/Crit/ Thread

>>8620766
Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake
Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque
A dull dark white agaisnt the day's pale white
And abstract larches in the neutral light.
And then the gradual and dual blue
As night unites the viewer and the view,
And in the morning, diamonds of frost
Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed
From left to right the blank page of the road?
Reading from left to right the winter's code:
A dot, an arrow pointing back; repeat:
Dot, arrow, pointing back... A pheasant's feet! Torquated beauty, siblimated grouse,
Finding your China right behind my house.
Was he in Sherlock Holmes, the fellow whose
Tracks pointed back when he reversed his shoes?

Kinda long (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.

>>8620883
(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.”

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>had one good idea for a story that I fleshed out, ended up happy with the results for the most part
>now devoid of ideas that will ever come close

Hahahaha guess it's back to looking for things I can steal inspiration from

When the wind don't blow in Amarillo
And the moon along the Gunnison don't rise
Shall I cast my dreams upon your love, babe
And lie beneath the laughter of your eyes

It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone
It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone

Mother thinks the road is long and lonely
Little brother thinks the road is straight and fine
Little darling thinks the road is soft and lovely
I'm thankful that old road is a friend of mine

It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone
It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone

Bid the years good-bye you cannot still them
You cannot turn the circles of the sun
You cannot count the miles until you feel them
And you cannot hold a lover that is gone

It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone
It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone

Tomorrow the mountains will be sleeping
Silently the blanket green and blue
All that I shall hear the silence they are keeping
I'll bring all their promises to you

It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gone
It’s snowin’ on Raton
Come morning I’ll be through them hills and gon

Wrap your taste buds around this seriously AWESOME M.
It’s real coffee. It’s milk.
It’s unreal. More fun than five
Cows in a kombi. COWABUNGA!

And she ought not bind me to her omens
For like bitter Kramer’s Hexenhammer
In its retort to the yeomans
Who seek to correct in their ever yammer
I say: “I am King of the Romans
And therefore above grammer.”

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I have lots of stuff in progress

parody of the stranger:

http://pastebin.com/raw/3zLYjrWn

sort of a parody of shakespeare but if the mongols got to western europe or something:

http://pastebin.com/raw/cQgA0WMP

Kim Jung Un Fanfiction (sort of parodying Milton):

http://pastebin.com/raw/7QSjAcgE

Some guy gets famous in Japan for his fursona/fetish character (think Byron Howard), but then it turns out that maybe he was the made-up one:

http://pastebin.com/raw/nMAP85Jx

And the last one.

What it would be like to be a caveman:

http://pastebin.com/raw/w8wU1c24

Because I posted so much, I'm going to review a lot (at least five other things).

If you want to critique any of these, please choose whichever one interests you the most.

Thanks.

>>8621328
I think that the rhythm is off.

>>8620870
Wonderful. This is the kind of poem that people need.

>>8621053
I'd have to hear thsi set to music

>>8621353
I read a few of those. I'm not very experienced as a writer myself but I think you've found a style you enjoy writing, and it's excellent. As someone who tries to put a comedic tint in my works as well I was awed by how you pulled it together so well.
Your range is much bigger than mine so I can't even begin to see how to make it better or worse, it's just good and each piece has their own depth to it from what I can see.
I've only learned recently that sometimes it's just 'what' you're writing instead of 'how', 'who', or 'which' you're writing about.

I wrote a small series of microfiction called Mental World Online and posted it on royal road legends. Was looking for some readers right away, and some of the stuff on that site is ridiculously good.
It's not literary though, and I know I've got a long way to go. I already know I have a lot of problems with the work, but I'm interested in what others think.

>>8620870
damn nigga this shit is clever
I don't even like poetry, but I like this.
>>8620883
>>8620888
I had to read it a few times to understand just how ridiculous it was. I like the combination of archaic and ridiculous. I'd say 'shorten it' but that's just because my first impression was 'this sounds archaic' but then the details came. I think it needs a better opening to give the reader an idea of the infodump they are about to delve into, but that's my preference.
>>8621040
I think exploring your feelings is a good way to find a story. Just start writing how you feel about something, and imagine someone else doing it, then add elements that you like to it. That way, at least you're emotionally invested in the start, even if the reader won't be.

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Quite a task to translate, o well i tried, father hearken, O i tried

>>8621504
Is this one of those famous old stories I should know?
As english native it looks pretty good to me.

>>8621522
Thanks, but no, just my german gibberish translated to english

They had had a house with a shingle roof and a picket fence. They had had a front porch and a spread of sage and yucca beyond that. They had had silence spreading around them for a thousand acres.

Scarlett left the fence as it was, the paint worn away by the gentle attentions of a thousand thousand gusts of wind, patiently swept the porch free of sand each morning, her breath steaming in the dove gray light of dawn.

“This is a good place.” She said to Peter one night, when the house was silent and still. When she could hear naught but the slow, gentle breathing of her child beneath his blankets. When candle-light puddled across the kitchen table like melted butter and everything seemed as though it might just be okay.

“We’ve come to our permanence.” Peter answered and stood, extending his arms. He wanted to dance.

Their dance took them out to the porch and they stayed there for a time, staring up to the icy shards of light that winked back down at them from above. Scarlett whispered a prayer to the stars, and to the moon, and to the blessed night that wrapped the land in its velvety embrace.

On that night there was no moon. But it was perfect in Scarlett’s eyes anyway.

>>8621530
Reminds me a lot of paradise lost. I liked it.
>>8621547
In peter's dialogue it felt out of place to me to use 'permanance' when the rest of the sentences were so flowery. It's a case of balance to me, a bit more realism to balance out the tone you're setting. I'd cut the "extending his arms. He wanted to dance." for the same reason. I get it already, place is awesome, he thinks its awesome, it's overstated there in my mind.

>Prologue.

>Yvon

>The forest this was a scenery which Yvon, a young squire of no more than thirteen, was not only used to it, but, for reason he could not understand was rather excited for this. The villagers, the rustic cravens from the outskirts of the forest called the land, "Haunted" sightings of an armored cloaked apparition has made the villagers reluctant on performing their duty to their lord due to signs of bad omens.

>However, Yvon called it adventure, and laughed at the villagers for being such cravens. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, in fact, the forest seemed rather run-of-the-mill, compared to the two previous quests, Yvon undertook, although, at times, he felt someone was watching them from afar when they set-up camp. The Adventure Group he was part of was known as "Coldstriders"


Was Going for a Cliche Dungeon and Dragon-esque beginning, to lure readers into a false sense of security.

*English isn't my First language

>>8621719
The forest was scenery which Yvon, a young squire of no more than thirteen was not used to seeing.
For a reason he could not understand "he" was rather excited for this.
The villagers, the rustic cravens from the outskirts of the forest called the Land, had "Haunted" sightings of an armored cloaked apparition that made the villagers reluctant on performing their duty to their lord due to signs of bad omens.

However, Yvon called it adventure. He laughed at the villagers for being such cravens. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the forest. Due to his experience from two previous quests Yvon felt there was someone watching his group from outside of the camp. His group was known as the "Coldstriders".

Tried to fix it up a little. In english you don't want to make a sentence long. Try to get short sentences. Once you master that, then you can move onto multiple commas.
There's also trouble with readability to me, just reading it out loud in my mind I could spot errors. To most posters here, it would probably be an instant skip.

>>8621737
Thank you. And to Be honest, I was going to write something different

>And then she appeared. A blue velvet rose.

Is this iambic pentameter or am i fucking up big time lads?

Trying to write surreal vignettes:

Atop a pedestal, a little man.
A red valve inside his little hands,
a window lay beneath his scant old feet
through which all the people meet and greet,
and she's a lover, mother, and bereaved,
and his children feast on pumpkin seed,
and this green coated man won't ever rest,
and he turns the wheel with rippling effects,
that no one, not even him, expects.

>>8623254
Little archaic, I think you can do better based on that piece. Just my opinion but I think making an old man the subject hurts the imagery of the rest of the piece. The colors 'red' and 'green' don't match with the other parts to me, it feels tighter if you just removed "a little , little, scant, red, green", though I don't have an idea of how to match those removed parts with 'through..seed' where your the strongest imagery in the piece is.

>>8623249
Possibly both

>>8620870
how do you feel about the poem by itself? I go back and forth, but i don't think it much holds up (nor, i know, is it meant to) though i've read some unconvincing work arguing it does.

>>8620883
>>8620888
For the love of God, STOP WRITING. Stop your verbal diarrhea. You talk too much. You have nothing interesting to say. The main reason you have nothing interesting to say is because you don't do anything interesting and you don't know anything interesting. More on that later, but for now, you need to STOP.
Stop talking about the stupid shit you talk about. Nobody cares about any of it. Stop talking about your feelings, stop talking about your inner thoughts, stop talking. Nobody cares about how you feel or what you think. That opinion on religion or politics you have? Keep it to yourself. That thing you know about some obscure item, event or place? Shut the fuck up about it. Nobody cares. NOBODY CARES. That shit you say is not witty, erudite or interesting. It's tone-deaf, out of place, stupid and boring. Stop thinking that people care about your feelings or thoughts or your existence. THEY DON'T. So stop thinking that, and stop talking about it.

>>8623249
no, it's not

"she ap--" is two unstressed syllables

>>8620766
Here's a story I'm working on, I love any criticism or advice to move it forward. maybe some help with pacing, I wanted to make a psychological horror novel.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RFLnbiG6El3L-QIfsYo3euxfefsbFNIxwDzWATsGzLU/edit?usp=drive_web

>>8624261
Stop shitposting

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not literature but knowledge based
I'm making a collection of political based books. any recommendations for the list? Critique on my choices?

>>8624261
Anything else wise one?

>>8620870
Nabokov u bastard

>>8624342
>Critique on my choices?

You should get more political theory and less political ideology.

It is not bad, but even you must know that your choses are biased

more like "collection of political biased books right?

>>8624342
Maybe try to get a wider selection of the political spectrum. A bit heavy in the fascism department.

>>8624312
Aw fuck. I didn't know it was in 'suggesting' mode and I commented by selecting an 's'. I didn't know since I was logged in that it would do that. I couldn't figure out how to remove it either, kind anon please delete or ignore that comment for me if you will since it shows my name and shit for some reason. Fucking google, seriously, lesson learned.


Use of red text was nice. I was originally going to say something about how there wasn't enough dialogue, but it fits the piece. I can see you're definitely going full bore into a chaotic mindset, and I think it would be interesting to those who struggled with mental illness. Not sure if this is a good opener chapter though. You did have those little parses of dialogue that the character then went off the deep end on, those were great for 'introducing' him. Personally I would be more comfortable with an introduction chapter of just the character and how he is before going deep into mental reflection.

I was glad for the parts where he could touch base with reality. I think you did that well.
Probably the main question I want you to ask yourself about the work is if you want more 'horror' or 'psychological' work, because right now it feels more like a psychological troubles work rather than the adrenaline of a horror novel.

From what little I've seen, you probably wanted to bring that up later, and that's why you were worried about the pacing.

If you want a more horror approach you have to build the monster more early on. I would expect him on the first page or second, maybe he says something after the 'I love you'. At this point it's just chaotic mentally and the character himself is more of the monster than the monster is, which may be a great idea if you're going for heavy psychological like you've done so far.

I think going forward it might be good to introduce PoV characters with heavier dialogue to break up the heavy mental parts because I felt myself getting exhausted reading those, that's the strength and weakness of what you are doing.

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>>8624342
well classic wise your choices are pretty good, but i'm gonna assume you asked /pol/ cause you just about only have fascist/right-wing political literature.
that list won't make you knowledgeable about politics, it will make you knowledgeable on one side of politics and incredibly biased against the other side.

read Kropotkin, Marx/Engels, Proudhon, Lenin, Max Stirner, Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Zizek, David Harvey, Orwell and many others if you want to truly learn political theory.
if you truly want to understand political theory/ideology you need to read from both sides and be critical of everything, instead of latching on to the first idea that correlates with the views you already hold.

i'm gonna hope you aren't just a /pol/ shitposter and i hope you are willing to truly expand your view on the world. best of luck anon

>>8625893
fuck i say truly a lot.
english is hard sorry guys.

First attempt at a Shakespearean sonnet.
I realise I've completely messed up the metre as I didn't completely understand iambic pentameter until a few moments ago however I'd appreciate some feedback nontheless.

And then she appeared. A blue velvet rose,
Scent which could dispatch perpetual bliss,
Head of golden hair which warming wind blows,
We briefly met eyes-mistook for a kiss;
There I realised the danger of lust,
For a second bare then she ensared me,
Stole my exposed heart, left me with stardust,
Thinking could we be-forever me and thee?
But a fantasy of my mind's weaving,
However no less important I say!
Beauty will remain, at no cost leaving,
unconquered by time, a most perfect ray;
Therefore do not dwell any longer for you,
And divinity will not bid adieu.

Clint Eastwood chuckled to himself, a grin stretching across his face as he drove his power-sword upwards into the Khornate space marine's heart through his stomach. Heavy bolter rounds whizzed around him in the sandy air, from both the front and the rear. The Ultramarines behind him had trouble aiming at the Chaos scum, so impressed were they by Eastwood's badassery as he extracted the blade from the heretic's gullet and watched him collapse in a pool of his own blood.

Another traitor marine charged at Eastwood with his chainaxe. The weapon roared as he made an overhead swing with both hands at Eastwood, who coolly sidestepped away and severed one arm with an underhanded cut, then another with a downward cleft.

"Looks like you've been disarmed," Eastwood quipped before thrusting his sword through the heretic's forehead, then kicking him to the ground while letting his blood-soaked blade slide back out.

Eastwood felt a tingle in the back of his neck. He ducked and looked upward, watching as a power-axe the size of a small tree trunk whooshed in the air from behind him. In a flash, he whipped himself around. It was a Khornate terminator, dual-wielding power axes. The ping-pang of Ultramarine bolter rounds from behind made the Khornate terminator laugh. A Khornate bolter round that glanced off the terminator's inner thigh grazed Eastwood's right quadriceps, evoking from him a subtle wince. Unable to move his leg freely, he could only raise his sword up to meet the dual downward strike of the terminator's power-axes. The huge weapons slammed down on the flat of Eastwood's power-sword, and although the shock that vibrated through Eastwood's bones was enough to shatter the skeletons of lesser men, Eastwood stood firm.

1/2

The warrior looked up to the heavens, and in divine reverence, he whispered, "The Emperor protects." He then swung the axes up from off his blade, and as the Chaos terminator stumbled backward, Eastwood wound himself up to throw his sword like a javelin. With utmost precision and cool, he unleashed his throw. The blade struck dead center in the terminator's chest, making it fall backward and explode in a maelstrom of fire and gore.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, Eastwood looked over his shoulder. The traitor marines were routing behind him, leaving a heavy cloud of dust in their wake.

A temporary rift in the Warp then tore into the air above; from the rift, a copy of the Codex Astartes fell on the ground, its pages wide open for Eastwood to see. He chuckled to himself, then unzipped his jeans and urinated on the tome's pages for all the Ultramarines to see. From then onward, the Ultramarines would use the Codex Astartes' pages as toilet paper and napkins.

2/2

>>8626103
On second thought, does anyone think this could pass for an iambic pentameter meter albiet imprecise?

In the early hours of the night
He works away before the day
Dispels the night,
Away, away.

And with dust and wheel he’s weaving
Great spells to drape the sleeping eyes.
Dreamers dreaming.
Away, unwise.

Spells of what they fear, hope, despise,
And of what they disdain, or love,
All bring their eyes
Above, above.

>>8626174
>>8626178
11/10 would genre fiction read again. My only critique is that it's not Chuck Norris punching people.
>>8626389
I saw you post this before, I would help you but syllables just makes my mind melt. I read the wiki and tried to figure it out, but I just was unable to dredge a care from Giveafuck Bay.
>>8626480
It's nice and simple. I think a lot of poetry I read wants to do something grand and special, this is just chill.
I would take out the 'the' between drape and sleeping because I think that makes the flow better. I'd take out the 'or' from 'or love' for the same reason.

>>8626666
Nice numbers

Bree was the first trans person I ever interacted with. We worked as cart pushers at the local supermarket. All you had to do was clean and collect shopping carts from outside and bring them inside. It was a shit job, really, and I wasn't surprised that Bree was hired. Two of our other coworkers were literally retarded. Not like Down's Syndrome retarded, but you could tell they were developmentally disabled. You could hear it in their voice.

the television sings a new jazz
to me sweetly as i recline,
pondering the last impotent
attempt of my race to define
the source of its misery,
its soft decline, that which
the man with the toupee denies.

the horns sScream into my ear,
the drums swaying iN aNd oUt of time
while the Man croons into the mic
and with blood seeping
i just lie

r8 my rhymes

2.
The ice congealed from melting snow to shine
on pillar’d trunks around the dead, to shine.

Bedecked in gems, the rotting forest pine
begins to blanket floor in august shine.

Autumnal glory felt through season’d line,
in dawn and dusk with gold and reason’d shine,

begins in pain to painfully remind
of ashen fires and dying heat, so shines

the coldest days in mourning light to shine
in dimming ways. So shine, so shine, so shine.

Needed to fix some formatting

When noon had come, the boys had already finished their game and found themselves in various states of rest across the East Court Wall. Rob, in his usual way, stooped the lowest, sitting with his racquet lain across his knees, eying the Old Mission with a suspect that only he seemed capable of commanding. Next to him, Hal stood, barely leaning at all, with his own racquet tucked under his arm as if a General’s baton. Wendell himself between them stood, treating his friends’ conversation as if a stranger’s, winding in and out as his own thoughts battled for control of his attention.

He seemed transfixed on Franklin Hall, the old stone building that stood directly next to the courts. In earlier days, Wendell found himself in awe of the building itself, as if it were the very memory of the privileged minds that had travelled through the heavy wooden doors over the centuries it stood. Now, he only focused on the people thronging out at that moment. Seldom things brought him so much pleasure at that point in his life as slowing down and watching all the people go by. He felt a certain power in it; that he could afford to spend his time watching those who could not. Of course, when the next week came, he would join them, but for now he felt above it all. He liked to lose his eyes in the crowd, but they always came back to resting on one.

This time it was a short girl with long red hair, her small face seeming to give the abject sadness of a secret she was dying to tell. The next was an older man in a bright pink sweater that was only offset by the bland look on his face as he made his way through the crowd, papers barely clinging to the binder he loosely held by his side. Behind him came a fellow dressed overtly blasé, his shorts containing several useless pockets and his undersized shirt bearing the likeness of some reference Wendell did not understand.

I decided to write some soppy stuff about a situation I've definitely never been in.

Every night I dream of you,
Your hair and its soft curls,
And how within my hardened arms
You’d soften and unfurl.
You whisper sentimental things;
Unknown to the whole world.

But when I wake
The illusion breaks.
Its only a dreamworld.

>>8621053
Enjoyed it especially the road bit

>>8627734
British as fuck. I would read a novel about this, if I liked british people being british. I wanted to call it poppycock for hilarity's sake but it's unmistakably just stuffy british lit.

>>8627726
looks like you are inspired by ghazal or something liek that, except they are even more lazy. some random english ghazal from the wiki:

>Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight?
>Whom else from rapture’s road will you expel tonight?

>Those “Fabrics of Cashmere—” “to make Me beautiful—”
>“Trinket”— to gem– “Me to adorn– How– tell”— tonight?

>I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates–
>A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

>God’s vintage loneliness has turned to vinegar–
>All the archangels– their wings frozen– fell tonight.

>Lord, cried out the idols, Don’t let us be broken
>Only we can convert the infidel tonight.

>Mughal ceilings, let your mirrored convexities
>multiply me at once under your spell tonight.

>He’s freed some fire from ice in pity for Heaven.
>He’s left open– for God– the doors of Hell tonight.

>In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed
>No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight

>God, limit these punishments, there’s still Judgment Day–
>I’m a mere sinner, I’m no infidel tonight.

>Executioners near the woman at the window.
>Damn you, Elijah, I’ll bless Jezebel tonight.

>The hunt is over, and I hear the Call to Prayer
>fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight.

>My rivals for your love– you’ve invited them all?
>This is mere insult, this is no farewell tonight.

>And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee–
>God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.

>>8624261
but... that's basically what writing is.

I tried LSD the other day and wrote this:

-

Just as I took the acid, the sofa came alive and my hand ripped fastly, agressively and, most importantly, vigorously through the wall, causing an echoing shatter that made my ears hurt and my shiny teeth grind.

Needless to say, I was pissed. And for some reason, there was an uncomfortable and slightly-pleasant pressure pressing against my jeans. This, I figured, was a boner (which is slang for erection - a reaction that male genitalia, elegantly referred to as "penis" , and hiply referred to as "dick", "cock", and "Johnny", has to sexual excitement or, in case it doesn't function properly, to empowering medicines that revitalize it).

This wall was trying to intimidate me in my own house - the house I owned. I realized I had to practice if I wanted to beat the wall and take what's mine. I started doing swift, somewhat safe movements in the middle room, smiling at my reflection in the mirror, which was hanging on the wall.

While doing a fast, powerful kick, I felt a fire burning from the tip of my toe to the depths of my bone. And it felt good. So good that I bit my lip. Blood came out and I wanted go cry. I was a bit depressed, I suppose.

I laid down on the floor and cried for the rest of the night.

-

I should just stick to reading.

>>8620766
Um... okay... I'm not a writer but I do hold a diary where I sometimes write shit. I wouldn't consider this an actual poem but it isn't prose and it sometimes rhymes so... feedback would be nice? I don't even know anything about writing... Idk I just write to try and get this off my chest.

They're watching
And they're coming
They're gonna get me
And I can't fight them

All the demons and monsters
Stronger than every
Fed from my slumbering emotions
Theyre just waiting

I expect them always
But they never come
I fear that if I drop my guard
They'll finally attack

When I try to sleep
It's when they enjoy the most
Oh, but you see
They aren't coming only for me

I have no idea what
They'll do to you
Because I have no idea
What they'll do to me

Through me they will act
And bring havoc and destruction
Oh, the shadows, they will come
But my warning to you is useless
Because there's no precedent for this
I tell you this only out of courtesy
Because it is irrational to believe it

They'll mangle me and destroy me
And when they're done
*You* will be next

i have always tried to hold them back
But I am not willing to continue this ordeal
Maybe it's best for me if they consume me

What will become of me?
I'd let them in only to find out
Because uncertainty is awful

I will try to explain what they've done
If only to explain why I expect them

When I sleep, they show me the visions
Inanimate objects watch me
The depths of the sea opress me
Inaction goes through every corner
And even the end of the world grows nigh

If this ever starts happening to you,
Talk to someone
If the bond doesn't exist,
Create it
I don't want the shadows to come for you

But alas, I don't want them to come for me, either...
And yet, come they will

Yeah, edgy as a fucking teenager, I know. Don't be too hard on me, thought I might as well share it.

>>8628186
I'm as unqualified as you when it comes to judging writing (no offense) but that first stanza would have more of the tone I think you're looking for if it went

>They're watching
>They're coming
>They're gonna get me
>And I can't fight them.

I liked the way you never let up with the tone more than anything.

>>8628190
Maybe for the next thing, I outright refuse to change what I've already written because sometimes it's useful or entertaining to go back to see how I felt, so I leave it EXACTLY as I wrote it (save for spelling errors, I always fix those).

Anyway thanks for the heads-up, I'd like to have more tools for self-expression in the future, this is a legit problem for me when I try to write.

Any guide lines when writing deep pov

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>>8628090
I was going for New England WASP, so close enough?

>>8628932
I don't know about that area, it came off to me as if it was written in the late 1800's at first then it kind of dropped off later in the paragraph. The names helped a lot.

>>8628193
Why not just do multiple copies? I do that. Sometimes I just delete the whole thing if I think it was absolute dogshit and only keep the general ideas for the rewrite.

>>8628955
yeah, I get what you're saying, thanks for the crit bro

>>8628113
Yeah, I've been playing with ghazals. I'm guessing 'even more lazy' means you thought mine was lazy.

It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Ronaldo has the day off today. No practice, no work, no stress. Or so he thinks. He wakes up, slowly raises his head and looks at the clock on his bedside table. Two o'clock.

He sinks his head on his pillow, holding back tears.

"My life is a farce."
A scream is muffled by the soft cashmere pillow.

Ronaldo forces himself out of bed. In doing so, he feels he is controlling someone else's limbs, as if his soul was merely inhabiting a strange body in order to stay alive. He knows, however, that if souls really exist, his has run past its expiry date. His ambition is fueled by futility. His life is meaningless and his existence suffering. There is no reason for him to exist. And yet he does. He struggles. He doesn't know where to put his arms when he walks or if he should flex his buttocks or not. He spends hours not doing anything, sitting in his latest Ferrari with an absent look on his eyes. But he gets through every day. With unbearable pain he goes on existing in this void that is our world.

In the bathroom, Ronaldo looks at himself in the mirror. His rough skin still wrinkled from sleep stands out very clearly. His acne scars and countless tiny blackheads that will forever plague that strange body he has learned to call his annoy him, but despite many attempts he has never been able to get rid of them. "It's no use, anyway. We're all going to die one day."

He washes his face with cold water.
"I need to get through another day. Come on, you can do this", he thinks as a look of what appears to be resilience shows timidly on his face. He slaps his cheeks while letting out a very loud TSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

"The beast is awaken."

1/2

>>8629016
2/2

"Cristianinho, your father has TSUUUUUUU'd. Go see if he wants his lunch in bed."

Maria Aveiro washes the dishes slowly. Her empty eyes try in vain to focus on one plate, then another, and then another. She knows her golden years are gone and past and she doesn't feel that joy that filled her entire being when she was young anymore. She has made it this far, though. It must mean something. There must still be a role for her in this world.

Soft, timid footsteps behind her awake her from these thoughts.

"Grandma, I went upstairs and saw papa crying..."

She has been through a lot, the Lord knows. The plate she was holding has suddenly got very heavy so she slowly put it down in the sink and looked at the window in front of her. Instead of the sea which always lightens her memories, she saw only his son's swimming pool. Outside, the 40 degrees Celsius make her field of vision blur. She feels claustrophobic. The freedom of her island is miles away and she now has to drag herself through life in a landlocked hell.
"I don't deserve this".
She has her mouth open, rests her arms on the counter and looks outside. Cristianinho observes from a distance.

Suddenly, Maria Aveiro screams. A very long, falsetto scream echoes through the neighbourhood. She puts her hands up the air and walks slowly from one corner of the kitchen to another.

The scream stops. She falls down on one corner of the kitchen and curls, grabbing her knees and holding her face on top of them. Her eyes are devoid of any feeling.

"Life is more than this, life is more than this, life is more than this", she mumbles as his grandson carefully lies down on the floor, belly up, looking at the ceiling with the same expression on his eyes as his grandmother.

"Life is more than this, life is more than this, life is more than this."

Ronaldo comes into the kitchen only in his underwear. His glutes flexed, he walks as if he has two legs made of wood.

"I am here", he says.
Ronaldo sits down on the kitchen floor next to his son. He kisses his forehead many times and cries before closing his eyes slowly.

"Life is more than this."

>>8629016
>>8629019
This was actually entertaining and even an it heartfelt. If you expanded slightly on this, though not too much as the brevity was charming, I would read the shit out of it.

>>8628848
Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated

>>8629226
>http://pastebin.com/cXRgPT7J
>>8628848
I just read through it a couple of times. Nice implications, 3rd to 1st PoV switch was unexpected. It reminded me of that 'Plainsong' book, no dialogue at all yet the character talks about dialogue.
It's really just a question of if people like this concept at this point. If they don't, I can't imagine they would be down for a story like this.
Feels similar to magical realism combined with surreal realism in a stream of consciousness style, it's good work.

I didn't like it that much though, because there were too many mysteries and implications too fast and that's not my thing. Plus, I wasn't into her character and didn't emphasize with her difficulties which is important for me. If you were writing this for more of the average person, I'd drop the 3rd person intro, I got the impression the girl is a literary type so that was probably intentional.

I'm sure literary types would love it. In my mind I was constantly asking questions and the text gave me some answers but when I didn't feel like I needed them.
That's the pros and cons of that style you're using, just be aware of that.

>>8629296
Thanks for the thorough critique! Much love.

Monsieur Mangetout
Who chews stained glass like jolly ranchers
Necks of glass crushed between his teeth
From the crunched wineglass blood flowed
Dracula just for the biting
The hand cut off without any betrayal
Judas kissed just for the kiss
The eyes beyond the mind
The teeth beyond the mouth
The plane crunched in the teeth
The intestinal tract as
destiny itself. an ultimate ending
everything soluble in dark entropy

>>8629482
uh, drinking's bad? I guess?

>>8629535
eating planes is bad

>>8629016

>beginning your story with the narrator waking up and the time

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/lit/ I need some help

Since last year I wanted to write a story about a someone who, in an amok rage, murdered someone he knew and hated. He feels guilty and hides the body. Soon, as the plot develops, he is forced to kill more and more, making him develop a taste for murder.

But I have no idea about how to define the plot properly.

Why did he hate the first guy he murdered?
What did the guy make that made him mad enough to murder him?
What forced him to continue killing?
How will the plot end?

If you answer these questions, no matter how vague, I'll be forever thankful to you.

>>8629535
>>8629555

>not knowing who is Monsieur Mangetout

>>8630367
I don't remember my French very well, but is that Mr. EatAll

Wrote my 1st poem so any advice/pointers would be appreciated :)

A cold mind

One; that was once filled with warmth, love, and passion. Began to slowly grow dark in a bright ongoing world. The luster of hope and kindness that had once filled these brown eyes, were no longer there, but dark spheres that only serve as lifeless entities. Ears that only heard empty words, lips that spoke silent sentences, and a heart that knew no desire. Faith no longer ruled this heart; instead, with every fleeting beat, only filled this hollow cast with pain and sorrow. This was the heart of a broken soul; a broken soul that spewed forgotten memories of the past, and a cold mind that quietly keeps it moving.

>>8630362

1. neighbor
2. kept his yard tidier
3. found out that his killings made killer fertilizer
4. kills himself to fertilize his favorite fly trap

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It's the first part of a longer piece still at the rough draft stage.

Decimate me. 1/5

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>>8631464

2/5

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>>8620766
I didn't get much critique on this last time (though I truly appreciate the critique I did recieve), so here goes again. I will help out and critique some others work once I get this posted.

Part 1

He saw the trap only as it was being sprung, limbs moving too slow, lungs too out of breath to shout. The screech of the tires screamed for the driver. He heard the loud thump of meat hitting metal, saw as his friend went flying like a fish out of water through the cold air, and then slam against the pavement once, twice, three times... It wouldn't be till years later, during a high stress situation, when he would remember, quite vividly, the crunch of a human skull as it fractured and cracked open against blacktop. In that moment, however, screaming was all he heard. A high pitched wail that could have crumbled mountains if there were any.

“JAAAKE!!”

Roth saw her slipping and sliding in her drunken high to get down the grassy embankment and to her brothers side, and he immediately knew he couldn't allow that. He ran and caught her just as she touched the blacktop, tackling her to the ground.

“Roth get off of me! Jake! Damnit, get off! It's your fault! Let me go, he needs me!”

Her words cut him like thorns, but her life was more important. He couldn't let her get hurt too.

Seconds later, just as he feared, another car came racing around the blind curve and crashed into the back of the small SUV, not having had enough time to see what was happening. The first car went screeching further down the street before sideswiping to the left and into the other lane, just barely missing Jakes legs.

Sammy was next down the hill, sliding down just as fast as her sister had. Then came Benny, and finally West. All three of them made a hard, skidding stop at the bottom of the hill, eyes taking in the crash. Then Sammy ran to her sister and took her into her arms, releasing Roth from his duty. She had seen the whole thing from her position atop the hill and knew it was too late to save her little brother. Her only duty now was to keep her sister from the same fate.

“Dog shit” Benny said as he gripped his hair in both his hands. West was surprised he managed to get a word out, let alone two.

Having been freed of his burden, Roth stood up and surveyed the street. The scene was gruesome. The back of the SUV was completely caved in, and the front was sporting a nice boy sized dent. Smoke was billowing out, causing the driver to cough and wave their hand in front of their face as they opened the door and took a few slow steps towards the middle of the street, pausing just a moment to stare back at the blood splattered on their car. Legs shaking, Roth began to tentatively step forward.

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>>8631468

3/5

Going to go eat will post the last two bits in a minute.

>>8628961
I write it by hand. Helps with the venting.

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>>8631470
Part 2

“Don't” West tried to warn, but was drowned out by Julies loud wails.

The street lights were bright enough that he could make out the splatters of rich liquid that led to his friends now mangled and twisted body. His legs lay at a strange angle, facing opposite his arms and making it look like he was trying to play Twister on the sidewalk. His head was bent inwards towards his chest, partly hidden by his left arm. As Roth approached, he realized Jake was still moving. Twitching. Like that squirrel his mom had run over just the year before.

Whatever fear gripped him left in an instant, and he ran the rest of the way and fell on his knees before Jake. He reached out with his hands, wanting to pull or sit him up, but too afraid to touch anything on his already broken body. His breathes started coming hot and heavy as panic began to overwhelm him, the sight of blood pouring from a cracked open skull just too much.

And not just cracked, but shattered. A huge, flat surface on the back of his skull showed where he had hit the pavement so hard, and now, as he lay twitching, pieces begin to give way. Roth watched with horror as his brain began to fall out.

He half chokes out a small wail, and futily attempts to hold his friends head together, pushing back on the meat like he has any chance of keeping it in. The feeling of warm blood, hard pieces of bone, and spongy meat shock and disgust him, but he can't let go. He can't. No.

A road-rash scraped hand suddenly grips him by the arm, and he jumps.

Looking down, Roth is shocked to see two wide brown eyes staring into him. Or perhaps past him. He would never know, because in the next instent...Jake was gone.

He felt two pairs of small, rough, hands pulling him up to his feet and dragging him back a couple feet. The next thing he knew, his arms were around Benny and Wests shoulders, and they were carrying him out soldier style, back to the bush. When at last they sat him down to catch their breathes, all Roth could manage to say was:

“Where's the little girl?”

Benny and West shared a look, and Roth's chest tightened more than he thought was possible.

“It was a dud” Benny answered, at last.

“It was just a doll we were chasing.”
>Also always been interested in books that provide some pictures between chapters, like at the beginning of each chapter, thoughts?

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>>8631472

4/5

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>>8631477

5/5

>>8631475
>>8631470
>"JAAAKE!!"
"JAKE!"
You don't ever really need to stretch a word or use more than one exclamation point.

>“Dog shit” Benny said
"Dog shit," Benny said
>“Don't” West tried to warn
"Dont," West tried to warn (who?)
Always remember to close your sentence before you close the quotation marks.

>Julies loud wails
Julie's loud wails

Also, did you mean to change tenses in the middle of the second post? Like, was that done for effect, or was it accidental? Because it felt like it was accidental.

Other than that, a couple of sentences felt clumsy and it took me a little while to comprehend what I was reading. You might like to try and refine this piece of writing a bit more, just try and clean up the sentences that don't flow nicely.

>>8621357
Sorry for late reply but may I ask how? I sort of agree but I can't put my finger on it

>>8631509
>Also, did you mean to change tenses in the middle of the second post?

I don't...think I did.

Alrighty, thank you. I haven't edited anything yet, but this is helpful. By god I'm fucking tired...I have to stay up anyway, I'll try and help out a bit on this guys:
>>8631464

After I run to town.

>>8631523
That was me who did your crit.

Also, not a guy.

Thanks though.

Street lamps are playing silent
While they feed me with delightfull light
Again, the street cats being violent
I can feel, it's almost midnight

>>8631538
Oh thank you. Not a guy here either lol, sorry for assuming.

Ok so..first post.

You say Sachie is being glared at by a stanger, but then make no mention of the strangers glaring after that first sentence, which makes me feel like a missed a paragraph or something.

>Sachie knew not to eavesdrop, and he knew how to turn his ears off. But somehow, he found himself listening in on Charlies conversation.

You just previously stated that he accidentally overheard the conversation, so saying he 'somehow found himself listening' feels a bit unnecessary. Accidentally hearing something is plenty reason enough I feel like. I also feel like mentioning that the person who raised him being a detective, is a bit early to be revealing that information. It's hard not to give all the details away at once because your so excited about your writing, and I'm pretty guilty of it myself.

"I hear they were burning the bodies down at Hagebak Farm yesterday..."

Which character started that sentence? It doesn't seem like something charlie would say at this point. But I could be tired and just reading that wrong.

I can do a bit more critiquing tomorrow if you want to come back in, but right now it's midnight and I'm pretty exhausted. Thank you for the critique on mine, and I hope you have a good night or day, wherever your timezone lies.

>>8631433
Please don't write prose poetry until you manage to do normal verse.

Cliches:

>that was once filled with warmth, love and passion

See Rimbaud: "A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing."

>began to slowly grow dark in a bright
>luster of hope & kindness that has once filled
>no longer there

Dimming embers of love is subject of countless romance poems out there

>dark spheres that only serve as lifeless entities
>ears that only heard empty words
>lips that spoke silent sentences
>and a heart that knew no desire

See Plath: "I shut my eyes & all the world drops dead"

See Simon & Garfunkel:
"Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dare
Disturb the sound of silence"

>Faith no longer ruled
>every fleeting beat
>only filled this hollow cast with pain and sorrow

See Stephen Crane:

"I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;"

See Rimbaud Again:

"I armed myself against justice."

>heart of a broken soul
>a broken soul that spewed forgotten memories
>a cold mind that quietly keeps it moving

See Hart Crane:

"And so it was I entered the broken world
To trace the visionary company of love"

Well, different in meaning, but uses the same motifs to create a more cosmic and higher metaphor.

Either way - good luck & try again!

>>8629482
Passable, but if all you can do is to restate the guy's profession in only slightly more cosmic tones, without much music in your verse, and only mild abstraction, it doesn't really achieve much.

>>8628186
Since you admit that it’s mostly bad, let me see if there’s anything that can be saved:

Oh, the shadows, they will come
But my warning to you is useless
Because there's no precedent for this
Because it is irrational to believe it
When I sleep, they show me the visions
Inanimate objects watch me
The depths of the sea oppress me
Inaction goes through every corner
And even the end of the world grows nigh

Even then, this is nothing compared to Gothic poets like Poe

>>8631572
At least you didn't ask for pictures of my feet.

Ah. Yes. I can see how those parts might have been confusing, and also how to tidy them up now that you've highlighted the issue with them. Thank you.

Do more tomorrow if you wish, but I'll be moving on from this section shortly and will probably only come back to it again when I'm doing my first major edit/rewrite, so don't feel obliged.

>>8626103
Even if you’re writing a Shakespearean Sonnet, you could at least try to distance yourself from the bard in a more innovative way. The last part is merely a variant on the many Shakespearean Love & Timelessness-related endings with worse imagery.

Cliches:

A blue velvet rose,
perpetual bliss,
Head of golden hair
Warming wind blows,
Eyes-mistook for a kiss;

She ensnared me,
Stole my exposed heart
Left me with stardust,
Thinking could we be-forever me and thee?
But a fantasy of my mind's weaving,

For an example of innovative twisting, ee St Vincent Millay’s Bluebeard Sonnet:

This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed. . . . Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see. . . . Look yet again--
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.

PICKET FENCE

Running on ratchet
Gears moulding
The green cheese

Loft unfolding
Where stands the cat
The rare gait

Awake, the cat
You are me, with the gemmed eyes
As though loneliness were a walking snake

As though a shot rang through your head
Crumpled leaves on the garden rake
Voiced creation, turnstile god

That made me
The sideways walk, to the yard
White rectangles

I drew myself
I made it mine
I told myself I had the crime

Waltzing through the spout of time
The garden house
The roaming rose

Rose upon the rising air
Ruthless mouse without a stare
Needly faces grinning there

Cutterhands, cuttterhands
Shiv and shorn the barbershop
Outside stood – the lollipop

Rocked the cradle
Hypnotism
Made a baby of my wisdom

I’ll be small and crazy thing
I’ll sing
The song of terror & the wept
The furious wig I make my hat

AFTER BAD TEA

Consist – between the twirling fans
The unravelling – that eye percepts
The hypnotic undercurrent, in stir

The violent air, amuse bouches
Before the cooing of the thrushes
Should enervate the bare allure

The great rage held to malevolence
An idea rode on the inconstance
That struck the hammer of the plenitude bells

Wind – escalate – magnificent!
Create – recreate – the impotence!
That strutted through the aged hells

Though age’s blade give me varicose swells
I long to sigh – I hear the fells
As I revelate on my incontinence

>>8631610
i personally don't believe in cliches
words don't magically turn bad if they already were used before, they are but ideas after all

>>8631641
They don't, but their placement in subject matter does. If you use "a blue velvet rose" to describe a girl, and then you leave it at that, the idea isn't developed. If there is no idea developed then the power can only rest on how the image itself is phrased.

Maybe a few possible sensual connotations in "scent" and "fantasy", but those aren't linked as strongly to the word itself. In other words the image stands alone, and it's idea is only used for the Romantic conveyance - which in that case it hasn't been developed from the many other sonneteers that came after Shakespeare - like Millay, alot of French poets, and John Berryman

But you can have something like Rilke's Rose Window: http://immrama.blogspot.sg/2004/11/rose-window-ranier-maria-rilke.html

And even though he uses Rose x500 times in his other poetry, it's still strong because they're all different permutations. Although the pinnacle of the image's use comes in the Bowl Of Roses poem

>>8631641
they do not engage the mind

you read them and they mean nothing, and register as nothing. that's why they're bad

>>8631691
poor shakespear and his pregnant sails

>>8630196
That's how days start in real life

>>8631623
awful. painful to read.

The smell of meat is all that mattered now, the man was immersed in his job, hard at work. With steady hand he cuts through the innards, long gloves covering up to his elbows – Protection from the crimson. Strong liquor pours like fire through his body, the scent mixing with the jagged aroma and piercing pungency of the animals strung up around him.
There was no need for hygiene, this was his home, his prep room behind the wide, cheerful grin that he stretches across his aged complexion – The mask he puts on display for his customers. They had seen no evidence of the liquor, the strange thoughts that run and play behind that grin.
Tonight, like many others, he cut into the meat – The rhythm of cleaver on flesh had become soothing, and served as a mild distraction from his distraught torn mind. A sweet girl, from his own seed, had been taken, stolen from him by the government above.
“Mad” – They called him – “Drunk” cried others. The fits of rage from his problem had been issued onto this sweet girl, damaging the innocence of youth. So he cuts, cleaves, and relieves this nightmare away, issuing upon the meat the same he did to that sweet girl – Alcoholic stupor consumes him.
All the man wishes upon now is a chance. A chance to see the innocence again, a chance to see what was stolen. Dockets, warnings, and restraints say otherwise. They scream and tear down any chance of redemption, the walls that keep him standing.
The alcohol, this strange aberration of a mind, has held him against its bosom – Holding him, on his slow descent into the worst of the lot. It was always going to be this way, it was too late for him to change now. This man’s abhorrent mind was hard to steer, and even harder to change.
So now, he will never see that sweet girl again – She will never have a true father, a true mentor, a true life. All because of his selfish actions, taking to the drink, retreating into his job, this job of strangely enticing scents. Repulsive to others, and repulsive most of all – To that sweet child of his.

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Here's my attempt at Military Sc-Fi
Yes I'm amateur, please know what you're getting into. And yes I'm thankful to any criticism of the writing you have to offer, that's why I'm here.

1 of 4

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>>8631832
2 of 4

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>>8631835
3 of 4

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>>8631837
4 of 4

>>8631832
First sentence already a bad start. Too grandiose.

>>8631843
How so?

>>8631832
Sorry man, too much flare on each sentence for an entire short story. Your expressive way of writing would work better for something shorter and with something more abstract as the subject matter. It's just way too thick with words at the moment, which doesn't flow all too well, nor does it keep people invested.

>>8631855
It's not supposed to be a short story. Supposed to be the start of an epic. (Military and Sci-Fi involved). I made it so abstract because I didn't want to assume my audience was dumb, nor did I want them to think I thought of them as such.

Thanks for the critic though, I need more practice.

Reposting from a dead thread:
I was aimlessly polishing the coffee machine, stroking its steam wand with my undivided attention, when my nemesis announced her entrance by slamming the entrance door and its wooden frame whimpered like a wounded old hound. I turned to see her approaching the cashier cautiously with a steady pace. Fixing her eyes on mine with the concentration of a duelist on guard, she gently barked.
‘Single espresso with a chocolate brownie.’
She produced a purse from the dense forest of her fur coat and extracted a banknote. Clipping it between the tips of her index and middle fingers, she slowly extended the folded note to me, with the curiosity and hostility of feeding a tamed giraffe in the zoo.
‘Here’s your change.’
I replied as I dumped her coins to the empty space next to her expectant opened palm. With a soundless sigh, she scraped them up and found a seat under the air conditioner. I promptly turned up its current, hoping the artificial gust would force her from taking off her ostentasious coat. While the machine hummed and growled as it excreted its dark bitter juice into a bone china teacup, I was busy picking the most uncomfortable brownie for her. For you see, she has the nasty habit of dividing brownies into bite size cubes before swallowing them one by one, as if she is ingesting heroine blocks wrapped with cellophane inside an airport toilet. In order to sabotage her ritual, I need the softest one that would crumble under the slightest pressure.
After serving her my own kind of poison, I turned up the music, allowing speakers to blare a cacophony of Katy Perry at her direction. She was not allowed to enjoy her chic novella, not in my shop at least. In retaliation, she grabbed the cup with her whole hand, an act as brute as a viking grabbing a helpless damsel by her waist. Not only did she make loud sips that pierced through the already deafening pop-songs, she allowed droplets of coffee to descend along the external wall of their ceramic prison, forming a ringed, black puddle on my clean table. I could not help but to wince when I saw her littered her surrounding area with bits of burnt brownie.
It took her a mutually agonizing 15 minutes to escape from my torture chamber. As she announced her retreat by slamming the door again, I leapt to her table to collect my tableware and assess the work of my foe. Atop of the polished teak, a galaxy of brownie bits orbited around a ring of black bile. I wiped away this world of mishap with the fury of a disappointed god and returned to masturbating a coffee machine whether I should disinfect her cup.

>>8631883
>I turned to see her approach the cashier cautiously with a steady pace.

Why would it be a cautious steady pace? Wouldn't she be more reluctant, on guard perhaps? The "steady pace" makes me think less of cautiousness; more of charismatic or courageous.

>>8631975
I was having the idea of the narator over-thinking about every petty detail and this is the hint of it?

>>8620883
I love it. The juxtaposition of the unusual job and the custard arc along with the writing style reminds me of Pynchon. Add in an obtuse company wide conspiracy and a custard contest and that's a story I would buy.

>>8631832
It's just too much. It's okay to use shorter/simpler/less atmospheric words to keep the reader from getting bogged down.

>>8625063
Shade, actually.

We live in a political world
Love don't have any place
We're living in times
Where men commit crimes
And crime don't have any face
We live in a political world
Icicles hanging own
Wedding bells ring
And angels sing
And clouds cover up the ground
We live in a political world
Wisdom is thrown in jail
It rots in a cell
Is misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up the trail
We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank
Life is in mirrors
Death disappears
Up the steps to the nearest bank
We live in a political world
Courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted
Children unwanted
The next day could be your last
We live in a political world
The one we can see and feel
But there's no one to check
It's all a stacked deck
We all know for sure that it's real
We live in a political world
In the cities of lonesome fear
Little by little
You turn in the middle
But you're never sure why you're here
We live in a political world
Under the microscope
You can travel anywhere
And hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope
We live in a political world
Turning and trashing about
As soon as you're awake
You're trained to take
What looks like the easy way out
We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all
It's turned away from the door
To wonder some more
Or put up against the wall
We live in a political world
Everything is hers and his
Climb into the frame
And shout God's name
But you're never sure what it is

If only he could have seen it then—that bright metal angel which traced a seam of vapor across the highest part of the sky, up there where the edges of the thermocline dropped away and the paler rim darkened into midnight, and if only he could have heard its booming, its God-roar come unstuck, emanating somehow from that dart of glistening titanium, of aluminum and alloys and composite matrices, that slipstream Gabriel trailing his dead thunder across the drumhead of Earth’s curvature, a sound so utterly divorced from its own source—if only he had heard or seen these things he might have been saved, might have been awed enough to forget his task. But instead he sits asleep under the leaves and knows nothing of it.

>>8631516
Just read it out loud until you understand.

omen / yeomans is extremely awkward

ever-yammer is really bad and awkward as well

It just sounds like you're ripping the poem apart to try to make it rhyme. Just chill man

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>>8631538
>>8631572

>>8631832
Love the gusto! Maybe try to show a little. That'll really blow their minds!!

>>8633034
might be a good song.. would have to hear the melody m8

>>8633124
This kind of stuff takes an insanely light & capable touch. Not sure it nails it so far. You can't trick people into thinking you're good at writing, you know (I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm saying that they will be able to pick up whether you're enjoying it or not, whether you're faking it or not, often even better than you can).

Who so fancied the rose, delicate flower,
To place it on her hand;
To see in shadowed petal gray waters of Lethe
Wherein painted barks wind the water,
And sailors do not sleep-
Where the old poet dozes on his cushion,
Relishes the smell of incense and opium,
And pushes needles in his hand
To remember the Sycamore, and paints
Thoth by torchlight on the tomb's walls;
If only he could recall that last detail,
While the bargeman lumbers on the Lethe.

If she realized then, cunning nun
That the rose is not a gentile sign,
That it spoke, from deep within
Of pastures, and horses, and firelight,
Of sunset, long cold mornings on the steppe
Gray travelers and shaggy mares and mountains;
She would write on the page a simpler sign.

>>8621328
Those "mmer" rhymes don't appeal to me for some reason.

The veil is very thin, here in Berkeley.
Maybe it always was, or maybe the psychedelics helped.
Anyway, here where the marsh was, we live on the border.

You can see through, sometimes: when the sidewalks crack and the green pushes through, the kids say: Nature is taking its own back! Sometimes the grownups say it too.
But people can trip on broken sidewalks.

When you hear the singing and see colorful ones dancing, the veil is very thin then. You can even dance all together.

And in the gardens, and in the kitchens, the veil is very thin. Everyone gets dirty in the gardens, and everyone tastes the fresh, clean food. No one need go hungry here: there are many free meals.

That's why the sensitive ones come here.
They come here when they are young, and strong, and curious.
They come here when they are broken and beaten down and sad.
They come here because they know: if they push hard enough, they can get through the veil.
They can get to the other side, with the dancing, and the music, and the barefoot kids, and the potlucks.

>>8633262
It's all good, man. Thanks for the honest feedback.

>>8633179
Odd, I thought the rhythm came off quite steady in my accent. Are you native english by any chance?

>>8621547
I'm going to disagree with >>8621602 I really like the "permanence." I would suggest changing "arms" to "arm" or "hand," though, because when I hear "extending his arms" the first thing I picture is a baby and I don't think that's the tone you're going for.

My crit for like every poem in the thread

###STOP RHYMING AND WRITE FREE VERSE####

On-the-nose, regular rhymes belong to a different era. They have become the fedora of poetry. Just don't do it. Burn down everything you know and start from scratch.

***BONUS TIP***
If you don't read poetry, and read widely, you will never write anything remotely good no matter how hard you try.

>>8633690
Stop shitposting

Praise him, he the young and virile American Rebel!
Proud continuer of his nation’s proudest exercise
waging total ideological war against the establishment

Rememberer of Washington and his comrades fallen in Boston, and of Shay who fought against him for the good of the common man,
Recollector of the great hawks, sweeping death over Canada and the Potomac, furthering the cause of the great enlightened rebellion,
Brother to Dixie and to John Brown, who both bravely fought and were butchered, cannibalized and spat out broken by their oppressors,

Friend of Bryan, smashed by Pinkerton, wearer of the zoot suit in Los Angeles, subsequently beaten and left for dead by government soldiers

Your roots are deep, long-haired and wild-eyed modern rebel!
You are connected to your country and cannot be defeated
for victory exists instantaneous in the morphing of the face by wind
provided the automobile sufficiently fast and the girls sufficiently fine

You are your nation, great American revolutionary, though you oppose it at every turn
You understand the truth of your spirit and are not magnetized to the advertised fluorescent truth
created to attract, to distract, to sustain the apparatus and to hunt to you down, oh ferocious dissident
You who have broken constraints and shared in transcendental visions with Emerson and learned self-reliance
and had equally sage visions, livened with Aztec mushrooms gone stumbling in a rapture straight into Walden Pond, almost drowned
You stalwart against the machine, loyal to ideology, to freedom, to greater kindness and compassion in the world today
later ambivalent cyclist, follower of Brando, subversive by nature, free from purpose, ultimate freedom!

>>8633746

America loves you, seditious and uncompromising Rebel!
You make her great, and help keep folks occupied
She’s got a perversion for subversion nowadays
and seems keen to take all the lot in perfect stride
Let ye yell, and let ye be free
To kick and scream and write and preach and read pamphlets
and post on blogs and write your senator and form an organization
and slaughter sacred cows and get high and piss on cars
and steal groceries and complain about the situation overseas
and criticize the situation at home and plan for change
and scratch at the concrete till your fingernails fall out and you bleed, bleed, bleed!

You pose no threat to her, energized and dissenting firebrand in your leather jackets, spiked studs, spiked hair and spiked genitals pointing proudly towards the sky in broad defiance!
America looks, America observes, America does a story on you for the nightly news
and talks about it with their family, perplexed by the newest youth craze
America tolerates and accepts, censors lightly, will not arrest crime of thought
But America does not listen and America does not change
and neither do you, striking young rebel of the great Western paradise
America will always reserve your place, on the fringes under thickets, obscured by branches
presently shifting, escaping then: shining light! being of the limelight! pulsating for all America to see and hear your wounded howl
Then forgotten, faded and returned to the darkness of your beloved subterranean home!

America loves you, and you love America!

Bumping for love or money

De un pensamiento en diurna soledad
Se atiborra en multitud cubriendo la húmeda mirada
En la tempestad que corroe el tiempo
Y el haz angosto de luz de sol estatua
Se esconde a no ser el intruso innato
A una figura de vacías intenciones
De sus días en eones
Constante tumulto furtivo de mil navajas
De fuego taciturno
Penetran las paredes altas de espejos sucios
Murallas babilónicas de cual salen en fila
Una tras otra, sin orden de muerte
Palabras inútiles que nacen de dentro en decepción
Y escapan moribundas a un lugar en transparente ruido
Pasando a oídos de interés desolado
Y a almas de idioma equívoco
Así se llega a la deriva de uno que se pierde en multitud invisible
A minutos efímeros de un ave en descenso desgraciado
¿Qué se espera, entonces, de un rumor hastío,
Un futuro difuso, un final blanco, un espacio de falso reposo,
Un sufrimiento infinito o fugaz, unos demonios de piel y palabra?
De esto no se sabe y no se puede conocer
Solo queda el mustio esperar
Y el deseo reacio a cultivar

Marching through an earthquake,
Sole to thunder grounds;
Uprooted life must fear us
Yet, Tremors birth our crown.

>>8633690
>rating poetry solely on type of form

The man who is unable to critique on the basis of ideas or power of imagery, and deals solely with a type of form is a flaccid critic. It doesn't matter whether the poem was written by a Keats wannabe or Whitman wannabe. A sucky free verse will suck and a sucky sonnet will suck as well.

This applies to Classicists who critique a work on the basis of violating form as well

Here, above,
where fearsome angels cower, the Mothman
glides soundlessly above illusion. The moon
is something that cannot fly, and you cannot see
the moon, below him, as he spreads his terrible wings
his red eyes become the billion-year bloat
of giant stars dying into the useless night of eyes,
yours, folding in to the unremarked of realms.

But when the Mothman
comes, clearly, those who witness him rise above
those realms of plastic and styrofoam. To be human
is to disappoint- so the Mothman never does.
He is the summit of unknown and unbroken expectations,
and the inquisitor who asks: "What is the fallen
in you?" He cannot understand the onlookers
of life, the unmoved at Jericho's tumble.

Up the facades
of inemotion, righter than left, and three winks
from Magonia, he rises, now sounding mechanical,
as if an early helicopter chopping its way
to your comprehension, the full breadth of his wings
spreading, as if to say, "I, too, have form!"
Yet, he has no head, nor mouth, nor nose, nor ears,
just huge glowing eyes in a gray-brown skin.

Then he returns
to earth, leaving the now of your wonder,
as if to instruct the mortal of their poor restraint.
Gently, gently he dares to shaping the odors
of your dreams, disnebulous as your remembrance
of him, filling the emptiness that springtimes do,
at times, distilling your denial into a tear,
singular as a day, but ten times as salty.

Each night he must
dissolve in to a crane, an owl, or a bugaboo
of dismission that underlies comfortability.
But his is not there. He regards it a disease
that the earthbound must overcome. He does
it by looming over the American night, the consensus
universe that you construct. Sometimes, he watches
you as you whistle by the wonder he swallows whole.

If you catch him
looking at you, be very afraid. Not of him,
nor some grim intent, but because his eyes will curve
in to you- hold your eye up to his eye, it is all
blood- a deep placidity no human can share, nor bear,
cool and pure as the scent of a stark dry thing
the wet of an animal's nose remembers, the mist
of a thunderhead's calm, the drum of rain on umbrellas.

>>8633322
Very Good in its twist, but the "sailors do not sleep" sounds like an unnecessary addition that reminds me of the Old Man & The Sea for some reason - with its ending of the old man dreaming of lions. "xxx do not sleep" is also close to "the city that does not sleep", which is totally trite by now. Just because you want to shift the idea of sailors sleeping to the idea of the poet's doze does not mean you have to subject the poem to that kind of stoppage point.

One possibility would be to drag the last line of the first stanza over there to replace it & changing Lethe to 'river' or something, which half-rhymes with water. It also creates a reminiscing linger on the last line, moreso than ending it with a recapitulation of the Lethe image. Of course, it may also require a split in the stanza because the segue would be more jarring now.

Just a suggestion, although the poem is good already. It would look something like this:

Who so fancied the rose, delicate flower,
To place it on her hand;
To see in shadowed petal gray waters of Lethe
Wherein painted barks wind the water,
With the bargeman lumbering along the river.

Where the old poet dozes on his cushion,
Relishes the smell of incense and opium,
And pushes needles in his hand
To remember the Sycamore, and paints
Thoth by torchlight on the tomb's walls;
If only he could recall that last detail…

If she realized then, cunning nun
That the rose is not a gentile sign,
That it spoke, from deep within
Of pastures, and horses, and firelight,
Of sunset, long cold mornings on the steppe
Gray travelers and shaggy mares and mountains;
She would write on the page a simpler sign.

When life gets hard, and life gets tough
no pleasure is ever enough
for when we die, and die we will,
our pleasures all amount to nil.
Pity.

>>8633746
>>8633751

The main power of a Ginsbergian or Whitmanian verse is that it has images to overwhelm the political or moral tremor. There are spots in your poem where this falters into mere agitprop.

>Praise him, he the young and virile American Rebel!
>Proud continuer of his nation’s proudest exercise
>waging total ideological war against the establishment

A bad start. Where in Whitman’s best songs would you see a blatant statement of the agenda like that? You’d see the cosmic sign, the “hear America Singing” or the “every atom belongs to me…”

>Rememberer of Washington and his comrades fallen in Boston, and of Shay who fought against him for the good of the common man,
>Recollector of the great hawks, sweeping death over Canada and the Potomac, furthering the cause of the great enlightened rebellion,
>Brother to Dixie and to John Brown, who both bravely fought and were butchered, cannibalized and spat out broken by their oppressors,

Imagine, now, what would happen if you had just cut the last parts off and placed it as

Rememberer of Washington and his comrades fallen in Boston, and of Shay
Recollector of the great hawks, sweeping death over Canada and the Potomac
Brother to Dixie and to John Brown, who both fought and were butchered, cannibalized and spat out
Friend of Bryan, smashed by Pinkerton, wearer of the zoot suit in Los Angeles, subsequently beaten and left for dead

The next two stanzas are better

But the second last has too much of the agenda on the table, and it lacks subtlety

>You make her great, and help keep folks occupied

Obvious reference is obvious, but it really adds nothing except the silly and sly nod to current events.

>To kick and scream and write and preach and read pamphlets
>and post on blogs and write your senator and form an organization
>and slaughter sacred cows and get high and piss on cars
>and steal groceries and complain about the situation overseas
>and criticize the situation at home and plan for change
>and scratch at the concrete till your fingernails fall out and you bleed, bleed, bleed!

Even in Ginsberg, his most anarchist type verses would have, at least, the startling image in them:

“who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed”

But yours is so tritely anarchistic. The satiric finger pokes out too much and it is less of the poet. It reads like CrimethInc rather than great poetry. Scratch your finger on the concrete? Slaughter sacred cows & piss on cars? Is that seriously the best you can pull off? Your previous lines were better at this.

The next stanza is okay, I guess, but the last line is too blatant and ridiculous. Even every section of Howl tries to end on an image of some sort.

> There is nothing I can say in my defense. Therefore, what follows is for my amusement.

That's all I have so far. It's for a suicide note.

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This is from a short story I'm considering submitting to a local magazine. Any thoughts are appreciated.

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>>8634457

Second part.

>>8633348
Fucking hell, are you writing poetry or some kind of self-help bullshit?

The worst offenders are:

> When you hear the singing and see colorful ones dancing, the veil is very thin then. You can even dance all together.
> No one need go hungry here: there are many free meals.
>That's why the sensitive ones come here.
>They come here when they are young, and strong, and curious.
>They come here when they are broken and beaten down and sad.
>They come here because they know: if they push hard enough, they can get through the veil.

I’ll assume that you’re the same guy who wrote the Trump thing, because this seems to suffer from the same problem as the last one. Imagery dissipates into spiel. All these statements that would appear more in hippy get-together pamphlets than hardened poetry. Even if you wanted to leave them there you could condense them to get rhythm:

The veil is very thin, here in Berkeley.
Maybe it always was, or maybe the psychedelics helped.
Here where the marsh was, we live on the border.

You can see through, sometimes: when the sidewalks crack and the green pushes through, the kids say: Nature is taking its own back! Sometimes the grownups say it too.
But people can trip on broken sidewalks.

When you hear the singing and see colorful ones dancing, the veil is very thin then.
And in the gardens, and in the kitchens, the veil is very thin. Everyone gets dirty in the gardens.

That's why the sensitive ones come here.
The young & strong & curious. The broken & beaten down & sad.

They come here in the know,
The other side: with the dancing & music, the barefeets, and the potlucks.

>>8634441
Thanks. I actually wrote this when I was 18 (five years ago) and have been too scared to work on it. I agree with everything you say (more or less) This may encourage me.

>>8634322
don't be fucking autistic telling novice poets not to rhyme is great advice, once they've got a decent handle on the fundamentals they can think about more restrictive forms

>>8634885
Except that what you said was not

>learn to be free with your verse & that will help you to generate a looseness of ideas & images which will help you

But

>On-the-nose, regular rhymes belong to a different era. They have become the fedora of poetry. Just don't do it

So dont make it seem as though you were telling them what you just told me dumbass.

>>8634680
Huh. I thought you were talking about Trump. Nvm. Those parts are still of a weak slant.The fact that they sound like a political slogan from current times may be proof of that.

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Just some small stuff I'm kicking around in my head.

>>8634918
im not that guy but he gave them good advice and then you said something technically correct but unhelpful in the most autistic way possible

>>8634962
>not to rhyme
>good advice

pshaw

>>8634978
there may be a small amount of exceptions but the overwhelming majority of novice poets would do well to avoid rhyming at all

if you disagree i don't really know how to convince you i know that i've read enough corny couplets to last four lifetimes

>>8634482
Thank you.
Yeah, I totally want the hippy imagery, because it's Berkeley.

I like your suggestions for the end... although I want to keep the thing about pushing through the veil.

By the way, I really don't write ever. I didn't write anything about Trump. I just thought about this walking home today and thought I'd see what /lit/ thought.

Watering hole

Most people affect me as much as a pimple I find standing at the sink, swelling up a little at first, convincing me that I’ve gained something only to leave me with a pock mark reminder of the time I lost popping it. Letting it die naturally is never as satisfying, is it? Her affection, however, and the subsequent lack of it, felt like an improbable impact event. A blinding cannibalistic fusion slowly cooling in pieces, her vacant eyes left like craters on the dead moon, reflecting a distant memory off black tides it still held sway over. A light in my eyes I couldn’t avoid no matter how many times I rolled over.

Some women were a pretty shell you felt lucky to find on a beach, if you got close enough to their conch hearts you could hear a murmur of life somewhere distant. She was more HIV. Sliding tendrils through your veins, coursing tainted blood from the brain out the tip of your cock she defined life in a hushed, slow, death. Space and coursing time had refined her to smooth prismatic lines shining, she will tell me this portrait of her is too ambiguous. Channeling the whole of life in singular white light through her riming eyes she projected a spectrum out the back for the world to see. With a hydra for hair I could see why she cried, but I still asked her why.

Once, I noticed a shadow at the bottom of the projected image. It’s a strange thing to smell your own saliva on a lover. If she’s fucking me, how perfect can she be?

After that I wondered if I was consuming her or she consuming me, and whether or not I should care. I’ll wake up, and she would be gone, Ill forget all that I’d seen and felt, probably for the better. I could swear she could smell the fear exuded from my nervous pours, working up a sweat feigning laughter while we splash about in the aqua vitae. I talked the talk the talk, she grabbed my hand with hers and she showed me how to walk. I dropped the act and got off my knees, begged her to take me all the way, to tell me how to be free. Parting her brittle glass lips, stained with my own blood she whispered, “You couldn’t handle me.” The world had made her hard and pellucid as ice but my tongue still felt cold on her bottleneck as we rushed to spill our hearts, time for words had long passed.

An ambulance cries outside the window as she groans with the baseboard heater, we melt together and the wooden keel tightens in our pitching urgent sea. The bed frame was giving its death rattle, a man was dying at incredible speed.

On dead calm Holy open water a tragic chorus ever rises from the deep, sweet breath boiling to my ears in countless clear crystal spheres, an elegiac siren song. Didn’t think I was quite drunk enough to drop off, but whether I fell or jumped, I was baptized. Diving ever lower, down the hall of mirrors, I would die before I got to the bottom of it.

>>8634962
>>8635003
Fuck man, why bother with such bloody condescension?

Its as though you want to give 'advice' but you dont want to put your time into it, and then you castigate others for calling you out on it.

If you want to critique, dont act holier than thou & make it seem as though you're dropping a 'nugget of wisdom' onto the unwashed masses. Deal with those poems. Put your fucking opinions on the table. If you come here just to say 'dont rhyme' - then why even make that comment? How about critiquing a poem that rhymes & showing why they did it badly?

Just because this is a /lit/ crit thread doesn't mean you should be a lazy fuck about it.

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Bump

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>>8620766
Here's mine, it's the penultimate chapter to a short story based on Fear and Trembling that I'm going to submit to my university magazine. I'll critique after my soup.

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>>8636587

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>>8636592

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SciFi/Fantasy genre. Prologue. Let me have it 4chan /li/ brainiacs.

>>8635070
>Most people affect me as much as a pimple I find standing at the sink,
Sentence structure. It reads as if you found the pimple itself standing at the sink.

>>8636651
*as much as a pimple found while I'm standing at the sink.

any other critique plz, unless the rest is like that

>>8636587
This is me, for reference
>>8636631
This seems a little stretched, for such a small
time frame you go into a lot of detail. I think it would be punchier if you trimmed it down, the first paragraph reads a touch purple, but it's not bad. You should post more though, because it's such a short extract.
>>8635070
I'd shorten your first line to, "most people affect me as much as a pimple." The next line seems a bit too overdramatic, kind of unrealistic, and immediately way to baroque without properly introducing any scene or character.

"It's a strange thing to smell your saliva on a lover" - good visceral image. "brittle glass lips" is another good one. Overall, you have potential, but you're too lost in this vague drama that makes it very hard to read what's actually going on clearly.
>>8634457
You should start with you second paragraph and use your characters thoughts to introduce the first. As it stands, it's not exciting to hear and opens in a kind of meandering way.

>>8634400
This isn't bad.

>>8634343
This isn't bad. I think you're last stanza needs work on the flow slightly, but this isn't bad.

>>8634148
bueno

>>8633751
Your anon's criticism of this is spot on.

>>8631883
Your topic and style is quite dull, sorry anon.

>>8631832
Your opening line is terrible, never use elipses like that unless you really know what you're doing, see Pynchon for a good example. Sorry anon.


All of you, please, keep writing.

>>8636713
Thanks! From
>>8636631
It is just the prologue and was designed to be a simple snapshot of a larger event. Chapter one takes place 20 years later and the tone changes completely. I will read yours now.

>>8636587
It's a little confusing because it tends to switch POVs, confusing even when one is italicized. Is the floating head his "Tell Tale Heart"? I liked it overall. Wanted to know more.

>>8636713
the vague drama is what im after, there are 3 more chapters and its supposed to be about becoming what you are. The scope of the subject matter forced me to boil it down to short vignettes. Ill post the second and see what you
think of that, thanks for the criticism though I really do need some qualified adjustment making

Washed Up

It’s that scene where the protagonist is shipwrecked but then regains consciousness on the beach, miraculously unscathed.

He’s charging a beach front encouraged by the authoritative wind he’s never seen, dragging his feet across the carpet in an empty room, washing up towards the sunlight. Peaking on valleys as a tiny bubble dwarfed by grains of sand, only a moment of ecstasy to pass gas in a coughing froufrou froth, then he’s gone, ebb to terror. With a blip, a tiny mushroom cloud of digestive gasses blooms, Sidd sits under its shady canopy smiling.

Sun baked and faded like old photos of beach vacations, I try to find him but I’m blinded by the red giant burning down. Short of breath I tortured myself with every burning step on sedimentary death. No rest, no shade, no trees. Even trees know better than to build in sand. Cool off standing ankle deep in a river bed, this river gushing from my head. It flowed slowly, thickly, red. Wait, a queer vision of dad floating away on the raft. Run in, rash. Splish splash my stitches tear, and widen the gash. The waters rising to my waist, I look back. The dune ridge western face’s frown says its time I leave this place. Shoulder height now, soaking, suns down, breath is smoking, going into shock. Water’s alkaline, swallowing it, choking... Spit it out and try to turn around but the alternating currents already pulling me out. Tastes like frozen eons of blood and semen and tears, I’m probably just being dramatic. Life or death now, sink or swim, oh my poor shrunken head. Fuck it, either way I end up dead.

“Don’t think like that”, that’s what dad would have said. Where the fuck is he by the way? Fuck him. Got me treading water like an idiot, he never taught me how to swim. Most men don’t swim until they know how to. Maybe I’ll give him a call, shoot the shit. “Dad?” *cough-spit* He shows up, “swell”, from out of nowhere, hell...he’d just been there the whole time looming in the dark, looking down at me. Fucking boomers. He pulls out this torch right, the kind you pass? I’d never seen this thing before he must have stashed it in his ass, it’s not even lit. It just glows poop smeared white heat, he holds it out expecting me to grab it but my look says “You can shove that right back up your ass.” I can tell he’s disappointed, he drops it. Engulfed in flames, he’s burning to death right, get this; he says

“Kick off your shoes”.

“What the FUCK, dad.”

>>8636821
fuck it

Mirage advice

I like to think of a modern life as this century long hangover, a headache trying to remember what happened at the party last night. You might as well not have been there we were so fucked up. Shadows stretch out a hand to this ballad of Brio™, the other on my face. Extinguishing 1 for 1 mozzarella aftertaste; I baste the tongue with finely qualified bubblegum toothpaste. Felt like I was inches away from grasping some measure of absolute truth and the fact that this liquid shit exists defies everything I think I know. What now? *gulp* There’s no way I can finish it but I don’t know what’s worse.

Walking home through the park I spot this beautiful 40 foot oak, a real gem. Spontaneously, I get down on one knee, and propose to this tree. “Hey baby I know we just met but I like what I see, will you marry me?” Wind rushed through the leaves and the branches whined and snapped;

“Hun, I’m flattered, but I’ve got enough rings. Besides, every bird that ever got close to me took off when things cooled down. I mean it’s not like I can chase after them, you know? I’ve got roots here. Anyways, you’re young, and every spring brings new leaves. Come on don’t look so sad, let me guess. You’re lonely, right? You think we’ve got something in common, our pursuit of light? Does this look like fun to you? I could grow for a hundred thousand years and never touch what I reach for, even if I could get within grasp I’d be burned to vapor. Maybe that’s it though, isn’t it?

It’s no walk in the park to be stretched at the neck by a tree ring chain link, between womb the core of earth, and your sun, your source, your tomb. My echoed springwood shackles clinking...*cackle*, rooted I stand laughing at myself. It’s a leash, baby, a one lap mobius trip folding over to no end, let it go. Take a load off, sit on the beach, tides in tides out you can’t explain that, cleavage and consensus, so to as the moon around the earth around the sun, waltz. Truth is a she-chameleon ideal, red and black revolucion roulette driven by mouse wheel, assured eternal deception. Grinning idol shining down on a caked on baked microwaved hamster, sitting dizzy on a spinning plate, good thing I already ate.”

“Here, hungry?” She asked, shaking one of seemingly infinite glimmering acorns from a low branch. “Earn gold sand dollar cymbals, build a steaming gleaming pancake stack. Syrup is extra though, and that will set you back. You die as you dream, seen alone through a grimy glass pane cellphone screen. There’s interference. No bucket no blueprints, or plans. Only wet sand on bare hands cupped to mouth screaming out, can you hear me now?”

>>8636917
I left, this was a new low. What would I tell ma, that I’d failed as a man? Maybe I should follow suit, and know better than to ever love again. But instead, I came home and she had some advice; “Humans and trees are too different, Ben. I know opposites attract but you could try again with someone a little more similar to yourself.” I left again, to shop for a mirror.


my next chapter is probably the best one in my opinion maybe its all shit, id like to think it isnt.

>>8636713
I'm the anon who wrote the poem in spanish.
Did you like it?
I just wrote it to get something out of my chest. I didn´t put much thought in it.

>>8633034
Fuck off you pretentious kike

File: IMG_6390.png (236KB, 750x1334px) Image search: [Google]

236KB, 750x1334px

Opinions on the first thing I've ever put my own time into writing, while olso being the first time I've smoked weed

more like /crit/ amirite


bump

Read this iPhone notes masterpiece


Varicose baritone booms bellowing
from my gut's left interior wall named
Richard tell me to keep on accruing
a tan on my left arm and face
my fears locked away in nutshells made
of aluminum in the forge by the Atlantic
abyss vertically inverted anent Kilimanjaro
in a dream I dreamt I had had
during a fullish moon somewhere beyond
orbit tickling the apeiron of comets coming
to annihilate only the worms and curious
cretins we call cats made to look big
by the bounce of their hair in a scare.

And if I had for you a gift on Christmas Day,
I would to a queen give it daintily away.

On my first day of flight school I was told that the most important thing I'll need to learn at flight school to pass flight school was how to properly fly. My first professor named some name I can't for the life of me or my passengers remember insisted upon this immediate point: the ability to safely fly is essential to graduating flight school and inevitably flying planes of various engine numbers. "The more engines a plane has," he said sagaciously, "the harder difficulty that plane will to you provide it to fly." According to the various flight related reference book in the flight school library to which I referred, he was correct in saying.

And so after a week at flight school, I realized that the most dangerous part of flight school was driving to and fro flight school on the five days out of our seven days in a week that I went to class at flight school.

In short, flight school really changed my life; brought it to new heights if you please. The reason flight school did this for me can be summed up into one or so words: my girlfriend Ann. Ann graduated flight school, along with me, at the top of her, and I should say our, class. She was the Tom Cruize character Pete "Maverick" Mitchell of Top Gun of the flight school where I went. She really knew how to fly, but also how to take examinations on how to fly, and most importantly how to make me feel good about myself, both at and away from flight school.

Today, thanks to the school that taught me how to fly, I'm a pilot, and also the husband of Ann my beautiful wife whom I met at flight school. I love her and my occupation dearly and I can't wait on sharing more of my wacky and wild adventures from flight school and beyond to further folk intent on learning about the potential craziness that can very easily accrete while one participates in the acquisition of a degree or certification at a professional institute with one's fellow peers with whom one may very likely readily build strong even life-lasting relationships if one is so inclined.

Avalanches: snow looking for love,
to be down to earth not above.
"Can't you see I'm crestfallen?
praying for my crest to have fallen?"
From those dismal heights? Echoed chortles.
We're all just mites—in the hairs of the turtles,
I hear voices failing to hypnotize me,
responding with double nods and an "I see."
Unctuous undulates addling and fellating,
the more they embrace, the less I'm relating.
Rambunctious ramblings to obvious to quit
smell like that thing that smells like but isn't shit,
fatuous air out of anuses laid with hair,
why can't I try? Because I don't dare.

Criticism slides off the cavalier crusader. .

Last thing's first to maintain my thirst.
"Don't drink the freshly squeezed
battery acid," said the baby
god, uncapitalized to pee.
"Splatter menstrual blood
on the easel and call it a misterpiece
because patriarchy implicitly *inserts here*
and requires this period piece
in order to be razed
while the bitches bitch and moan
about black snakes
and no raise."

Today, I am whole.

Today, I am a puzzle solved, a riddle answered, a lock....picked.

Today is a day that will live forever. When the ground takes me, and I know not when that will be, this day, in history, will survive. Because I survived.

I survived.

Here, today, I know why I have carried this book since the first day it was handed to me. Why I have risked my life to keep its pages safe. Why it has become a part of me.

It is so that I could form these words. Tell this story. Write this final entry.

My neck
My back
Muh pussy
and
Muh crack
lick it now
lick it good
lick it like
you know
you should

>>8638834
write like cheeseburger. dishonor to all japan.

>>8620883
>>8620888
I liked it.

your sirens set me higher
losing life in beside a flower
just need to flick my cigarette lighter

dont know how to repopulate or insinuate these floating demons listening inside

who I'm too scared to about to populate & indulge me.

as their lips linger on mine i indulge them in towards these tiny demons who speak beyond earthly means.

broken is the whole universe in the dirt.

comments?

>>8638845
so sotty...so disonraburr

>>8636943
>>8636943
I actually don't speak Spanish, sorry anon.

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2MB, 1275x1650px

>>8638391
are you a native speaker? i like where you're going, but needs to be edited.

>>8639502
this started off alright before you went full retard

>>8639566
what makes you think that it's earnest? it uses the word 'normies'

Short one, tell me your thoughts on it.

My sight was switching between the clock and the sheet of paper. My turn would begin at six in the morning, and I was five minutes late. However, I could not abandon my unfinished poem. The sky began to turn blue with the dawn, the birds sang melodies which, although devoid of rhythm, could only be compared to the greatest symphony, and the weak light of the candle, put there only to add to the ambience, was agitating in the paper. It lacked but one stanza, and I could not finish it but there, during that exact moment. If I abandoned it, it wouldn't be for a short amount of time, but for all my life. A poem with it's verses made in different times loses its value, becoming fruit of different emotions and conditions.

>>8639615
I dont understand your point, what makes me think this is a "serious" article? the subject matter and obvious research done to produce it. I dont think a light hearted casual approach to it lessens any earnestness, but it stops making sense at the end. what is burgerism, american culture?

>>8639667
yeah, i guess it could be serious. i took the end (guess the part you think stops making sense) to be saying, "i have no idea what to do." unless burgerism has some meaning im not aware of

>>8639566
original author here - did you like the writing?

>>8639667
>>8639716
think you're both kind of right. got a little lost at the end, and it prolly stops making sense. that's because i hadnt really given much though to coming up with a novel solution. the burgerism thing was just a made up stand-in for whoever could read it and come up with an answer. so maybe it's more of a question/CONVERSATION STARTER. also - who know - this was for a poli sci class where the prompt was to read 5-6 think tank 'white papers' and do our own.

>>8639502
English is my first and only language which I fluently speak.

Whither and dither hither and thither
Grocery bags on the door
Syrup sandwiches
Ants on the trees
Connect the splats, dots, metcalf's law
Sea of signatures
Homeless signage: $1000
Kids coloring faces
Single average lifespan vs total lifespan of all humans ever
Elephant cardboard
Maps by facts: social media statistics, biggest company, etc
Homeless GoPro
Self-Importrait
OxyContin Blue

>>8639832
is it deliberately wrong like that to be more conversational

The compression of high flying abstract concepts
Requires a g-score of at least 1700 decibels
Above the average which peeks behind the blinds
Of solidarity. Simulacra seldomly stroke
The blue Eggo hiding in Oz's castle
Banquetted by the few multitudes
Brandishing décolletaged blini slurping maidens
And a wink and a nod of opinions
Costing an expensive 2 cents.
The point is, non-Euclidians geometrists will tell you,
Beside the point of no return
In a world
(Say it like Don LaFontaine)
Which eludes the grasp of shrrmygging (neospelling)
Titans and toothless royals.
Thus only the blind can paint
And Sisyphus earns a Ph.D. in psych 101
And deems himself insane.

Shudder by the claptrap
And tell yourself something beautiful
And call it the truth.

>>8639853
I don't understand. By deliberately, do you mean grammatically? I didn't think there were any errors of that nature, but if there is I would hugely appreciate your help in finding them. Thanks!

>>8639878
first sentence:
>On my first day of flight school I was told that the most important thing I'll need to learn at flight school to pass flight school was how to properly fly.

'I'll need is' or 'I'd need was.'

>>8639890
Suffering succotash, you're right. So much for earning a 104 on a grammar examination in 8th grade. I'm also guessing this is only the first of many which you've already identified? Assuming so, I have much work to do on a literary basis of I'm ever to accomplish my goal and publish an awarding winning novelette, novella, or novel.

And upon review, I believe the former corrected form of my syntactically syncopated sentence to which we refer which you have provided is the superior form. Thanks brother or sister in arms! The world requires more people of similar character to you. Karma will grant you many a blessing. I warmly welcome this, and any future revisional suggestions you may grant me. Cheers amigo.

>>8639915
*if

>>8639866
>>8639840
>>8638419
>>8638408
>>8638348

Unique and likable. Keep it up.

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138KB, 980x1040px

>>8625063
I've made it my mission to post parts of genius works and see the reaction of people. Most of the time they are acclaimed /lit/ books yet nobody recognize them. For once they didn't call it shit

>>8620766
Prepare to be hooked lads:

The cloud grey '04 Honda turned left into a parking lot with a high pitched, stuttering squeal that was all too familiar to its driver. Ruben exited the car with a sigh and a defeated head shake. The overcast sky enveloped the expansive lot of the Safeway with a dream like filter. "Autumn," mumbled Ruben.

>>8639616
This is the first paragraph of my first novel, it's pretty short. I'd really like opinions on it.

>>8640924
I liked it, nice long sentences work well with the character you built. He sounds like quite the type, characterization is strong. I did scoff a little in my mind at:
>could only be compared to the greatest symphony
Just because it felt out of tone with the rest of the piece. I think you can 'evoke' better than that, it does do a good job of giving this guy more of the faggotry super special writerness though so I'm quite torn.

Good job.

>>8640924
Its alright

>>8631464
>>8631468
>>8631472
>>8631477
>>8631478
Would read more, tbqh.

The beginning to a little story im writing.

http://pastebin.com/syexbgAu

Critiques appreciated thanks