the previous ones) were either the personalities of the musicians themselves or such overused tricks as that mentioned above, points to the fact that rock music then was a dying, if not quite dead, form of music.
Looking at the history of music in recent centuries, the most significant event is surely the introduction of black American styles in the 20th century. Allied with a cultural shift, starting in the 19th century, or even perhaps the Enlightenment, away from religion and the traditional social norms, these Negro styles channelled sexuality into pulsating, gyrating rhythm in the form of jazz, taking sex outside of the privacy of the bedroom into the openness of the jeering, hormonal adolescent crowds. Rock music, jazz’s natural successor, took this primal essence further, furnishing the sound with an ever more primeval aggression. Underlying rock music is the most ancient of human lusts, those of sex and violence, and in the style of music the two become inextricably linked. The appeal of rock music, then, is Freudian.
1/2
>>7513538
In the Libertines and similarly in the Strokes we see a nostalgic longing for the past glories of the rock and roll genre. In an almost desperate form those qualities of 60s and 70s rock music are re-enacted in these bands in parodic style: the forced rock star personality cult (actually barely existent) of Pete Doherty, the tabloid scandals, the safe and spare sex appeal of young weedy middle class men. The music itself is a more subdued version of the classic rock reproductions of Oasis. Here is the nail in the coffin of the rock genre. The sex and violence that appealed so in the early days in rock music now seems lacking. In fact, it has become benign. Degenerate sexuality and violence are openly celebrated in rap music, to a point where the subjects seem banal; drugs equally. The image of the greasy, skeletal rock star with needle hanging out of arm has ceased to shock. The pop music of today, marketed almost exclusively to unthinking young adults and most importantly to children, has reached previously unimagined levels of crassness. Exploiting children’s natural sexual curiosity, pop music now takes the form of pornography in the music video. The biggest purveyor of musical pornography is YouTube, being, alongside Omegle, Snapchat and other such websites, children’s new primary source of sexual education. The internet certainly does not teach the virtues of chastity or loyalty and love to a single partner. The music video teaches sex as an act purely animal, a brief act of pure pleasure between uncaring strangers (“Last night I had two bad bitches”), as void of meaning as the music itself. Music surely has an important role to play in the death of innocence and childhood, and the triumph of sexuality as a public, meaningless act, something to be sought after, used and then discarded like all the other fleeting pleasures which entertain the modern man and woman.
2/2
>>7512318
Thanks Kolstiiii
>>7513317
Very readable! Care to tell us more?
>>7513636
Sure, and thanks. The rest isn't nearly as good though, I wrote it about a year ago.
Used condoms on the floor. Messy, stained bedsheets. Empty cans of Pepsi Lite thrown haphazardly.
Jeff didn't think their study date would come to this—but he sure as hell enjoyed it.
The day had started off expectedly. Sophie had almost slept through her alarm clock, her ears incapable of hearing its deafening ring. Fortunately, Jeff tossed a pillow at her and Michelle hurried to get his clothes ready for her. Sophie accepted this care listlessly, rubbing her eyes and muttering a quiet 'thank you.'
The sun shined through the window blinds, illuminating Sophie's sleepy face and tousled brown hair. She took off her pajamas and began to dress quietly as Jeff and Michelle chattered about a movie they'd seen during the weekend. After putting on her navy-blue Ralph Lauren jacket—the last thing she had to put on—she raced out of her room to join her friends, wrapping both Jeff and Michelle in a big, heavy hug.
"Hey! Easy there, Sophie!" Jeff said, collapsing slightly under Sophie's embrace.
Michelle, unfazed by Sophie's antics, hummed and readjusted her scarf.
They'd walked together to school, kicking at stray pebbles on the road, spotting cute, fluffy dogs on the sidewalk, and taking pictures of the scenery around them.
The rest of the day had been predictable as well—Michelle had kept a close watch over Jeff and Sophie, Sophie had gotten a perfect score on a math exam Jeff thought impossible, and Mrs. Salamander had screamed at everyone in the school for "disrespecting her." (The cause? A student accidentally dropping their pencil on the ground.)
After Jeff asked for help studying for the next math test, however, things became unexpected.
Sophie had agreed, smiling, and had promised to meet Jeff after school. Although neither of them had predicted the events that would take place afterwards, both had fantasized about them for days, weeks, years even, before it had happened.
>>7501846
This seemed pretty good to me! However, as others have pointed out, there's no real context, surroundings, etc to the story whatsoever. Still, you've got something there.
>>7513730
Faulkneresque. Kafkaesque. Wallacesque. Joycean. Pynchonian. Baroque, yet accessible. Trash, yet also garbage. Insult, maybe injury. Poo in the loo, but will it flush?
>>7513752
The British word for the toilet, “loo”, derives from the French “guardez l'eau”, meaning “watch out for the water”. This comes from the fact that, in medieval Europe, people simply threw the contents of their chamber pots out the window onto the streets.
Some etymologists also believe it derives from 'Room 100,' a common room number for the restroom.
>>7513824
I hope this is true.
>>7513830
It is–!
The sun frowned. A distant cumulonbimus, hanging over equally distant mountains, appeared just as angry as the sun, its pillowy contours stacked as if in effigy of the very picture of menace. The wind, carrying with it that same sort of cartoonish rage, hit Harold like an ill-formed brick — at least that’s what it would’ve felt like, had he not been wearing the protective suit.
The latest chapter from Practice what you Peach, about a peach farmer who hates peaches.
There once was a boy who lived in his room. He never left his room aside for going to the bathroom and getting food from the kitchen. He did the same things every day over and over. From an outsiders perspective it would seem very dull, however to the boy it was great fun. After a few years the fun ran out and the boy got depressed. He contemplated leaving his room, however he could not find the courage. Eventually he learned to just accept his life how it was and he found great peace. His entire day of pushing buttons on his keyboard to preform the same actions over and over again for eternity became a meditation. He continued this way until 127 years of age when he became truly enlightened and he passed away.
>>7514268
What kind of feedback would you like to hear about this?
>>7508493
I was born in Milton Keynes but I've been in Kent since I was 4
>>7514088
That is awful
>>7513824
And thus Orwell's choice of 101 for his room of horrors allowed for the neighbouring stench?
>tfw i spent time on writing reddit and tumblr and now everything looks good here
>tfw my witting will get torn apart here.
>>7514542
It is the first thing I have written since I was forced to in middle school. I just thought I would try it. It took me a full 15 minutes to write. You don't have to give feedback if you don't want to.
>>7514646
Don't worry, nobody actually reads the walls of text.
I'm practicing descriptions. Can you guys tell me if any of these succeed?
A winter hue filled the room.
The hue of winter filled the room.
Piles of boxes littered the room.
Discarded shoes were scattered on the linoleum floor.
Toys and carriages slept silently and undisturbed.
Piled high onto shelves were books and troves of uncollected papers, discarded plastics and miscellaneous electronics.
There was a dead furnace in one corner of the room.
The shadow of the door cut across a calendar stopped at the year ---
The shadow of the door cut across the room, reaching a calendar stopped at the year ---- , before blending into darkness.
Evening's twilight sparkle sprayed the room.
The door used to enter the room was white and ornamental, bringing to mind the form of a casket.
A lifeless lamp hung on the ceiling.
A window pane, half covered by a blind, was set against wood panels that surrounded the room.
Screened behind the window were limped tree branches full of frost.
>>7512265
I came here to AVOID reddit.
>>7513031
You started with a question that ended with a period...A "resounding" flash is not imagery, and the rest of that pseudo-intellectual sentence made me make this face [see image]
"well of desire" reads like a proper-noun, meaning it should be capitalized. However, without context it is just a floating glossary term. Consider describing what it is. "boldly aware" is not really saying anything. Adverbs (words that end in -LY) are generally frowned upon in novels. Not always, but a good rule of thumb is only use them when it would take 5+ words to write around them. Most of these sentences don't at all play nice together. You have so many MODIFIERS (words that do nothing but modify other words) stuffed into this it's difficult to tell what is important and what isn't. Sometimes all you need is just the verb / noun. This could be 50% shorter, and therefor it should be.
>>7513068
>I wrote this on a bus at 2am to cyberbully a friend
how? /r/philosophy would love this, you should go hang out with that other guy up top. My biggest gripe with your writing is that it's not written ironically--nor is it written with a true voice. What you open with is the same thing I'm bitching about. It's just an inflated sense of self-worth. These words are trash, not profound. I'd be more interested if this was written in your real face to face voice, not your "I'm laying on my death bed at age 17" voice.
>>7513106
Is this written for a critique or as an example of glossary words being overused so much I can't understand anything?
>>7513244
You done shit posting yet?
>>7513730
Well, your grammar isn't as illiterate as the rest of this thread. Most of your problems are more complex though. You need to focus on what is fundamental (i.e important). You give some things that seem important zero imagery and others that are seemingly pointless without further context a lot of words and descriptions (relative). This causes slow downs and disturbs the narrative pace. I don't like your opening. There is no imagery or setting established, just floating words. Consider something like
>A used condom lay on the floor beside a pile of bedsheets.
Or something more ACTIVE. The three names you've tossed at me aren't character enough to form an image. Consider moving the first sentence of paragraph 2 up to the start of the 1st.
You're overusing exclamation points.
Back to narrative pace: too fast. You jump from 3 people we don't know waking up, to some girl putting on a jacket, to boring dialogue, to kicking rocks, to . . . etc.
Biggest issue: HEAD HOPPING. You jump from person to person to person to person to person and sometimes it isn't clear why. It would be one thing if you were just sharing information like "character verbed" but you go into their thoughts and so it gets very confusing. Also, that strange parenthetical floating in the middle...idk about that.
------ BREAK ------
If you are as I am, slight in stature (but even more wilted in esteem and self-image than most) than you might be more suited to be a back. Backs stay back, behind the dignified human wall of the forwards. Backs do not do much hitting or tackling, if the ball finds its way into our clenched and often shaking hands, we run for dear life until some larger and more aggressive being stumps our flight, and (like poor Icarus) we fall to the pitch in a melt, only for another phase to commence. There, massed under many bodies, we watch life move along past us, as us saps often do.
It's about rugby.
>>7515110
>>7513068
I was on a bus with a friend, it was very late at night, he kept passing me writing prompts (some of which included things like "Once a nigga, always a nugga" and "gay boy has two penises and one vagina"), this particular prompt was "Sad asian boy loses friends, love, respect, and the world"
John sat in his dingy room, the flickering light of his desk brightening his upturned pudgy face. His hands were edging into his briefs, his knees were shuddering, and his hideous feet were scrunching up. His left hand gripped the side of his black swivel chair. The chair turned and turned the more agitated John became, though he seemed to not care, for he merely bit back his lips and exhaled. His movements became swifter as he moaned and threw his head back so far his fedora (or trilby, as he insisted it should be called) slipped off of his head.
"A-ah..." John said. "Madoka..."
A humongous poster of Madoka, John's favorite anime character, hung in front of him. The poster showed Madoka posing invitingly, her pale breasts exposed, her rosy lips smiling sweetly, her slim fingers pointing down to her cunt.
John, now restless, grew tired of the toyless masturbation techniques he'd learned as a child. With a gasp, he grabbed his fleshlight from his desk and began to thrust into it, moaning Madoka's name repeatedly.
He trailed his eyes over Madoka's (drawn, unfortunately) body. John couldn't resist glancing at her every other second. As he came closer to climax, he thought of various fantasies: one, of him marrying Madoka and treating her to a life of luxury. Another, of him having Madoka as his personal pet, leash and all. But his most prized fantasy was unlike any other: eternally being a ten year old boy and having Madoka, now his middle-aged teacher, give him head in front of all of the people who had once made fun of him, called him a neck beard, called him pathetic. He'd ask himself many times why this fantasy inevitably made him harder than any other. John never found out why.
He stared into Madoka's eyes and came with a yelp. Cum splattered all over the poster. John sighed contentedly as his body went slack. He stood up, put on his dropped fedora, and collapsed onto his bed, in which he had pleasant dreams about him and Madoka.
>>7514268
Redundancy.
>There once was a boy who never left his room . . .
This is my life, but instead of finding peace I'm going fucking insane.
>>7514857
This is the type of shit I love to critique. EVERYONE TAKE NOTE: This is how you become a better writer. In order:
>A winter hue filled the room.
No. A "hue" cannot fill anything.
>The hue of winter filled the room.
Same problem.
>Piles of boxes littered the room.
This works and could be expanded on.
>Discarded shoes were scattered on the linoleum floor.
WERE is a terrible word in almost every context. Consider: "Discarded shoes scattered the linoleum floor". Also, I'm not sure what linoleum is because I'm a peasant.
>Toys and carriages slept silently and undisturbed.
No. The alliteration (physical sound) causes the brain to tweak. I don't like the rest either because it's all redundant and idk how the fuck toys or a carriage both go together or can sleep.
>Piled high onto shelves were books and troves of uncollected papers, discarded plastics and miscellaneous electronics.
Books and papers had been piled high onto the shelves, beside discarded . . .
Idk I really hate the word WERE but sometimes I suppose it's not the worst thing ever. This sentence isn't awful. If I was editing it, I'd probably use my hot-key for {review} but wouldn't compound on it.
>There was a dead furnace in one corner of the room.
The only word I hate more than WERE is WAS. It's just awful. You can make your writing x2 as good just by writing around this dead word. :: The ash filled furnace in the corner of the room gave {character} goosebumps.
>The shadow of the door cut across the room, reaching a calendar stopped at the year ---- , before blending into darkness.
This is long and confusing because my brain has trouble modifying what's happening. A shadow of a door cut across the room. Okay, I sorta get that. But then it keeps going and now it's a calendar and it's blending no wait it's the shadow wait was the shadow still cutting what is a door? That's what my brain is doing.
>Evening's twilight sparkle sprayed the room.
What do you think about this sentence, OP?
>The door used to enter the room was white and ornamental, bringing to mind the form of a casket.
Remove was attribute a character. The door reminded character of a casket.
>A lifeless lamp hung on the ceiling.
You mean a lamp and FROM the ceiling.
>A window pane, half covered by a blind, was set against wood panels that surrounded the room.
A blind covered half a window. {if the wood panels are important a new sentence will do}
>Screened behind the window were limped tree branches full of frost.
Character looked out the window. Frost covered tree branches {verbed} in the {wind or something}.
Idk just avoid WERE at all costs.
