Critique thread.
The other one's clearly dead.
>>7938772
Dialogue is unrealistic. Baby line is bad. The simulated accent is jarring. Vapid main character interior dialogue that takes too many words to show too little of character. Still better than most here, keep trying, youll get it soon it looks like.
>>7938772
>stained with such prominent grease
WTF?
Wheres the guy with his story of Frank the Peach-man? That one seemed interesting.
>>7938792
>>7938796
Thanks, these are actually pretty helpful. Not to be a "uh uh I'm usually way better uh uh" kinda guy, but I did just kind of whip this up for the thread a few minutes ago. Looking at it now, it's kinda awkward at points, but I'm pretty sure there's something here
>>7938809
I'm not taking writing advice from somebody who says "WTF?" on 4chan.
>>7938792
>Dialogue is unrealistic.
Why do people pretend this is a criticism.
>>7938818
What the fuck is "prominent grease"?
>>7938829
It's code for "It doesn't contain enough [aesthetic] "
>>7938838
Kind of stretching the word "prominent" to mean very noticeable, or apparent, or something to that effect.
>>7938907
In other words, OP is a shit writer.
>>7938867
>>7938829
It's English for 'you are bad at writing'.
All jk-ing aside, it's bad. Like face scrunching bad, like spoiled middle schooler bad, like it could be deliciously subtle trolling if it wasn't for the fucking handpicked font.
The way you describe things is entirely u original and uninteresting. The garbage between the quotation marks is genuinely eye-roll inducing. 'Night prior'? I (yes, me) don't even talk like that in my most douchey moments. The idea that you wrote it makes me shudder. Yeah I know it's not part of the dialogue.
You're still at the edge—sorry—the age where yr writing about your relationship to ciggies. Mental age, I mean.
But ok, fine, what's important is that you're working on the craft, right?
This put me in a bad mood. The kind of mood where you really get an idea of the people out there in the whorl.
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.
You gotta go and get angry at all of my honesty
You know I try but I don't do too well with apologies
I hope I don't run out of time, could someone call a referee?
Cause I just need one more shot at forgiveness
I know you know that I made those mistakes maybe once or twice
By once or twice I mean maybe a couple a hundred times
So let me, oh let me redeem, oh redeem, oh myself tonight
Cause I just need one more shot at second chances
Yeah, is it too late now to say sorry?
Cause I'm missing more than just your body
Is it too late now to say sorry?
Yeah I know that I let you down
Is it too late to say I'm sorry now?
I'm sorry, yeah
Sorry, yeah
Sorry
Yeah I know that I let you down
Is it too late to say sorry now?
I'll take every single piece of the blame if you want me to
But you know that there is no innocent one in this game for two
I'll go, I'll go and then you go, you go out and spill the truth
Can we both say the words and forget this?
Is it too late now to say sorry?
Cause I'm missing more than just your body
Is it too late now to say sorry?
Yeah I know that I let you down
Is it too late to say I'm sorry now?
I'm not just trying to get you back on me
Cause I'm missing more than just your body
Is it too late now to say sorry?
Yeah I know that I let you down
Is it too late to say sorry now?
I'm sorry, yeah
Sorry, oh
Sorry
Yeah I know that I let you down
Is it too late to say sorry now?
I'm sorry, yeah
Sorry, oh
Sorry
Yeah I know that I let you down
Is it too late to say sorry now?
When they found the sensor it was broken, as anticipated, or rather mangled with great hands.
A perimeter established and the recruits scattered to their duties - for many it had been their first true steps outside the village, but for all it was their first breaths unweighted by stagnant heat and must, for the shuttle was old and only built for half their number. They poured out cracked and sweating like rotten eggs on the disembark
In the flurry of the toil many of the boys found themselves with rust fever, having scraped arms or ankles on loose rubble. There was only one doctor who was short on time, supplies and patience. His prescription: the two yellow pills and a half-glass of water, even less if they were able. No one died, and they were too tired to complain, but also too tired to work.
Following this setback, the Captain himself took to drilling the boys in proper fielding attire with irregular emphasis. In the end all of the boots, trousers, helmets and gloves were fitted to numbness and a shine that rivaled the greatest source of their half-seen light. Any recruit found below standard was beaten into shuddering blue.
After three days all lessons were learned, the sick were healed and found their strength. All was right, and so the long wait began.Eh
>>7938937
What?
>>7938937
This is all mechanical exposition. You burned through probably like ten pages of story in several paragraphs. Set scene, create character, make action. This is all synopsis. Write a story, not an outline of one.
>>7938957
Fuck you.
>>7938973
disclaimer he's not me who posted the story
>>7938937
Fukken terrible u should feel bad
>>7938932
No, I'm not on the edge. If I thought I was perfect at writing, there would be no point to making the thread. That being said, I do enjoy my own writing. If I don't like something, I don't show it to anybody. Again, that doesn't mean I think I'm perfect.
I guess the feedback is pretty important, even though I didn't *learn* anything from reading that. Also: Crimson Text is my favorite font on google docs. It just bothers me when I try to write with a bad font.
>>7938976
I got your back brah.
>>7938936
to think I was so close to writing an extensive analysis with give tips on how to improve but
http://pastebin.com/JqKzHRkR
>>7938973
Why? Because im telling him that hes not writing a real piece of fiction? Fuck you for enabling poor writing that could be improved easily
>>7938984
NuMale replicant?Or the real dealio?
>>7939004
No, I'm not pretending to be anything.
This is supposed to go somewhere close to the end. I'm afraid i'm just chasing jokes, and I'm considering abandoning the entire thing altogether. Let me know if you want to know the premise.
1/2
Don had now gone off the map entirely.
In the months prior to his disappearance Don’s work had become sporadic. He came to work two, three days at best, per week. The times he did bother to offer an explanation for his absence he’d claim illness, usually food poisoning. Sturvant had reason to believe this wasn’t simply an excuse: as part of his research Don had become an almost exclusive puddingvore. His devotion to a diet of pure pudding was adulterated only by his occasional ingestion of banana bread (for grain) and vanilla wafers (for sturdiness); as Don explained it “even Jainists eat lettuce.” He researched all kinds of pudding including chocolate and vanilla, and a few of his own creation. But of all his mistresses banana pudding was the one to whom he was most faithful. He awoke every day at five in the morning and prepared a new batch of the custard and left it sitting on his kitchen table throughout the day. At the end of the day Don would perform a number shear stress tests on the pudding to measure the amount of shear thinning that had occurred. Don executed this duty with more discipline and diligence than he’d ever applied to his duties as a janitor at Nadefco. He made his measurements at eight pm and dutifully detailed his findings in one of his research journals (Bapuddjos). In addition to raw data Don included graphs, equations, and his own personal asides like “viscosity increases logarithmically with time that -30 degree shear is applied, exponentially with 0 degree shear, cf. ketchup.” The journals began to pile up. He piled his journals next to his piles of cookbooks and newspaper clippings of custard baking competitions, which were in turn piled next to his piles of textbooks on polymer chemistry and non-Newtonian fluid mechanics. The most important force to be studied was compression, since, in Don’s mind, banana pudding mines buried underground would be exposed more often to the downward pressure of the dirt that concealed them, although conceivably an imitation custard mine (which, remember, performs quite well under shearing) could be buried sideways, although then the blasting mechanism would have to be altered so that the mine would blast orthogonal to the horizontal rather than parallel. Thus, real pudding mines should be buried right side up whereas imitation custard mines should be buried sideways.
here's my whacky/crappy/shitty sci fi story that Im somehow turning a very contained piece of (there's more than this) into a final project this semester
anyway here's some mangled bits of session 1, the first part of book one Elegy for Laindsraad IV
https://www.evernote.com/l/AhEPozdXWsJEKKnaL8cnQGtom0JNTEyvnsk
here's part from what I've written this semester, more than a year or so after that
https://www.evernote.com/l/AhFD7DmSpP5Bs5zEK6o6Sz6wFiBcOKqRWd4
and then (session 4, part 1 but part 1 of book two 'ALL STARGATES OPEN | I LOVE | I GO'
https://www.evernote.com/l/AhGWTe9X1k5JVI3i1sjQsZctsYsOtT_tqOA
and the poem thing that goes before it https://www.evernote.com/l/AhE52aHDHmVBrqKdincEErMSjypz4R9nES4
forgive me/tell me if it's alright
>>7939027
>https://www.evernote.com/l/AhEPozdXWsJEKKnaL8cnQGtom0JNTEyvnsk
who didnt fix all the weird paragraph separations in the transition to google docs and back fuck me
its def not supposed to be like that
2/2
Of course, Don researched more custards than just banana pudding and manipulated more variables than just angle of shearing. Temperature, altitude, and strawberry were all given due diligence. But banana pudding was the most scrutinized for the sole reason that Don found it the most likely custard to be used in Nadefco’s mines. Don concluded that banana custard was most likely because 1) bananas possess certain properties, such as high fiber content (which makes for a sturdy mine), which lend themselves to being landmine fodder that are not present in other fruits and because 2) after all, the first fake landmine that Don had ever encountered was verifiably filled with banana pudding.
On the days that Don did show up to Nadefco he worked at his own leisurely pace. The tasks he did manage to accomplish were done shoddily. For example, part of his duties as a janitor were detail in a Janitor’s Report the conditions of the corpses he found in the field. The human resources department of Nadefco felt that by considering and analyzing the wounds of a field engineer’s corpse, Nadefco could understand how the engineer had died and then speculate on the mistake he had made while defusing. Janitors were asked to note the position of the body. Had the body been projected or merely crumpled? How severe were the burns, and where was the location of the wound(s)? Don, however, had been neglecting his paperwork, and when he did take the time to fill out his report he rarely did so in sufficient detail, as Harrison from the mortuary department complained to Sturvant.
“Look, all of his ‘ideas’ and ‘research’ aside, you would at least expect him to show some basic concern for human life.” Harrison held up Don’s most recent report and shook it in the air. “This guy,” he said, indicating the report “this guy could’ve been you, Don’s only friend here, one day Don might find himself cleaning up after you due to a mistake that could’ve been avoided if Don had properly documented the states of the corpses he finds.”
Sturvant, who never made mistakes but forgave Harrison’s lapse in judgement, tried to explain that Don’s mental state was very bad, that he probably wasn’t in a position to be filling out paperwork, much less performing janitorial labor. That he really shouldn’t be coming in to work at all.
“Sturvant, yeah, Don’s gone a bit crazy. But this, this is just crossing the line. Look here, look what he wrote in the conditions of the corpse section.” He handed the report to Sturvant. In a section to which half a page had been devoted Don had merely written “well-done.”
>>7939027
>https://www.evernote.com/l/AhGWTe9X1k5JVI3i1sjQsZctsYsOtT_tqOA
holy shit they all have fucked up paragraph spacing that the fuck evernote?
>>7938957
>>7938989
Well thanks guys. You're right that it reads like a summary, that's by design. I agree I can add more character to it, and perhaps a stronger sense of setting. I understand how confusing these out of context paragraphs can be.
The idea behind skimming these events was to segway us into a more significant happening that's immediately after this scene and then some, say this was something like a humorous intermission. A commercial break.
So if I at least got any sort of humor across then I'd call it a success. There's more than enough decompressed story going around in the full thing.
>>7939025
No, totally: genius. Best inside thread. Sets the wave length at another level entirely. Skips across different ideas fluidly. Supersmart author but with a heart of Au. Likable and fun, pleasant and friendly. Gets the laughs but there's something deeper. Words like shadows of a huge thrumming mind. Just totally blown away. Head and shoulders above books I've wasted time reading. Rewarding. Needs to be cleaned up and sent to publishers. Compile the list. Make it happen. I'm going to save this and read it again later. Post more, post all. I don't want to say genius, but damn. No holds barred. A real treat. Contemporary, Toolesque, Nabokovian, but like Wallace if if was genuine. I just want more.
>>7938933
This was supposed to be funny. Anyone have a giggle or did it fail completely?
>>7938937
where's the action and like 3 days happen in a couple sentences lol where is the pacing bruh, you should look to something that strictly paces itself better perhaps mein kampf
>>7939059
didn't read that one but had an absolute blast with your two part bit. I'll go back
>>7939062
nvrmnd wrong post sorry im stoned
>>7939001
>Because im telling him that hes not writing a real piece of fiction?
not sure if serious
A number of authors have used summaries like that, its not some new thing.
>>7939030
How is this even better than 1/2? I mean I thought I was seeing something fresh, but this here is fresher than sweet sweet freshmen. Five fucking stars. Exuberant and crowd-pleasing without being a cliche. Honest and comedic and honed. Hindsight is 20/20 but your foresight is too. Un-fucking-forgettable. Don is an inspired creation. Schematic but schematic like a V2 blueprint for codename Fuck Yes. A real personality is wriggling underneath. Do you do comedy? How'd you learn to write like this? Were you always a natural or did you study literature? Wow just wow. A real brain scorcher.
>>7938933
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 broken tune & symphonic wafts of her wine wandered to her, notes minor like fingers caressing the edges of her memory. The cheese platter rattled as 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 as her mind starts drifting, she lets out a single sigh and hocks a thick one into her fapping hand. Today is going to be another night in paradise. She is on /lit/ shitposting Mira threads 10 minutes later. Here, people will appreciate her.
>>7939082
Tears
>>7938937upvoted
>>7939074
Oh boy. Wow. I always thought myself to be a writer whose prose was, well, imaginative and perhaps even scintillating. But I’ve had my doubts. Grand doubts, very grand; sometimes I can’t even get out of bed in the morning. The best writers are the most self-conscious, Wallace for example. I’m glad I discovered the courage to post here. A reviewer like you? It’s almost like you understand me, the way that I “thrumming” and “exhuberant”. Are you a female perchance? If you live in Paris (as I do) it would delight me to get coffee with you tomorrow. And, I know you find me to be a real scorcher with a really big brain--hell, I can practically taste you tintitillaing on the other side of the keyboard--but I’d be pleased to meet up with you tomorrow so that perhaps you can offer me some actual advice.
How meme is this?
>>7939068
you're not gonna make it bro
>>7939155
it made me laugh so i guess you're going somewhere, vid related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL4yePsV3R4
>>7939155
Reminds me of an ugly girl who sluts it up for attn. You know the girl.Heather—lol ikr.
>>7939155
Good last line desu
>>7939161
>a guys gonna fail because he contradicted some random on 4chan
lets not get too full of ourselves
>>7939176
Good argument. How many different folders do you need to maintain to always have your reaction face titled "image"?
small passage from the novel I'm working on, let me know how my prose is.
However, at the dawn of the 3rd moon, she rose — not at once, born from nowhere like a firework, though also not like a tree, gradually building upon foundations laid before it. Instead, a medium, or more accurately, a combination. Like if gunpowder and fire can grow on a garden, slowly nurtured and then all at once a spectacle.
>>7939238
That was nice and I like it a lot (:
>>7939263
Thanks anon! Though honestly a straightforward compliment like that coming from a place known to be cynical, it's difficult to be a hundred percent certain that you're not being sarcastic.
>>7939238
That was really awful. Mixed metaphors; needlessly obscure and verbose elaboration of a very simple idea.
>>7939274
I see what you're saying. I guess because this is supposed to be a pivotal moment in the novel I wanted to linger in it for a bit, but you're right it's too much for not much weight.
>>7939027
I posted some bits of my scifi story here that got fucked up in formatting but here's a bit I just wrote over the past few hours. it's revised so hopefully its not too brainfarty, and there's another third to it basically, but its some ideas
https://www.evernote.com/l/AhE-hgkehodD8r8JXhuOUntgiOaH-DRB4OM
>>7939271
I'm not, it was actually very nice. >>7939274 is an idiot.
>needlessly obscure
>needlessly verbose
>elaboration of a very simple idea
The "obscure" and "verbose" language gave your writing a voice that sounds very sincere in it's delivery. Like, you actually understand what makes this kind of writing cool. And also the "simple" "idea" was neither simple nor an idea.
>>7939178
it's a /fit/ meme
>>7939286
The problem with these out of context sentences is that dudes will pick it apart for whatever reason, and might be valid in some cases, but they're missing your entire rational behind the whole thing, not to mention how it interacts with text surrounding.
Seems like these threads are best suited for flash fiction and poetry, full stories may be too impractical from the standpoint of a fast-moving thread, and mere snippets just beg for mishandling.
>>7939286
You are trying to dress up a very simple thought in an ostentatious wardrobe. The aim of good writing is to do the exact opposite.
>>7939327
Check out "The Reader over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of English Prose" by Robert Graves.
>>7939337
I'm currently reading The Elements of Style. Would you consider than apt replacement or is that book simply essential?
>>7939337
would you happen to have a link? running dry
>>7939238
"She rose the way she fell asleep: slowly, and then all at once."
-- John Green version
>>7939369
>>7939384
>http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cetag/3igraves.htm
found that much, seems like solid stuff but there's a few things I'd like to have more clarity on. Such as using poetic devises and long sentences, they seem to be against those. I find myself shrugging since I've seen them used to good effect in modern prose.
Here's my full story: I hope you like it - I spent 3 months writing it
http://pastebin.com/cJU77W6h
>>7939407
That's just some webpage.
>>7939426
What's wrong with doing both?
>>7939420
I know, I think this guy just calls himself synthesizing whats in the book. I'm having a really hard time finding it unless anon has a link.
>>7939426
I kinda agree with this, but I like studying these things for new angles of thinking and approach. I got grilled pretty hard in this thread and to be honest I'm not surprised why despite my intentiions, so I'm always open to new stuff.
>>7939411
i'm almost certain your math problem things are either incorrect or trivial, and for that reason i stopped reading. it seems like one of those dfw attempts to be witty with unnecessary math
>>7939384
http://www.amazon.com/The-Reader-over-Your-Shoulder/dp/0394506154
It's not just about abstract guidelines. He goes through passages from famous authors and shows where and how they go wrong. He then rewrites each passage into model examples.
>>7939287
Your first sentence is, like, incomprehensible. Too many embedded clauses frustrates me and I don't want to keep track of all of it. That persists throughout the piece. It's a turnoff to me. Also, I'm pretty sure you're ungrammatical in a few places.
>>7939434
Given the lack of ebooks for that one, is there any alternative you can recommend or is that one of a kind?
>>7939411
>>7939433
alright, so I went back for another shot
>Max takes a step. There are now three icosahedra around each edge, and twelve around each vertex. With another step, the tessellations shift again: four dodecahedra around each edge, each vertex surrounded by eight dodecahedra in octahedral arrangement. After the next, five around each edge, twenty per vertex. The nature of each recursion changes in relation to his three dimensional position, so there is no way of knowing when he’ll find you. This will not stop him. That wave of possibility has long since collapsed.
this is definitely some mathy shit trying to pass as witty when in reality it's just non-stimulating. The effort required for me to make sense of all this terminology heavily outweighs the payoff. Also, all that meta shit about crocodiles is hella juvenile.
Let me pick apart some of your writing.
>Here in the Void, I have built a machine. The base and foundation are lapis lazuli; the rest of the frame is made of ivory, adorned with fractals plated in gold. Rare stones of vibrant hue festoon the lateral beams in rows. A triangle erects from each side, and a beam connects them at the apex. Centered in this beam is a massive lever of polished titanium.
"lapis lazuli" is obscure
"fractals" is not evocative
"vibrant hue" is cliche
"erects" is used intransitively and therefore incorrectly
"massive" unnecessary and boring adj
in general you use "void" too much--16 times. Void is an abstraction. I like it in this paragraph, but dislike it practically everywhere else.
... Then burning sunlight raced through his veins. He had got his fix. Who could get off the stuff when it could make you feel this good? To kick the habit would be to bring him back down to earth with all the rest who pretend to be content in their mundane little lives. Fuck that. This was living. Stretching his hands out in front of him towards the ceiling, he took a deep breath in and let it out in an icy whoosh. His lips and fingers tingled numbly and he rose from his bed. He strode over to the window, still naked, and peered out onto the city below. The cars and busses blatted fussily about, but it seemed that most of the morning rush had passed. He had called out last night because he had not wanted any more trouble with the boss who had been hard-pressed as it was with sales being down the past few years. There was a chance, although unlikely, that he could be fired for any spur-of-the-moment sick days. He was a junkie, but by no means stupid. His small window didn't allow a great view, but he could see for miles and miles all around anyways. There could be no doubt that his little morning ritual played a major role in boosting his sense of vision. Most times, he usually had to wear glasses, but not now. And he could even hear Ms. Ruddworth's morning tea kettle whistle from two stories down. He was a long way from jumpy, but his senses were on high alert. Something seemed off today, but he was unsure of what. He moved to the big city to get away from the notoriety he had back out west. He just hoped today wouldn't be when they would finally connect his two identities and make the bust of a lifetime. That would ruin everything. He had a life here now, a place of his own and even a girlfriend. Louis wouldn't stand to be with him if- His thought was broken off as something exploded 20 blocks down. Three of these automatic gunshots went off before he was fully dressed and soaring back towards the now opened window. The fourth shot ricocheted off his chest and hit the bank vault. The feeling of uneasiness was more certain than ever because Lex was out there, planning something big. Just then, the lead-lined vault creaked open and green light flooded the room.>when did you figure it out?
>>7939411
The "1 = 0.999…" thing is pure cringe. It's a trivial result, and over-discussed in the general public. It has nothing to do with the theme of 'singularity' any more than '1/2 = 2/4' does.
> I spent 3 months writing it
How much of that was spent on the 'crocodile' garbage?
>>7939411
Holy shit that was really good. Good weed you had there
9/10
>>7939025
>>7939030
i can't tell if you're samefagging all the metaironic replies to your story, and the replies to those replies. nonetheless, here's my input: quite funny in small doses, but the dialogue (at this point) just can't compare. your powers of description, building the scene, and inserting little interjections make for highly amusing stuff. your brand of absurdism is titillating. i hope you keep your pieces small. it's extremely difficult to keep the humor going for novel / novella-length stories because it has to be constantly fresh or the reader will get tired.
>>7939411
>I am not a crocodile
Keked out of this world m8. Good shit
A little short story I did. Can you guess what Liz is?
>>7939553
Life support system for a cunt?
>>7939569
ayy
>>7939553
She sounds like a vampire
>>7938818
If you came here to get your dick sucked, just shell out for a prostitute instead.
Anything she wrote would be better than what you posted.
>>7938812
>Frank the Peach-man
Here's the last one I downloaded like two weeks ago.
>>7938772
i think you should read your dialogue out loud and really picture the characters as you describe them, talking as you are making them talk. it's a little awkward. like the part about living with deadbeats. just move that part down below the description of his actions to make it seem like a pause, like one would in real life. first the mundane description of water being shut off and someone owing you money. then as you go about the room you muse on the generality of it and go ...thats what you get for living with deadbeats... not really addressed or expecting reaction, just as something to say while doing other things. same with the girl saying her mouth tastes like half dust. when you're half awake like that she would probably just moan out something about dust, not that coherent declarative "my mouth tastes like it's half dust"
just my quick thoughts, try to envision your scenes as you move through them, not just as a still image.
>>7939896
well opened the thread and saw people had already said this so ignore this post i guess
>>7939877
Well done. You got me to read the whole thing.
/Lit/ I am having an impasse. I want to write a prologue for my book, but I feel if I write the prologue it would clash with the first few chapters since it would just detail the protagonist life before getting into the story
>>7939027
>another anon using evernote
back the fuck of?
>>7939170
they loved her when they named her
>>7939553
>I'd took my time
nigga
>>7939914
What's evernote?
>>7939920
it's a website. most people here use pastebin
>>7939411
what's going on here
Can I use old radio dramas in my book.
>>7939918
Sorry that was my local slang slipping through, we use it for 'had' as well as 'would'
like:
>well he'd sure taken his time with it
>>7940086
Really? Is this bait
>>7940140
No bait my friend
profile piece I did on Gregory Alan Elliott and the design vs moderation debate on social media.
socialmediafreedom.neocities.org
snippets:
If you aren't aware of the shitfight "culture war" that has been raging online over the past few years then you don't live here – it has been impossible to avoid. woman haters vs misandrists; Men's Rights Activists vs Feminists; GamerGaters vs Social Justice Warriors; /r/KotakuInAction vs /r/ShitRedditSays; 4chan vs Tumblr. On every platform, in every community, the tensions run red-hot and the trolls from both sides have come out to play. Innocuous statements, as well as inflammatory shitposts, have led to the deployment of Life Ruin Tactics from shaming to SWATing. Users today experience a textual violence unique to the 21st Century. While some call it exile or expulsion or just deserts, when users are forced to scrub all of their social media accounts to try and escape the hivemind it ought properly be called a digital murder.
We are faced not with a conflict of political affinity, but instead a problem grounded in a disagreement over whether the design of platforms can substitute for social norms: does digital freedom find its limits at the codework constraints of social media sites, in their manmade spaces of programmed possibility, or can digital freedom only exist in the presence of a robust, just, and enforced set of social norms? It is a question that has long been asked in digital spaces, but as the Web polis swells so too does the demand for a resolution. In the end it comes down to whether cyberspace ought to imitate the real world or if it ought to surpass it – whether it needs to be made material, to be reified, or if its "designed virtuality" offers the development of new patterns of social relation.
>>7940441
also i'd love your opinion on the image-hover feature i have on there; i read Landlow's Hyper/Text Theory a while back, which inspired me to try to include images without breaking the text or demanding the user navigate to another page/tab.
http://pastebin.com/raw/ZCF6YvNu
>>7938924
Or you just didn't understand him.
>>7939910
then do what every half decent prologue ever does and have it set up later action with a different set of characters to those that we see in the first few chapters.
>>7939914
that zerson here is there some fucked up thing about evernote? Ive been a fan until recently when its started giving me more trouble.than its worth, but for a few months it made organizing and structuring what i had a breeze
Ill check out pastebin though
/// Sofia's Gift ///
Mamadadababa, but no voice for word or sentence. At 9:00, whole paragraphs became words, then entire pages became letters. Sofia was such a gluttonous reader that she could devour an entire library in a glance. She had memorised the entire Western Canon (and all popular criticisms: Marxian, post-structuralist, post-post-modern, etc) by mid morning. She danced through the streets reading every signpost, every shop window, every car registration, and any unsuspecting magazine stand.
In response, a snap meeting of academics was called in a musty hotel. Plastic cups, tepid coffee, and white water from mechanical cows were laid out. The leather ceiling was tanned from the cigarette smoke. Nervous journalists, scientists, and scholars writhed in their seats. How could such memory exist? reading the whole canon as if it were a poem!
The discussion was opened by a gaunt beige suit, his face and shirt both creased in the noon heat. The Scholar began: "In all my forty minutes of research, I have never come across one as eloquent on the subject of Dante as Sofia. No student of mine has read Purgatorio a hundred times, let alone twelve million as she claims. I don't know how many times I have read it." he trailed off. Dabbing the sweat from his brow and turning his head to the nest of journalists. The rats in the wall, the crows that peck the eyes of unfashionable academics. What use are my labours now? he thought, should I move to the lakes? Twelve million is more than I could read in my whole life.
The scratching had stopped as expectant silence restrained the fingers of the journalists. The scholar began to wobble, then, shrinking into his clothes without even a farewell gesture, he vanished. The heap of creased material was in every news stand by 17:00.
The sun was weary when Sofia read the stones. Beyond the churchyard and over the graves. "Here lies Sofia Proud, beloved between the hours of 6:00 and 19:00" She danced through the streets reading every cough, every nervous face, every limp. Bystanders paused as she passed and hot salt poured onto her hands. The dance lead her away from the crowd, over the bridge and into the sea.
Timeless (placeholder name)
‘The gods have forsaken us.’ Nebiri could not help as the words whispered chillingly in his ear once 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 to the ground by dark plumes of black and grey. Several flocks of birds flee from the trees behind at the screaming thunder radiated by the fireball. A demon. Nebiri falls to his knees, the drying grass lightly scraping his black skin, and he weeps. He weeps for his mother. At the shaman’s accuracy. He weeps for his people. And for the dry dirt beneath, the stained waters at home, and for the smoldering ruins along the horizon his sight, shadowed by the crimson sky and setting sun.
This had began as a trial to prove the gods had not yet abandoned Nebiri and his people. Two long years traversing the hellish woods and three lost brothers claimed by its timeless discipline to prove this. Pain and blood and heartache all endured in hopes of hope, by Nebiri. But now, none remained of his people other than him, and hope seems lost. He's become a hollow shadow carrying the spirits of those who sacrificed to endure and to be spared of suffering brought upon Ædin by the clamoring gods.
Late capitalism moaned softly as he penetrated her crepuscular vagina, the girl, whose Vagina it was, began to whisper into his ear about products.
He fixed her gaze like a wrench: with sedulous turning-ness. She span in his eyes like a child inside a washing machine.
"Why'd you have to be so dumb you gay bitch"
"It's because I'm so hot and you know it"
He knew she was right; he pulled out and came into the moons sepulchral shadow, cast onto a crack in the side walk, which swallowed his seed and the world like a huge greedy pelican.
>>7939905
That's good to hear, thanks my dude
>>7939877
best in thread, good job m8
nice final line as well
I'm sorry that this isn't relevant (No where else seemed more fitting to post in) but can you guys throw out some interesting topics to do a persuasive essay on? I really appreciate it
>>7942197
Holy shit, thanks
>>7942046
It stuck out, because most of the writing samples in this thread sound like they were written by victims of Broca's aphasia.
>>7942217
whether nietzsche has any practical application to radical activism still
>>7942219
Well, you wrote it so you earnt it, I'm always a bit skeptical about writing in the first person but you didn't fuck it up.
Most stuff posted in these threads is not that great, not that I would ever discourage someone from writing by saying 'DUDE YOU'RE SHIT LMAO STOP WRITING PLEASE', but it's refreshing to see something very well written.
One thing I would say, the three points you sort of go 'out of style' when you list the celebrities, and mention the camera/lenses and watch brought me out of the text a bit. It seems as though there's something a little encyclopedic about them when there really doesn't need to be. I would try not being so technical, so listing. For example, when you mention the watch, just say that it's a Rolex, not the exact model name and number.
But hey, I'm just some guy on the internet who has never written anything decent and have no authority over such matters, so listen to me or don't, either way, keep writing because you have some talent there.
>>7942260
You're right, I always forget how boring it is to read that king of stuff for some reason.
thanks <3
>>7939490
Harsh feedback plox. Fuck my shit up, mang. Did I even do anything write? (Heh).
>>7939155
I like it!
>>7939511
I really do appreciate the input, and even more the encouragement. I needed that. Also, I wasn't samefagging.
But you're the person I was "talking" to right?
I mean c'mon:"titillating"
Experimenting with new words? and some mild purple prose mixed with low brow shitte.
His hand rested pensively on his balls. A surreptitious whiff of his fingers reminded him of the previous night's lascivities, and he sniffed again more overtly. With an audible inhalation he closed his eyes, simled, and rolled his head back. That profligatious night. But then, his heart began to pound. 'What have I done?' He thought to himself. No Onanian action! No arching ropes of pearl! 'I blew my load right in her pussy'!
r8 my poem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSj9w-iI_X0
>>7938772
>TFW I want myt book to have frontispiece
1/2
Tokyo is the origin of many first things, and this is reminded each morning when Earth's opening sunrise comes out over their horizon the same way it does on their national flag: in red, in solitude, inexhaustible. On clear days, if you are high enough, you can squint out and watch the hot orb inch up the sky, illuminating all of the skyscrapers as if they were blades of metallic grass on a pasture. I see this phenomenon once in a while when the seasons align. All of everything lights up into a single panoramic glance and you realize what a playground Earth is. A possible place... a grand place… a place very alive.On the particular day that I am remembering now, the warmth from the sun finally snapped the blackberry winter that beheld the sprawl. Winter croaked out an icy last breath.
By reason of it being the final joyride of the year, the breeze decided to see how far it could run and it dropped down into the streets. The city was beginning to steam and stir in the morning and the wind turned fat with delight. In Akihabala, the wind encountered an old woman squatting on a stool snipping off shards of her thick yellow toenails. He peered into a greasy window in Shibuya and discovered an old man, leaned over a wooden counter, stare into the entrails of a hologram machine. Someone called quits into work and then life by jumping in front of an incoming train in Minato. He peeked beneath a young lady’s dress in Shinjuku. The scent of the succulent pink bud, slightly damp, waiting to spread and blossom, on the Chiyoda cherry blossom trees enraptured his little heart. Wherever he went his eyes dazzled with neon signs and population. All of this thrilled him with life-affirming ecstasy and the now-matured breeze careened off to the densest part of the city looking for more. It arrived at a maze of narrow alleyways. The aged draft slowed to navigate through them. He helped a food cart sell here, rang a gong at a small Shinto shrine there, but he suddenly exhausted at an alcove in the density where a retired Yakuza boss sat.The tired wind entered the room like a faceless visitor. It took one drunk flounder around the room searching for the spot where it would come to a little rest and after a gander, winter in Japan ended on the man’s face. The old Yakuza removed a handkerchief from his pockets. He wiped his forehead. Then, as the clock struck nine, the man stood up and stepped outside into a small garden. There, a woman was waiting for him.
His days began as so.
What these two did after I am afraid I do not know.
2/2
I am held back by certain limitations and though I’ve consulted many sources, held several private interviews, and talked to primary sources to bring together this story, my cluttered memory carries the brunt of recollection. My interpretations are as fallibleas a human beings is.As considerations, do know that I have studied and dissect human behaviour for most of my life and I consider myself rather apt at empathy. If that knowledge does not satisfy you, please accept whatever worth it has when I say this: I will try to be as honest as I can in this retelling. If still you are not satisfied, I am afraid all I can leave you with is this: imagination brings bliss at no cost.
>>7940650
'Prominent grease.' Prominent fucking grease. Why the fuck is the grease prominent? Why is it not, maybe, 'yellowy' or 'faded', or whatever the fuck other qualities you'd associate with grease? And what the fuck is this bitch doing to her pillows to make them noticeably greasy, to the point where they become semi-transparent? I liked the rest of it, but... 'prominent.' That's a literary buzzword if I've ever seen one, and it reads as though the writer desperately shoehorned it in so that the reader would be confident of his intelligence in spite of the appropriately simplistic style used in the rest of the story. Cut it OP.
...Anonymous
04/18/16(Mon)19:35:48 No.7938642
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 any way I could better my writing?
Any words I could've used?
And thoughts?
Suggestions?
Thank you in advance.
1of?
I open the door and use my hand to blindly search for the light switch and upon identification, I press down and cast the generic student room into light, eyes glaring from the deliberate change from pitch black to broad vision. Inside, coated in a general smell of bodily odour, semen and dirty laundry, lay the commodities one would expect to find within within student accommodation. A hamper full of dirty clothing, jeans, shirts, socks, and pants; a guitar shaped leather hard case coated in dust suggesting a rare breach of position; the raw ingredients for cigarettes scattered across the floor amongst ash laden dirty bowls and plates; stacks of leather bound books, Russian volumes and classic tomes from the likes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, and Gogol. Illuminated were four circular lights equally distanced through the ceiling; one of the bulbs was verging upon burning out, the filament would flick in and out of illumination, leaving an amber imprint upon the intermittently darkened corner. The window was open and the room was cold; the blinds were shut and were bellowing in the wind, rapping against each other in an unidentifiable time signature.
“Mind your step,” I say, navigating from the door towards the bed, located in the farthest corner of the room from the door, pushed far against the corner against an old white radiator unit. I held the door open until I was certain she was holding it behind me and began to tip toe between the dirty plates, accidentally treading on an upturned plug socket in the process. “Fucking thing,” I said, kicking it away underneath my bed. “Thank God I had my shoes on, eh?” She remained silent.
“So what do you think? Of the living quarters? Nice?” I asked.
“Very fancy. I particularly like the dirty plates and the unread books.”
“I really think they widen the place out. Those plates work like mirrors.”
“That laundry pile looks like it’s about to topple over.”
“It’s been looking like that for a few weeks now.”
“The leaning tower of Levi’s.”
“Couture.”
“Well, shall we get on with it then?”
“Don’t need to ask me twice.”
2of?
In roughly the time it took her to finish the last of her takeaway chips and store the empty carton in an unobvious hiding place, I had reduced my dress state to the bare minimum, that is, only socks, my jeans, shirt, and pants were now placed on top of the pile of dirty laundry. She put a hand on her hips and let one leg fall slack as if assuming a stance of boredom, she tilted her head and smirked. “Mhhm,” she said.
“Mhhm? What does ‘Mhhm’ mean?”
“Mhhm. It means ‘Mhhm’. It’s a sound.”
“Yeah but it has to mean something. What were you implying?”
“I wasn’t implying anything.”
“You think I have a small dick, don’t you?”
“It is cold.”
“You do, don’t you?”
“I haven’t said anything, it’s all you.”
I knocked it like it was a pendulum. “It’s not this bad usually,” I said. “I probably should close the window.”
“That might help.”
“I thought you didn’t say anything. I thought it was all me.”
“I didn’t say anything; I didn’t say I didn’t agree.” She smirked at the look of horror materialising on my face. “Relax,” she said. “I’m kidding. It’s not the worst I’ve seen. Not the best, but not the worst either.”
I pushed my clenched fists into the small of my back and forced my back to click, the bones cracking against each other, vertebrae activating like toppling dominos. I leant my head to the left, clicking my neck, and then to the right. She winced. “That doesn’t sound good,” she said. I shrugged. She kicked off her heels, black bulky things with at least three inches of height on them, not caring where they ended up in the untidy mass of the room. She pulled her tights down to her ankles and then, one foot at a time, stepped out of them and dropped them to the floor in a vein attempt to appear seductive. “No point rescuing the moment,” I said. “It’s already lost.”
3of3
“You can’t blame me for trying,” she said. “Under or over the covers?”
“I’m indifferent.”
“I get that. You still have your socks on.”
“It’s cold.”
“You won’t mind if I keep my dress on, then?”
“Do what you want.”
She walked over towards the bed and climbed on top of it, laying down on her back looking up at me. She slowly hitched her dress up to her navel and looked up at the ceiling, waiting for me to make a move. The mattress depressed and then the springs creaked as I climbed on top of the bed, the wood and metal structure not used to this level of weight on top of it, and leant over her. Now that I look at her I realise that she is quite pretty in a non classical way, when we left I hadn’t known her name or really noticed any of her features, she was in all tends and purposes an empty vessel, but now that I looked at her, her green eyes were wide, I always liked large eyes, her smile curled up ever so slightly at the corners into her cheeks, her jaw line was sharp, but also harboured remnants of a double chin in a way that was endearing. She had the sort of face you would expect to see sat on a bench in a beer garden of some quaint pub on the outskirts of campus, with denim shorts and daisies threaded through her hair, cheap white plastic sunglasses resting on top of her head. Not my type, but undeniably beautiful, and attractive in her own right. I closed my eyes, leant down and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm; they tasted of paprika from the chips she had been eating not five minutes before.
>>7938933
gr8
Would you guys read a book that parallels the German invasion of Rome with the migrant crisis in Europe? Story is focused on the Roman emperor portrayed as a modern day German, eager to invite the Romans in, where as other Romans, and his friend, the Persian King, thinks it too much of a risk.
I spent the 4th of July in my room, dizzy, red-eyed, eating expired hot dog off of a paper plate. I thought about knifing my landlord as he slept and taking the next flight to Argentina with whatever was in his drawers. I thought about rolling my belongings into an XL Hefty bag and moving underneath the bridge, renouncing all worldly bullshit. I imagined many other drastic plans I’d never commit to. But I knew I’d never ever. When the next day arrived I’d be standing at a plastic grey console, clocking in like all the other honest God-fearing peasants, once again, reeking of garlic and chicken, slowly sweating through the thick band of my ugly workplace cap.
Quiet desperation. Cringing, loathing solipsism. Idle fantasy. Impotent rage. One of these days I’ll have to write a song to you, my friends, for all the things we’ve been through together. Something Beatles-like, with a catchy chorus.
I am an unremarkable young man. I am unpleasant. I think too much. I believe nothing I’m told and mean none of the things I say. And yet I believe ardently, hopelessly, in my own fantasies and ideals. I despise vanity, banality, and superficiality. Of course, I never fail to see it wherever I look. Perhaps I do see before I look. So my psychologist says, who tries, every week, to fix my head with “healthy attitudes” through repetition of “encouragement” as though she were training a dog to fetch a knob of meat. I am no dog.
The summer had been unusually hot. Fires had marked the ground with ash covered fields where once wheat had grown. Francis had worked all day cutting the weeds and removing branches from the wheat fields to the north of the village, for these were more likely to catch fire, and the fear was that if these caught fire it could spread to the crops.
“You think this will be enough to stop the fires?” asked George Granduoli.
“No, it won’t. We tried this with the eastern field, remember? See how that turned out.” answered Francis.
“We hadn’t taken the weeds into consideration, the council-“
“The council? Bah!” exclaimed Francis, as he removed a twig from his sack and threw it back into the field. “Don’t speak to me about the council, since when have they been any help!”
The conversation fell silent when Francis found himself standing at the edge of the field. His eyes’ gazed forwards at the great brown, lifeless sea of low meadow hills that stretched for as long as the eyes could see. There, in the distance, guarded by two towering hills stood the village of Samanpora, standing out if not for its colors of brown from its wooden facades or the colored cloths that hung from them then from the smell of boiled cabbage and spoiled meat or the sound of prattle from the marketplace.
George let go of his large sack filled with figs, twigs, weeds and other herbs and it fell under his feet “I think we’re done here, Francis”
Francis nodded “Is your brother coming to the summoning in the square later today?”
“As much as I hate to say it, yes he will, he returned from his reconnaissance mission last night.” George answered
“I’m glad. I take it you’re coming to the witness the summit too?”
“Of course, everyone has to anyway, and besides, maybe they’ll actually read my letter this time around.” replied George, with a grim smile on his face
“You know they won’t.”
“Yeah, I know. You can always hope. “
“Hah!” howled Francis “Maybe most of us could, but your letters? Even a mute dog would have a bigger chance to be heard”
>>7944959
>first person
Stopped reading
http://pastebin.com/MLix4Vgn
A "screenplay" I'm working on, in which a youth finds a dead body by the side of the road late one night and decides to take the investigation. He discovers too late that the murderer is actually his lover, a psychotically bored English major who reenacts scenes of her favorite novels before killing.
>>7944990
> first person isn't legitimate because YA novels are written with it
fuck off desu
>>7944997
>defending first person
>not understanding its clear limitations
>>7940441
bumping.
journalism, new media studies, 'net critique.
looking for feedback on writing style, but also the image-hover feature; i think i might use it more frequently for my non-fiction in the future.
You have a lot more. The other hand is a good day, I have a lot more to come to my list. This will be able the same. The other hand. The only one of those who want to go back. The other side, but the best. The other side, but the best. You will find a good idea, I have to do with it, but the fact is that it would have a good day, but I don't have the same thing. I'll be able to do with the help of a sudden death of a few men and women who are not the intended recipient. I will not have a lot more. I'm not a problem. I am going to be the first one to be the best. The only one.
>>7945040
damn, post more please.
>>7945048
The the same time as the first to review the following week. I'll be able, I will have the option. I'm a bit. I will never forget that. I will not be able to come. The other day I will be a good time to time. 7-Eleven, but it was the only one of the most amazing girl who has been the same. I'm a big difference between the ages and the new year, I have to 1st place to stay on the planet and see what the heck is that you have the resources Jakks I have been the same. ..
The stage was set. By the look of Alexander’s tattered clothes and unkempt hair, most would assume he could not afford a gun, but he had been saving for just this moment. He store down his old friend Vasyli, with all sorts of thoughts in his mind.
“It doesn’t have to be like this Alex, let’s just forget about the duel, and we can talk about it. We’re friend right? Let me help you out of this.”
Alexander scowled at the naïve boy; did he think it would be that easy?
“First you fuck my wife, then you take my place among the nobility, and to put a cherry on top, you took the one thing I thought I could always count on; glory. We settle this here and now, one way or another, now put up your fucking guard.”
Vasyli begrudgingly came to the realization that either he or his friend would not survive the night. He turned his back, and took ten steps forward, as instructed.
“Not going to shoot me in the back, huh? At least you have some honour I suppose.”
When the whistle went off, both men turned and faced each other, but neither man was prepared for the next step. Vasyli expected his hesitation to get himself killed, but to his surprised, Alexander was in the same situation. Both men stared each other down for a few seconds, but neither one fired.
“Come on you son of a bitch! You’ve taken everything away from me, take away what I have left and end this miserable life!”
Vasyli now realized what his friend wanted him to do, but that didn’t make it any easier. He raised his gun, and aimed near the chest, but could not bring himself to pull the trigger.
“Don’t make me end it myself, let me die with some honour!”
Alexander continued his shouting, but Vasyli still didn’t have it in him to kill someone who had been so good to him.
>>7945061
Haunting and beautiful, I like it. It's very dream like.
>>7945061
CONT
get a good laugh. And finally see you tomorrow morning. Yes I am not going anywhere for the next few days, and the rest. The first to review this booking confirmation for the next day or so, what do I have been in a while, and the rest. The first to review this booking confirmation for the first time in the morning. I will have the option to have the same thing, and then you have a lot more than one. The first one to two of the day, and then I will have gotten dogs hike sassafras.
>>7945074
Really Joyce-esque. I like it.
>>7938772
I'd really like to know what I should improve on!
I tried to describe impossible things like the scent of creosote – bitter, slightly resinous, but still pleasant – the high, keening sound of the cicadas in July, the feathery barrenness of the trees, the very size of the sky, extending white-blue from horizon to horizon, barely interrupted by the low mountains covered with purple volcanic rock. The hardest thing to explain was why it was so beautiful to me – to justify a beauty that didn’t depend on the sparse, spiny vegetation that often looked half dead, a beauty that had more to do with the exposed shape of the land, with the shallow bowls of valleys between the craggy hills, and the way they held on to the sun. I found myself using my hands as I tried to describe it to him.
So, as a context for this, I have a gay friend who recently got expelled from my college for a second rape accusation from two people, the more recent one being a baseball player, and this is to be sung to the tune of "Devil went down to Georgia"
Randy went up to Winston, he was looking for a hole to steal.
He was on a find for a good behind, and he was willing to force a squeal.
Came across this young man, looking for a diddle and feeling hot,
Randy jumped on the first good chump, said, "Boy, I'd get in his butt."
Said "Bet you didn't know it, but I'm a baseball player too,
And if you care to make it fair, I'll take a nut from you.
You pitch pretty good ball, boy, but try my pitching too,
I'll let my diddle unfold inside your hole, because I bet it'll pleasure you.
The guy said, "My man's Jesus, and he said it's a sin,
I won't take your nut inside my butt,
No chance I'll let you in."
Randy do a bit of blow and prepare to diddle hard,
'Cause hell's broke loose inside your head and the young man's shown his guard.
And if you win you'll put your happy diddle in his hold,
But if you lose, you'll be disenrolled!
The young man opened up a case and said "let's get drunk bro,"
Pong balls flew from his fingertips as Randy was aglow,
And Randy put a hand upon his ding and tried to lay a kiss,
And his gland of semen started up and it went something like this.
When Randy started, the man said, "now why's your zipper so undone?"
"Lay down on that bed right there and I'll show you some good fun."
Mire on his mountain, run, boy, run!
Randy's gonna dowse and have his fun,
Dickin' poor man and lickin' his toes,
"Randy it's too tight," He smiled, "No."
Randy hid his head because he'd knew that he'd been seen,
And he knew he had to hold his diddle if he's to get out clean,
The court said, "Randy, you ain't coming back, and do no more cocaine,
We done told you once, then another snitched, we find you in disdain."
Mire on his mountain, run, boy, run!
Randy's gonna dowse and have his fun,
Dickin' poor man and lickin' his toes,
"Randy it's too tight," He smiled, "No."
>>7945573
kek, fucking christ
Hey I need some quick help with this one line:
You only hold my hand, but what about the rest?
I want it to imply "what about HOLDING the rest," but putting that word in breaks the flow of the piece. Do you get that meaning?
a pretty high skied picture hangs
from the drifting bottom of wells
and somber rooms with empty guests,
those silhouettes of shattered light
that interrupt how bleak the corners,
how low beneath and high we stretch.
from a shifting seat according high
to a standard figure thrown nearby,
such that the dead and their like alike,
with sharing tombs in frightful night,
all equal share with forgetting soon
where lay bare we down under the moon.
but follow me hither, in the afterdream
where safe and still rest side by me
below which brings back yesterday,
in a broadback valley's image in grey,
a calm but prospering shadow at noon,
and introduce ourselves, so it begins.
to my loveliest a most the terrific you
that i dedicate better and make anew
an assembly of words that all can see,
private hooray and greatest victory,
to it that i make with justice more
for what i too lightly asked before.
proceed the creeping dawn of terror
and color my picnic a terrible mauve
then embrace the ascending cloud aloft
or take refuge, strewth, the incredible
takes grace in laughing at our escape,
and while you are the intangible string
that sets the heavens right and sends,
and a pretty eyed picture in the sky,
you haven't taught the world to paint
but peacefully settled as our manor
with practicing your palette and brush.
run by my eyes the colorful array
and strike me harder, for i'm a world,
marveling, complete in your glory.
Thereby the empire “from which many traditional understandings of empire derive” and which has been the model of which Czar’s, Kayser’s, and Kaiser's built their empires upon has been greatly separated from the reality. Similar to the interpretation of Roman art and architecture by neoclassical movements, these emperors looked at veneers washed by the sands of time. Just as the paint formally adoring Roman statues and buildings gave way to polished marble, The Roman Empire’s model of empire has been brought to a high sheen by history. Truly romanticising the characteristic Roman expansion into an ideal rather than the destructive force behind the fall of an empire.
How does it sound bb?
>>7944429
I wasn't op, but I was trolling you m8.
He used the words wrong, don't worry.
>>7946813
I'm trying to be as nice as possible here but, this is not a great opening sentence, least of all a sentence for us to critique without context. Best advice I can give is to make it a statement rather than a question.
Alright rate my comedy:
The eremite peered from his crypt and toward the land. Thus spoke the eremite,
-Nicht gut! Ce decadent culture!
He scaled down the crags from his crypt and hath reached the woodland sedately. A narrow inlet and an adolescent carl set sluicing laundry. The eremite spoke unto him,
-Rebenok! Wherefore can I behold thy filth from my crypt? Hath humanity forsaken God?
The carl glanced at the eremite, shook his head, and sluiced furthermore.
He came upon a hamlet, pervaded with unwashed and destitute persons. Two youths were romping in the silt while a woman watched them.
-Vrouw! Are thou Christian?
-Sure.
-Sure? Have thou heard the word of God? And of his son Jesus Christ?
The woman disregarded his words and resumed her surveillance of the children. A contempt burgeoned in him, but being a proper Christian, the eremite concealed it under feigned appearances.
-Is there a man in your home?
She gestured with her head.
The eremite knocked on a chalet door. A misshapen man answered, his eyes jaded and choleric.
-What'chu want?
-I’m perturbed sir. I hath seen the barriers of Tophet on our Earth. May I ask sir, are thou Christian?
-Fuck off.
A waft of air struck the eremite as the door slammed.
-Beastiam! Verum beastiam!
And the eremite ideated a smiting of the man. While God applauded him with archaic terms.
>>7946813
>>7946946
Where do you get that it was an opening line? That anon just says they need help with "this one line".
Anyway, the line is ok. I think the intended meaning is pretty clear. I would probably either drop the "only" and/or drop the "but" and replace it with a semi-colon, but that's just me.
"You hold my hand, but what about the rest?"
or
"You only hold my hand; what about the rest?"
make more sense to me syntactically.
The day was dull and the book James was reading was as dense as him. He picked up a glass. It was full. His mind was empty "That will switch shortly", as he took a swig.
>>7946977
Thanks!
Rate my terrible idea for a fantasy story, written hastily and without much rhyme or reason.
Fantasy world, magic present but literally cannot be used to directly harm someone, no fireballs and such, instead magic can be used to propel and change environments, creating pillars of earth or using flames to propel one's self, main character grew up in family well trained in ability and learns it from his father and order, dad and family are protectors of kings but King is killed and dad is accused, to clear Honor hero goes after real killers on quest, dad is a real killer? well trained in sword fighting, ability is very rare, ability to use magic due to God, reverberation from death blocked the ability for harm.
God comes back and brings back harmful magic? Vengeful due to being driven away last time, characters are well trained in environmental use but not harmful use, no one is but the returning God
Major threat is personal though, God dealt with in story, but group behind return and more start war, want to rule the world from behind scenes, dad went off to stop them and learned King was part of it, put good of world ahead of family, dad is killed and passes torch
Father does kill King, entire order turns against the kingdom, hero almost killed by father trying to save King, only doing this to save rest of family
Story begins with guard at Royal feast, descriptions and such, eventually guard is stabbed in back 'His attacker could have killed him in such a way he felt no pain, felt no moment of fear, felt nothing at all as his life fled. The sword in his back twisted.' Guard is one of the family but not skilled in magic, dad is killer, sees son as useless without magic.
http://pastebin.com/tvLeGjbg
I can't quite get a good opening for this story & am fluctuating between melodrama and excessive detail. Tell me what you think about this.
I remember when Mother sang that she'd be there right away, riding on the sunset. Her guitar sat on her lap as she played the chords that her left hand prepared. Her hair lay on the mattress that we both sat on, and hid behind her guitar. An endless pile of books lined the floor of our little cottage, books that she once said she had 'stolen from no one'. The world was empty, she told me, and we were the only two left. She's gone now.
Translation from the sonnet 'Tranforma-se o amador na cousa amada', by the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões. The subject/accident talk is from Aristotle. The sonnet has been interpreted as a representation of the conflict between Plato (world of ideas) and Aristotle (the world of brute matter):
The one who loves becomes the thing he loves
By virtue of his own imagination
My cravings then find no justification
For in my soul I have the thing I love.
If the other soul into mine's been transposed
Then surely should I cease my lamentation?
Conjoined to the other soul in tight relation
My soul in its own self should find repose.
But oh!, this fine and beauteous semi-goddess,
As in the subject an accident is laid,
Thus in my soul she is; and so to me
And to my thought, she's an idea, bodyless;
And this pure living love of which I'm made
Needs rough and simple matter to be free.
I do recognize it is pretty terrible. It's my first work in English, though. Do you think I should continue translating into English or am I just too terrible to ever become any good at it?
>>7947242
>Then surely should I cease my lamentation?
Check the word order.
>semi-goddess
demigoddess maybe?
>bodyless
incorporeal? without form?
>>7938772
Our lips pressed together
Close, so close
Not close enough
We were so close once
Fading...
Fading..
Fading...
Where there was once closeness now lies distance
Oh, but can I bridge it? By hand if I must
For I transgressed upon our sacred bond
Oblivious to the unhappiness I caused
My eyes had to be pried open by you
I can never let them close
With restored vision and fresh perspective
I notice you
>>7947596
>For
kinda weird coordinating conjunction that doesn't coordinate with anything previous
>>7947606
Basically I'm saying I need to fix the relationship (bridge it, by hand if I must) because I'm the one who made the mistake (for I transgressed....)
Ernie looked down at his gray socks. They used to be black. That sort of thing tends to happen after years of abuse. He considered getting new ones, except it seemed silly when they were going to get covered up anyway.
“Why are you still wearing those,” asked the girl on top of him. Her name was Faith. She was the daughter of a deacon and, at the moment, blocking his view. He wanted to say it wasn’t worth the effort to take off his socks, but he wanted to keep up the ‘model boyfriend’ persona. He followed the script: clean clothes, daily showers, surprise gifts, and respect towards her folks. Text-book relationship material. The longer he could hide his baggage, the better.
Besides, that was easy for her to say. She didn’t have much on to begin with. Minutes ago, she tore off a blouse that barely covered the tattoo that trailed down her waist. It was a bird’s wing with a botched cardinal hiding underneath.
Ernie first heard the story while spooning on the red couch that Faith had bought at Ikea. Crafted from Scandinavia’s finest cardboard, it shuddered along with her when he ran a finger along the bird’s lumpy figure. It was her first tattoo as well as her first act of teenage rebellion, but not the first time she was drunk. She sobered up just after the artist finished inking her cardinal’s crossed-eyes. It wasn’t what she had asked for. Whether it was shock or a lingering buzz, Faith didn’t say anything else until her session was done. She paid and left an uncounted tip before running out to mourn her cardinal’s affliction. After she was done with her story, Ernie told her to lift up her blouse. He kissed her wing. Years of watching TV sitcoms and romantic comedies told him this was the correct thing to do. When in doubt, Ernie just asked himself, what would Adam Sandler do?
>>7947587
>demigoddess maybe?
Yep. I didn't really pay much attention to it, sorry.
>incorporeal? without form?
Incorporeal. Did it make sense? I also think the '-ess' rhyme actually sounds ridiculous.
Overall I think the work is pretty awful. It's bloody hard to try to write naturally in another language. It ends up sounding very artificial and everything looks as it was 'forced' into it (and it usually was).
>>7947643
>as IF it was forced...
Fix'd.
>>7946946
The execution is clearly botched, but the idea is pretty funny. This might be a nice story to be told by a character in a satyrical novel. I don't know if it could survive all by itself. Some of the writing is funny, such as the use of foreign words, but some of it looks pretty bad:
>-Vrouw! Are thou Christian?
If I am not mistaken, the correct form should be 'art thou' - or is 'are thou?' also permissible?
It's also too concise. Everything in it should be enlarged to at least two pages or so in order to allow the reader to actually 'get in the mood'.
>>7947643
It's your first work, don't beat yourself up. I personally don't see the joy in translating, but if that's your thing then go for it. Maybe you could try your hand at writing something light in English.
http://pastebin.com/v4LA5G1y
Curious to see what you fellas think. Is probably a tri-hard, pretentious piece of shit. I'll do feedback of mine own tomorrow
The alarm clock started loudly beeping like a truck backing up slowly. Jackson Patsy jerked awake from his nightmare like a spring and felt the sweat from last night's horror, wet under his back like he had just gotten out of some horrifying swimming pool. He slowly got up and put his head in his hands like a mother cradling a baby and let the beeping go in his ears, it may not have been a pretty sound but heh, at least it's from the real world. Not the world he just woke up from.
He gingerly tapped the off button on the alarm and slowly took a deep breath in. "I'm Jackson Patsy," thought he, "and I'm going to try to make this day count." He'd been starting every day like that since he was fourteen when his mother died when his father couldn't support her anymore and he had to live in a nursing home with dirty walls and broken windows. He still horribly shutters to think about it. Maybe there are some places in the real world worse than the dimensions you can wake up from.
(the rest of the novel will be about him stumbling into a world of crime he never knew existed right next door. think david lynch meets quentin tarantino)
>>7947749
>"The smell of expired explosives hung in the atmosphere
The hell does this actually smell like?
>like war criminals on ropes.
This has no sensory benefit.
>Burnt and bitter; A robot’s bile.
Considering no one's ever experienced robot bile, this description is worthless.
>Blue skies of Eastern Europe smothered under curtains of smoke;
Why visualize something that's being covered up. You're going to confuse the reader.
>A final schism.
What does this even mean?
>Stench of white phosphorus.
What does this ACTUALLY smell like?
>What did those taste like? Like divinity.
Describe how divinity tastes.
>Like that infant inch of forever dividing David and God. A distance incomprehensible. Why should the mind know?"
Yeap, pretentious.
Your description offers no actual sensory detail. When you paint a scene, the goal is to immerse the reader in an experience. All your comparisons are empty and abstract.
>>7947777
>like a truck backing up slowly
>like a spring
>like he had just gotten out of some horrifying swimming pool
>like a mother cradling a baby
>shutters
>Adverbs
>Exposition dump
The concept doesn't matter if your execution isn't on point.
>>7947797
That's what I was trying to say with just those two lines not the entire poem
>>7945117
"Such" is vague, take it out. Prominent sounds awkward, like it's actually a raised mound of lard. Describe stubbing your toe. That's a painful experience that can resonate with a lot of people. As is, you're wasting an opportunity for empathy.
Good morning "moan" is strange, unless she's taking the D.
No one says "my mouth's feeling like it's half dust"
Your characters are exposition-dumping like it's an anime. No one would actually express those things.
"Dirty" is unnecessary because it's already been established that they were on the floor. It's not been established how the narrator feels about masculinity so that thought doesn't tell us anything. Also, I don't understand how orange is effeminate.
"to her" is unnecessary because there's only two people speaking.
"It's been . . . I could" - faulty tense
Ten foot radius is bland/cliche. No one swerves because of a nic fit. Have you ever smoked? "Vibrantly surreal" is worthless. You'd be better off actually describing a weird dream.
Don't talk to the reader.
The scene transition to Donnie's house is jarring as fuck.
Expand "see's" to "see is." I get that it's a contraction but the reader might mistake it for "see was" since it'd be spelled the same.
After reading this page, I have no idea what the narrator is actually like or what they want. No, wanting to smoke is not a defining personality trait.
>>7947813
What I'm saying is that it doesn't feel like there's more than that to the poem. What are you trying to express to the reader?
>>7947843
I want to say how once we were extremely close but now that is no longer the case. I am willing to fix things since I am the one at fault, I was ignorant of the effect of my actions and words but now since the circumstances have changed, I see now how shitty I was and I can never go back to being that way. I can see what she meant about how shitty I was being in a way I couldn't see before and I don't ever want to forget that.
>>7947843
thanks for the feedback btw
>>7947860
Okay, good. Take those thoughts and express them through action. Describe moments when you were close and focus on showing rather than telling. That this approach and repeat it for every emotion you want to convey.
Think as if you were filming a movie. Don't just tell the audience that someone is an asshole. Show them kicking a puppy (except not cliche) and enjoying it.
>>7947861
No prob, thank you for writing and having the stones to post it up. Your writing will definitely improve so long as you're willing to let other people pick your work apart.
>>7947777
>The alarm clock started loudly beeping like a truck backing up slowly.
Clunky, clunky simile.
>like a spring
No more similes please.
> like he had just gotten out of some horrifying swimming pool.
I'm begging you!
> like a mother cradling a baby
Y-You're hurting me...
>>7947777
You need a lot more practice, my man. Your sentences are clunky and overwrought. Also, they run on. I don't see much salvageable in this piece of text. It's good that you are aiming high, but you can't write a novel like this.
>>7947661
All of the dialogue is intentional. But I will take into heart the other criticisms. Thanks.
Paul came from a family of less than average means. They rent a townhome in a subsidized complex of government housing on the western most cusp of the working-class suburbs-- close enough to the city that he could lie that he lived there once in a while without feeling sleazy. It was made to house people, and that was it. Only a dog-park that used to be a municipal garbage dump separated the tenants from a noisy highway. On the other side a green river oozed out of and towards nowhere like stale toothpaste, and abandoned concrete tubes and mounds of gravel remembered the heyday of a long-gone industry.
stood there without comment, trying not to remember their heyday.
From a distance you could hardly tell that the water was moving if it wasn't for the drifting logs and pieces of litter.
The look of the buildings was as austere as their barren fronts. The cottage cheese coloured townhouses jutted carelessly from their subsidized bases and the units of the utilitarian apartment buildings stacked up efficiently and resembled the compartments of an abandoned filing cabinet. The only color in the complex was filled in by greenish patina of aged grime on the communal garbage bins and the nostalgic pastel of the sad looking playground pieces that were scattered around randomly throughout the place like gravestones.
Poor people lived in this part of the city and so did some decent people nowadays who were down on their luck. Often, in the afternoon on his way to school, he saw middle-aged men wearing cheap clothes walking their dogs who did everything they could to avoid crossing paths. Yet, when circumstances made this necessary they all hustled along past each other, dragging their whimpering dogs behind them. Paul just figured that everyone was either too poor and too jaded and therefore too insensitive to stop and shake hands. What else could explain the hurry? They sure as hell weren't too busy if they could afford to pick up dog shit on a Wednesday afternoon. And besides, why would they when in their minds they lacked that necessary condition of permanence that was necessary for making acquaintances, which made attempting the whole thing silly. But Paul knew that these men were already beyond acquaintances and time and regularity of pattern alone had already made them good friends. They just didn't want to admit it.
Paul woke. For awhile he wasn't sure where he was, but he noticed that we was lying on a couch covered by a sleeping bag in in an unfamiliar living room-- which meant that he wasn't home. Paul hated waking up in someone else's bed let alone on somebody else's couch. One was robbed of that sovereign luxury of falling back asleep or of walking to the kitchen to cook some eggs, though if you were a total bastard you could probably do both no problem. No; Paul wasn't built like that (he had a conscience). Plus, his momma taught him better. So, without the gall to do otherwise, Paul found himself surrendering to temporary couch-lock, a prisoner in someone else's home.
Unsure why, Paul cautiously scanned the room, and then choked on what he saw. From his cocoon he spied a smaller and visibly less comfortable sofa adjacent to his own, and on the sofa, a shapeless lump loosely draped over by a paper-thin felt blanket that could only keep a cadaver warm. But from the end of the quilt, two long mannequin legs: undeniably a woman's. Without taking his eyes off of them Paul soundlessly raised the sleeping bag over his face again. His stealthy and controlled retreat from the cold uncertainty of the room betrayed his nerves; indeed he was feeling very anxious. Paul pressed his eyelids together as if he were a toddler blocking his ears from the shrill voice of a nagging parent. He cringed at the idea of the woman pretending to sleep, secretly disgusted of seeing a man in such an improper sleeping arrangement. Cautiously, he poked his head from the covers to get a better look, to make sure she wasn't awake.
The woman's couch was in pitiful shape. It was dressed like a tramp, and on its tired wooden frame the woman lay there sleeping like an offering on an altar. Paul knew that he had usurped the better couch from her in his drunken state and ice-cold beads of sweat stung him as they formed on his forehead at the realization. He stared and stared, as if baiting her to wake up even though he wouldn't have known what to do with himself if she awoke and returned his gaze. They say that people's gazes can be felt. In this way the woman stirred and turned over on the coach as to face him with her eyes still closed. Paul didn't look away because the woman was very beautiful; very dark and very beautiful. Her eyes then opened and in that moment Paul felt for the first time in his life a fear that froze his guts and hurt him. At first there was no question in her eyes and she looked as dumb as a fish but in a second she collected her wits and challenged him through her own gaze in return. Weak against direct confrontation Paul darted his guilty eyes and feigned studying the wall. Paul didn't hear anything from her after that. Later, he would hear her gentle snoring again and it was only then that Paul was able to fall back asleep.
>>7947778
good point
will revise
>>7939553
better than /x/
What if it never rains again?
Turn that mouth around
What if it never rains again?
I said stop it okay
The age of Aquarius is long past
The 40 year old virgin is rocking 60s
And he's the oldest man you know
So what if it never rains again?
>>7939553
I like it. She sounds like that kind of vampire from 'Let me in'
>>7939553
Get rid of "ing" verbs. Get rid of empty words like "would" or "indeed." Relax your prose.
use "said" after speech, not "stifle" or "grunted." Your dialogue shouldn't need verbs to convey tone. If it does, fix the speech.
Avoid cliches.
Your setting is bland.
The trash compactor sang in the moonlight’s gentle breeze. Squeezing the talisman in the clutches his jaundice-yellow fingertips, Jeffrey Howard resolved that he would not spend another Michaelmas as a bumbaclaat. The only remaining obstacle to his unfettered happiness was the unfortunate virility of his pet raccoon. He cast his yoghurt pot in the flames in abject disgust.
“Oh me, oh my. What is a lowly bumbaclaat to do? Nearly half a year has passed since last I communed with the spirit world. For all I know, hell may have frozen over. Despondent baphomets may yet leap and gesticulate with the all the ardour of a clay pigeon, and my raccoon remains living!”
Positively frothing at the mouth, Jeffrey took down his father’s gilded portrait above the fireplace and promptly doused it with porridge. A gloopy revenge would suffice for now.
>>7941850
I enjoyed this apart from the last paragraph. Why does Sofia die and why is she dancing? Do you have any more?
>>7938933
I laffed
>>7939155
this is excellent, I appreciate especially the effort you've put into the layout
Can someone tell me the term for what I'm referring to? The layout of the words as it appears as viewed as a picture or a painting rather than something to be read.
>>7949728
Concrete? As in 'concrete poetry'?
>>7939238
good shit, ignore >>7939274 they have confused personal preference with constructive analysis.
If I had any tips that you could extrapolate to the rest of your writing I'd suggest doing away with unnecessary and/or mundane words and grammar so you that you can make a lingering point for pivotal moments like you mentioned but still have said moment flow smoothly. For example cut the word 'also' and get rid of the full stop between 'combination' and 'like'.
Little things but they make a difference.
>>7947797
Lord of the Rings is about two Hobbits sent to destroy a ring.
I'm not saying your point isn't wrong, but be careful with your wording when giving criticism. You might give off the wrong idea and leave the kid trying to write overly complex pieces for simple ideas even though they 'tell a story'.
>>7947305
Ok. Would you care to post the rest of where that line came from?
>>7938772
I liked it overall. Don't understand the following:
prominent grease - definitely better word here
see right through - you can see through pillows?
babies - are there babies? I didn't see any babies
got turned off - don't know what that means
orange / not masculine - orange is pretty rad dude
if this is a story about a couple of deadbeats trying to make their way through life i'd read it
>>7950485
Nope!
One thing I learned very quickly about /lit/ is that they generally have no idea when it comes to poetry.
>>7938772
I have been posting my writing on aerochameleon.wordpress.com lately and would love feedback. There are not many followers but I would like to eventially gather enough people to have a colorful comment section on each post. I started posting when I moved to Peru a few weeks ago and am updating it every few days. My writing is much further ahead than what is there since I have not had much time to type.
I don't know what happened to the spacing, although this is my first time using pastebin...
Regardless; http://pastebin.com/jm3cAkCr
Translated a couple of Cavafy poems.
>The God Abandons Anthony
When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession passing by
with exquisite music, with voices —
your retreating fortune, all your works
that failed, the plans of your life
that all turned out false, do not idly mourn.
As if long prepared, with courage,
bid goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all do not delude yourself, do no say
it was a dream, that your ears were deceived;
Do not stoop to futile hopes.
As if long prepared, with courage,
as befits one who proved worthy of such as a city,
go firmly to the window,
and listen with emotion, but not
with the pleading and whining of a coward,
your final pleasure — the music,
the exquisite instruments of the mystical procession,
and bid goodbye to her, the Alexandria you are losing.
>In the Year 200 B.C.
"Alexander, son of Philip, and the Hellenes except the Lacedaemonians..."
We can well imagine
how indifferent the Spartans must have been
to this epigraph. "Except the Lacedaemonians",
but of course. The Spartans are not
to be led and ordered around
like precious servants. After all
a pan-Hellenic expedition without
a Spartan King to lead it
would not have seemed to them very prestigious.
Certainly "except the Lacedaemonians".
That's one perspective. It's understandable.
So, "except the Lacedaemonians" at Granicus;
and at Issus later; and in the momentous
battle, where we swept the terrible army
amassed at Arbil by the Persians:
that started from Arbil for victory, and was crushed.
And from this wonderful pan-Hellenic expedition,
the victorious, the illustrious,
the vaunted, the gloried,
gloried as no other,
the incomparable: we emerged;
a new Hellenic world, great.
We the Alexandrians, the Antiocheans,
the Seleucids, and the many other
Hellenes of Egypt and Syria,
and those in Media, and in Persia, and wherever else.
With the expansive territories,
with the diverse action of our thoughtful adaptations.
And the common Greek tongue
that we carried up to Bactria, up to the Indus.
Talk about Lacedaemonians now!
>>7950757
This. Only the slightest of few do.
>>7952357
I liked these and appreciate your effort.
>>7949618
>The trash compactor sang
No it didn't.
>the moonlight’s gentle breeze
Moonlight doesn't give off breeze
Each evening, shortly after sunset,
darkness covers the land.
Having mystified thinkers for millennia,
the mechanism for this occurrence
has now been identified: migration.
Darkness, it has been found, is composed
of an almost infinite number of particles,
which roost and reproduce up north
where they have fewer natural enemies:
Forest fires, lampposts, lasers, blazing sunlight,
torches, candles, lighthouses, limelight, and electricity
are relatively rare in the polar regions.
The ensuing luminance burst forth
and blinded the young man,
his stumbling feet delivering
his rear to the floor.
A pearly, nude vessel came forth
and floated gracefully before him.
Her golden streaked locks
framed her visage of confusion.
Her palms wandered her abdomen,
locating the mark of the boy's rapier.
Crimson liquid flowed forth,
the long abyss threatening to overtake her.
Silver tears streamed her cheeks,
her eyes upon her stained hand.
Her flaxen irises then met
those of the boy, confusing him.
An essence of melancholy, almost
gratitude, was received by him.
Without warning, the wound took its gulp,
her tears growing black as oil.
They flooded from her eyes, nose,
mouth, and every orifice available.
Rapidly increasing in flux,
the liquid rained to the floor,
Momentarily joined by the collapse
of its host.
Her figure convulsed horrifically,
her guttural shrieks unnerving the child.
His eyes unable to peel away,
he watched his benefactress suffer.
She now leaned forth, concealing
her face, staving off the pain.
Lang grew sick, but knew the truth:
this was the fate he had chosen.
The angelic monster before him
was destined to fall to his bane.
An almalgamation of fear, selfishness
and numbness embued him.
As if by design, the beast
summoned its strength, peering forth.
Her beautiful eyes now black as night
warped and contorted the boy's nature.
A final shudder, and the holy creature
bowed forth, eternally silent.
French awoke to “Reveille” playing as rotating red alarm lights enveloped his personal cozy metal subterranean box. "This is crazy!" French cried. He leapt out of bed to his pneumatically locked door and released it’s pistons by slamming his hand against the hexagonal metal shield. Air rushed out behind French pushing him into a huge domed garage bay filled with a number of vehicles and beer cans. The pilot whirled his keys by his fingertips as he came upon his Space Construction Vehicle, known as an SCV. The SCV was a 4 meter tall headless biped with two arms, fitted with a drill for mining on its right arm and a clamp for lifting on its left arm.
In a couple lunges French hauled himself up to the cockpit of his SCV and plunged a key into its central console socket. The circuitry of the SCV immediately shot up in an electrifying amber burst as a transparent holographic orange screen came down over his eyes. The pilot felt the ergonomic controls adjust themselves to his body as amber read outs began scrolling in his vision. A blue figure appeared in the corner of his expansive console to greet him. That is me?
"Good morning, French."
"Good morning, robot."
"We have an orbital drop
coming down soon that we need
you to re-"
"In the rear with the gear.”
French thought about what he had to do today and those thoughts I combed over. French pushed on his accelerators and the SCV flew forward through the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Command Center up to the surface where he was needed. As he traveled through the tunnels he came upon the main exit ramp and saw before him the sun and the land which was nothing but dust. Red Mau Sara dust. The violent winds shot up the iron filled dirt at French's front as the augmented vision sensors illustrated the topology of this alien surface into definitive neon lines. A green square illuminated the dust in front of French eerily signifying where a new supply depot would soon be landing. French looked up through the glass fixture atop the chassis of his SCV and saw the flickering of mass rapidly entering the atmosphere. The fiery dot grew and grew but suddenly began to control it's rampant descent with rockets bursting on it's base. The depot fell to ground vertically and gave a great OOMPF as a towering cloud of dust began billowing around all sides of the newly landed structure. French fearlessly flew toward the voluminous cloud seeing through it all the depth and detail of his surroundings.
What is it.
>>7952680
French plunged his drill into a lock and released the outer frame of the newly entered satellite. Thrusters on the front of the SCV pushed French back as four burnt metal frames fell to the surrounding dust. Two huge fans began circling and sucking the atmosphere into the structure to be processed while dishes all along the outside of the depot flung up searching for signals. The pilot flew a half circle around the supply depot to find the airlock. French entered the building to a truly hideous scene. Hundreds of lifeless human faces were framed behind glass circles, fixed into metal tubes that spanned the storage space. Some of the bodies had escaped their tubes during the flight and became the red veneer on most of the surfaces. No need in remembering that French! After his allotted scream the pilot suddenly felt a wave of comfort breeze his mind as he lost all concern, and soon memory, of the matter. French rotated his SCV and left the structure to attend to the other tasks planned for him that didn't involve human corpses.
>>7952673
What a trip! I guess you are a "bottom" type of guy huh?
>>7952691
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
>>7945573
Just why... Who sits down and starts something like this and sees it through to the end?
One day I was asked by the Prime Minister of Canada to make modern art. He offered me $100— to be paid in a Second Cup gift card— and my patriotism got the best of me so I said yes. It would be presented to commemorate the death of the Millennial Generation and I said, “it’d be tough to capture but I’d try my best”. We sealed the deal by sharing a real American Marlboro cigarette by the Rideau Canal, I swear to god.
Back home weeks had passed without any progress. Finally a representative from the Prime Minister’s office called to ask how things were going
“It’s pretty dismal.” I said, “It’s hard to find hope these days.”
He assured me that this was normal for people my age. But because the deadline was in three days, and being that there was taxpayers’ money on the line, the Ministry would send over a ghost writer to help me. I was hesitant but he told me this ghost writer was fantastic, and had done wonders for Norm Kelly’s twitter account.
The Ghost Writer arrived in the afternoon and we spent the day smoking cigarettes on my balcony. He asked where I stood politically and I said I considered myself an anarchist but strategically voted for the New Democrats in the last election. He told me he didn’t vote on principle. I shifted the conversation to my concerns for the project: how I wanted it to feel curated but still accessible. I told him I wanted it to be inspirational without sentimentality. More than anything it had to be good and honest. He agreed.
The next morning after I finished dreaming I looked out my bedroom window and saw the Ghost Writer was back. He came with a backpack full of multicoloured thumbtacks and a campus map of the University of Toronto. I invited him into my living room and watched as he began to stick tacks in the map seemingly at random. I asked him what it was supposed to mean and he told me each pin represented a bomb my country had dropped on Syria in the past year. He said the piece was called: “The street invades the home”. He asked me how I felt about it and I told him it was prophetic. I knew we had ourselves a winner.
I saw a coiled rope
And thought to end my life.
Upon a closer look,
I stared into its eye.
Then it bit me.
This might be polarizing
>>7953029
>Hiram Bevilacqua
Why does a Jew have a wop's surname
We were all tripping in our own ways, but there was just two of us, the others were noise, and the soul was just one, but we wrestled and then: one pointed at the stars, other had to pee, we were all dying our own ways, but we still had to see, see for ourselves, if the final color is black, or if we forget to exist and by forgetting to exist we remember something deeper.
Too many thinkers
Thinking up in sync
A most mortal image
I cannot bear to look at
They're all my enemies, I now see
In this world of dying stars
If I could only stay awake asleep
Doubt would never crush me
I would be my own raised flag
Is it really possible to critique a book from one passage? As I'm reading classics I'll find passages and think "I could post this in the critique thread and get it roasted."
>>7953029
>Tense errors
>Missing commas
>Exposition dump
>No actual names of friends
>Is he getting is food from another country? Why the fuck is he importing it?
>"Gruffly feminine" is a paradox.
>No sense of the character's personality
>Wordy
If this was a first page, I wouldn't bother.
>>7954535
If you can't tell the difference between unpolished work and canon literature, you'd be better off going to Fanfiction.net
>>7954582
>what is style
Darkness, the black in my soul, one might call it. Yeah, so what, I'm a teenage vampire. No such thing as good and bad guys, just dead and alive, 'swhat I liketa say. I wear a black cape and large top hat, did I mention I'm also a magician? A crazy world we live in.
(This is just the start, developing the character. Tell me if there's anything worth continuing here, I need to write a story by next week for my Creative Writing class.)
>>7954535
Yes because almost everything posted here is totally amateur hour
i've got this writing shit down, yo.
>>7955287
>loving sun
maybe in my world, not yours dweeb.
Don't usually participate in these things, but I've started writing a short story tonight and would appreciate some feedback.
>>7953029
I like it, but I feel like I know everything about your characters world except for the character himself. Like there's a hollow cutout where he should be amongst the clutter of everything else.
I'd say just strip it down to the character and what he interacts with, leave the elaborate world-building for David Foster Wallace.
>>7952952
This is fucking great.
>>7952680
You've used a lot of words to describe very little. I don't understand anything about this world or the people in it, despite the many acronyms and measurements
>>7939490
This is fucking vivid. The first line is insightful, really gives you a sense of the character and is just a great description. I like it a lot, it reads well.
How am I meant to ever be
Canonized and become
A respected author,
Afforded immortality though the endless circulation of his books?
When I sit alone on my bed
In a city nobody knows
Sans the fame of Paris or New York
Without even the gothic charms of the deep South
My roommate gets high and plays ratchet and clank below me
The era of disposability
My phone, my extra limb that never leaves me
I try to pull away but I'm lost without it
Navigating a world of pixels
As mindless scientists push humanity further towards a binary world
Virtual realities achieving impossible symmetries and shapes, the true forms of Plato
We create them,
Or they do,
And the rest of us are left behind
In the dust, left to rot among brand names and targeted advertising
Everyone's someone to sell to
Everyone's selling something
They think it's themselves
But it's just participation in capitalist subjugation
Lining the pockets of the delusional devils at the top
Spending it on simulacric recreations of rich people things
Yachts, jets, islands, sports teams
Flashy toys to fill the void
Not interesting enough to do anything more
To be creative or sponsor creativity
I guess Megan Boyle's alright in that regard
I've had sex with beautiful women
It was good, but overhyped
Maybe I just have low testosterone
I'll do it again, probably enjoy it
But as the old cliche goes, it doesn't fill the void
I hate the fractured monotone of free verse
But my attention span has been destroyed to where I don't even have the patience to compose rhyme schemes
Or break up lines sensibly
Each ugly punchline landing with a dull thud
Post-modern posturing
Stuck in an endless hall of mirrors reflecting myself
Fractured, the postmodern subject like synecdoche new york
Metamodern? Not yet. How?
Maybe by typing out a poem for a Japanese image board on a notepad app on my phone as I lay on my bed
The modern evolution of hunched over at a desk with a bottle of whiskey and clanging typewriter
Or feather quilled pen
Or berry-derived dyes,
Whatever the cavemen used
Neanderthals
Or as they now say, Neandertals.
The original artists, painting caves
Its decent I guess, I think,
As I contemplate my evening spent
Making mock vaporwave art
On Photoshop,
Speaking in the vernacular of Spongebob and retro video games
Neon kitsch
Everything's recycled anyway,
Gaddis was right.
Maybe I ought to read another meme book
Seeing as I live a life lost among memes
Everywhere memes
Everything memes
Eternity an empty dream
Passing time, wasting minutes
Infinity plus one is still just infinity
Is this all there is?
"George, Kyle and I sat in the library all huddled round the one PC at the end of the room in an effort to listen to the commotion going on next door. There was a partition that lead into the IT Department and at this moment one of our classmates, and lord of the perverts Robbie Field was being chastised by the pea-headed Mr Turner.
We had been there on another one of our many attempts to "hack" the school's computer system, and when this kicked off we couldn't help but listen in.
Robbie was one of those kids who acted like a complete buffoon, but under the layers of autism and sexual deviance was a real intellectual, though he only rarely showed it. This time Robbie was being berated for wanking under the table close to the leg of Ann-Marie Salmon. She had caught him obviously, and reported him for it.
We all shared a look and sniggered as the man who's voice once broke into the lull of a black soul singer while talking about spreadsheets, went down through poor Robbie worse than I'd ever heard before. The word ‘wank’ was used a few times and every time I stifled a laugh. It's not that teachers never swore at the school but at such a volume and frequency, Jesus Christ. Eventually there was silence, it felt like it had went on forever until finally from the corner of my eye I watched Robbie enter the library.
I motioned to the rest of the group until our eyes were all firmly locked on Robbie Field. He walked over and took a seat at one of the computers and began to type, his fingers speeding along like he was some sort of Rain man, it was really something else. Finally we went over to see what he was doing and there on the screen was a poem, Robbie spilling his soul in beautiful words about his love for Ann-Marie. Such a poem would have made Lord Byron proud. As I said those fingers were made for more brilliant things than touching his cock. A real intellectual."
*title: Sexless
*Genre: Adult fiction
*Word count: 16321
*Synopses: Man all over the world suddenly stop having sexual desires.
*Feedback: Overall idea and writing style. Or anything else you have to say (not really interested in feedback about typos since this is a first draft)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oMhy5AymaPZaoKUGKEljzmzmYMMxmDMHLSMAPs9dhUk/edit
>>7955441
I liked it, your writing style is good in my opinion
>>7945573
As I read this I kept thinking of Randy as this guy, for some reason
>>7955441
you write like you actually read, unlike most people here tbqh
not bad mate
>>7955441
I can't really comment on how "good" it is because I feel I have no room to speak on that, but I enjoyed this very much. It makes me feel lonely in a comfy way.
>>7957899
>someone actually wrote this
>someone actually spent HOURS of their time writing this
just trying to take it in now
>>7946854
woah
nice!
>>7955441
The bones are solid. I would work on the language. Remove cliches, iron out the clunkiness. But great first draft.
