critique thread?

>>9572406
What's this for? Is it part of a journal, a part of a poem, a novel? I like the flow. It's smooth enough, but has the potential for hiccups --
unless you're Joyce and want words to run into each other stumblingly for stream of consciousness feelings. I can't really say much about what is *says*, as such, as in, the soul of it... there's not enough here to read anything deep into. But what's there is nice. It's almost self-contained... if that means anything to you... In retrospect, I feel like
>i want to bring you with me into this swirling ocean of my thoughts
would actually do more thematic work without "with me"
>i want to bring you into this swirling ocean of my thoughts
This is just imo, and the recommendation probably seems completely antithetical to the fragment's theme of "you, I, together", since it gets rid of the "with me" ... But something makes me wonder if it would be the best idea to saturate the fragment's infatuation with "with-me"ness... Despite the self-directedness of the self who is narrating, the full passion they are throwing at the other would inspire them towards trying to eliminate themselves, wouldn't it? It's just a thought, but give it a spin.

>>9572831
This is mine:

Amy steps outside. Cold air to breathe once more, life-giving as water. She looks up for the first time that she can remember. The act of lifting her head feels ritual-like — something is completed.

Tonight the stars are washed black. Stormclouds swell grey. A great shatter of web-lightning breaks the sky, lingering in an after-image of brilliance and white wonder, then tinkles away.

Time had stopped for that moment, and it was forever that moment. All possibilities hung possible. At each ghostly fork was frozen the freedom to choose in any foreseen direction; all taken whitely at once. How possible is anything! Amy’s heart stutters.

Gallant lagging thunder rolls in overhead. It implodes, a huge subsonic rumbling down into the core of her. Movements of massive air, more massive than her: settling giants. Suddenly you understand why the Greeks did it. With a tingling in her fingers, Amy becomes an ant, nay, smaller, a mite. And the hillock becomes the entire cosmos of limitless direction she can never reach the end of, can never find the meaning of. Vertigo swoons her head. Her eyes roll. Weak-legged, she kneels, overcome by a faintness, some profound weightlessness, something almost religious — and for a fantasy of a fleeting moment, almost raises her arms in surrender to the sky and devotes herself to unfathomable Gnosis. But she would never come back.

Flinching, she returns, to the now. Jaw hanging, unattended lock of hair swishing across her eyes, sternum rigid, sphincter slack, she breathes worldly air again; vaguely underwhelming oxygen. Molecules. Explainable in terms of explainable terms. Electrons and nucleus components. Outer shell 6e, inner shell 2e, nucleus of 8p and 8n. Diatomic non-metal, electron configuration 1s2 2s2 2p4, atomic number eight. Strength returns to her limbs. Blood — erythrocytes carrying bound oxygen, leucocytes feeding on pathogens, plasma carrying all sorts of goodies, thrombocytes/platelets with nothing to clot just yet — circulates. As a matter of fact, Amy stands. There’s some grass clinging to her knees, itching. She brushes it off and looks over her shoulder at the yellow-lit doorway. No one’s there. But the glass-clinking, the bantering, the chair-skidding, the table-knocking noises of joviality rollypolly out. They sound oddly near in the motionless night air, with nowhere to go, like they’re right behind your ear.

>>9572833
lightning spiders shatter the sky with their cast webs

no. lightning spiders casting webs that shatter the sky

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I wrote a bunch of random shit, let me know what you think

>>9572833
Honestly you're just jerking off describing things rather than telling any actual story. The meaning (If there is any) is so buried within your writing the reader would struggle to give a shit about the story.

Why should I care that the stars are washed black? If this had an impact on the vision of your characters it would be relevant (The stars weren't visible therefore the scene was dark- this means your character might not be able to perceive a threat for example)

The entire thing dwells on one scene/moment and uses an amazing amount of cliches ("Stormclouds swell grey"). It comes across as pseudo-intellectual literature rather than something with substance or a purpose.

Also
>tinkles away
>ant, nay, smaller
>rollypolly


Sorry to rip it apart so much, but you should consider taking a different approach to writing than one that appears in high school creative writing classes.

>>9572872
I just realised stars don't even help your vision so there's no way that information could be relevant.
I get that you're trying to paint a picture for the reader but you're describing irrelevant things- makes it seem like you have a word-count you're trying to reach.

>>9572865
File name is accurate.
Some of this stuff is pretty edgy- like an 18 year old considering philosophical concepts for the first time.
When you write down ideas revisit them in 1-4 weeks, you'll cringe at a lot of it but keep the stuff that you don't want to delete immediately and try to refine those ideas.

Mara lifted Jessie onto a stool and served her a plate of vegetables. 'Eat up now, sweetie.'

Jessie crossed her arms. 'It's icky.'

'Jessica.'

'Okay, mummy.' She lifted a spoonful. A few peas spilled.

Mara sighed. 'Duffer. It's okay, just eat the rest.'

George watched from the head of the table. 'Jessica.' Jessie looked at him. 'Clean up your mess, then eat.' She looked at her mum, who looked at George, who looked back. There was a moment of silence. Jessie whimpered.

Mara looked down. 'Listen to daddy, sweetheart.'

Jessie gasped. Peas spilled everywhere.

Mara put a hand over her mouth. 'Oh honey. I'm so sorry. I meant to say George.'

'Mummy.' Jessie started to cry.

'Oh, dear.' Mara glared at George and carried her out of the room. George finished his meal and poured a glass of wine. He listened to Mara soothe Jessie and poured a second. They spoke in hushed voices. He emptied the bottle.

Mara appeared. 'You need to leave.'

'Fine.' He left.

Mara rushed back to Jessie and held her tight. 'He's gone.'

She sniffed. 'I want daddy.'

'So do I.' Mara put her to bed and threw the bottle away. She showered, dried her face and looked in the mirror for a long time.

Jessie was still awake when Mara kissed her goodnight. 'Love you.'

'I love you. Get some sleep.' The lights went out.

Jessie was alone.

>>9572941
Carries well but it's fairly dull. I guess it's only a snapshot of a bigger plot so I wonder why you chose to share something so mundane, but it's functional.

Some lines are a bit too succinct which makes it read more like a script. For example
>'Fine.' He left.

Try embellishing more but don't forget that you're trying to tell a story about people doing things, saying things, how they affect other people etc.

>>9572961

Thanks. It's supposed to reveal the drama (mother and daughter dealing with loss of husband/father) in a seemingly mundane event (dinner with step father). Would probably be clearer in context but will consider your advice

>>9573034
Actually yeah I did grasp that part, didn't mention it though.
It's good in the way that it explains the situation of the family and what the characters are like through dialogue rather than lame exposition.
Also the fact that George is at the head of the table is good if that relates to his personality.

>>9573076

Good to hear.

>if that relates to his personality.

It does

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Wut u think

>>9573491
Fuck off Rupi

>>9573491
I'm sure it made some sense to you but it's just a bunch of words honestly.

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https://pastebin.com/YChvD2wy

PLEASE help me fix this. Also please ignore the autistic parts. This is an excerpt from a much larger work, but it's an important scene so I want to make sure it's good.

>>9572833
read this anon

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/24/elmore-leonard-rules-for-writers

>>9573519

>being this pleb

>>9573545
Yeah sure buddy, I'm the one who is the pleb.

>>9572941
this succeeds at showing tension (mara's mistake, the wine) without the narrator telling the reader that there is tension.

>>9573540
I won't read it all and give you feedback but here's some quick advice from skimming the first paragraph

Starting with the subject (Especially when prefaced with 'the' e.g. the tricopter) every sentence makes your writing sound amateur and very basic. The thing did this. That thing did that. George ate an apple. etc.

How about instead of
>Myron unbuckled his seatbelt, falling onto the opposite wall
try something like
>Unbuckling his seatbelt, Myron fell onto the opposite wall
My version still isn't very good but to me it makes the image of Myron doing things appear more frantic and less robotic (Which makes sense since he is in a frantic situation)

Move your subjects and verbs around to make images more vivid and to draw attention to specific ideas in the sentence.

Hope this helps

>>9573576

Well then post your own shit and see if it can be held to the same standard

>>9572961
>I guess it's only a snapshot of a bigger plot so I wonder why you chose to share something so mundane, but it's functional.
yeah this is really restrained. i don't see the anon showing off anywhere in the passage. that's a good thing.

>>9573595
After discussion with the anon I realised the subtlety of the passage and grew to like it.
Still, if you're going to post an excerpt I would normally expect something that encapsulates the tone of the entire piece such as a climactic passage or an opening.

>>9573593
Nah it's too pleb

>>9573592
Yeah a bit, the example makes it soudn shittier but your point is valid. I'll try that, maybe it will help. Sometimes I feel like I am rearranging sentences for the sake of the doing so, like I get angry when it feels like three sentences in a row are starting with "he," when I am trying to describe the action. I move the descriptive parts around to tag them onto one sentence but then it feels long and run-on, or else unnatural. I was trying to avoid passive voice and "is/was" like the plague but then i realized I was just making my writing feel forced, yet even without that it still reads like shit.

I feel like cutting out a lot of adjectives would help, and making the sentences shorter and easier to read. I want to write in the style of Hemingway, but with a bit more descriptiveness. Maybe a bad goal but I prefer readable to purple. I don't know though.

Party scene. There are a lot of people at Miles's house. I'm surprised that I don't know all of them. I know everyone that matters at Terranatura High.

What constitutes a party exactly? With my parents there's usually activities and expectations. Activities like my father practicing his putting in the host's gigantic backyard that has a canopy that would put most public gardens to shame. Or maybe it's my mother pretending to be swept away by a live piano concerto that I guess is supposed to make us all pine for the eighteenth century. What everyone expects is that compliments will be paid to the host and the host will at least pretend that the compliments are genuine. It's all phony really.

But teenage parties seem to be less planned for social engagements and more so open houses to be taken advantage of. Which is exactly the case tonight with Miles's parents not in attendance. The certainty of an open house is the seed of the party. The petals stir and push up the surface toward the sun as the host and their friends spread the word. Kids will poke their head into classrooms to announce the where and when before the teacher registers that they aren't in the class and are basically intruding, at which point the messenger is off on Nike-clad feet, swiftly avoiding the pathetic hall monitors.

Far more often the party spreads textually, in pink and yellow ink on folded, crumpled looseleaf (crumpled because the paper makes less noise than would a fresh sheet). And if a teacher sees the note being passed around, all that means is that it must be read aloud, so everyone knows about the party anyway. There's rarely any disciplinary action when this happens . There's nothing embarrassing about a kid throwing a party and none of us are afraid of the teachers as long as our parents donate enough to the school. A certain renegade hardass algebra teacher is currently exiled at a school in the worst part of Fort Lauderdale as a result of this misunderstanding that she had power over the parents of Terranatura High.

It's electric, kinetic. The hope that now, after a week of hoping, study hall daydreaming, and early morning mirror pep talks, you get a change to talk to and or make out with that person you're after. And after the makeout sesh, who knows...Parties are all about possibilities for the reliably hopeless. No one is immune to this horny optimism, at least no one who matters is. But some people are over it, past it because we've already found the person we're meant to be with.

I am one of those people. I have been ever since June's Halloween party in freshman year when I first kissed John and knew then and there that something, maybe the first thing in my life, had just clicked into place.

Four years ago he thought of monsters.

There is a man in Colombia known as The Beast. He lives in Villavicencio. He has tortured, mutilated, and beheaded over 100 boys ages 6-16. His drink of choice is a cheap, local brand of schnapps. He will be released in 2021, after serving 22 years in prison. In China, there was a Mr. Xinhai. He would break into homes and slaughter entire families using meat cleavers, axes, shovels, and hammers. He would also rape the women. 67 was his total. He was arrested while visiting a nightclub. While in Portugal, a man disemboweled 3 prostitutes and removed several of their organs. All 3 of the prostitutes were named Maria and from the Lisbon area. The Lisbon Ripper was never found, but a man suspected of the crimes was taken into custody. The man’s son had given him up in an attempt to be on a reality tv show.
I am not in China, Colombia, or Portugal though. I am on a Greyhound bus along I-57, zooming north. I am listening to a late night talk show host on 890 AM and that is how I know of The Beast, Mr. Xinhai, and the Lisbon Ripper. When I couldn’t sleep and had been younger, I would listen to AM radio to escape. I’ve never even thought about visiting China, Colombia, or Portugal. I think Amanda has mentioned something about visiting Portugal before, but I’m not sure. I would text her if I had my phone, but everything in my pockets had gotten lost the other night. Mark had said I’d overdone it.
“How bad was it?”
“Pretty bad.”
Overdone it.

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>>9573652
that's quite a cliffhanger anon. but i'm engaged. is this the first chapter of something?

>>9573638
desu i couldn't read past the first paragraph. like unless you're aiming for YA there needs to be more like stakes for me to give a fuck about what a teenager has to say about a party.

As I keep reading I get elliot rodgers vibes. But he was at least demented and made things interesting. I'm forcing myself to keep going but I don't even know what i've read - apparently something was pink. And now I finished, and yeah I guess you are aiming for YA?

>>9573668
first paragraph desu. i don't feel comfortable posting more

>>9573672
kind of YA. it's a novel about teenagers who are shamed for being virgins. The above is very expository but most of it isn't.

i guess the elliot rodger connection makes sense.

>>9572831
Sorry, I had gone to sleep. Thanks for the input mate, I will tweak and fiddle. :)

>>9572831
>>9573910
And to answer your question, it's not part of anything. Just a a thought I had about alternate ways of connecting with women.

>>9573652
>Greyhound bus
I'm sure nobody's ever decapitated and cannibalised someone on one of those, anon.

>>9573638
it's literally like you tried to take all the fun and sense out of Vile Bodies, even down to the character names. which is an achievement because part of Waugh's modernism was ambiguity of sense and speaker, but not a good achievement.

>>9573943
one of my favorite books. i can't remember if i had read it before writing this though.

i'm seriously considering doing the abrupt unattributed lines of dialogue thingy.

>>9573994
Don't. You can't construct a sentence yet. It's awful. You need to get basic, then try getting good. Waugh without humour is basically spending a weekend with one of his more awful characters in a draughty house as one of his more humourless characters. Your ambiguity isn't masterful, it's retarded. I cannot stress enough how much that was not a compliment but basically calling your work crude fanfiction equivalent to 50 Shades.

>>9574137
thanks for the feedback anon.

i've been debating for a while now whether to get rid of the multiple 1st person pov narration in favor of just one 1st person narrator.

i'm sure you would agree that 1 narrator would be better, if that's what you mean by basic.

You only heard about Saint Bosco’s in hushed whispers. The very name only seemed to function as a punchline to the sickest forms of eleventh grade gossip. Sally McMansion (sophomore) cut her wrists in the bathroom sink during lunch period last week? She’s at St. Bosco’s now. Sebastiao de la Soccer Scholarship (senior) had his mother detained by ICE over the summer and shut himself in at his uncle's place? He’s over at St. Bosco’s now, too. The upper-crust children of private Brooklyn secondary schools had found both boogeyman and barrio in the Catholic boarding prep. The Specter of St. Bosco’s loomed large over every misstep, every mistake was you punching a ticket to the asylum.
We only had the vaguest idea of its location -- anywhere north of Central Park was a mystery for most of us, and the Bronx? We might as well be crossing the tartarus aboard the 2-train. In our minds, it either sat high above majestic cliffs overlooking the Hudson, or buried in some mysterious woodland valley in the wild depths of Van Cortlandt park. It used to be a college campus run by The Seven Sisters, as we were told by a teacher who had recently earned himself a gag order from the guidance counselor on discussing it further. Too many transfers, too many people talking about it -- something like that -- which only added to its aura. It was both the forbidden fruit and the punishment from God.

>>9574176
I mean your sentences read like someone found and replaced with a thesaurus and no ear for narrative. The places where you have coherency are where you use stock filler and even those are shaky, e.g.
>But teenage... seem to be less... and more so.... of.
the but... of is bad enough but
>to be planned for
>to be x
that's grating enough to think this narrator has read half a sparknotes guide of a style and grammar book and is going to subject us to his stupendously bad English while probably offering it as the advisable course. I know that seems to keep with your character, but it doesn't translate to you character; it translates to the author. It makes you sound more vapid than the character you're trying to make vapid.

>>9574250
it seems to me like you're suggesting that a 3rd person narrative would remedy this as it would separate the main character's voice from mine.

but i find writing in 3rd person too stiff and constricting. i can't envision the story unless she tells the majority of it. i have about 80 pages done, with about 2/3 of it from the main characters perspective. i'm going to delete a lot of shit and consolidate some of the sections into her narrative, unless i get some better idea. so it will have 1 narrator, not 5.

>>9572941
who is the fucking POV of this?

>>9574282
Third person limited narrator.

>>9574304
yeah? well give the POV character some internal thoughts and emotions. because it's hard to tell who the fuck is the POV character or care about them at all

>>9574242
reorganise this. take the last two sentences of the first paragraph and put them with the first two. I'd recommend placing the last sentence after the first, changing it to "Its specter"; placing the upper crust children next, and removing the "very" from before "name" in the next sentence. You could maybe fit an "aloud" after function.
Then put in your jokes. Give them separate paragraphs.
Last paragraph is stronger but still needs work and possibly to be two paragraphs. Fix the grammar in the second paragraph too (Tartarus, and 2 train, new clause for , who.... etc) You stylize too much to not have a style guide and stick to it, because you're going to create discrepancies in your form and that is very unCatholic.

It has potential.

>>9574281
No, I'm saying that not trying to write a masterpiece and trying to write whole and sensical sentences is what your attentions should be focused towards.

I wrote that previous sentence that way because it seems you only understand things in a convoluted enough syntax you might have learnt it in a rote essay on fifth form Shakespeare with no real referent to its meaning. Get simpler than narrators; write something that does not sound like you were given a minimum word count. Try to pretend you were trained to write meaningfully, not just a lot and with a sense of form.

>>9574334
thanks for the feedback!

The obese whale of a woman was circling the poolside changing room like a shark, no doubt in desperation to switch into a better fitting swimsuit. In a fit of rage after hearing suppressed giggling from behind the curtains, she finally blurted out the question that had been festering in the back of everyone’s minds: Wer sind diese Jugendlichen?

I first became aware of the adolescents as the cruise ship rounded the island fortaleza of Fernando de Noronha, en route to Rio. My wife Mei had heard the rumors well before I did -- much to my chagrin -- but we were able to catch a glimpse of two of them taking in the view on the ship’s promenade deck altogether accidentally. It was seven-thirty in the evening, and the sun had yet to slip under the citadel of the decaying stone titan. Because of our westward view and the strong equatorial rays, we were unable to ascertain much -- but just catching a glimpse of these rumored teenagers was enough for the two of us.

We were both captivated by their silhouettes standing eye to each other’s eye in the evening’s setting sunlight. Through gossip my wife had been informed that there were five others like them aboard the vessel, the Botafogo -- the Monte Carlo of the seas, the ark of vice on the virtuous ocean. Under most normal circumstances, getting an invitation aboard the ship would be nigh impossible -- the cruiser had a capacity of just under one thousand, all who stayed in luxurious suites which seemed more like a celebrity’s SoHo penthouse than a temporary residence aboard a boat. This was rest and relaxation for the Davos crowd -- the movers and shakers of the Old World.

Even my reputation as a noted writer of nonfiction was insufficient alone for access. After our wedding, we were gifted tickets by my wife’s dearest friend from her college days at the Sorbonne -- the heiress of a publishing fortune -- Marie de Maupassant. She insisted we use it as a second honeymoon to the one we previously planned, because apparently that’s something that’s done by the jet-setting class. When it was found out that we’d be attending as opposed to Mme. de Maupassant and her husband, a cabinet member, a quiet fuss was raised by the company until a letter of recommendation was mysteriously furnished from the ambassador to Portugal, a friend of the de Maupassant's but utterly unknown to us. Even after all that I’m quite sure we are being treated as interlopers by both the guests and crew. But these teenagers, as I’m told, have full run of the vessel. And everyone -- from the diplomats to the heiresses to the oil barons want to know why.

>>9574497
>The obese whale of a woman was circling the poolside changing room like a shark
>obese whale ... like a shark
No

Before Ronald could finish his sentence the stainless glasses shattered into pieces as if a boulder was thrown at it, allowing the rays of the sun in blinding both Ronald and the Templars in the room. Ronald’s squinting eyes barely had enough time to register first the dark figure, an assassin falling down from the destroyed window pine, second within the multi-colored shards the distinct shapes of four daggers thrown from the assassin falling above. This was just a distraction, from right-side just peaking out from the corner of his eye, an arrow in flight only a foot away from his head. With no delay he relieved himself from the present moment and reversed time.


“Assassins” Ronald yells warning his men, as the glass breaks again. Once more his men are startled, with only one man reacting differently this time, diving out of the way. The rest were not quick enough to use their magic in time.” Were they even worth the stamina to attempt to save?” Ronald thought. Ronald turning his whole body to the right and jumping back, enabling him to dodge the impeding arrow and daggers fired at him, while allowing himself to get a glimpse of the assassin, he can now see hiding at a distance in the cathedral. But, Ronald was surprised by an third assassin, whom must had moved almost as fast as the arrow herself was quickly approaching him from his now left-side. Had he not moved his whole body to dodge the arrow and the daggers, she would have killed him from behind, out of sight, undetected.


Still he made a mistake. His dodge was a failure, the poor landing caused him to lose his footwork, bumping into the just getting up templar that dived out of the way. Ronlads life flashes before him as he witnesses the daggers above piercing the head of the other templars, and the assassin moving towards him, her blade closing in towards his throat. He need to figure a plan and with just moments, He reverses time.


“Sacrifices must be made” Ronald saying to himself as the glasses breaks again, the single templar dives, Ronald once more, jumps back avoiding the arrow, bumping into the fallen templar as the assassin dashes towards him from his side, the daggers kill off the rest of templars, bringing him back to the previous scenario. Ronald with one hand pulls the fallen templar up from the floor, allowing the blade of the assassin to pierce fallen templar's throat instead. With The assassin missing her mark she moves back, allowing the body of the slain templar to fall from her blade. They failed to assassinate him. Finally, taking the time to catch his breath from the half-minute onslaught, Ronald was in the clear. No more surprises. The assassins would have to fight him fairly.

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I tried.

>>9576209
you mean wandered, not wondered. you don't know enough about punctuation to use a semicolon.
to be honest, it's mediocre genre shit, but if you got pulled out of the swelling mass of mediocre genre shit, most of the problems would be fixed by an editor who knows how2grammar.

Whenever I play guitar my right hand gets bloodied. Perhaps anger or pleasure leads my fingers farther up the plectrum and closer to string, but it always goes the same. Adobe huts and cramped plywood sheds. The burnt drafts I keep my ideas in. And when his brown puddle eyes look at me I have to look away. Not out of discomfort of honesty, but out of uncertainty. I don't let any of them touch my guitar no matter how they beg. I don't trust tweakers. I decided to walk back, but I lost my vision and the ground became non-newtonian. After I finished puking in the bushes, I walked up the rest of the hill. My heart beating and sore. The police sirens now became commonplace along with the white truck conspiracy, and the helicopter surveillance.
I sat down on the patio and seperated the last remaining weed from the pocket lint. A reflection of old friends smoking cigarettes in the car on my driveway. The third day awake is when things start to get really weird. I finished smoking and leaned back in the tattered lawn chair. The morning sun felt good. I felt good. If i died right now, it would be perfect.
"There's nothing I can do anymore." she said shaking her head. There were no tears in her eyes.
"He's gonna be home in 15 minutes, you better be gone before then."

>>9576308
>Whenever I play guitar my right hand gets bloodied. Perhaps anger or pleasure leads my fingers farther up the plectrum and closer to string, but it always goes the same.
cut this, it is more boring than acne. you don't need it for the later guitar introduction.
>Adobe huts and cramped plywood sheds. The burnt drafts I keep my ideas in. And when his brown puddle eyes look at me I have to look away. Not out of discomfort of honesty, but out of uncertainty. I don't let any of them touch my guitar no matter how they beg.
Fix the sentence fragment images into sentences.
>. I don't trust tweakers.
who the fuck does? cut it. btw your opening two sentences would make me smash your guitar.
> I decided to walk back, but I lost my vision and the ground became non-newtonian.
cut non-newtonian. it's boring and i'm currently on drugs that make everything fucking interesting. unclear, unsteady, any fucking thing else.
>After I finished puking in the bushes, I walked up the rest of the hill. My heart beating and sore.
make it one setence, add a comma after hill
>The police sirens now became commonplace along with the white truck conspiracy, and the helicopter surveillance.
this is awkward and you should keep it.

the rest is okay. i'm hoping you're young because you shouldn't be writing like this past 23.

>>9572833
Don stepped outside.

>>9576343
this was all stream of consciousness that I wrote just now. I did touch on a lot of things, but didn't back it up with enough to make it interesting or convincing. And yes very purpley, I was kinda trying to make it hazy and fragmented.
>>9576345
thank you both for the critique it is very helpful. also im 19

>>9576366
The second one's good for 19 (if you cut the guitar). Try writing like you're talking to a friend who would look at you skeptically if you were acting like a scarf wearing wanker. It will make you sound less like a purple prose wanker.

>>9576389
Second one? do you mean paragraph? I only made one post. That will be really helpful advice, I could see how parts of the writing equate to a punchable face.

>>9576415
You quoted two posts, which are two different critiques of two different pieces. I'm >>9576345
but not >>9576343 who is responding to a different piece but you also quoted. Please learn to 4chan whichever one you thought I was

>>9576428
I've been on 4chan for years im just retarded lol. Don't know why I saw a (you).

The doorbell chimed, stopping my cleaning as I glanced over at the newest customer. It was a little boy around six or seven, it was hard to tell especially with the sunken eyes and a ratty t-shirt that was three sizes too big for him. Shit. He’s back, for fucks sakes. I sighed and glanced over to Mohammed who was behind the counter watching some indian drama show. Dropping my broom, I walked over to him. “Ay, the runts back, you got the stuff?”
He rolled his eyes and got up walking up to the back room. “You know you can call cps right, you ain’t doing the kid any favors” The clean white floors only served to make the contrast between the grimy and worn out sandals the child was wearing. Dirty toenails, scrapes and sores all over his legs and a protruding stomach was making it harder by the minute to look at. “Hello” I said softly, getting down to eye-level with him. He looked to the side, avoiding my gaze. “Can you tell me your name”? I continued. He just shook his head, dirty and limp hair shaking with it. Oof, he definitely needed a flea bath. I heard heavy footsteps behind me as Mohammed came back, thrusting down a plastic bag stuffed with food. I noticed how the child flinched so I waved my hand shooing away Mohammed and held out the bag to the child. “Here, this way you don’t need to steal, but can you please tell me your name?” He stared at me for while before pointing to the bag almost cautiously. “Do you want me to tell you what’s in there?” He nodded. “Well, alright, well we’ve got some cooked rice, beans, lentils. A toothbrush, toothpaste and just some toiletries. Is that okay?” I smiled, hoping it would try to make me seem warmer. He just gave a blank face in return and took the bag, I opened to the door for him as left, his shoes having left dirty streaks on the floor I just cleaned. Well fuck.
“Watch, some drunk will take it from him. Told you, just call cps” I shook my head. “Look, I don’t even know even know his name, he’s only been here, what? Three times? And each time he’s only stolen food. Might as well help him, get his trust and then call cps.”

>>9572833
if theres a lightning storm how can i see stars

O my spirit, my mask has fallen
Existence is a wretched thing
This brutal, butchering logic of the mind
Renders a madness of menacing corners and shapes
Making a sinister joke of meaning
Shapes surrounding and engulfing me
Restore the mask!
And let it never fall again
For my life
For my life

I couldn't bring myself to speak in a tone she recognized to be mine. I couldn't see the words, my head was blank, and I couldn't put them together. Texting had me in pieces, or my idea of a conversation. My wit didn't suffer, but I needed a visual. Time didn't slow down, it went by as it always did. I needed to clutch my penis to feel the power between my legs, the power she craved. But the skin around it was hollow. I wasn't interesting. I wasn't cute. I know it all even now. I tried, I failed. I can't evolve. My pseudo-intellecult, my own little band of merry virgins did a piss poor job of hyping me up. I needed to be on /lit/, shitposting. I needed what I loved. I needed a vestige of humanity in me. I can't say she talked to me after that one conversation. That was the last time I ever spoke to a woman in person. And it's the last I ever will. I will end myself tonight.

What I'm hoping will turn into one of the opening chapters for my novel. Just an introduction into a character and important plot points around him. Tonight when I'm off work I will return and give out critiques until I'm fed up.


https://pastebin.com/raw/FWK0Bjnc

>>9578134
Very good, if a bit heavy. I'd take away "menacing" and perhaps do something about "brutal, butchering", which is like trying to speak with too much teeth.

There was a warm, concealed corner behind a crag. A long, uneven trail of totalled reeds, broken stems of gorse and ferns led away from the crag. It was a winding, wind-stricken path upon which the pastures had been macerated by impenetrable webs of weeds.
Somewhere near the end of this trail there was the man, holding nothing in his hands and looking deeply into this emptiness. He took one of them and pressed it against the mass of tangled thorny plants that stood tall before him with his bare palms, and in reaction to the raspy surface of this mass of succulent growth: he reeled backwards. He couldn't go any further, though he'd tried to. Massaging his forehead and looking inward towards himself: he tried to discover the direction he came here from. His stiff shape crawled across this ridge, in multiple directions, still with his eyes closed.
All the incandescence descended to the horizon and concentrated in a swirling vacuum, collecting more illumination from the surroundings at invisible instances.
Absentmindedly his numb hands parted with a small and empty glass flask; now it was invisible beneath the yellowed rotting nettles of a nearby bush. He sat down. Lowering himself to the floor: the water imbibed by the plants collected in the broken pieces of his clothing and scattered across his oily skin. Now that night had fallen he merely laid his hands frailly over his waist, and waited otherwise totally outplayed across the floor. A deep musk of sugar-water bit the frost of the night sky; it entered him, now a lucid narcotic drowning his awakeness. As his head tilted back and his throat flared.
A blue flat colour, a total and ungladdening shield, appeared behind his eyes.
His back was already soft and purple which caused him to arch his back into a sensitive shape while he slept. He was steered out of this world as he created paralyzed inventions in his sleep. Cold sweat sprinted across his forehead, straight to his agape mouth which sent out shivering wisps of soft air.
Sunlight illuminated less and less of the obscured shelter which he'd earlier stood at, until the visions inside of his body. He turned over on to his side and drew his legs to his chest, and finally: he drew his last of this day's breaths before his consciouness scattered.

There ensued a massive inebriation to the brightness in the transparent sky, championed by a web of faint sugary nimbuses which powerfully aggravating the circular radiator that bit the sky and ground at once.

I'm considering writing a dream in-between where I separated the two paragraphs. Is this too long just to describe a man falling asleep after walking a long distance and then waking up?

>>9578825
If a bit heavy-handed*

>>9578825
And now, because I criticised someone else's better work, someone do mine please:

Riddled was his mind, soaked in the swirlings of madness. Confusion coiled about his brain like a snake snarled in a broken knot, its tail bitten by its teeth. Grasping were his hands, and slick, and his forehead sweltered, and his hands held something heavy. He looked. It glared back without pity.

"You left your daughter behind, I think. I will say this outright. You will not return to her. Your body will be picked apart on the plains by the birds that wheel and the beasts that worry."

Gama kept his gaze on the thing in his hands. It was dull. But wicked. It was a gun, of course. He stared at it more. He wanted to talk, but his teeth moved only a little, and his tongue weighed on his teeth, and his lips did nothing.

"It will be a thing accomplished. Behold my spear. See how well it is made, how well the head and shaft are joined, how straight the maker carved its haft! How lucky you are."

“Open up, babe,” she said, with enough malice to kill an elephant. “It’s time to taste all of me.”

A single, pained scream was all she heard before he loosened her anal ring enough to let slip an enormous fart that blasted across Colin’s face. He screamed silently into the noxious deluge. Her ass was placed strategically so that the majority of her flatulence would go up his nose. His cock shook violently at the new sensation, and she continued to milk it delicately with her expert tongue, mixing abject pleasure with indescribable pain. She felt his body quiver as she let loose another barrage of gas against his unwilling nose.

“Don’t worry, babe, this will all be over soon.”

She felt the muscles of her sphincter relax. She pictured Colin, trapped and near;y passed out from the chemical warfare she had unleashed upon him, gazing helplessly up at her puckering asshole until it widened and a dark hole began to form. She felt the sweat of his brow cool her cunt as he realized the totality of his fate. She clamped down on his cock, creating a vacuum-like seal around it with her mouth as she gave herself to the bodily functions of mortals.

The log crept out of her like a snake from its nest, dark and brown with a repugnant scent the only drove Clarissa to suck harder against the cock in her mouth. Colin gave some trifle of a scream, but the shit from her bowels could not be silenced. She felt it coil out from her, brushing past her engorged clit as it did so and fell in open gravity towards Colin’s face. She bucked her hips so that her asshole was firmly clamped by her preys screaming mouth and released an ever greater log of shit directly into his mouth. She threw her head back in ecstasy and she felt the turd leave her and fall into the waiting mouth of her toy. Not knowing what to do, Colin received her gifts until he could swallow no more and began to chew for his life. Even as he took the bitter and earthy gift from his goddess, more shit fell from her unrelenting asshole onto his unprepared face. His vision grew dark as the torrent of shit enveloped him. Just before the light of him died, he came harder than any man Clarissa had ever seen. He shot what seemed like a gallon of hot cum directly into her hungry stomach. Clarissa gave herself to the Ecstasy and allowed the hot cum in her mouth and steaming shit the coated her ass to mingle in her mind. The shit kept pouring from her, and Colin had long since stopped swallowing. As her own orgasm subsided, and she swallowed the last bit of cum from her now ex-lover, she let herself exhale. After a few moments of basking she grew bored and reached for her cell phone where she dialed Steven’s number. There was a mess here, she told him, and she needed someone to clean it up.

>>9578956
what the fuck dude

>>9578826
You're trying for assonance and consonance but those first three sentences wind up being like an elocution lesson. It's uncomfortable to read aloud. I think reading the whole thing aloud would help you see where you lose and pick up rhythm in the rest, but the first paragraph is the worst offender.
You use semicolons and colons like you're translating Confucius or the Bible. Stop it, you don't need it.

Descriptions need work. It sounds like you only see mountains in a cinema, and I feel like I'd be more likely to smell popcorn than heather from your descriptions of the landscape. I imagine the sugar water smells like coke or pepsi depending on your local area.

The descriptions of his internal sensations are fine, you're alright on those parts if you fix the punctuation. Fix the mountains though.

>>9578826
Holy adjectives anon.
>There was an [adjective 1, adjective 2] thing

>>9579189
STATELY PLUMP

>>9578956
This is delightful. This is totally fucked up and I enjoyed it. You could have a future in erotica if serious writing doesn't work out. It's all really gross and vile, so you did your job there.

My only question is if he's supposed to be dead or just passed out. Did she kill him by drowning him with shit?

>>9579428
It's from a demon-hunter erotica parody I'm writing. A succubus has invaded a tiny college town.

Yes

II. The Quarter Machine
There hangs a doll from the claw
Of some quarter machine
That shimmers and leers at you;

It chokes the cotton
From brown paws in the vitrine
Of childish hopes
Of the carnage of kids and crowns
Or the natch odds of success.
There hangs a doll from a machine
That pulls and screams cries and lies--

A glazy Tantalus on the glass
And in the glass,
My dream.
>>9573491
Not strong enough. You need to make the reader choke on the lettering with the precipes

I'm gearing up to write a new novel. I was playing around with my style and trying to get a feel for the main character. Interested to hear feedback.

https://pastebin.com/RMEjHaHW

Mahogany-Man

Please give a hand
for mahogany man who
steals your stares
and knights his path

"It's nice to be met"

He hands
his card then
chokes your palms:

accredited man.

A man of cigars his
black art is his charm,
bulging smoke for display,
awe at the dragon's work.

Now make way for this man's
such magnificent crotch!
One man rogue of the road!
Mind for his swelling rod.

Luscious lad!
See his wares this clockwork
that he wields
money talks tics and thwarts
he buys time with Rolex

Watch it glint at the wheel
He's a man of the deal
Stainless speech pleasing ears
Courtship wins your appeal

What a man such a man
mirthless chuckles and all
"Hah Hah"
O hear hear sycophants
as they drool

And then fall to their knees to
clean yeast with their tongues

"Gentle gentle" he squirms

"I am too young for love"

In their bastardised love they
lick thick sweat and slug the
wax pool of produce
from their master and bawl

"Oh Master! My Master!"

Sterile stirring fools

Connoisseur of the feast

bellyful of the fowl

You follow like a mule

Kept hollow like a tool
expended then disposed
as social capital

His pride built from the price
and soul buried in scaffold
You fall for his lies
lest he be suicidal

Your worth sits in his purse

With his assets accrued

Beware the big man

He makes business of you.

>>9578839
>tfw succubussy got a crit before me
There is no justice.
>>9579475
I think you need to restrain yourself. A lot of stuff is held back by belabouring. For example, to me your dialogue's too dumb. I know dumb is what you're going for but it's jarringly dumb as well as dumb dumb -- ex.
>"Dude that's fine"
or
>"So, um, what did you want?" "You"

Also, you might want to restrain your conversational style a bit. A few of-courses and kind-ofs go a long way. For example, you might want to cut out that first "for her part" (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyway).

This also extends to the rest of your narrative, like
>But she put her face into a dumb girl’s puzzled expression, one she’d carefully cultivated in high school
could lose that "one she'd carefully cultivated in high school" entirely.

And then there's that God-awful exposition.
>on the counter of the desk of his expansive dormitory room along the Western edge of Fallingworth University
is just as awkward as humanly possible, while
>"My dad’s in contracting, right? Baby, you know that. He’s done a ton of work for them over there. He’s celebrating a new casino he built, and he told me to come. He told me to bring a date, too, so… huh?”
is weirdly factual, and therefore out of character. You could explain that stuff better with less, and in character.

I think it'd be a lot more interesting if you gave the reader a deeper look into Milly's emotions and motivation. As it is it's kind of hollow, like in a YA novel where the writer wants to do this so-cool actually-I'm-a-murderer thing but doesn't really know how to make it interesting.

A lot of stuff is pretty good though. The general tone's close to spot-on, and your descriptions are good.

>>9578839
reading this makes me feel like I have rocks in my mouth. Are you deliberately trying to be obtuse

>>9579650
That might be what I'm going for, depending on what you mean. Could you explain a bit?

>>9579652
it sounds like Yoda and Conan the Barbarian writing their gay memoirs overlaid on a copy of the KJV.

>>9579622
Yeah, I'm definitely going to delve deeper into her as a character in the book itself. This is my first stab at writing her or writing in anything like the way I'll write the book, so I know I need to refine it a little.

I will say that the belaboring may be useful if I tune it a little. I was trying to get it a little off-kilter and wordy, sort of faintly channeling American Psycho, for obvious reasons. I think I might be able to make it work as long as I figure out the "right" way to do it.

>>9579666
Oh wow, that's exactly what I was going for. That's confidence-boosting.

Do you have any specific points, like any words should be cut or replaced or whatever else?

>>9579682
If that's what you're going for, then mazel tov. I can't offer any real critique, because, as is, I'd refuse to read anything by you if I read that excerpt online

>>9579675
>I'm definitely going to delve deeper into her as a character in the book itself
Understandable, but as it is in the start I feel a bit -- loose from the action. I don't really have much reason to urge on Milly or Chris.
>>9579699
Psssh, your loss, pleb.

>>9579721
nothing personnel, kid

>>9579729
nothin*

how embarassing

>>9579732
don't you EVER fucking reply to my posts again unless you have something to add

>>9579740
My every word is a calculation. Every letter, every space is placed to provoke maximum cognition. I slave over my posts for WEEKS and you imply I have EVER given you anything less than superlative addition? And in a shitty little post with no capital and no full stop, no less.

How ironic.

>>9579750
you're stupid

would you want to read more of my poems?

we will live actually

take your friend
out to the WIND
NUMBER lodge—
where we wing
heaven miners
who have honey
pockets—
take them
with your airplane
made of snow
and paint.

we will race
over nerdy turfs
to unstuck realities,
our eyeballs golden
with the sun transmission;
until the rimy brine
from ICE EVENTUAL
floats unwounded
for us.

slide this translucent
steak down
your throat,
and breathe fresh
dormitized air —
this is your life,
I believe!

>>9579788
i have been burned

or is it burnt?

perhaps, in an innocent time, i knew the answer. but no more

now i wander, wondering, always feeling, >tfw no gf

“But I guess playing with you won’t hurt,” she said. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

He watched her crawl backwards and plant a delicate kiss on the tip of his cock. Americus felt ready to burst. She laughed at his dilemma, and he felt the embarrassment; there he was, a grown man, and a Von Starr at that, beguiled by some woman. The vacuous sucking continued, and his balls began to ache. Images of the succubus danced across his vision, and just as he felt the dam in his testicles about to break, a crunch that rang out like cannons in his ears lit his entire world like an atom bomb. Seconds of abject pain lapsed into vague eternities as wave upon wave of pain crashed against the shore of his mind. He could not control the tide of tears this time. He gave in, allowing himself to cry out as he felt his balls attempt to re-inflate. The cool on the tip of his cock was the only sign that he had come. A small dribbling of milky spunk dripped from his assailant’s hands. She scooped up what she could and fed it to the helpless man.

“You just stay put, ‘kay?”

>>9573925
Heh

File: imagesGOTCPQFN.jpg (17KB, 225x225px) Image search: [Google]

17KB, 225x225px

Posted before, will post a Pastebin later I guess.

The rooster crowed as Jenny jumped over the tenth shack roof of the lower, sanded streets of Cathardis.
A mist was rising, the streets were in bustle, and high up in the clouds was a sun shy to peek through the grey smog chocking the city landscape. The red, sombre flag of the hammer and sickle tied high to every speaker spearing out from a dreary world below, the daily propaganda in tow of the morning schedule – it was just another Tuesday as far as Jenny could tell, or was it a Wednesday? Depends on who they decorated the city gates with first - Christians or Spies? One could often see a line of bones hanging down from Figure Row on their way to the markets, and if you could take one of their crosses - you could fool the guards into thinking you were one of them, and as the Noble Law states - “All forms of Religious Propaganda are punishable by death.”
Luckily for Jenny, she was just the distraction. The real cohorts of their little operation had already nabbed the goods off the supply truck long before the guards even knew they were there. The High Rulers sure loved their potatoes, and it was a good thing that food was constantly in demand - otherwise there would be nothing left to sell to the formerly-rich masses who’d now trade-in their own diamonds for a shot at bread.
It was a crumb of irony that left Jenny wanting. Just a regime-change ago these same very men would laugh at her for being a “nobody”, when now – at this moment, at least - it was she who had all the food in the city…
Until the guards came along.
“Thief!” they said. “We know who you are! Give that back or we’ll put your head on a spike!”
Jenny was too busy tugging leg to see all the commotion behind her, and if it wasn’t for all the musket fire, pebble-slinging, or foul language – she’d probably never figure out it wasn’t a good place to be, fact is – life never was: it was always about moving forward, being chased, always struggling, and if you got caught - you were caught forever, and that wasn’t just because the High Rulers had you shot for pointing the wrong way to parliament, they did, it was also because a life tied to money was never fun without the chase, anyway - or so Jenny convinced herself - she was nearing the end of the shack avenue, and either had to get down on street level – and risk more guards – or try vaulting over the barrack walls just ahead of the last roof’s edge - to see if she liked the idea of getting chased by professional soldiers.
She smirked. “It just never gets any easier, does it?”
Time was flying before the roof’s end. Jenny had to decide if it was now or never, prison, or splat.
So on the beat of a strained pulse - Jenny folded out her steel staff mid-run and dug it into the edge of the last sandstone roof. The momentum bridged her through the ash-filled air, and across the tar walls of the district's barracks.

With the faucet running, Gail sat with one foot on the toilet lid and clipped his toenails. His cold white ass was flanked by half full shampoo sentinels. The trimmings launched like fodder into a linoleum sea. There was a painting of a mermaid above the toilet for people to look at while they pissed. There was a wooden ship in the background that for some reason was already covered in barnacles as if it had already been to the bottom of the ocean. The mermaid was waving at the boat and the seamen or pirates or whatever were waving back, probably quite happy to see her perky set. She had really great shoulders, no shell bra, and her scales were green. Maybe she was waving goodbye. Maybe she had a great time. Maybe that's why the ship was covered in barnacles.
Gail checked the water with the back of his hand, but it was still a no. He liked it when the water was so hot that when he imagined himself being submerged in it, rather than being gently pelted by the shower head, he would be slowly cooked, sous vide, like pork fat in a plastic bag. It made him feel cleaner. The heat slurried the grime beneath his nails so he could scrape it away with his teeth and spit it down the drain. It cooked the amoebas living on his back that gave him zits and it burned off the smell of smegma from his foreskin. At least once a shift, he considered crawling into the dishwasher and asking his colleague to sanitize, run him through twice, set it to pots and pans.
Gail's slapdash approach to personal nail care lacked the easy pace of someone who knew exactly what they were doing and enjoyed it tremendously. His was troubled. Between nails, he looked at the painting and imagined a giant shark circling the mermaid's rock and whispering her name, Esmerelda, it said, promising her the toothy syllables of some violent death. He heard a car in the alley through the open bathroom window but it was too early for her to be home. Abigail. He brushed the trimmings on the lid into a boneyard. Longer. That was it. That was the ghost. The troubling. An indeterminate length. A string disappearing into the fog. A large sum you die counting. Something immense. Fingernails that never stop growing. Nip it in the bud. Gail got up to check if it was her. His dick stuck to his leg. A big black sedan idled beside the dumpster. A mound of dried flies between the window and the screen and another one buzzing above his dead friends.
Once the water was warm enough, he stepped in and showered. His skin became pink. It felt so good to be clean.

>Trying to write a hardcore yet heartwarming lesbian travelogue

Rasmi found herself thinking about that night more and more these days, and after discovering that Lee Matthews. her boyfriend of almost a year, had been cheating on her with some skank in his ancient history lecture, she felt less bad about it. It hadn’t been an incredibly scandalous act between the two of them; in truth, it was barely above a tipsy mistletoe encounter. Beth and Rasmi were out on the balcony of Ron’s apartment. The December air was rapid and chilly, and Rasmi had left her coat inside. Beth noticed her shivering and put a hand just a few inches lower than were a reassuring friend would have. Rasmi still got goosebumps when she remembered the cool touch of Beth’s hand on the small of her back. They’d both had more than a few in celebration, and when Rasmi spun to face her roommate, neither pulled away. She didn’t remember who moved in first, but the end result was always the same. Their eyes closed, and, magnetically, their lips gently touched, then kissed. It had been enchanting. She’d remembered stumbling off in a daze with Beth doubled over laughing behind her. She often ended her recollection by reminding herself that it had been a joke, a product of comedic timing and a play on the traditional roles. She reminded herself, but always wondered if it mas more than a joke.

They’d each broached the subject a number of times in the following year and a half during various degrees of sobriety, but Rasmi always listened intently, trying to latch on to something concrete that could dispel the flustering notions inside her, that it had all really been a joke. But, she thought, did she want it to be a joke? Sure, she had wanted desperately for it to have been a joke at the time, and she earnestly believed it to be when Beth had brought it up one night out to dinner with her and Lee. But now, wrapped in Beth’s fleece blanket, reclining on the haggard sectional, drinking cooking wine with her roommate in their pajamas celebrating both the end of the term and the end of Rasmi’s relationship with Lee, she wasn’t sure she wanted it to be a joke.

>>9573638
>It's all phony really.
Nice, I found the part where you told me exactly what I thinking. Seriously everything was so predictable and uninteresting
>Or maybe it's my mother pretending to be swept away by a live piano concerto that I guess is supposed to make us all pine for the eighteenth century.
I didn't know whether to laugh in pity or actually vomit when I read this.
Don't try so hard. Or don't try so little. I honestly can't tell for certain which it is, but it's one of them. Do you really actually want to write? Or do you just want to say something cool, and the only people you can get to listen are the poor saps like us who read into your slimy traps. C'mon man. Just be genuine in what you want to say and how you want to say it. Don't be ashamed of what it reflects. It just means you don't think how you want to write.

>>9573652
Definitely attention grabbing. If it had more written past what posted I'd have kept reading of my own merit and not because I had to. It could use some editing overall, there are some small errors here or there. But it's not too bad, and definitely attention grabbing.

>>9574242
>>9574334 Gave you great advice. I have the same issues, so it was great to see him point it out because I was going to say this was good as is, with similar notes on the grammar. But doing what he said definitely strengthened and will strengthen the piece. Keep it up.

I'm a man of many mistakes yet very few regrets. One of those few regrets was ever leaving you. Even if it was the best decision I could've made at the time. You were everything to me. And I gave it away because I hated myself. Not because of anything you did, or said. I just always hated myself. I preferred my delusional dreamworld over any sort of functional reality that could've been established between the two of us. Things made sense there, but I never realized they would've down here too. In a different way though. In a way that mattered to me more than I had ever admitted to myself.

You spend so much time in your head that it becomes easy to push yourself over. To hush the starving aspirations of an abandoned naivety. The innocence that drove you beyond the imaginary doubts of the hushed voices in your head. What I could've had with you could've been real. Beyond any politics. Beyond any anarchistic inhibitions festering into nihilistic tumors. Beyond any doubt in my mind. You were my perfect fit, and, if I had ever stepped foot to ground, I was yours. That shadow of myself unable to part with whom he belonged too now haunting my nightmares every night I awake missing you.

I took every problem I had in my past and in my childhood, the problems out of my control, and told myself that was the reason it was okay to drink. To get high. To play videogames, or to endlessly scroll through everyone's opinions I once spent 4 years eagerly awaiting to escape from. Because it was too hard. Because I knew I was a good person. Someone who would do great, who would take care of people, Doing my best to improve the state of our ambitious world--So why did I have to grind a 9-5 to show the world I love it? Why did the green paper say my love better than my brain and muscles; my mind and my heart -my being? It wasn't fair, and I was going to stand my ground and be myself. "Be my-fucking-self". Unbelievable. I was such a fucking idiot I can't stand it.


1/2

2/2

Death seems inviting when you lie back-to-back and share each other's thoughts. The patience. The peace. The solitude and thoughtlessness. It all became apart of my being. It was and is zen. But I wanted nothing but it. My mind was water and my throat thirsted for what could never be physically satisfied. I was too dumb to realize I longed for a metaphor. An object of symbolism, something that wasn't real. My mind was still but my body was not ready to be still. It was dying of hunger and thirst to the extent of believing in thoughts to falsely satisfy a carnal, physical craving. This desire twined from my mind and nerves sparking cells strung together by vines of molecular acids. Something that is more me than me but never exists to me. My desire. My desire to love, and to live outwardly. To suffer in the hands of great friends, family, and between the great memories, good or bad, made with them.

The stars reflected in your eyes the night of our first kiss were not just a thought. They were real things around me that meant more to me than any hands-free mental ejaculation. As if conventional jerking off wasn't lazy enough. To believe I was so entitled that I left you to continue to do it. To cut you loose before I drug you down. Because no matter how much I loved you, and believed your every word. I knew that I wasn't going to change. I was still too afraid.

>>9573491
honestly really dig it

>>9579176
Thank you for the detailed and thoughtful criticism. I would never have caught the cinematic atmosphere you said it'd invoked as a piece of writing
>>9579189
Whoops

>>9580678
>>9580680
Honestly, if it didn't say "I'm a man" in the very first sentence I would've guessed the narrator is a teenage girl. I don't mean that as an insult, just an observation. I can't put my finger on the reason though.

"A Day’s Life"

Those shivering sheets outspread before the sun,
the ragged, rustling leaves on arching spines
(with feet embedded fast in gravelly dun),
screen their slender shapes in the shades of my skin,
spin stripes upon to sway with each turning
of the wind, but when light slips behind the wall
of a distant tower, doleful clouds converge
to shroud the grave contusion with a dusty
pall, and on my solemn arm the twilight sun
projects its dusky nameless cenotaph.

>>9580950
I mean, love is fairly ambiguous. But I guess thanks for the input.

>>9581036
This really shouldn't be one sentence. I have no idea of its a poem or prose, and actually believe it's some hybrid inbetween. Which is bad in your case because your line breaks and spacing fuck with how I feel it should be read in my head. I'm not sure how the voice should be.
>spin stripes upon to sway with each turning
of the wind,
This line took me a second to pick out, but perfectly sums the state of your piece and it's errors. What you have isn't bad as its own little thing. It's artsy and feels poetic. But it needs some reworking and a general readjusting across the board. You need to decide what you want and run with it. Then make sure you've edited well.

THIS IS A FEELING

I was talking to someone
now i'm talking to nobody.
This is a feeling
it makes me feel lonely.
Today i saw a crow
chasing a hawk.
I am the crow i am the crow
i am the crow i am the crow.
It was the first i've felt human
in such a long time.
Heart, go back to where you came from.
The weat fields grow
under the sun.
I was the sun i was the sun
i was the sun i was the
My heart, my sweet heart,
bitter heart burning.
This is a feeling
my lonely heart yearning.
I was talking to someone
now i'm talking to nobody.
My bitter heart my bitter heart.
Sweet heart
Lonely heart
Yearning crow
This is a feeling

>>9580678
>>9580680
1. All your sentences are the same length.

2. Absolutely no internal allusion

3. Boring prose

4. Too melodramatic

5. No point

6. No plot

Apparently I'm suffering an acute autism overload so could somebody please tell me which of these two paragraphs is better? And in what sense it's better?

>It seems to be taken for granted: its degree and implementation, its role and relevance as a design element and evaluation criterion, and in short its underlying ethic seem to be perceived as givens by everyone from developer, to player, to public commentator.

>It seems to be taken for granted: the boundaries and ideals of its degrees and means of implementation, the role it serves, the hierarchical rank it has as a design element and as a criterion for evulation, and in short the ethic of it seem to be perceived as givens by everyone from developer, to player, to public commentator.

>>9582837
The only thing of this that's true is that there's no internal allusion and it is a little melodramatic. It's five paragraphs so no kidding there isn't plot. If you missed the point, that's your problem. The prose was engaging, though nothing amazing. Not boring though. If you think it's melodramatic, you're either a child or someone who's never hated themselves. You tell me where this piece needs internal allusion please? Curious as to what you're saying here.

I have a feeling that guy gave you a crit that you didn't like so now you're taking it out on him with joke of a crit.

There were pretzel crumbs on his mustache. A bit of bright yellow mustard smeared on the corner of his mouth. He wore a large gold chain that weaved in between the thick hair on his chest. "Ya know who made the pyramids?" he asked. "Egyptians probably," I said. "No, it was the aliens", he said showing his gold tooth.

She's not really trying to draw attention, just wanting to get some shopping done. She can't help it, that people turn to look at her in confusion, wondering why she's stepping through the market with a man made of ice behind her. Could it even be called a man?

Slapped together from rough shapes and faceless, it's a poor imitation.

It works well, though, and that's all that really matters. The creature has no issue with carrying the many, many packages stacked into its arms.

^ Is this bad?

>>9582976
Well, I mean I didn't really have a point in mind. I just wanted to write something emotional, and that's what came out. Glad you took from it though. Thanks.

>>9582837
Yeah, I mean, I could vary the sentence lengths a little, but idk I kinda feel like I agree with the other dude. Plenty of moments where I have two, three word sentences and others that take a few full lines. Sorry if it seemed melodramatic, I was writing from the heart. The plot is the narrator's realizations into the fact that he ruined his chances with his dream woman because he was too scared to change for the better. That's the point of the details. He's telling her why. Also, I'm not sure either how I'd benefit from internal allusions. Give me an idea of how you think it'd help? I thought the word play was alright. Knowing their past wouldn't really aid in understanding his mental processes in the piece. He's even admitting his problems were all internal.

>>9583013
Eh. It's alright. I'd read a little more but if it didn't pick up quick I'd probably drop it. Grammar is alright, you could gain from some quick edits and removal of unnecessary words. Idk if you're going for style, but really it just looks and flows better when you line break dialog.

>>9583042
It's fine. I'd keep reading, even though I'm sure what you're describing. I'd want to affirm it though. But again, if it didn't start going anywhere soon, I'd drop it. Grammar is fair. Doesn't really need much work overall, it would just depend on content.

>>9583127
Funny thing is you're probably says that same thing to me every time and thus have never actually given me a critique. Just that angry shit posting that is always unhelpful.

>>9583127
Second anon here.

The unhelpful thing here is that to an extent I want to be awkward and convoluted and unenjoyable to read. That is the condition of the character. But, on the other hand, that is only supposed to aid the reader's understanding.

Would you say the reader can understand what the writer is trying to get them to understand? If not, what is at fault? Is the imagery effective? If not, why (ex. is the madness thing too abstract)?

I will say that a fair chunk of your criticisms -- to the other anons, too -- seems to boil down to "this is what my copy of Elements of Style says you should do".
>all the sentence fragments you have makes me look at you with much contempt
This is plebness.

>>9583229
I write to take what is at face value. I do not write to convolute or obscure an idea. It's all there. If it's not for you, then it's not. But I just don't feel like you're quite being fair. No style isn't a real crit, my style is that it's plain and unobtuse. You either relate or you don't. But yoy dont help in anyway by saying what you did is all, I want more, even if it's just as mean. I'll know what will be helpful and what won't.

>>9583247
If you want to communicate the condition of the character as awkward and convoluted and annoying then for fuck's sake only reflect that in his speech and thought, don't make the main body of narration like that. Why would you deliberately make your story unenjoyable to read? That's totally idiotic.
inb4 joyce, you're not him

>>9583247
I actually don't read any writing guide books, because I don't think that's how one should learn how to write. I've been told good things about a few of them, though. All my criticism comes from personal study and practice. Whether or not you choose to listen to it is up to you, but I guarantee that it will make your writing better. I generally focus on flow/aesthetics, so if you'te interested in that you should especially pay attention. Also, writing poorly just because that's how you want to narrate that particular character doesn't make for good writing. You can make a character awkward and convoluted and still write unlike that. And no, hating poor sentence fragmenting does not make me a pleb. How you did it is very juvenile. Stop it.

>>9583282
>How you did it is very juvenile.
Why? Please, explain, because unlike other things this is something I do generally.

File: plebs.png (157KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

157KB, 1280x720px

here's a poem about plebs

https://youtu.be/uofEqpXKfeI

>>9583299
There's no stylistic purpose for those sentence fragments. It doesn't add any tension and just results in poor writing. You could have just used a comma or conjunction and the sentence would have been perfectly fine. When I say juvenile I usually mean that there is no purpose for something being done: the writer simply uses a technique they've seen because they think it will be cool. I read so many amateur short stories that use sentence fragmenting like this and it just makes me want to burn the entire thing immediately.

I wish i could write something sincere and meaningful. Something that could be worth writing or even reading.
Sometimes i find it almost impossible to figure out who i actually am, i feel like i'm just a series of shallow imitations of everything and everybody that surrounds me. Who am i?. That seems to be the one idea that absorbs everything involved in my life these days. I start to question, correct that, i have been questioning for a long time now everything about myself.
There are moments where i pause and observe a thought i had or an emotion i just experienced, that i believed was sincere and true, and i realize that that was in fact not the case. For example: i will laugh at something i read that i find funny. I will pause; and i can hear for a moment in the back of my head, i small voice saying to me (when i say a small voice i'm refering of course to those secondery thoughts most of us probably have that a lot of the time go unnoticed amongst our general brain noise) this, this is what you find funny. Now laugh at it.
And i laugh even though, in reality i don't feel anything at all.
See sometimes i feel that in all this searching and finding within myself i am ignoring the cold reality that perhaps lies deep inside of me. Below the incesant noise of my thoughts bouncing from one side to another in my brain, there exists nothing at all. Who am i? There is no me. Just one illusion pilled on top of another, each one of them fooling each other. Does that make any sense at all?.
I have this daydream sometimes. I imagine that i am not really a human being. All my thoughts, my emotions are constructed, artificially. Below my skin there are nothing but wires and cables.
I believe that humans are for lack of a better example, like onions. With a personality formed over many years with many different layers.
Me, i am flat. A plane, impenetrable. Endless. There is nothing to me and there lies the problem of trying to find honesty and sincerity. Something meaningful within myself when such a thing could not possibly exist.
There is an idea people hold, of who i am. Not one of them is the same, because of course all those ideas are held in brains that are completly different from each other... Anyway. I am running out of things to talk about (to be honest). I think i've reached that moment where the words are starting to flow less smoothly and fluently and i'm having to thing about what to say next. And once that'll happen i'll begin to lie to myself again. Thought kills the truth.

>>9583492
>lowercase i
Is that on purpose? Like a statement on the narrator's perceived insignificance, like the opposite of referring to God as He with an uppercase H? That'd be interesting.

>>9583492
>(to be honest)
Ignore that. Didn't mean to include

>>9583502
That? Nah. I typed it out on my phone and i couldn't be bothered to correct each one. Cool idea though might borrow ha

>>9583492
naval-gazing tripe

With the same dull blue eyes that used to peer out of my mothers face in my own face, and the dull brown hair my father sports, gripping his normally dull blade for cooking in my hand -- it has been sharpened to a wicked edge for this very moment -- I stand over a body, its neck split, its convulsions long since over. How long have I been standing here? Posed, not a sound but my breathing, and the dripping of blood on tile. You could hear a — forgive the cliche — pin-drop with the silence, if you were not dead, and lying at my feet, mother.

>>9583475
I understand not doing things for no reason, but the "he looked" certainly has reasoning. It's meant to be a state of idle confusion, which -- to me at least -- "he looked" suggests. What did it suggest to you, and is there any specific reason it appeared aimless? I.e. how would you avoid it.

File: banevid foster wallace.jpg (695KB, 1200x800px) Image search: [Google]

695KB, 1200x800px

She came to him crying and he made a weak attempt to calm her because it was a few days lateand what was the concern? Whether they’d taken the proper precautions or not the odds were on their side and they had. But this was little consolation and they watched a sappy movie while she stared at a crack along the wall above the screen and the usual chat about the film (right after, standing there twirling his keys on her doorsteps for hour and change, talking through the doorframe) didn’t quite occur, but he stood there and continued to stand there as they started forming words, just the beginnings of words, and couldn’t quite manage to say them. Her concern began to turn to his concern and though they couldn’t say for sure, the contemplation of it, and all the implications, turned the possibility somehow stark and real as yet remained it speculation. And thinking back, he would remember staring at tiny patch of rust at the bottom of the jamb, never, in his memory, looking away from it to look at her or even her shoes and he thought repeatedly, revising constantly, a sentence which, if said, could not be improved or softened by any artful phrasing.
So her drove away from the house, in which he was uncomfortable past sundown, sensing the happy parents’ sense that she was pure, and he drove around the town, avoiding home, where he had once walked with another one, oblivious to his feelings of her, and tried to remember the beautiful notions that suffused the memories with light. He felt sorry, but increasingly for himself, and wept thinking of his lust and it struck him, sick with the realization, that he felt he would prefer to never be forgiven, to carry this guilt his whole life over that unthinkable resolution which was of course no resolution and decades and all his Catholic eternity’s eternities.

[This is the beginning of a short story.]

Here.
Before this screen,
Hard-wired, neat, clean.
Everything is crystal clear.
Housed in tower,
Plugged for power.
Transmitting inputs through a machine.

Display
Quartz-cut imagery.
Raw and processed reality.
Reckless finesse flung by the thumb.
Mistakes, retakes
Three lives, you've died
Respawn, redrawn, relive missed time.

Missed phone call,
A voice never heard.
Mumbo-jumbo jargon
Whispered in the ears of the dead.
Informing whomever it may concern
News regarding the fall of their creator.
Whose crash and nosedive has resulted in
A plummet and the meeting of their maker.

Echoing, quieting, stilling,
Setting softly into dead circuitry.
The last remaining updates lay filling
The unwanted and unchecked space that was free.

I feel like every time i write i just bust out in laughter. Does anyone feel like that?


All the people in the world
Yet i feel so lonely
And isolated from others
All the love can not fill
The empty void inside me
Consuming me projecting outside
This blackhole of depression has
Crippled me from getting up from
Bed, where i lay hoping for something
Anything to pull me from my desolated life
Days move faster with no sign of stopping
I feel today is always the weekend
Friends on a train to success without me
Waiting for the next transit
Still waiting but never arriving
The depths of my character is one dimensional
I feel bounded to this anchor holding me
Progression skips on repeat
The next wave of depression will hit
I lay on shore hoping for a rescue
Just left to die with no assistance
What to do with so much time
But spend it on nothing
Then wait for death to finally
Gain another to the collection
Hoping for the best but always being underwhelmed
A stream of conscious with no direction
Floating on a raft to betterment
Still nothing in sight

>>9582055
Thanks, that was really helpful.

The light reflecting off the pools of murky dirt bacteria infected slime are grey and shinning rainbow colored paterns of oil covering the top with thinn layers of toxic waste. Smoke and smog, mixed in with what appears to be rain clouds that don't do anything but lurk above the ground and the mud and wait, for the gloom to lift and spirits rise before ripping apart in a downfall of watered down coal and dirt and grit. It can be tasted on the tip of tounges as it bounces off the earth. Salty. Like it has jumped a couple of steps in the weather cicle and the sea has arrived at the city like it is dooms day and the cement towered bloxks are engolfed by the inmensity of ocean, corroding away what is left of the shit stinking putrefacting air-born sewer.
It is early in the morning. The noise is starting to drift and bounce from house to wall to ear pearced head ache, fucked into oblivion from 10 pm to 3 am by cheep 50 proof booze. Bleach that eats away at vocal cords until at 6 and a half hours of the day nothing comes out but a whisper. Outside footsteps are walking. Little sounds of rats crawling along the ventilator shafts that do nothing but carve tunnels for rodents and mice and verming and snakes in the fucking cealing. Who doesn't hate snakes.
No cockroaches. You just know something is going on when those little fucks aren't crawling around and eating and shitting under the bed and in the fridge turning brie de meaux into swiss cheese. I need a smoke. He needs a smoke. 25% tobaco 100% death.
There's a buzzing sound in the air that could either be a wasps nest in the bed set or a helicopter flying above the building or the milky shit breath executioner calling about a ball sucking. Either way i am fucked. Buzzzzz buzzzz buzzzz. Again. From the desk top this time.
Aaah yes. Bouncing along dubidubida look how that fucker dances creeping along into a pool of alcohol and some brown sticky stuff that looks like it could possibly be lard or ear wax.
Pick it up with hands that are like claws, side effects from inhaling 8pp of shark dust good for 24h slave shifts and butt sex no so good for taking calls. Yes. I hear you. Nothing that comes from the other end of a telephone is good news. Nobody makes friends with a guy that shares a smoke with a circus of crackheads and junkies and losers and deadbmeats for just about 200 a month heat and life insurence not included. Don't blow your nose too hard our building has a very delicate frame thank you. The call ends in under a minute. Time is money money money and time is on my side. Time to rock and roll my baby, feet hit the floor.

>>9585437
nice.

File: XJyemeI.jpg (44KB, 462x356px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 462x356px

>>9572406
>swirling ocean
>wash over you

>>9585437
You're losing me in the descriptions. This is good writing, but I would edit the hell out of it. You could convey the tone subtly if you didn't shove down every sentence's throat.

First of all, just stick to third person for this, you can say a lot about the mindset of the character just by the tone of the first paragraph. Play with it. It's okay to the be nameless all knowing being or the creepy god that stares too long at one guy.

>>9585500
1/2

I don't rap raps I haphazardly hack happiness and set the track, no train slacking, my brain magic make the compartments trap bastards while a fat conductor dials in and wiles about the missing miles in front, while I hold a pile of tacks and wood and steel: build that shit up, improvised blunt wheel, hanging up front like a fresh meal, feet peel as I stretch myself, steel sketch myself in a daring move to help bullet barrel and groove without losing its shoes, no losing in clues or tunes cept missing the news that new mood is rest lube; my sex tube squirt my hex move, while breath looms beyond a gray tomb of hooves and ludes; I'm blackadder shrewd and light skinned black, backpack tap my cat raps and bring flowers at late hour to the flat cemetary where all artists go to die, limited minds, inhibited grind that blinds all eyes, which are not all on me; gall that they breathe, haul all reprieve and leave with new thought trees, heave the weight that make you bleed, I'll wait for you to find a trick up your sleeve; I'm up my sleeves with some niggas on the moon, we eating pees and no trees around to cut down and spark our doom; outright booed off the earth for being so crude, next boo boo I hear I'll kill you with my pen, best fear: no writing, I'll stab you in the ear and the eye till I can piss right on your mind, and bitch they'll call me kind, you wasting what behind your eyes, hasting to arrive at a hive with my kind; met more people with eyes who blind than wise old bats who never shoe tie; to you I can't lie, me soul spy that hoe grind, Edgar Allen Poe mind, shit you can't say you great enough in rap, better wrap up that steez and hide it, no treasure map; i wear a riot hat, all quiet facts function to fuck with your lapse of judgment; putrid, pungent, damn yo shit stink, like you drink the spit of bums and finks; no-shower chink, I love my stink, I hug my sink and think about the things that make me cry and lie on the bathroom floor and wake up, vomit dry, fuck if I know why I break into the shy parts of my mind, or choose to lie to all around me; tall foundry erected with my words, y'all round me best get terse and tighten those lines, I got verses like vines in a vineyard and I've already set sail, new mail say I'm jailbound, I stole a whale and a hound to bark my sound all round the world; hurl rhythmic curls like a girl on the bed, no sex just give me head, while I jot down some thoughts, organic hot box, manic cockblock myself, I need new health, I may love myself but damn do I get bored, hoard all whores and lords like change in your pocket, social socket; postal for all you so called rappers: candy bars closer to rapping than what you stacking, and my car lacking prestige but goddamn do I rap with ease, and senpai I don't even rap raps, I haph-

>>9585506
If anyone reads this it's what I call a "freewrite" inspired by hip hop and the poetic maximalism that (can be) rapping

Here's the "ending"

>oh that's a hurdle backtrack, I tend to circle strap, upend and curdle hacks, verbal blast like both death stars, breathe bars, and read stars, no astrology, no apology, don't bother me, I'm obviously too dialed in, and I pulled the grenade pin, all sin, case win, and just in case I even sing.

once again, i head to /lit/
my insecurity has yet bit

ego blood, blazing red
the mind of an interbred

distorted wisdom, poetically misled
i head into the critique thread

a sigh of distress, i post my scribble
slack jaw, a chin of dribble

i reply to myself, ten outa ten
i now betwixt you, wise men

i find this thread, see this rhyme
just after samefagging at its prime

recognition, pretty lame
hang my head in shame

how do you all go about blending all the parts of prose together? I can write description, action, dialogue, exposition, thought, etc. on their own, but when I need to weave them together to form a scene it all falls apart for me. Do you have any prose patterns or writing systems that you use to have a good mix of all the different elements and order them properly?

Have some angst


I wish to feel the sunshine, but
I fear too much to fall
My wings won't hold, the wax will melt
So I resist its siren call

My armor burns too easily;
I hide my face from light
The solar sailors moan in loss:
I flee into the cooling night

The blackness makes its judgment
The moon winks slyly down
Her quiet gaze adorns my head
With laurel leaf and jester's crown

Robed in velvet apathy,
Masked in ebon shame,
I forge myself a tyrant's throne
And yet each thought betrays her name

>>9579616
It seems like you have a rhythmic scheme that you drop at the sterile stirring fools bit, it disrupts the flow of the poem like there's an extra line or something. Everything from there to "suicidal" is a little weak imo but the last stanza is nice.
Otherwise I like it a lot. Just needs some polish

>>9582952
The second one has more unnecessary words, but really the phrase "perceived as givens" just sounds bad. Try this:
>Its degree and implementation, its role and relevance as a design element and evaluation criterion- in short, its underlying ethic- seems to be taken for granted by everyone from developer to player to public commentator.
Work on using punctuation more effectively.

>>9585506
I dig this. Really great flow, I would watch you recite this at a poetry slam or something
I feel like you need to say more besides the classic "i am good at rap and you are not"

Writing one just for you guys

Ground cardamom
Looks just like low-cut Heroin.
I slip it into my coffee
and my drink
Becomes a more
powerful
drug.

>>9585506
>>9585511
You got some fun as fuck lines here
>i wear a riot hat, all quiet facts function to fuck with your lapse of judgment
>organic hotbox
>verbal blast like both death stars
>limited minds, inhibited grind that blinds all eyes, which are not all on me; gall that they breathe, haul all reprieve and leave with new thought trees

Every day for eighteen yearsー God I miss my room, don’t you? The only safety I’ve ever known. The drab and white plaster would suddenly just radiate that gold and amber glow, the color of wheat and apple beaming through the blinds in the summertime. I had the best view of the old Japanese Maple and in every season it was beautifulーthose rich, plump, and rouge leaves like old mahogany, how comforting, how maternal. That quiet, peaceful maple was the first thing I’d see waking up, looking through that large central window. Everyday for eighteen yearsー Christ, that view! I really had it all once.

And near the end of our high school sophomore year, my good friend John came over unannounced, as he'd often do. It was the late afternoon, early summer, and we quickly ran out of things to say. We’re good friends and all but there wasn’t anything to say. Laying on the bed, staring up at the golden plaster ceiling, I quickly fell asleep while John sat at my computer, writing poetry, deleting each one after he had finished it. I remember waking up and seeing him silently typing away, with his lanky body and short blond hair fading into the afternoon rays, as if he were bathing in it.

>>9573541
read a book anon

also WHO THE FUCK is Elmord Lynrd?

>>9587493
why is every thing posted by you plebs literally nothing? just a bunch of filler and naval gazing and pondering and cunts sitting around thinking about random shit while doing fucking nothing interesting at all. pro-tip no one cares what your characters sits around thinking about the trees and wall paper. have them do something dangerous or useful you cucks

>>9587575
Probably cuz most of us only just started writing, is all.

>>9587588
Well I'm not talking about how you write just what you write about. Have the characters stop thinking about shit and start fucking do things, if you what anyone reading to care.

>>9587612
you act without thinking?

>>9587620
Are you writing your diary or something you want others to read? Good prose isn't life; it's cutting out the boring shit of life and compressing all the interesting proactive stuff into a good story.

>>9587635
“William Stoner realized that for several moments he had been holding his breath. He expelled it gently, minutely aware of his clothing moving upon his body as his breath went out of his lungs. He looked away from Sloane about the room. Light slanted from the windows and settled upon the faces of his fellow students, so that the illumination seemed to come from within them and go out against a dimness; a student blinked, and a thin shadow fell upon a cheek whose down had caught the sunlight. Stoner became aware that his fingers were unclenching their hard grip on his desk-top. He turned his hands about under his gaze, marveling at their brownness, at the intricate way the nails fit into his blunt finger-ends; he thought he could feel the blood flowing invisibly through the tiny veins and arteries, throbbing delicately and precariously from his fingertips through his body.
”

Excerpt From: John Williams. “Stoner.”

>>9587635
“Sensing the thought, If he does not love me, then he is incapable of love, —I wish...she said. Moments like this (and they came more often) she had the sense that he did not exist; or, to re-examine him, sitting there looking in another direction, in terms of substance and accident, substance the imperceptible underlying reality, accident the properties inherent in the substance which are perceived by the senses: the substance is transformed by consecration, but the accidents remain what they were. The consecration has apparently taken place not, as she thought, through her, but somewhere beyond her; and here she sits attending the accidents.
Her lips did not move, neither did the words laid out there on the stillness of the white page: the faculty of reading suspended in her dull stare, the syllables remained exposed, hopelessly coexistent. Then one caught her eye, drew her on through another, and so through six, seven...When her wet tongue clicked t, she looked up and the poem died on the page. —Did you know he was homosexual? she asked.”

Excerpt From: William Gaddis, William H. Gass. “The Recognitions.”

Evan started to smile now pleased with this recurring coincidence and his casual racism. She was wearing a wide brimmed summer hat. Her arms bent at an awkward angle to adjust for how close she sat to the steering wheel - and her hands being at ten and two. It was easy to hate her. Hatred is safe and controllable, asian drivers are not. How evan hated Interruption. He was on his way to a family gathering. The last event he had attended had ended with the neighbor boy running out, crying. Perhaps Evan had had too much to drink, nevertheless he knew himself to be rather abrasive. Something similar was bound to happen again, although he dreaded it, he would do nothing to prevent it. Selfish as it was he knew in order for him to enjoy himself, others had to not.

As he merged onto the freeway a ping of self-hatred erupted in his stomach. A black hole that sucked his organs into the very center of his being. His expression remained unchanged though. The black hole did appear every other day, and it really shouldn’t have been a surprise. He lit a cigarette and rolled his window down just enough to let a current of air escape from the car. His foot became heavy on the gas pedal, he was anxious to arrive. A feint petrol smell crept through the current. Evan lived near an industrial power plant, where the smell must have originated. Occasionally late at night the loud sound of a torch blasted through the nearby neighborhoods. Each time, for a few seconds, he assumed a nuclear fire would engulf him, before remembering the emergency steam exhaust plans.

>>9583668
>You could hear a — forgive the cliche — pin-drop with the silence
>>9583492
>for lack of a better example, like onions

Pointing out your own lack of creativity doesn't excuse it. This is my absolute pet peeve, please stop doing this.

>>9572406

Capitalise your fucking "I"s

like plants do

give me your hand
you galactic malingerer,
my frantic radio
tuned to no-man’s
station—
echo-crying abyssal
beats, oh for the fun
of thirty-nine.
i will remember
nothing
if you don’t tie
the bow.
cosmos truffle,
i respect your hair
with all my plutonium
wits and i must inform you
about our specials.
we have charred
sour-money and implosioned
menisci.
one thousand naked
trotskyites measure me
in a dirty glass
inhaling chemicals
like plants do.

>>9587968
sorry

>>9584572

Are you basing this on at that bit from the Pale King where a couple are pregnant and they're talking about abortion but DFW never comes right out and names it? Because that's what I think you're doing (discussing a thing without saying it out loud, which is a pretty smarmy, self-satisfied writing exercise in itself) and it became clear by the middle of the second sentence with 'proper precautions', so the rest of it seems a little superfluous in that regard. But you can really write well, and if you were to actually play out all these gestures and silences in scene, after having flat stated at the start "This is a story about unwanted pregnancy and abortion", then you might find some real depth to the characters and the situation they find themselves in, rather than sticking to this postured half-telling that is only literary on the surface. That should be the whole short story, the conversation through the door frame, then maybe his solo reflection driving as an internal coda.

Good luck, Anon, I believe in you

>>9587692
>>9587714

yeah, and? it's liberal literary dull shit

Grauhesch leers from his chamber, unbidden,
as we slink the shade of his view, unseen.
Grey king abed in his prison, unchained—
as our fear far stricter bids us silent.
That courtly mock: a wrinkled brow in thought,
repeated in bulbous and reaching flesh,
scornful wet facsimile of our own.
What hubris took hold and drove us here—
to cower before the insensate?
Long severed and silenced and bound but still,
the echo remains and shackles in turn.
Foul prophet those mouthless lines to lay,
not in mist and shadow but statute and stone.
What fault is this but ours, and ours alone?

>>9588134
What is "Hills Like White Elephants".

>>9584572
Don't listen to that guy.

Step outside. The air is 15-20° lighter around these parts, adjusted accordingly. Burn a third smoke of the hour gotta take it easy. Cancer implants they sell good but you have to be careful these days. Some noise over at the Napalm Garden one hundred feet away. Protesting the price of crack, good on them. The mob screaming like an HIV infected banjee all as one, ripping their vocal cords apart blood leaking out of their brown teeth rotting mouths. WE WANT MORE WE WANT MORE. A riot space machine hovers above the croud blasting 180 db worth of turbo-garage death metal trying to bring some sanity back into their crackbrains, but they're too far gone. Music changes, four season by vivaldi echoing at a more ear appeasing 140 this time. Like jackalls they smell a change in the game and position their body in a fetal attack/deffence formation. LADIES AND GENTLE MEN DISPERSE THE GROUND OR WE SHALL RESPOND. A roar of aproval rises from the mob. Just on cue the capsules open on the riot machine and two hundred litres of vaporised LSD pours into the air. The graden is engolfed by artificiack mist from the ground pipes, everywhere is silence except for the music emanating from the riot blasters, The Flight of Valkirie this time tempo changed to a 3x4 what a lovely touch.
The space machines distance themselve from the ground manouvering into a Category H positionament. The light beams turn on, projecting Scooby Doo: The Porno onto the mist, fifty metres high dancing like a phantom above the mass. Terrified screams are issued, that must be one hell of a trip.

>>9590076
Terrified screams are issued, that must be one hell of a trip.
Stomps of heavy leaded boots on the gravel. Riot droids in full titanium gear holding their electric bazooka guns. They pause in cemicircle around the mob, the crackheads too entranced in their life changing Walkabout acid trip to take any notice. Plop plop plop. Electric granades flying through the air and exploding on the ground sending shock wave after shock wave of fantastic lapislazzuli balls of electrified death from the feet to the toungue hairs of every crackhead in the garden. The charge must have been set too high, 20.000 at the very least. Everybody dances like a jingalo clawnshow toe nail melting and eyeballs bursting out of the sockets like over boiled eggs. The game is over. The dead are left to melt and smolder, the living are pulled aside and penetrated in the asshole by two metres worth of hard alloy extended android penises. A warm round of aplause from everybody, who doesn't love a good show.

Author Narration (Unreliable)

My redolent predicament; oh my. Through the dusky dell laid him, for which was encompassed with predilection. Intrigued by the intransigence of the world, left cogitating, ruminating, contemplating. It was his propensity, a scarce element upon the jovial world that segregates and censures those of less fortuitous and less capable. In the midst of darkness, there was light. Upon all the abhorrent shortcomings, there was one that did not disdain and interdict others, for he believed in a certainty much more prestigious than him; sui generis.

>>9590076
The fact that you made me read all that for an ending like that is unbelievable. Do you actually want a crit or was this just a shit post?
>four seasons by Vivaldi
Nice, loved that shit in highschool.

>>9590418
Nothing wrong with using the right word for the job, but holy shit. Put down the thesaurus and use common English. What is this supposed to be/become? It feels complete. It is not good either way.

>>9588212
I remember you posting this a while ago. It doesn't feel like you really changed anything. It's just not something I want to read in poetry. Which very well may be personal preference. But unless this became a large verse piece like an epic, there's not much reason to be convoluted. Might be someone else's cup of tea though, poetry is finicky like that.

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>>9590076
>>9590085

>>9590565
Do you think i'm writing a short story here? It's an extract, what more do you want.

>>9590602
Were you consciously ripping off Transmet or are you just doing the exact same thing twenty years too late?

>>9590612
Twenty years too late, it's fun to write. And that's not the only series that talks about this kind of thing bud

>>9572406

Is this the right thread to ask about tips on how to leave critique? since I write a lot of my friends ask me to read their stuff and say what I think, but i have no idea what to say other than "i like it" or "not really my style"

>>9590602
You're the future/crazy story guy I replied to right? Idk man, maybe not ending it with androids having metallic dicks that fuck the bodies and people. I mean, there's edge and then there's just ridiculous.

If you're the other dude, to post more is what I want. Not that I *want* more, but if you have more and your post only takes 700 characters of a 3000 character post box, post more. Otherwise you're only going to get a crit based on what you have here. I'm not clairvoyant.

>>9590653
You know the technicals behind smooth reading write? Just look for consistent inconsistencies in their writing. Things that aren't up to opinion. Then let them know how to improve on them. Simple things such as proper grammar, intelligent word selection, proper descriptive orders, unneeded or excess or lack of details. Check their tenses and their word variance (do they say "I" or "The Boy" twelve times in six sentences). Just give them the advice you'd take or you believe will improve their abilities. For a critic, especially here or with friends, get an idea of the image they're trying to achieve, then suggest to them how they may improve upon it using technicals.

>>9590653
Good, well constructed critique on here is rare. So not really the best place no. Just try a find points that the writer has missed or isn't doing very strongly with. Self awareness while doing any form of creative work is difficult and it's very helpful to have so kind of external observation that goes beyond "that's very good!" or "i didn't really like that".

>>9590663
>edge
Hmmm. It was meant to be funny but yeah maybe you do have a point there. I was kinda worried it might come across as being a bit too much.

>>9590684
>>9590685

Thank you!

>>9590694
Like I said, I had my qualms before reaching that point, but I wasn't forcing myself through it. It was bizarre enough to keep me going. But getting to that part was just lame and completely in excess. You still have errors before as well, in your descriptions there are a few inconsistencies, but damn that part was just not warranted.

>>9590639
I know it's not, but the style of your extract reads in the style of one of SJ's articles. It's well put together and the style is good but I think you might benefit from doing something more original.

>>9590709
>>9590694
Like, if you want excess and humor, just say the androids release and after throwing the nades, they just dismembering each body, living or not.

It's still way out there, but in a more respectable and less off-putting way that actually registers a little more realistically as 'over-the-top comedic".

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The afternoon sunlight was standing like a yellow colloidal mass and it melted through the crevices and holes in the street. The heat penetrated through everything with a fervour of urban anxiety. Sweat was ubiquitous. Sweat got in the way of everything people did; it was everywhere. Sweat drifted from their foreheads, onto their eyebrows and got into their eyes. Sweat flooded their ear canals; accumulated over their lips; soaked their dresses. Sweat got into the food they ate; the products they sold, the money they handled. The city sounds violated the tympanic membranes. The abundant light exposed everything, made the people feel naked. It exposed the sensitive nerve endings which made people edgy and anxious. It got into their eyes and scorched their retinas. The whole street was only a temporary place where they fought to make a living, then they would go to the comfort of their homes where they did the actual living, however little that was. That's why the dead man in the middle of the street bothered no one.

Can I get some advice on an actual piece of my writing? It's one of a few introduction segments into the world and characters and plot. Pre-chapter 1 stuff.

>Trial of Bhlakgrat

The end of his path suffers a rectangular hole of blackness seemingly cut from the surrounding jungle. It's very blackness appearing an impossibility. As if the light entering its frame is being consumed by the void within. A path carves the jungle underbrush between its many trees snaking up to the hole. Black bodies, slim but lean, dressed in thin furs shielding their upper arms, shoulders, genitals, and mid thighs, line the sides of the narrow trail. Each waiting their turn to lend a hand to the youngling currently alone on the perilous path.

The incline is steep, and the shaded illumination of the canopy causes shadows to form over and underneath the many roots and brush along and across the narrow, winding path. The men are stood far enough apart to allow the child to struggle on his own before reaching another momentary ally. Yet even as the young man stumbles and hobbles along the jungle rise, to and past his elder guardians, his eyes never break from the approaching void.

Branches which had obstructed his view of the landscape beyond the hole soon give way. Shortly past the void, the inclination of the ground juts near vertical into a canopy of branch-like trees. Surrounding the darkness, thickets of ivy outline the housing of a roof-access elevator shaft. The ground nearby bears remnants of turned stone and tossed earth along recovering tree stumps. In the space cleared shortly above the metal structure, an edge forms where another wall, again thick with ivy, stretches back into the rising mound of earth.

To the left of the hole, three men, each adorned in more intricate wrappings than the young man or his guardians, watch as the boy approaches them. The man closest the void reaches to the ground behind him grabbing for a large coil of vine rope. Taking an end, he reaches into the darkness above his head and knots it onto to the support bar for the steel cable once used by the long collapsed elevator. Then, returning and looping the remaining rope neatly around his arms, he again proceeds to the hole, and releases it. No sound can be heard after it falls. The shrill static of insects and leaves, the distant calling of birds and monkeys, and the steady vibrato of tree frogs fill the air around them.

Standing right of the void, a fine-dressed elderly man, dressed better to the standards of all the other men, wearing a green feathered head ornament awaits the approaching youngling with patient eyes. Silently he regards each careful step the journeyman makes with appreciation, and assurance of their success. When the child arrives, the shaman carefully lowers his head towards him before seemingly looking deep into his eyes, and raising his arms about him. The journeyman looks past the shaman.

>>9590747

"Jhlik Oudouad. See me."

Jhlik shifts his focus to the shaman's flowing, blue eyes--his own a churning turquoise.

"Jhlik Oudouad. Long before you were born to stand here now did your spirit decide it's fate, did Nhllo guide your will to this vessel. As sight has long since turned from my eyes to my spirit by the hand of Nhllo, so shall your sight grow weary of its ocular shell. Yet, even to be born in Grace does not mean one is handed it."

The men left of the door, as well the closest men trailing the congregation, have now also lowered their heads under the words of the shaman, and at this utterance does one of the men uncontrollably and quietly sound off in passionate agreeance.

"Jhlik-Oudouad, you stand before I, a Mote of Nhllo, and before the sacred gate of the depths Blhakgrat, to pledge pilgrimage within the banished land of the Gods. A pilgrimage where one will journey, just as I had before being Shaman, in search of Gullana."

"I, Jhlik-Oudouad do pledge holy pilgrimage into the home -the tomb- of Gods, Blhakgrat, where I shall find Gullana and return with Ancient Wisdom of Nhllo or die trying."

Jhlik says this without looking away from the shaman's vacuous stare.

"Then go, under this Mote's blessing. Traverse the banished land and return a holy shaman!, or perish honorably and bravely, in the name Nhllo and the Ancient Ones. Ahmn."

"Ohm."

The men left of the boy had begun chanting quietly as the shaman finishes his recital. The child finds himself swaying in rhythm with the voices of the men. The shaman lowers his arms, and his empty gaze seems to return from off to the young Mote before him as a careful smile returns to his wrinkled face. Reaching into his robes the shaman pulls out a small metal tube and unscrews the cap before reaching it to the journeyman, demanding he drink from it. The boy obliges.

Bowing in unison, the youngling turns away from the shaman to face the rope reaching into Blhakgrat. Noticing the top of the vine, Jhlik sees it is knotted firmly at two perfect holes born into a block of metal. The shaman's assistant standing nearest the boy's left gifts him a leather sack, bowing as the boy takes it. The journeyman bows in return. Taking a deep breath, the young Mote extends a firm grasp to the rope, before exhaling, and releases his full body weight onto his grip. Carefully, Jhlik slides down the rope as light begins to bead above him, and the fading jungle noise and steady chanting carry him into the darkness below.

>>9590711
I saw it as being more inspired by william burroughs/moebius, so you see how these things work. I haven't read the comic you're referring to but i guess i'll have to give it a read, i also don't like seeing similarities between two different pieces. Idk i was kinda liking what i had so far in the story so i'd be sorry if i had to drop it.
>>9590709
>Inconsistencies
Mind pointing them out?

>>9590747
>>9590752
I think if this is the introduction you should cut it down a bit. There isn't a lot that grabs my attention and it would benefit a lot from being a bit more brief in the description. Nothing wrong with the prose as far as i can see.

>>9590826
Just a quick example, near the beginning you describe a single riot ship keeping the peace. Yet as it progresses, there are magically more ships, as you state
>The space machines
Just gotta make sure you're either evolving the idea properly or using the proper descriptions.

>>9590841
Damn really? I was worried it was too short as is. Any suggestions as to what I could cut that you feel aren't needed?

>>9590747
>>9590752
it feels overwrought. not every sentence needs to be an action to introduce description. not everything needs to be qualified.

>>9590735
This is great. Nothing wrong I can think of. Would read desu

>>9590744
This feels flat. I feel like you allow your narrative voice into the character's too much. "Oh no" is no mothers reaction in that situation.
On the whole it wasn't very interesting. By the fourth graph I was making myself read it for you. Could just be me. The random indentation is strange, but overall the grammar isn't too bad. It could use some touch-ups, but that's not primarily where you're lacking. I feel that is the dialog. It, as well as the scene, just kinda comes off as flat.

>>9590871
I can understand that. I guess that's just how I write, but if it's too detracting or overly excessive, I can tone it down. I had every intention to do so beyond this. I only went for emphasis as it's a serious trial based on life or death.
Thanks for the tip.

>>9590858
You just seem to lose yourself in a description that i don't really think is necessary in the atmosphere development and i found my mind drifting as i read it. Too much describing can be over saturating sometimes even if it's writen good. Also a preface should be short and down to the point imo and this comes across as a chapter one more than anything.

>>9590874
gotcha. it's not actual dialogue - it's the narrator's description of the dialogue. you're right, the scene is mundane, but it's to show how quickly things change once the reader learns why the mom went downstairs to call the police

>>9573491
YES

>>9590826
If you get as far as the end of the third issue you'll see what I mean.

>>9590896
Well, this is part of five point block. This point (1) builds up Jhlik's character and situation before he is again introduced in the main story as he actually travels Bhlakgrat (an ancient city lost underground). I've got two more points, one for the shaman and tribe, and one for his father and mother. Then there are two more points as well detailing people in a different part of the world scavenging for lost, ancient tech and a piece of hardware in particular. After all these points, the story starts where Jhlik and the scavengers eventually meet within Bhlakgrat. So I don't know if it's a preface exactly, but it's not the actual story quite yet either.

I can totally understand what you mean with the details though. Looking it over, I've already found a few areas that could be shortened or even cut. Thanks man.

>>9590899
Do your thing man. Is the narrator omniscient? Or were they a present character during those times? Depending on which one it is will strengthen or weaken your excuse. But still, to give some actuality to the dialog either way helps bring the piece to life. Those are some of the tough calls you've got to make as a writer.
That is why it's tough to gauge something that cuts off at the point you did. I know it was building to something, but without the reveal, I can't gauge the piece as a whole. Just what I've been given.

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>>9590972
neither. let me try to explain what im trying to do, with the narration at least. it's like the narrator is watching a movie/video of the events and describing them. he (the narrator) is trying as hard as he can to remove himself.

i like that feeling when you look at a word and it doesn't look right to you, even if it's spelled right. it's hard to explain, but i intend to try to get the reader to feel that way when they look up from reading it.

the story will be short - but will be about the son, you eventually learn, having seen a ghost. his mom will start to believe him, and everything about her outlook on life will change. for the better imo. of course, you will learn that the ghost was not real.

im explaining this real reddit, but ayyy whatever

English is not my first language, so please forgive me for some awkward phrasing and similes.

We danced in the back room
with a broken disco ball for a moon
and artichokes for hearts,
pretty tough until were baked.
I got on the pink line at 3 a.m and made it to the liquor store by 3 o’ five.
All the guys out front tried to sell us kill,
but we had enough death in a bottle
for the two of us.

>>9587493
Pretty good. Flowery, youthful, but interesting prose. Are you gay or a girl?

>>9591348
*until we where baked* would sound better

This. It's the perfect allegory, but many don't read it as such;
They see the albatross / the king of the sky
as a any old, stupid bird --
But when comes the realization that l'albatros
is the poet / then they embark into Hades
bidden to a mast of a ship followed the siren song more dangerous than sleep.

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>>9572406
this is a few pages in to this story i have, i just wrote it. This is a third person recounting of a birth already described, and some of the oddities of the text do have a purpose when considering the story as a whole.

What do yall think

>>9587968
the hero /lit/ needed

In a grey mountain land, searching for God,
I happened on a cave, toothy and cold.
Shouting, anguished, within. I turned to my guide,
facing strident dissent. Heedless, I entered.
Where the small den halted, weak light fell through the rock,
on a thin brackish pool, in which a figure lay.
That tormented wraith writhed, bones in black water,
endless life lamenting— one it would not take.
An ending I offered, a fool's pity.
It shrank from me in fear— by this I left.

Returning to the guide, I bid us to travel onward.
Met with my ignorance, their gaze sought the ground in dismay.

I have two poems; please take your pick.

The leathery tank of Ayutthaya,
The powerhouse pacifist,
Brought tumbling by an alopecic monkey
With a metal trunk.
The ape meticulously picked
The red flesh from the cumulus-colored bone, exposing
The gears and pulleys, examining
The teeth and tendons, until finally,
He collected what he could carry into his rucksack
And flew home.
…
And there I was, locked with it; the damn thing could kill you all—one well-placed stab through the jugular—but lucky for you, I got it first! And I have the trophies to prove it! See? Here’s the—the trunk-bone, and the second set of teeth that pulls you into its esophagus! Did I tell you about its—its beady eyes? Its beady little eyes? And how they stared me down? Until I finally just BAM! One well-placed stab through the jugular.
And there we swayed like trees in a hurricane
Around the Sun of socializing
And second glimpses at familiar friends
Long lost to the night,

And there we spewed our plastered ramblings
Against the bonfire, yelling
Slurs at the stars for taking our toes and tongues away, yelling
At the world for being too cold.

There, Bacchus leapt into the blaze with such inane intent to keep warm,
However missing the log and stumbling to the ground in a sudden slumber.
Over his mass, Apollo stood laughing before exclaiming,
“To Olympus we ride!”

It took at least six hands to hoist the wasted weight into Apollo’s chariot,
But the oaf found his safety in the backseat after stirring from his stupor and shouting,
“T’lympuzz w’wiiiiide!”
A chuckle, a chuckle, and a coughing fit.

>>9593092
oh shit i didn't divide those two. the second one begins at
>And there we swayed like trees in a hurricane

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>>9579874
Same guy, I think I MAY NOT end up posting the pastebin, there's too much work here on this side, but I got this instead.

Seriously wrote this page in like 10 - 20 minutes because I was bored and couldn't write anything good for what I actually wanted to write. But who knows, maybe it sounds like a good idea.

SWEAT
It doesn’t matter if I must going back tomorrow.
Am a NEET, I have a lot of time.
But who will pay for my bike gasoline.
Am a NEET, I don’t have much leeway money.
CRY

"The story starts with the end of the workshift, on the northern hemisphere, of the always present and unappreciated yellow character; the extent of our appreciation only reaches the badly almost oval drawn shape; painted poorly in an unrealistic colour, near the upper-left corner of a painting, where the focus is always on something else. Frequently, drawn with a pair of cool sunglasses, a disrespectful touch of irony, one might say, and let's not forget, a big smile, the one detail that must hurt the most; because our happy little star is actually very depressed, forced to work a job that is literally killing her, until she dies, without her, warmth, unfortunately not of the kind that this narrator needs the most right now, would not exist. Why did I focus so much on her, one might ask; I did it as a segue and way of juxtaposition with our main character, poor little star never the focus. This self titled creative artist is also very unappreciated, is what he thinks, but in reality he’s a featureless being, doesn’t matter how hard the star shines, it will never bring any distinction out of him; to be cruel, he isn’t needed in this microscopic blue dot drawn on the infinite paper used as the final blueprint of the universe."

This is the beginning of a short story, I wrote awhile back, its actually my first. Trying to find a tone I would like my narration to have.
Would like some tips on my grammar.
English isnt my first language.

>>9594885
Drop the commas by 50%

Greener than green but paler than pale was the night.
Evan Arlington, a skeleton of a man, lay vulnerable and nakedly and yawned with the choir of creaking boards beneath him. Yellow wallpaper was all but torn from reality and surrendered territory for roaches and rats.
Above; the moon, and below, its capital. It’s man of Arlington, too. To the moon and back Evan Arlington mumbled his verse in drowsy voice:
Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
Unsullied, with tears, Arlington woke to the sounds of pots and pans. Wiping his eyes with his shirt, he took the long hall down to the elevator, following the dishers and the maidens.
Elizabeth turned her head to the sound of his heels and made haste his way.
--Good morning, Mr. Arlington, and what a good morning!
Smiling he came to her shoulder and locked an arm.

>>9595723
>more adjective than adjective
>lay nakedly
Nonironically stopped reading there, I'm sure the rest is fine, but Jesus

>>9595968
you're right. I pooped that out as a warm-up. Polished it up, maybe this is redeemable?

Evan Arlington, a skeleton of a man, lay vulnerable and nakedly. He snored war songs with the southern wind that slipped through open windows of his house. The house was a house, but it was not a home. Yellow wallpaper was all but torn from reality and had surrendered territory for roaches and rats. The floors were hotels for vermin, brothels for disease.
But it was a house.
Vacant as it was, there were no visitors. Only pet gargoyles and photographs to make company.
Above; the moon, and below, its capital. It’s man of Arlington, too. To the moon and back Evan Arlington mumbled verse in drowsy voice:
Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
Unsullied, with tears, Arlington woke to the sounds of pots and pans. Wiping his eyes with his hand, he was dressed and combed in light of a frowning sun. He took a good look at himself in the steel of a razor. Grizzly. A true man’s man with a beard and fangs to follow! Father would be proud, sure. His teeth were yellowed and hung like chandeliers. His face was dressed in hairs that sunk his skin down. He walked to the corner of the room to the racks on the wall, which hung tattered leather and blankets of junk.
--A suit will do. Fine cloth bespoke in foreign lands. I, a customer, with no customs! The absurdity of life. This cloth, though, forged by the hands in lands of China, feels rather different. Embroidered with stripes and pins. No tags to tattle my customs. No branding on me but that of my thumb.
A dew window caked with glass put him in the spotlight. Down and under. Outside; cars full of responsibility and life. People, melting into puddles of colors of black and brown. The friezes of banks and courts had cast a spell of importance and order on the subjects of the buildings. And columns, those echoes from rome, spiraled about steps and rails, concrete trails, and the stations. All this from a window of time. And in the center of the square, with a shadow so clear, was the flag of those stars and stripes. Bending boughs had conducted the horns of cars through town, playing their anthems for America.
I pledge allegiance. . .


I wouldn't mind arguing "nakedly."

>>9596007
>[...] of his house. The house was a house, [...]
Come on, you can do better than that. Stylistic devices are more than intentionally breaking the standard and going Intended™. Maybe you can do something along the lines of "a house it was, but not a home," what do I know.

>torn from reality
>hotels for vermin
>brothels for disease
Torn from reality was pure, I could respect that, but then I realized you were just trying way too hard.

I'm harsher than skilled and my opinion is trash, but it'd be worth your time to try coming up with metaphores you believe you've never heard, maybe never been used at all. Not to write good prose but to practice it.

>>9576360
I MISS YOU

The spelling is horrendous since I didn't have spell checker on, english is not my first language, but I'm really lonely and wants some human contact, and if its in the form of anonymous people commenting mean things about my writing I welcome it anyway.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-sopiCaQX17VYLBmNI1BXdBNrTowSIWKbK7aIeMooO0/edit?usp=sharing

Let there be light in America. Snow has fallen from a heaven unknown on fields of green and barns red. Barns; cold and whimpering in the dead of night under the snow’s reflective light. Cloak the hairs of hares and pause the flow of water for the eyes of man. Water; sculpted by winds and flakes of the angels, echoes of those works of art from ancient Rome. Columns, too, have been erected unto lands, under the command of a gelid Romulus. Friezes of banks and courthouses shiver and cool under winter breeze. Contrast the winter landscapes with brindled mares and cold, cold lanterns.

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>>9596624
forgot pic

"... and they lived happily ever after". June sighed while closing the book. Looking over at her son she couldn't help but to feel pity, for the boy had been having night terrors for months on end and nothing seemed to help. Laying there eyes wide open with the nightlight radiating a warm glow around the room, the boy silently waited for the inevitable moment he would be transported into that world he hadn't dared speak a word of. June, exhausted and worried, tucked him in and gave a goodnight kiss for extra luck. A small thud followed by few barely discernible footsteps and then, nothing.
Wall clock kept ticking, giving the boy a notion that time was passing but ever so slightly. Focusing on the second hand of the clock, the boy could make the sound of gears turning inside of it, the slight snap before it ticks and the echo when the hand sets in place. Sounds of time passing were soon accompanied by unintelligible whispering and scratching. The boy refusing to close his eyes started to repeat a simple but comforting mantra he had taught himself "One, two, three, four" over and over, but the whispers grew more closer and he could start to hear what they said. Still they made no sense, but were loud enough to drown out his own voice. The eyes began to turn misty while he fought for control of his body and finger by finger he started to turn paralyzed, unable to move a muscle. Biting his teeth together and not willing to close his eyes, the whispers suddenly stopped. The boy still unable to move let out a sigh of relief, which was cut midway for he felt a warm blow in his ear and a voice he instantly recognized whispered "You're a strong boy, my brave warrior". His will shattered, he gave in to the comforting voice and closed his eyes, forcing the built up tears trickle down the cheeks.

He feels the sand shift underneath him but can't see anything around except pitch black.

>>9573541

These rules are ridiculous and arbitrary.

Listicle for pandering to lazy readers.

Question, does this sound like i'm trying to be too clever?

> Almost achieves a 10/10 effort in covering up the tribal beating thump of tumor plagued slave muscle that bounces in the ear canal like a thunderstorm in an echo chamber.

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>>9596624
added more and fixed spelling

>>9598230
when you are using such thick language, I feel that the 10/10 is really out of place

>>9598230
Reads like second draft gene wolfe material

>>9598238
>>9598287
Noted. Did a couple of modifications and i think this version sounds better. Still keeping the 10/10.

> Almost achieving a 10/10 effort in covering up the tribal beating thump of tumor plagued slave muscle that bounces in the ear canal, dancing and swinging like a Nanostorm in an echo chamber.

>>9598230
I'm a little green at grammar and syntax, but could it be like this?
> Almost achieves full marks in effort at covering up ...

>>9598397
Nah i think i prefer the other one. It may sound a bit off but i use the same kind of style throughout the story and it fits (hopefully)

>>9598394
Never use numerals like that in text. Keep the '10/10' if you must but write it out as 'ten out of ten'.

>>9598431
Ok that's true. I just thought it made it sound a bit more interesting, but you may have a point there.

I was in a hedge maze, leading a group of children. At each clearing, a child saw something, pulled from the reaches of their mind, terrifying them. I pulled away each child, remind them of their desire to escape the maze, and how they could conquer their fears if they stood tall. As we pushed on, I could see a golden light above the brush. "It must be the end of the maze", I thought.

We stepped into a clearing that gave way to a room of wood and marble, adorned with lavish furniture, ancient jewelry and sports memorabilia. My father walked over and embraced me, lifting me up with his strong arms and putting me down again. I wandered around the room and stood on my toes to examine everything. Each item was from my childhood. The coffee table with the stuffed lizard from Guyana. The Maple Leafs jersey. The Oscar Meyer Wiener Whistle. My father's desk. Dad embraced me again and told me that all of these things belonged to me now, and I felt myself drowning in that golden light. Then I woke up.

>>9573491
this is prose

A-loft a-live a-
wake a-cried a-bode
a-loft an answer cries
when
look a-mine, look a--
she stares the history groped
a-sway a-me a-now
how
the world turned, how
it turned

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A little writing exercise from a book
plz cri

>>9573491
Who the fuck thinks it's a good idea write lines out of single words, let alone pronouns or shitty exclamations like "say"

>>9572406
>All the beautiful and smart women of /lit/ hmu i'm horny af niqqas i'm outcheer jonesin for a fine lass to finger mah ass!
Very stylistic, interesting prose. Would read more.

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Here's the first paragraph of my literary novel. It's soon to be traditionally published (early 2018), and is currently being proofread by in-house editors.

>>9599894
What did the publisher like about it?

>>9598752
Very awkward and uninspired prose.
>At each clearing, a child saw something, pulled from the reaches of their mind, terrifying them
Consider changing to: At each clearing a child saw something pulled from the reaches of their mind, terrifying them.

>I pulled away each child, remind them of their desire to escape the maze, and how they could conquer their fears if they stood tall
Consider: I pulled away each child and reminded them of their desire to escape the maze and how they could conquer their fears if they stood tall.

As it is now, it reminds me of the average uninspired blog post writing that I see in most amateur short stories.

>My father walked over and embraced me, lifting me up with his strong arms and putting me down again
Grammatically incorrect. I'd fail you for this if it were up to me.

Change to: My father walked over and embraced me; he lifted me up with his strong arms then put me back down again.
>>9596839
>"...and they lived happily ever after."
Punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks.

>But to feel pity
Drop the to.

>Laying there
Lying there.

>and then, nothing
Consider dropping the comma. Not grammatically incorrect, but not necessary.

>Grew more closer
Grammatically incorrect and awkward. Drop the more.

>and he could start to hear what they said
Change to: and he could start to hear what they were saying.

>the eyes
His eyes.

>turn paralyzed
Become paralyzed.

>tears trickle
To trickle. Obvious and i'm guessing you just forgot it.

Overall it's alright. One of the few paragraphs in this thread that didn't give me a brain aneurysm. Just fix the mistakes that I noted and it'll be passable.


I'll keep going through stuff in this thread throughout the night. I was ridiculously banned a few days ago for a minor shitpost in a shitpost thread, so i'm a bit behind.

whenever i see a red car, i think about him. unfortunately, there are a lot of red cars.
whenever i think about him, i'm having a bad mood for the rest of the day.
unfortunately, that means i'm in a bad mood quiet often.
so often, that anne has already pointed it out and told me to get a grip on it or professional help. i know she's right, but i still haven't given up the hope that time will take care of it.
that's silly, i know that. you can't expect your attitude to change on it's own. but to be perfectly honest, i didn't really dislike my bad moods enough to wanting to get rid of them. i enjoyed feeling sorry for myself. it's a very comforting feeling and quiet satisfying. the only real issue was that anne told me that i'm "dragging her down" and that she isn't sure how long she'll be able to tolerate this. of course i don't want to lose her, but i'm not ready for therapy yet. my dad had the mindset that therapy is for schizophrenics and psychopaths. and i didn't feel like i belonged to either of those groups. plus, what would a therapist know about my life? they might have gone to school and learned about asking questions and nodding their head whilst scribbling stuff down. but what do they know about him? and me? and anne? and - noa? nothing. and i don't even want to tell them. it's none of their business. infact, i don't want to think about it myself. i just want to forget it all and move on like it never happened. they don't need to know how it felt to feel his last breath. they wouldn't understand. they also have no idea how it felt to touch noa for the first time. and i am too tired to explain it to them. i don't even think there are enough - or the right- words and if there are, i don't have the energy to say them. i just want peace. why can't anne just let me be. sometimes i wish she would have been in his place, but then i immediately regret that thought.

>>9599912

I don't know.

>>9599894
It's alright. I don't really like anything about it, but I don't have too many complaints. The only thing that really stood out to me is
>About to walk onto the pedestrian crossing, she paused
being an awkward sentence to follow the previous with, as far as flow is concerned. You could also drop the first comma and it would be better, in my opinion. Hard to offer much critique on your writing with a paragraph that has likely been refined to a higher degree than the rest of the book. Congrats on being published, though. I hope it turns out well for you.
>>9596629
What the hell man. I can barely understand what you're trying to say, and Finnegans wake is one of my favorite works of literature. Way way way too purple. It's also exceptionally awkward and clunky.
>>9594885
>Frequently,
Never start a sentence with an adverb. Every time you do this a koala is hit by a car or ripped to shreds by a dog. There are very few cases where it is alright, and every case I've seen has been by a masterful writer who well knows how to get away with it.

I'm not going to go through each sentence and show you what's wrong, because I would be sitting here all night and I have to go soon. One of the most glaring issues is that I'm literally choking on all of the commas that you have. It's like someone relentlessly took a sledgehammer to your sentences.

>because our happy little start is actually very depress, forced to work a job that is literally killing her, until she dies, without her, warmth, unfortunately not of the kind that this narrator needs the most right now, would not exist.

Ok this is really a mouthful and makes my head scream, but i'll try to rework it appropriately: because our happy little star is very depressed while forced to work a job that is killing her--without her, the warmth I want but do not need right now would not exist.

God dude, I still have no idea what's going on with that sentence. Start trying to read your stuff aloud, and you may begin to see where the problem lies in each sentence. If a sentence is awkward as hell to read, there's more than likely something wrong with it.

>>9600307
I noticed you haven't shared one yet. Go ahead.