New Critique Thread

Tell me whas good, Anons

http://pastebin.com/pWwNp6Fq

so far I only have the first sentence. pls give constructive critiscism.

>"I am skeptical towards metanarratives" said John Everyman

>>9152911
I would have to see another sentence. I'm so far in my literary journey that I don't give anything a chance anymore. If the first few lines don't assure me that the author is on the same wavelength or """vibe""" as me, then I don't read any more.

What about this beginning of a "poem" I wrote yesterday?

Like a blacksmith
sniff a whiff of the tradition's praxis
Scattered among the myths
of rage spilled like the absinthe
Wary becomes legendary
Battlefield
Cemetery
Smoke the chamber or hit the sword
against the heart of the adversary

>>9152888
You are quite good at describing the mannerisms of the characters during dialogue, but the overall theme goes so mundane and uninteresting for so long it's almost some Infinite Jest type shit

>>9152911
I honestly find this hilarious and I don't even know why

It was a bad day, like usual.

>>9152911
I like this first sentence. Really funny

>>9152888
>http://pastebin.com/pWwNp6Fq

>"It got to the point where even my mentors started worrying."

Does your audience know enough about the narrator's mentors to appreciate the surprise in this?

>Then they referred me to a professor in the science wing.

I know it's minor, but "then" could be cut.

>His office was just a cramped space like any office in the humanities building.
>just a cramped space
>space

Can you think of a more interesting word to use? 'Cramped' set my expectations for a short but effective description/metaphor, and 'space' let me down.

>Overstuffed bookshelves covered the other two walls

Since I don't know what the "first" wall(s) look like, I can't easily picture where the "other" two walls are in my head. You've told me what they look like - can you do a better job telling me where they are? I know it sounds stupid - its a tight space with walls. Where else would they be? But when 'other' is used to enhance a description, it typically follows another description. Maybe I'm thinking about it too hard. Just something to consider.

>The amount he moved could be considered nervous or anxious if he didn’t move so graciously.

Exchange 'would' for 'could'. 'Would' is more definite and makes the comparison absolute.

>“Well,” I explained, “Getting to sleep isn’t the problem--”

Narrator has said one word. That is not explaining. Perhaps "I started" or "I began" would work better. When it doubt, "I said" is a happy neutral. When I use speech tags, I only use "I said" during my 1st draft, even if I know I'll change it later. Doing so sets everything at neutral and makes it obvious when it needs to be replaced.

>“Right, right, it’s the ‘staying’ asleep.”

Why did the professor ask the narrator why he couldn't sleep if he already knew this detail?

Your prose is hyper-efficient, and the narrator sounds like he's "different", but not "quirky" or "try-hard". I don't know if I'll be able to critique the entire piece, but I'm definitely reading it.

Hope this feedback is useful for something. Best of luck to you in your revisions.

>>9153024
Nope

My own:
He snickered and flipped up his collar against the cold wind. He looked at the small boy and laughed, wiggling his finger at him.

"The web stretches forward and backwards, as if the sequences aligned themselves preemptively with
their soon to be partner!"

He gave the boy a lip splitting smile and laughed again deep from his belly.

"The system aligns and converges and intertwines and inverses ,diverges and emerges! Yet, at another
particular moment out of this chaos arises a perfect partner, a soul mate, a direct bijection to another perfect moment in 'time'."

He slid up to the boy and took a knee and lowered his voice so that the boy could barely hear.

"Through this bijection the "current" moment connects perfectly with something that has no reason to be there! Through the chaos we have deduced
without a shadow of a doubt, that between two consecutive moments the system diverges completely. All order is
lost. All measure and observation contradict and circumvent one another
Utter chaos in these sea of moments, until suddenly, for no reason, the next frame to "reality" emerges from the chaos and
"time" continues."

The boy slowly backed away as the man continued apparently unaware of the boy's departure.

"If only they realized the immensity and unknowability that hung between every moment.
The infinitude, the long stretching into nothing, like an unbreakable rubber band stretching on and on.
it goes without saying of course that I lack frame of mind. Experiencing, as I have, the near infinite gap between "moments"
I am stretched thin.

Attracting other nearby parksgoers with his yelling, people began gathering around the strange man in the yellow suit.

"I have experienced every moment, as have you, but it is only one my infinite other frames
of reality that I have processed. You set my tick rate too high, is one way I've always thought of it.
I am receiving when nothing is happening. When everyone is setting up the scene. Always being set up.
Don't think that I haven't seen the hidden pattern hidden among the chaos. Its directed nature
is of necessity of course. For the system to exist, this has to happen, there's no way around it."

Small groups of people stared in silence. The man turned to address his newly found audience
He let out one final laugh from deep within his core.

"We're considering necessary truths here, undoubtable completely.
Through my own experience I have seen myself do things somehow in line with
the continued impossible appearance of perfect steps along time. I see myself
say things but between the gaps in those moments I no longer, and in fact am continually removed
from all control of what I do. Not as though I could maintain control of myself. I am so apathetic
of these moments among all my other experienced moments that even maintaining any semblance
of control when these moments pop out of the blue.

So I apologize if I seem distant"

>>9153128
Really helpful stuff. I overlooked a lot of this as I wrote and I totally agree with you.

>>9152978
>it's almost some Infinite Jest type shit

I haven't read Infinite Jest, I don't know what this means. Care to explain in more depth?

>>9153576
Infinite Jest has long sessions about many of the mundane and seemingly vapid issues that assole the characters that are being focused on a said particular chapter. For example, your text reminds me of a chapter right in the beginning where the older brother has a issue with sweating while sleeping..

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r8 me bros (the Cuneiform says 'Inanna')

>>9152978
The blacksmith/praxis rhyme isn't good enough to warrant the use of such a strange an ill-fitting word

Battlefield/Cemetery

this doesn't feel good. too rap like, but in a bad imitation of Aesop Rock, so either work on it for another 10 years (i think his style might be worth it) or ease yourself into such a percussive and rhythmic rhyme.

I think you have something here though. I want to be clear about that.

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>>9153614
>tfw actually wrote that originally as a rap
I've been discovered

"Please Doctor," pleaded the man. "I need to know how to temper this fungus. The medicine does not work!"

"This is your mistake" the Doctor replied. "The medicine only allays the fear of the fungus, your fate is already unfortunately final. The best I can do is suggest a few brands of fine white white vinegar. If you care to listen to to the list?"

The man left the office feeling woeful and wronged and spit on the doctor's door handle on the way out. The man retired to his apartment across from the factory and slowly faded into the chipped paibt in the corner of the room; rotting and mutating into the obese lard of blue mold he was always destined to become.

>>9153638
well, if you are really interested in that specific style, study skelethon, not just listen, really study, because it's the only album where words like praxis fit in and feels coherent (and stuff like ZZZ Top and Leisureforce have powerful rhythms)

>>9153653
I've listened to Skelethon, and when I'm writing stuff like that it's usually Aesop, DOOM and MC Ride that end up being influences on the "rap" side of things.
Death Grips' "Black Quarterback" has some of this kind of language in a working rhythm as well.

>>9153669
Yeah, I love DG (Ride is the ghetto-Joyce as far as wordplay is concerned) but Aesop Rock is much closer to what you write.

notm is great though. and seriously, go deep into Skelethon, i don't think you'll regret it. don't be afraid to be a little autistic when studying rappers if they interest you. anyway i'll stop trying to force him on you.

>>9153702
No forcing, I like Aesop, and while I'm at Skelethon I should go for None Shall Pass as well, thanks mate

>>9153721
oh, here's another piece you might want to look at for rap in poetry (a very different, but interesting take)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/58056

http://pastebin.com/zft0AZfp

>>9153645
Loved everything except the last sentence.

tfw on too much speed at da party

1/2Winter Lanterns

There is no secret in nature. There is no inside. There is nothing left to discover.
Ichi was braiding some hair. The forcen was drawing some titties on a rock. We were surrounded by stoned and squallid water, and night was beginning to nibble, on our bodies and ids. My socks were nearly dry. The pink of the sky followed us back through the growth and stubble.
The lodge was waiting, but it could go on. Out here we still felt another kind of safe and sound, even in the starshadow, at least now having it to wrap around us instead of the terrestial superfacades of the city as it was before, always looming everywhere, whether you or one was within or outside it.
The ocean, seen from the newer or capital heights, had been the only frightening breath of it. Occasionally it came along as a scenting, or otherwise the surprise of a breeze, from without the walls around you. In the end it had delivered on its silent promise, and then delivered us here. So it was nice to keep beside us, as tenderly long as we could.
Down a few gardens from the lodge was the hut of the belly sage, where he'd welcomed us at the end of one of their otherwise mundane weekdays when we'd buckled ashore under the twigh light. There now was the sage and Biggie Balls, and a few other artists and farmers come out of their snow holes to have another end of their day. It was hard to make room for all of us; the kids all got caught gumming up the door lifting process, and falling into whirls. Still, pretty quickly there were beers.
Among the shuffling and sparse switching of chairs we sunk into chatter again. Bardock left his station and brought me a sink of pikes for a fondue nearby, and I knew immediately what he was propositioning to talk about.
I met him right away. "Have you seen Eileen?"
"There's been regeneration."
A cute something swaddled by in the thick, and Cat reacted immediately as well:
Opening the door above him; "That'll be a nickel, maam."
She did look him over.
"Well I wish I had a nickel then."
Unstably ironically; "Shucks-"
but just like god does, the traffic sent her away.
"You the doorman now?"
Sincerely angrily Cat: "Yeah and it's five cents bro."
Elsewhere: "She just spoke to me in four different languages and I don't know how turned on I am about it."
Finally, we fell upon a cold pillar corner and a hot table for our own, next to a dissociating Benzo & Brand.
"There's been several regenerations. We're still ministering like ever."
I was elated, but two lesbians were sitting on eachother too much too close to me. For the first time I sipped my beer, the first after the night, and tried to let some of the tethers sever themselves until I might reside along the booth something almost like comfortably. There was only an inside to the human world, and only ever things to discover.

2/2

On the boat, I had my hands up to my elbows wrapped within her blood and her feathers, prone together on the far keel. "I got my hands pretty dirty."
It was still the early stages of ministration, so she talked without moving her jaw, and from beneath her mask, still. "Yes, you did."
A must have been watching us. It had been a moon and more and I still hadn't moved. All we all did was only that capable with the sea, and where ever, and the only looks around in the end proving to be those early to see the urban leviathan and then its shadows slip away. There was no need to look at the all beyond that, all that we might have seen was sea.
And we didn't talk much either. But like our craft and us, conversation seemed no longer in any important way bound, and so stayed with us on its own course. Maybe it was the same day later that I went on: "The old man's dead."
She let the waves lollop a bit. Pressed against me. Pressed against me all the same. "You did it?"
"I'm sure...".
For the first time now the pressure of us came alive, became a pressing. Like a brief bed away from time she laid her head against mine. Yet all the same what she spoke was painful. "Oh, hunter...".
"I'm sure."
Then again came another of the familiar crashings across the hull.
"And we're alive... Oh, hunter." In some time more near a dream state later, she asked rigorously but lazily: "And we've left."
I said the affirmative. Again, she doted a bit, giving the ever new noises of the ocean space to breathe with her.
"Why?"
"There's nothing left." That was exactly when she kissed me. All over the course of the next few days, though occasionally it would slow to feel far and few between, she didn't stop. I met her mouth with my own or my face, or let it play and rest upon my neck. With the waves of newer and fresher ministration, her hands were able to explore more of me.
Snow fell above us. It never reached near enough to drink or mark us. Only by the time her hand found and then fell into a long rest on my thigh did we altogether concede to the need for something to drink. As close as it fell and as much as we had them out anyway, our tongues, like the horizon, were only staying bare.

Dont at all intend this as end just all i have

>>9153839
I don't like it much either. I wrote it very quickly, maybe I'll try again later

i'm keep feeling like anything serious I write is completely pretentious, so I made this
http://pastebin.com/vhdxEBS4

>>9153414
nice.

>>9153645
I like how the doctor tells it like it is

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plz bully

Hippity hoppity poppity poo
I've got a story I want to tell you
Hippity hoppity peppity pee
It starts with a man known as Stevie

>>9154645
I live in California and slurppies (or icee's if you aren't a pleb) aren't even that expensive bro

>>9154763
I'll do better next time pa

Don't you dare be gentle, /lit/.

http://pastebin.com/PmwZJbvp

>>9152978
>>9153036
Are you retarded?

>>9157017
Nah, he's young and he trying to get into literature.

We're all retarded in the beginning.

>>9152978
Pretty dank. What's your Soundcloud?
http://pastebin.com/vwu1xgke

>>9157036
I am too, so maybe I'm missing some of the genius of it.

Before you begin reading: I don't write at all. At least not creatively - I do essays and stuff all the time. But yesterday I had some sort of moment of creativity and I spat this out. I haven't read over it so watch out for typos and clunkiness. I'd just like to get some thought about how I'm writing.
A time and a place, him and him, to get their kicks. Together, they're often in love and they become one. They have known each other for so long. Well, all that they need to know. All the nitty gritty of other people's lives is trivial and boring, but the shapes and sounds we make at our most beautiful can make slaves of desire into slaves of men.

He loves you, darling, all over; your thighs, your ass, your...you're sweating. And then it's over.

What lies in our bodies stays temperate only briefly. The coldness of the room will breach its shattered walls and make a man shiver. So stop being naked; warm up a little bit, he'll think to himself. You'll need those clothes when you get out of that front door and into the frigid wind which will surely be gone by the morning. That's what the weatherman says. A dashing man indeed. Tells you all you need to know about how to get around.

The Traveller searches for love in all the right places. He's done with that app now. Deleted it. He's done with that website now. Deleted it. A date now, though, and that's holds nothing but hope. Ah, his picture was litotes. He can't take photos and he can't talk either. They're not so different, the Traveller and the Date.

Glances that last long become quickly carnal in his world. They fuck. The start of every good relationship. If only he had someone to keep him warm. Better yet, someone who doesn't make him shiver. He just has to keep looking, scrolling, sending. He's re-downloaded that app now. He's got a new account for that website now. To love forever is the dream but to love for the night isn't a nightmare.

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>>9157079
I really, really, dislike this. I'm sorry.

>>9157082
Thank you. Any particular reasons why? Tbh I actually just read over it after I'd posted it and I cringed at a few moments.

>>9157091
Its just so cliched.
The use of litote hurts, but not as much as the fourth paragraph
"the traveller and the date"
I shuddered.

>>9157122
Those were the bits I cringed at, among others. I think I need to take a look at myself.

>>9157140
Cool.
If you're going to write about hot steamy sexy stuff, write about it how you think about it. What you wrote is, I pray to fucking god, not how you would actually think.
I write long run-on sentences because that's how my ADD and stoned brain thinks. It comes out easier that way. Good luck.

>>9157156
It was not meant to be steamy and sexy. It was meant to be a more grim description of hook-ups. But the fact that you didn't read it as that is probably more a problem on my behalf.

The short sentence thing is because I've been studying a really annoying poet in college who has a similar style and I'm involuntarily channelling that.

Thanks for the advice in general.

This is a setup for a fairy tale. I know it sucks but I don't know how start it off better. any ideas?

Angelo Bevitore was by all standards living a comfortable and fulfilling life. That nearly all of it had come from smuggling liquor in and out of the dry city of New York was of very little consequence as far as he was concerned.

There was a reason people drank: it eased the nerves, warmed the body and made even the coldest and dirtiest gutter feel like a good mattress. Agriculture as a whole had been an attempt to keep the beer flowing, and in his opinion it would be shameful to have the rhyme without the reason. Someone had to keep the city soused as a kitchen sponge, and for the past seven years one of those men had been him.

It was a demanding job, and often called for long hours, crude methods and cuckoo ideas, but the pay was decent enough to bring him a life of modest comfort. He had a ritzy apartment with electric lighting and some well tailored suits, an automobile fresh off the assembly line and a beautiful wife; but as his key clicked in the lock and the front door swung open the treasure on his mind was his daughter, Eveline.

He wasn't sure where she got it – he had a hunch it had something to do with those astrology books she always spent her money on (or was it astronomy?) – but the girl had a knack for seeing things that hadn't happened yet. It was a talent that came in useful more often than not, and one he relied on more than he cared to admit. Mr. Bevitore was a practical man, and he knew to foster a talent when he saw it.

“Anybody home?” he called out, rapping his knuckles against her door. He was used to responses that weren't quite words – “uh huh”s and “mhm hm”s chief among them – but the whump and ruffle of toppled paper stacks was certainly a new one. With a sigh he opened the door, and found the room in complete disarray.

The writing slate on the far wall had been mantled with chalk scratchings from corner to corner, and even the blackspace and marginalia had been cannibalized to make more room. Mess carried over from the wall to the desk, and from then on to the bedding and floor The carpet was littered with scratch papers and charts, bare patches were stained deep with dribbles of ink. In the center of it all sat Eve by her wall, startled and suddenly quite aware of the chaos around her.

“Is there a non-crazy explanation for all of this?”

“The universe is expanding,” she mumbled sheepishly.

“I figured as much” he sighed. Eve shifted awkwardly in her spot, an obvious attempt to interpose herself between him and the section of the wall beside her. It was at that moment that he noticed the faint of crushed calcite.

>>9157546
I think your prose is pretty solid, it read pretty nicely for the most part.

I can't help feeling that what you've given us is a detailed dust-jacket description. You've condensed a ton of information into this page-sized introduction. I think you could afford to slow down the pace and really SHOW us more of what you've just glazed over with telling.

On the other hand, maybe you're trying to rush the intro so you can get into the fairy tale bits? Even then, I still think you could slow down the pace a little.

>>9157610
I'm glad you like it but I just can't start with this.It's just not right. I feel like maybe I can start off start off like a disney movie and open with an expository fairy tale and then transition to this, but I don't know if that will work

>>9157079
very passe writing, it's not very inspired, 3rd person monologue, plot, etc...


Here's my poem:


At long last, the weather dims
For the fortune of night,
The fear of darkness
Neither imminent nor polar
For the sun to rise
And the moon to sleep,
Ornamental rock in shallow river
Deeply passioned to praise
Everything about Valentine's.
The days rise with their boiling passions
The nights whisper their doldrums of whisper
Immaculately unseen, heavenly rose of days
Bounty breadth and being;
Have all the times gone
With serendipity and felicity?
If only it were true,
that you see both sun and moon
More than once in life
Together bundled under crimson skies
Whether they meet each other
For the fondue that spills out of such a date,
I would forever say myself of gratitude
And encumber with heavy weight
Resign to stare at the vista
In absolute vision, with no cause
To holy spirits which make me sigh
With signs that neither deviate
But meet in the background of our two
Stars, which beloved the conditions of crimson
Shine us to our fallacious envy
And beauty circumvents rain
For the rainbow which shines
The delicate love with alls heart
To see the sun and moon in one sky!

>>9157626
Tough call. Maybe you can just write the various scenes you have in mind and then figure out the ordering after?

>>9157546

I liked this. I'm working on a fairy tale myself. Here are a few things you may want to consider...

>it eased the nerves, warmed the body and made even the coldest and dirtiest gutter feel like a good mattress.

Consider killing either 'coldest' or 'dirtiest' for the sake of an experiment. Does removing the extra modifier help the sentence read easier?

'Eased the nerves' is a short statement, and so is 'warmed the body'. Ending this pattern with 'dirtiest" and 'coldest' may be more description than is necessary.

>but the pay was decent enough to bring him a life of modest comfort.

Nothing wrong with this, either. But could you improve it? Maybe. Consider killing 'was' and replacing it with a concrete verb.

For example - "but the pay bought him a life of modest comfort(s)." Since you list multiple comforting things next, consider making the singular 'comfort' plural.

> "He had a..."

Again, try killing these helping verbs where you can. Dig right in to the description.

Consider - "His ritzy apartment came equipped with electric lighting and a closet full of well-tailored suits."

'Well-tailored suits' is a fine description, but people use it everywhere. It isn't a cliche, but it doesn't paint a solid image in my head. What color are the suits? What kind? Consider researching the style of suit that was popular during Prohibition. Readers familiar with the fashion of the period will appreciate the facts.

Same goes for the automobile. Don't tell me it's an automobile. Tell me the make, model, color, etc. You don't need to go overboard, but there's room in these descriptions for more.

Hope this proves useful during your later revisions. Good luck!

Is http://pastebin.com/wyF4Kque a better beginning to a story along the lines of pan's labyrinth than >>9157546 is?

>>9157659
It's not bad, certainly not cliched and has a bit of a rhythm to it, if a simple one. That said, it's a little opaque, and this one line
>For the fondue that spills out of such a date,
just really does not fit

>>9154645
>>9154763
>>9154894
Is that really the only criticism you can offer me? Well... I guess that means it's either totally unremarkable or above reproach

I offered my pieces in the poetry thread, but no responses.

>>9135310

Kinda new to writing, so tear it apart.

http://pastebin.com/5Qd7GpsQ

>>9158478
is english your first language?

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>>9158494
Yeah, why do you ask?
Did I forget some important english rule?

>>9158515
No I just had it hammered into me from such a young age to avoid present tense that I was unsure. But read this by Gass: http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/gass-present.html

Also to be completely honest yourstory is boring and there is no linguisti diveristy within your prose. It's nice to see you trying to use big words and all but it's done so awkwardly and so strangely misplaced and out of rhythm with the YA theme (no offense) that I am unsure what your going for. It's kind of obvious that you just started getting into writing and reading and I'd recommend putting the pen down for a few years and dedicating your time to reading art fiction, expanding your vocabulary, paying attention to how you relate your subjective experience through language, and developing a sense of the rhythm of dialogue and language in general.

>>9158546
That's what I was afraid of, I have ideas of what I want to write, but was worried that I just recycle the same types of things again and again, throwing in random bits to make it seem different. Thanks for the advice, I'm fairly certain you hit the nail on the head.

>>9158068
thanks anon, I felt so too

http://pastebin.com/aJY2xxBi Before anyone tells me that name at the end is stupid, please realize that I didn't make it up. It's a creature from Algonquin mythology

>>9153900
I'll be honest. You have my interest but I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to be picturing. are they camping? If so why are they having fondue?

Your writing style seems really rushed, with a mixing of tenses and some strange descriptive choices. I think this has the potential to be something but you need to refine your ideas and get everything clearly written out on paper

>>9158578
don't listen to someone that tells you to stop writing (do keep reading, especially high brow stuff in the language you want to write in)

How does /crit/ feel about plagiarizing a scene?

I just did it (from a pretty popular series too) and feel really shitty about it but I literally didn't have any other way for that scene to go

>>9158868
there's a difference between telling someone to stop reading and telling someone that they have no idea what they're doing and need to do some research. Obviously do what you please but pretty much every writer will tell you the same. But you know there are so many painters and directors who have no clue about the history of their craft... but writing is different

>>9158915
it depends on how closely you've followed the source material

>>9159003
It's pretty down to the letter, is it noticable >>9158861

Let me know what you think, /lit/. The opening sentences are copied below. If you think the rest is worth your time, the pastebin link is at the bottom.

There were two reasons the spider was never accused of poor bedside manner. The first – she conducted her patients' surgeries from the comfort of her own bed. And when your rear-end was the beginning of all things luminous and voluminous, you needed plenty of blankets and quilts and pillows and other such soft things to keep it comfortable. During their operations, her patients experienced a conflict of sensations – most of them marvelous, a few of them malevolent. Physical discomfort was not one of them.

The second reason her patients kept their opinions to themselves - the real reason. The spider was mad.

>And when your rear-end was the beginning of all things luminous and voluminous, you needed plenty of blankets and quilts and pillows and other such soft things to keep it comfortable.

I think this is one of the weaker passages. Can this be salvaged, or does it need scrapping?

http://pastebin.com/PmwZJbvp

>>9152884
“That’s what I don’t understand about live music,” says Harry, pinching his nose’s bridge, leaning back into his seat. He draws an American Spirit from the pack in his front pocket. “There’s this enormous emphasis on non self-consciously ’losing yourself’ to the music, like an opportunity to temporarily shed your day-to-day ritualised inhibitions and instead just fucking dance and be carnal and free.” Harry attempts to ignite the cigarette but his light keeps sparking out. “But it seems to me everyone, at these concerts, claiming to lose themselves, is just trading one set of inhibitions for another.”
Rex’s eyes are trained strict on the road. He exhales/inhales slow/heavy. “If I fall asleep,” he says, “or if, at any point, it appears I’m on the verge of falling asleep then, please, light and stab that cigarette directly into the back of my head.”
The cigarette is planted firm between his teeth. Harry crosses his eyes on the lighter, holding it beneath the cigarette’s tip, waiting for the right beat when the road turbulence to ease out. Fucking moles, he thinks. “People nod their heads at concerts. They shake their heads left and right.” Cigarette bobbing up and down, he mumbles all of this. “Am I supposed to believe this is some natural, instinctive response to music or are people merely emulating what they’ve seen on TV? What do you think? It’s the latter.” Now is his chance: he clamps down the light. “Easily, its the latter.” He enjoys a long drag.
“Could be a chicken” - yawn - “egg sort of deal.” Rex’s left eyelid winces in quiet agony.
“Maybe, maybe, But there’s always the one guy with his arms folded, nodding his head, smug half-grin in tact. There’s always like four of those guys. That can’t be some carnal thing.”
Rex’s stomach sinks. The sky is navy blue headed straight fo for ink black. He can’t see any sign this road, this road he retrospectively very wrongly assumed had been named after some local anachronistic colloquialism, is going to let up anytime soon. Who’s to say Julian Assange even has their diamonds? It’s probably an elaborate ruse. Still, there’s no going back. It’s like waiting a real long time for the bus; yes, it has been twenty minutes but if you leave now then those twenty minutes will have been entirely, absolutely, resolutely in vein. Tobey needs their help. He would do the same for Harry and Rex. He has, in fact. Those signed blu-rays count for something. If moles believe in God, thinks Rex, then they must take this 2017 Cherrolet Silverado 1500 Pick-Up truck as a sign God is not happy.

>>9152911
Stealing Family Guy jokes are not the way.

>>9161437
Seems like you're trying too hard to be Kerouac. Also your obsession with the tactility of smoking really bothers me, as a former smoker. Fuck man, just like the goddamn cigarette and stop thinking about it. Which is to say, I think there's way too much description of cigarette smoking. The character development is also a little quick, it is fairly apparent that Harry is one of those guys who folds his arms and holds his smug grin intact, while Rex just loses himself to the music in the way Harry derides. Also, what kind of road is full of mole hills? I know it could be that you're using temporal alienation, but why are the bumps in the road mole hills, of all things? Couldn't they just be rocks?

I am sick of this new trend in the media of 'strong female roles' in movies. all they do
is come off as insincere and condescending people that you want literally nothing to do
with. It really made me reconsider courting and marriage.
If all women act like this because it's 'popular'
then they can go stuff themselves all they want because no reasonable man will
ever come near them.
I can only suspect the weak and of low self esteem to be attracted to these types.
and of course the women will reject them because a man with low self-esteem
is unsuitable, and any woman would choose a stable man over an emotional wreck, to spend
her life with.

The men that know how to respect
themselves will not come near a haughty women, because seriously who has the time of day?
Even if she'll be attractive enough they might try to find a way to deal with her
snobbish remarks long enough to sleep with her, as I understand such a women will
never deny an offer as most of these conceited females are desperately lonely and
in need of human connection. Then of course after the deed is done the man will
leave them right away, in search of a
more understanding and caring companion.

You're just creating desperate lonely confused women who don't understand
what they are doing wrong, as they follow all these false instructions from Hollywood
blockbusters that always end with a happily-ever-after romance.

Pour yourself a stiff drink to ease your troubled mind
It helps to pass the time around, pass it around yeah

Pour yourself a stiff drink to easy your troubled mind
oh, and trouble you’ll find around, find around here

beat down

Pour yourself a stiff drink to ease your troubled mind
Oh, and no one will mind if you, mind if you’re around

Insignificant, you will never find no
No you will never find someone, find someone

Pour yourself a stiff drink to ease your troubled mind
You’re a waste of time, she said

I'm a waste of time, and I know you’re right
I know you’re right, I know you’re right


(i'm not lit and it's obvious and i suck at writing, this is for a song and i was wanting super strong criticism to fix it please)

>>9161603
I don't know how to write songs, prob don't have the ability ,but this one seems pretty self loathing and self deprecating. those songs usually don't work with people they think your coming off as a woe is me kinda guy. but I'm not qualified to criticize something I've never done. I guess the whole thing I'm getting at is the material world's problems is only the surface of the truth behind our emotional issues. dig deeper anon maybe you find gold idk.

>>9152978
Do you have skype?

>>9160198
Scrap that shit. The rest is actually pretty interesting, a little cute though. Definitely enjoyable. The payoff (she was mad) was a little dramatic for my taste.
>>9157659
Beautiful diction, has the seeds of interesting metaphors, as guy before pointed out the fondue line is pretty meh


Do not be gentle, first thing I've written since the age of 12

They say of Theodora that her father tamed the bears,
And, bottled there inside your father, rained that royal will.
Rending autumn's monarchs from their thrones to sleep, his trill
Called out their names 'til winter's winds left them their waters bare.
They say of Theodora that men understood despair,
When words left your pools unrippled, without a dip in depth,
When no aural machinery could steal breezes from your breath,
When sons of kings found themselves drowned, dethroned, ensnared.

They say of Theodora when she called the royal name,
Rivers wore down pillars until the palace washed to shore,
And with the palace gates now bowed five feet from your front door,
You split your skin to show Justinian your noble claim.
They say of Theodora when her king was overcame,
By oceans new clad green and blue, storming in the square below,
Shining from a silver column, you told the tide to flow
From writhing crowds to Justinian, setting him aflame.

They said of Theodora that, despite all those who swooned,
Her greatness was too human, her beauty too diseased,
But yours knows not the soft erosions stolen by the sea:
You make ponds of absconding oceans, and puddles of monsoons.
What they say of Theodora, from lovers lips maroon,
Will drain away with every tongue that finds her royal name,
And ousting it from where it perched, your own will there remain
As future lovers try to tame the subtleties of its tune,
As fishermen try to net reflections of the moon.

>>9161831

...not a blues fan then?

How does lit handle it when the writing is just coming out forced? My prose is just awful today but I'm finally getting it something interesting

Pls no bully

“This is weird,” she said aloud as she examined the foliage, “too weird. I've never seen anything like this so why does this seem so familiar?” The realization hit her at once, and she rushed to sit down among the gnarled roots of a grape-shrouded alder. She retrieved the book she had read on the train and leafed through it until at last she came across the passage she was looking for, which began with an illustration of lightbulb-spangled tree.

Across all wooded continents, Eve read, from London to Zaire, there exists a manner of geographic anomaly known as The Unseen Gardens. According to legends collected from a diverse range of cultures both civilized and primitive, in nearly all ancient forests, swamps and jungles there exist a pathways to a boundless region beyond space as we know it where all woodlands are said to meet.

Eve tossed a butterscotch into the air and caught it in her mouth. Sometimes seen as sprit worlds or witch-lands, other times as untamed wilderness or forbidden paradises, these regions are said to be inhabited by all manner of strange and mythical creatures. She picked another from the jar and again tossed it upwards into her mouth.

Paths through the unseen gardens seldom conform to intuitive rules of space and time. Traveling through them, one may find that three right-hand turns will return a traveler to the same location along some paths, while in others as many as eleven or as few as one would be necessary. Retracing your steps is not bound to return you to your starting location, and may lead to other continents or time periods entirely. Some theories even propose that the certainty in one's location is inversely proportional to one's certainty in their direction and speed.

Eve tossed another butterscotch into the air and held her mouth open to catch it, but after several moments of waiting the candy was nowhere to be seen. Eve picked another from the jar and tossed it into the air. Just as it reached the peak of its arc, the candy blinked out of existence so abruptly it appeared to have never existed in the first place.

“Well that's even weirder.” Eve remarked before tossing a handful into the air above her. If she had thrown them in one at a time she would have never seen it coming, but as the candies scatted, Eve caught sight of something – or lack of something – too quick for any other pair of eyes to process, The center of the mass of butterscotches was swallowed noiselessly by the void, and the void was a messy eater. Crumbled sugar dust formed a disk around a moving point, but in no time at all it circled inward and disappeared.

>>9161966
It's actually pretty good, but your rhymes are pretty sub-par, as is the scheme in general.

>>9161603
lyrics are really hard to critique without actual music or rhyme schemes behind them. That said, it's pretty depressing for a song about going out drinking. It's at the very least and appreciable twist.

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>>9152888
>She let her head fall back on the grass in defeat. And then, she got up and crawled over to a shaded area, her thick rump inviting me to follow. She let herself collapse again in the shade. In her state of weakness, I began to interrogate.

>>9162092
Who knows. I keep discovering about myself, over and over again, that the parts of my stories I feel awkward about, and that anyone who reads it finds retarded or unlikeable, are the parts where I start forcing a plot/outline (often just for the sake of tying up ends or instilling coherency). To the point that anons in this thread only focus on those parts and ignore saying anything about the parts I actually think are good.

I guess you have to just keep at it and figure out what feels most natural for you. Sometimes, while I'm writing forced/gay shit, part of my brain knows that what I'm about to write is so unsurprising that I find myself thinking "oh boy here I go again with this shit." When I don't do that, I usually end up producing things that I feel good about.

>>9161489
Reminder that anyone on /lit/ who uses the "you're trying too hard to be X" should reconsider posting their criticism.

I think you are prose is good anon

>>9157659

very pretty language although it feels somewhat contrived w cliche phrasing as well

>>9161491
cringe but i cant tell if thats the point or not

mine:

It appeared overhead
The invisible force expanding

Applying for a job and hoping you don’t get it.
“If you’re hungry it’s ok to eat out,
Even if you know you shouldn’t”
Familiar faces get up close to you,
And move passed you.
Dragged around unconscious by a daily routine,
with scraped knees,
found moaning in a parking lot.

The concrete pulls apart from your face,
like laying on a glass table,
and being carried away into grace.
It doesn’t matter what it is,
outgrowing atmosphere

>>9162675
You have to admit it seems very obviously like an homage to Kerouac. Also, "I think it's good" isn't really criticism of any variety. And did you read any other part of my post?

>>9161941
why you ask?

>>9162724
Yeah I'm being pretty obtuse with you on purpose.

I hate Kerouac and would have been the first to call him out, but I didn't immediately think of him when reading Anon's excerpt. Of course you're entitled to the opinion that Anon's writing sounds like him, I just don't think it's very helpful to tell someone that. We're all amateur writers here for the most part, so its a given that we're going to sound like the authors we've been inspired by the most--but Anon will never be Kerouac no matter how much he tries, so I just get buttmad when people use the "sounds too much like X" critique. Especially when most of the /lit/izens here's mental library equates to half the "/lit/ recommended books list" under their belt, I too often see people pompously making unjust comparisons (not making assumptions about you specifically, kind of just venting at the board culture in general at this point).

But if Anon consciously was emulating Kerouac then fuck u Anon cut that shit out.

Also
>the character development is also a little quick
I don't have a retort to this, just wondering why you think this is a bad thing

>>9162724
>an homage

It's 'a homage' with a fully aspirated 'h'. Why is it that there's something so inherently pretentious about American speech?

>>9161489
>>9162810

I have never actually read Keurouac though I do appreciate the feedback. Thanks guys.

>>9161831
yeah i don't know how to write songs either

i don't know how to get any deeper
>>9162341
i do have a recorded version on my phone.

i cut it off before the waste of time part, maybe it's better that way.

>>9162810
It just sounds to me like his pseudo-stream of consciousness style, e.g. "He can’t see any sign this road, this road he retrospectively very wrongly assumed had been named after some local anachronistic colloquialism, is going to let up anytime soon. Who’s to say Julian Assange even has their diamonds?"

The problem with developing your characters too quickly while employing this style is that one of the main strong points of this style is that it belabors, obfuscates, and generally makes more interesting the development of characters' psychology. If you point it up too quickly, you lose one of the best parts of this technique

http://pastebin.com/RDGV1kBy

Haven't really wrote anything before by myself. Criticise freely, I won't be offended

http://pastebin.com/ZDPdLesu

this felt natural to write, so i feel pretty good about it, but i'd love some feedback on what to change and what you guys think works.

>>9162341
In what sense are the rhymes and scheme subpar? I'm not trying to imply that they're good, I literally just don't know because I've never really written anything before

Darbara Grubbum and Allitard Grubbum went to the store to buy some tampons.

Here's one of my first attempts at prose. I'm aiming for this to be a short story. Any and all advice welcomed.

http://pastebin.com/SS4KYK5p
>>9152888
I like your use of dialogue. It's a little cliche, but it still feels very natural. It carries itself enough to where you don't need any lines describing their inferences and tones. Your opening is interesting enough to keep me reading, but you make certain places or people seem important or ominous without much context so it's hard to be certain and to feel the weight of the implications. Keep writing and keep practicing, you're doing well.

>>9153614
I'm sorry man but this is just too aesthetically try-hard. It's clearly well thought, but it defeats the simplistic beauty of poetry by forcing it to be pretty.

>>9157546
Your prose is very nice to read. Make sure you check your punctuation though, as you have it here, there are a few punctual errors that trip your flow. I agree with what someone else said about it being a little opaque. Definitely, definitely keep practicing, you're already pretty good.

>>9163270
Run-on structure serves to heighten the notion of "sensory overload" well, sorta had a spaghetti story vibe 'til the end; stereotypical autist would have been traumatized and never gone to a 7/11 again.

For fun; composition time: fifteen minutes approx, thought put in: approximately zero, one draft.

On a black sand beach
Where the white seas crash
And no sea gull's cry is heard
The sons of Tyre did beach their craft
And struck the stone with word
Upon that grim volcanic isle
A column they did raise
To fish-tailed Dagon's glory
And inscribed his songs of praise

Two-thousand years and more went by
And not a ship did land
For who would berth their ship upon
some dim Atlantic strand?
But hence I spy a man o' war
It's provenance British Naval
It's captain is a tasteless chap
But fancies myth and fable
He sites that ancient monolith, and soon as he is able
With hammers knocks the stele down
And takes it for a table.

bumping >>9162341

>>9163294
I think I may have misspoke. it's not bad per se but you have a number of rhymes that just don't line up properly

>bears
>bare

>despair
>ensnared

>diseased
>sea

>swooned
>monsoons

also, the ABBAACCA scheme is a little dull but maybe that's just an opinion

First two stanzas of what I'm currently writing. Not title yet.


This is a catalogue
of pieces from Ingrid,
whose head was found
toothless and bleeding

in a ditch in the mud,
by a rock near the sea.
Gently caressed
by the froth from the ocean.

>>9163083
I like the premise and your writing isn't terrible, but it does need work. First off, try a more sober approach to the tone of your writing. Its a bit too verbose as it is, and makes it seem pretentious. The introduction is quick, which works, but it could be smoother. Instead of telling me the heat hasnt given up, show me. Is the asphalt melting? Are citizens experiencing weird phenomena because of it?

Secondly, try not to repeat yourself. The word sweltering is pretty heavy, and to use it twice in the first paragraph makes the text feel bloated. Every sentence and word counts, you can be flowery and articulate, but don't use filler.

Thats kinda it. Revise it, expand it, get it done, keep writing.

Powers, bro

>>9164173
uh huh
bleeding should be replaced with bloody, since death stuff doesn't bleed

how can she be in the mud in a ditch and simultaneously caressed by the ocean?

>>9163498
sounds try hard

>try harder

>>9152888
Nice Dialogue. it feels natural. If done right it could carry itself
>>9153645
I liked it. but the Last sentence just doesn't seem right.
>>9157546
Solid prose, bit opaque for my taste but that's beside the point. keep practicing and improving.

Here's mine to critique.

Chapter One: William

Bushes, leaves, and trees. Nothing but those three covered the scenery in which William; a foot soldier of eighteen grew tedious, but for reasons he kept to himself was anxious. The village peasants, the superstitious fools from the village complained to the Lord about a “monster” on his land, a ridiculous notion for the lords' land had been peaceful in recent years.

Nonetheless, William called it an opportunity, and smiled when he along with seven others were to search for the monster. None but the leader of the group had ever seen what a “monster” looked; although none have ever heard of monsters besides the tales their mothers’ told at night when they were children.

The lord’s land was nothing more than three fields, one for spring; another for fall, and the last was left to fallow. There was also a pasture for all the peasants’ animals to graze. The Woodland was to feed the pigs and a source for firewood. The village church between the pasture, and the homes of the peasants. There were two water mills to grind grain, one fulling mill for finishing cloths, and the village blacksmith to create or repair any farming equipment.

The land was not the sort filled with hidden riches, it contained no gold, no magical trinkets, or anything that can be called higher mysteries, nor was it plagued with any creatures, bandits, and demons, comparing the lord’s land with other lands, it was rather normal. But this is what made William anxious, while the rest of his group laughed and jape. He asked himself a question: Why would any monster come here?

>>9163518
>I'm sorry man but this is just too aesthetically try-hard. It's clearly well thought, but it defeats the simplistic beauty of poetry by forcing it to be pretty.
if i remove the cuneiform and put the name in English, would that work? (i want to keep the reed hieroglyph)

>>9164184
Thanks for the great feedback! I was trying to avoid using 'sweltering' twice but apparently another one slipped in there

I'll try to incorporate your recommendations in my writing in the future.

Have a good one mate

>>9164735
It's your poem. I'm telling you as someone reading your poem that I don't like it. Others probably won't also. But if you love it for what it is, don't change it. Just take the notes you receive and utilize in another project, one you want more public acceptance of.

>>9164939
Look bro, I'm just trying to get a more specific response than 'aesthetically try hard'. That way I can look at the specific issues and see if they're taste or genuine issues in the verse. I'm not gonna turn around and write like bukowski, but I do want to be conscious of why you dislike it specifically and whether or not I should disregard it.

>>9165010
I specifically dislike it because I don't believe the aestheticism there does anything to help the piece. There was a poem posted in the poetry thread that tried doing something like this, but much better. It was about a tree branch splitting into a claw/hand with no water/waterfall. It was simple, aesthetic, and the structure helped emphasize the imagery. Yours doesn't do this.

>>9165030
Hey! I wrote that one too. So is it more the two psuedo-haiku that function similarly to that previous piece that bothers you, or the concrete elements?

>>9165041
It's the concrete elements. The aesthetics in this piece really don't feel like they do anything to aid in the progression or imagining of the imagery depicted. They more distract, especially the glyphs, symbols, and lines. Then when you divide the two, it becomes utterly difficult to read, and I find myself rereading each line from each side to try and find a semblance of the rhythm before, but it's a chore. When I read, (and when most people read, poetry, it's that flowing and effortlessly imaginable experience that makes a piece great. Not trudging through dense swaths of aesthetic imagery to get a glimpse at the idea.

>>9165095
Thanks for the feedback. Does it influence your opinion that it is effectively a 'canto' in a longer WIP? Does it just multiply the issues? I'm not happy with cuneiform and plan on just spelling it in English (Inanna).

>>9165041
Unless you're talking specifically about the other two haikus and not the song of moss, the other two haikus do not generate that vivid imagery that I got from the dividing bough of life and death. You either lucked out or what, but you captured that exact essence I was talking about in >>9165095. It was easy to read, the aesthetics disrupted the flow a little, but the concrete and depicted imagery synced well and created a simple, meaningful image. The others did not capture that, again, primarily by there being too much aesthetic. But also because they didn't resonate like the hands did because they didn't have such immediately relateable symbolism.

>>9165111
Inanna is a beautiful word, much more accessible than cuneiform. Without you telling me, I couldn't even begin to guess what it stood for. This is piece that I personally would never finish reading if we're to continue. Too dense and abstract for me to comfortably follow, and the aesthetics definitely contribute to that. But like I said before, by all means keep writing it. It means something to you and there's always someone out there who will certainly appreciate it

Still handing out critiques. Bumping this though, still need some advice.

>>9165262
I meant to quote this >>9163518

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>>9153645
I read this as though it was a rhyme more than an actual story - I just couldn't help it!
"The medicine only allays the fear of fungus
Your fate is already unfortunately final"
It's so bouncy.

A Fairy rummaged in her side pocket while delving deeper in an encampment.
Mud, blood, wood had intertwined; when all was meant to be quiet there still came a solemn whistle like one from an alley beckoning you to come closer. The landscape lay barren – moulded, charred life was litter; the trees acted as further extensions of the soil and death, hands reaching out from hell with ashen webs between their split fingers.
A rat ripped from a skull and began to pick at the eyes.
The Fairy gave a stare: lowering herself; an object from the side pocket took her grip.
Overhead, bullets streamed back and forth with torrential force, tearing uniforms, wetting the land greatly. Artillery: steel-black; booming.
The Fairy drew her pistol and though she herself stood six inches, her gun miniscule and the bullets even smaller, they could still charge through bone, pass and neutralise any living mind were the shot to hit its mark. She shot: the fire spurts out, a celebration of what was to be an assured demise; the rat’s jaw split open like a pincer; teeth fell, limbs too; the body sagged to one point; the fire ceased and a quiver flowed through the rat. It raised itself then sprinted in her direction.

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Critique pls

>>9153614
I really like the characters in this. Don't listen to the other guy, Leonard Cohen did similar stuff.

>>9165555
I wouldn't trust this guy's input considering he can't read very well.

>>9165555
quads

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I would like to stadi bliad. Literature is my horse that I ride on furiously, truly men. Proust is my whore, Wallace my lover. From windows and from dores, I explore my friggin sores, mi pores, mi shores. Wash my black-eyed-pea-ness out of the soul with study, study hard. Begging, I just keep on begging, BĖGING jaa, bėging towards the future of an illusion biatch. I am Freddy, the son of Dave the great skulptior. I am in need of knows and not-knows, a trek for my stars, the star to my death. Give me Beckett, give me Gass, let them in my underpants. I just can‘t get them out of my head, but their loving is all I think about. Give me Shmlana, Shmlouna, Shmle, put some Celine in my head. Nazin non-nazi, frigaddils on that bitch, kurva. My eyes are glassy, my souls is vino, purr me some catsoup and give me some texts, texts to flex my mind powers and language skillz, Flesh out the being of my inner britney, of the sore tooth, the sore baldwin of my james. Teach me how to muse like musil, how to hem like ingway, how to carthy my mc. Flung out the leftovers of camus from the stomachs of my gods. Suck out the flickers of joyce-light flight night kurva. fleece it mother, fleecce it like you mean it by the ball, by the small of my gaddis. Vomit like the tolstoy of my future me. Let me break my mind on stuff, shima dima hotline bling. Flukes and shit. Favor the guy with the double-chin, the fat albert, the round-glasses jhin, the guitar-flicker mother of the father of young werther. I BIRTHED kafka, gregor my child, threw him out of my carver-like hole with some remnants of rembrant biatch. I bleed words that rhyme with orange. I shit bricks that look like shit. My money is on me, for I am the hive in the hive mind, the douce in the rouse behind the greats. I am what made Pynchon pinch on my corduroy jacket, I am what gave dubliners the charm of death, for I am death biatch, u need me and my humongous mindpalace to bon-iver you out of existence, my dears. You will be died by the hand of the handless if you don‘t hand me the possibility of ORBITING around your greek minds that think acock, if you please. Put me through to the other side of your cubist business, fume out the disease of steinbeck and let in the one that will trample on the backs of friggin mishimas and other well-known fathers of two. Bitch, i am the person of you, you need my kurva-ing as much as you need your murdering, murdering the minds i mean. And when I mean, I vollmann-mean, I shoot out borgeses and calvinos out of my eyes with my gazes and frowns, with the grandest grandieur of the mind that makes other mind only littler kurva.

Crit, I have to completely re-write a huge portion of my novel but it's not even close to done. Do I finish it first or change it now?

>>9166730
If you're going to change anything, just make sure to save a copy incase things go horribly wrong.

I can't really speak on this. Maybe you can outline the rewrite and just keep writing the new stuff so you don't spend too much time on the rewriting? I guess it depends on how you like to work as a writer.

>>9154645
Stop spreading misinformation

>>9165981
Is this a lithuanian version of clockwork orange or something.

>>9168043
Perhaps, why do you ask?

Is the thread dead?

>>9152884
Something 4 bully pls:

In the days that you stood on my other side, in the days that the strangers carried away captive your force and gleaming, you carried them away from me with yourself and left your captive standing in my feet. Foreigners entered through your door, and left me standing on the other side as I was made as one of them.

But I should have looked on that day not as the day that I became a stranger, neither should I have thrilled at the brightness you held out in the day of my destruction. Neither should I have thought proudly of the day as a siege on my being. Neither should I have stood in the crossway, to cut off those that did escape their worthiness. Neither should I have awed up those heroes that did remain in the day against my wildest yearning.

For as we have drunk upon my open heart, so shall you drink continually, with all your new company. They shall drink too, my agents of distress, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been. This adoration shall not possess their possession.

>>9153414

This is interesting to me.

I gather this MC is supposed to be some sort of tragic time veteran with the unknowable pain of experiencing consciousness in a non-linear / hyper dilated fashion?

I'm slightly confused though, if this has any effect on MC, will it be one of finality? Thrill betrays inexperience. He would have given up trying to explain it to others. He would find no wonder in the prison. What would he say after knowing he can never say anything about it? I feel like it's slightly contrived in the sense that MC wants people to know somehow how unbearable / intangible his perspective is but if he is unable to cope in any way he would have been mentally broken down by it "eons" ago.

Is this scene that mental collapse? A final grasp at being understood?

>"....So I apologize if I seem distant"

MC seems to be teetering on the brink of madness but unwilling to give in to the truth he fears, trying to explain it away as something else in a way he can maintain dignity and recognition. Why would this matter to him in light of such an immense burden?

>He slid up to the boy and took a knee and lowered his voice so that the boy could barely hear.

Why has he started explaining himself to a child? Having so much endless time to think one would expect him too be more aware of the futility of words and simply try to entertain the boy instead of dumping his entire existential pain onto him so that he flees.

Hope I'm helping. I choose yours because it is interesting.

>>9168541
Well nobody really critiques, they just post shit and lurk until someone cries their shit. Then people like me hand out tens of honest critiques giving good advice and then don't get anything back, so then the people like me leave the thread, and it dies.

>>9169277
Which is yours?

>>9169292
I didn't post itt because I don't trust crit threads unless I'm one of the first posters. Why not just critique ones that haven't been yet until the thread revives?

>>9169292
And see? You would rather let the thread die than take some initiative. If these threads weren't just people trying to get jerked off, they would honestly flourish. But they get abandoned and die when people don't get their nut. The people who need to share their work here need to work together, because all the other shit posters and threads that don't give a fuck about these threads aren't going to bail us out. But cmon, you've got to want honest crits and to give honest crits. And if you can't give honest crits, then you should be studying and practicing your technique before you're posting asking for happy endings. But I'm not going to sit and try to keep each of these threads afloat by giving honest advice with nobody else helping yet complaining about a lack of handjobs coning their way. With the extended metaphor here being that I'm not gay but I'll do some favors for favors in return. But you'll obviously take that for the literal instead, and shit this thread to the archives.

>>9163518
>He's always believed that living in the nation's heartland, when the cold, northern winds blow down and over his home they bring with them a natural freshness. A freshness that carries away the lingering aroma of local bullshit.

I felt that the two halves of this sentence don't mix well together if they're meant as one person's thoughts. For me it sounds like two voices instead of one (e.g. "northern winds blow down" vs "lingering aroma of local bullshit")

The second and third paragraph about his house is nicely written and paints a good picture of the surroundings.

The fourth paragraph was very confusing however, I like the idea of the narrator explaining that Neal doesn't know that his thoughts are being listened to but the execution could be better, these two sentences especially were off-putting for me:
>Of course, you being here is only thanks to me.
>This man's life is brimming with irony, isn't it? I couldn't be happier with this.

All in all I quite like your style overall but this text feels like a mixed bag and lacks a cohesion or a more uniform voice throughout, but I think there's plenty potential here.

>>9170904
I will say that I kinda should sound like two voices? I was going for the narrator to emulate Neal's voice a little to reinforce that it was Neal that always believed it. I did originally begin that who phrase as one sentence though:
>He's always believed that living in the nation's heartland, when the cold, northern winds blow down and over his home they bring with them a natural freshness that carries away the lingering aroma of local bullshit.
I will agree that certainly keeps the voice of the author. And I only changed it because I thought it did the opposite! So good to know that didn't work.

I did enforce the ego of the author by throwing in direct remarks for himself on purpose to help reinforce the fact that he is a character in this story. And that he keeps interrupting the flow of language from Neal when he is proud of himself for thinking of it. I know you don't like that as it is, but if it were to develop into a full fledged story that had good reason for it, and wouldn't always be as constant, do you think it would be redeemable? Because there will be entire passages without breaks dedicated to the characters involved.

"...neither an anatomy nor a physiology, but a semiurgy of
contusions, scars, mutilations, wounds that are so many new sexual organs opened on
the body. In this way, gathering the body as labor in the order of production is opposed
to the dispersion of the body as anagram in the order of mutilation. Goodbye "erogeneous
zones": everything becomes a hole to offer itself to the discharge reflex. But above all (as
in primitive initiation tortures, which are not ours), the whole body becomes a sign to
offer itself to the exchange of bodily signs. Body and technology diffracting their
bewildered signs through each other. Carnal abstraction and design."

Thoughts? I'm going for "grisly Jewish pseud"

>>9171353
You got the pseud part. Otherwise the person speaking here is fucking annoying, so if you wanted that, you got it!

>>9170045
I know the feeling. I've met a couple guys on here that I've been friends with for years now, so I just send my work off to them instead lel.

I think it takes a certain kind of similar mind to know the intentions of your writing and how to encourage those intentions. The few guys I trust to read my work have plenty of criticism for me, but they also can see where I need help, instead of just doing a shallow review of my diction and grammatical errors.

On the other hand, /lit/ can be a good place in that your work is gonna be seen by a cold audience who owes you no favors. Sometimes you get fags who just want to shit on your work for really gay pedantic reasons, but you also get a genuine reaction from someone who can read your work without any preconceived notions.

Anyways, to respond more to your point, I really think there should be a /lit/ chat room where people can get to know each other and form productive relationships. Unfortunately though most people here are really gay and think it's somehow attention whorey to post emails or whatever.

>>9171818
Yeah, that's just the worst part. I give advice about how to portray the image or idea posters are going for in their stories. But usually when I get advice back it's that: my language is purple, some sentences don't sound right, punc is off, doesn't sound right, I don't like it, so it's bad--But here's mine!, please give me excruciatingly detailed crits:
>poo bah doo
>doo pah foo
>ruba dub
>you're a shlub


...but it's better than nothing.

>>9153645
Doctor telling it as it should be. Anymore you care to share?

>>9153900
>>9153906
Going to level with you. This caught my attention, but I am uncertain at what am I supposed to think. are they out in the woods for the night? If so why fondue? wouldn't it make more sense to eat something more on the campsite of things.


Take it easy and slow. The way you write seems really rushed, with tenses all over the place, the way you also describe things seems rather strange.

This has Potential, however you need to make it more clearer, write it a few times on paper or on whatever you are using so you make everything clearer

>>9157546
I know this is a setup for a fairy tale. But, you have a chance to make a weird-ass prose drug trip that could be really fun to read.

>>9153645
Love that last line especially "obese lard of blue mold"

An accidental peek
"Midnight Twilight"

A telepathic howl?

Didn't think you were into that
Lead lunar eclipse

Clandestine constellations
Alleviate the soul

There once was a boy named Pingalus Dong. He was a very sexy boy. His horse-dick was posted on many websites, even though he was only five years old. But his dick was so huge that the government lowered the age of consent to five. No one could resist the massive penis of Pingalus.

One day, the evil ogre of the west decided he had seen enough of the Pingalus Dong dong. He was jealous and angry, so he put on his loafers and g string, and strutted up to the Dong house hold.

*knock knock knock*

Pingalus answered the door. "Hello my name is Pingalus" said Pingalus. The ogre said, "Boobala bahbala boobala bahbala" and struck Pingalus on the head with a mighty blow from his battle axe. Pingalus died
The end

>>9172402
If you want to be critique. Critique someone's else work

>>9166730
Save what you wrote. make a second copy or third copy.

>>9172405
are you retarded?

>>9168650
This is the shittest thing I have ever read. Stop writing immediately. Even your critique is shit.

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.


What do you guys think?

>>9173211
>no critique
Nobody but nobody doesn't think you are a faggot.

Only once Endeavour Airways Flight 14 began its final approach did Sam Shigeki remember his mouthguard soaking in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide some 250 miles away. His body language suggested all was well – any sign of something amiss and his manager Roland Kolb would sniff it out like a hound in the hunt.

The navy pillow wrapped behind his neck was more comfortable than most, but still he failed to sleep. Instead he lay dormant, eyes closed, mind racing, a perfect statue of middle-class jetsetting. He could hear Roland shift listlessly beside him as well as the clatter of his dangling earphones and the softly muttered “shit” that escaped his lips during a bad patch of turbulence. The plane tilted during its descent, and Sam’s stomach followed suit. He wondered when he should shed light on the mouthguard situation.

The passing minutes edged him nearer into nervous calamity. Once, when he was seventeen, he turned too quickly into the garage and mauled the right side of his mother’s Corolla. In that instance, he thought back to his eleventh year, when he received two B’s on his report card, GPA plummeting to a humble 3.67. During that period of turmoil, he recalled striking his younger cousin in a particularly irritable moment when the two were left alone. On each of these occasions, Sam felt a pull to keep silent, to continue those few peaceful moments before the truth inevitably spilled out. And he felt it now.

They landed without issue.

The crowds at McCarran International seemed thin for the time of day. Sam was perhaps used to Los Angeles, where 3:30 in the afternoon meant five miles took fifty minutes (freeway time; local undoubtedly took longer). Claiming their luggage was a brief affair, and soon they stepped into the Las Vegas heat. Even in a t-shirt and with his messy black hair stuffed under a beaten cap, Sam suffered the sun and wondered just how Roland could sport his button-down and cardigan, lightweight or not.

“Dress for the job you want, brother,” he said. “Not the one you have.”

“What job do you want?”

“Mine, but in a higher tax bracket.”

>>9164690
I like the general monster-hunter story. However, you misuse semi-colons but I honestly don't like them in prose anyway. Stylistic choice though. It also seems like sentence two has two thoughts but you leave the first (describing the scenery) for the second (William growing anxious).

>>9165555
Lose the apostrophe on "her's"

>>9153645
I like it my guy

>>9173211
>>9173296
Honestly, don't critique anyone else. What you wrote is very bad, and you would probably not give good advice.

>>9157659
avoid colloquials.

>>9154645
work on the hand writing

>>9163498
this is too post-modern. it might've been interesting in the 00's.

Here's what I wrote

http://pastebin.com/CpYdeLHF

It's truth mixed with absolute hyperbole.

Tell me what you think, how can I make it funnier and less hackneyed?

>>9173310
Actually really enjoyable. It's got some subtle comedic elements. Frankly I'd like to know a bit more of the context. The cut to the landing was a bit abrasive, which may have been what you intended, but overall I'd probably read more.
The following is Something I wrote a couple years ago when my Grandmother passed, just some thoughts I had about a month later. Pretty rough and unedited.

The wind of the night, whistling as it carried the weight of the world and the sanity of my mind, died down and with it my peace. Thoughts rushing back to my head, cluttering it as I desperately listened for some distraction to reach me, some sweet sound to come to my rescue and whisk me to a place of serenity.
But my timing always seemed to be off, and as I sat brooding in my desperation and fear of the future I realized that even if that distraction should come, it would die away just as soon as it had a thousand times before. I sometimes envied the able to find joy in the everything around them. The true realization of this came to me, I think, at the death of my great-grandmother. We were close, though had grown away as time went by. I was 22 and spending time with her just seemed so… lonely. It’s tough to describe spending time with someone as such, but it seemed that we were just different people. I assumed that most people had felt the same with her, or perhaps I just hoped so for my own sake, but I knew that it wasn’t true. Where I had found relaxation in isolation, she found it with the crowds. I retreated through life, constantly hiding; while she advanced ever forward to face her fears.
She passed away well into her 80s surrounded by family that loved, and friends that adored her. At her funeral I watch as people showed up. It was a small crowd, but each one of them grew to love her. Each speech filled me, overwhelmed me, as I pondered a single thought. What would it be like if I was in that casket?
Not too deep of a thought, as I am sure many have it as they go through their lives, but one that hit me regardless because I knew what it would be like. A pond of strangers, people I loved but didn’t quite know.

>>9173633
what a punt bang

>>9173636
It's shit right?

>>9173636
Also I don't understand that terminology.

>>9173647
no, it's not.
it's just that common classification wont pay for ozone

>>9173653
you'd have to switch supplement to do so

>>9173659
I'm lost. I'm unsure of what you're trying to say here.

>>9173665
Its merely a jest that grows more infinite

>>9173310
>Shigeki

Unless you're actually asian, this reeks of fedora.

>>9171299
>I did enforce the ego of the author by throwing in direct remarks for himself on purpose to help reinforce the fact that he is a character in this story. And that he keeps interrupting the flow of language from Neal when he is proud of himself for thinking of it. I know you don't like that as it is, but if it were to develop into a full fledged story that had good reason for it, and wouldn't always be as constant, do you think it would be redeemable?

If you think you can manage to pull it off in a way that feels natural to you then I think it could be good.

Is the narrator however supposed to be introduced as a character at some point in the story? If so, then I'd maybe refrain from revealing his opinions about Neal too fast but little by little throughout the story.

That's just my two cents, keep on plugging man and stay true to yourself in your writing.

>>9173211
Do you listen to the band Deerhunter? This is strikingly similar to the lyrics of their song 'Sailing'.
>>9162709
I do not like the middle section, the message seems a little forced. I think the last section is pretty strong though.

I do not have much experience writing poems or writing in general. I am pretty new to this. Here is a poem I wrote in 10 minutes about having a 'oneitis'.

Her beauty only quenches parched eyes
Who are unable to hear my heart’s cries
For a love requited, and non platonic
Eyes who only see my heart’s manic
Deceive my desire to look beyond
She who I have come upon

>>9173296
>>9173346
Kek it's actually from a Maya Angelou poem

>>9174605
Well it would probably sound better then not as an excerpt but the whole piece, wouldn't it? Can't be surprised. As it is it does honest read kind of clunky. I'm sure it is actually a great piece then, but as you've given it, it couldn't have been known unless you've studied Maya.

>>9152978
As poetry, it's garbage.

As a cipher to spit on a beat, it's superhotfire.

>>9174630
It's not, it's titled "Alone"

I didn't know a thing about her until recently and it shocked me that she's so revered when she didn't write any novels or any good poetry. You can see for yourself if you'd like.

>>9157659
>No verse
Not a poem.

>>9165981
>Proust is my whore, Wallace my lover.

This is where I decided I would stop reading.

This is also where I decided you should stop writing.

>>9173211
>starts poem in Trochaic dimeter

Holy kek

>The entire second line is a spondee

>Where water is not thristy

x x - - x -

What the fuck is this? Spondee, Pyrrhic, trochee?

Bad just bad, do you know how meter works?

It's not quite hard to write in proper verse.

>>9174652
I'm sure it's that whole "great for her time" dealio with a little(lot) bit of dick sucking on the side.

>>9174701
>>9174652
>>9174605

>>9174724
What

>>9174293
What if I'm half

>>9176100
That poem is a Maya Angelou poem, not a random.

http://pastebin.com/KDSuAkKe

This was written as a submission for a Liberal Arts essay competition, the subject matter was the usual Gandhi's how-will-you-be-the-change-you-want-to-see et cetera. Thought I could bend around it, ended up writing this. This was awhile back, a friend showed it back to me and I absolutely hated it. I'd be glad to receive some ideas about it. Needless to say, it didn't win.

http://pastebin.com/sr5eK0d8

>>9176379
Glad it didn't win

File: jessica (54).jpg (156KB, 886x602px) Image search: [Google]

156KB, 886x602px

http://pastebin.com/WVsVJ41Q

Can someone read this for me and help me edit it? Basically I really like one of the characters from this game Contagion, she is my waifu and I am in love with her, and I found some friends to play with it and I promised them I would rewrite my fanfiction for the game so they could read it. I started out trying to write this trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at1yHOVitHg

Can you guys help me edit this piece? I just finished writing it, have barely done any editing at all. I want to write a serial series and try to incorporate all the maps from the game but the trailer barely makes any sense.

I know this is real fuckin autistic and weird but please help me.

>>9153799
This looks like a /b/ post, no offense.

>>9153900
This is nice, missing something but I really like it. Also the third person description and the "we" feels a bit misleading, The second line has some really good parts. It reminds me of James Joyce but actually readable for a pleb like me, so that's good.

Give me something more concrete to grab onto in this narrative, and I think it would be really good. I love the imagery.

>>9176841
So man. But this is to Autistic even for me

Any way to create a Google Doc anonymously? It'd be handy if /lit/ could nitpick my writing via annotation rather than posting in the thread.

As an insomniac, I usually fall asleep between 5 or 6 a.m. I don’t think it’s too bad though—not getting any sleep, I mean. The so-called “silence of the night” isn’t as quiet as you’d think. When the sun gets to that point in the sky sometime slightly as I’m drifting into an unconscious state I can hear the world outside my apartment begin to wake up. Especially my upstairs neighbor Pat. Fuck Pat. I can hear him running on some sort of treadmill above my head by the time I can finally manage to fall asleep, the kind the hyper health conscious, juice cleansing, modern “people” machines that everyone seems to use in my complex. Thank god it’s not expensive to live here, though. My guess is that it’s trendy to be poor now or something.
Anyway, as I was saying, the nights aren’t as silent as you’d think, well, at least last night wasn’t. I heard a commotion outside that ended in a muffled yell and broken glass. Not being the kind of person that goes looking for trouble, I decided to listen to what would happen next. It was silent for about an hour until all I could hear were the sounds of sirens around my apartment and the shrill voices of bystanders that were trying to come to their own conclusions about the incident.
The paper the next morning said that a woman was murdered in the alley

>>9177631
your style is expressive but not obstructive or clunky, and it has a nice rhythm
idk; i like it

>>9177214
You can't

http://pastebin.com/cg93ZVLT wrote a short essay on Shadow of the Colossus, let me know what you think.

File: Untitled.png (189KB, 322x311px) Image search: [Google]

189KB, 322x311px

>>9152884
>I wrote this when I was 12. Literally. Pic unrelated.

CHAPTER ONE : THE ORPHANAGE

Clang clang clang! Went the bell in Sim state orphanage, if you could call it an orphanage, it was better
described as a child concentration camp. Not so much death though. There were only eighteen kids
there, and not one of them was older than fourteen. Some of them had been there as long as they could
remember, others had come after their parents had died in an accident.
The oldest resident, JP Jurassic, had been here since he was one month old. He had been dropped on the doorstep with a note. All the note said was that his parents loved him and his initials were J.P.
Since the note said nothing about his first name or last name he just called himself JP and the orphanage director gave him the surname Jurassic, because she was mean and liked the movie Jurassic Park.

>>9178709
Its shit and you should have deleted this to spare us

a very short short story

please pay special attention to my wording and grammar. english isn't my first language and i just wanted to know if it is passable enough for writing basic stuff.


i counted eleven dead cats that morning.
not that i cared. i hated those entitled creatures.
what made me pause was that they all were laying on the boardwalk. i always thought they hide when they are about to die.

my mind was occupied with laura anyways, so i quickly forgot about it.
yesterday, she was at my apartment. we made sushi. and then we fucked. which was worthy of mentioning since it was the first time we slept together.
it was ok. not mindblowing, but nice. i didn't expect anything else. i usually take a while to get used to someone to feel comfortable enough to actually enjoy sex with them.
i came too quickly and she not at all. i apologized when we were done. and then was embarrassed about apologizing. but feeling a warm pussy was good.

i only thought about the dead cats again, after rob mentioned them at lunch break. or better, he mentioned the dead dogs he had seen. which caught my attention.

"what dead dogs?" i asked
"well, when i left this morning, i saw at least three of them. it was weird. they were just laying on the street."

i didn't tell him about the cats because humber entered the room. you don't talk about such topics when humbert is around.

on my way home, i caught myself looking for more dead animals. there were none. i also bought a newspaper, just to see if there's something in it about the cats and dogs. but i found nothing.

i had plans to go for dinner with laura later. somehow i couldn't wait to tell her about the weird incidents i observed today. that was new. i never was someone that liked to discuss the days events. or so i thought. maybe i just never had someone who's input i valued.
i decided to not keep at this line of thought since i'm prone to rush things and scare girls away by being "too intense". whatever that means.

my walk came to an end and i rummaged trough my pockets for the keys. as always, the door was locked. paranoid mrs. baskil...

when i opened my door, the dead cats and dogs rushed trough my mind as i saw laura lying in the entryway. i knew at once that she was dead.

>>9152884
http://pastebin.com/0pWkgH4h

First thing I ever wrote. Feedback encouraged and appreciated.

>>9179335
The wording and grammar is fine. I couldn't tell that English is not your first language. Your story held my attention and was strangely riveting.

>>9178709
Obviously you could expand on this, but there are some decent ideas that you could work from with this.

>>9178691
it's alright for a game review

>>9178709
i hope you made some progress since then

>>9177631
i liked it. just the part about the sun and the world waking up was too clichée.

>>9179463
>The wording and grammar is fine. I couldn't tell that English is not your first language. Your story held my attention and was strangely riveting.

thanks! that means a lot to me. if you could change something about it, what would it be?

>>9179480
I'm not exactly sure what I would change because I don't think I could do something like this.

Your story moves very fast. It feels like I am in someone's head and we are moving through a place with lots of corners and I am seeing something new every couple of seconds. The story has a very creepy feeling like I am reading a creepypasta.

I guess I would want to see the ending expanded upon though.

>>9179522
neat! that's exactly what i wanted. i like fast pacing and i want the reader to feel like the prot doesn't know more than he does or vice versa so he's always on paying attention and not drifting off during boring passages.

i also tried the ordinarity of the day in general to make the weird parts even weirder.

i can expand it for you.
give me a moment

>>9179522
here you go.

just a little expansion

tell me if you want me to go on
've played that trough in my mind before. finding a dead person. i always had a strange fear, but also hope, to one day stumble upon a body washed ashore or hastily covered in leaves.
i fantasized about my reaction. would i panic? throw up? or keep uncommonly calm.
i could never answer that question because i had never encountered death closely.

now i have. and i can finally answer it. i'm keeping calm. calm might not be the right word. petrified maybe. i probably had an adrenaline rush because time seemed to move like cold honey. i can't say how long i just stood there and looked at her. i remember noticing her shirt had hiked up a little and revealed her smooth belly. the same belly i've let my fingers glide over just hours ago.
for a moment, i was tempted to lay down beside her and see if it would feel any different to touch the same spot now.

>>9179611
You might want to change:
>the same belly i've let my fingers glide over just hours ago.

Fingers that "glide" over flesh is extremely cliche.

Other than that though, I am really liking your style.

>>9179782
i actually changed that from tongue to fingers because i found it a bit too "wet"


then i remembered that i should probably call the police to avoid getting into troubles.

it felt the same as that one time i had to remember my lines for the shitty school theater our teachers thought would "broaden our horizont".
i was nervous, afraid of saying something wrong and appearing suspicious. and because i was so anxious about acting suspicious, i acted very suspicious. the only thing that kept me from panicking was that i hoped that everybody having to report finding a dead body feels the same and that the officers cut them some slack.

they arrived quickly and when they interviewed me they asked if anything unusal had happened that day. i obviously made a weird face at that question. because the officer raised his brow and made a geste with his pen that meant "go on, i'm listening".
now it was too late to pull back. it would have been too suspicious.
so i told him about the cats and dogs, expecting him to think i've lost my mind.

to my surprise, i saw a millisecond of shocked facial expression. he quickly pulled himself together again, but i knew what i saw.
now i started to get uneasy.
and that was the moment the loss of laura hit me.
all of a sudden, i was very sorry for myself. god damnit! i finally had found a girl i liked and that seemed to like me back and now she's just gone. i gelt sorry for how unfair life treated me. i wasn't sad, i was frustrated and angry! all the plans i had with her, all gone.
punching a wall seemed like a really good idea.

Why should I protect the environment
From peril by human hands
It is nature’s fault
For creating the only species
That does not want to be here at all
If anything
The earth deserves to be destroyed by humanity
As punishment for its mistake

>>9178691
I never played the game, but this reminded me of reading game reviews as a kid and being excited.

>>9180188
Thanks, that's high (yet modest) praise.
>>9179465
What do you think I could improve on? I'm calling this essay finished but I've done a few already and I plan to do more in the future.

>>9177144
okay ignore what i said about it and just rate it for the trashy genre fiction it is.

>>9179987
/pol/ tier

I'm making slow progress. Less that 600 words today. But any progress is still progress. I wish I had more dialog to write. that always goes so much faster

“You are being tested,” Eve repeated to herself, “and the first question is What could be?” The kugelblitz was important, that much was certain. She wasn't sure whether the fly's own properties were something significant or whether it only meant as much as the test did, but someone – R. (whoever they were) – intended her to capture it, and if she wanted answers she had might as well play along.

Eve squinted carefully, scanning the canopy for any dust or distortions. What she was looking for was small, and it neither reflected nor emitted light. Invisible it might have been, but she had seen it. Even if only through slight refractions and leaf devils, the thing was detectable, and if she could find it, she could catch it.

The loam beneath her feet was loose and dusty like ballpark dirt. Eve reached down never once taking her eyes off her surroundings and scooped up a handful of fine soil. Something in the periphery of her vision flickered, and she tossed the dust into the air, kicking up a cloud of rich river silt.

It didn't take her long to spot it; a gap in the air no bigger than her fist. The dust whirled around it like a dervishes cloak, orbiting and curling inwards until it disappeared behind a lens-like veil. Eve leapt at it jar-first, pouncing like an exterminator who forgot the roach spray back at the office. It darted nimbly and Eve landed in a crouch. Without hesitating she swept the jar clockwise, but again the basilisk fly flickered outside her reach.

The dust was thinning now. The ring about the kugelblitz had all but faded, and unless Eve squinted it was all but invisible. Every muscle in her body tensed, coiling like a python being sucked through a silly straw. The last wisp of dust disappeared behind the basilisk's event horizon, and then Eve struck.

Something thumped against the inside of the jar as the lip clamped over the ground, and in the ripple of grass blades inside, Eve could see a tiny ripple bouncing back and forth across the inside of the jar.

>>9179987
edgy, arhythmic, and just poorly done in general.

>>9179335
it's funny how the people who learned english as a second language are always better at it then than the ones who learned it as a first. top notch work. My only criticism is that you use periods in a few places where commas or semicolons would be better. remember, good punctuation might add nothing, but bad punctuation can take a lot away

>>9181812
What is the proper way to use semicolons? How to use them?

>>9181910
>What is the proper way to use semicolons
join two or more ideas (parts) in a sentence, those ideas are then given equal position or rank.

Pretty sure there was another anon, who did that here

>>9179463
>http://pastebin.com/0pWkgH4h
You're a very creative writer. Decent prose too. Is this part of a larger work?

Mike went to work early that morning. He had grown tired of lying awake in his bed. As he parked his car and walked across the lot towards the station, he took occasional glances over his shoulder. He peered into the dark corners of the shrubbery and buildings of the surrounding area. The man had him very high strung, but he kept his cool. The last thing Mike would do was show weakness to anyone.
As he entered into the foyer of the old and aging police station, Mike’s eyes wandered around the open room looking for anything out of place. The purple tied man was careful, but he was also unpredictable. It would not surprise Mike if he were to make an appearance at his place of work during the day. The only person in the foyer was the elder secretary, Mary. She sat behind her desk in the center of the room, reading a thick book.
“Good Morning, Mary.” Mike flashed the elder woman a smile. Her eyes glanced up from her book.
“You alright, Mike?”
“I'm fine. Why?”
“Nothing, you just look really out of it.” The secretary redirected her attention back to her book.
“Alright…well, have a nice day,” said Mike as he left the foyer. Now self- conscious of his appearance, he made his way over to the bathroom.

>>9181910
hard to put into words. Semicolons are used when you have two sentences but the second explains the first

>And now a man who needs no needs no introduction; this guy
>here's what you do; first, you stick your dick in it

n the tight bathroom, Mike stared into the mirror above the only sink. Through the grime of the mirror, Mike could see a blurry image of his appearance. Mary was right. He did look out of it. He looked like a zombie. His eyes had bags upon bags. They were small slits that could barely stay open. Mike’s skin was an unnatural pale color. It was the result of his mental distress and lack of sleep.
He could not walk around the station like this. People would begin asking questions. He splashed some water on his face, but it didn't do much. Mike still looked awful. Unsatisfied, he left the bathroom and hurried over to the break room. Coffee would be his last saving grace.
It being so early, the break room was quite barren. It was always barren regardless. The small white room only consisted of a fridge, some cabinets, a sink and a coffeemaker that rested on a wooden table on the back wall. Today, however, the room felt particularly empty. There were only two other officers in the room, talking about last night’s game over a cup of coffee. As Mike walked in, the two men waved to their boss. These were some of Mike’s closer colleagues, Pete and Jason. They wouldn’t judge Mike on his off-putting appearance. Perhaps they would, but they wouldn’t think much of it.
As the officer’s continued to conversate, Mike approached the coffee maker on the back counter. He grabbed a tall mug from the overhead cabinets and poured himself a generous cup of caffeine. After pouring some creamer from the nearby fridge, Mike joined his colleagues. They created a small triangle in the middle of the room.
“I’m surprised to see you boys up this early,” remarked Mike, taking a long swig of coffee from his mug.
“I’m surprised to see YOU up this early. It looks like you could use a few more hours, Mike,” said Pete.
“Yeah, you look like absolute shit today,” added Jason.
“Well, atleast I don't have to look like shit every day,” Mike quibbled. “Let's just say I had a long night.”
“Oh, I know what you’re saying,” Jason said, giving Mike a wink. He held up his coffee as if to say “cheers”. Everything was an innuendo to him. It could get annoying, but everyone at the station seemed to get a kick out of it.
“Fuck off, Jason” Mike responded, trying to conceal a grin. Pete and Jason were entertained by Mike’s quick temper. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Well, why do you look like a walking corpse then?” Pete asked after a sip of coffee.
“I caught a late movie last night. It was long as hell. Didn't get home til past midnight.”
“Yea, what'd you see?” Pete asked.
“Pulp Fiction.”
“The one with Sam Jackson? How was it?”
Mike thought about the question. He was trying to recall the details of the movie. In truth, he had seen it a couple weeks ago.

>>9181812
i just woke up and your critique already made my day.
you're right about the punctuation. i've reread the text and there are definitely points i could leave out completely.
could you tell me specific changes you'd do to the punctuation to make it better?

my critique for you:
this was surprisingly capturing.
there are two things i'd change though. firstly, you wrote "all but" in the same sentence twice. i'm not sure if you have done that intentional (as stylisation), but i stumbled over it when reading. you did the same thing with "ripple".
i know i do that sometimes too, and if i do, it's intenional. if it wasn't, maybe change up the phrasing there.

i laughed at the exterminator that forgot the bug spray (although i'm unsure if a professional would use a spray rather than one of those tanks to wear on your back).
you generally do a lot of analogies, and good ones at that.
but somehow it struk me as a bit of an overkill.
although, it helped with creating a visual imagery of the chase, but in some instances the pure description of her actions would be enough to do that.

also, why do you care about how many words you wrote?
that seems like a trap to start blowing scenes up unnecessarily just so you can reach your daily quota.
why can't you write the words you meant to write and be satisfied with that?
do you have a deadline?
does your book need to have a certain volume before you're happy with it? why?

>>9181910
use them to join independent clauses you want separated by more than comma but less than a period

>>9181934
What makes a clause independent? >>9181928 seems to be saying that they are dependent.

>>9181921
>>9181929

that was good.
my suggestion would be to change the first sentence. it's a bit blank.
also, imd not describe the police station as old and aging. one of them is more than enough.

if the mirror was grimy, it's obvious his reflection will be blurry. you can erase blurry without losing anything of the sentence.
does mike actually call his colleagues boys? why not guys ot just "see you up so early"?

overall, very enticing. i want to know what mike really did that night. which is a good sign

>>9181933
>there are two things i'd change though. firstly, you wrote "all but" in the same sentence twice. i'm not sure if you have done that intentional (as stylisation), but i stumbled over it when reading. you did the same thing with "ripple".

oh jeeze, thanks for catching that.

>but somehow it struk me as a bit of an overkill.
yeah, I noticed that as I was writing it but I hoped the thing about the silly straw would be funny enough to forgive because I liked it too much to cut out, but if I'm overdoing it I think I can save that analogy for some other time.

>also, why do you care about how many words you wrote?
I want to feel like I'm making progress. This story is so much bigger than anything I've ever written but there's still so much more left to go. It's a little overwhelming sometimes.

In regards to the critique I gave you, here are some points that could use it

>not that i cared. i hated those entitled creatures.
semicolon
>we made sushi. and then we fucked. which was worthy of mentioning since it was the first time we slept together.
commas
>it was ok. not mindblowing, but nice.
semicolon

>i only thought about the dead cats again, after rob mentioned them at lunch break. or better, he mentioned the dead dogs he had seen. which caught my attention.
looking it over again, this line could actually use a bit of fiddling. I don't think "Better yet" really works in that case

>>9181963
meant to write "bland" instead of blank and "would not describe"

damn phone and also very early

>>9181971
> funny enough to forgive because I liked it too much
i'm a bit torn too. as i said, they are good, just a bit much in such a short time. maybe try if you can incorporate it in a different scene and if not, leave it where it is.

if you still love every word you wrote, i see no problem with habig a daily goal. just don't start overstuffing your scenes to reach it.


those are very good pointers! thanks a lot.


would "or rather" work better in that case?
it does seem a bit odd.

writing that out to see how it feels

not that i cared; i hated those entitled creatures.

we made sushi and fucked after, which was worthy of mentioning since it was the first time we slept together.

it was ok; not mindblowing, but nice.

does that look better to you?
i'm unsure about the semicolons. i don't usualy use them so they don't feel natural. i can see their merit, but they seem so ((formal))

>>9179987
A very dark and cynical thought which has no weight put to it with what you've said here. You're doing that "short lines for emphasis but no rhythmic or symbolic purpose" dealio which is like a beginner poets tick. Really this is just bad for a poem, and underwhelming as an idea as a whole. Try prolonging it into a prose based short story and you might make this decent. Keep working buddy.

>>9179335
I liked this simply by it's strange yet oddly attractive nature. You wrote well for a non native English speaker, but there are some tells which hurt your overall form. You use great word choice and the story was able to followed well even with the (I'm assuming intentional) lack of explicit details pushing the story on. You do have a few short and punchy sentence strings in there that would read smoother if given commas in between some of them. Not that punchy sentence grouping is bad, but where you've done, it doesn't emphasize the idea being portrayed and it ends up pulling me out a bit. Otherwise, this was great and kept me interested, wondering where it was going to go If you don't mind me asking, was there an overall idea/message/thought trying to be expressed here? I think I missed it if there is. Or is it purely an entertaining read?

>>9178709
I guess I can say that if you didn't say you wrote this when you were twelve, I would've pegged it as written by a 15-16 year old. So that's a plus, you wrote fairly well for a youngin. Have you kept it up? How do you feel about your form now? Got anything to post from recent?

>>9177631
Pretty good. An interesting opening that, if there were more, would certainly keep me reading. Very relateable (the insomniac part), so I could feel a relation to the overall experience, which is great. Just try editing a bit before posting. You've got a few commas that should be periods or semicolons. Which I know you're trying for stream of consciousness thinking here, but it still would help the overall flow to punctuate a few of those run-ons differently. Just my two cents. Like I said before, it's still great.

>>9181998
Whoops forgot what I wanted to post. This is the start of a section of larger piece I'm working on. I'm interested in how the idea comes off and how well the rhythm holds. I'm playing a lot with subtle progressions to my rhythms and I worry that sometimes it's too much, like here. Thanks in advance:

Of Mind: (Fragment)

Stillness of mind.
Devourer of the sky.
The caller of flesh to return to stone.
Voicing nothing, claiming nothing.
As tendons render into bone.
Knowing nothing, feeling nothing.
Simply minding one of home.

Liveness of mind.
Impregnater of the sea.
The usher of flesh to return to water.
Knowing all things, stating all things.
As bone stretches until tender.
Feeling all things, forming all things.
Fully minding one of other

>>9181997
or rather works. also, keep an eye on that last period. a lot of the punctuation stuff can actually be written off as the character's speech patterns, but keep in mind that we do read those periods as a half-second pause

>>9181998
>there are some tells which hurt your overall form
would you mind pointing those passages out to me and maybe even give some suggestions on how to improve them?

i am prone to hacking sentences up, yes. i sometimes overdo it, i just need to train myself to recognize where it works and where it doesn't.

there's certainly no ((moral)) or end game to my story. i like to write for pure entertainment. i don't have a clear plot in place, it's just a short story so inlet it unfold as i write. i think i would have let it lead to some very weird correlations between the deaths. but what exactly, i have no idea.
thanks a lot for your critique! it was very helpful

>>9182012
it was intended to reflect the tought pattern, yeah. i usually read very fast and coherently. that's probably why those interrupted sentences work for me. it just indicates a new thought in the prot's mind. i'll keep that in mind for future writings since it didn't occure to me that others might not read it in the same tempo

>>9182008
it rolls smoothly. i like it for simple prose purpose.

but what about the content?
it seems to have no real substance. a lot of clichées that don't really mean anything. what's the intention?

>>9179463
>There are two “sleighs”. The one that the reindeer pull on the initial flight is a capsule-like object that protects Santa from the heat when leaving the Earth and allows him to gain access to the second “sleigh,” which is actually a phallic-shaped spacecraft called Erector.

Kek

>Santa pulled his pants down and pulled out both of his cocks. He always enjoyed the initial shock in the faces of women when he exposed himself. He never met a woman who did not fancy the idea of being double penetrated by one man.

Lmao wat

>>9178709
This is kind of cute desu

>>9182014
It difficult to explain, but as a native English speaker, and the fact that you're writing in first person, the voice of your story comes off as a little "flat", if that makes sense. You lack those subtle word choices that would make this feel as though an English speaker wrote it. But, for example here:
>i counted eleven dead cats that morning.
not that i cared. i hated those entitled creatures.
what made me pause was that they all were laying on the boardwalk. i always thought they hide when they are about to die.

Unless you wanted this character to come off as "flat" like I said before, try varying how your sentences start. All those I, I, I, sentences near each other start to form this flat voice that, especially since you mentioned you're not a native English speaker, make me think it was written by a non English speaker or a novice writer. I could almost start to hear this being spoken as if by a non native English speaker. But your idea developed too well so I know it's not that your a novice and you've practiced a bit. Keep practicing and keep reading. You're doing great.

>>9182033
It's going to be a larger poem that essentially boils down to the theme of "even in your most lonely times or your most social of moments, remember your inner peace and balance". I'm going to keep bouncing between images of liveness and stillness, total opposites, but with very similar structures to each other in each thought to show their necessity of each other. This is a section from a few stanzas in because I was looking for input on the flow between the two stanzas, since I'm going for a progression, if it's smooth or if the increase of syllabic values in the second stanza throws the flow off.

so before the excerpt i wanna let it be known this is kinda old and i ended up rushing the story in the end, but i hope the intro is pretty alright

A secluded road, street lights hang above lighting the singular figure gaily skipping down it, surrounded on both sides by the encroaching darkness of Georgia night. The figure hums along to some imperceivable melody as the silver pines rustle and whisper in the steady wind coming off the nearby Atlantic. Crickets sing their lonely songs of lust and longing into the dark, a bullfrog can be heard loudly croaking, a lonesome whippoorwill sings into the deep indigo darkness of the woods.
Alone on this sweet southern night, Art Halloway skips down the backwoods road along the segmented yellow line usually meant to divide traffic. Art hadn’t seen a car all night long, why fear now when he was just beginning to enjoy himself? He hummed along to ‘Blue Heaven’ by the Platters as he skipped, spun, and breathed deeply of the bucolic air that hung heavily in the fecund Georgia woodlands. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, but the night was young and Art had no intention to check it, at least not until he’d had his fill of the solitude he’d so craved after a long work day at the Stone Mountain DMV.
Art Halloway hummed the familiar tune alone in the darkened forest, the string ensemble and backup singers audible only to himself as he went down the dusky road. The darkened space between each streetlight seeming to grow farther and farther apart with every halogen lamp passed. Yet, Art felt more and more at home as the darkness set in, the noises of nature and his continued humming of ‘Blue Heaven’ growing louder and louder in his own mind.

Black stars roll listless;
Ghostly vessels on the infinite sea
Reeling in the blind eye of eternity
Spherical silhouettes
swallowed by darkness.

>>9182668
Reads like some King Crimson lyrics

>>9182678
idk who they are
is that a compliment or insult

>>9152888
Dialogue is nice and natural, it may be a cliche but it carries itself without describing inferences and tones. Keep writing this, it has potential
>>9153414
Kinda liked it, kinda didn't. hit or miss really.
>>9153645
Anymore you have to share. Doctor is telling it as it is.
>>9157546
I think your prose is pretty solid, it read pretty nicely for the most part.
“Perhaps it’s best if we head back to camp,” William urged as the woodlands began to grow dark around them. “The beast is injured and does not long for this world.” “Does a crippled beast frighten you so?” Jon Conley asked with just the hint of contempt. William said nothing to the accusation. He was a young man, barely twenty, and he had seen what the beast had done to the villagers. “The beast suffered a mortal wound,” he said. “Why risk our lives when we are certain it is dead?”

“But is it truly dying?” Conley questioned. “And even if it is dying, we need more than our words as proof if we wish for payment.” “The dying beast can’t be far of then,” Wylie said. “And if it’s not then it is not dead nor is it dying.” William had known they would never listen to his advice. He wished his spear had delivered the death blow. “My father told me that dying beasts never go far,” he chimed in.

“My father would say the same thing to me, William,” Jon replied. “Yet not once have I seen it before my own eyes. There are things even our fathers will get wrong.” His voice whispered, too low in the lively woodlands. “Then we must hurry and find the beast or else our journey will be short,” Wylie pointed out. “Our provision will last us no more than six days. And we lost four of our companions in the skirmish to the beast.”

Conley glanced at the woodlands and then at the sky. “The way the beast attacked us was most inopportune. Are you certain your traps work, Wylie?”

Partially done Critical analysis

Ray Lawrence’s Jindabyne – adapted from Raymond Carver’s So Much Water So Close To Home – presents us with a serial killer and his latest victim. The spectre of Gregory hovers over Jindabyne: ripple effects from his actions spread and seep into the community and the ordinary lives kept inside. The audience is introduced, first-off, to Gregory watching his victim from afar, whom he later attacks – ‘stupid bitch’ he calls her, depicting the dominant paradigm of power structures in modern Australia. Man over woman; colonist over indigenous. Similarly, we see, in the catalytic fishing trip and Stewart’s confrontations with Claire, male power (or fragile masculinity) emerge. Then, like chicken pox receding into dormancy, patriarchal nature of the familial power structure somehow disappears, subverted once more. These scenes are crucial in the understanding of the text, its social location – early 2000’s regional Australia –, masculinity – and its toxicity – and then the subversion of such.

Masculinity and male power are closely tied in Australia, and Jindabyne is no exception. Lawrence presents the virulence of masculinity through the struggle of opposing sides. We are presented with the cliche ‘boys’ fishing trip ‘crisis heterotopia’ - a secret, out of view place where men can be men, and stroke their egos and mend their sense of weakened masculinity. The river is the symbolic representation of this ‘crisis heterotopia’, it is considered sacrosanct in the eyes of the men - a place they still have control over, ‘secret men’s business’; a place where ‘no women’ are ‘allowed’. This is further exemplified when the decision is made to make sure the discovered body of the Aboriginal woman, and to report to police or not, does not to impede on their fishing trip, presenting the viewer with the typical ‘real man control’ which is prevalent throughout the text. Claire’s stance is a juxtaposition to Stewart’s. Claire’s view of the men’s actions - or inaction - align them with Gregory. Stewart’s actions make him just as accountable. He is confronted with his failure to be a ‘good man’ and accusations of being ‘piss weak’ due to his inaction of reporting the crime. The juxtaposition is presented further as the relationships power structure undergoes an attempted subversion. Claire exemplifies her distaste of Stewart’s hyper-masculine behaviour - ‘guzzling’ of ‘beer’; ‘[fucking] like a robot’ - confronting Stewart with his toxicity, he then has the guts to claim the ‘bonus’ for having ‘worked’ all day is ‘the beer’ and ‘the fuck’ and proceeds to attack Claire - an outburst to her attempting to usurp his control. This gives the viewer a further understanding of the role of masculinity in the Stewart’s working class, regional narrative.

>>9182185
pretty good.
some of the sentences are a little long and kind of dont flow through exactly. its like theres a little too much going on within each clause. if you just adjust the rhythm.
still pretty good and i got a good feeling of the air of the place. i'd probs keep reading

The old train station sat at the periphery of the city; a lone figure waited on the tiled platform. The sky bled a rosy hue, as the last rays of light cut the man at his knees.
The man was nobody, he could have been anyone, a silhouette soon to be swallowed in darkness. A dull grey suit drooped from his lean skeleton. His entire frame seemed like a statue in the process of being toppled, as if some invisible wires attached to his head and torso were all straining, pulling, tearing down towards the ground. Despite the reposed anguish of his posture, his face belied no emotion.
The city was right behind him, but he couldn’t hear it. The unending plains that lay before him seemed to swallow it all up, all the noise and energy that went nowhere.

File: 093258573.png (84KB, 560x882px) Image search: [Google]

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What do you think about my pic related poem? It's one of the few actual poems I've tried to write, and by that I mean with metre etc. in mind, instead of just breaking sentences into lines like a meme.

Do I have any natural aptitude?
Do I show even a vague glimmer of one day being able to write good poetry?
Or am I kms tier?

>>9182703
A compliment, sort of.
It's a pretty neat prog rock band.

>>9182185
>>9182668
>>9182738
>>9182750
>>9182793
>Don't post a piece without contributing.

It's been eight years since you went out to get milk,

Your echoing footsteps out that door,
Your last, fading smile vanished in my core,
I should've stopped you,
I should've went,
I should've been the one out that door,
You shouted goodbye to grab my attention,
I ignored you and that was my intention,
On that line with my friend,
As I watch life seep through like sand.

It's been eight years since you went out to get milk,

A screech then a bang,
The shrieks of horror rang,
I shouldn't have rejected you,
I shouldn't have lied to you,
I shouldn't have blamed you,
The feeling of bitter and unfairness,
Rushing out the door,
saw the person that I most adore,
You were lying on the crossroad,
blood poured, blood flower.

It's been eight years since you went out to get milk,

You were struggling to breathe, struggling to talk,
The trembling hands of the one who taught me how to walk,
I held your hands tight,
to make sure you won't be out of my sight,
I tried to keep my tears in to make me look stronger,
but each second felt longer,
than before.

Dad!

You hands went limp,
The sky turned grim,
Everything was a blur,
a mess,
a disaster.

It's been eight years since you went out to get milk,
It's been eight years since you called me daughter,
It's been eight years since I called you father.

>>9183613
?
Hello thanks

>>9183397
how do you know those anons haven't been reviewing?
i've posted my work not attached to the reviews i wrote. they might have done the same

>>9183679
Just a reminder in the event that the posters forgot.

>>9183679
You know damn well thet didn't do that

>>9182733
somehow i feel lile you fell too hard for the "don't write ((said)) in direct speech" advice. it's annoying if someone uses it too deliberately, but avoiding it by replacing it by words like urged, questioned, chimed in and so on, it disrupts the flow of the conversation. if ever possible (mostly when just two people are talking to each other), i'd organize it like that

"bla bla bla bla"
"bla bla"
"bla"
"bla bla bla?"

in context, it shouldn't be confusing to know who's talking.

other than that, i liked it. especially how you developed characters in such a short text and woven in crucial infos without making it seem like a boring introduction of a character.

>>9182750
evokes a vivid picuture. my critique would be those unnecessary words:
straining, pulling, tearing

i know you wanted to make the reader feel the weight pulling down even further with every word. but it honestly sounds too try hard. use only one. i'd suggest pulling or tearing.

also, you use flowery prose wuiet often. that's a question of taste. i don't particularily like it. i'd prefer you to cut to the point. did you wanted this scene to apearslike a still life you observe from outside? or do you want the reader to dive in more and feel part of it? if you do, try to change stuff like "a rosy hue" into, the sunlight finally reached a comfortable brightness that no longer hurt the eyes. or whatever. make it about sensations instead of observations.

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>>9184675
Something like this?

just asking for crit on a single sentence

>He had the voice of a man who had learned to chat at some point in his mid twenties and prior to then had communicated exclusively through bombastic monologues

>>9183679
Do you know where you are, anon?

>>9183679
yeah I did this

>>9184960
"He questioned" should only be used for humor, imho.

>>9185813
Really? What should I change it to?

>>9183613
Please?

>>9183613
nice. i like the structure and the rhythm of it
sorry for your loss anon

>>9186806
>structure
>rhythm

>>9181954
Please leave /lit/