New critique thread? All the other ones are unironically dank, danker than Infinite Kek.
[Read context bellow just in case you're confused]
What's that curling around your ankles, Java Jucuzzi? Is it the moisture in the air, that crippling humidity that swells into your lungs? No, it must the memory of your baby sister, Booby Jacooby; a ghost, if you will. It's the thing that's always been haunting you in your nightmares since before she was even born, that pale hand that reaches out and grabs you, trying to pull you down to god knows where. And Anna, maybe she's for god knows whatever reason lying right under your bed, waiting for your leg to fall right down the side, just so she can with her pale hand grasp your ankle and shake it, shake it like a tambourine to play the gospel of God that shakes you to your heart, Bobby's heart. She's down there so you better tuck yourself in now, curl yourself into a fist and block out the ghost that wants to crush your bones, block her out block her out, that howling witch of a familiar ghost. Pulling you down, pulling you down down down.
So make sure to catch yourself every time you find your foot hanging off the edge of the bed, or she'll get you and pull down to hell, where you're punished for the fact that in all her seven years on this damp cold earth, you never once said ditto when she said she loves you, Bubby. Love you, Bubby. Bubby the Chubby, can't even fit my pale cold hand around your fat fucking ankle. Love you, Bubby.
[Context: this is an excerpt from a book I've been working on, which is about grief (in a nutshell). As for why this kid keeps getting called (by a really asshole omniscient narrator, btw) all these stupid names, which you'll notice, his real name is Bobby Jacoby, which sounds goofy as hell, but the other characters give him shit for it. One thing they do is, "Get you can't say Bobby Jacoby five times fast," so really it's just a bunch of fun and games, but the experimental narrator is just fucking mean about it. Anyway, it's metafic as fuck, but I'm really enjoying it, so spare telling me the novel won't get published, we'll see about that. I just really want a critique on the except above, phams. Thanks.]
Shameful self-bump.
Igual que vibran los primeros rayos
donde esparció la sangre su Creador,
cayendo el Ebro bajo la alta Libra, 3
y a nona se caldea el agua al Ganges, 4
el sol estaba; y se marchaba el día,
cuando el ángel de Dios alegre vino. 6
Fuera del fuego sobre el borde estaba 7
y cantaba: «¡Chupame la pija!»
con voz mucho más viva que la nuestra. 9
Luego: «Más no se avanza, si no muerde
almas santas, el fuego: entrad en él
y escuchad bien el canto de ese lado.» 12
Nos dijo así cuanto estuvimos cerca;
por lo que yo me puse, al escucharle,
igual que aquel que meten en la fosa. 15
Por protegerme alcé las manos juntas
en vivo imaginando, al ver el fuego,
humanos cuerpos que quemar he visto. 18
Please critique:
Lights from buildings above illuminate the skyscrapers stretched like giant’s fingers towards the open air, begging for rain. The lights, like manufactured stars, only served as a fake night sky. They never turned off. The city is always bright, no matter what time it is. Lights from above, and from below: flashing traffic lights, billboards in profile, helicopter searchlights seeking their victim with heavy fingers, probing the ground. Bright neon signs, bulbous and crass, blind me with their glow, their incessant hum ringing in my ears. A never ending twilight, stretched out over this unreal city. Night is laid like a blanket over a resting city. Lights burn holes in the fabric, buildings poke through it with sharp spires, wearing it away like moths. The lights never turn off, the buildings always glinting and winking; large candles waiting for that extinguishing gust of wind. I walk the streets at night, watching, looking, observing. I see how they never turn off, never go out, never end. They burn. I walk the streets often, tracing invisible lines up and down avenues and boulevards. There is no particular destination. I stumble from place to place, empty location to empty location, aimless. A trashed newspaper blown about on the wind. The wind blows much of the trash all over the city- the soiled clothing, used fliers, remains of food long gone moldy, the torn shoes, crumpled and soggy boxes, worn blankets, old bags. It grabs it all, depositing it in clumps throughout the city without prejudice. It searches every tight corner, every small nook and overlooked alley, finding every secluded spot and spreading trash everywhere. I, the old newspaper, see all types of garbage. I see the soiled clothing hanging from the weak bones of the poor. I see the musicians and artists hanging up their fliers, trying to find success while sacrificing for their “art”. The food tossed out by careless families who have plenty to spare. I see the torn shoes shuffling about, one foot after the other while the red-cheeked and razor burned faces turn from the wind. There! In the alley, the crumpled boxes holding wet garbage, sheltering stray cats and sometimes people. I see the old bags blowing in the wind like me, hags in bags pushing their squeaky carts haphazardly through the streets. The wind moves us all.
>>7910871
(2/2)
It blows the human trash throughout the city. And I, the used and crumpled newspaper or the dirty old bag, am no exception. Read today’s newspaper and see what new changes have happened in the world: new scientific discoveries, turn to page four. Financial crisis in Cyprus, page seven, Financial advice from top Wall Street analysts, see page ten. Updates on conflicts overseas, pages eight and nine. Read the used newspaper, and witness a history that has been forgotten: for bullet wounds from military service, see left arm and leg. For heart murmurs, see the chest. For gout problems, see the inflamed kneecaps. For evidence of his homelessness, see the tattered clothing and dirty face. For the gradual degradation of the human body, see the whole person.
>>7910871
>>7910873
>>7909108
>What's that curling around your ankles, Java Jucuzzi? Is it the moisture in the air, that crippling humidity that swells into your lungs? No, it must the memory of your baby sister, Booby Jacooby; a ghost, if you will. It's the thing that's always been haunting you in your nightmares since before she was even born, that pale hand that reaches out and grabs you, trying to pull you down to god knows where. And Anna, maybe she's for god knows whatever reason lying right under your bed, waiting for your leg to fall right down the side, just so she can with her pale hand grasp your ankle and shake it, shake it like a tambourine to play the gospel of God that shakes you to your heart, Bobby's heart. She's down there so you better tuck yourself in now, curl yourself into a fist and block out the ghost that wants to crush your bones, block her out block her out, that howling witch of a familiar ghost. Pulling you down, pulling you down down down.
So make sure to catch yourself every time you find your foot hanging off the edge of the bed, or she'll get you and pull down to hell, where you're punished for the fact that in all her seven years on this damp cold earth, you never once said ditto when she said she loves you, Bubby. Love you, Bubby. Bubby the Chubby, can't even fit my pale cold hand around your fat fucking ankle. Love you, Bubby.
that was great.
>>7910673
Sorry bruh no ablo Chinese
>>7910871
>>7910873
Way to try hard bruh. Cut down the analogies and overly complicated descriptions bruh. If you're going into the metaphor game you gotta write what your hand wants bruh. Not your brain bruh. You're over thinking it bruh
They met.
BORGMAN! Ya berking facking facker! Ya two face feremonial fumphard! How is life? How's da demi-wife?
The ill examined streets enveloped them.
Bleet... Borgman half replied.
Bleet and fungoid, as orange as ad-hoc infinitude.
X'arrgez scratches his nose hole.
Ye, ya don't cawol dem navol, pour flavor?
Flavorade, Borgman says. No sulka sulka the ha ha.
My writing has been on aerochameleon.wordpress.com check it out and tell me here or there what you think. I update it often as I progress with my travels.
Maggie threw her laptop across the room screaming in frustration. Edmund was dead. He'd died over the weekend away whilst she'd had to visit her grandpa in the hospice. How the fuck was she ever gonna get that progress back...Her Grandpa had just lain there all the time while she sat in the corner and her parents stood around. She'd nearly died of boredom, the only thing that had kept her alive throughout the prolonged encounter was the promise of getting back to her Neopet Edmund and now he was dead. UGHHH. Her damn parents had even forced her to kiss his slimy wrinkled prune face and all the time she'd wasted here her darling had been dieing! She rushed around the room in a frenzy, her tears welling and slipping down her face like semen out of a cumsock. She was distraught. Her mother called out to her and asked her to come down they had some news to give her. But she was far too busy for that and what could be worse she didnt care. She slipped out her window and fell ten feet down to the ground, smashing her leg to pieces. Mr John Green her famous neighbour fortunately had seen her fall. 'Darling are you OK?' he whispered soothing, but with a hint of pedophilia. 'I'm OK, but my leg feels pretty bad'. 'Aww sweety,' he cooed, 'sniff some of this doll it'll make you feel great again,' i sniffed it and imemdiately fell into a stupor. I couldnt feel as he dragged me away, i couldnt hear my parents worried screams and shouts as they couldnt find me, i couldnt feel him pulling away my clothes and chaining me in his dark dungeon. But i did feel it when that sick paedo raped me again and again and i felt the slime of his body pressed hard against my poor childlike frame by that sickening child rapist John Green.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10079932/130/
check it out
my magnum opus
>>7909108
very nice
>>7910871
Everytime you use I, it's like a fucking pillar of shit telling me that you suck at writing.
Try to diversify how you refer to yourself, and cut down on the purple prose
>>7909108
nah
>>7909108
I get stream of consciousness vibe from this, and its great, really like it. Sometimes the sentences are a bit long and i have to read it twice for them to make sense.
>>7909108
Replace "pull you down to hell" in the second paragraph with something more along the lines of the tambourine metaphor you gave earlier.
>>7909108
I've been told that my text is dry, any tips on how to make it better?
The grass was wet and the morning was unusually cold when the freemen walked up to the rock waiting for Karl the lawspeaker. This was the third day of the thing and that meant the smaller cases can be presented. I knew that my family was fighting a hopeless battle against someone as powerful as Jarl Ulfur who had swayed many of Visby's landowners to support his claim on my family's land. My father let off a fit of coughs and then looked at me and said "don't worry Sven, with the other farmers supporting us the Jarl will see the error of his ways and abandon his claim, I'm sure of it." Then he smiled widely, but his sunken eyes made it look false, like the trained smile of a travelling merchant. Not knowing what to say I nodded and smiled back at him. He made a sorry sight for a man of forty winters, his back was hunched and his skin was pale, and his coughing fits had been getting worse all spring. However, his optimism was admirable given the circumstances, and he was right when he said that many of the other farmers in Visby supported us, I just hoped they were enough.
I looked over the field and saw the farmers who had rallied to our aid, nodding to those who came and cursing those who failed to show up. Sadly, alongside Visby's fading fortunes in trade so had the honour and generosity of the Jarl declined sharply, no doubt he had his housecarls scare off the men who did not come.
>>7910871
>like giant’s fingers towards the open air, begging for rain
This doesn't make any sense. Giant's fingers aren't known for begging for rain. Stopped reading here 2bh
>>7911044
i'm crying why does Bloom look so sad hahahah perfect reation
>>7912036
Bad verb usage and it most sentences sound like what an NPC would tell me upon activating it.
Other thread is dead?
1/2
The beginning to a short story of the unexplained end of the world and a man dealing with his final moments.
The sun shined down and blistered his slowly cooking skin. Unable to gather the will to move, he simply laid basking, taking in the feeling as his body felt warmer and warmer. He inhaled a deep breath into his lungs and stretched his hands onto the cool grass. They embraced him, a hundred blades gently running themselves across his sleeves, his hands, and his hair. The aroma rose, fell and sunk itself into him.
Gathering his strength, he shifted his legs to a more comfortable position and continued his glare towards the sun. It was difficult to understand the gravity of it, the magnificence that such a grand figure truly was. It was like a good song he supposed; far too easy to enjoy and far too easy to forget. It was even easier to forget that one day it too would be gone, but then that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. All things gold must fade, and so all days must give way to night. He had always thought that endings were a grand thing, an item of great inspiration and joy, though even now he had moments where he wondered how a shelf life could ever be a joyous thing; but then he had moments of clarity. How could one ever know motivation without the threat of nothingness looming over them? How could they understand joy without the threat of pain breathing down their neck? How could people understand life without the threat of death standing in the corner of their eye? He couldn’t help but feel thankful for an end of some kind. The way he saw it there were only two things in this world that ever mattered; how you begin something and how you end it. It was a simplistic ideology, but simplicity never hurt anyone. How much pain had been caused by someone who felt they needed more when in reality they had what others would kill for? He longed for simplicity.
He shook his head, realizing he had been staring at the sun for minutes. He blinked, watching small specks that riddled his vision, dancing in front of him as his eyes adjusted back to their normal state. They felt warm, too warm, but he appreciated the sun’s touch none the less. He slowly glanced to his side hoping to see the familiar figure that had been there with him, but she had left likely long ago to leave him in a half-asleep daze on the ground with a feeling he didn’t truly expect; loneliness. Maybe it wasn’t as much loneliness as it was of being left behind yet again. She was always trying to make her way ahead of him and it slowly killed him inside, to which he was growing apathetic to it; and maybe even to her. But she was such a bright spot in his life, such an example and a motivation that he couldn’t truly find anywhere else. He had tried, but whether his will simply wasn’t strong enough, or self-improvement not a big enough push, he fell short. It was always her figure he was chasing and her torch he kept lit.
>>7913031
He realized it then. He was in love with time. Not the concept of it like some philosopher fantasizes about or the human representation of it you’d find in childhood fiction. No, he loved time. He fell in love with memories and parts of his life that he would never truly relive, constantly personifying them into whatever he could rationalize in his head. He raised women to these pedestals to represent to him his childhood, happiness, and countless other emotions he never truly understood. To represent all the good times he had long since left behind. He remembered the first girl he could ever say he fell for. Her name was Diane, a sweet girl filled innocence and ignorance of the world around her. He remembered when he moved, how he would visit and how he would use her like a tool to go back to those wondrous days of childhood. No, he wanted her as one wants a memory. He felt for her as one would feel looking through a photo album. All the women of his life fell to the same fate, to represent a point in his life one which was never truly as great as it once was. Lonely times represented by sparks of hope, angry times represented by moments of sight, and apathetic moments mistaken for the gaining of maturity and knowledge. He was helplessly, head over heels, and blindly in love with the great delusion of time. Lost time, spare time, old times, and new times, but goddamn him if it wasn’t the good times that were slowly killing him.
And now she was no different, just a goal to him, a challenge that perhaps he never really expected to complete. A target he never truly thought he could hit and when he eventually did, he’d lose much of the passion he had felt. Memories constantly relived aren’t memories, and you simply end up living in the past wishing and hoping for something to force you forward; he couldn’t, and it ate at him. Every time he tried to move he felt as if he was banging against a brick wall, simply watching others walk through and wondering why he was so unable to do the same.
It didn't matter anymore though, did it? There where no more great battles to win. No great struggles to fight. Just the simplicity of accepting and letting go. He gazed into the sky.
>>7910673
Are you the Portuguese bro who record that secondary literature on Shakespeare?
https://sunmachineblog.wordpress.com/
Would you read a blog if this was the first post?
>>7913501
It's oddly charming, though slightly pretentious. I'd look further into your other posts, but they would need to be solid for me to care after that.
As we climbed the mountain I couldn't help but keep my head fixed down and my gaze centred on those plodding footsteps, in sync as they were with the mechanical 'in out' of my breath. But Cambo I never saw looking down once — his eyes never once flicking down to check the placement of a step, as if he'd walked this route a thousand times before and learned each stone by touch, even through all the wool and rubber. Instead his eyes were stuck upward, enflamed by the sight of endless green and brown — each tree in its chaotic sprawl a thing of perpetual intrigue and wonder to Cambo.
I told Caitlin all these things and she didn't believe me. She said to me "how do you know he never looked down if you were never looking up?"
"Well, whenever I looked up so was he!"
"But what if every time you looked down he also looked down. You'd never know!"
"Well I suppose that's possible, but it's very unlikely."
When we finally reached the peak of the mountain we found a small pagoda, painted red and yellow, and scrawled on with black marker pen graffiti, a mix of English and Chinese characters. It was cold up there, and when the cool air hit the sweat that marked our backs it was so chilling it was almost painful, like biting into metal. The view was somewhat spoiled by the dull suburban spread canvassing the landscape, but the trees were pretty and the cliffs were painted deep gothic greens with occasional flashes on autumnal yellow that looked spray-painted on. I wanted to stop and collect in the palm of my hand the water dripping down the stone face, but Cambo was all about momentum, and I thought this might upset him.
So we moved on and came to a small kiosk, outside of which an impressive statue stood — a large man with a flaming sword. I remembered reading about someone like this, a bodhisattva who rode on a lion and carried a flaming sceptre in his right hand — but this one held it in his left.
I mentioned this to Cambo,
"Maybe they fucked up" he replied "like a typo, but with stonemasonry".
>>7913031
>>7913034
This is pretty well written, simple but reads nicely - but guddam it rubs me the wrong way. Just way too profound for something thats like 500 words, its epiphany after epiphany and it feels like someone tried to condense a PHIL101 lecture into a few paragraphs of prose. I get that this is meant to a catharsis, and maybe I'd appreciate it more at the end of a novel, having to got to know this character - but because this excerpt is so isolated the complete lack of characterisation makes his musings come across as soulless, not profound just kind of there.
This isn't necessarily the fault of the writing, kinda just the limit of including only a fragment of a text. Anyway, I think the first paragraph could do with revising, the sentence lengths and repetitive sentence structure (his, his, his, him, him, him) sits awkwardly with me. The rest of it reads fine as I said before.
>>7912036
>The grass was wet and the morning was unusually cold
Yeah I see what they mean lol
Just be more creative, whats a better way to describe this detail - otherwise why include it?
I don't think the dryness of your writing style is necessarily bad, like the rest of your piece is fine but your content needs to be really good to carry the less than lavish prose - and at the moment your content seems pretty boring, just IMO, like reading a deposition. Basically you can get away with a boring writing style if what you write about is interesting.
>>7913770
I can see what you mean. It's meant to be the beginning, a view that is eventually proven wrong at the end of his journey. I can tell you the general idea, however outside of that piece I dislike the original direction I had taken. I kind of reworked what I wanted to do with it.
It's nine in the night and my cat's in the shed
I'll spoil it, she's dead
Died in the night
Won all but this last fight
>>7909108
SO i've been working on this encrypted messenger for a while now, and figured with all the security talk going on, why not try and kickstart my project and actually dedicate some time to it.
This weekend i'm going to shoot my video, but considering this will probably be my one and only shot i want to make it good.
I wrote up a script that explains the service without going too nerdy.
Could someone please critique what i have so far?
(i hang out on /p/ and /g/ neither of which helped, so i came here)
I just want some help to make sure i dont sound like some bumbling idiot, or not talk enough.
literally not trying to shill anything here, pls believe me, i will never personally post the kikestarter on 4chan once it goes live.
>>7914102
I've never done any writing outside of the basic English class i took in college.
pls be gentle.
OP here. I haven't forgotten about you faggots.
>>7911614
Sounds like trolling, but this has value. No exposition needed for characters, perfect example of showing vs. telling.
>>7913034
The middle is fine, but the beginning and end were too overbearing and showed you weren't sure exactly what you were writing, but you eventually found your voice. The ending proves you probably should have either took a break before returning or kept writing until the bit ended less rocky. The phrase "gazed into the sky" is a bit icky, work on trying to focus more on narrative and theme rather than language, don't worry too much about language until your second draft.
>>7913752
Clunky sometimes. This is easily fixable. "keep my head fixed down and my gaze centered" is too loaded; "couldn't help but keep my eyes on" would be better; I know you might be afraid the language might be boring, but writers tend to think "good writing" comes out of sounding poetic. Don't be afraid to be simple or subtle, sometimes the simplest ways of putting things are most powerful, because they're the most naked. The dialogue is realistic, but keep an eye on diction to avoid the characters sounding the same or seem less like characters than the writer's on words. People are less likely to say "I suppose" than "I guess." Diction has very little to do with sophistication, don't listen to these leet pseudo lit fags.
>>7913969
Despite my preference to free-form (which is irrelevant), I love the meter. It's not forced, but just subtly mechanical enough to show creativity. The only issue I'm having is the tone. The beginning seems apathetic, almost hostile, but the ending seems sentimental. Try to be more consistent with the tone; if you're afraid that'll seem redundant, just make varying degrees of the same tone. Given the length of the poem, a crescendo isn't necessary.
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
>>7911932
Had to kek a little, because there was this interview between Oprah and Toni Morrison about Beloved, and Oprah said she had to keep going back to the sentences again, and Morrison said, "Yeah. It's called reading."
But nah, I get what you're saying, no need to distract the narrator from what's important, I'll work on it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh".
>>7914200
please rate
>Do a lot of prep work
>When it comes to the actual writing, can't think up good scenes
How do I fix this? I want to die. It's like nothing decent comes to mind. It all feels clumsy.
I'd like it if somebody could critique this short story I finished that stars the main character of this book I'm trying to get published, but it's like, 8 pages, are Google docs appropriate or too intimate for critiquing?
>>7910673
shouldn't you be napping?
>>7914112
I've been working with the same sort of contrast in my pic related. I love it: some kind of beautiful destruction, just like loving the fear of avoiding bodily-harm as you sled down a hill. Wie schoen, anon. Es kommt darauf an, dass wir etwas wie Todeswuenche haben.
I guess I'll share
http://pastebin.com/6R9yd3GU
This student was observing the whiteness of the walls that enclosed him. Directly in front of him, an astroid adorned the wall. The astroid is a super-ellipse, he knew, but he considered how the white too was a super ellipse: the abolition of colour, achromatic, blank.
Or perhaps it is its opposite - black - which was the negative and white the positive quality He tried to see the astroid stain as a star-shaped hole in the black of white curved about him. But unable, he concluded that the negative quality of any polarity was the default quality, and that the default was the quality of abundance.
This student had no positive qualities, having no characteristic - physical at least - that was not present in the majority of people. He was male; seemingly between the ages of twenty and thirty though his hair betrayed his years. He had met exactly as many men taller than him as those he had met of shorter stature. His hair was the midpoint perfectly between black and blonde.
I will distinguish his most interesting characteristic in ascending order:
1. His name was alliterative
2. He had never seen the coast
3. He was, at this very moment, to meet with one of the most interesting men one could hope to meet.
It was whilst this student was thinking about white that a door to his left he had not noticed opened outwards, and from this source of light that had now illuminated the room, stepped the interesting man I mentioned previously.
What are you hoping to achieve? To what end does your persistance leads. I am your friend and I worry about you, I love you. Every now and then when you are closer to me when not, you allow me to touch your face and through your eyes you let me peek into vulnerable soul. I know what you've been thinking, but for such as you and I the answers are not sought by chasing the every rabbit hole all the way it goes -- oh, and the trouble you are waiting to pay off it never will. You've been told that the suffering must lead out of darkness as if life is stripped of all pleasentries and kindness, but that is not how I see it and more importantly that is not how I want it to be for you. Let me help you, let me guide you. My friend. Once you watched me with contempt and you cheered when others pointed their fingers at me, but it hasn't been long until your contempt turned into fascination of the burning reality that surrounds and fills my existence here with purpose. You were angry, hateful, cautious but curious nonetheless and that is reason enough for you to be forgiven. I am driven by the force you've been seeking your entire life and now you feel what you feel. I see devastated cities like the slave ships filled with iniquity of the confusion and in them all souls overwhelmed by the blasting anthems of the long forgotten realms. You will rise above it, above all of it.
>>7913501
Yes. It does come off as slightly pretentious, as another anon said, but it seems like you actually care about the person reading your post. As if you 'get them' despite probably not understanding them at all. Very charming.
-
Maria shut her umbrella. The rain poured on her. She squinted; she couldn’t see well without her glasses. The deep, gray fog that obscured everything made seeing even more difficult. Maria sighed. Her mother wouldn’t be coming for her; she never kept her promises. She stood, letting herself soak in the rain, until she started to run. Fast. Maria crossed one street, then another, unsure of where she going. She refused to open her umbrella, keeping it by her side instead. The rain continued dousing her.
Maria crossed a few more streets, then stopped in the middle of a sidewalk, panting and falling to her knees. The people walking near her either didn’t notice her or pretended not to. She heaved and let herself lay flat on the ground. People continued passing by her. A man gently grabbed Maria by the collar, raising her up and turning her around so she faced him.
The man was tall. He had tan skin, dark hair, and blue eyes. His grip on Maria was strong. Maria trembled, and the man smiled at her. “So, what brings you here? Why were you panting?” he asked.
Maria gulped. “Sir, I really don’t want any trouble,” She looked down. “I swear I didn’t mean to disrupt you, or anyone, or...”
The man waved a hand to the side. “It’s nothing. I don’t usually see little girls having nervous breakdowns on the middle of the street, though. Thought it’d be right to intervene.” He let go of Maria. “Why were you doing that, anyway? I’m sure it isn’t for nothing.”
Pls don't be too harsh. It's just something I thought of, and write in about five minutes.
I have memorized the rhythm of your heart in all its different variations, whether that be excitement, happiness, or, regrettably, even sadness. I have slept on your chest more times than I have slept on my own pillow, and your bosom has comforted me more than any amount of cotton or silk ever could. The ebb and flow of your blood coming in and out of your ventricles is as soothing to me as the rain coming down outside my window. The raindrops of your heart are the last things I hear at night and the first things I hear in the morning. I long to end my days listening to the beat, beat, beat of your chest as you trace the freckles on my arm with your finger and with the gentle care I once thought only possible from a mother. I only wish one day I end my selfishness so that you may memorize the drumming of my heart, and then we can work on living - and loving - in the same tempo.
The young girl hurled what little was left of her small meal as a large crowd looked on in anticipation. Then phase two commenced,she fell to the ground shaking violently while a frothy red spit flowed from her delicate, little mouth. Soon the whole stadium was cheering as the familiarity of that warm feeling of being part of something spread through out the all those who watched this charming display.The smell of blood and vomite made a little boy gag as his sister's poars ozzed with a pus of undetermined consistency. A man in the front row could no longer stiffer his laughter, and it apparently caught on with the rest of the crowd. How nice.
I'm trying to expedite my writing. I tend to get lost writing even a single paragraph and have to dredge up effort. Should I just write a very simplified version of my story then go back and rewrite it sentence by sentence when I'm done? For example:
"Jim went to the store to buy some icecream. The store was out of icecream. Jim was sad."
Then going back and adding detail to that? Or would that just promote lazy writing?
Vögel is the antagonist. He represents anarchy, and throughout the novel he tries to convince the main character, Montag, that every man is born bad. Jäger was a "friend" of Montag, but he got paid to kill him. Jäger then forced Montag to kill his wife, and then they cut his left arm off, and ran away.
"
Jäger was thrown in front of him, on his knees. Montag, seeing him fallen, kneeling before him, felt a mixture of pish and pleasure. Seeing that disgusting figure in front of him once more, a man without honor, was nauseating. However, seeing him kneeled, small and fearful, as an animal that plays with its predator, escpaing it's claws and shaming him, only to be captured, and understand what was about to happen, was pleasuring. His face turned red, and his fists closed. It was possible to see the excitation of Vögel, even under his mask, to which Montag ignored.
_You sell your honor and humanity for money? Saying that you ever had humanity would be benignity_ exclaimed Montag.
He were so absorbed, that he didn't notice Vögel approaching him. Without pronouncing a word, he put a pistol in his hands.
_You say you despise me _ Said Vögel, walking towards Jäger, kneeled_ There is only a bullet in that gun. I give you the choice: Shoot me, or Jäger. You cannot shoot us both.
Kneeled by Jäger's side, and looking at Montag for a last time, lowered his head. Montag felt so much hatred towards Jäger, remembering the damned day he were forced to kill his wife, that he didn't listen to Vögel or even care about the meaning of his actions. He, kneeled on the ground, was bleeding and seemed dizzy, but he understood what was going on. Montag approached him, lifted his head with the gun barrel, and made him look at Montag's cut left arm, leaving only the stump. Jäger began to cry, but continued quiet.
_You cry? You have the audacity to cry in front of me, as the child who pleads mercy of his parents? You're not worthier of pity than the devil himself. Only suffering and disgrace are reserved for you. Where your body falls, plants won't grow. Not even the weed will grow in that infertile piece of land. Your bones will become hollow, your blood will dry, and not even the most disgusting earthworms will touch your filthy skin. Your cadaver will become the symbol of inhumanity, and no man will bury it!
He hit his face with the gun, and fell back. Montag climbed his body, and put the gun in his mouth. Approached his face, and looked at him. Jäger had closed his eyes, and didn't dare to face his executioner. After prolonging his suffering, Montag, watching the tears fall from Jäger's face, pressed the gun even stronger, and pulled the trigger.
"
>>7915621
Potentially a good narrative, but I'm mainly going to focus on what needs work.
1) it seems like you're trying too hard to sound sophisticated or intense. "Observing" and "enclosed" are neither complex nor poetic; so consider changing "observing" to "watching" and "that enclosed him" to "around him" (enclosed in the wrong verb, unless you want to make the impression that the student feels trapped).
2) the subject "was" verb-ing is clunky and loaded, consider changing it to simply "the student observed" or "the student watched".
3) the third paragraph has too much exposition. Tone down the physical qualities unless important; if you're saying he's generally unappealing to look at, even subtly, just spend one or two sentences mentioning and don't be too specific (again, unless it's important [and relevant]).
4) I don't understand without context why it's important the narrator calls him "the student." Obviously he's a student, but there should be reason for it, otherwise we're just thinking, why isn't called "man/boy" or simply "he/him"?
5) unless you're non-American, don't say whilst.
Overall, this isn't a very good example, because the whole time all I can think of is "Why?" Make your piece matter more, and then it could work. It seems to me you've got some interesting ideas (if just a little underdeveloped). But that doesn't explain why you want it to be a story. So again, I'll need some more context in order to find more positive qualities in it, or at least read some text before and after to judge the transition and flown of the narrative. If this is a standalone piece, it doesn't seem much to me like you're particularly invested in your own story.
Sorry if that's too harsh, but critiques are to help. You've got some positive strengths here, but working on the weaknesses are more important, so try not to get butthurt, pham.
"Sweetest Devotion"
With your loving
There ain't nothing
That I can't adore
The way I'm running with you honey
Means we can break every law
I find it funny that you're the only
One I never looked for
There is something in your loving
That tears down my walls
I wasn't ready then
I'm ready now
I'm heading straight for you
You will only be eternally
The one that I belong to
The sweetest devotion
Hit me like an explosion
All of my life I've been frozen
The sweetest devotion I know
I'll forever be whatever
You want me to be
I'd go under and all over
For your clarity
When you wonder
If I'm gonna lose my way home just remember
That come whatever I'll be yours all along
I wasn't ready then
I'm ready now
I'm heading straight for you
You will only be eternally
The one that I belong to
The sweetest devotion
Hit me like an explosion
All of my life I've been frozen
The sweetest devotion I know
I've been looking for you baby
In every face that I've ever known
And there is something about the way you love me
That finally feels like home
You're my light you're my darkness
You're the right kind of madness
You're my hope you're my despair
You're my scope of everything everywhere
The sweetest devotion
Hit me like an explosion
All of my life I've been frozen
The sweetest devotion I know
The sweetest
It's the sweetest
Devotion
>>7916591
>>7915621
WAIT WAIT WAIT, I forgot to mention, who in the world is the narrator? It seems third person until the fourth paragraph, but you use the pronoun "I". Now, even though early 20th century and earlier writers tend write third and omniscient and the narrator uses "i" as in the writer, but it's kinda tasteless; the narrator should always be separate from the author. So make that clear for me would, ya?
>>7916610
i like it jej
The girl in the pink dress was there and she was engulfed too, by the dust particles that swirled gray under the line of the lamp posts, which buzzed. Someone's hands drew him inside and slammed the door behind. It was for the fraction of a second. Celina's eyes met his, and God, she was distressed - and dirty, and sweating. "Shit, Kyle, what the hell were you thinking just standing there?" And he couldn't justify himself, not yet, so he just pushed her arm and the two kept moving on with the diminishing crowd. They moved towards the back of the bar, which was surprisingly well kept, then through a small set of stairs which opened on an underground, smaller room. There was more people there, two couples and a kid, who was drinking some water and had a blanket around her. "So, that looks like it can do... We'll stay here 'till..." Something stomped above. Then a sound so terrible he could only guess the building had collapsed. Someone was assigned to verify that, and, to their despair, it was true.
"Do you see, Himmler? Do you?" Adolf's voice once again had
the broken cadence of a frightened man's. "Didn't I warn you
of the Jews and their treachery?"
"Save your twisted words, antisemite. There are no Saints
here. The Goyim will never regain control of Germany. It's over.
You've lost." The leader of the Hashomer Hatzair leveled his gun. "You lost for the same reason the Goyim always lose: defeated by God's chosen people."
>>7915690
>>7913609
That's probably the most non-specific criticism of all time. I don't doubt it, since it's what most people say, but it's always confsuing.
Pretension, as I see it, is incorporating something you don't understand into writing that would otherwise be pedestrian - words or phrases that stand out as inconsistent with your base level of writing or thinking.
Like using some sort of precisely calibrated scientific instrument as a spoon to eat soup, and telling everyone you're a scientist.
The trouble there is, it leaves two possibilities in mind. It may be an idiot pretending to be a scientist, but it could also be a scientist with no spoons. There are clever people who are shit at writing, and vice versa. Most people are some combination of the both, though, which means to be genuine is to be inconsistent.
I like to think I'm just being genuine, but then again personal bias is subtle mechanism.
How do I think of and creat scenes for stories? It's driving me crazy. Every scene I write feels so FUCKING STUPID and directionless, like I'm running around with no head. It totally kills my motvation to write when I sit down and cannot think of ANYTHING good.
Are there any good techniques or exercises one can do do develop the scene creating skill? I'm desperate.
>>7917611
Start small. Don't plan to write a novel first off. Try a short story or even just a singular scene. Have a direction in mind, somewhere you want to get to and how you want to get there.
I have a lot of the same problems but I've been getting a bit better at it.
>>7917721
Critique?
They called him Mr Jones. Nobody knew why they called him that, maybe because it was his name, and maybe other reasons too. But it didn't matter. None of it mattered really. Anyway, Mr Jones was walking down the street. Everyone looked at him when he went by, and they each had their own thoughts about him, many different thoughts, such as, "Who is that mysterious and intriguing man?" and, "Why is he wearing that enormous hat?" That was one of the things about Mr Jones, he always wore an enormous hat. But that's enough description about Mr Jones. The point is that he was walking, walking down the street. Everyone knew that he was not the kind of person that you should confront or otherwise cross. If your path crossed with his, you were probably in for a bad time, because he was the kind of guy who brought chaos and destruction in his wake. He had a look in his eyes that seemed to say, "Don't mess with me." His fists were permanently clenched, as if he was suddenly going to punch someone right in the head at any moment. His bottom lip was permanently trembling with repressed rage. There was nobody quite like Mr Jones.
He arrived at his location, a small building in the central business district, which he entered using a mysterious key which fascinated all of those around him. "What a strange key," they thought as they went past. "Incredible that he is using it to open a door such as that. I wonder where it leads?" Literally everybody who saw it had exactly this thought.
Mr Jones swung open the door and stepped inside the building. He sniffed the air. It smelled of sweat and dust. That's when he knew that he had arrived at the correct location. The place where he needed to be, it was going to smell like sweat and dust: this was one thing he knew. He smelled again just to make sure. Yes, it smelled exactly as it had before, and hadn't been some kind of hallucination. He smiled, satisfied, and closed the door behind him. People on the street found themselves thinking, "Why did that door suddenly close? Who closed it? What could be happening inside that mysterious building?" They would never find out. They could only continue with their day, remaining completely oblivious to the events that were happening inside.
Mr Jones squinted, trying to make out the details of the room in the darkness. There had to be a light switch somewhere. It was not beside the door where he expected it to be. He cursed his luck. He had not expected this to be such a challenge. He muttered something under his breath, something nobody ever heard. It was a series of words, strung together to form a sentence, a sentence nobody would ever hear. Finally, he found it. He turned on the lights and everything came into sharp relief. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He even rubbed them to try to expedite the process. Then it was revealed. A completely blank room, albeit with a tunnel in the back of it that led to his true destination.
He followed the tunnel, making the kind of noises you would expect someone to make as they followed a tunnel, panting and occasional grunts. That was the thing about Mr Jones. He had difficulty sometimes when doing physical things. Generally he was a pretty intimidating and impressive guy, but in his old age, he had begun to atrophy somewhat, and he sometimes became exhausted, especially when doing things like following tunnels. Back in his youth, he used to follow tunnels all the time, but now he was out of the habit. It was something out of the ordinary for him, something that required effort and concentration. So he followed the tunnel. At the end of it, he found a steel door, which he pushed open, and that's when he saw it. A giant lair, belonging to the man in the center who sat on the throne. His name was Jim. That wasn't his full name, which nobody knew: everybody only knew him as Jim. Other Jims were given different name to help differentiate them from "the" Jim. One Jim, for example, went by his given name of James. Another was called Jim P. Basically none of them were called just "Jim," because that name belonged to the intimidating, impressive man who sat upon the throne.
"Ah," said Jim, rising to his feet. There was movement in the rooms as his many servants reacted to this, backing away slightly and coming to attention. "It's good that you are here."
Mr Jones smiled. "Yes," he agreed, "I suppose it is good that I am here.
Jim couldn't help but laugh. That was one of the things about the pair of them, they shared a similar sense of humor. They knew exactly how to make each other laugh all the time, but they also knew that humor was reserved for special occasions, like the beginning of a meeting between the two of them that was taking place after a long break.
"Yes," Jim nodded, smiling kindly. "I suppose you have come with some news?"
Mr Jones squinted, his brain trembling and aching as thoughts came running through it. Did Jim already know what he was going to say? Had the news already been broken to him. He shook his head. No, it wasn't possible. He was certain that he was the first to know, and furthermore, if somebody actually had brought it up, Mr Jones pitied the person who had done so, because unless they had broached it in exactly the right way, they would have been in big trouble. It was only because of the special relationship they shared that Mr Jones felt confident Jim would receive it well... even then, he was not sure.
"You remember Dragon Jake, of course?" said Mr Jones, involuntarily raising one of his eyebrows as he did so, then the other one, before involuntarily lowering them both.
Jim snorted. "Of course I remember that incompetent fool." He couldn't help but let out a derisive laugh. To hear that idiot mentioned was more than enough to cause an involuntary spasm of laughter in him. "What a fool!" he exclaimed, waving his hands around to give the statement maximum effect. "What about him?"
"Well," said Mr Jones, gradually gathering the confidence to finally let the news be known, "it would appear he has escaped from his cell."
Jim didn't know quite how to react. First he smiled, and then he frowned. Neither expression felt quite right. He tried a whole variety of expressions but none of them seemed to quite suit the situation. Eventually he gave up and exclaimed, "Enough of this! I have had enough of making expressions. There is no expression expressive enough to properly express how I feel about this. Servants, come here."
His servants gathered around him. They gave him a look that seemed to say, "Master, what is it that you want from us?" Jim simply looked upon them with a casual smirk.
"Listen," he said to his servants, "we have a situation on our hands." When he said the word "hands," he raised his own hands, to emphasize the point about him having said the word "hands."
All of his servants nodded and approached, each of them eager to receive the instructions they were about to be given.
"I need you to find him," said Jim, "and when you return with the location, I shall track him down myself, and I shall finally defeat him, once and for all."
His servants obsequiously nodded. They had their instructions, now it was up to them to carry it out. They scampered away, like dogs just released from their leashes, into the city to find where Dragon Jake might be.
"You're certain they will find him?" asked Mr Jones.
Jim gave him an enigmatic look. For a long time, Mr Jones tried to puzzle out what this look meant, but it was simply too enigmatic. He had never seen a look like this before in his life. When he looked upon it, he felt a desire to reassess everything he had ever believed about the world.
"Enough of this look," said Mr Jones. "Won't you just tell me what you think?"
"Very well," said Jim, with a smirk. "I shall reply to your query." Jim cleared his throat before speaking. Sometimes he got phlegm in there, so it was necessary to do so. Then he spoke, and his voice cut through the atmosphere of the room like a warm knife through butter. The sound waves traveled across the room and struck Mr Jones's ear. He was startled when he heard them, but he reacted quickly, absorbing them into himself and struggling to comprehend them. Here were the words: "Yes, I feel confident that they shall find him." Mr Jones's eyes widened when he heard this. In a way, it was what he had been expecting, and yet, had he expected it to be phrased in quite this way? Had he expected the answer to be more enigmatic, or less? There were a thousand possibilities for what could have happened, but when it actually had happened, they had all suddenly been resolved, collapsed into one single possibility, the one that had actually taken place. Although he had not realized it was even possible, his eyes widened further. How could he react to these words? What would he say? What could possibly suffice?
Then, all of a sudden, he knew. Words would not do. An expression would say more than words every could. And so Mr Jones shot an expression across the room, one that seemed to say everything that possibly could be said, and one that seemed to satisfy the notoriously tempestuous Jim, at least for now.
"I am glad you have brought me this news," said Jim, "this news about Dragon Pete. You may leave me in peace now, so that I may construct a plan to try to defeat him. It wasn't enough to lock him up, I realize that now. We must do something once and for all, and end this madness, like we should have done, seventeen years ago, when we locked him up. We knew this day was coming, or at least I knew. I suppose I probably shouldn't assume on your behalf. Anyway, I knew this day was coming, and yet, I have not been able to conceive an adequate enough plan. That is why you must leave me now, so that I may conceive one. I hope that you understand."
Mr Jones nodded. He understood all too well. He had conceived many plans himself, and it was true, he required peace in order to do so. In light of this, he agreed to leave, and he followed the tunnel down, back into the city, where people walked around, completely oblivious to the story happening right under their noses, the story of a lifelong feud between Jim and Dragon Pete, one that needed resolving, and one that would come to a close just as soon as Jim's servants found him, and Jim conceived a plan. Mr Jones thought to himself, what could possibly resolve this story? Where could it possibly go? No matter how hard he thought, no answers came to him. He cursed himself for having no answers. He did so out loud and everyone gave him weird looks when he did. That was okay, though, because they simply didn't understand the seriousness of the situation between Jim and Dragon Pete. It was, perhaps, the most serious situation he had ever been involved with. If there had been a more serious situation, it wasn't coming to mind. He made a mental note to challenge himself later that day, maybe at night, to think of a more serious one. He walked home, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, wind blowing his hair all over the place. Whatever was going to happen, it was going to be extraordinary, he was sure of that.
His apartment was dark and lonely. Cockroaches scurried away when he turned on the lights. Damn cockroaches, he thought. He needed to get some bug spray already. He hung his hat on the hook near the light. Thank god I installed that hook, he thought to himself. Previously, he had just put his hat anywhere, and it had been nowhere near as satisfying as putting it on the hook. Installing that hook was probably one of the best things he had ever done. He couldn't wait for the moment that Dragon Pete was discovered, but until then he had to wait, wait and sleep, try to go on with his life until that inevitable time came.
The call came in the early hours of the morning. At first, Mr Jones was irritated to have been awoken, but when he realized who was speaking. Finally, it was him, Jim. He was calling with the good news.
"You must come immediately," he insisted. "I will text you the directions. You should call me back if you can't make sense of them, but I will explain them as clearly as I can. I prefer to give directions via text, because then you can refer back to them without having to interpret or transcribe them. I hope to see you soon."
Jim and Dragon Pete were at the bridge in the city center. Mr Jones knew exactly where this bridge was, but nonetheless, Jim had given incredibly detailed instructions. Of course, Mr Jones was confident in himself, but he did not have the gall to correct this error of Jim's, and left him to believe that his directions had actually been helpful. When he arrived on the scene, he saw the two of them, Dragon Pete pressed up again the wall while Jim had a gun pointed at him.
"Finally, he has arrived!" said Jim, looking over at Mr Jones, who wore an expression that words simply could not describe.
"I am a changed man!" Dragon Pete tried to explain. "Prison has truly reformed me. Never again shall I commit the kind of crimes that I previously have. That was a different life. You must believe me."
Jim snorted with bemusement. He looked over at Mr Jones. "He really expects us to believe this tripe."
Mr Jones himself was more cautious. What if Dragon Pete really was telling the truth? What if there was no need to murder him after all? Mr Jones had these thought, but he didn't dare to say them. He didn't want to end up on the wrong side of Jim. He had seen others make this mistake only to live to regret it.
"What are you going to do, Jim?" asked Mr Jones. "Shall we end it here, or shall he live to die another day?"
Jim gave a look as if he was seriously contemplating the alternatives. "I have dreamed of this day for my entire life, to see the life leaving his eyes. Why shouldn't I take my opportunity while I have it?"
"Please," said Dragon Pete, trembling. "I have a family."
"Does he really?" asked Mr Jones.
"I don't really know," answered Jim, "but I will never forgive him for what he did. It's about time he paid."
"No!"
This was Dragon Pete's final word before the gunshots rang out and he was struck down by the bullets that slammed suddenly into him. "Argh!" was the noise that emanated next from his mouth.
Mr Jones turned away. He couldn't watch another man die. He had seen enough of that already, particularly in movies.
"This is where it ends," said Jim, and with that, he called his servants over to dispose of the body.
"I guess he won't be bothering you again," said Mr Jones.
The two of them met each others eyes and shared a look that seemed to say everything, and yet nothing. It was the kind of look that happens only once in a life time.
"I'll see you around, Mr Jones," said Jim, and the two parted ways for the final time.
The morning leered and from the open window, gaped. Awake, existence achieved, smarting from beneath sodden lids, I blinked. Light. Colour. Ceiling, table, bed. Separations. Sweat soaked sheets. Pains awoke pulleys and ropes, which winched and flexed the skeleton until covers shifting, a knee was birthed. Gone now, the maiming dart, and the black bootlace that had puckered flesh cut away as well. Colder then, but of course then not such a hunger. A creature had lined my head with false threads. There had been a lake without water, scentless putridity; callipers about the mouth and eyes to stop a man from praying. Stretching, and then working the muscles of the lower half, my corpse curled beneath me, and then stretched. Unmoored now then; joints slipping without noise. Then I gripped the bedstead and reared in articulation. The ceiling was still, a palsied blank but for the shadows of dancing leaves. Twisting the brain, such impressions changed to those of scraps on sticks, and then of a wire mesh lashed with the workings of anatomy. A ponderous kidney cooed through the glass, twisting the structure and straining it. Then it flapped, and its shadow jumped to follow it, fluttering wings surgically stretched. Too cold for it, but I had moved the glass so. Frost on the toes, green rust on the frame – metal rot.
I'll give critique back if I get some. Just point me to your post after you review mine.
I'll do it in the morning as I'm going to bed after posting this.
This is an excerpt from a story of mine.
I swept over the plains and hillocks of snow and came to rest at a embankment. I don't know why, but I knew it had to be there.
Set upon the grade beside the spot was a set of tracks that ran infinitely in either direction. They went everywhere and nowhere.
I gathered lumber from a warehouse in my mind and constructed a cabin. A cozy but spacious lodge began to form before my eyes in the frost bitten air.
It took the shape of home that I had never before seen but was welcomed by just the same. The shutters quickly became fogged up with little collections of snowflakes beginning to glaze the sills.
Then it was done and I suddenly found myself in the cabin. In a side room off the main cabin, in there was a steamy bath which I was in. I looked out the window pane and gazed upon the mountain of snow accumulating outside, reflecting the soft moonlight in dim glimmers.
I felt myself drifting off and down into a deeper sleep. Deeper and deeper still then the slumber I was already experiencing. The dream was going into another layer through the shells of my consciousness, manifesting parts of my mind I wasn't even aware of.
When I opened the fridge and saw that pack of uncoooked Cumberlands, a thought crossed my mind.
'Would you care to join me in a sausage?' I shouted into the next room.
My wife replied in the affirmative so I rang up the butcher to see how quickly he could have us ground down.
After an all too brief two months, which were spent fly fishing, crafting a fine wooden refectory table and retiring to bed much earlier than usual, Jonathan Blakely, who was proud to still think himself a working man in these times, despite possessing what could be considered a large wealth, fell into a deep and serene melancholy. He sat on the far right seat of the carriage travelling from Askrigg to Northallerton, stopping at Redmire and Leyburn, and began to wonder why, given the fact that he was a common and working man, he could not relate to the passengers he shared this journey with. For they were common men and women such as himself, they wore similar clothes, though there’s were slightly more worn and withered, they spoke of similar affairs in a familiar tongue and would often turn their heads towards him to offer confectionaries or ask him questions about his journey. All were politely declined of course, but he couldn’t suppose why. Maybe it was the weather that caused him to feel this way, grey and overcast, it felt like the clouds held a significant weight and were draping themselves over his shoulders, swirling above his brain and roiling his thoughts. It began to appear like the clouds would soon be literally just above his head, the carriage was pushing into a thick fog making it rather difficult to see much more than the hills around him, all peaks and valleys and ups and downs, which seemed to merge into one another gliding up and down forming ridges and angles and patterns that he peered at almost endlessly until something far more interesting captured his imagination.
Disclaimer: I've never written poetry before and I'm honestly not very familiar with how to write it well. That being said, is this a decent start to something? And any tips or material to help improve would be appreciated.
(No real title yet, just a place holder)
>"A wanderer among the realms of Loki."
Curtained windows bellow.
Crimson-yellow tracers.
Hideous.
Forest chorus, joyous.
Hedonistic breathing.
Persuasive.
Rise.
and
Fall.
Rise.
and
Fall.
I hear his call.
I know it all
too well.
>>7917311
It's pretentious because there are too many words per thing said. We know what you mean to say by the first paragraph, yet you continue. It's pretentious, i.e. thinks too highly of itself, because it's unaware of how little it's saying and seems to value the fact of it expressing itself rather than communication.
I also have to question why you dislike the blog format. It's just text, what matters is what you put there.
Also weird to say you have no interests but still want to hang on to readers. You're introducing your blog by making excuses for yourself.
Having said all that, like the rest said, charming. Find something to write about and write about it with the words it takes to say what you mean to say, and no more.
Bumping in hope of a critique
>>7918904
I've having trouble wondering whether or not you should use your periods ad often as you do. It would only work if you're doing it for a specific reason (and not "I meant for it to be ambiguous," because that's a bullshit copout), maybe something being of short breath and pertaining to limited time, or you could just tell me.
Anyway, it seems you're going the more free-form, experimental type poetry, so I recommend reading more e.e. cummings and Ezra Pound.
I know this is really long, but I just need some critique on my story. Thanks!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sCQtwiXYG16Cln-o6nzNnvSg0Lab7X07ocx4z9xR9Ag/edit
>>7914112
this is just t.s. eliot's "burial of the dead" like, word for word, you didn't even try to change it.
>>7918929
That's actually very helpful.
>>7920893
Shit missed two in lines 2 and 5
IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.
The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.
Inside the Waystone a pair of men huddled at one corner of the bar. They drank with quiet determination, avoiding serious discussions of troubling news. In doing this they added a small, sullen silence to the larger, hollow one. It made an alloy of sorts, a counterpoint.
The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the wooden floor underfoot and in the rough, splintering barrels behind the bar. It was in the weight of the black stone hearth that held the heat of a long dead fire. It was in the slow back and forth of a white linen cloth rubbing along the grain of the bar. And it was in the hands of the man who stood there, polishing a stretch of mahogany that already gleamed in the lamplight.
The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes from knowing many things.
The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.
>>7914112 absolute garbage. you will never b a writer
>>7920928
great critique, my friend. please, come back and share more of your wisdom with us.
can you do me? >>7915084
>>7920702
I adjusted the periods. I also worked a little further. Any more input?
http://pastebin.com/raw/4DbMJdcz
The last few lines are in edit (as is the whole thing 'technically')
>edit: put it in pastebin because the spacing looked shit here and pointless
>>7920723
I only read the first page and that's really all you're supposed to put down, freindu.
Also, critique someone else next time.
The mechanics and tense is what I'd reccomend looking at. "He eats his ice cream with a fork" is present tense, when everything else is in past tense. Make sure this is what you want.
Also, I'd advise against using ALL CAPS as an EMPHASIS unless it's REALLY NECESSARY. Italics on their own work fine. All caps are more of shouting.
I'm not sure where you're going with this, but it seems a bit heavy on information for page 1. We have no reason to care about the MC or his little brother, so why introduce them? Tease and bring in slowly.
The mechanics are a little strange but polished as is your language, this could go somewhere. 7/10
Mine: (367 words):
http://pastebin.com/R2iD56FP
>>7917953
>>7917972
>>7917990
>>7918007
>>7918025
>>7918043
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9menrS_pos&ab_channel=OverlordActual
>>7914338
What I do a lot is type stuff down on my phone in SMS message application and don't send the text, or text myself it. So when I'm inspired, it feels much more pure.
I did >>7921614 this way.
Don't force it. You'll get it in time.
>>7916591
>>7916616
1a. yeah i though "watching" doesnt include any thinking about the walls, which the character was doing. "observing" was supposed juxtapose with the wall which isnt doing anything to observe.
b. yes, i was trying to represent being trapped. he has not noticed the room has any doors.
2. ill try tis
3. idk i was trying to represent how utterly distinguishable he was. e.g. "He had met exactly as many men taller than him as those he had met of shorter stature." is statistically near-impossible. I go on to say that the most interesting things about him are his alliterative name and whether he had seen the coast.
4. ill probably change it to man
5. why dont americans use whilst? im british and we use whilst about 30% of the time. is it seen as pretentious in american english?
6. well im not really sure where the story's going. i was thinking about a man who does all kinds of interesting things. he becomes a soldier and a monk and a mathematician and an adventurer ect, all to impress a woman. im not really sure what purpose the boring man has and am worried that he cant do anything interesting without become interesting and thereby compromising his purpose which i do not know! i think i was just practising describing a mundane person.
7. sorry i havent read much contemporary works. i should probably find out whats stylistically fashionable before i start writing. do people today not use I and You? Do they use "the reader" and "your correspondent"?
>>7922097
The whole whilst thing is just not standard American English, idk why. Same thing with program vs. programme or theater vs. theatre. I think a lot of standard British English is considered archaic to Americans. A lot of young Americans who read and watch a lot of British literature and TV tend to pick some things up like whilst and think it's also SAE. A lot of words ending with st are really common in daily American usage that aren't SAE, like unbeknownst and amongst. Absolutely nothing wrong with it if you're British tho; actually there's really nothing wrong with it in general, it's just the editor/ publisher won't tolerate that kind of stuff.
And as for "you and I," it's fine if the narrator is speaking to a character (but remember that there have to be circumstances via the POV: a) 1st person narrator talking to character outside dialogue [examples, Giliad by Marylinne Robinson and "Girl" by Jamaica Kincade], b) 2nd person narrators dont actually exist [except in roleplaying books like D&D], what 2nd person is is just 1st person in DISGUISE, and the main function of 2nd for 1st is either self-reflection or neglecting responsibility/dodge blame [example, "An Inventory" by Joan Wickersham {very good story, highly recommend}] or c) omniscient narrator speaking to character, but the characters should NOT respond [example, Ironweed by William Kennedy] and this is because omniscient narrators have no corporeal form, therefore characters can't hear it; think of the omniscient narrator as a ghost or even god, if that helps.)
The whole "you and I" isn't wrong per se, it just limits the aesthetic and creative value of the work. If the narrator is using "you" to speak to someone who isn't a character, then the work becomes self-reflexive and acknowledges that not only is there a reader but there is also a writer, which makes the work within itself automatically artificial, which immediately deteriorates its integrity of realism.
All this probably sounds pretentious as fuck, and maybe it is but that's hardly the point. Even if my advice is bullshit, it can still be helpful. Don't take it too seriously, just consider it.
>>7922201
It's not that you lack all that much description but more you need to add more variety (said, said, said, said, asked, said, said, asked, heard, said, asked). All of that can be anything. Give it some personality. How was said and asked. Just allude to the emotion more with these words than their following descriptors (though there's inherently nothing wrong with having them following; just keep me a bit more involved at the core)
http://pastebin.com/raw/mZCzYaKg
>>7922231
Oh, and it's also worth mentioning, in case you weren't already aware, "self-reflection" and "self-reflexivity" are not the same thing.
Trying to do a Joyce-meets-contemporary-lit thing
Horace shot a furtive glance at Captain Fondelstein beside him in the circle. Whatever misgivings he may have had were increasingly irrelevant, as the ceremony apparently had already begun.
A paraffin lamp precariously balanced on a paint-stripped crate in the corner of the room was the solitary light source. Ordinarily Horace would have been greatly alarmed by the prospect of an open flame in a structure so flammable, nay horrifically explosive, but the feeble flickering offered him the absolution of not having to observe the proceedings in vivid detail. Thankful, too, was he for the sickly stench of kerosene that doused his nostrils, thereby masking the smell emanating from the rancid porridge that the shaman flecked in indeterminate portions into the ceremonial bowl.
“Captain, when you got in contact with our brokerage firm, this isn’t…”
Captain Fondelstein shifted his gaze back to Horace but displayed no change in his temperament. His face appeared worn and sallow. The years had not been kind to him; the lines etched around his eyes in their sunken sockets indicated that he had seen some anus-clenchingly crazy shit in his time.
“… well I’m not sure what I envisaged when I was called out to a giant bouncy castle the size of a residential tower block, but it certainly wasn’t this. And to be quite honest, sir, I’ve been trying to piece together my function in all of this. I’m not sure it’s within my professional capacity to…”
“We preferred to keep you in the dark, so to speak, until you had actually arrived. I must admit, we hadn’t anticipated the difficulty of acquiring the support of a brokerage firm, reputable or otherwise, unless we skirted around the details somewhat.”
Horace began mentally scrolling through every possible deranged, grotesque eventuality. He might then somehow be prepared for the forthcoming proposition he would no doubt politely decline. The thought of dropping his briefcase and darting out the door crossed his mind but his exit strategy was somewhat hindered by the fact that they were in a giant bouncy castle. Not only would he have to awkwardly astronaut-run his way out, but he had to do so in his socks without slipping. Upon entry, the crew had instructed him to remove his shoes and leave them outside with all the other shoes before entering the bouncy castle. Whether the crew would actually give chase or merely stand dumbfounded and watch his unannounced departure was not yet clear.
The shaman was at this point shaking a Magic 8-Ball high above his head and then gently floated it in the centre of the bowl of porridge.
Now, aside from an obviously delusional monarch you might have noticed that our tale is distinctly lacking in a villain. It is a well-known that any story – be it factual or otherwise – is only half as interesting in the absence of an antagonist. The Kwarezhmid Empire feared the Mongol hoards, the Egyptian’s fought the Persians, and the 20th century faced the unstoppable tide of low cost migrant labour. In lieu of a single villain, I give you three – the men and women of the advisory court, each displaying near comical levels of villainy and moral turpitude. It is with the introduction of the trio that the humble beginnings of our tale begin to grow and diverge into something truly impressive – like a dog’s erection.
>>7922298
>Whatever misgivings he may have had were increasingly irrelevant, as the ceremony apparently had already begun.
Make this "whatever misgivings he may have had were becoming increasing irrelevant, as the ceremony was already underway."
Or something. I like the illiteration but it seems kinda weird and retarded to read.
> A paraffin lamp precariously balanced on a paint-stripped crate in the corner of the room was the solitary light source.
Ick. No.
Lighting is a very important part of writing but.... no. Try to say "was" and "were" as little as possible.
"A parrafin lamp flung amber light around the room" or "A parrafin lamp on a paint-stripped crate lit the room with an amber glow"
> Thankful, too, was he for the sickly stench of kerosene that doused his nostrils, thereby masking the smell emanating from the rancid porridge that the shaman flecked in indeterminate portions into the ceremonial bowl.
Your writing is an interesting mix of good and shit. The words you are using are good; the sentence structure is arse, but then I prefer pleb-tier shit that is actually readable.
> The years had not been kind to him; the lines etched around his eyes in their sunken sockets indicated that he had seen some anus-clenchingly crazy shit in his time.
I hope this is meant to be comedy. Otherwise cut off that last bit because it made me laugh like a retard.
Also to be interesting (if this isn't comedy) maybe say something other than "the years hadn't been kind to him"; keep that structure and idea but use different words. it'll keep the familiarity of a cliche without the boringness of reading the same thing again.
I should also point out I have basically no idea what the fuck is going on in this story. I would try to keep the adjectives down, keep the sentences somewhat simple, just not make it long and gibberishy. Periods are not your enemy unless you are James Joyce.
>>7922254
This is infinitely more readable than any Joyce I've read (not very much but I did try Ulysses and finnegans wake)
> Jack Feeny's big blue eyes got wet
That's actually a pretty good line IMO. simple words evoke baby-ness. I don't know if that's what you were going for.
>>7922241
You spelled Van Gogh wrong but otherwise I kind of like it. Nothing really makes it stand out but it's decent. I know fuck all about poetry so that's a pleb's viewpoint.
>>7922201
>>7922238
I disagree with this for the most part; leave dialogue to "said" for almost everything. When you use something else, it will stand out better that way.
I personally will just put dialogue there and let it go after I estabilished who is who. You don't need to say "he said she said" after the first two lines, you can just keep putting down dialogue and as long as you don't interrupt it it will be obvious who is saying what.
>>7921614
>http://pastebin.com/R2iD56FP
Fucking faggot.
Now that that's out of the way, I don't really know what the point of this is, it feels like directionless writing that needs context.
I think you meant "commander" not "command" but that's just a nitpick.
> I didn't want to be a narcissist in command, with every mistake I made costing the lives of innocents.
Pretty good line. I'm guessing this is some Ender's-game-esque faggot thrust into a leadership role unexpectedly?
I'd like to read more but make sure to put more dimensions into this guy than being a pussy. He's pretty decent so far. And fairly relatable.
>>7920914
Just say "the most obvious was a hollow quiet", take out the "part" and "echoing" unless you really want the latter. "Part" is unncessary there and repetition triggers my autism so don't do it.
>>7920914
Put a comma after "Inside the Waystone' because I understand why you did it that way but it triggers my autism, again. I don't know why.
> They drank with quiet determination,
Good. Really good.
> The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes from knowing many things.
This is well done. I feel like a pleb now.
> The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.
Wow. This is publishable IMO. Moar?
Did like four critiques above, so I will now ask for some feedback.
I would like some feedback on this scene and also another one. This one involves two characters eventually having sex but I am trying to distance the moment she tells him he is a good man for rescuing his daughter,from the sex, because I don't want to make it look like a cringeworthy "nice guy" self insert.
http://pastebin.com/Kw0fVsAh
>>7922910
Thanks, I'm glad you kinda liked it. Tbh I'm not too familiar with poetry either and this was my second real attempt at it. I kinda went for this very bouncy, lively rhythm and pattern with the syllables, which was the main focus, and this is really meant to be read out loud or at least mouthed out to really get the feeling of it. Otherwise I'm worried a bit of it comes off as forced.
>>7922920
Putting just dialog and removing the extra words works great also, imo.
>>7923015
Dialogue tags are for retarded readers who have to be spoon-fed everything anyway.
>>7923035
Opinions man.
>>7922952
I liked it. The storytelling is good, you give enough detail to maintain the reader's attention and visualise what's going on.
>I am trying to distance the moment she tells him he is a good man for rescuing his daughter,from the sex, because I don't want to make it look like a cringeworthy "nice guy" self insert.
You distance them well, but then as soon as the sex itself starts, it sounds a bit nice guy fantasy erotica-ish.
>“I want you,” she whispered.
Everything after this sounds more like erotica. Try describing a less of what's physically happening. Less is always more in terms of sex scenes.
>Orion pushed himself inside her.
Especially this line, it's a little too literal. Kind of kills the mood.
Overall it's good though.
http://pastebin.com/A5zUj3ek
how is it, lads?
>>7923143
Alright thanks. I'll try to change that up.
>>7923038
Dude, I was agreeing with you.
In any case, I'm just saying if the author needs to say the manner in which people are speaking, he's not doing a very good job conveying it through the dialogue. " 'Yeah right,' he said sarcastically. " No fucking shit. SHOWING IS BETTER THAN TELLING.
Have a short line here what do you guys think
When you take your clothes off
An atom bomb blossoms through my mind
-and I'm sorry I can't stop thinking about every perfect war
First draft for a short story, it's not finished yet:
It has been several months since it last rained. April had come, but it seemed that the weather was slow to catch on. All across the city, people were waiting for the rain: withering plants with limp tendrils, laborers feeling their skin harden and crack. People scurry from awning to awning, trying to escape the brutal stare of the sun. There has been a dry wind too. It rushes through the empty streets, picking up garbage and dirt and depositing it in every corner around the city. People keep exposure to a minimum, fearing its sharp bite and unfriendly touch. Instead, they crowd to the window panes, peering out and praying for rain with each new day. I myself have felt the heat, and don’t bother to travel outside much. Not that I ventured out of my home often in the first place; it’s hard to travel anywhere in my old age. Something about this heat aggravates my weaknesses, exacerbating my frailty and constant discomfort. I feel my skin, thin as parchment, curling up at the edges like soiled wallpaper. My bones now feel brittle and dry. I’m afraid anytime I move that they will grind themselves into dust, and leave me with nothing but a bag of powdered remains. Old age is an unpleasant reminder of my impermanence. If I knew better, I would almost say I’m being punished for something. But what? Don’t I already have the creak of a chair, the thick silence of empty rooms to keep me company? What other punishment could be worse than the loneliness of old age? Ahh- I should stop the self-pity. It is not all bad. I have not lost everything yet, and maybe never will. I still have my mobility, my appetite, my spark. This fire has not been smothered quite yet. Most importantly, I still have my memory. I don’t totter around like an old fool, drooling over my wrinkled chin and biting weakly with my few remaining teeth. Strength has not entirely left me yet. There is still a sense of vigor, of energy bouncing through these old bones. Whether that is from inside myself or the from the whiskey I drink, I cannot confidently say. But these memories, these stories I have, they ricochet through my head. My skull reverberates from trying to keep all of these memories inside. They can’t remain locked up forever, though. It isn’t good for me, to keep these apparitions from my past life inside.
>>7920928
Dumb ass it's T.S. Eliot
---Just a bit of fun from a silly scene in a novel I'm working on. Unsure about the bracketed sections, let me know ---
He finds the room, Office 2001, and enters. The room is dark, and the shadows of the blinds lie across it, paisted by the light of the street lamps. Distantly he can hear the raucous. He searches through the cupboards to find his harddrive, but finds only a packet of cereal and a tin of beans. When he brings up his head he sees it standing upright on the desk. As moments pass, tension rises. There are noises closer than he’d thought, they have entered the building, his heart rate is rising with the tension. He hears the clatter and banging as they smash the fittings downstairs, if he-
-there goes the window. Panic seizes him quickly and he just becomes outright comical, throws a stool through the window, such a classic1. He won’t remember much of this, because of adrenaline, but it must be a sight, although, that would defeat the purpose of the endeavour. His tie catches on a shard of glass that remains around the shattered window frame and death sniffs just loud enough behind his ear to give it away, and he tears the caught tie off at it’s stuck tip. His feet scramble spastically for the ledge beneath, scraping concrete and cigarette ends off the ledge.
‘What are you doing, man?’
Hilton turns and looks down a couple stories and sees Jimbo.
‘Mmh tuhmm tm gm dmm.’
‘What are you saying, man? You wearing a ball?’
Hilton assumes Jimbo can deduce the situation for himself and won’t relinquish the floppy end of his tie from between his jaws.
‘Man, they’re storming the building, you better get out there quick’
‘Tms hm-m m amm-fh-mmh, ahm-ml’ (This isn’t an amphitheatre, asshole).
‘They’ll tear you limb from fuh-ckhing limb man, man’
‘Jm-mum, wmm tmm sml? m ym sml sm-mng m-m?’ (Jesus, what’s that smell? Are you still smoking opium?).
‘Yeah man, this stuff’s dynamite, really put me in the zone. I’m here, rigid in ecstatic paralysis, literally unable to move in the spectacle. They’re pouring into the building in the front, I can just see them, like a giant...phallic… demonic snake (All snakes are phallic, thinks Hilton) and your ass dangling off the side of the building tying us all together.’
Hilton descends down a drainpipe.
‘Don’t fall down’
This fucking guy.
>>7923262
I don't know if I'll be much help, but I thought it wasn't bad.
You use
>raucous
without putting a noun in front of it, and I think that's an incorrect usage. Otherwise, I kind of liked the muffled talk that is translated in the parentheses
>>7923281
sorry, i meant ruckus, i usually write late at night and don't edit
thanks - appreciate
>>7923262
This is actually really fuckin tasty, I'm not even trolling. Noice m8.
>>7921614
Thanks for the feedback!
I like how you created the personality for this character in your writing. One thing that I would modify (probably because I'm a little bit nit picky) - you write '1.96 meters, 120 kilos, sense of honor and justice, a sense of humor.' I know you only use the word twice in the sentence, but you might want to consider changing it to something of the sort like '1.96 meters, 120 kilos, a faculty for honor and justice, plus a sense of humor.' But, you're the writer, you choose your story and how to tell it.
It's quite an intriguing last sentence, too.
Well done.
>>7923294
do you think it's fairly humorous, not in an overly try hard way? enough to make you exhale through your nose?
difficult to tell with these things
I think next critique thread should have a rule in OP: each anon MUST critique at least another anon in order to post an excerpt. It's only fair.
>>7923300
It's funny in an IJ way. Laugh aloud funny at times, others highly entertaining, and for the most part funny in the way it's really accurate. Like this is the way people actually interact. Think of it like Monty Python sketches, some aren't really laugh aloud funny, but they're really really amusing.
>>7923316
Also each anon has to return the favor if they haven't done so already.
>>7923327
thanks man appreciate the feedback
i'll have to read IJ now
>>7923316
That always ends up into people giving each other half-assed, forced critiques.
If something of yours didn't get critiqued it's probably because it's not bad enough to shit on, but not good enough to be captivating i.e bland.
This is the opener of a 300,000 word story I've been working on.
http://pastebin.com/JeaCtAhW
Pretty short, only 126 chars over char limit or I'd have posted it. I appreciate any feedback, gave quite a bit above. Thanks guys. I'll read some more other peoples' stuff soon.
>>7923339
Nah, I've gotten feedback, but I wish these threads had at least more of a workshop mentality. Plus, anons could be a little more helpful by going here to deliberately help each other out rather searching out these threads just for their own feedback. It just takes a bit of investment. Plus, I start these threads sometimes for practise, I'm working on making my way to academia and teaching creative writing.
But you still raise a good point, people desperate for feedback really aren't invested in others. I just happen to love workshopping, it's one of my favorite parts in being in the company of other writers, especially irl.
>>7923351
Cool. Synopsis? It's a suitably engaging opening.
I like your dialogue but am not the biggest fan of some of your description.
>A field of sparks lay nestled on a canvas of black; the lights of Nalio. A multitude of multicolored lights spread in a glowing spiderweb. Along the rim of the valley ran an eerie line of green lights. Past the rim, massive trees rose over the mountains, stretching miles into the sky.
>light, lights, lights
>multitude of multicolored
I found this repetition jarring. I'm also unsure about some of your comma usage.
>He turned away, to look down at the valley floor.
What purpose is this comma serving?
>>7923244
Could anyone critique please? Would love any comments.
>>7923353
Without wanting to meme, why not just go to reddit?
I think /lit/'s critique threads are fine for what they are. Take it or leave it. You can't change the tide.
>>7923378
>without wanting meme
Lol, well fuckin played.
This is a unwanted passage from a tone-setting exercise for a novel. Excuse the shit name. Barry Thomas is pseudonymous as the real character's name is likely to feature in the title and I'd rather not have it associated with /lit/ in the implausible event of publication.
----------------------
Barry Thomas dreamt regularly of living alone.
What it must be like, he fancied, to not schedule one’s bowels to stir precisely within two six-minute windows a day. To not fear the rap-tap-tapping of obnoxious knuckles against the door. To not, upon proffering one’s cheeks so intimately to the toilet, become party to the housemate’s relationship with sauerkraut, or yoga, or Železný from next-door’s beard. Oh, what it must be like.
Surely no man had dreamed so long and so poignantly about shitting in peace as Barry Thomas. Surely no man, it could be reasoned, would want to.
When found squatting with clenched buttocks quite hopelessly in the corner of his room, reckless Mr Thomas would be transported cerebrally to salt plain, where, as if the remains of a forgotten surrealist film set, a pristine, porcelain throne-room would spawn, glimmering in the featureless desert. Inside he would find the low, soothing thrum of a fan motor, and so, with uncontainable giddiness, embrace the plush commode with his cheeks…
During such episodes, and after the fort-a-loo illusion had shattered, he would consider—consider mind you—relieving himself right there and then. In the bin. Or a plastic bag. Or maybe a sheet laid out on the floor so as to lessen the sound. Of course, as was already made great pains to mention, this was merely something he would consider. And with brevity. ‘Could I…?’ Before dismissing it with cold, hard rationale. ‘Barry Thomas is no savage,’ he would remark, buttressing his rear fortifications.
Oh, for the poor inconvenienced soul that was Barry—perhaps, though, work provided some respite? Bah! Slim chance. His Brick Lane office of thirty-plus, food-eating employees were made to subsist on a two-toilet deficit. He had wondered in his frustration if there was not some legislation made to prevent this very crime in the ‘96 Employment Rights Act. One toilet per three employees or something—that seemed reasonable. Obviously he’d rather it was one, private, clearly named, precise-DNA-string locked toilet per employee, but he supposed that even Rome hadn’t been built in a day.
>>7923375
Technically it's a disaster. You can't write for shit. Yet your heart, your spirit push their fingers through the grates of your mangled verbiage and tickled my cardio-strings.
>>7923440
I see what you did there.
>>7923440
Are you actually being serious? I can't quite tell.
>>7923456
Ah, I fell for it.
>>7922241
Any input on this? I'm fishing.. (with sage, of course)
>>7923480
You write like a cross between Nabokov & Carver—like some tight winded genius unwinding sights & sounds of a life half lit w/genius / half submerged in the darkness of futures never to be lived out. But unfortunately yr intellect tips the scale away from the heart-of-it-all & there's room for improvement. The grammar is tight but ye need t'get taught in the ways of the wound.
>>7923449
>believing it
That's how flipping deluded this kid is.
>>7923427
A glorious lowering of the /lit/-bar. Lucky for you, the bottom of the barrel is fucking crowded. Lucky for us, everyone looks decently intelligent now.
It was around three months in that we had the office party and I began to seriously consider a number of things. The way it turned out was very different to what I’d expected. I’d had them down for those deluded big drinkers, people, who due to their lack of appetite, were like to brood on themselves in their drunkenness, and express this in the usual manner of the sloppy confession, rendered in their own lexicon from the deep pit of me. The image of the mewling white baldy, out of himself drunk and finding he knows nothing of this strange outer realm. But they had a way to them.
Those I’d thought pure slime slid out form their rocks to swing on the chandelier. A man who I’d thought was ironed into his shirt each morning got on the phone and had coke under his nails in 10 minuets. I wandered through the fumes of this disbelieving.
>>7923713
Me should be in italics.
>>7923658
Very helpful, thank you. Although, could you elaborate on what you mean by 'the ways of the wound'? I feel like that phrase is going over my head (or I'm over thinking it).
>>7923713
Dude, you're drunk or something. I like the content and potential(?) narrative, but this has way too much technical difficulty for me to properly analyze.
Montag approached him, lifted his head with the gun barrel, and made him look at his cut left arm, leaving only the stump. Jäger began to cry, but continued quiet.
_You cry? You have the audacity to cry in front of me, as the child who pleads mercy of his parents? You're not worthier of pity than the devil himself. Only suffering and disgrace are reserved for you. Where your body falls, plants won't grow. Not even the weed will grow in that infertile piece of land. Your bones will become hollow, your blood will dry, and not even the most disgusting earthworms will touch your filthy skin. Your cadaver will become the symbol of inhumanity, and no man will bury it!
He hit his face with the gun, and fell back. Montag climbed his body, and put the gun in his mouth. Approached his face, and looked at him. Jäger had closed his eyes, and didn't dare to face his executioner. After prolonging his suffering, Montag, watching the tears fall from Jäger's face, pressed the gun even stronger, and pulled the trigger.
"
>>7923695
Right back at ya with the critique, friend.
>>7923737
Cheers it's a fragment so might seem a little odd in isolation, just wondered if people would actually derive meaning or if it was too much a case of me speaking in idiosyncratic idioms, to put that as simply as I can. I spot some typos though.
>>7923724
I had plucked that word from the breathless void b/c it cuts the nerves lifting a wake, pink w/sunset, bubbling w/the sounds of children chasing each other, laughing across the uncountable chain of bearers of the eternal wound, those wounders of the wind weavers, winding us up till we froth forth all this glyptic gibberish seeking the right back-scratching shibboleths.
He chuckled to himself as tore off six squares of toilet paper from the roll mounted on the wall next to him. Four of them would be folded into two and used to clean himself with the other two being crumpled up and hastily shoved into his mouth. He stands up, munching on his snack while wiping his ass. He looks at the soiled toilet paper and sighs before tossing it into the toilet. His mood improves quickly as he swallows what was left of the toilet paper in his mouth and tears off some more to continue wiping himself off.
"You would think this would be a cleaner process with how much of this stuff I eat," he laughed to himself. The first words he had said aloud in nearly two weeks.
He figures that a few wipes was good enough and groans as he bends over to pick up his cargo shorts from the floor. He puts them back on and flushes the toilet, which fills to the brim with water before accepting its fate and swallowing the mess.
He walks over to his computer chair and throws himself onto it. The chair strains under his weight and creaks as he leans back. He lets out a sigh of satisfaction and resumes the playback of a children's cartoon from another country that he was watching earlier. After a few minutes though, he realized that he was bored again. Maybe it was because he had already seen this episode twelve times or maybe it was because he hadn't done anything productive since the 6th grade, some fourteen years ago, but the rumble in his stomach was undeniable.
He looked around his room from the comfort of his chair and groaned when there was no food within reach. He rocked forward in his chair, making unrecognizable noises as he sits up and pauses his show. The emptiness of his stomach both distracted him and pushed him on. Blinded by hunger, he managed to make his way over to Amazon where he looked to download a free, self-published ebook.
After randomly clicking on one, not caring about any specifics, he greedily clicked on the print button multiple times. Finally his seven year-old laptop processed his commands and began sending over the information to the printer. He slowly rolled over to the printer and began devouring the pages as they came out. The warmth of the paper and the freshness of the ink were almost orgasmic. His existence felt justified in this moment.
A four hour drive north, a young man was woken up by his phone going off. He rolled over to see what it was and fell out of his bed in excitement when he read email. He sprinted upstairs and burst into his mothers room down the hall. An unfamiliar looking man rolled off of the bed as his mother shouted, "What the fuck Darren?"
"Mom," Darren yelled, "somebody downloaded my book. I'm an author now!"
The unfamiliar man popped back up from the floor, "You can download books?"
>>7922928
http://www.amazon.com/The-Name-Wind-Kingkiller-Chronicle/dp/0756404746
You got trolled m8. But hopefully this will make you feel less like a pleb
For the next nine hours she watched out the window of the sedan as Louisiana dried into Texas. They left Baton Rouge by way of the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway, out through the fog and the giant cypress trees which leaned over the road, trailing Spanish moss from their branches—these huge, woeful shapes rearing up from the shallow brack and knotting their limbs together in a natural red-rover against any penetration by human eye or body (even Caldera’s, watching them from her glass box), issuing forth only occasionally the odd white crane with a frog pinched in its beak, an omen to something or other, but mostly just standing still, powerful, and rich with their deep-flooded silence. Neither of the social workers could manage to find anything but static on the radio, and so they all went through the Great American Bayou with an appropriate and absolute muteness. Absolute, at least up until the point when Caldera, out of a simple, self-destructive boredom, took out her phone and searched for something which she should not have—something which drew a noise from her throat that caused both social workers to look back over their shoulders in unison, and to quickly turn away when they met the girl’s eyes, which were as gray and dead as the swamp mist they traveled through. But soon the delta broke, and Caldera watched through her reflection as the water drained away from the ankles of the trees and the spaces in-between them broadened. Spaces that came to be filled by houses, supermarkets, strange restaurants and high-school mascots emblazoned on water towers—Dragons and Indians and Bulldogs—a greater estuary of streets fracturing into other streets, and soon they were passing through Lafayette. A quick glimpse of this city, nothing special, and then on to Beaumont, Texas, with the male CPSer reading billboards aloud and pretending to spot road-kill Jackalopes to the amusement of no one, and the woman CPSer scanning through the ever-changing local radio stations in hopes of something other than country, and Caldera watching out the window as the horizon slowly crawled away from her. It was spring then, and the plains of Texas were golden and clear. Vaster than Caldera could properly judge, those coastal pastures, because their edges tucked over the curve of the Earth and went unbroken except for the scattered Mesquite trees beneath which herds of cattle were massed, worshiping the shade.
>>7922920
Yes, Ender's game is a big part of what I'm trying to get after.
It's an excerpt, so of course you don't. It's what I think is a good representative of the rest of it at it's best and worst.
He does have more dimensions.
I'm glad he's relatable, thank you for the feedback.
Can I ask why pastebin makes me a faggot? Lmao...
>>7923298
I do go over everything about 1000 times before I even dream of it being readable, but I still try to maintain that, in terms of touching up, less is usually more.
Faculty sounds strange, but I will consider it.
For your own piece, I'd throw in a joke or something on page 1 (as long as that's not going to completely throw off the tone) to get people's attention better.
>>7923862
Critique someone else you fagoo
>>7923791
Inherently bleak. Of course, it's not without truth. I understand what you meant with that phrase now. But why so overzealous with such conversation? Is it a bit, or 'meme'? Are you quoting someone? Just enjoying some colorful language in the moment? Or are trying to gain some relation on a deeper level?
>>7923475
Jokes on you, girls are never interested in me.
>>7923900
>Can I ask why pastebin makes me a faggot? Lmao...
No, it was because of the beginning where he talks about wanting to be feminine or whatever. It was before I had read the rest of it.
Pastebin is great. Anyone who hates pastebin is a fagot.
This one I got bored and had every last word of each line be part of a quote I found, sort of like "We Real Cool" and "Golden Shovels"
The train never came, I
Think I may have missed it. I Feel
A river fall down my leg, I’m
Not concerned: no need to clean it. Waiting
For the next one to come: forty more minutes. On
The platform I beneath me, Something
Shakes my footing, “That
’s not good.” I remember: “Isn’t
My watch behind a half hour? Going
To make this train. I laugh to
Myself: “That won’t happen.”
>>7923924
>overzealous
übereifrig maybe
>bit / meme
Hoo hoo ok buddy.
>quoting
Jesus wept, you haven't read the meme trilogy—of course you wouldn't recognize the Pynko-Joycean lexical origami...
>colorful language in the moment
Why waste time on anything else...?
>relation on a deeper level
Always, all ways, fuckface. But these words are like the wet booger I flicked across the room—they disappear into the carpeting: who cares? (Until they turn up later)
This seemed funnier in my head...
The Island was small to put it briefly. Every member of that community had grown up together through generations. And due to the isolated nature of the island, cousins often married, though the only church on that soft, red rock forbade the marriage of first cousins. That, of course, did not prevent them from getting to know each other very well. Consider for a second, how intimate they would have to be with each other for Marie to know, for example, that Urbain donated that jacket "Le Petit" Paul was now wearing to the second-hand shop just two weeks ago. I should also mention that the Islanders thought intuition to be a defining trait of theirs, often finishing each other’s sentences, and even embracing each other’s delusions. I’ve seen it myself! Once, on a quite night, a squalid looking lady with knotted hair was cursing loudly while walking, and as Mr. Guerin approached her he realized she was have an argument, and cursing ever louder. “Will you two quiet down?!” He yelled. But, aside from me, those were the only two present on the street.
>>7924005
>>7924005
That's a German synonym of overzealous.
And I asked if you were doing a bit, no need to spew conciet as much as you're currently with your ego. Because I have no need to communicate with the people in my life who don't comprehend language as well as I. So always talking in such a way simply appears try hard and elitistto me. And I'm honestly not even saying that's what you're doing. I was simply curious.
No, I haven't read the trilogy. I fully intend to, but I'm only recently getting back into literature after experimenting with other hobbies in life. I need practice and comprehensive warm up, which I'm doing.
>>7923984
It's alright, nothing stand out though. I feel like ending on that phrase sort of defeats the purpose of the message hidden in the line ending words.
>>7921617
You were so close, but who knows, maybe that other guy's excerpt does resolve my story in a weird way.
>>7924039
Zee German highlights certain features, ja? More 'beyond' than 'too'.
You don't suffer fools, huh? Sounds difficult. Ego, shmego—I don't claim nothing w/what I'm spewin', yr seeing constellations in my firmament :D.
>>7925174
You're just repeating me at this point. ;)
>>7924724
As far as I'm concerned, each of those was it's own story by it's own person. It doesn't matter to me.
Pride killed him. In the crumbly heat of the Sahara, Henry O’Connell let out an eloquent, albeit unrecognized cry, which the pride of some six lions ignored as they crushed his frail body as an obese man’s flapping jowl would a defiant pastry. Blood spurted triumphantly into the warm air and entrails spilled outward onto the strawlike grass like a mollassic Rorschach: one observer saw fireworks; another a lawn sprinkler! The majority of the others from the Safari Tour were less than amused by this goreladen spectacle and subsequently ran for their lives— their collective heads mostly spinning from the incident’s ruining of Disney’s classic 1994 film: The Lion King.
Please advise, I am new to writing.
He stood at the window. Looking closely. Looking at the water droplets slither their way down the hazy glass, writhing, fighting to reach the bottom. Leaving their streaks of rainwater like a comet's tale. All of them passing by his gaze, as if their destiny were predetermined, greeting his gaze as they slid down below. Letting their individuality go as they combined into the common body of water; a stream in the gutter, quietly slipping into the underground depths.
He readjusted his eyes, the droplets and their tails blurred. Looking down four stories, people with umbrellas, with rain coats, hoodies. They passed by just the same. Scurrying from one end of the frame to the other, as if their destiny was predetermined, unaware of his gaze as they paced by. Fighting for their individuality, all dressed different, all moving in different directions. Nevertheless, their fate the same as a simple droplet of water. No more important in the end to him.
The cement was cold, and glossy. The pattering light rain couldn't cleanse the streets. The sun could only try to make it look nice, put a little glisten on it, something to keep romantics going. They all wore shades anyway, even in the rain.
>>7911633
it's 2016
>>7913501
obnoxious, pretentious
>>7913752
Awesome. I actually might wanna read this
>>7913969
nice. last line you can taste the bitterness. well done
>>7914102
Kinda awkward. I don't know what it'll sound like when you read it out loud.
>>7925207
I think yr getting lost among the waves. The moon & the wind raise the surf in different ways—swimming in them does nada, friendo.
Speaking of ↑ what do ye think of McCarthy? I think I've outgrown him (BM included). What gives.
>>7927096
Study the CGEL & GMAU. They will make you invincible.
>>7926703
TELL DONT SHOW
>>7917611
try not to write anything and ideas will make themselves known to you
>>7918625
don't try to be literary
>>7923351
only barely better'n reddit. a little abrupt exposition, random kid randomly walking through the night... fuck dystopia. but that's just me. as long as you're bringing entertainment to others, you're doing more than 99% of mankind, and that's good.
>>7909108
Kill yourself.
>>7923353
>I wish these threads had at least more of a workshop mentality
no. workshopping is useless. beyond grammar issues, if some other loser has to give you pointers, you've already failed.
>>7923814
you shift tense
>>7923862
if you made it paragraph, it'd be good
>>7923791
oh fuck off
>>7927238
>GMAU
I googled GMAU and it's says Gospel Martial Arts Union: A place for Christain Martial-Artists
>>7927327
Gay as fuck
http://pastebin.com/raw/2NZgdJQP
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDER-MAN 3:
Yo, new kid! Get over here!
OBAMA MCDONALD’S:
Give me the skinny, bossman.
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDER-MAN 3:
Huh? I just work here, guy.
OBAMA MCDONALD’S:
Shoot. Give me the skinny, bossman.
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDER-MAN 3:
We’re gonna need to give you a new name.
OBAMA MCDONALD’S:
Oh, yeah?
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDER-MAN 3:
Yeah, your new name is Instagram and the Quest for Spider-Man 3.
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDER-MAN 3:
Won’t that get real confusing real fast?
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDER-MAN 3:
Eyes off the bosom, kid.
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDER-MAN 3:
Damn! Won’t that get real confusing real fast? Over 6000 folks are employed here, I understand
INSTAGRAM AND THE QUEST FOR SPIDERMAN-3:
I don’t make the rules [grins] I enforce them. Now lets’s start manufacturing some basketballs, okay?
>>7923862
post more pls
>>7927302
No. Not really. If you spend a few hours writing, and a few hours editing, the best way to get another other errors spotted (beyond grammar there's: comprehension, structure, punctuation, tense, chronology, etc.,) that you might have missed is to have someone else read it over.
And getting some personal opinions as well never hurts, and are always optional to consider.
>>7927302
It just seems to me that there are some writers with potential on here. I'll give you that there are a lot (take this thread for example) of people who are "new to writing," who I don't think are ready for workshopping. But there's really no way to weed everyone out. So you're pretty much right, fuck it.
>>7923862
>They left Baton Rouge by way of the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway, out through the fog and the giant cypress trees which leaned over the road, trailing Spanish moss from their branches—these huge, woeful shapes rearing up from the shallow brack and knotting their limbs together in a natural red-rover against any penetration by human eye or body (even Caldera’s, watching them from her glass box), issuing forth only occasionally the odd white crane with a frog pinched in its beak, an omen to something or other, but mostly just standing still, powerful, and rich with their deep-flooded silence.
This can be much shorter and still tell just as much. Or take some detail from here, (perhaps the omen/forshadow(?)) and stick it a little later, or just somewhere else. There's just a bit much there.
>>7927327
Garner's Modern American Usage
>>7927875
Ok, maybe this is just confusion over our definitions of the word "workshopping." In my experience, it's been the reader scrounging for some perfunctory things they like, followed by them scrounging for some things they disliked. All stood barefoot on a dirty carpet of apathy.
So I think in this context, things are better. Maybe they can really work out. Work too bad to merit any interest dies of starvation, works with little errors and intrigue value get analyzed and upbuilt.
And I agree that there are some very interesting writers that stop by these threads from time to time. I've saved stuff that I've found on here.
But forcing yourself to workshop crap helps nobody. Nor does being polite. Love betters everything but your friend's art. Then it just encourages mediocrity.
bump
>>7923740
rate
>>7927240
the fuck does that mean im just trying to make really dank comedy
Could /lit/ recommend some books on writing? I want to get better at my prose and grammar.
>>7930472
strunk & white is god tier
>>7930568
This. Someone suggested it to me here a while ago, and it helped me immensely.
Hi there /lit as this thread seems like a call out to irony I'll post some of mine, even if others posted unironic dank stuff.
META: a collection of comedic short stories
I decided to write a book as an exercise in discipline and because I have always wanted to. So I decided to write 1500 words a day, I made an unnecessarily long title. I guess that's all for foreword I'm sure there should be something meaningful here or introductory but then it wouldn't be meta.
First Story: Unnecessarily long title for milking a joke or “The boy in a coffee shop”
“Only 78 thats a low word count”, thought the boy as he sat down in a coffee shop reading his favorite book, “It's not really meta is it, I bet I could make a more meta story out of three random pedestrians. That guy for example I bet he is thinking about dogs”
“That pesky little mutt, dangling around my legs I better kick him to establish I'm evil”, thought the evil man as he sent a cat flying with a kick. “ I don't think I'm evil enough yet, torturing children is bit soft-core I should really try doing it when they are still infants.”
“Well that's one character done with”, thought the boy and added: “I should really use italics for thoughts when I write it into a book”. Thankfully he said that part out loud else it would have been really difficult for me to know when to change the font. Okay next I'll do a lady to avoid feminist rage and I will make her a lot better than that guy was. It will seem like a natural counter balance because the guy was evil, they will never know I played them. Oh, wait.
Oh a flying stray cat, better catch her, groom her, feed her and find her a nice home, thought the young beautiful healthy sized woman walking on the other side of the road as she caught the poor dog. It seems someone is forgetting the nature of the beast, but it doesn't matter if it's a Schroedinger's cat-dog I will still look after it. 334 words god even meta is hard. I'll call it a day for now and continue to procrastinate to eternity.
>>7930602
Continued:
Oh look at that day 2 and boy still thinks he is at the shop. It's not actually day 2 more like day 6 but w/e I haven't written for a while.
So I have done two clichés or however you spell that, I guess I could look that up but lazy (I did look it up later). So now I need to find a third. I have done the socially neutral, good and if this was a non meta book the third one would be black selfish Jew. It isn't so the third one is the cat-dog.
They don't think, catdogs, no matter how you spell them. I had great aspirations for this story but I got too bored to finish it well. So maybe later. (read never)
I lied in the title the stories aren't even remotely funny. Too bad I messed up in chapter one, else you would have bought the damn book.
There has to be someone out there who likes this enough to buy it anyway. I know I'll make next {arbitrary number} pages blank, good luck scrolling {offensive term that questions readers intelligence}.
A trick, haha! Don't forget to bookmark though you wouldn't want to scroll again *wink-wink*.
Is there a way to make this book actually drippy. I wanted to write trippy as taking a trip to unknown, but thesaurus says there is no such word – weird. I know I'll start another story I'm not really good at beginnings but they are easier to do than endings. You need a beginning for an ending. Even in meta.
Story 2: The end
Story 3: I lied
Story 4: Meta continues. (I added a period as a period joke. No as in time period for the wasted time, was meta)
And you already got 4 stories for the cheap price of 9.98,1$, try to figure that one out.
If they charge anymore you are being ripped off. Well, I am.
Some of you might have already noticed that the fourth story is sorta part of the first story's end that wasn't actually part of the first story. It's okay – META.
>>7930602
This just reads like stream of consciousness stuff.
>>7927282
It ain't dystopia... it's kind of hard to explain what it is. I promise it's not the same teen dystopia story that keeps getting put out now, even though the first part of the series is like that (teen lovers, sheltered lives, "we gotta fight for our lives" type shit).
It's meant to be a 1950s-esque innocence and eternal summer happiness kind of place that gets shattered by the attackers and sets up the long war with them. The plotline is kinda shit but I am writing the story because I need my childhood story recorded and this is the best I can do.
>>7927302
You couldn't be more wrong.
>>7930857
did the antique saints get workshop tips? Did they sit amidst total amateurs and perfunctorily sharpen each other's mediocrity ad nauseum?
the answer to that query is coincidentally the answer to: are you ok with blowing 60,000 for total zilch?
>>7923740
rating: so melodramatic
>>7928597
quality of writing groups can vary a lot. one of mine held nothing back in their criticism. they were also the best because it was a group that lasted and we got better at our critiques. not coincidentally, this group had good writers who went on to become published.
>>7931670
Good to hear.
I feel that that should be made by people, not up to fate and administrative procrusterings.
For sale: Infinite Jest, never read.
My horror/stoner-comedy ebook is a free giveaway today on Amazon, please critique
http://www.amazon.com/The-Tenement-Curtis-McIntyre-ebook/dp/B01E80C8S4?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
‘The gods have forsaken us.’ Nebiri could not help as the words whispered chillingly in his hear after he escaped the constricting imprisonment of thick, leafy vines and their guardian tree trunks. The words were of his birth mother’s voice, exactly as she had said them several warmings and freezings ago- before he had began his godforsaken pilgrimage of manhood. Nebiri had heard the story of their people, of the gods, and of Ædin many times and he knew it well. Each passing freeze, a new passage was woven into the story’s fabric. And even those additions, Nebiri remembered all too well. The gods have forsaken us. He could never forget the masked despair peeking through his mother’s soft face as she spoke the words to him for the first, and last, time. For those words were the only new addition this rebirthing. Nothing else.
The prodding tremors and piercing glare carrying across the sky and his vision woke him back to the present. Behind the stream of fire hanging among the white clouds, a scarred sky is torn by dark plumes of black and grey. Several flocks of birds fled from the screaming thunder radiated by the fireball. A demon. Nebiri falls to his knees, the drying grass lightly scraping his black skin. He weeps. He weeps for his mother. At the shaman’s accuracy. He weeps for his people. And for the dry dirt beneath, and the stained waters afar, and the smoldering ruins along the horizon, shadowed by the crimson sky and setting sun.
Just start to something I've been wanting get at a while. Finally threw a start together while on break at work.
>>7932683
>still same person here
Should be a space separating 'nothing else' and 'the prodding tremors' to make them two separate paragraphs. My bad
The Razzle Dazzle of Everyday Life
—-—-—
& but so now I just want free time—I never knew never knew never knew.
>>7924026
how shit is this out of 10?
>>7933056
So it's not very shit?
>>7915675
how is this out of 10?
intro to a sci-fi thing I'm working on. ~1000 words. Any comments would be great, thanks.
http://pastebin.com/fFJE0bB4
Romance scenes are the worst, please rate both.
___
He decided not to worry too much about the weight of his feelings. His actions today had been a little embarrassing, but people would forget. Her haircut was a loss to the world, but hair always grew out. That she loved someone else was a shame too, but even feelings could change over time. Perhaps his own would change eventually too, but for now he was at peace with the soft, certain love that had crept up on him over the years. He didn't dread facing her, nor would he resign himself to being a miserable, lonely ghost hovering at a respectful distance. He would see her every day, as he always had, but now he would look at her through eyes that were fully open, and that was something he looked forward to.
It would remain unsaid, however; not because he wanted to protect himself with secrecy, but because love was not a proclamation – it was actions and words and touches, and it was in the lingering gazes and the long conversations in the kitchen about which brand of noodles tasted best, and it was in the silence too. He had been loving her since before either had realised it. He didn't have to say it, not until she wanted to hear it.
___
She moved her head closer to his to follow his pointing finger. "Oh, yeah," she murmured, with a soft laugh, and for a long time they lay, contemplating the stars with her head on his shoulder and her hand curled in his. She couldn't have known have fast his heart raced for her.
At last she whispered, "We'll go back tomorrow."
He smiled, quite relieved despite his promise that he would stay and rebuild her old house with her, stone by stone, if that was what she wanted. "Cool," he said, in an understated tone.
She turned her face to his to look at him, and instinctively he did the same. Their noses almost bumped but neither drew back. They'd been caught in a moment which might have been inevitable since the moment she accepted his hand, and they both knew what came next. Deep green eyes searched his, uncertainty tinged with hope, reflecting in his own.
When their lips came together, he had never known anything like it.
And from that point on, everything changed.
>>7933651
Poorly written and disingenuous. Work on your compound sentences.
Your sentences all started like this, but then they started to do this. It was alright at first, but they quickly began to wear out their welcome. I found myself wanting more than blase statements connected by contractions, but when I looked there were only more lurching over the horizon.
Dirty ground, dirty skies, dirty people. I can't remember the last time I wasn't dirty.
It's not easy, but it's not hard either. Of course it would be easier if water wasn't so expensive, but you find a way anyway. If the thirst comes, you just deal with it, you keep working, until you get paid with the precious fluid. Today is a good day, the clouds block the sun, I don't have to sweat a lot. Maybe I can save half a bottle for tomorrow. I daydream about eternal cloudscapes as my hands do the monotonous task of ripping away the plastic insulation from the copper cables, the basket is almost full, must be a few kilograms. I should get three or four bottles for that.
Dirty hands, dirty counter, dirty bottles.
The water has a milky-brown shade, but it's clean enough to drink. The filtered bottles are smaller, not enough for my family, so I only pick up a single one of those, for the baby. But that's alright, the vitamin pills will cover the taste anyway. Also the clouds are really thick, the humidity trap in the garage might become half-full overnight, that's good.
Dirty alley, dirty thoughts, dirty blade.
He has thirst, I have water, he can't have it, it's mine. His knife is dull, his shirt has rusty spots, it's not the first time he's done this. I don't want to take part in this, so I just run.
Dirty world, dirty fate, dirty luck.
I stumble, he's catches up. I struggle as the knife comes closer, I'm afraid that he might step on the bottles which are now rolling on the floor. His eyes are so tired, I can see him, but he can't see me, no hate, no anger, just thirst. We roll around and fight for the knife, we both know how it'll end. I have a job, he doesn't, I have muscles, he has thirst, I have something to protect, he has no will to carry on, nothing to go back to. His hands tremble as the knife enters his stomach, my hands tremble as I let go of his arms and I go to pick up my bottles.
Dirty blood, dirty shirt, dirty day.
I hope we have enough bleach to get rid of the red spots on my clothes. The bottles aren't damaged, thank god. Or so I thought, I almost run into a wall when I feel something wet dropping onto my arms. I double-check the bottles, but they seem undamaged. I want to make sure I wasn't stabbed when I feel it again. Another drop hits my arm, and then another one. I'm confused, I'm not crying, where do these drops come from?
Another drop hits, and then two more, and more, and more. It's the clouds. I'm not sure what's going on.
People leave their homes and come out to watch, confused looks all around. The first ones realize something and start putting cooking pans and pots on the street. The drops become more, some people start to laugh, children start running around, jumping around in joy.
There I was, standing in the middle of the street with my bottles as it happened.
Clean streets, clean roofs, clean houses.
When the rain arrived, it washed everything clean.
Yet why do I still feel so dirty?
If you were reading a book, /lit/, and a character were introduced and occasionally referred to as "Lilya", but were usually referred to as "Lya", how would you pronounce "Lya"?
>>7934017
lie-yuh
Catching a cold
“What are you doing? You’re going to catch a cold” I told my little sister. She had put away her umbrella and taken off her boots. She was splashing about in the puddles created by the downpour. “But its fun!” She was now tracing lines with her foot in the small pool in front of the bus stop, creating a variety of shapes and designs, her favorite being the infinity sign, without really knowing it. She laughed and laughed, I was confused by what was so funny about it. I did the same thing once, when I was a kid. When I saw how happy the other kids were when they played in the rain, I decided to try. I remember running through the storm with my arms out and smile on my face. I was still a little confused by what I was supposed to enjoy, the main aspect of the experience felt lost. When I came home drenched I did get the full experience of my mother’s ass whooping though. I felt disappointed. Why couldn’t I enjoy things like that? Why can’t I go running in the rain, feeling happy? For a second, I felt the urge to kick her forward with my foot. She would fall off the curb and into the pool. It would teach her to enjoy things I couldn’t. As soon as I realized what my mind had just processed, a rush if guilt spread through my chest. I sat down on the bench. I felt horrible for even considering something like that. I felt a little envious. I heard a roar in the distance. “Come on chi-chi” I paused, “the bus is here”
be harsh
>>7913501
No.
There is no longer any rest for me in this wicked world.
The whispers play out to my brain, growing in volume with each passing second.
My entire self consciousness is filled with noise and negativity, thoughts and words that irk me to either side of the barrier surrounding me, crashing against it with the force of a battering ram, attempting to break out any part of me into the arms of someone who my mind tells me I need to speak to, need to care and think about every passing hour of my day until my life becomes consumed entirely by the fact of their existence. An obsession which grows from an idea, a single thought, into a plague on my mind, causing me to crumble and put the skeleton of my identity and wellbeing into view for others to negligently assume the safekeeping and preservation of my being.
Part of the plague which has now grown on me is kindly crawling through my own thoughts to find a reason to exist, a reason why this is all happening, a painkiller for me, a relief, to tell me that it isn’t my fault, that the focus of my mind’s tempest is behind it, that someone they are aware of or are close to is causing my pain, creating an enemy but relieving the blame and guilt of what feels like a choice, what feels like a huge mistake and an insult to my now worthless being. As the storm continues to hold my mind in an interminable hostage situation, I began to feel a sense of sympathy towards the plight of my attackers. Working through the initial painkiller the plague like creature sought out to make the domination of my mind easier, I begin to panic at even the smallest nanometre of something out of frame, out of the view which I understand and feel comfortable in. I don’t understand the motives of my captors, but I feel sorry for them, like they are becoming part of my very being, like I should accept them into the dimension that operates behind the barriers. It causes a fury towards what I see in my comfortable view, erases every other life from the view and fills it with a thousand images of the focus of my obsession, tormenting me until I give in and accept my reality and give in for a final time.
My captors are making an attempt to attack you, my friend. The one I care about more than anything, the one who causes my soul to experience such felicity in a single moment. The friend I can communicate with in any mood or feeling as though it is a language, the one who has found the closest truth to my full being.
I will not let them, I will use every last image of energy to hold off the obsessive storm. It may use more than I need to sustain my being, to survive, but if it keeps you safe from the dangers of the obsessive storm mounting in my mind then nothing can hold off the juggernaut being created through our friendship.
So I've been writing my novel for the last year or so, and based on how many pages I've written so far, and how much of my plot synopsis I have yet to write, it's starting to look like it's going to be really, really fucking long. Like in the 500–1500 manuscript page range.
Would I be correct in assuming that no respectable publisher in their right mind will publish a book that big from a completely unknown first time author, even if it's really good?
Welp, here's the latest story I've been working on in all it's mediocrity. I'm at the point where I've gone through it enough that it's too stale for me to see what major changes to apply to the next draft. I find with every story I write that I improve just a tad technically, but feel much worse about my writing overall as I get better at seeing my flaws. Oh well. It's worth working on. This one's called Warmth: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZH_ZZfp6wB0kZUCjVpkR5SXfEj_91ysJmMcSv-mMAzw/edit#
>>7927693
this isn't your best work, now rate mine:
~$ ls -l Verse 1
0 total
~$ cd Verse 1
~$ touch ozymondiazs.cpp
~$ vim ozy[TAB][ENTER]
#include<iostream>
using std::cout;
cout<<"GET ME OUT OF HERE\n\n"<< std::endl;
cout<<"FRISCH WEHT DER WIND DER HEIMAT ZU MINE IRISCH KIND WO WEILEST DO"<<endl;
cout << "April is the crulllest month breiding
LILAKS"
//out of dead land //so much money it's crazy lmfaoo
//mixing memory
/*and desire */
//money in the bank $$$$ CASH $$$$
//CATHETERS
//CATHETERS
//ABRIL EST LE MONTH CRUELLLLLL$$$$TTT
:w
:q!
~$ g++ -std=c++11 ozyy[TAB][ENTER] ozyyyyy
~$ ./ozyyyyy
~$ rm -r ~
CUNTCUNTUNCUNTUNCTUNCCUNTCUNTUNCUNTUNCTUNC
CUNTCUNTUNCUNTUNCTUNC
CUNTCUNTUNCUNTUNCTUNC
CUNTCUNTUNCUNTUNCTUNC
y/(n)
"_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________"
Fin
He sighed slightly, looking up at the night sky. Or well, what would be the sky, if it hadn't been covered by clouds and snow. Said snow was rather beautiful, falling and reflecting on the moonlight and the icy waters just a few metres in front of him. But the snowflakes either hissed into steam, or crackled, boiling into vapors as soon as they fell on him, turning to water first, then gas second, evaporated upon the extreme magical heat he kept around himself at all times. He could barely remember when he had started, but he did know as a fact that it had been before he was taken prisoner, oh so long ago.. And that period of captivity was signified by the horrible cold he felt from not being able to maintain that magical barrier of near-smoldering heat. Every time he did feel cold, he'd get a terrible reminder of his time in chains. The magic user exhaled slowly, crossing his lumpy, muscular arms over his chest, listening to the shrieking wind and to the waves colliding with the beams holding up the pier he was standing on.
Once upon a time in a clichéd, cringe-worthy writing sample, a neckbeard could not construct a proper sentence to save his life. The mechanical wind howled through the basement cave and blew Dorito snack bags carelessly off his battlestation. Cheesy crumbs cascaded into his toes as he sat down on his shit-streaked memory foam ass cushion. This place is where mommy's money comes to die. As his PC booted up, he let out a single 'kek' and spat into his fapping hand. Today was going to be another day in paradise. He was on /lit/ shitposting 10 minutes later. Here, people like him were the majority. Home.
>>7934798
some good things, some things seem too grandiose and general. It could all be fleshed out, and, as such, this would make a good intro to a novel or a chapter therein.
>>7934258
this does a good job illustrating the cognition of something triggering the recognition of another, affecting how one moves forward. At the same time, it seems like it's a bit shallow, which isn't inherently a bad thing, just be conscious of it.
>>7926703
good word play; don't really care for and wasn't interested by what happened.
>>7933918
Pretty good, i think you alreay have an idea of what can be tightened up, its on the language level more than structure. Punctuation and smoothing rythms type of shit.
Could probably get published in a college mag if you have that opportunity
The famous man looked at the red cup
>>7937392
Glorious
Death saw Sin in her skintight suit just as the bikers went by. Could've called it perfect timing, like - God-sent moment of bliss, chest swelling from the look of her with the hype for what came next, the chase the hunt the good bloody time. The speed they were going at made the world dance, grass around them her hair her long red scarf fluttering in wind that died as quickly as it came. Roar of Frankenstein bikes, kind held together with tape and prayers - to hell with them, the Urban Raid said, big black chopper at Death's side. Sin and Death stared at one another. Radio a-squawk, Moloch's tired old man croon on the waves. Got a trio of bad guys headin' your way, Death.
Sin was thirteen years old, at a guess.
Death was twenty-six.
"My name's Sin," she'd said two seconds ago. "You're Death. We're partners."
Her suit clung to her asmentioned, showing off space between her legs, faint hints of where her breasts weren't yet. But she didn't give a royal fuck, could tell. Smith and Wesson 500 holstered at her hip. Just coming up to him sleeping in the grasslands by the road and telling him he had a partner. Little part of Death felt that that was pretty good going for a kid, pretty ballsy. At first wanted to laugh at her but she stood there dressed like a brothel boygirl and proud of it, cute Asiatic face all serious. And he had felt that she was serious, that she meant forreal to be his partner, that she represented some big change in his little life. Questions to ask events to take place. This girl, tiny Sin, confronting him with that ultimate rarity something new. So he had gone to say something to her, dunno what. See what happened. And then:
Vroom. Life went on.
http://pastebin.com/Sz96HQby
I know it's short, but does it at least start okay?
>>7937751
Kys lad
>>7937824
thanks senpai
Never in a fresh, capiilary-tingling writing sample, has an member of the modern intelligentsia constructed a sentence so life affirming. The wind blew into her house playing a tune & symphonic wafts of her wine wandered to her, notes minor like fingers caressing her memory. The cheese platter rattled and she curled her toes under her butt, getting settled in her wingback chair. This place is where daddy's money has allowed her to bloom. And her mind, she let out a single sigh and spat into her fapping hand. Today was going to be another day in paradise. She was on /lit/ shitposting Mira threads 10 minutes later. Here, people would appreciate her.
He grabbed me tightly by the hair and spanked my ass many times before looking at me in the eye. I was in complete awe,and blushing slightly. His eyes were fiery red filled with burning lust and passion. I could feel it.
" You're my little whore now"
I could hear him whisper in his English accent as he grabbed me by the neck and kissed me on the lip before letting go,my weak and fragile body landing on the cold floor. My ass stinging a bit from being spanked earlier.
"Bend over"
He ordered,my body shaking slightly not knowing that to do. Wearing only a white unbuttoned shirt and having more than half of my body exposed,I was completely embarrassed...
Who wouldn't be?
_____________________________
I know it's kinda shitty but I tried.
Is there anyway I could better my writing?
Any words I could've used?
And thoughts?
Suggestions?
Thank you in advance.
>>7922254
Yeah, I see the Joyce influence. But this is much better than the other dreck in this thread.
>>7922254
>life's window
>Jehovah's bulbous miracle
Har! Good show, good show, mate.
The house was now clean and felt practically empty and naked. MC remembered how his father had a fondness for books and they would be littered practically everywhere in the house, small clusters of piles stacked on top of one another, some nearly reaching as nearly as thirty volumes per stack. It was impossible to navigate downstairs nearly without knocking over some and causing a chain reaction of miniature avalanches.
Thoughts?
>>7933265
It reminded me a lot of the style Kafka used in his 'Meditations'.
>>7911697
>She rushed around the room in a frenzy, her tears welling and slipping down her face like semen out of a cumsock. She was distraught.
I keked to be perfectly honest.
>>7909108
ur good op
>>7940233
>The house was now clean and felt practically empty and naked.
How can a house be naked?
>they would be littered practically everywhere in the house,
As opposed to being figuratively everywhere?
>small clusters of piles stacked on top of one another, some nearly reaching as nearly as thirty volumes per stack.
So there are piles in a cluster, and those clusters are in stacks? This is painfully complicated.
>It was impossible to navigate downstairs nearly without knocking over some and causing a chain reaction of miniature avalanches.
What's that "nearly" doing there? You mention that they are miniature avalanches, but what's the normal size avalanche for books? To my understanding, avalanches are chain reaction by nature. So is this a chain reaction of chain reactions?
For sale: Ulysses; never read
Thread is kill.
>>7934258
Write more.
only issue i had was stuff like this
>She was now tracing lines with her foot
Just say She traced lines with her foot
"was now tracing" is limp and needless
>>7937613
you and your raggedy-ass stories will NEVER make it. you want to know why? because you're a half-wit half-ass piece of shit who thinks he's some sort of genius in passivity, even though you've never amounted to anything and never will. you've convinced yourself that you're silently brilliant because whenever you actually try to sit down to write something nothing comes into that pretentious little shit-head brain of yours. 'oh, i guess today is more a day for suffering than a day for writing' is what you say each day to yourself. you spend weeks not writing a goddamned thing, and then one drunken evening you come home from a failed night out on the town and you sit your depressed ass down behind a laptop screen and squirt out some edgy watery shit prose onto your keyboard and think 'wow man this is so natural to me, like, writing is like soo my thing'. your life is shit. your writing is shit. you have pushed yourself into a persona of being a 'loner author' not because you thought it was the only thing you wanted to do, but because you watched californication a couple of times and read some bukowski poems and then you realized you didn't want to do any of the things in life that take effort, like working or actually getting a decent degree so you won't have to live on the street. you're lazy, you're untalented, and no matter how much you think you can change you will never be able to muster up the discipline to put in enough work to amount to ANYTHING and even if you did you would NEVER be published because you are a worthless piece of shit that only knows how to whine about his pathetic, half-effort life.
>>7940241
thank you
>>7941773
Wew lad
