Old one at 300.
Post one and reply to one edition.
A man finds himself in a room, he wasn’t here before but he is now. He doesn’t know why he’s now. He isn’t thinking about much at all, he doesn’t know language or the concept, he has never worn shoes or lain in bed. He can scarcely be called a human in mind or manner by our standards but, he undoubtedly is. Even with his lack of any experiences or stimuli the gears and cogs are moving slowly, like any machine; Metal bending warming and expanding, oil slowly dripping, lubricating like molasses in a confectionery or as alcohol does with one's modesty.
Colors appeared then shapes then hues, from the shapes came patterns followed by figures. A box, plate, stick, button, tree, and leaf. The figures taunted him for some reason or another but none in particular. An understanding being with experiences in which the relate current situations to could not grasp the magnitude of such an unfettered mind’s anger. The unfettered mind is left to cling to anything and it chose madness and fury. His veins popped, quarks and leptons hissing and crackling with the power of a being that knows no limitations.
He fell back to concoct new worlds,
Fell out in throbbing swirls,
He fell ‘till the world stopped,
Fell off this world.
>>7736565
I am going to post a post a pastebin of my most recent short story. I feel like I am getting better with each one I complete but for some reason they always seem to end around the 2000 word mark, I can't figure out how to say more or how to convey an emotion/feeling in more than one sentence when I feel like I've already gotten the message across.
I'm going to stick around in this thread and critique most of what gets posted so I would really appreciate a comprehensive critique if anyone has the time.
http://pastebin.com/z0TabAT9
>>7736565
I will pick out a few sentences/phrases which may have been written intentionally in the way that they have been but to me they feel out of place with the rest of the tone set by your writing.
>He isn’t thinking about much at all, he doesn’t know language or the concept.
He's not thinking, he has no language and no understanding of the concept
>He can scarcely be called a human in mind or manner by our standards
He can scarcely be called human by any standard
The reason I mention these two is because they seem very conversational compared to the rest of the text that follows which is an objective, academic sort of description and it doesn't start it off on a good note IMO.
In the first paragraph you're writing in present tense and then you shift to past tense.
>The figures taunted him for some reason or another but none in particular
>for some reason or another but none in particular
Feels like an unnecessary addition, doesn't really add much. Personifies the shapes and patterns for only one second and there's no purpose in doing so.
>An understanding being with experiences in which the relate current situations to could not grasp the magnitude of such an unfettered mind’s anger.
I might be stupid but this made 0 sense to me, try reading this and pretend you didn't write it and are only seeing it for the first time.
I would say that as a whole whatever message/purpose there is to this piece, it has failed to deliver. I'm unsure of what I'm reading and the lack of careful constriction in the actual text indicates that I'm not just missing it, it's just not there.
I heard about /lit/ from imgur yesterday, glad to see there's a critique area. I'm thinking about submitting this to my HS magazine. Any tips or advice would be tip top.
---
Here it is:
Her pee pee went around his pee pee, hers was wet and warm but his was cold like ice but not anymore because they were inside each other, her ass now inside his cock.
He gingerly puts his fingers like a peace-sign up her nostrils and bites her ear to show dominance. This causes her to start farting uncontrollably inside his cock, tickling him.
"Hehe" he says.
She starts shitting in his penis.
>>7737136
Preposition Ratio: 11.43 % ← acceptable
Zombie Nouns:
decision
construction
illustration
imagination
duality
mobility
charity
Lexical Diversity: 32.13 % (Words / Vocab)
Content Carrying Words: 48.79 % (Words / CC Words)
Personal Vocab Diversity: 56.71 % (CC Words / Vocab of CC Words)
Longest Words (They have have better alternatives.):
autonomously
conditioning
construction
enlightening
illustration
rationalized
supernatural
>>7737136
Read this and think its pretty damn good actually. A few moments stuck out as truly excellent.
A few other moments were a bit out of place, some of the grammar was interesting, but some just didn't make any sense.
Overall, I think you go back and forth between the literal and the metaphysical. I prefer the metaphysical but I think the best spots were the moments like "we testified by staying silent and letting it hang there and develop a greater sting as it went on to become the last thing any of us said for the night."
Beautiful
>>7737136
got potential, needs sharpening tho.
1
Ripe, begat rotten; youth, decrepity; worthy mind, worm stock. Deathless life: fruit which hastens not to be consumed. Yields of sweet juice and crisp meat, of gleaming skin and bloom’d flourish, of snug palm proportion and pleasant idyllic ingestion; elapse quickly more (brevity’s best bedfellow: urgency). Blotched or blemished or bleary rinds, peel away to sweetness; yet sourness itself habits to be found beneath verdant lacquer. Those fruit naturally left, the wild apricot, apple or pear unburdened by its passage, grow to sweetness, or sourness, the same; yet without tooth nor tastebud’s judgment, one withers wholly, and duly decomposes, unbitten.
2
Pausing, I glanced upon a lone expired orange amongst an obnoxiously bright, pyramidal display. The vitamin rich prism was loaded atop an impression of an old-timey wooden crate.
A denotation: TWO DOLLARS TWO CENTS PER POUND. I’ve noticed the sight typical of many modern superstore, lit not by whale-oil, but by whirring neon bars--- what irksome developments mark our time! Not absent only are the coordinated lighting fixtures, but the great seafaring vessel (surely reminiscent of the Cutty Sark) which brought the fine citrus before me was in sight nowhere; nor were the generously pigmented ladies and gentlemen who readied it for my purchase. Yet here these wooden crates sat, seemingly in contempt of all sense and taste held common. Would a visit have been made on my account to some port market of years bygone, the cratefulls of produce would fittingly be (and so would the Cutty Sark).
The company I held on the jubilant jaunt would’ve been reduced to the familiars: ponderous pettifog, and of course, the impersonal, introverted (thankfully) cashier; had it not been for the reluctant presence of my daughter. Promised in exchange was temporary relief to some artificially concocted hankering. Unbeknownst, laggard shuffling into the deal was thrown, and shuffle my bent-necked seed did upon that bleach’d concrete, faintly coinciding with and trailing the less lackadaisical steps of my own.
It was but at this juncture, before the grand orange Giza, that looked she finally did upwards from the rectangular illumination so fond of nimble pre-arthritic finger and blank glare alike. Shoving the device into a riveted denim front pocket, she rejoined the collective awareness; and thus began to pick fruit. I awaited with cart handle at gut-height patiently (noticing the sole browned sphere), while seven globules from the orange pyramid were delicately examined by hand of pinkly painted dainty nail. Five unclutched fruit dropped into a plastic produce bag, and the aforementioned bad apple amounted to one of the two refutes, as its thorough examination at the hand of the young pomologist returned an unspoken, negative result. Into the basket they were lain, and stroll I did onwards with clang of unkempt cartwheels.
Dark. Jagged. Violent. This was the landscape, as far as one could see. In it, there was no joy, no life, and no wonder. Fuck this planet. The cosmos had been careless in its creation, as if they were pressed for time or artistic creation had grown into a dull and passionless routine. But in spite all of this, the sky was an infinite aquarium, a cosmic coral reef. No matter where you go, no matter what planet you are on, if the atmosphere permits, the stars can relieve you, and for that, he was thankful. The blast door closed behind him, the thudded sound muffled through his helmet. He was glad to know that within the warm facility, there awaited a soft bed with many blankets he could wrap around himself, as many as it took to forget this obsidian tundra. He heard the winds stir in a distant canyon, and soon they surrounded him, whining as they brushed through the crevices of his suit. He pressed through them on his way to the disposal, handicapped by their virility. The waste tumbled down the chute, hesitant to fall into the abyss. Syringes, blades, and tubes scratched the metal surface as they slid. This was their last chance to remind others of their purpose, but all of it would soon be frozen, and the painful history within them, forgotten. The winds kept up, slicing and frenzied, they had grown stronger, and from this, one’s thoughts could only wander towards an undesirable truth: the seasons were changing.
(•_•)
<) )╯My Milk shake brings all the boys to the yard
/ \
(•_•)
\( (> And their like its better then yours
/ \
(•_•)
<) )╯Damn right
I carved a cave beneath the foundation under the family home
drip drip-drop!
the water pops
in the quiet of my cave to me alone.
I drink deeply from the pool--
never mind green coprophagic strings
of filth
clinging to my teeth, I like the mice,
it's good to hear them squeak--
in my cave
beneath the home
alone
>>7736572
>he wasn't here before but he is now
ok
The bones around my eyes feel brittle, like crackers. They ache but I'm worried that just a touch will break them.
Another concern begins to creep over my back and into my collarbones. They don't feel right. My hands could just fit right into those manmade grips and rip them out. I can imagine it now, my cracked chest leaning out as though I were hatching. The birth of my final contentment.
I'm starting to feel the same about these aching sockets. Fingers would fit so easily into those holes. I feel as though I could just split my skull, tear it apart. It should splinter like a fusion of chicken bones and rotten wood. This whole body above the waist feels wrong. I need a redo, just toss it into the waist-basket haha.
These feelings come and go, but I fear one day I will be overwhelmed and something I cannot even properly comprehend will ensue. A touch away from hell.
>>7736572
What do you mean by this?
>>7737434
Could you let me know the parts where I lost you? I've re-read the thing so many times now I can hardly tell the difference between each phase of it.
>>7738740
Just having some fun I like trying to write with great power
500 Words
http://pastebin.com/X0fEmZCg
>>7738844
Five hundred words is actually three words.
>>7738861
Three words is just two words.
>>7737747
Please tell me this is just a soft troll, and not the writings of an autistic faggot.
>>7738864
Three words is just two hours.
>>7738844
Preposition Ratio: 14.72 % ← highish
Zombie Nouns: ['protection', 'allocation', 'indoctrination', 'imagination', 'infestation', 'invention', 'attention', 'Attention', 'million', 'ammunition', 'insanity', 'tenacity']
Lexical Diversity: 54.68 %
Content Carrying Words: 55.18 %
Personal Vocab Diversity: 81.82 %
Longest Words: indiscriminate, indoctrination
Reading this was like following bread crumbs, crusty ones, down the path of 'How I realized I wasn't cut out for writing.' While inspecting these little words and sentences, leading me along the trail of yr boring mindscape, I looked up and saw nymphs dancing in the woods of the world's heart, went over, grabbed one by the hair, and ravished her.
>>7738997
> Mocks my writing
> Can't even come up with coherent criticism
Y de la solemne entrada desprendióse enérgico Folso Thundo, tropezando por algún fallo de compás en sus pasos. Se incorporó y de su bolsillo derecho del traje sacó un cigarro suelto. El encendedor faltaba. "El encendedor tenía que faltar". Folso había mostrado todas sus condolencias a la familia Ujihdu pero por su mente el cigarro era primordial al honor y la muerte. La calle estaba vacía, como un pueblo fantasma. La familia había decidido realizar el funeral de madrugada siguiendo los claros requisitos en el manifesto de Udisia Ujidhu. "Pido, sin molestias espero, que el funeral pueda hacerse lo mas temprano posíble. Quiero que el sol este casi por nacer cuando mi cuerpo baje al suelo." A Folso le había dado mucha lastima su muerte. Udisia luchó toda su vida por vivir. El amor hacia sus terceros era mayor al suyo, y una tristeza melancolica siempre se apoderaba de su cara. El la apreciaba mucho, pero ya se había ido.
Camino unas cuantas cuadras sin saber bien a donde iba. Un incordio dolor de cabeza se le apoderaba, haciéndole forzar sus ojos por ver en el paisaje urbano pintado de un cítrico color. Pidió fuego. Chupó el cigarro y vio como el humo se mezclaba con el sol que ya se apoyaba en las cimas de los edificios. La gente salía muerta de sus casas. Y el día comenzaba. "Quiero que el sol este casi por nacer cuando baje al suelo." Se imaginó a Udisia, la pálida, modesta, silenciosa, humilde, de una hermosura muerta por los años pero levemente distinguida. Se imaginó a ella en paz. En su féretro, boca arriba mirando al sol nacer, mientras su cuerpo vivía bajo el suelo.
>>7739040
Didja read what you wrote? Or whatever you call that...? It was like being flashed w/a torn up thesaurus smeared with corn-shit. No thank you.
You've confused depth with mushing symbols together. Have fun in the darkness of no one caring!
I only ever knew two things for certain: every day, when the sun stretched on its toes to graze the roof of the world, life would fill to bursting with the melodious cries of a thousand mechanical birds that had been affixed to unseen walls an eternity before I had ever been.
That, and my father was a dragon.
These were the two laws that governed my life from first to last, and often my visions of a dark figure enrobed in smoke would coincide with the noontide festival to such an extent that it seemed to me a ceremonial necessity, coterminous lode stars that made the setting sun's promise of coming night seem feeble and uncertain.
He would enter with a roar, cedar planks creaking below his titanic form seconds before the familiar scent of charcoal and oakmoss drifted into the bare kitchen where I was besieged by arithmetic. I would abandon my studies, the reproachful coos of my mother falling on deaf ears, and carry myself with such abandon that more often than not I would collide with that leather pleated colossus in a whirl of laughter that quickly turned to curt dismissal. He would seat himself at the kitchen table and begin rolling a cigarette as my mother portioned out three bowls of rice and potato soup. It was never long before his stern face, framed by jet black hair streaked with silver, was completely lost in a cloud of thick smoke from which his stentorian bellows enquired about my studies. It was amid this scene that the mechanical birds would sing, their simple melodies paying tribute to this legendary being.
I read once that dragons were all afflicted with the same fatal flaw: an unquenchable lust for wealth. This I recognized but forgave in that mythic wyrm that bore me, and the fierce battles that would be waged in our kitchen over the current state of our monetary existence quickly made the transition from traumatizing to banal. I would always admire my mother for being able to stand the caustic flames of admonition that would blast our home until the early hours of the morning. Her weeping was never manipulative and always shameful, followed by an appeal for recess whereby she would collect herself and fearlessly enter his den once more.
Then, one morning, hours before the festival of the meridian and my Fafnir's homecoming, my mother told me to pack a bag with clothing and my most essential school books. I did not realize it then, but her fear of my father, though never manifest in the material world, had worn her down to such an extent that flight seemed the only solution possible.
And so I came to be where I stand now, gazing out the second story window of the house of an aunt I have never met, surrounded by unfamiliar scents and men that are most definitely not dragons. After the third noon came without the rhapsody of life that signalled my father's return I resolved to seek him out myself.
With furtive steps I made to fly and reached the halls of eternity on wings of blood and broken bone.
>>7739167
>besieged not good there
Pretty cool otherwise
>>7739247
Shit
>besieged
Not good there
Please tell me what I can improve on, not what you think of the whole
The bird, who was called as Rasul al-Hadiqa, was quite glad to finally be free and thanked the young man heartily for releasing him. Maxwell was stunned at first, but upon noticing the steel tab around the bird’s ankle everything clicked into place. It was a jinni, a clever spirit of flame and smoke, and by the law of Solomon it was now his to command. “Jinni,” he called out to it, “as thy master I command you; make me a god!”
Rasul looked at Maxwell with as confused an expression as a bird could and for many moments there was silence, then the pigeon spoke again. Rasul was not, as the young man had suspect, a jinni, and he told him as much. Once upon a time he had been a feather plucked from the wing of Toth 'illah al-Hamam, the god of the pigeons, and had served as his right wing for many, many years. However, many years ago he had disgraced himself and the court of the pigeon and for that he had been stripped of his title and imprisoned in a soda can. It had been a short story, but in the time he had taken to tell it, the young man had put on his shoes and turned to leave. Where was he going, the pigeon asked, and the young man told him the truth: he was going to buy some black cherry soda. There was nothing interesting talking bird that could do nothing for him.
As he left the pigeon followed behind him, offering idle company. When Maxwell asked what the bird would do now, the bird thought for a moment and then decided. He would seek out Tachyos, the oracle of the rats. He knew everything, so of course know what Rasul could do to reclaim his stature.
The young man was intrigued by the tale of the rat oracle, and decided to follow Rasul, asking questions along the way. From what he gathered, Tachyos was once the left eye of Indra’djak, the god-king of the rats who had plucked him out and cast him off to forever wander through space and time until he only remembered the future and only experienced the past. Such a seer was bound to learn everything that needed to be known, and as the weakest of the gods knowledge was Indra’djak’s greatest treasure.
The young man soon came across a subway entrance and the pigeon beckoned him to follow him in. They descended many winding flights of stairs into an empty platform, and from there they stepped over the service gate into the dark entrails of the train tunnels. After what felt like miles of wandering they came upon a blind white rat easily the size of a large hound. Before they could speak it spoke to the child of man and feather of god in a weary voice, and told them what he knew they must know.
Knowledge is a treasure, and though it can be copied its value comes from obscurity. The left of eye of the rat-king knew many things, but none of it would be shared for free. If the young man and the pigeon wished to learn something from him, some service of equal value must be performed.
Any Polish lurkers here? Pls rodacy
Zima, tydzień po rozpoczęciu nowego roku. Ulice miasta Łodzi pokryte były białym, puszystym śniegiem. Patrząc na Śródmieście z lotu ptaka odnosiło się wrażenie, jakby chmury białe jak mleko opadły i rozlały się po całej jego powierzchni. W samym centrum miasta wetknięta była ulica Piotrkowska. Często widuje się tu turystów i cudzoziemców, którzy wybrali się do Łodzi tylko na jeden dzień albo są przejazdem i mieli czas zobaczyć tylko Piotrkowską. Na całe ich szczęście, ponieważ przecznicę dalej rozpoczynała się „Łódź prawdziwa”, czyli taka, jaką ją zna cała Polska: pełną brudnych kamienic i wybitych szyb w oknach. Wszystko to zmieniało się za sprawą śniegu. Wydawało się nieprawdopodobne, że dzielnica zazwyczaj brzydka i odstraszająca nawet jej długoletnich mieszkańców za sprawą czegoś tak niewinnego i prostego przemieniała się w coś bardziej przyjaznego i przytulnego. Oczywiście dopóki na ulicy nie zjawił się jakiś pijak bądź dziecko z rozbitej rodziny, czyli typowi bywalcy centrum miasta.
I właśnie w centrum miasta kolejny osobnik, który za kołnierz nie wylewa, wychodzi rano po skromny „poczęstunek” dla siebie i przyjaciół w postaci żołądkowej oraz ewentualnie chleba i śledzi. Był to człowiek krępy, głowę miał okrągłą jak kajzerka, a na niej siedziała moherowa czapka. Wiadomo było, że miał tylko jedną parę kaloszy, jedną parę podartych spodni oraz jedną kurtkę. Reszta jego ubioru pozostawała tajemnicą. Nikt nigdy nie widział go w pełni trzeźwego, ale w pewne dni dawało się go złapać w dobrym humorze. To właśnie był jeden z tych dni.
Widząc go po raz pierwszy każdy normalny człowiek pomyślałby: „Zwykły żul, po co on komu?”. Ale nikt nie wiedział, że za grubą kurtką kryło się niezwykle wrażliwe serce, którego rozpaczliwe wołania o resocjalizację uspokajał kilkoma głębszymi. Tym razem serce jakimś cudem dało o sobie znać i osobnik zaczął zastanawiać się nad sobą po raz pierwszy w swoim życiu. Nie było to łatwe, ale dzięki temu intymnemu momentowi doszedł do wniosku, który zrewolucjonizował jego podejście do siebie samego. Był pełen nowych sił, a o swoich planach chciał jak najszybciej powiedzieć przyjaciołom. Kiedy wyszedł z mieszkania wyprostował się, odetchnął głęboko i wydął dumnie pierś. Cała jego osoba zdawała się krzyczeć: „Wyszedłem z domu, bójcie się. Dziś zmienię swoje życie nie do poznania. Oto ja: Marcel Cedwachowski”.
>>7739272
>who was called as
Who was called
>jinni
Genie
>had suspect
Had suspected
>and the court of the pigeon
In the court of the pigeon
>there was nothing interesting talking bird that could do nothing for him
This whole sentence needs to be fixed it doesn't make sense.
>>7739327
Oh wow, thank you. My bad. The fourth one was correct though and Jinni is an accepted, if less common spelling of the word. Five was supposed to be
>There is nothing interesting about a talking bird that could do nothing for him
I was hoping you could give me pointers on what the weaker parts if the excerpt were (besides the spelling) and how I could fixe them
Penis tree
Oh, penis tree
How virile are thy branches
Penis tree
Oh, penis tree
I want to fuck you but you're a tree
>>7739450
Liked
>>7739376
Its a simple story there really isn't a weak point but the story doesn't seem to have much direct ion meaning the events don't really seem to flow to the next one very well why should we care about the soda? What message is the story trying to get across?
>>7739272
I laughed and laughed, lifted laughing, I have a soft spot for named talking animals, delirium, and clean, clear writing.
>>7739488
it's an excerpt. The soda part was explained previously in the story, let me post what I have
In the midst of late December blizzard, a boy and a girl were born to a couple in the backseat of a boxed-in taxi cab. As they fed, swaddled in the father’s coat the mother and father faced the most difficult choice any parent could be forced to make. The girl, who they had named Maryam after a dear, departed friend, looked to them every bit like the miracle she was. She had her mother’s amber skin and her father’s eggshell blue eyes, but one feature not found on either of her parents was her cross-shaped pupils.
The boy, who they had named Maxwell, was no less strange but a bit more unsettling. He was a creamy white like his father and had his mother’s iron eyes, but his pupils belonged to neither; they were bar-shaped like those of a mountain goat.
The couple knew that soon one of their child would be taken from them, but they had made this choice and they had accepted the cost long ago. They knew the girl would be an easy child, and that boy would not have a happy life, but it was for that reason that he would be the one they kept. Wherever the girl went her eyes would assure her safety, they would be all the boy had.
As anyone could have predicted, the life Maxwell Damon grew into was not a happy one. The eyes of goats are, as they have been, a property of vile things; a herald that something wicked this way comes. For many years he hated his eyes and the names they had brought upon him: Cambion, Devil, Hellion, Antichrist. Certainly his surname did nothing to help matters.
For many years the boy was alone and he despaired. What, he wondered, was he? He could not be a human, at least not a normal one. No common boy had freakish eyes like he. Was he a freak then? That seemed the simplest answer, and for a time it was the one he accepted, but from year to year and day to day he noted strange oddities such a theory could not explain. There were the paper clips which always clung to his fingers, a quarter which once turned white hot while clutched in his palm, the television screens and computer monitors which became warped and discolored when he drew too near, and the story of his birth that changed with every telling. The last one troubled him the most, surely if he was just a common freak there would be nothing to hide, but if he were the antichrist would not he know for certain by now?
After asking the same question of himself every hour of every day, the boy came to one final conclusion. Whatever he was it mattered not, he was as he always would be, and what he was, was glorious. Finally proud to be, the boy embraced the role that had been given to him. If a devil they thought of him then a devil he would pretend to be until he knew the answer for certain.
>>7739510
One balmy summer evening the boy, now a young man, sat in a leather arm chair wearing what he believed was the finest suit he could find, one the rich burgundy of boxed wine with black trim along collar. He had set a camera before him atop a tripod with one intent in mind: to capture an image of the most devilish grin he could muster so that both he and the world at large could admire his own sinful perfection.
After seven photos taken and seven photos taken and seven photos dismissed, the young man realized there was something amiss. He had his leather armchair, he had the bookshelf at his back, he had dimmed the lights just so to match the glow of a fireplace, and of course he had himself, but despite all that something was missing. Wine, he realized, that was the missing touch. Maxwell cursed himself. Yes, he had wine glasses, every family in that city with children did. Wine was the missing element, and only red would do. With only white in cabinet something else would have to do. There was no cranberry juice, nor was there punch. The young man considered watering down some ketchup when he saw it upon the bookshelf, something that had always been there but that he never had reason to notice: a dusty, sealed can of black cherry soda.
It was ancient, he realized, at least as old as he was. For all he knew it was old enough to have become wine in the can. As he brushed away the dust from the can its seam began to hiss, and with one great pop the can burst open, releasing a very disheveled pigeon.
>>7737274
newfag here, what program is that?
>>7737269
what the fuck?? you can't put his pee pee in her pee pee and then change it to her ass like that. fuck you, i r8 --∞/10, kysf
>>7739527
Idk, it needs a name, though. It's a /lit/ exclusive.
>>7739512
The balls on this poster!
>>7739650
did you mean because someone might steal it?
>>7739653
I mean it's fugn good. Testosterone fueled lexical architecture that's a wonder to walk through.
>>7738997
How did you do this analysis? Program plz
>tfw nobody critiques your shitty short story
>>7739753Python.
Off, then on,
Then off again
>>7739871
It's shit
>>7739871
Are on and off being employed as prepositions or adjectives? Answer carefully, this is so important.
Gin nigger
Museum
Mirror room
>>7740164
actually a good haiku, I'd wager. It conjures up images for me.
>>7739527
he programmed it himself in python
>>7739272
Real creative and well done, I like it.
>tfw you begin to realize how bad your writing is
>>7740353
>>7739687
>>7739650
>>7739502
I'm so glad I'm getting all these great responses. I've been trying to write the beginning of this story for almost half a month now and posting my progress here on the crit threads to no avail.
I just gave up and started writing a summary so I could come back to it later but for some reason the summary was really good and I kept at it, and now I'm getting this.
So the message I guess is never completely give up, just give up a little
>>7740362
>>7739798
Point it out nigger I will
The other day I went down to the watering hole to get a cup of coffee and half expected to see people there that I knew. This is often how I spend my days off, taking small gambles of where and exactly how I spend my time. They had been coming to the water hole earlier than usual lately, and by the time most of the crowd had switched to alcohol, the coffee was still warm and the cooks in back where still surrounded by the smell of pork and eggs, and the vat of porridge was still over half full.
I gambled my time there-- I knew if there was anyone that I knew I would no doubt get into it with the usually lively conversations of politics, work gripes, marriage issues, and the usual items of chatter. The choir would eventually become larger and larger as the sun peaked and then began to sink again, and there was a very real possibility, in such a case, that I would not leave until late at night, no doubt with much less money than I had entered with.
My flag. My flag is ripped and torn. It's bloody and frayed. When the wind blows hard it whips and rolls and threatens to tear itself apart screaming. My flag has seen three hundred suns and moons collide. It has seen god smile upon Washington and the devil dance with Sherman. My flag has seen towers crash and champions of the people lose their heads. It has seen the stretching emerald forests riding the humps of foothills on pure lands turn to gray highways and plastic mega marts. It has seen bankers and serpents beheaded and shipped across the sea only for their offspring to slither back over with friendly British handshakes. My flag has seen it all. From the shipments of heroin to the talking heads with stars of david tattooed upon their foreheads. From dogs strapped with american dollars ripping apart Gaddafi to european truth speakers being tossed into prisons. And yet still it clings to the pole slowly falling apart at the weakening hems. Bloody and frayed and tired of overseeing the horror of time and the poison of indoctrinated trust.
You don't like my flag. You don't like the idea of it or the look of it.
>>7740518
Because your flag. Your flag is nice and clean. Bright and strong. When the wind blows hard it dances and glides and snaps back like a whip. Your flag doesn't remember how many suns and moons it has seen let alone know when they've collided. But it has seen Kanye smile upon Bernie and witness Trump puff with racist hubris. It has seen Cosby rape a thousand poor women and Obama saving us all from ourselves. Your flag has seen ISIS behead lines of innocents and Assad hide behind Putin, that bastard. It has seen prom queens pee standing upright and black teens martyring themselves by reaching for pistols. It has seen painkillers and vape pens and national parks and bike paths and smart cars. It sees suits laying on piles of blood stained money and professors handing out their own published sociology textbooks for a small fee of a hundred bucks. It sees white women being courted by strong black men and pathetic pigskinned men buying emaciated Asian whores. Your flag has seen it all. From gays getting married to Dylan roof licking his lips. Your flag has seen it all but it has never witnessed something that just isn't quite right. Something that doesn't fit with the way the wind blows. Something like how Obama claimed to protect whistle blowers and yet wanted to incarcerate Snowden for treason or how those that we are claiming to fight in the middle east are being trained and funded by US means.
A rip appears upon your flag and you peer up at it for a moment before mechanically yanking it down from the pole and tossing it away. From a closet full of fresh and clean American flags you gingerly pick one out and hoist it upon the pole and marvel at how clean it is. This new flag you frantically pulled up has seen it all. It has seen the low unemployment rate and affordable healthcare all thanks to the commander in chief. You take a glance at my ripped and torn flag once more and you grimace. You don't like my flag. You don't like the idea of it or the look of it. You think it is depressing and you order me to get a new one and if I don't I should be declared insane.
>>7738668
Spoopy haha
>>7736565
Here is a paragraph from a little something I'm working on. Any critique, any opinion--be it positive or negative--is welcome with open arms.
>>7740362
everyone has to start somewhere.
the fact that you're trying is somewhat something.
be genuine and keep at it my friend.
>>7742276
I like it! Interesting that your character is projecting about parental situations which most readers would likely understand on some level. The simplicity and clarity is great you aren't dressing it up too much. Keep doing what you're doing.
>>7742276
faggy overwriting without saying shit or even saying shit well
>>7742339
pure ddit
i'll prowl around and do some critiqiues.
here's my shit.
http://pastebin.com/iXNpyPJf
it's sort of abstract. kind of deals with determinism, i suppose. let me know what you faggots think. i am very accepting of criticism, or at least i try to be.
>>7740035
a-adjectives
>>7742276
i agree with >>7742340, it's over-written. it's okay to have really muscular, flowery prose, but it just becomes pretentious if it's flowerly just for the sake of being flowery. otherwise, it isn't strictly bad, pretty good even, just don't take the language so seriously man. there's a beauty in simplicity and an understanding that simplicity is beautiful
>>7742683
>Buzzcutt
>Whole body tingly weightlessly.
>the band wrapped upon it.
Awkward phrasing and errors, but they're all easily fixable. You actually manage to set up a badass rhythm without it coming across gay or redditoresque. gj
>>7742844
thanks senpai. it's still in its raw form, i haven't done much editing so there's a lot that needs fixing. i'll do a few once overs. preciate the resposne
>>7742276
You sound like a boring asshole.
>>7736565
It has been my good fortune - or evil fortune, as it may be - that the places with which my life has been largely associated have been, with very few exceptions, of the most permanent character. I might tomorrow, if I wished, return to the Counsel and (I think) to the very cot on which I slept as an apprentice. Indreda still rolls past my city of Corsus; the Botanic Gardens still glitter in the sun, faceted with those strange enclosures wherein a single mood is preserved for all time. When I think of the ephemera of my life, they are likely to be men and women. But there are a few houses as well, and first among these stands the inn at the margin of the Sanguinary Field. We had walked away the afternoon, down broad avenues and up narrow byways, and always the buildings that hemmed us round were of stone and brick. At last we came to grounds that seemed no grounds at all, for there was no exalted villa at their center. I remember I warned Incia that a storm was brewing - I could feel the closeness of the air, and I saw a line of bitter black along the horizon. She laughed at me. "What you see and what you feel too is nothing more than the City Wall. It's always like this here. The Wall impedes the movement of the air."
"That line of dark? It goes halfway to the sky." Incia laughed again, but Pria pressed herself against me. "I am afraid, Corbin."
Incia heard her. "Of the Wall? It won't hurt you unless it falls on you, and it has stood through a dozen ages." I looked questioningly at her, and she added,
"At least it looks that old, and it may be older. Who knows?"
"It could wall out the world. Does it stretch completely around the city?"
"By definition. The city is what is enclosed, though there's open country to the north, so I've heard, and leagues and leagues of ruins in the south, where no one lives. But now, look between those poplars. Do you see the inn?" I did not, and said so.
"Under the tree. You've promised me a meal, and that's where I want it. We should just have time to eat before you have to meet the Volvanus."
"Not now," I said. "I'll be happy to feed you when my duel is over. I'll make the arrangements now, if you like." I could still find no building, but I had come to see that there was something strange about the tree: a stair of rustic wood twined up the trunk.
just an excerpt.
>>7742683
Preposition Ratio: 10.33 %
Zombie Nouns: ['motion', 'crucifixion', 'conversation', 'congregation', 'fragmentation', 'examination', 'injection', 'intention', 'invention', 'hesitation', 'perception', 'fruition', 'disaffection', 'million', 'explanation', 'separation', 'emotion', 'question'}, 'authority', 'identity', 'existentialism']
Lexical Diversity: 27.83 %
Content Carrying Words: 57.43 %
Personal Vocab Diversity: 46.58 %
Longest Word: 'incomprehensible'
>>7743688
Thanks pal! Did you enjoy it?
>>7742276
I don't think this is as bad as people are saying it is, you could say it's overwritten but it depends what you're going for. It's not particularly riveting but as a section of a novel or something I'd think it was passable, if a little overly formal.
I've been writing this; this may well be overwritten. It's meant to come off as a bit spazzy, the narrator is describing the prelude to his mental breakdown at the age of 14, so the thoughts he recalls are intentionally childish.
> he's talking about becoming aware of new ways of being after he begins smoking weed with his friend.
> weed makes you do an an-breakdown
A thing Steve and I never talked about, but that definitely was a part of it for me at least, was the way the plants looked in the fading sun as we walked down our lanes.
It was as if, in darkness, the green of the ferns became itself: out from under the watchful eye of the sun that green belonged to a new order of colour, a new order of scenery for a new order of experience.
The empty cider bottles, which before my mind had registered only as evidence of that unknowable type of living – which I’d known of but hadn’t cared about, that shuffling around of naughty boys and their rubbish, while I was still asleep – had a new kind of urgency. The luridness of the yellow stickers against that new green seemed a contrast so striking that it must be linked to profundity. This profundity, I reasoned, was that which the naughty boys were searching for.
I began make a study of the bottles whenever Steve and me took a walk.
***
The green was necessary, it swaddled the luridness of the yellow, without the green, as in cities where the real naughty boys lived, Black boys, this luridness would come off too harsh, queasy, lacking the infinity and authority of green to seep into.
>>7743853
It really is bad. Let him live and learn.
>>7742276
>mere disappointments
(Attempting to write in the perspective of an insane person. Trying to use certain phrases and styles I think fit the insane I am trying to represent.)
Introduction to the Low:
I feel the sudden twitch that marks the beginning revolution around this ghastly epoch of my life. The reasons that I have amassed to allow me to continue the plight that is my tedious descent to whatever world I am going, is slimmer everyday. So, I write these feelings down in this book, oh, the book that has a cover so dim, it really is not a cover at all, merely a placeholder, ahh, yes, a dim cover that keeps all things hidden, yes, that is the correct way to describe it, perhaps not, oh yes, I feel the twinge that makes this revolution a part of me, oh Lord I cry in esctasy, as I jot the words down into this book. I should not use the word 'I', for this would involve me thinking that I am one, one with myself, one without lacking purpose, but I have just that problem, the lack of purpose.
1100100:
F was over in the hall playing a game, that at this point in time had never revealed itself to be a desire to me, that is games in general, not F. F would have always been a friend of mine, if he didn't do the things he did, such as his ghastly approximation of my feelings to mere words, dammit F, I truly thought you could have been my lover, the dreamscape that resuscitates me from the nightmare, but that is quite the peculiar statement on my part, due to the fact I am not sure when the nightmare starts or ends for that matter, due to the fact that it all goes on, yes, like the echelons of the world militant groups, forever, infinitely, vastly outnumbering any opposition, depressing I say! Everything is contrived it appears, the mere thoughts in my head, due to the fact I state the repetitive words over and over again, yes, that is all due to the fact that I have lost all 'semblance of reality, so F is merely a dream inside a larger dream, yes that is so. I really think it is all due to the fact of something beyond my mind, beyond a dream, beyond the farthest hill, beyond the singularity that the universe must be encapsulated within, oh Lord! I do declare that I am prisoner for this very chain that binds me is my mental agony, oh F, free me! Yes, he has the ability to do it, he could come to me as a leper Messiah and break the chain! He would kill the whipper, he would bestow me a new lord that is fashioned in gold, one that will answer my thoughts with rekindlings of creation!
“I'll be blunt; it's a jumble. The prose is inconsistent and there don''t seem to be any coherent themes. But, at the same time, it's weirdly compelling. Something about it makes me feel like I need to read the rest of it. So, our publishing house is going to take a chance on you. Here's a novelty-sized check for the exact amount of your remaining college loan balance plus credit card debt.”
“Well, that was surprisingly easy!”
>>7740518
>>7740522
>tfw a /pol/tard creates better short stories than you
>>7744103
Didn't I?
>>7744116
it's really not particularly good; hmmm gathering evidence it's actually alright, but really it isn't fantastic
>european truth speakers, mmm what shall i call these europeans who speak the truth...I know!
> Trump puff with racist hubris
Racist hubris is overwrought, even in the context of the piece, and I'm not sure one's hubris can be racist. Trump certainly has "excessive pride or self-confidence" and is racist, but is his hubris itself racist, not really.
> It sees white women being courted by strong black men and pathetic pigskinned men buying emaciated Asian whores.
this whole line is just a bit silly
In fact the whole second part begins to fall apart toward the end, and really going into the "you pull your flag down, put a new flag up, don't like he new flag" bit really overworks the metaphor and makes it seem a bit trite.
>>7743688
this is analysis, not critique.
reported.
>>7744183
Yeah, literally fuck off mate.
>>7744183
The stats guy not you.
>>7743636
Is it supposed to be some sort of YA Fantasy? It's pretty shitty. Your use of punctuation gives it an awkward rhythm. There's also awkward phrasing and imagery like "we had walked" and the "closeness" of the air. The dialogue is stiff and all sounds the same.
Anyway, I'd completely rewrite the whole thing or scrap it outright. Though I'm somewhat biased because I hate everything about fantasy.
Here's something I wrote in another thread.
http://pastebin.com/TrSH7ikA
nymphgarden, past meme and haram, from heart of woods to words of say, brings us by a comedius python of regurgitation back to prog castle and envirans.
Yr Meemsman, tolerèr d'horrores, all'over the short-see, had passencore rearrived from trumpamerica, by shits side the shaggy isthmus of europe minor to wielderfight his penuseless war: nor had his lawyers' butts by the stream Oh-I-see e-butthurted themselves to Thatdont Count skeptios while they went doublin' their nmumber all the time: nor ajoyce from afire blowsaid zombie zombie to arsearse thuartdumbm8: not yet, though all's fair 4chan-ye-see, were allihs systems wrote with twone pythandjoys. Rot a peck of ear's malt had Jhear and Sheyem screwed by typelight and roarhis end to the sigthingseye was to be heard codesome on the fireplace.
The full (Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis!)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DBFvEY263U3K9Y5ICqtGBXkHzL3W7Kfh4O5_AxM3EmY/edit?usp=sharing
I'm the anon who posts assignments from his playwriting class. The assignment this time was to do a 3 page play with a time strategy and I chose frame narrative. This is an extremely rough first draft just to get the ideas down. The class is pretty amateurish (not in a bad way just in a half the students are freshman way) so even something this rough holds up.
You might recognize the character name because he stars in the novel I've been writing since 2014 called Phuc Stevenson and the opening paragraph (and a few other excerpts (notably ones involving Thuy Johnston and Yeezus)) have been posted here in critique threads and spammed here by a small but devoted army of memers back when that was a thing.
This is one idea for where I want to take the character as far as the events after the novel go.
Maturbation feels like fucking amazing
it's just I'd rather be Fucking amazing like geeze ugh that is the spot
yeah like it won't stop all night word
you're so taut spread for it all on top for all it rocks just watch for pause ha
how long untill I'm on top when I'm right and all wrong and the song gets to long
then bam your all drawn and dam I'm so lost and we are like wow we fucking rock now it's down a fucking notch relaxed ahhh cooling off yeah heavens not far away
when your head is in that spot and my arms around your thought
then round two bow to my crown and suck me off hoe
Do you run on pills
programmed into
seeing spiders
circuits burn
spark synapses
sends messages
bleeding with corrupt virus
zzztt zzt zzzt
eats software
run files you'll forget
you'll need
ha lol this whole dam thread could have been written by one person--- and i know for a fact it wasn't. We all suck
>>7744280
funny you should say that, that's a slightly modified excerpt from the book of the new sun by Gene Wolfe, our Lord and Saviour. I hope you realize how stupid you've been.
I can't, since it makes me prostrate before Apollo, whose household shrine is the audio rack. Stretched out, supine as reclining, I swim oceans of sound high above both land and water, merged with the empyrean, hypnotically as one. What's visible from there is always too much to report in its appearances and vanishings, and if I could I wouldn't wish to anyway, since amnesia of time is inseparable from sensational timelessness. This too: I can say that about it because its been a long long time since.
I'm sorry if this is out of place, but I couldn't find a better thread in which to ask for help.
I want to improve my creative writing ability and I'm not sure where to start. Are there are any recommended resources for writing exercises and routines?
Also, is it better for new writers to start with short stories? I've been working on a novella for a few months, but some people have said that a writer's first couple of novels are generally shit. I'd like my first major work to be 'not bad', and maybe even 'OK'.
>>7744490
Meme Woof is a hack.
>>7744615
blasphemy.
>>7744166
What makes it good is how he uses the metaphor. The story actually has substance while all others spawning from here only try to flaunt their prose.
To make your prose look pretty is shit compared to a story with actual meaning.
>>7744166
>being this upset at something that was good
Jealousy is a stinky cologne.
He felt the softness of sea and mist and a low, black ridge of hills asleep in yellow-grey light. He recalled a little sea-voyage, an escape along the lines of the travel-bureau slogans ‘See the world!’ and ‘Give yourself a change!’ and remembered clearly the strange, ridiculously enchanted experience that by its deterrent force had interposed itself once and for all between him and all similar experiences. For one moment the heart of a twenty-year-old beat in his breast, the hairy skin of which had thickened and coarsened in the intervening years. This beating of a twenty-year-old heart in his thirty-two-year-old breast seemed to him like the perverted kiss that a boy gives a man. Nevertheless, this time he did not shrink from the memory. It was the memory of a passion that had come to a queer end, a passion that he as a twenty-year-old had felt for a woman who was considerably older than he, not only in years but above all in the degree of her domestic and social consolidation.
>>7743853
Mine was also about the breakdown of a character. The character in question is the one who is actually writing the book, and retreats further and further into his own mind as a form of escapism. Rather than actually write that, which I obviously couldn't do as he wouldn't realise that that's what he was doing, I made the prose fit his mental state (ie when he's depressed, the sentences are shorter and block out what he's feeling, but in this instance he's beginning to develop a messiah complex and is writing flowery as he feels that he is important).
Criticism is still welcome, though!
>>7736565
“I’m ah, not some kind of a—ah—ah, a stealer! Ah, ah—ah—ah—ah—a, a thief!” So the guy at the front is shouting at the cashier. I take a look around and don’t even register the details and I know he’s homeless, I don’t know why I looked but like, as I was just starting to move to look, before I even saw him, I just knew he was. So I try to turn around before I get a glimpse, a little quicker and more haphazardly than I would have if I didn’t want to actively avoid acknowledging him like you learn to do with them on the East side, making me hit my head on the rack next to the conveyor for groceries, (you know, with all the trashy magazines that you can’t help but glance at because they say, in big bold sexual symbols, both/either human and/or orthographical, “SEX”,) loud enough that some people look over and then everybody looks over and the incident sort of dissolves, he stops shouting and just looks at me and, and I’m not kidding, then he takes this half-eaten chocolate bar out of his pocket and throws it on the floor and yells “THANKS FOR NOTHIN” (yeah, like that, without the G, but also as if the G were never there, thus “NOTHIN” r/t “NOTHIN’”) loud enough that the whole store hears. Huh? Ah, yeah, the chocolate broke into a bunch of pieces on the floor, it was awesome.
--
Written a couple weeks ago, comment/critique anyone?
>>7744855
I know you think its funny. But it isn't. It's corny.
You write like a caricature of someone who lives in Brooklyn in the seventies. Except you're not high on coke and you're that dickhead that tells stories that never gets to the point.
>>7744354
This is very good, kid.
>>7744855
I critiqued this pretty thoroughly the last time I saw it in one of these threads. And unless I'm missing something it hasn't changed much.
>>7744183
Wee woo wee woo! PC police! Words matter!
>>7744855
You write a lot like Nabokov, but with more brains and less heart. Can you work on that somehow?
"Thus:
hazardfriedfoggycompoundfluxambientdelightanatomyobsessionheritagebladdermessengerinfinitebeyondweakappallingsouthpossessempirecollarboneidenticalcavityantiqueacidicbellyachedimensionalbinocularfavorabilitydrenchdetaineeperilousdefectionvacantfadedualgapinghoneyhotelfactionblemishlubricantexactevenwarp"
>>7744041
I have no idea why anyone would do this, mainly because insane people are extremely uninteresting unless you're Beckett. Chaos is chaotic in all the same ways.
Well of course I can tell that you try to be like Beckett/The Bell Jar/Notes etc... but from the text you haven't really said anything new in a new way. No new imagery, lyricism or themes to the subject.
"I am not sure when the nightmare starts or ends for that matter, due to the fact that it all goes on, yes, like the echelons of the world militant groups, forever, infinitely, vastly outnumbering any opposition, depressing I say! Everything is contrived it appears, the mere thoughts in my head, due to the fact I state the repetitive words over and over again, yes, that is all due to the fact that I have lost all 'semblance of reality, so F is merely a dream inside a larger dream, yes that is so."
This kind of description is how everyone approaches it, but Dostoyevsky's White Nights or Pessoa's the Book of Disquiet have done the theme of unreality and people who are dreamers much better.
Poking your narration with religious 'moments' is also quite an obvious overdone theme. Like "Oh the insane person must clearly find the Divine in the things that sensibility cannot see".
You can set up the crazy person as a 'holy fool' like what Dost does alot, but its stronger if its a part of a larger narrative. In this day an age this kind of style is wholesomely boring especially when you can't conjure up the turns of words to give it a lyricism or a sarcastic darkness like Thomas Bernhard.
>>7736565
Go on, fuck my shit up with the first chapters ('look inside' function).
>viewBook.at/holloweyes
>viewBook.at/thetallones
>>7742276
So it unfolds like this
- Stating he lacked his usual joviality
- restating it
- stating it through the opposite (it had a harder edge) which is really kind of the same thing
- stating the seriousness bordered on irritation (which provides a tiny extra sliver of information)
- linking it up to the memory (now we come to the meat!)
- stating that it was when he was calling them dissapointments (but why? no context)
- "in which parents was God..." quite a nice turn, and the main crux, but Proust you ain't
- the general kind of 'abstract' ending that attaches things to a lingering feeling that can only be known through overused endings
Well, live and learn. Go read Richard Ford's A Multitude of Sins, which is trying to get at your kind of tone but does so with poetic and powerfully psychological detachment. This occurs in one of his stories after the protagonist witnesses an accident:
"The lake was on the left, dark as petroleum and invisible beyond the blazing lanes of northbound, homeward traffic. Friday night. Out ahead, the city center lit the low clouds shrouding the great buildings, the tallest tops of which had disappeared, igniting the sky from within. The actual jitters, he found, hadn’t lasted so long. Though what was left was simply a disordered feeling—familiar enough—as if something had needed to be established by declaring someone he didn’t even know to be dead, but it hadn’t been. Of course, it could just be anticipation."
Ford expresses the ambiguity abstract feeling through an image, before moving into the psychological. By doing so he doesn't give the kind of banal setting up that you do. Then, rather than amplifying the scenario, he mutes it, which is how people really deal with these sort of things, rather than attaching themselves fervently to it. Also his link to the notion is philosophical (rumination on uncertainty of death), yours is sentimental (because you try to invoke like the standard trope of father's disappointment but you didn't even ground the disappointment into any context so the result is hazy in a bad way).
Now its a different thing if you gave us a big book's worth of course. If later in the text you grounded this part of the narrative, linked back, provided a milieu of memories like Proust does, then it becomes something new to be said, but at this level this is really not good.
>>7738896
What do you find autistic about it? It's a bit wordy, but part 1 offers an interesting metaphor on the brevity of youth and how all life will spoil if not ended while in its prime. It then turns out to be the self-reflection of a sour old man and his ripe young daughter, bitter with the way the world has moved on while he was left behind to rot, unbitten.
He lurches to the toilet door, laiden, and even his shit smells like ash. This one could’ve ripped galaxies, must’ve been the vienna’s, they’ve definitely been downgraded to dog food now, not for human consumption. WHO are to blame(?). With the fire in his mind, he sees an animation of Vienna sausages dancing on a backdrop of resplendent fireworks (if they can be anything but) to something obvious, like Beethoven’s 5th or the Overture with cannons.There was no bread tonight, so there was no metamorphosis, but it was not a night for Beaujoulais. No body or blood, only shit, fokken shit. His head tilted, and eyes try to pivot to a horizontal axis, damn near ripped the retinal vein, bounced back to the unlit cabin bathroom. He’d almost fallen asleep. Saxon snores and runs on parks past the beyond, tongue asail and banding.
This smoked night will be short.The bed will be the oblivion for a shattered body, and the host to dreams of dew and petrichor; phatasma take him to the virgin trees of Meghalaya, so it may be wet for him, away from the Black Country’s vivid, but misplaced carnality that only ever wore him down, the son of a thousand wetlanders with no turgor.
5 o’clock and time couldn’t be faster, SNOOZE seems to turn back on a moment after it’s pressed. No milk; cereal is better dry than with water. Coffee isn’t. Saxon avid. The morning’s sky has exhaled a tawny atmosphere off a cheap fag backend, found it in the vineyards, dropped by a worker, you can taste the newspaper in the air. Was that sports section or properties? Turn it round and let me give you blow-back, copper in your teeth, algae flames, take your smog and filth back into the dustbin of space. Oscar’s cigarette leaves him shaking, it was too early, leaves him fragile, but he doesn’t feel rested, like the caucus of the night merely took an interim, passing out in the ditch, with the world spinning.
Sweet jesus joseph and mary myf fucking god do I have tales and shit to tell but fuck telling them no one listens to my shit anyways all I do is babble on. But fuck those people your gettig a story its about me and shit so I hope you like it else tyour insulting theman standing before you, like I care about insults. But lets go to it, their once was a man who went by at least 40 different fucking names to where he couldnt even keep them straight right? So lets just name him Tim or Jim, Tjim yeah that works. Tjim was a merry fellow who had no family to speak of at first then he got married to a lovely lady whose name doesnt matter a damn lick but for sake of convenience lets call the broad Gina. So Tjim and Gina where two merry fellows living in a countryside cabin in the merry juniper hills along a babblibg brook in apalachia. Otherwise known as a bumpkins shithole. Besides that they decided to populate the bumpkin shithole with little fucks, they named them Tim Jim and George. Three lovely boys who had not a care in the world but the brook and the hills, at first. The times became harder than normal causing Tjim to have a bit of a meltdown. And thats where we begin.
I sit here thinking to myself what to do with my life. I have been sitting here now for about goddamn near three or four hours just in deep thought the the point where im so heavy with thought that my head could fuckin spin. I should really calm down, its not that bad right? My job has been giving me enough to at least feed everyone, well for now but thats gonna change soon. Oh god the hell is all this mess.
Lets run through this again, it all started with my boss Jimbob who is the owner/manager of a sawmill up in Ligonier. The place is as damned near inbred as the fuckin plants which have been, y aguessed it, fuckin for a million years. Jimbob is the type of man who calls a black man a nigger and the kind of boss to call you worthless even if the work you do is good but who the hell am I to judge? Leave that to god, goddammit. Well their was a fire, the fire was something no one thoguht could happen in such a wet area, it rains nearly every fuckin day sometimes threatning my porch with some stream water, which is why I built the damn thing on some cynder blocks to keep the floor from caving in from the moisture but thats besidesd the tale. The fire happened, a large blaze that went from one half of the woods to the other so fast you couldaswore it was running from something. God knows what, maybe it was set by someone with so much regret even the crime he commited was running away from him. Or im dramatizing the hell out of it and the fire just kinda happened, freak a nature shit. Anyways I was by my bosses shithole of an office and overheard a conversation of some sort about the incident, I listened for quite a while, let me see if I can remember what he said.
part two next post
>>7746421
God almighty and heaven above what do I have myself into right now. Son, oh, holdit, tongue, right. So, where was I? Yeeah the mess I'm in. Let me go ahead and calm down, look at the situation, hold it, steady, yeah, thats it, deep breaths. In, out. Alright. So lets remember. Today I woke up at around sevenish and went downstairs to see Tjim's wife Gina, slept with her last night promising her a nice dinner and some extra dough for her kids. Tjim works hard but hes not well, yaknow, any brains and Gina likes a better man than that. I'm sinnin up a storm but lets be honest I kinda deserve it, maybe I deserved this too but god only knows. So I went downstairs and Gina was kind enough to make me a pot of joe and some toast, I dont like heavy breakfast and Gina knows it so that was kind of her. Before I could even start a conversation with er or even remark on how she was last night I got a phone call, only halfway through my coffee. The manager, well I'm the manage rbut, the guy who actually runs the plant, the guy I pay to do my job for me while I just bum around and get money for nothin but yeah that guy. He knows not to call me early, he knows not to call me in the middle of my coffee so this musta been incredibly important. I asked Gina to hand me the receiver and she declined saying she had to really get going to get her kids off to school. I grumbled but a woman has her duties, I slovenly got up and slothed my arse over to the phone. I musta sounded deader than a crypt for Lucas to actually ask if I was ok before telling me the worst news on gods green earth.
“Holy shit Jimbob sounds like you got ran over? You alright?”
“You best damn know I'm fine, did you call me just to pester me to death?” The man audibly collected himself.
“Well Jim bad news and worse news. Forest on fire and so is the mill.” I sipped my coffee.
last part next post
>>7746424
“Funny joke.”
“Boss I'm not lying, turn on the news.” My eyes widened.
“Hold on.” I turn to my flatscreen and fumble around my couches for the remote. I eventually found it sandwitched between two cusions and also their a used condom, god knows im a slob. I digress, so I switch on the TV, and right their in front of me, my mill on fire. I nearly had a heart attack but I rushed down in my robe and slibbers, hoping that maybe, maybe, just maybe this was a bad joke gone wrong. I rushed down, and lo and behold, their it is in all it's blazing glory, taunting me with its warmth on a cool spring morning. I was in shock before I started flying off in a rage, questioning what idiot did what wrong, what I was told is that they came and was already on fire. Lucas even said the story checked out since he was the first one here, not Lucas, the guy I questioned. What was his name? Bern, yeah, nice guy, but a little too smart to be workin here, some dropeout kid who coulda done a lot more. He began tellin me this was all a sign that pointed to something else, some astro-whatever the hell he got into in college or whatever. What he said though sort of worried me. He mentioned a name, probably was referring to a star but really threw me for a loop. Virgo, I know a guy like that. Thought he said Virgil at first, some other guy whose wife I messed around with, it ruined his life and he divorced the lady. That lady is now also my ex-wife, but god could I believe, that maybe, he could have done something like this, even if it was 6 years ago. But the thing is, Virgil is dead so I have no worries. I turn away and begin calling my insurance agents while Bern is in the middle of his ramblings. I caught some of it.
So I studied quite a while and got nowhere with it, not my proudest moments to be sure. However I do know a few things about signs and of occult things, things I learned about from a fraternity I joined. The one I joined was mysterious in that it didnt use greek letters, I just thought “cool interesting place” but it turned out to be a lot more than that. I remember that scene vividly. We had a leader who went by the name of Sebastien. Some Quebecois man who thought the devil was inside of him. He would always go on about these rediculous things that I bought into. Things like conspiracies that are so retarded they could be true. That was four years ago to this day I believe, oh boy another bad sign. Well not four since I started, four since I left. I was kicked out of the university, it was the University of Pittsburg. I decided to not go to classes and got fucked, no clue why I did it but I did it. Sebastien was charismatic and unnerving at the very least, dangerous and exciting at the most.
this is the last part so far
>>7738315
This definitely has potential. Your description in general is very clear and invokes a motion that is associated to all the kinds of writers that deal with terseness and adventure like Hemingway etc...
I would say the tone sounds a biiiiit too much like that kind of father-telling-his-kid-in-an-overtly-sentimental-way-how-to-do-XXX-like-a-man tone at the start.
Also my other problem would be while this is said 'well' overall, you aren't really expressing anything new. Young enjoyment of motion + getting around with friends. Especially when your descriptive level is not at, say, the level of Antoine-Saint Exupery
"Sitting in the flickering light of the candles on this kerchief of sand, on this village square, we waited in the night. We were waiting for the rescuing dawn - or for the Moors. Something, I know not what, lent this night a savor of Christmas. We told stories, we joked, we sang songs. In the air there was that slight fever that reigns over a gaily prepared feast. And yet we were infinitely poor. Wind, sand, and stars. The austerity of Trappists. But on this badly lighted cloth, a handful of men who possessed nothing in the world but their memories were sharing invisible riches"
Not saying you have to write like this, but saying that this level of motion is the endgoal of the theme. If you want to push the idea of young motion to its limits you either go Saint Exupery or Kerouac.
I can tell your writing here is also tinged with a bit of ennui (e.g. "something to do" after the machine tug-of-war). But that's also another old theme, to write about adolescent discomposure except in the heights of youth. To really get that tone down you need to up the rigor of your imagery in every other section so that it becomes more expressive of a psychological state than descriptive. Just having the tone be detached doesn't do it. But I can't tell you exactly how to do that because even I don't know how to do that. I can only point to maybe stuff like Joyce's Dubliners which is one of the great works of sketching out poetic disillusionment through imagery.
http://pastebin.com/jwLkV3GK
>>7737747
Part 1
Bataille did this fruitfulness of life metaphor vs decrepity a whole lot better without indulging in stream of consciousness in an essay like the Language of the Flowers (although he also abused SOC quite a lot). When you have a lack of proper grammatical connection like this then I can only go by the juxtaposition of the images, which are all really really standard
See: Rilke's Autumn Day for a more evocative version of how to pull off fruitful imagery turning to dark consumption
Part 2:
Actually your cadence is very jarring in a bad way, even if you're writing Melville + Pynchon-like.
The first sentence states the same thing twice, except in different ways. The new permutation doesn't give a twist to the old permutation except verbally.
The second paragraph aims to be a bit like Ishmael, but doesn't say much other than the protagonist likes old sea stuff in a dandyish tone.
The rest is just descriptive with permutations. The only idea is the 'collective awareness' part, which expressing nothing much other than servicepeople are bored as shitfuck.The language permutations serve no other end than to make grotesque modern life, but that's overdone by people like Delilio. If you want to write like Ishmael you have to have the cadence and the wit saying more than just bland stuff.
" Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me."
I mean I just don't find any one of your sentences witty compared to that. You wear your influences on your sleeve but you don't use them well. You have the vocabulary but no structure that can reach out in a meaningful way.
>>7744089
a reddit tier joke
>>7746392
The context comes later on, the whole book is largely non-linear, and I'm mostly experimenting with retroactive explanation.
The idea is that the main character is writing the book, but he's slowly losing his sanity due to being wracked by guilt. What I've posted is a tiny bit from the middle, and I probably should have posted it with that bit of context.
Where I'm going with passages like the ones I've posted here is that I'm showing his declining mental health without saying it, and the prose changes to give away slight details that become important later on (for example, before this he'd never mentioned that he even had a brother, but later on his brother features prominently).
>>7746584
I guess that sounds better, but you should probably cut out the repetitiveness if youre not trying to write like Henry James
Hello, lit. I'm back again,
>Icarus, 1989
0 : January
I lay claim to this winter:
it is mine
all of it is mine
from the skyline there
to the flint-skinned trees
to the bellies of the silent cumulonimbus
lazy gliders over the earth below
and the frozen seas-
“All of this belongs
to me”
I shout
to anyone who will hear,
“all of this belongs
to me”
>1 : Daedalus
“You are not so strange”
says he
Who am I?
I am recipe and recipient
I am a bitter note and I am bottled laughter
I am a signpost and a callback number
I am a page to be turned on the morning after
I am a bent red line in a box somewhere
a hurdle to leap, I am a skill to master
I am the sum, I am the difference
I am inverse and remainder…
I am his reciprocal
young and dull and typical
He says:
“You are not so strange,
you want ascent, you want the vision”
No, I want stories to reheat and tell
I want progress and decisions
want direction and acceptance
not just peaks to fly flags from
Even if wanting is a wax-winged flight
they’ll be my reasons to risk
and not to run
>2 : The Sun
He would have her love him so badly
that he would fall for her contempt
promote his own decay,
make peace with the perverse
would prove himself and ignore the price
would accept her cruel theology
with an apology
And he is so close,
so close.
They opine:
Oh, but there will be nothing of left of you-
no teeth or bones or stray bits to wince at
no song to be sung, no human errors to criticize
no trajectories to calculate, numbers to reckon,
patterns to analyze, words to deem prophetic
subjunctives to be rolled about
not even passing curiosity,
nor humorous oversights to make light of
but you are in love with your undoing,
you are obsessed with your undoing
Icarus, flapping, says it is not for her
but it is all theater:
“Mirror- erm–-
medicine chest upon the wall,
what exactly is the cure for denial?”
put these feelings under cups,
close your eyes and mix them up
Someday, with distance
and enough self-deception
all of these labyrinths will begin to make sense
>3: The Sea
It is a blessed, an exuberant
an exhilarating plummet
Each second is a second to be savored
It is everything he has ever wanted
From here, above,
we invent cosmologies
see each story’s hero and source
we can hear the stratospheric hum
and soon there will be masonries to view
broad, strong columns
some sorcerous architect’s
illusions and delusions
of permanence
And soon there will be other kings
spat up by the tide on a foreign shore
robes undone, scepter corroded,
dominion ridiculed and subverted
Some on the shore will watch and wonder
and some will prod and skirt but imagine
later they might write an ode or tell a story
but will never know the hidden shame,
that love for terrible symmetry
I had
this fixation on glorious, immutable gravity
At once, one examines the bleakness and finds
no words, that there will never
be any words,
and another is finding words
that were never found before
and another is finding interestingly dull
and dubious
mundane and primitive words
whose only mystery
was that they were only lately
made easy to understand
The Sea lies
jagged and dark
depths alien and unfathomable
and we are hypotheses and fabrications
statements made in deposition
we are brief infatuations
ledgers to be misplaced,
products to be recalled
and only to forget
means to fall
>>7746850
>Amendment : Plans
(The house on the hill
has called us and we crumple.
We are crumpling still,
our tin hearts collapse
in the soft of our chests,
two windswept, captive creatures
withered and drifting off into hibernation
as winter edges up the mountain
But there is a hammer by the blast furnace
which anticipates Spring,
forgets December
promising piles of scrap,
trinkets to be melted,
jars of enamel,
joints and clockworks…
March indeed,
it will be sleek, it will be new
I will fashion new bodies
I will furnish new births
In time, we will forget the spiderwebs of rust
we will forget the ice and the cracks
the crevices and the dust
we will never again look so shameful)
>>7746850
There seemed to be a rhythmic problem in this part. This is my fix:
I am recipe and recipient
I am a bitter note and bottled laughter
I am a signpost and a callback number
I am a page to be turned on the morning after
I am a bent red line in a box somewhere
a hurdle to leap, a skill to master
I am the sum, I am the difference
An inverse and the remainder…
I am his reciprocal
young, dull and typical
>>7746857
Things I would remove:
"And he is so close,
so close"
(makes the poem sound too standard emo love poem versus the mature conversational style)
“Mirror- erm–-
medicine chest upon the wall,
what exactly is the cure for denial?”
(Cute, but really kills the style)
>>7743671
uh
aight
i guess? i mean i get it if my prose sucks according to this, but that's hardly helpful
>>7747054
But everything else is fucking great and kills the shitlords here dead.
>>7747058
It means your writing is clean (prep ratio), as someone who thinks of himself as a writer, you can figure out why (right?), it means you have a tick where you use abstractions, which does nothing for the reader, and it means use a better word than 'incomprehensible'.
Good orderly direction helps those that keep good shelves.
>>7747289
all right, fair enough. i kind of just saw a bunch of data and felt like that was too much of a departure from normal critiques but this is still valid.
ill revise with this in mind.
I'm not posting any of my writing but I was wondering if any of you could help me.
How do I get over my anxiety about writing? Whenever I look at what I wrote, I cringe and give up. I still consider myself a beginner even though I've been writing on-and-off for years now, because I usually trash my work after no more than three chapters. It takes about a couple months before I get inspired again only to do the same thing after a week.
Thank you all for the feedback.
>>7746997
Someday soon- and by soon I mean not long in terms of literary, let alone geologic time- you will be dead and all your prettiest thoughts will amount to same kind of nothing as anybody else.
>>7747029
I am still trying to work out how to transition the cadence of the first part to that next part cleanly. I agree with you that there is a certain lack of sustained rhythm in the "wind down" stanza there. The only other solution I have considered is full stops but I don't like those either. There is work to do, for sure.
>>7747054
>>7747070
I admit I would have liked to have somehow made a pun on "Mirror mirror on the wall" somehow more apparent and this is the resultant autist way I tried to inject humor into something I thought was too big and heavy to be okay without trying to have a little levity somewhere. I'm working on that too. If there's any challenge anywhere in writing, in my opinion, it's trying to be effectively funny.
>>7747467
hey, you and me both man. a while ago i did a meta piece concerning the reasons i was finding a hard time writing and it was pretty cathartic. ultimately though, i feel it depends upon the individual.
are you setting your sights too high? too low? not doing enough preplanning? doing too much preplanning? just ask yourself what it is you don't enjoy about your own work and be sure to eliminate any pretenses you have about what your stuff is supposed to be like.
First time posting, be as harsh as you want though lads. I would criticize but I honestly don't think I'm enough versed to.
>>7747533
Eliot was quite good at adding a dignity to a sardonic tone in Prufrock. Some of Stevens too can be abstract beauty mixed with a light wit.
Try Don Moss & Dave Nelson here as well http://www.cosmoetica.com/UPG.htm#DON%20MOSS
>>7747555
Cute, decorative. That's about it.
Works as a pulling start since it begins very fancifully and then dampens it. I can see this being the start of maybe an amusing story, if you can go through with all the characterization etc...
But probably not gonna appear at the start of a masterpiece novel.
Yet I'm also not really interested to know what happens next. To me, if its supposed to be witty I would rather get to the crux of the humor rather than spend so much time wandering around in descriptions and all that, but maybe other people like that. Still the descriptive parts aren't anything more than slightly light.
>>7747467
I started off like this but then I started getting good
Then I started to see that my old stuff had the motes of brilliance that would lead into the new stuff, and I revisit old works and taking bits and pieces to 'redeem' them, and by carnivoring old stuff I came up with new stuff and no longer lived in disdain of my past.
Man climbs mountain
finds the moon
brings it home to wife
Sea comes knocking
"Fuck you, my moon"
man fights sea for life
but on his ship
on the waves
cradled on the sea
man fucks moon
moon moans "ooh"
sea must wait and see
It is all at once the gift, duty and burden of every historian to see events in the context of the total scale of all history, so that even as one goes to the pen one has in his eye the exact fit of these events: their labyrinthine causalities and their sometimes only faint effects. The historian will spend most of his life filling volumes with trivialities, that no other set of eyes will ever look upon, save perhaps the bloodshot pair of a sleep-deprived student. But every historian worthy of the name goes to the pen with great relish, if by chance he has experienced an event that is meaningful even on the grandest scale. It is for those moments that all my peers and I live for. Unfortunately, as of this day I have not had the luck to be alive during such occasions, and even as I went to my desk just moments ago, I heaved a great sigh. Years in my profession have given me the ability to predict the little miseries life will visit on those who live. So, reader, I take up the pen knowing the doldrums in store, as I record these events that transpired a few years ago within this city's walls. I have nought but my notes, a rapidly shrinking wax candle, and this bottle of Dungundir single malt, to keep the blood pumping to my brain. It catches the candlelight quite appealingly (the single malt, that is). To my reader: I do not know any reason why you would pick this book from the shelf, but I advise you to replace it and move on. A single life is stuffed to the drawstring with banalities; it does not want for more.
Here follows the record of the Company of Hearts’ activities within Sacrego, between the years 1356 and 1357.
>>7747467
Write backwards, write all over the place, if you have trouble starting from no-where—then take a printed page and write notes on it instead, draw, illustrate, connect ideas, get used to pencil+paper, when writing try taking some pages of an author you like and mimic him, even if it's really just stealing, do it, . . . for technique, write poetry, for plot write short stories, for ideas write short essays, even if they are just a paragraph, record yourself speaking and transcribe it to text, study it, always be entertained with what you're doing, be completely immersed in it, and yes it's all vain, get a notebook and in the cover write "GARBAGE BIN" or "IDIOTSYNCRASIES" and fill it constantly; if you like trees just use your computer, save everything you do, or not, you have a memory too
shitty haiku
lust has yet to leave
maybe it's to stay, maybe
lust can turn to loveClichéd, I know. Other critiques than cliche.
>>7748084
Have you read any actual haiku poets like Issa, Basho, or Boson?
>>7736565
It was another boring bomb threat weekday. The kids ambled in lines, backpacks slung over shoulders. Cops lugged barricades on to roads with glazed over eyes brought on by rigorous drills. Bull horns bleated evacuation routes like airport bulletins. A girl giggled, and a boy read a book by a New York prophet. Inside dogs pressed wet noses on sanitizer slick hallways while the crack of work shoes on tile ambled about. Shoe's voices passing idle chat of families and gossip. The tv's mounted on doors placed every twenty feet broadcasting white text on red background: PROCEED TO DESIGNATED EVACUATION POINTS.
Jim was halfway through a second wipe when the click clack of dog paws began to pierce his post excrement routine. It drew his eyes off the browning toilet water— Jim never got enough fiber— and over to the slowly gyrating cardboard roll. He felt the remaining matter on his buttocks and clenched it, creating a loose impression of Pollack's brown period, then the sweat came, skin reddening and hair beginning to matte,— a click and a clack sounding closer.
Jenny was sitting across from earlier that day as he gazed past her red hair and into the window at the playground where he had earlier sat watching starlings dance against a cloud choked sky.
>>7744495
+3 xp
>>7747633
aw ya this is fucking great. maybe we're livin in degernative times but I like this one
Skipping a bit becuase I can't show you guys everything. Is this way too theosophic for the third page, even if it carries a lot of important themes and clues?
Maxwell walked three right-hand turns and when he stopped Rasul was no longer there. He followed the flagstones for many blocks through lavender-leafed willows and bushes whose berries burned with silver tongues of flame. Several times the trail looped back upon itself, but not once did it cross or fork. The Bishop of the Other City waited for him by a river that should not be there, which glowed peach colors from a sunset at 2 PM. She looked everything like the rat had said; a tan young nun with a peacock’s tail and an ancient nail hung from her neck. Upon her breast was a barbed cross of wreathed silk of gold and blue.
“Rook,” she asked of him with a smile on her face, “did you read the inscription on the obelisk?” The boy was stunned. By way of his obsession with the strange and ancient, the boy was learned in some few ancient tongues, but how was it that she – no, it – had known?
Word for word he told her the words and their praise for Ra and Horus. She asked him what he thought of those pagan gods, and he told her proudly they were as real as hers. To his surprise she agreed and spoke the words of Exodus 12:12. Had the gods of Egypt not been true, her lord Yahweh would not have delivered judgement upon them. Did not her church preach a single god he asked, and she answered “only one from many.”
“There is only one” she explained, “but he is broken into a thousand faces and roles, and I have only met one of them in person. The Yhwh or Toth he is one and the same, and his name is Tetragrammaton.” The boy thought this was the strangest answer he had yet heard, and she told him that truth was much stranger than fiction.
forgot to comment on other people's work. here: >>7748651
>>7748128
I was with you right up until you started describing shitting. It's not bad but it's not pleasant to read about. Also you are seriously misusing apostrophes
>>7747633
I can't tell if this is clever or idiotic but since it doesn't take itself too seriously it doesn't matter. Either way it's a pleasure to read
>>7748626
>tfw Musil gets 7xp, 1xp less than someone's account of taking a shit
>>7748684
I thought it was anachronistic : ^ )
>>7744855
Certainly showing mastery in displaying that it is entirely meant to be read the playful attitude laid with serious alluded sub text leaves a rather large void of intention displacing me as I read. This ultimately leaves me confused and questioning the understanding you had while writing it. Disparagingly making a very weak resolution to the story that does not gather any from of unifying point. The thought provoking aspects seem to be sporadic, unjustifiable, safe, and misused.
>Certainly showing mastery in displaying that it is entirely meant to be read the playful attitude laid with serious alluded sub text leaves a rather large void of intention displacing me as I read.
http://pastebin.com/STAAKsAE
i'm a hundred years from critiquing others.
On each of the days that Georg woke up, he had to deal with the mischief of previous-day-Georg.
It could get quite outlandish at times. Once Georg got out of bed and noticed that his arm was broken, another time he got up to find that all of his clothes had been burned in a pyre, not to mention that one time when his face was completely shaven. It was a look that did not suit him.
This relationship continued for quite some time until one day Georg woke up some meters below the earth, and as it turned out previous-day-Georg had passed away.
>>7749637
The fuck is this shit
>>7749950
If it's over yr head, it's over yr head, and if that was a problem, it'd be a problem by now.
It's like the dashboard on a car.
>>7749974
I mean, most of it is obvious, but what are zombie nouns and content carrying words? What good is an analysis like this anyway? Good writing can't be broken down to statistics like this.
Taken from my published collection of essays: ''On science and man''
X is the greatest project of that invisible being we call evolution, that all-loving being that wraps it’s arms around every living spieces on our planet (probably on others too?), that through this love, so bright and warm, it protects them, like a mother whose child just told her he is frigid and on whom the cold is slowly kreeping up the spine. X is what allowed our species, in its most primitive stage just as in its most advanced, not only to survive but to take evolutions place and thus take control of nature itself. Like a mother who, deciding her son has reached that certain age, lets him go, even knowing he will probably call her only once a week at best, knowing their paths have separated for ever but unwillingly to ever let go inside of her.
>>7750055
Marcel Proust was a big influence on my prose
>>7750028
Zombie Nouns are nominalizations. That's when you take an adj, verb, or noun, kill it and entomb it in a new noun. (implacable → implacability | calibrate → calibration | crony → cronyism) It takes a word that dances in the mind's eye and guts it, making it into an abstraction.
Content carrying words include nouns, the main part of the verb, adverbs, and adjectives. Non-content carrying words include prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, and pronouns.
>What good...?
It's how you use it. It's measurement. That's all.
>Good writing can't be broken down to statistics like this.
Ok. Who said it could? It points out problem areas, that's it. Too many prepositions is a bad thing. Too many Z Nouns is a bad thing. Huge words are bad. The other ratios are just interesting to see, maybe to compare w/other posters—and yeah, there is probably a pattern to good writing. There certainly isn't No Pattern.
>>7746356
I am the anon who wrote from the insane perspective. Thanks for the critique, I wanted to try to test myself with imagery.
>>7736565
http://pastebin.com/1Ym9amgC
title- C:/User/Downloads/
Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (whole album)
Kendrik Lamar - Good Kid M A.A D.city
Albert Camus (translated by Stuart Gilbert)-The Stranger-Vintage.pdf
Cough syrup - Young giant.mp3
Hentaiporncomics.MS.exe
Jenniferlawrence-nude354.jpg
Jenniferlawrence-nude355.jpg
Jenniferlawrence-nude356.jpg
JimMorrisonGreatestHits40.zip
Kaleidoscope-TangerineDream(1967)(@224).torrent
kurtvonnegutcollections.rar
Little book of String Theory.PDF
Pink Floyd - Comfortably numb.mp3
Sadgreenfrog.jpg
Sasha Grey - The Girlfriend experience.avi
SunnyLeone fucked on a table.mp4
ThatfeelwhenNoGirlfriend.gif
TheFrontBottoms-all3albums.zip
[Bret_Easton_Ellis]_American_Psycho.PDF
[Bret_Easton_Ellis]_The_Rules_of_Attraction.pdf
[Chuck_Palahniuk]_Fightclub.PDF
[Ellis_Bret_Easton]_Lunar_Park.PDF
[Ellis_Bret_Easton]_Less_Than_Zero.PDF
[Ellis_Bret_Easton]_Glamorama.PDF
xvideos.fuhd577436.mp4
xvideos.fh566fh577.mp4
>>7750157
Made me laugh
>>7750142
Ludicrously pretentious shit, to be quite honest with you, family. We have a pointless shoutout to The Fall (who don't utilize the motorik beat, fyi), a veiled reference to what I guess is The Crying of Lot 49, and the opening spiel comparing mail to sperm, etc. Had to roll my eyes. Your writing is quite good, bu what you write about is pure masturbation.
>>7749278
It's easy enough to read but the content makes me want to punch you or ban you from the internet for a while. You're a bit too heavy on the dry snarkyness. You're gonna run out of steam and get even more annoying.
>>7750179
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ykkikn44sU
This was the first short story I ever wrote. Posted it for kicks. Your points are all very much valid, but the fall uses it in several songs.
>>7750188
Fair enough
"Hey, are you ready?" she says tapping her pocket anxiously for reassurance.
"Yeah, sure am." A square shaped lozenge protrudes from her left cheek. Inside her mouth she rolls it between her teeth and sucks loudly. Her pink tongue darts out snakelike, licking rose tinted lips, shined with fresh saliva.
The first girl shifts her feet uncomfortably and looks around. She can smell the sickly sweet cherry menthol mixed with the strawberry lip gloss. The second girl steps closer, watching coyly for a reaction then coats her lips again, this time her tongue is slower, more inviting.
"So do you have your brother's van?" Her playful face begins to animate imploringly as she steps lightly even closer. Their shoes are almost touching at the tips.
She suppresses a small gasp as their eyes connect again, this time much closer. Thin light brown eyebrows raised above impossibly wide green eyes; wet lips full and pursed together slightly parting to reveal the warmth inside.
"I brought the keys." she pauses, intoxicated by the smell, the other girl's closeness, those smiling eyes and those glistening lips. "W-where did you want to go?" she stammers, cheeks visibly reddening.
"Together." she winks leaning in suddenly. "Do you need these to drive?" Daphne slowly slides off Velma's glasses.
"Y-yeah. I can't see that well without them."
Daphne's voice suddenly deepens. "And the keys! THE KEYS!" Velma's hands tremble as she reaches in her pocket and pulls out the dangling car keys. "Yes, quickly now girl, hand them over."
"You sure sound different all of a sudden, gee Daphne. You could use another lozenge. What's this around my feet and hands, it feels like rope. Daphne? Daphne? Daphfpfmfhfpmm.."
Count Lludocic's trap had sprung shut. He dropped Velma's glasses and quickly finished stuffing her mouth with one of his cute knee high socks then dumped the tied up disoriented nerd into the back of the Mystery Machine. He readjusted his bra, skirt and wig looking around suspiciously, making sure no one had noticed his nefarious activities.
"With you out of the way." He began cackling to himself, climbing inside the driver's seat "There won't be anybody who can stop my plans for succeeding."
>>7750208
(contd)
"Gehehe-gege-hehe." Count Lludocic laughs, driving across town, towards the Lake Foggybrew Marina. "Gehehe-gege-hehe."
He arrives at the deserted boat sheds after dark. The night watchman was sleeping at the gate and Count Lludocic swipes his access card and stealthily drive in. Velma has urinated herself during the ride over and the entire van smelled like bong water and piss.
Count Lludocic parks near the pontoon jetty 5B and unlocks the rear van doors. Velma had passed out and her white panties were soaked through and visible under her skirt, the panties were illuminated by Count Lludocic's flashlight which he was carrying but I forgot to mention, and because they are white and it's dark it makes perfect sense for them to stand out. Velma's thighs trembled slightly as Count Lludocic reached down and grabbed her ankles, pulling her down out of the van. The smell was overpowering as it seems Velma was not properly hydrating previously, and boy, this was quite the pungent aroma, let me tell you this. You could almost smell a little bit of citrus under it all, it probably tasted very sour, Count Lludocic was thinking, not me, these are his thoughts. Velma had still not awakened, and he felt his resolve weakening.
"M-maybe, Maybe if I just got a bit closer." Her sweaty mound was heaving with every deep breath she took, the hot piss steaming and hissing in the cool night air. Count Lludocic kneeled down and peered intently at the two folds and crease plainly visible through her soiled underwear. Her winking bean quivering under unkempt coarse pubic hair.
"Gehehe-gege-hehe." Count Lludocic whispers, fixing his wig and stuffing a wandering nipple back inside his sock stuffed bra.
That's all I got for now, sincere responses only please.
>>7736565
Two men in two cars on a mountain road . One chases the other into a vast psychedelic sunset that cast a fiery orange onto the desiccated forest. Burn marks like shadows stretch from the bent corpses of trees. A duet of engines and the scuffling of a few million starving, emaciated rodents scavenging the ashen carcasses sound out. Birds fall from the sky as clouds of noxious methane move overhead. Dust storms undulate across the plains below. Screams heard from caves in the rock as the hungry fill their bellies with flesh. Two men have run, but only one in flight, the other chases.
>>7750157
Holy shit that's funny.10/10.
Fucking, tonight. I’ll need gasoline and condoms. Maybe cigarettes this time for afterwards. No one smokes anymore, but I’ve always enjoyed it. Pulling into the gas station, it’s an orange dusk out. A clunk of car door, clink of unfastened gas cap. I walk into the adjacent convenience store to pay with cash, three twenties folded in my pocket. Inside there’re a few people and a younger fellow behind the register. Go to pay. Yeah, you too. Thanks. Don’t look him in the eye. Cramming the change into my front pocket. A few papers, a dime escaping in haste. I swing open the metallic door and return to loud vapor and fresh exhaust.
Last time, she wanted me to stay longer, to talk. I laid, as uprightly she filled bed’s far end. On about her schooling, her worries and her worries’ dreams. Interesting, please continue. Continue eagerly she did, as I watched cigarette smoke twist and blow away by way of wobbly ceiling fan. I remember thinking how her depth could be emptied by the spinning blades above; so easily as a gust of wind about a plastic kiddie pool. I want something from the movies, she said. That starry eyed moment, when you just, know. You know? Yeah. Sounds nice. Sounds great, I even conceded. I left after sunrise. Still she hadn’t asked of my occupation.
>>7750142
Preposition Ratio: 10.7 % ← Bueno
Zombie Nouns: 'portion', 'equation', 'connection', 'action', 'eviction', 'competition', 'sensation', 'summation', 'Union', 'desperation', 'mention', 'crystallization', 'explanation', 'expansion', 'illusion', 'mission', 'decision', 'percussion', 'inspection', 'stipulation', 'Complexion', 'vision', 'city', 'integrity', 'fragility', 'proximity', 'mundanity', 'velocity', 'security', 'identity', 'inability' ← that's a fuck-load
Lexical Diversity: 33.26 %
Content Carrying Words: 60.04 %
Personal Vocab Diversity: 52.92 %
Longest Word: 'crystallization'
>>7750423
What are zombie nouns?
t. non-native English speaker
>>7750423
Wow. I'm kind of terrified of my younger self.
>>7750436
When you take a verb like evict, and turn it into an abstract noun like eviction. Secure to security, correct to correction, and so.
>>7750445
the amount of times this is answered....is google down?
>>7750359
Ow, the edge. Give up.
>>7750359
>Interesting, please continue. Continue eagerly she did, as I watched cigarette smoke twist and blow away by way of wobbly ceiling fan. I remember thinking how her depth could be emptied by the spinning blades above; so easily as a gust of wind about a plastic kiddie pool. I want something from the movies, she said. That starry eyed moment, when you just, know. You know? Yeah. Sounds nice. Sounds great, I even conceded. I left after sunrise. Still she hadn’t asked of my occupation.
was decent up until the beginning of this part, then it turned into American Psycho fan-fiction. was it intentional?
>>7750359
This is so fucking awful, I hope I never talked to you about books on this board.
When do the good ideas strike?
inspiration fleeing leaving me feeling
i got nothing else good to write
i am like a deer at a corner in a headlight
waiting for a car speeding on ice
to splatter me leak my blood to shadow the night
head to glass chest cavity impaled on the badge
the blues in my blood just drip drip dripping away
the indicator blinking depressive rage in no direction
so run run run away psycho banter
it is just not killer talk all day
drip drip drip drip drip drip away
Fucking. I’ll need gasoline and condoms. Maybe cigarettes this time, for afterwards. She doesn’t smoke anymore, but I can’t shake the habit. Pulling into the gas station. It’s dusk. Ringling of keys, clunk of car door, clink of unfastened gas cap. Into the adjacent convenience store to pay with cash, three folded twenties. Inside there’re a few people, a Paki fellow’s behind the register. I purchase the small suits of latex armor and the gas. Yeah, you too, thanks. Don’t look him in the eye. Cramming into my pocket the change: a few battered bills, a dime nearly escaping the haste. I swing open the metallic door and return to loud vapor and fresh exhaust.
Last time, she wanted me to stay, to talk. I laid, as uprightly she filled bed’s far end. On about her worried dreams. Interesting, please continue. Continue eagerly she did, as I watched cigarette smoke contort and blow away by way of wobbly ceiling fan. Her depth could be purged by the spinning blades above, as gusts of wind have made victim many a plastic kiddie pool. I want something from the movies, she said. That starry eyed moment when your eyes water up and you think your heart might explode, when you just, know. You know? Also, could you put that out? This place’ll smell like an ashtray. That sounds nice, I conceded, as I ousted myself from bed to fulfill the young fool’s lesser wish. I flushed the cigarette then washed my face and looked in the mirror. I could see her reflection pulling out from a pack a thin book. She brought it out, and took it to me, asking me to hear a piece of her writing. Her face was aglow with pride, for she was now an intellectual. I felt giving this soul a trinket of affirmation comparable to gifting a new toy to a child. Rejoining her on the bed empathetically, she insisted on reading her work aloud. She began: Fucking. I’ll need gasoline and condoms. Maybe cigarettes this time, for afterwards. She doesn’t smoke anymore, but I can’t shake the habit. Pulling into the gas station. It’s dusk. Ringling of keys, clunk of car door, clink of unfastened gas cap. Into the adjacent convenience store to pay with cash, three folded twenties. Inside there’re a few people, a Paki fellow’s behind the register. I purchase the small suits of latex armor and the gas. Yeah, you too, thanks. Don’t look him in the eye. Cramming into my pocket the change: a few battered bills, a dime nearly escaping the haste. I swing open the metallic door and return to loud vapor and fresh exhaust.
Last time, she wanted me to stay, to talk. I laid, as uprightly she filled bed’s far end. On about her worried dreams. Interesting, please continue. Continue eagerly she did, as I watched cigarette smoke contort and blow away by way of wobbly ceiling fan. Her depth could be purged by the spinning blades above, as gusts of wind have made victim many a plastic kiddie pool. I want something from the movies, she said.
>>7750668
Still makes my toes cringe involuntarily. You aren't embarrassed with this excerpt? I don't understand...
can anyone recommend me a website that detects prepositions in writing. I'm trying to find one but am completely stumped.
Also I don't know how to use python
>>7750055
reminds me of this something else posted here (not mine, saved because I liked it):
This intimate feeling which I felt for only one in this whole world, this whole existence, is that feeling which we sing about for ages but which we never truly touch except in that simple first moment, the Universal Explosion, The "Big Bang," and which leaves us like the Holy Spirit, fulfilled but empty; it is that feeling your mother had for your father for just a moment in that pre-existence of yours, and she had thought nothing of the physical, only of her and him, no bodies, strictly entities, indeed, what else are we but entities, for you, as I, are embodied in the way we make ripples upon the world rather than for reason of our being stone.
>>7749637
wow, thanks! based algorithm anon, lol. the breakdown is really helpful and i was curious how i'd stack to others.
>>7750180
;_;
yeah, the main character starts out a complete arrogant shit. we move immediately into a tidal wave of self-deprecating humor in ch2 and on, but i hope the first bit/intro isn't so annoying that it makes it feel insufferable to read. i guess it's a necessary pitfall for that bit of development, but yeah, the thought of reading a book full of that type of commentary would make me nauseous too. cheers for the read. i've never put anything out for [unbiased] review and i want to take every bit seriously and take an honest look at what i'm doing right/wrong.
>>7749637
Hey anon, can you run mine through your program?
>>7744354
>>7744932
Thank you. Anything else, though?
>>7750622
enough
>>7747633
unironically a masterpiece
staying up all night
there is so much light
on the screen mmhmm
time on standby playing yeah
must be the t.v yeah
please be a delight mmhmm
i just want to be lonely and please yeah
take all I've got yeah and leave me what i need
yeah then there she was
brought out like a plate to serve
i have beauty and greed mmhmm
staying up all night my retinas burned
i'm out of sight
then there she was mmhmm blurred and hidden from my mind
my lost mind yeah
but there she was mmhmm
i have beauty and greed mmhmm
>>7751203
Enter this place again never, and listen I won’t a retort.
Think none of my simple word, think not of place of this sort.
Heed not this warning my child, and ye long life be made short.
Leave ye now from here, and go enter again their old court.
Be anxious not at their judgement, for what is conjecture but sport?
And what is sport but life itself? So go, compete and extort.
>>7750423
if you compiled your program and posted it here, I think you could have a big impact on the quality of the content to everybody's benefit
Just finished an extra-short short story comparing war to substance abuse, thoughts? ways to improve?
“Fuck me” I think to myself.
As routine has trained me, I quickly rise to my feet and begin my ghastly charge. The back of my throat clogs in a green mist slowly condensing, and my stomach tangibly convulsing. The dust spiraled around in the air in my wake, and remnants of paper plates and empty pill bottles were crushed under my footfall.
I bump my knee up against the table which amplifies the pain and brings me down. In a moment, a soldier knocked asunder by a lucky mortar in a trench, I fumble into a crawl. The mud rises in my nose and the coughing begins, three consecutive blasts jettisoning shrapnel of mucus onto the stained wood floor. My face is flush white.
I manage to get up despite the violent hacking and drudge forward through the littered floor. The bathroom door is right in front of me, the crude brass handle rattles in its socket as I turn it. Standing in front of the mirror I see pale skin and bloodshot eyes. Another volley of coughs sputter outwards, splattering against the mirror and corrupting the image of the corrupt. I spit into the sink and see streaks of red. Maskless, I begin my medical ritual. I turn on the shower which whines as the cold dark water leaks through. I close the curtain to get privacy from my own reflection while I begin the operation.
On my hands and knees, looking down into the drain for some kind of relief. The water does little to pierce the matted helmet on my head, but the steady drumming and ring in my ear creates a torturous, calming white noise. In an attempt to expel the congestion, I take a mouthful of musty water and tilt my head back, tickling the back of my throat with the taste of grey. I gag and flick my head forward, blood dotting the tile around the drain. At this point the loss of blood is to be expected, and my retching continues to draw it out. The water slowly drags blood and bile from the tile, to the cracks, to the drain.
Weakness overcomes me and I lie down on the shower floor. My whole body pressed against the chilly operating table. I wish I could vomit instead of this hellish cough. Something about vomiting is therapeutic- cleansing. At this point my throat is so clogged I wouldn’t be able to. The retching turns into choking. My head is pounding, lungs collapsing, ears ringing. I regret popping that last one, but I couldn’t have stopped after my last tour. The whine of the showerhead fades in and out with my vision- an air raid siren and flare.
I am buried in a shallow grave of a hazy mind and curtain of dirt water with so many others.
>>7751889
meme
>>7739272
7/10
>>7751991
2/10 review.
He looked like Morrissey. Tall, curly or wavy-haired, buttoned-up undershirt highlighted by a trendy leather get up, wearing shades so often they might as well have been fused over his eyes
>>7752004
Oops, I meant:
{B0
I wrote this on a whim 2 days ago,first time i have ever written something just because i felt like it.
Do your worst senpai.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FAqIKqc6uQcolnZG72pdxpqUonymv7ONpIZzozpy6zg/edit
>>7752001
damn i wish i was all depressed and lonely like and could rock out to some morrisey shit all night, but all i care about is making money so i can pay my rent and not dress like a homeless man so i will listen to rap music instead i'm getting capitalism-autism
>>7752014
p.s. that was a shitpost not some shit for u fags to critique
>>7752008
what the fuck
>>7752014
so why the fuck are you gonna listen to rap music all night
i mean that's the quandry here right? can't jam to music all night cuz u got work in the morning
>>7752027
i work for my self, shitlord, learn2freelance
>>7750668
Last sentence of I guess both paragraphs sounds out of place with the rest because "metallic" isn't the same form as the previous adjectives used throughout. The meta thing is gimmicky and comes off as meaningless.
>>7751889
I like the comparison, you did it smoothly for the most part. I would say make the war-like imagery more clear to make it more immersive.
Ok, here's mine:
He found, gazing at his wife Lily in a rather dull manner (and peripherally glaring at the man standing to her side), that he was currently
experiencing an emotion unlike any he had had in his adulthood. The most recent memory of such an experience, and thus such an emotion, was in grade school involving a"crush" he had had in which, having limited interaction with the object of his affection and as such limited knowledge of her actual life, he had
found out somewhat alarmingly that she was involved in an exclusive relationship with a person he did not know. He found that he quickly despised this
person, but upon meeting this person found jarringly that the person in question was quite kind and by no means deserving of the emotions he had had against
this person, and subsequently felt the aforementioned emotion he had had as a result. He re-experienced this emotion for the first time in adulthood (as in
the interim he made it quite intentionally important that he disassociate himself with any potential affectional objects that were already involved in
relationships, or seemed likely to be soon) as his wife Lily, quite awake and unaware of the dull manner in which she was being observed, stood next to a
neighbour of his (and of course Lily's as well, as he and Lily were indeed rather heteronormative in their marriage) in the elevator, both wrapped in
complete silence. The silence was what in fact caused this emotion he had had, as neither party occupying the elevator looked at all uncomfortable. Now it
quickly had occurred to him (standing outside the elevator looking in) that such silence known to be comfortable to both involved was a silence unique not
to those who were merely acquainted, and not to those who had a budding relationship (as these interactions were often quite vibrant and flirtatious), but
to those who had been together a long time, long enough that conversation seemed unnecessary and occasionally even distracting to the experience at hand.
That experience was one of really simply being together, one that he had experienced with Lily himself, and with what he had considered a reasonable number
of people before her. Had he considered this emotion he had had now as he would later, he would have noticed the selfish and almost objectifying nature of
the way he looked upon those experiences he had had and the people he had had them with [and realized that he might still be able to have such experiences
>>7752040
Teach Huz
>>7752044
with Lily, regardless of her having them herself with other people (although he would even later realize that this was not all that helpful given his actual issue with the circumstance)], but at that moment he took the emotion he had had and converted it into a pain calling back into his adolescence (placing it among the most poignant of pains).
The occupants of the elevator now looked to him, expecting him to enter.
"I think I'll get the next one," he said as he gradually looked downwards, and he had exited the building by the time the elevator doors closed.
>>7752027
>first they hated on the wave
>now they ride the wave
yo what the fuck how is the god damn ufc already over? was that shit in england for that god damn nerd michael bisping? he got kneed in the fucking neck by anderson silva and didn't get kayoed? silva fucking washed the fuck up to lose to a b-tier "diversity fighter" only signed to get buys in the uk market, shit there better be some boxing
Hi guys, decided to write something akin to genre-tier pap. Was stuck for ideas but what came out I'm kind of pleased with, it's basically a rip-off of the torture scene from 1984 and is going to be a tongue in cheek allegory for how we are indoctrinated into capitalism. Don't worry it's not as portentious as it sounds. Just got the first 1000 words down.
Also I know the prose is nothing to write home about.
http://pastebin.com/J4WsfeCD
she sells sea sells by the she soar. the shells that she shells are surely shea sells
>>7752116
>allegory for how we are indoctrinated into capitalism
wooo sounds very edgy my teenage friend, after ur extensive reading of 1984 and the stranger u r ready to rock the literary establishment with a hard hitting yet wickedly satirical take down of capitalism!
>>7752130
It's just a piss take / way to blow off steam, I am no Orwell. Also The Stranger wasn't really about capitalism was it mate.
>>7752130
Come to think of it neither was 1984.
>>7752142
1984 wasn't about capitalism any more than the stranger was, idiot
>>7752151
Yes but that's what you implied wasn't it.
>>7752163
u said u were influenced by 1984, i didn't say anything about capitalism, i implied u are influenced by the most pathetic high school books for wack teens, but u didnt get the point cuz u too pleb
>>7752172
Cool m8
>>7752044
Made some edits based on your suggestions, open to more input from other people!
“Fuck me” I think to myself.
The drills I ran were plenty. As routine has trained me, I quickly rise to my feet and begin my ghastly charge. The back of my throat clogs in a green mist slowly condensing, and my stomach tangibly convulsing. The dust spiraled around in the air in my wake, and remnants of paper plates and empty pill bottles were crushed under my footfall.
I bump my knee up against the table which amplifies the pain and brings me down. In a moment, a soldier knocked asunder by a lucky mortar in a trench, I fumble into a crawl. The mud rises in my nose and the coughing begins, three consecutive blasts jettisoning shrapnel of mucus onto the stained wood floor. My face is flush white. The needles roll around me, expended casings of past firefights.
I manage to get up despite the violent hacking and drudge forward through the littered floor. The bathroom door is right in front of me, the crude brass handle rattles in its socket as I turn it. Standing in front of the mirror I see pale skin and bloodshot eyes staring blankly forward. Another volley of coughs sputter outwards, splattering against the mirror and corrupting the image of the corrupt. I spit into the sink and see streaks of red.
Maskless, I begin my medical ritual. I turn on the shower which whines as the cold dark water leaks through. I close the curtain to get privacy from my own reflection while I begin the operation. On my hands and knees, looking down into the drain for some kind of relief. The water does little to pierce the matted helmet on my head, but the steady drumming and ring in my ear creates a torturous, calming white noise. In an attempt to expel the congestion, I take a mouthful of musty water and tilt my head back, tickling the back of my throat with the taste of grey. I gag and flick my head forward, blood dotting the tile around the drain. At this point the loss of blood is to be expected, and my retching continues to draw it out. The water slowly drags blood and bile from the tile, to the cracks, to the drain.
Weakness overcomes me and I lie down on the shower floor. My whole body pressed against the chilly operating table. I wish I could vomit instead of this hellish cough. Something about vomiting is therapeutic- cleansing. At this point my throat is so clogged I wouldn’t be able to. The retching turns into choking. My head is pounding, lungs collapsing, ears ringing. I regret popping that last one, but I couldn’t have stopped after my last tour. The whine of the showerhead fades in and out with my vision- an air raid siren and flare.
I lie in a shallow grave of a hazy mind and curtain of dirt water with so many others; there is no honorable burial.
I'm not even close to giving criticism
My name is Willaim Ashward and this is my story.
My mother ceased to exist when i was four and as much as i try i still cannot remember her face.My father doesn't like to talk about her,everytime i tried to start a conversation about her he would change the subject to another theme,i think her passing still hurts him to this very day.We live in a green Irish countryside, the nearest city near us is about 30 kilometers away. I am currently going to the third year of academy and to be honest I hate it. I would probably not even bother to study if I didn’t have my dream of becoming a librarian.
Even when I was young my love towards books was much higher than that towards people, on one occasion when my father noticed me reading a novel with a proud glint in his eyes he mentioned how much I remind him of my mother. Now that I think about it that’s the only time he mentioned her in a conversation. Every summer break I go visit my grandparents from my father’s side in England, they live in Nottingham and their house is equivalent of another home to me. As old as they are, they still take long walks every day, they act like they are in the prime time of their youth and it always brings a grin to my face when I see them happy together.
>>7752256
>An introverted reader
>Mother dies young
>Father doesn't talk about her
>Happy loving grandparents
I can tell you aren't really fit for this because when you wrote "he would change the subject to another theme" you saw the need to add "i think her passing still hurts him to this very day". This tells me you aren't exactly thinking how this would be conveyed to the reader.
I would suggest you attack like a lot of short stories from Chekhov to Raymond Carver before you try again. Come back a year later.
>>7752248
I guess I would say - you described a scene of sickness, well done.
But given that we're in the 21st century, these are some unnecessarily over-Gothicized descriptions
"ghastly charge"
"clogs in a green mist slowly condensing"
"pale skin and bloodshot eyes"
"streaks of red"
"cold dark water"
"torturous, calming white noise"
"an air raid siren and flare"
"shallow grave"
etc... etc...
And comparing the sick guy to a soldier in a trench is a turn that is cute, but I can't say more to it.
"corrupting the image of the corrupt" is an ambiguity that might work in another scene, like Lovecraft or something, but probably not here.
Of course the problem is this is just an extract. If you used Gothicky Dark modifiers in a larger picture this would probably be a tad overdone but okay, but for now it just feels a bit melodramatic.
>>7752289
I used that specific diction to call to mind the poem Dulce et Decorum Est
>>7744855
I don't exactly think it's funny, no, but I /was/ trying to make it sound funny/interesting from the narrator's perspective, where she mostly has uninteresting things to say. I wasn't trying to sound like someone from Brooklyn in the 70s either, I was actually trying to write it in the style of a college-aged girl in my city (Vancouver). It's inspired by an experience I had being yelled at by a homeless guy and how difficult/impossible it was to explain the absolute disorientingness, so I tried to, I think, portray that disoriented sense in my narrator, where she's on this weird borderline between hyperattentive and distracted, and just wants to show off to her conversation partner.
>>7744934
No, it hasn't changed much. I'm looking for more comments, I'm still not sure what to do about the parenthetical interruptions, I have a soft spot for them and would like to try to continue working with them. Thank you for helping me out earlier though, anon.
>>7745159
This is a really interesting observation to me, especially since I appreciate Nabokov's writing, but I'm not sure I detect the influence. Regardless, thanks. Do you want to elaborate on your observation? I would, I think, like to write with a bit more heart and less brains.
>>7749133
I'm unsure of exactly what you meant, but... Were you saying that the parentheticals have a much different voice than the un-parenthetical text? Also, I think I agree on your views of the thought-provoking aspects, but I also don't think that I really intended anything to be truly thought-provoking, more just like the immature trains of thought as this girl is telling her story. Does that help at all, or is it still unredeemed? Thanks.
My girlfriend begs for a massage
cooing like a wounded dove
Dionysus wrought the grapes
That felled my pride with whines of love
>>7751318
Thank you, I was roughly trying to follow sex and candy by Marcy Playground. You are right though they don't even use that many.
question: if a story is being narrated in third person but the character being followed is mixing up pronouns in their head, is it okay to swap back and forth with insistent corrections?
for example:
>Bob said him – her dammit – "your favorite anime is shit"
>>7752248
bretty good, probs best in thread- worth the read
>>7737136
This is really bad, very overwrought with clumsy images.
I think I may have jumped off the EDGE event horizon. following
>>7739510
>>7739512
>>7739272
>>7748651
For many moments they were quiet, and together they watched the sun set, only to rise again on the same horizon. The boy asked it what direction they were facing, and immediately realized it was a very stupid question. From some unseen pocket she drew a compass of some ageless metal and placed it in the boy’s hands. “Try to move it,” she told him, “just by thinking.”
The boy thought at the compass as hard as he could and slowly the needle began to turn. He wondered if direction was a matter of thought in this strange place and asked her so. She shook her head and told him that for a narcissist he thought so little of himself. Before he could respond she asked him the question he had been dreading to hear: “Is this the first time we’ve met?”
Suddenly it came back to him. She was not some strange and kindly girl, she was the bishop of the other city: a deceiver, a predator, a slayer of men. Before she could leap upon him he tore the nail from around her neck and thrust it into her chest. Again and again he stabbed with pounding heart and shaking hands until at last she fell still.
She died with tears on her cheeks, and as Maxwell plucked the tail from her back he realized she was so small and light. He struggled to breathe as he thought about it. How could something like this have hurt him? Could not he have stolen her tail and ran? His stomach clenched, and vomited on the flagstones, ashamed to have done something so cruel.
She was a beast, he told himself, a killer and a liar. Was he not both now too? Surely something like her could not have hurt him. If she was a beast what sort of thing was he? The antichrist he remembered; a demon a cambion, a spawn of hell. These were things that demons did were they not? He would have to learn these things sooner or later if he were to bring this world to its knees
short story i wrote last night:
dinner with the family. the twelve yr old is on a kick tonight: I want to go to some other country, he announces. everyone wonders what this can mean as they continue to eat in silence. james says nothing more. no elaboration, no explanation. with an annoyed look around the table bang! he slams his fist down and upstairs he is asleep again. father growls with his eyes and looks to mother concerned, she looks back, a look that says “nothing to worry about, I will explain everything in the privacy of our quarters.” daughter eats and leaves the table quickly. the house remains quiet that night.
a week later, early, the phone lights up with a chime and james opens it:
new message, General, read:
MEADOW PARK. between the hours 18h16-04h00
he puts on his uniform, green cargo pants and a grey jacket, and quickly rushes outside. sirens wail in the distance and a fine layer of soot covers the roadside. a car is waiting for him, as he was told it would. they head off.
today is the Army’s first live exercise. this army, see, is made up of children. young children well-armed with M-1’s, carbines, .30 and.50 caliber machine guns, 105 mortars, recoilless rifles, the whole works. they’ve even got a single rail gun, kept hidden on the back of a pickup truck under a layer of tarp. james himself is armed with two pistols, which he bought from a gun store in January.
the central figure is the General, who is sixteen. early in life he decided that war is the only path for him. he had tried everything, but nothing else would bring him fulfillment. he then became a mercenary, fighting in the Bosnian War (where he lost a toe), the Nepalese Civil War (where he lost an ear), the Kosovo War (where he lost his right hand), and the Rwandan Civil War (where he lost his left eye). now he has returned to form his own fighting group, and lead them under his command.
anyways so they drive down the main road of the city, passing the banks, the restaurants, the grocery stores, the gyms, the bars. a few people mill about, a young woman jogs down the sidewalk, a homeless man stands huddled under the traffic light. the morning sun smothers the horizon in a dull haze, struggling to pierce the thick smoke that rises from the city’s outskirts. sirens continue to shriek, closer now, as red-colored emergency vehicles routinely rush past their car. the hollow thupthup of a distant helicopter fire-fighting via sky is heard. high-ground tactical advantage.
then they arrive at the park.
1/2 [...]
>>7752909
Yes of course.
>>7756054
2/2 [...]
a quiet stillness haunts the air, as the boys get out of the car and begin to pile the weapons together in the middle of the parking lot. the rail gun is left to the side. nobody is there, except for a group of yoga-goers who quickly leave at the sight of children wielding guns. kids are reckless, they know this all too well.
circle around in formation. they read together the General Order issued to the troops, as is custom before each exercise. in unison: “(1) you are in this army because you wanted to be. (2) the purpose of the army is to do what the General says. (3) don’t be afraid of the noise when everybody fires (the eeeeeeeee sound). it is a friendly noise. (4) talking to people who are not in the army is forbidden. they do not understand the army. (5) this is a serious army and anybody that laughs will have their weapon taken away. (6) what the General wants to do now is, find and destroy the enemy.
after these words are spoken, the group of children disperse into formation and take up positions. suddenly, one of the boys named Kaleb exclaims, “hold on a second, now then who are we supposed to shoot at, General?” “at each other, you fool!” “are we the enemy, General?” “we are each other’s enemy now,” he declares. “ROGER THAT, General” the boys shout together at once.
moments after the General’s declaration, the army of youth begins killing each other.
and so from his position in a shallow hole, james closes his eyes, and thinks of his family. his father and mother and sister who are home, just now waking up probably. another day. his search for meaning now comes to an end in a hailstorm of bullets.
the park is so quiet, after.
