Writing and Critique

>>9619904
Really shitty intro to a novel I am planning currently. It is German though, I'm afraid. Pls tear it to shreads Anons.

Um drei Minuten nach Acht trat Ulrich keuchend durch die automatischen Türen in den Supermarkt. Er stand schon im Laden, als er den letzten Zug von einer Zigarette nahm. Dann schnippte er die Überreste durch den dünnen Spalt zwischen den sich schließenden Türhälften.
Aus den Augenwinkeln sah er einen kleinen, fettleibigen Mann mit buschigen Augenbrauen auf sich zustampfen.
„Sie sind zu spät, Herr Roboros“, blaffte der Marktleiter ihn an.
„Ja, Sie ham ja Recht, Herr Müss. Tut mir ehrlich Leid, wird nich mehr vorkommen.“
„Wollen Sie mich für blöd verkaufen? Das sagen Sie mir jedes Mal und trotzdem kommen Sie jede Woche mindestens drei Mal zu spät. Langsam steht es mir wirklich bis hier mit ihnen!“, meckerte Müss weiter und zeigte mir der rechten Hand auf seinen gedrungen Hals.
„Bis hier steht es mir! Bis an die Gurgel! Wissen Sie was, Herr Roboros? Sie bekommen diese Woche nur das halbe Gehalt, vielleicht lernen Sie dann mal etwas aus ihren Fehlern.“
„Ich, also, ich, Sie, also das ist doch bestimmt garnich legal, was Sie hier abziehen.“, stotterte Ulrich kleinlaut.
„Legal? Ich kann auf der Stelle zehn andere Trottel finden, um Sie zu ersetzen. Und jetzt an die Arbeit. Die Frau Trösste hat letztens festgestellt, dass tonnenweise Getränkekisten im Lager falsch einsortiert sind. Sie helfen ihr jetzt gefälligst dabei, diesen Fehler zu beheben“, orderte der mittlerweile knallrote Müss und ließ Ulrich alleine zurück. Ulrichs Gefühl der Erniedrigung zog sich von der Magengrube in den Kiefer und wurde dort zwischen seinen Backenzähnen zu Hass gemahlen. Bilder der vorhergegangenen Nacht explodierten hinter seinen Lidern.
„Blöder Wichser“, murmelte Ulrich noch zu sich selbst, bevor er runter ins Lager ging.
Graue Betonwände, deren Farblosigkeit durch das fahle Licht surrender Neonröhren noch unterstrichen wurde, bildeten den Grundriss des Lagers und trugen eine Decke, die Ulrich zwar nicht daran hinderte, aufrecht zu stehen, aber gerade so niedrig war, dass er beständig das Gefühl hatte, sie würde ihm näher kommen. Von hinter einem der riesigen Regale hörte Ulrich ein angestrengtes Stöhnen gefolgt von dem wütenden Scheppern aneinanderschlagender Glasflaschen.
„Scheiße! Fuck!“
„Sabine?“
„Ulrich? Hat Müss dich runtergeschickt?“
„Ja. Warte, ich komm rum.“

cont.

>>9619932
Alles war vollgestopft mit Regalen, die so versetzt angeordnet waren, dass man, um durch den Raum zu gelangen, in umständlichen, langgezogenen Schlangenlinien zwischen ihnen hindurchgehen musste.
Als Ulrich das Ende des einen Regals erreicht hatte und sich umdrehte sah er Sabine, eine Mittfünfzigerin mit kurzen, billig blondierten Haaren, auf einer Getränktekiste hocken, unter der sich bereits eine gelbliche Pfütze beachtlichen Durchmessers gebildet hatte.
„Als mir die Kiste runtergefallen ist, ist ne Limoflasche geplatzt, nicht das du was Falsches denkst“, witzelte Sabine aus einem Mundwinkel, während sie sich eine Zigarette ansteckte, die am anderen Ende ihres Mundes baumelte.
„Darf man hier rauchen?“, fragte Ulrich.
„Ne. Willste auch eine?“
Ulrich nickte und ging zu Sabine, die auf eine Ecke der Kiste gerückt war, um ihm etwas Sitzfläche zu bieten. Schweigend saßen sie nebeneinander und rauchten. Als die Glut fast am Filter angelangt war und der Qualm unangenehm zu kratzen anfing, drückte Ulrich seine Zigarette in der gelben Pfütze zu seinen Füßen aus, stand auf und klopfte sich ein paar Aschereste von der Hose.
„Müss meinte, irgendwelche Kisten wären falsch eingeordnet“, sagte er, während er versuchte die eingeriebenen Aschespuren aus dem Stoff zu wischen. Sabine löschte auch ihre Zigarette und gab nickend Antwort:
„Mhm. Sein Sohn, dieser zwölfjährige Bengel“
„Vierzehn“, unterbrach Ulrich sie.
„Was vierzehn?“
„Der Junge is' vierzehn.“
Sabine rollte die Augen und wischte mit einer Hand genervt durch die Luft.
„Ist doch völlig egal, man. Auf jeden Fall arbeitet der doch jetzt ab und zu hier, ne? Bekommt zehn Euro die Stunde, pah!“
„Purer Nepotismus“, murmelte Ulrich.
„Was?“
„Nix, nix, erzähl weiter.“
„Hast wohl wieder zu wenig geschlafen, hm?“, grinste Sabine und fuhr dann fort, „Der Idiot hat den Getränkelieferanten auf jeden Fall gesagt, dieses neue Zeug, Mate oder wie das heißt, käme zu den Fruchtsäften, also ham die alle Matekisten natürlich hier vorne zu den Säften gepackt. Und dabei ist's doch glasklar, dass der Mist zu den Limos kommt.“
„Glasklar, ja. Kommt wohl ganz nach Vaddern der Junge.“
Sabine grunzte über die Bemerkung.
„Total! Naja, auf jeden Fall habe ich dem Müss das dann später gesagt, das mit den Kisten. Hab auch gar nicht über den Jungen gemeckert oder so, nene, hab's ihm einfach nur gesagt. Herr Müss, die Matekisten stehen falsch im Lager, habe ich gesagt. Weißt du was er dann meinte?“
„Was'n?“
Sabine legte ihre Zeigefinger über die Augenbrauen und blies den Mund auf.
„Na, dann räum'n Se die doch um, Frau Trösste. Dafür bezahle ich Sie ja schließlich.“
Fragend kniff Ulrich die Augen zusammen.
„Was soll'n das mit dein Fingern da?“
„Man, der Typ hat doch so buschige Augenbrauen. Die zwei dicken Raupen da, weißte?“
„Ach, klar, jaja, witzig.“
cont.

>>9619935
Wieder rollte Sabine mit den Augen und schüttelte den Kopf.
„Dann lass uns den Dreck hier mal wegmachen und die Kisten umräumen. Irgendwann will ich heute auch mal nach Hause“, seufzte sie, stand auf und schob die Kiste auf der sie gesessen hatten zur Seite. Eine Pfütze, dreiundzwanzig Kisten und acht Zigarettenpausen später, waren knapp fünf Stunden vergangen. Die Beiden stolperten müde, verschwitzt und nach Rauch stinkend hoch in den Markt. Müss war schon dabei, die nächste Schicht daran zu erinnern, dass sie gefälligst froh darüber zu sein hätten, dass er ihnen überhaupt einen Arbeitsplatz bietet, als Ulrich und Sabine sich vor dem Markt voneinander verabschiedeten. Die nachmittägliche Sommersonne überraschte Ulrich mit ihrem Licht, das, ganz im Gegensatz zu dem sterilen Leuchten der Neonröhren, warm über sein Gesicht strich.
Er nickte Sabine kurz zum Abschied zu und wandtd sich ab, um zu gehen.
„Ey, Ulrich!“
„Hm?“
„Pass auf dich auf, ja?“
„Mh. Klar“, antwortete er überrumpelt und ging weiter.
Nach ein paar Schritten blickte er kurz über seine Schulter zurück und sah, dass Sabine ihm mit besorgter Miene hinterher starrte. Als sich ihre Augen trafen, drehte sie sich schnell um und ging in die entgegengesetzte Richtung, als sei nichts gewesen.
„Pass auf dich auf. Pass auf dich auf. Passaufdichauf“
Egal wie oft er den Satz wiederholte, er konnte sich dessen Bedeutung nicht erschließen. Er nahm sich vor, Sabine morgen danach zu fragen.
Zuhause angekommen schlich Ulrich durch den Flur auf seine Wohnungstür zu. Leise öffnete er sie, schlüpfte hinein und schloss sie vorsichtig hinter sich.
„Wie das hier schon wieder aussieht, Herr Roboros“, erschreckte eine nörgelnde Stimme ihn von hinten. Im Türrahmen zur Küche, zwischen dreckigen Tellern, verschmutzten Verpackungen von Fertigmahlzeiten und leeren Bierflaschen stand eine gestauchte, faltige Frau und sah ihn vorwurfsvoll an.
„Frau Zerber, was machen Sie denn hier?“
„Ich besichtige die Wohnung die ich Ihnen netterweise und zu einem sehr guten Preis, Ihrer Großmutter, möge sie in Frieden ruhen, sei's gedankt, vermiete und ich muss sagen, ich bin sehr enttäuscht davon, wie Sie mit meiner Wohnung umgehen.“
„Also, so einfach reinspazieren, ohne das ich da bin, einfach so, das dürfen Sie doch gar nicht, also absprechen mit mir sollten Sie sowas doch auf jeden Fall, auf jeden Fall“, haspelte Ulrich, noch immer verwirrt von dem plötzlichen Auftauchen seiner Vermieterin.

last part coming up....

>>9619941
„Herr Roboros, wir, Sie und ich, wissen beide, dass ich sie hier nur wohnen lasse, weil Auguste, möge sie in Frieden ruhen, einst eine gute Freundin von mir war, sehr teuer war sie mir, ja. Wenn Auguste jedoch wüsste, wie Sie sich hier verhalten, mir gegenüber, der Wohnung gegenüber, dann hätte sie Ihnen sicher die Ohren langgezogen, da bin ich mir sicher! Da sie aber das nun nicht mehr kann, die Auguste, möge sie in Frieden ruhen, sehe ich mich gezwungen das selbst zu tun.“
„Sie wolln mir die Ohren langziehen?“
„Nein, also ja, beziehungsweise, nicht direkt. Ich werde ihnen aufzeigen, dass ihr Verhalten Folgen hat und zwar dadurch, dass ich die Miete auf einen Preis erhöhe, der dieser Lage angemessen ist. Nächsten Monat bezahlen Sie also zweihundert Euro mehr, oder Sie sind, und Auguste, möge sie in Frieden ruhen, würde das verstehen, sonst sind Sie raus aus meiner Wohnung. Verstanden?“
Ohne eine Antwort abzuwarten schlüpfte die kleine Frau an Ulrich vorbei, verließ die Wohnung und schlug die Wohnungstür hinter sich zu. Einige Momente war Ulrich wie versteinert, dann jedoch löste sich seine Starre und er fing an wild um sich zu treten und zu schlagen, sodass der überall verteilte Müll herumgeschleudert wurde.
„Scheiße, scheiße, scheiße, scheiße!“
Erst als sein ganzer Körper müde brannte und sein Atem verbraucht rasselte, hörte er auf zu wüten.

>>9619932
Being I'm the OP I'd love to, but I do not know German very well. Just enough to be a typical American tourist were I to visit the lovely country. Hopefully a German fluent anon will be able to help.

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>>9619932
>>9619935
>>9619941
>>9619947
I can't read German, sorry anon.
Posting a bit of my own, pic related. I'll be around to help critique for a few hours. Let's have a comfy thread, lads.

The elevator rises, 200 m/s speeding through the several layers of artificial ozone that separate the underground from the inner city . Up and up and up into his very own personal seventh hell, humming along to the state of the art mechanisms that make this junkie hand shaking journey possible. Temperance kiddo temperance. Abstain from the poisons that fill thy night full of fucked up needle grinning monsters cuming with the name of our lord Jesus on their tounges. Nothing but a coincidence of course. Too many days of burning out on the sunshine leaving the liver behind for the crows. Aaaanyway. Notice how the beady drop of milk colored sweat rolls down from the upper forehead to the last remaining hairs that call that piece of skin an eyebrow. Beyond the sunken schizo starers crawling along to the corner of the mouth, you can taste it on the tip of the toungue. Salty. That's a good sign naturaly. Moonshakers have a tendency to erase from the body amongst other things,, carbon dioxide, bone marrow, white blood cells, grey matter in the brain and of course, salt. Very important to maintain healthy levels of salt in the digestive system, alongside vitamin C and crack, pillars of a ballanced 21st century household diet, so says the Guide to Second Millenia Modified Medical Research. The A.I in the cealing is doing it's best to cultivate a deep entrancing placid ambience. Selecting an adecuate third class citizen slave musical playlist that jumps between twelve different classic headbangers in a time lap of thirty seconds. HEEEAVYY BOOTS OF LEADD NANANANANAANAA NANANAAA. Almost achieving a ten out of ten in covering up the tribal beating thump of tumor plagued slave muscle that bounces through the ear canal, dancing and swinging like a Nanostorm in an echo chamber. Ding! You have arrived at your destination. Music gives way to four bars of Op. 23 ballade of dread, how apropiate. Step into the corridor. The decoration has changed moderatly since last time, seventeenth century french. Ten feet wide aluminium polished mirrors cover the wall from the floor, a couple of inches before touching the cealing. On the left are beef jerkies, lamb chops, pork chops, chicken breast, human hearts, fixed through platinum nails with diamond engraves. They drip, blood and watered down fat staining the thick white carpet that covers the floor, by half, brown. The air stinks of iron and rust. The light is blue and green, iluminated by the vintage neon squares that flicker above the head in a disco dancing nighmare. We are faaa-mi-ly hmm hmm yeah. Calm down retard calm down. Remember where you are.

>>9620034
Rumor states the floor is filled with vietnamese traps and mines and MegaCorrosive TNT that pulvurises the body, from toes to eyeballs in a matter of nanoseconds. It sure does seem like the clicking sound as feet press down, comes from somewhere. Specialized sensores analize the weight and body heat of the guest. Take no chances, you can almost hear the brain scaners poking little fingers into the thinking paterns. Don't think, bomb-suicide-kamicaze in that order, vegan quisine for safe measure. Guy despises vegans, humanitarian canibals, amost as much as he hates commies, queers, democrats, niggers, slutwhores, dikes, commifeminists, intellektuals, anarcunts, junkies, hobos, transfaggots, dicksukers, cokeinhaleres, human lovers, tree fuckers. The corridor is over a mile long and takes ten minutes to walk, squielching through the slime that haunts the carpet and creeps up the trouser leg with a hungry parasitic clench. A few drops of feces break lose from the asshole smelling of fear and eager anticipation. This is the moment of absolute truth.

>>9619904
What are examples of Man vs. Reality and Man vs. Author.

>>9620138
Hey anon, god question. Man vs. Reality can be anything from Kafka's Metamorphosis--i.e., fiction or work that deals with depicting the absurd or the revolt against the absurd, all the way to the school of writing generally called "Magical Realism." Google that shit if its unfamiliar to you, it was a popular style of writing for the more recent postmodernists. Man vs Author is another facet of postmodernism, in my mind the most well-regarded works of this type are by Georges Perec. Check "Life, A User's Manual" or "A Void." This type is characterized by an author struggling with his medium directly; literally. Life a User's Manual was an attempt to create a novel that followed the methodology of a Knight's Tour in structure, and A Void was completed under the stipulation that the entire thing be written without the letter 'e'.

Does that make more sense? It's all postmodernism.

>>9619987
This is actually giving me chills. I'm pretty interested in what the ship is, what it's mission is, and why the crew is mostly deaf and mute- and that comment about his leg rotting.

Note: The speech should (as far as I know) be in quotation marks, and if Bowsprit is the name of the ship, it should be capitalized.

>>9620034
2/10 bait I replied.

Mine: https://pastebin.com/fEb5ftyW
Please tell me if it's completely autistic.

>>9620034
Hey anon, thanks for posting. General thought--I don't think the piece does a very good job of establishing its voice. There are some purple bits apparently elected for style, alongside some conversational misspellings and that sort of thing for 'grit' or whatever; the two don't really mesh that well and the effect of that is making the narrative voice just sound like the author. Which is bad. You want people attributing your mistakes to your characters because that's how well written the thing is, right? The point that I am trying to make is that the piece's voice is incredibly inconsistent and when you couple that with the idiosyncratic metaphors and deliberate lack of clarity the thing just reads like a mess. I'll offer some line edits of the first little bit--just my opinions so take them for what you will.

>200m/s
The abbreviation is odd syntactically in the prose, I'd write out meters per second. This isn't a science paper.
>Temperance kiddo temperance.
Temperance, kiddo. Temperance.
>Cuming
Two m's
>Aaaanyway
Don't write like you're texting unless you're literally writing what some character is texting.
>Schizo
Avoid abbreviations like this, it's informal and not in a my-character's-voice-is-informal kind of way. This reads like the author's voice, not the narrator's voice.
> ... to the last remaining hairs that call that piece of skin an eyebrow
Super clumsy wording. 'Piece' of skin? Has it been removed from the face or something? Smooth out your word choices.

Keep writing. Sorry if that was a bit harsh, trying to be constructive.

>>9620183
I-it wasn't bait though, it's the second chapter of my story. Hell i know it has some big holes but i didn't think it was THAT bad

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>>9620195
You need to be 18 to post here. "Aaanyway" and " HEEEAVYY BOOTS OF LEADD NANANANANAANAA NANANAAA" is not proofreadable.

>>9620195
One more thought, I recognize that you're going for a much more 'literary' angle here by not just doing character descriptions and conforming to genre trash tropes--the way you're writing is very clumsy BUT it's clumsy in the sort of way that if you keep with it you'll find yourself writing some really great shit in a few years, anon. Stick with it, and FINISH things that you start, even if you don't like them anymore. Keep finishing things. If you get a chance, look into some of the things that Cormac McCarthy published in his university journal when he was young, they're clumsy too but you can see comparing them to Blood Meridian or Suttree how he evolved. It's eye-opening.

>>9620138
Answering you, posting my own little opening I just threw together, then giving out some crits.

>Man vs Reality:
-)A bizarre instance of Deja-Vu causes Daniel to momentarily gain control over reality; allowing him to influence others into doing what he pleases. It lasts merely minutes, and shakes Daniel to the core as he soon is overwhelmed with the need to recreate and understand how this had happened. This will lead Daniel on a quest to realize that he is actually living in a reality simulator which he himself created to extend his conscious life when he learned he was terminally ill. Daniel then becomes faced with the devastating realization that this reality he is living in is a lie.
-)Man vs Author is fairly similar in the fact that the character realizes his existence and reality are being actively written by a godlike author. That he has no control over his actions or the world for it is all bring decided by the author.
-------
This may become the intro paragraph to a post-apocalyptic story I've been thinking about trying to write. Wondering if it's interesting enough to make the reader want more:

The little light remaining of day bleeds red and pools between skyscrapers on the notch of horizon cut by sixty-second street as Neville, walking, admires the spectacle. Occasionally he will look down away at the shoddy boardwalk he's on to avoid approaching gaps, some large enough to slurp the foot and leg of an unaware or misguided step like a wet noodle, while many of the planks complain quietly under his weight. Roughly every ten feet on either side of the walkway are posts strung up with and tangled together by black vines of colorless Christmas lights--though it is mid-March--whose dim beads of illumination begin to find their place from the daylight upon the mossy boardwalk and in rippling reflection atop the murky water below. Neville soon approaches an intersection within the surrounding buildings. The walkway here expands into a makeshift wooden piazza the length and width of the intersection supporting a shanty bazaar more brilliantly lit than the boardwalk from the varying forms of illumination shouting from each individual market and merchant. In the center of the marketplace stands a mezzanine bearing a white signboard lit by a spotlight displaying "Steelmarsh Market" stenciled in red paint. Behind the sign on top the mezzanine two armed guards watch over the crowded site.

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>>9620183
>gave me chills
Shit. High praise, m8. Thank's for reading. I'm sending the old girl for publication in a few days, we'll see if they go for it. For what it's worth, the bowsprit is a particular part of the ship anatomy; its the forward-pitched mast that springs from the prow. And the lack of quotations you can blame on the fact that I have read nothing but Cormac for about 8 months now. Quotations are for nerds. Cheers.

Reading your shit now, standby please--

>>9620183
It's only a little autistic, anon. You should try to get your hands on a flight communications manual so you can use real radio language instead of making most of it up. It reads. Additionaly, some things like
>I responded back to him
Responded back is repetitive. Some authors will tell you to never use any speech taga other than "said." They're right. If you're doing anything other than saying something, it will speak for itself. "Responded" is repetitive alone here, because we know just by how the thing is written that it's a response already.
>face me fuckers
Struck me a bit blue. Also, there have to be more maneuvers in a dogfighters arsenal than the thing Tom Cruise did in Top Gun right? It's not terrible m8, keep after it.

>>9619987
>let's have a comfy thread
That's always my hope.

As for your piece, it's very good. At least, compared to most of what's posted here. And still by that comparison it does not mean it is merely average. Great control of voice, and solid progression of thought and imagery. Definitely attention grabbing and I would read more.
I believe your grammar could be touched up a little, not much. To note example, your second sentence, I believe, would benefit from a comma after 'boards' and after 'ears' to help stand out the average segments of imagery eventually combining by the end if the sentence.
Keep writing brother.

>>9620207
>>9620189
I'm going trust these crits as being good advice for >>9620034.
If I get bored I may eventually revisit and read it. But I don't have much time right now.

>>9620183
Will read and give crit in an hour or so. Going to eat and going home from Starbucks before I'll be back to internet.

>>9620267
Please remove your trip. Thank you.

>>9620189
So your main problem is that i need to be clearer with the perspective of the narrator?. I was trying to do two different points of view at once, but i see that might not have been a good idea. Or i just can't pull it off

Three days ago, and I mean three days according to my biological clock, which isn't very reliable, but my only way to know what's going on, was I to find out where I would find out what I was to discover to continue on my journey ahead. Now, about three or so days later, I've found out what I wanted to find out firstly, that is the place where I will discover what I need for my journey ahead. This journey isn't going to be a linear one, going forward, or northward, or in any chronological sequence either, but an intertemporal one through time and space. Time and space, since I discovered its origins, means not much to me. I pace in my room, hopping from one year to another with each step, observing my immediate surroundings change little by little with each successive year. I stopped going back in time after an evening in 1942 left me in tears, as I walked in on my grandparents fornicating. They didn't see me, I wish I hadn't seen them.

>>9620204
Well your critique isn't really living up to standard either. Keep on trying though

>>9620138
the most charming (i.e. least irritating and done with skill) example i've seen of man v. author was calvino's "if on a winter's night a traveler…" the main characters set out to collate fragments of novels (the novel you're reading) and directly confront the author in the end.

Elisha Balbia leaned against the wall of the liquor store to help take the weight of her big tits off her sore back. She winced. These things were always getting in the way. She reached up and rubbed her nipples. “Fuck it hurts.”

Melvin pointed and grinned. “Let me a touchey them titties?”

This cretin really thought that I’d give him the fucking pleasure so easily? He looked like a flaming retard and smelled of dead goat—so no, just no.

“It seems to me that you are,” Elisha said, pinching her nose, “a disgusting rancid virgin.” That would show this creep. And if it doesn’t, she would have no problem just kicking his sorry ass up and down this street.

>>9620377
hey anon, good work so far. i just had one question: in the first paragraph, you described Elisha's severe back pain (owing to her overlarge mammaries), yet in the third paragraph, you wrote that elisha "would have no problem kicking his sorry ass." how do you, as an author, reconcile this discrepancy?

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>>9620377

>>9620384
her back pain is not really severe, just sore and aching. She would like to rest for a little while, but would not have a problem pushing through the pain and beating this antagonist if it came to that. She has fought with worse injuries against tougher adversaries before.

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>>9620322
I am but a poor autistic brainlet with no real exposure to /lit/. I try.

>>9620237
Nigga tom cruise never did that.
But yes, nobody is more annoyed with word repetition than me. I learn more vocabulary and substitute it in over time.

Sorry my critique was bad, but don't know what to say when I can actually insert into the narrative as is.

what does it matter none of you are going to be published or remembered there are literally millions of people more talented and clever than you are

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>>9620429
Niggerfaggot please go. I'm never going to be Gordon Ramsay, does that mean I shouldn't try to better my cooking?

TFW too scared to post your writing on an anonymous internet board

>>9620275
Nope.

>>9620183
Dialog is pretty good. I don't know much about planes, so this feels nicely informative and reasonable. Once you start writing straight prose though it gets just a little sloppy. Could use some finagling to improve the overall structure and readability. But really isn't all that bad. After some editing I would probably read it all through. Keep it up.

>>9620429
There is something wrong with this argument. Think hard and you'll figure it out, anon.

The fart lingered in the air around her. It had the scent of sharp cheese and wet garbage—covered in shit. What an absolute pleasant aroma this fine evening, she thought, inhaling deep and long. “Yummy . . .” she said, as she began twerking with excitement against the leg of the dining room table.

>>9619904
Ald ruins of ages long past
Letters anonymous let slide in slots
Such arbitrage as none may guess
Being and self drown’d ‘neath stress
Kettles and kitchenware painting pots
Mad sages and saints board-flat
And folk a-plenty, nary twenty
Quip, quote, quoth sinning mental sloth
And ‘ere an other sort, xis and xix and xer
Devastated by trigger mechs set, keku
Queen the red off cleanes’ white tit
Eye the temple, aye the brood conflict
Vainest owl, bah! firing aside Azad De-Su
Stifling thither and yonder stilted Shur
Sing a song, sing along for many

Mother under bus, omni in a truck, yet still better than Infinite Jest.

>>9619932
>>9619935
>>9619941
>>9619947
I tried mate, but my foreign language skills are a wreck. As long as it's not incognito-feminism what little I got from it is funny, though privilege of English is checked.
7/10 polish up.

>>9619987
Reads a lot like a more modern/intelligent Hemingway. That's likely me projecting similarities because you're not brightly peppering commas as if torches to liven passages. Could stand to drop a couple cliches, but I'm just foolin' like the Sasquatch is.
8/10 if I'm sensing a distant Aubrey-Maturin or East Coast ghost influence, 6/10 if not.

>>9620034
m/s is outdated, please die.
ms^-1 at the very least if you're going to do SI; don't fuck around in this part of town, old boy. 0/10
Otherwise +3/10 because I can imagine it.

>>9620041
-1/10 for not starting with "Rumor has it" because this piece got that fucking song stuck in my niakuk.

>>9620183
Wouldn't call it completely autistic, it's kind of interesting. it does read like Master Chief finds an F18 in BF4 though. I guess best crit to give is you should heave a bit more description in there so non-martial n00bs don't feel like tools.
4/10 pre-fixup, I imagine 7/10 post-fixup.


>And that's as much as I can read before shitting myself, feedback on the poetry much appreciated.
>Have at 'er while I'm throne-prone.

>>9619947
Ich möchte weiter lesen.

>>9620828
Thanks for reading. I really do need to polish up, true. Currently working on the rest of the novel though and I really want to finish that up first.
The story itself is at least not supposed to be "feminist" in any overt way. Wether or not a reader would judge it as such I do not know. It devolves into a horror story in the other chapters. The protag goes insane and has a recurring dream where he dies in an explosion. Long story short: he then murders someone and the story closes with a dream where he takes the perspective of the bomb, destroying everything in his wake. Not a very innovative idea probably, but at one point it struck me as interesting and now I just wanna finish something for once in my fucking life.

In regards to the poem: English is (rather obviously, I assume) not my first language so a lot of the themes and wordplays probably go over my head. I do like some of the imagery though. For some reason it makes me think of an election in which you are taking a rather critical stance towards one side of it all.


>>9620924
Das ist ein großartiges Kompliment, vielen Dank! Ich versuche gerade zum ersten Mal etwas zu schreiben, das über mentale Masturbation hinausgeht und auch für andere zugänglich und interessant ist.

"You know, every time I get back home after a run, I take shower. It's not about the hygiene, really. I'm just cremating my dead skin cells. That's what the body wash is for. So, you know, every day, I die little by little... But..."

"What are out talking about?"

"I'm just saying, I know what's dying everyday because it's in front of me. But what about the part I can't see or touch?"

"And what part is that?"

"I wish you didn't need to ask me that."

...


She left. I sat myself on a chair and lit up a cigarette. I didn't know what was in it, and I didn't care. Time to call up Rob and get out of this prison, my own panopticon.
I'm the jail, the jailer and the jailed.
"About time", is all he said and picked me up a couple of hours later. "Where to?"
"Just drive". And he did, along the river, down the curving road, into the horizon.
"You see, if I say that the weather is peachy today, that would be a double entendre", Rob remarked with a grin. And he was right. It was beautiful, a light fuchsia, with traces of deep orange and little yellow infused together.
I could see clouds in the distance, white and innocuous, drifting away to their next destination.
I took a deep breath and shuffled through his rack of CDs. Great, Blues & Roots by Charles Mingus. The baritone sax, heavy and intoxicating, started to boom out of the stereo, followed by the bass, each note sending a chill up my spine. I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I'm one with the beat and the beat is one with me, and if I could, I would replace my heartbeat with the soft kicks of the drum. This is my therapy.
We stop by to get a few beers and sit back in the car to drown them. "I don't know, Robby, me and her, it was a beautiful juxtaposition.
She embraced this stark contrast... Or maybe she didn't care for it and just wanted me to be something else, you know. Carve a fine fella out of me".
Saying so, I got out of the car and started to walk. He didn't come after me, he knew better. I got into a bus and sat by an old man. He didn't appreciate the stench of alcohol and was very vocal about it. Yet he refused to get up and find another seat. Okay.
Being calm, accepting and not reacting to unpleasantness, whatever it may be, has been the hardest struggle of my life.
So problems keep coming my way, more so than others and I'm trying to learn to live.

I still see no point of it, for by the time I know how to live, it'll be time to move on.
I put this thought aside and get down, walk over to my place. Shoes come off and I drop down on the bed for a quiet siesta.

>>9620997
Some of the dialogue feels very natural and real. I like that. There are however far too many clichés surrounding the "deep" and "brooding" protagonist scattered throughout for my taste.

It seems like something someone would write when they are in a certain emotional state themselves rather than something written to tell an engaging story or paint an interesting picture.

>>9621061
Could you elaborate on the cliche's and explain what exactly you didn't like. Thanks, I really appreciate your feedback.

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3MB, 4032x3024px

>>9620994
You're right to run with it, the wake-from-a-dream isn't particularly innovative in and of itself but where you're headed with it is fucking interesting and not at all what I was expecting.
>That may only be my misunderstanding from not wholly understanding the language and culture it's coming from, but...
It's certainly going to be a kickass read, especially if you can hint at but not quite explain until that end. I want to say I hope for continued suspense, but I think the better word is anticipation.
>Also reminds me of Eyedea's "Colour My World Mine" https://youtu.be/WkVWhlkzZ9E?t=1020

Strange that it made you think of an election with a critical stance, haha. I was reading up on political ideologies while typing it out, but had only meant to make it a middle eastern joke. The joke is how seriously we (of /lit/, of 4chan, of this living generation of humanity) take ourselves in the here and now and think little of stepping back for a longer-term perspective. Like tossing all of the world's free water because we want to pretend we're too ignorant to know we'll need it later, just to fit in.

>>9620997
I think what >>9621061 meant is that you're laying on the deep, dark tone too thick. It's not meant to be a heavy dollop of jam and cream but a light slice of butter to wet the golden toast. I think making it more subtle, like hiding it a bit more with description rather than telling it.

"You know, every time I get back from a run, I like to shower right away. It's not about the hygiene, I'm not worried about the slickness of the sweat or the odour after. It's the ritual; cleansing myself of the little bit of decay building up day by day. It's why I get fidgety when I miss a run."
>Claims you need subtlety, can barely employ or describe it
Helpful, I know.

>>9621168
Thanks for the insight, anon.
I'm >>9620997 btw

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Okay, and here's the flash fiction I've been working on. It'll most likely be resigned to another practice piece... Tell me what you think. : )

Rate my dialogue -

'Go ahead,' he said.
'Go ahead and do what?'
'Gee,' he said, as though it was obvious. 'I don't know... Suck my cock?'

>>9621168
Daaaamn, I haven't listened to Eyedea in quite some time. Making me feel all nostalgic like.

>>9621180
Hey, >>9621061
here. I was busy but the other anon kinda got the gist of it.

>>9621195
"

>>9619904
when the light uninvitedly decides to pour into your room
burning to the ground like coal that doesn't move
what was that thought, while laying in bed
the one you liked before you spilt the contents of your head
take me back to the things i’ve seen
to the things we see within a waking dream

>>9621209
Even shadows have shadows, anon.

I wrote this during a bit of a lull in work today and thought i'd post it. Gonna do some crits later, but going to grab some dinner in a few.

It's the death of mall rats, mall ninjas, and mall hangouts on Friday nights. A single letter, B, stays lit above a row of grimy automatic doors. BEACH MALL sat with its other letters broken and dark broadcasting its terminal state. The expanse of the barren parking lot sat like an old sun beaten face; faded white lines like teeth. Weeds grew through the cracks that rested like smile lines on the face of a mall that forgotten how to smile. A few of the teeth were punched out by the cars of the few dozen employees and shoppers that acted as a failing life support.

>>9621261
>Obligatory
Shadow hide you.

>>9621180
You're welcome!
I'm >>9621168, >>9620828

>>9621209
Eyedea's on my turntable playlist with RAKhalil (youtube.com/watch?v=SiZ9c1C3pBk) and Shigeru Umebayashi (youtube.com/watch?v=XvQNCR71DhE)
Nostalgia playlists while reading some Drayton is great.

Certainly botched, though I'm glad the point ended up coming across. Anything you would add for the sake of clarity?

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Just wrote pic related for a laugh, trying to sum up the history of Philosophy and culture in a pragraph.

>>9620997
This is great writing, as far as I'm concerned - or at least, it's very similar to what I like to write and read. You've got some real skill in crafting lightscapes that overlap with the emotions of the characters, your telegraph-cut technique is very much appreciable. Keep on that. To me, it didn't feel too cliched and broody but hey, maybe do drop the heavier themes and try to cruise across the page with some light neon ennui. You can be the next Tao Lin, but better.

>>9619904
I would greatly appreciate if someone would bother to provide feedback on this poem. I'll try to do the same if you post something of your own.

The names known,
no one
remembers
no body
of mine
not unnamed
but by myself

I’ve forgotten.

My name has
no body
for I am
no one
only detached
alone
but from myself.

>>9620138
man vs reality = the crying of the lot 49

>>9621256
uninvitedly isn't a word

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and deca-
dence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stub-
bornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thick-
ening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught--they say--
God, when he walked on earth.

I'm >>9621281 back from dinner to do some crits.

>>9621190
Really liked the voice in this piece. The images and close detail that the character gives to each image I felt really brought it to life. A few things like in the first line it should be "I had been standing". Though I do really like it so far, i'm still searching for a sort of purpose to this piece, but I am assuming it isn't finished quite yet.

>>9620997
I sort of agree with >>9621061 but not as heavily on the cliche's. I feel that the character's edge could be dialed back just a bit by removing things like "he knew better" after "He didn't come after me". I also kind of enjoyed the sort of meta moments when comparing the relationship like the usage of the word juxtaposition. I personally enjoyed it.

may do some more in a bit.

I'm pretty good at rolling cigarettes.
I was trained.
"Roll me one,"
She asks the kid who doesn't smoke.
"Roll me one,"
The first few times it's a request.
"Roll me one,"
She stops asking.
"Roll me one,"
She repeats, dismissing the ugly, the bent, the limp, the loose, the tight, the ones who
burn too fast, too slow and especially the ones with paper sticking out over the filter.
"Roll me one,"
She says, throwing the deficient ones at my face with a flick of the wrist, like a small
calibre slap.
"Roll me one,"
She says through her teeth while I smoke the rejected, having been told not to waste her
our tobacco.
"Roll me one,"
She says in bed, smiling, staring at me in a language I don't yet speak.
"Roll me one,"
She says, giggling, while I fumble with the papers.
"Again,"
she says, inspecting the firmness of the cigarette, her head tilted to the side,
disappointed in my whiskey hands.
"Roll me one,"
She orders between sobs, and again, and again, until the smoke detector dies of
asphyxiation.
"Roll me one,"
She whispers, waking me up from my spiteful sleep in the hallway with a poke of her
pinksocked feet. But after all those years, after the thousands of cigarettes I had grown
something like a spine (likely a tumor).
"Why don't you roll your own?"
She purses her lip for half a second, making sure I notice, and deploys the answer like a
precision strike, having long hoped for a night to come when affection could be
weaponized.
"Because I like watching you roll them for me."
I'm pretty good at rolling cigarettes.
I was trained,
like a dog, by a bitch.
And I thanked her.

>>9621951
yes it is

>>9622294
Even if it isn't, we know what you mean

Here's a thing i wrote, just to see what i could do in a single sentence.

The waves peel out and in, steady rising and falling of water like the breaths of the sleeping, water cut through, bottle-green, with sunlight stripes of gold and amber bounced off motes stirred up from shoreline or washed down from hillside, brought down, ferried by spring-filled streams and rivers, tiny chips and specks of stones pulled separate by ice, wind, rain, boot-heel, veins of water woven through boulders and swelled by winter's touch, cracking and splitting, a reduction in size and increase in count, in complexity, trend marched on season stacked on season remembered only in the trunks of oak and weather-warped aspen shrouding dense in shadow the forest floor over which robins flit, breasts beating proudly crimson filled with life, same life fading now from the leaves and sky, both bleeding yellow-orange-crimson, this crimson an antithesis - portent of death - life spilling, rotting, prelude to a blackness pierced by a lone star shining cold and indifferent on the firmament, gazing down on a city void of light and noise and living, void even of the associated detritus of living, food-waste, scraps of paper, newspaper blown off over soot-grimed cobbles to some place beyond the sight of the star, hidden in an alley somewhere with other detritus, building up a mockery of the city from which they came, narrow city streets mirrored now in tiny channels between impossibly tall cobblestones, through which the currents of a commerce obscure to us still run in miniature, changed not in substance, purpose, or effect but in scale, tied to some solidarity with the winter-chipped stones that now line the shores of the world intermingled with ground down shells, lining great dashed brush-strokes of highlight around the edges of continents, or an inverted dashing around water enclosed as ponds-lakes-oases, double ringed with gold and verdant brilliance, held out against the desert's clawing vacuum still, here growth appears the only constant, change appears the only thing unchanging, for now at least, the seeping up of water that now springs forth life from the desert is a consequence of erosion deep below and unseen, this hidden erosion the true constant, that of entropy - a grinding down - of stone, of earth, of heat, of light, graduations diminishing until they reach a zero, no demon to open gates and let pass the His selected atoms here, oh no, only the illusion of one, that being our will, appearing Maxwell's demon but closer to his silver hammer, a tool of compulsion who's only agency is to accelerate the entropy he thinks he controls.

Please don't say "no run-on sentences"

>>9622503
>The waves peel out and in, steady rising and falling of water

Which is it, peeling or rising?

>>9622504
Huh, the waves peel out and in, as in they move up and down the beach, and the waves are a rising and falling of water, (peaks and troughs)

>>9622503
>no run-on sentences
>only one sentence

Memories aren’t history. But I like to think I’m accurate in how I remember him. Always energetic, darting around the place. Hair flattened down or fluffed up. His tiny shaking arms, his nervous tics. Upper lip twitching into an Elvis Presley snarl, flashing the braces on his teeth. His voice sounding like it was coming from a tin can telephone, he’d burst out with inexplicable statements and jokes, head swiveling around to see his classmates’ reactions. And they’d only look at each other, but all he saw was their smiles. The teachers would smirk at him, bemused by his mania, his browned Turkish skin seemingly melting with sweat as he’d spill words, passionately failing to form arguments on just about every issue.
I was just beginning to find myself falling for him, but he was too busy bounding in the direction of the nearest bimbo, falling over his own feet. They’d pout their lips at him, but really at the men in their peripheral vision. Their eyes would stare mean from under drapes of hair and films of concealer. And I would sit with my back slouched, my fat spilling out, stretching my shirts. My chapped lips, my bitten nails, my old scars.
I remember the morning he was arguing about capital punishment. There were the laughs, the gasps and the whispered insults as per tradition. The unshaven fuzz on the top of his lip moved up and down with his verbal circles. The teacher stood above him, looking down, smirk burrowing into his neck. The bell rang. He picked up his books, shoved them into his bag and sprung up to walk out the door before anyone else. He thanked the teacher and went home. That afternoon, Ahmet killed himself.
just whipped this up

>>9620138
Man vs Author: Fog by Unamuno
Although it could also fit in man vs God

>>9621281

I don't understand what the first sentence means. Unless it's important that the 'B' is the only lit letter, you should leave it up to the readers to decide how the sign is lit--reader participation is good. 'broken and dark broadcasting its terminal state' - this is overwritten. I'm very aware I'm reading when something is described as being in a 'terminal state' instead of just off or not working. I can't get involved with such overwritten language. The parking lot image is very good and concise. The second image of the weeds is too soon (too image dense) and rings of the first, anyway. And the final sentence is the same way: it's continuing the metaphor too far, like you're trying to wow the reader with how brilliant you are instead of telling the story. It'll be a lot better with some revision.

I think it shows a lot more promise than a lot of the shite that gets posted here. Well done!

: )

>>9623567

The first paragraph is a damn load better than the subsequent ones...

>>9622503

adjective adjective adjective adjective NOUN adjective adjective NOUN adjective VERB adjective adjective adjective NOUN adjective adjective adjective NOUN VERB

Wow, you sure know how to write. ;)

You've created better works than this shite! Into the trash it goes! Now, get serious and post something better.

>>9623930
Thanks for the Crit. What I wrote is pretty image dense, but thats usually my process when I write, I will usually generate a few images and then relocate them. Im trying, atleast in these earoy stages, to stick with a almost hospice bound person as a central metaphor, which is why I included "terminal state" though I think that could be better served with more context further along.

Please tell me all the things wrong with this poem I wrote.

I splash my feet in the water
flowing down the sloped side of the street
it is warm; the heat of the earth could not be quelled
not by the brief clouds
a capricious storm!
going lightning rain hail sun
all over the course of tea

the river offers its share of passengers
a leaf, a twig, a stream of silt
one moment still, the next swept up and about
in another put down again
just as to start
but now they float calm
drift
rocking in the breeze.

>>9621597

I enjoy the multiple meanings created by the line breaks. I feel like the third stanza might be unnecessary? Maybe not, I need to meditate on it longer. Anyway I think you should move the second stanza to the end either way ("I've forgotten."), it's a more powerful conclusion.

I can taste the crowd. A rectangle composed of ten thousand faces; a crowd of sweat, blood, narcosis, and body. Not bodies--a body. A crowd is an entity. I’ll say to go right and the rectangle shall shift to lozenge flesh. Not one person, some nobody-Nelson, some bum; the crowd.
My crowd.
I’ll throw a rag and keep their riches. I’ll breathe and inhale camera angles and screams, both so pubescent in sense and style that I laugh and they, whoever that is for the day, will slap it on a news article before they can hear my sarcasm release through my nostrils. I walk on people. Though, the samians who like to journey into obscure concerts and drugs, the “fans,” are hardly worth a damn. I say this from a perspective of a man and through a high, high horse. I’m not an artist, nor am I some clowny entertainer, nor am I a political puppet of the Rockefellers and the commies and the Skulls and Bones. I’m only an expert seditionist. In fact, some young man in his garage who found his cousin Tony’s old guitar will probably beat me. But I wouldn’t tell them that. Neither would any one man who’s obtained some form of recognition. Salver Record Company, on an offshoot and a buzz, culled me from the others. I’m lanky, play the guitar, and smoke, and I look damn good smokin’. That alone is enough for someone now, but to make it, to really just make a living off singing around some die-hard’s theatre or stadium, you’ll need to sell yourself. You’ll firstly sell your mentality and your thoughts to masses. Then, you sell your body to the “Next Big Fashion Line,” which turns you into a glorified manakin and a canvas of materialism, greed, and behest.
So now I’m here. If you look to the left, you’ll notice two heads rolled onto the muddy ground. If you ask why there is mud in a concrete stadium, I could not answer. If you turn right and walk through the three glazed heads of roided men, you’ll see a bud or two or a tab or two. Muller’s held the carnage tonight. It’s my first night in Scranton. It’s probably the crowd’s, too.

The remaining daylight bleeds red and pools between skyscrapers on the notch of horizon cut by sixty-second street as Neville, walking, admires the spectacle. Occasionally he will look down away to the shoddy boardwalk when trying to avoid gaps in the wood. Some of which large enough to slurp like a wet noodle the foot and leg of an unaware or misguided step. Roughly every ten feet on either side of the walkway are posts bound and tangled together by black vines of colorless string lights whose dim beads of illumination begin to find their place in the dusk upon the mossy boardwalk and in rippling reflection atop the murky water below. A faint odor of salt is in the air as gentle waves whoosh quietly against the walls within the lifeless city.

Neville approaches an intersection amidst the surrounding buildings. The walkway here abruptly expands into a makeshift wooden piazza, the length and width of which covers the intersection, supporting a shanty bazaar brilliantly lit by light shouting from each individual market and merchant. Many people wearing all sorts of attire decorate the lively center, filling the air with barter, banter, and even bright melodies strumming and humming from a performer near the mezzanine central of the piazza. Whiffs of fresh grilled crab and tuna come and go on the intermittent breeze. The upper level of the mezzanine bears a white signboard lit by spotlight displaying "Steelmarsh Market" stenciled in red paint. Behind the sign two armed guards watch over the crowded site.

Neville makes his way to a small enclosure beneath the guard's post where a man stands inside, in front of an opening, watching as Neville approaches.

"How goes it trav'ller. Haven't seen ya round here 'fore; what brings you ta Steelmarsh, and how can I help ya?"

The lanky man leans in toward Neville onto the window's ledge as he speaks. His voice is gruff and his light brown hair and beard are long and unkempt. A lit, hand-rolled cigarette protrudes from the scruff at the corner of his mouth, giving off a stale, skunky smell which overpowers the aroma of salt and foods in the vicinity. His green eyes are sharp--inviting yet cautious-- and his nose crooked, attributing to his face the look of a man who could turn from friendly to deadly at the slightest provocation. He wears a worn and dirty white T-shirt with a leather sling-strap pistol holster positioned under his left arm. It contains an ancient Beretta M9 fashioned together almost entirely from scrap metal, hard plastics, and even duct tape around the palm grip. In the room behind him there can be seen several workbenches and tables strew with spare parts and materials from damaged, disassembled weapons and various machines, scrap motherboards, processors and diodes and housing containers, and all sorts of tools, blueprints, and manuals scattered around the materials and over the walls.

1/

>>9625191

The first sentence isn't compelling enough for me to want to read on.

'A crowd is an entity... the crowd... my crowd.' It's hard to give a damn about the crowd; we've been given no reason to care. But you go on about it a lot.

'sarcasm release through my nostrils' is a very odd phrase. And not in a good, original kind of way.

'I'm only an expert seditionist.' It's hard to sympathise with this character and that's a problem.

'I'm lanky, play the guitar, and smoke, and I look damn good smokin'' - cringe. Still no reason to give a damn as of yet.

No, nothing really of merit here. It's too self-involved, too preachy, too inconsequential.

Good luck with your future writings.

"I'm new to these parts. Hitched a ride some days ago for Faleseen Harbor on a flatboat headed out the Appalachia Isles. Was told to make for Steelmarsh where I could find a man known as the 'Techno-Prophet'. Perhaps you could point me in the right direction?"

As Neville says this he slips from his coat an intact HTC One A9 onto the window's ledge next to the man's elbow. He clicks the power button. The glass screen blinks to a black lock screen displaying 18:46pm. The man in the window, intrigued, leans up and touches the screen with his index finger. 'Enter PIN to unlock' flashes in response.

"I can unlock it. And you can have it; if you tell me what I need to know."

The man in the window eyes up Neville. He stands six feet tall with short black hair and his face is very neatly shaven. His eyes are hazel and his facial features are strong, with light acne scarring scattered across his forehead and cheeks. Neville is wearing an opened leather overcoat which extends to his mid thigh, covering a black vest over an also black shirt. A survivalists' backpack rests it's straps over his shoulders and on his back. His blue jeans are scuffed and frayed and he wears worn-out steel-toe boots.

"Unlock it."

"First make me believe you can help me."

The man peers into Neville's eyes-- Neville holds the stare steadfast.

"Tha Techno-Prophet's dead. Has been so fer a while now, sorry ta disappoint. 'Haps you'd like to visit his grave? Can't say you'd make much of it if you seek him livin' though."

The man recedes into his workplace, rummages through some drawers, a few scattered pages, and, after lingering over a desk for a moment, he returns to Neville at the window.

"Leave tha market here goin' north. Walk til ya can't go further north, n' enter tha buildin' the end of the walk. It's an old library there. Nowadays though it works better fer storin' bodies than books--mind you tha smell. Nobody but a few scragglers as myself know ta read or even want to. Out the back's where we set to sail or sink those who ain't into rotting inside an old buildin'. That's where you'll find yer fella; at the bottom."

The man brings his hand up from below the window, setting a flashlight and a pair of goggles next to Neville's smartphone. His eyes are itching toward the again dim screen. Neville carefully assess the man in the window.

"I'm sorry; I don't think we've properly introduced. Name's Neville."

Neville reaches the hand he used to place phone out to shake the merchant's hand.

2/

"Neville," he says shaking firm the outstretched hand. "Name's Justin. What, eh, with the sudden formalities?"

"A man tells you to wander into deadhomes, it's best you know him better by name than convenience is all. A man's eyes tell you a little more when you know their proper name."

"If it's trust yer lookin' for, I can't promise it's in my name or grip. Neville; you seem a capable man--I respect an air of caution. People round these parts fear that building for havin' spooks. You'd better chance a shark floppin' on tha walk and chompin' ya 'fore you get there than an ambush lyin' wait. If you're that concerned take ol' Berra here."

Justin pulls the jury rigged Beretta from its holster and places it next to the other offerings.

"Ain't much ta look at, but it's a full clip. 'Round here, a warning shot's as good a kill shot. 'Haps even better so. Most know most these parts--a dead baddie adds to three, four times that in vengeful folk."

"I appreciate the sentiment. I've no doubt in the capability of that Beretta. Well, perhaps a little."

Neville laughs as he says this. Justin appears neither offended nor amused, and he waits for Neville to continue.

"I believe though that you've helped me enough, and I will take the torch and specs. Here:"

Neville enters 1-9-2-7 to the phone while saying the numbers out loud for Justin to hear. It reliqueshes it's guard to the factory default home screen.

"All yours my friend."

Justin eagerly takes up the phone as Neville watches his fingers flick, swipe, and poke at the illuminated screen. A slight grin appears under his beard and in the corners of his worn eyes.

"What a beaut. If ya don't mind me askin', where'd you happen 'cross a piece this pristine? Awful rare round these parts. Even rarer most anyplace else. Rarest of all's that she 'ppears unlocked. You must really wanna find this guy don't ya?"

"It was a very lucky find owned by an electronics merchant outside Faleseen Harbor. Offered him a few odds and ends I had brought with me and that I had intended to give way for just an occasion. I have little use for it, but knew full well, perhaps better than the merchant, it's desirability."

As he says this, Neville removes his pack and stores the goggles in a side pouch. He then returns it to his back, placing the torch in his coat from where he had previously produced the phone.

3/4

"Justin my friend, it was good doing business with you. Best of luck on your tinkering and with your sales. Before I leave, I was wondering as to if you may have a local map which may be of use to me? As I've said, I'm quite new to these parts. A guide would help tremendously."

Justin signals Neville to wait as he goes to a small desk in the southeast corner of the enclosure, closest to the window, and which Neville hadn't immediately noticed before. It's surface is clean, and Justin takes from one of the drawers a folded sheet. Looking it over a moment before returning to the opening.

"Here ya go. That there's fairly accurate of locations within fifty miles. Also has markin's on what places may be more dangerous and where ya should avoid pokin' around. Followin' sixty-second street outta town leads ya along tha major travel route of the locale and merchants. Along that this map'll lead ya true some couple hundred miles, all the way ta New Athens. Don't let folk round here see ya havin' it though. Good maps such as them're quite tha prize for dead-divers, bounty hunters, and all sorts of trav'llers alike."

Justin gives Neville a slight look as he says,

"Take care trav'ller. You happen 'cross the Prohpet's waterlogged corpse, be sure n' pay my respects."

>>9625235
use pastebin or something

>>9625237
But the narrator is such an ass that he's full of himself. It simply shows how he doesn't care at all about them

Also, the buzzword of cringe you used may or may not be supported; I meant it as in smoking a cigarette. Not sure how it seemed "cringey," but I appreciate the criticism.

That said, how do I manage a character who doesn't care about something without having the reader lose interest? I feel as though it's paradoxical.

>>9624505
>>9624505
The 6th line of the first stanza personally feels a bit clunky but with that being said I like the first stanza. The only other thing might be the 7th line of the second stanza. The word "drift" added a very strong break in the flow of the stanza but that appears deliberate. Is that the case? Overall though I thought it was a solid piece of work.

The leaves of the trees were swaying from the gentle breeze that blew past as did the lillies which reminded him of snow, waiting to be played with by groups of young children. He looked at the people going by: An old couple, two young children sprinting ahead of their parents roaring with laughter and joy, and a woman.

The woman sat down on the bench opposite to him and started to read. The sun fell on her. It illuminated her face and as she read there before him bathing in the warm rays of the sun, the light, it seemed to cling to her body gilding her smooth milky complexion with rose gold and when a gale blew across the trees, it caused the autumn to gently fall, and her hair, auburn like the leaves danced in the wind.

Noticing his gaze she looked directly at him. Her sufferance made her drop her eyes to the lillies. She started to read again but unable to bare his gaze, his admiration ... his worship, she stood and left.

She was gone. She was never to be seen again and yet the world still went on. He expected time to stop just for him when she dissipated forever but he could still hear the children laughing and the faint sound of the bustle in the distance. He looked up at the sky and thought,‘I stood in the divergence of the two and as I listened to the waves upon the bank of the river, hither and thither, and as you stood there before me,I smiled to have ever met you.’

>>9625472

leaves... trees... breeze... lilies...

:^)

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Hi, I really enjoy writing. Also I want to become the best writer that I can be so I was wondering if anyone in this group could give me some critical feedback on my writing. I'm currently writing a spoken word origin story series telling the tale of how twenty two children were recruited into a soldier program.
One of the ones I've already released is linked below.
Once again, I would be extremely grateful to anybody who can just sit down, listen and give me some feedback.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfDEnr6vhnbprlAO-m6uoLwrcWaptezLt

>>9625492
What's wrong with it? XD

>>9625272
Yeah, I forgot letters here are encrypted.

>>9621494
Thanks for the feedback. Would like some more, if that's alright.

It’s only after retrospection one realises that words left unsaid should’ve been said instead of those that were. And I’ve left my share of thoughts unsaid, opinions unvoiced, pieces of my soul unshared.
Ah, the exertion. It’s not speaking up or out but letting it sink. Sink down to the old distillery and then it’s all bottled up and sent into the cold, damp cellar. And my cellar’s full.
So, sometimes, and sometimes only as I’m stingy, I bring a bottle.
And drink I drink my own wine.
And the beat slows down, tears well up, the liquor drowns and the demons come out — it’s Mammon’s feast, they chant and climb, on the top of the hill, where the ol’ tenor blows, tall and still. And I’m him.
Or, he’s my essence. Unperturbed, my soul,
In eternal bliss, in a mire of my thoughts, and blinded by the fog of my emotions.
But he plays and plays, in eternal bliss.
Untouched and unfazed, and that’s what I’m meant to be, I realise, every now and then.

…

Every now and then, and between now and then all my sorrows lay dormant.

Going for my own little style here:

The Cliffs of Addiction
________________________

here you are. Dumbfounded that you've found yourself standing here again. After you told yourself you would not do it. You knew how it would end. Yet here you stand, peering over the ledge. Staring into a swaying sea-canopy.

Does it please you knowing the fall could release you from the promises you've made? Does the thought ever cross your mind to recall the answers you had to find? To rewind time and see what you've seen in that swaying sea-canopy?

No.

The wind slips those dreams away as it drifts through the knots in your hair. Your feet, they leave the edge, and the sun evaporates you from condensing to the sea. And temporarily you are free. Reveling in bovine royalties revealed by the radiant star as it sparks the forest canopy and ignites your senses. A release from gravity. Weightlessness--stoked by waving leaves and risen by that radiant sun.

But you knew. Don't you remember? Before you took that step, of the promises you have made? Of the realities realized before stolen by the breeze?

In a moment you condense, gripped tightly by the gravity of that churning canopy. Your head flooding with the memories waked by that swaying sea. Chilling you to your solidarity as that radiant star sharpens to a dull, glowing husk-of-a-face, shrouded in darkness, and mouthing to your mind the promises you had to hear. Spoken so clear, so long ago.

Your eyes close lightly as you're wrenched to the earth, the sea consuming your sight as it hungers for your entirety.

When they reopen, you see a swaying sea-canopy, far below the cliff resting at your feet. Relief flows through as you stare into the trees that are waving in the breeze. Was it just a dream? Was nothing as it seemed?

With fear fleeting, you found believing that you'd be leaving was all but leaving you living.

Yet...
___

... until you decide to step away from that sea canopy, a dream will be your reality.

>>9625903
Too on the nose. Change the title. The whole piece comically blunt in a way I don't think you'd want it to be. Infinite Jest is a meme and not really stylistically comparable to what you're trying to do here, but at least Dee Eff Double U contrives some nuances to his treatment of mad diction as a theme

>>9625916
I've never read DFW. Was intended to be blunt; obvious to both addicted and non addicted peoples. Not really comically so though. It's all supposed to be self contained, the imagery is supposed to feel as though it's constantly recycling around--seemingly going away and returning as itself or it's counterpart--to get the feel for an addicts thought process. Thanks for the input though, will take into consideration.

>>9625989
Don't mind me man, I'm probably not the target audience. You do you.

>>9625989
>>9625916
Also meant to mention that the very repetitious and flowing diction are supposed to represent being in a sort of dream state, to enforce that it's not reality.

>>9625996
Well I honestly went for general audience. For the non addict to feel inside the head of an addict, and for the addict to see himself in the cliffs. So if it fell flat for you, it fell flat for my audience. I try to write universally.

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>>9622503

A Neverending Game.

Summer had crept up on us with little preface. Days were long and nights seemed longer. Individual moments whisked away in the thick of the heat. I was just turning fourteen or somewhere about; it was hard to tell. My little sister, Ophelia, was about half my age, and half as smart. I was pretty sure I was smart then.
It was a good time too – my uncle and his fiancée were coming over. Long since I had seen the black Honda roll down our driveway, but it wasn’t any different. Micah and Louise weren’t any different either, ‘cept for their hair colors. She bleached hers and his was something darker than it used to be.
“Hey George!” they both said in unison out the car window as I approached.
I never liked my name.
“How in the heck are you doing?” Micah hopped out of the Honda and stopped himself before me, giving a faux formal handshake that I took to with all-severity.
I said I was well, that I had been well. Micah tussled my hair and said that was good. Louise gave me a smile as she walked by but didn’t really say anything before opening up the trunk of her (their?) car. Then she spoke.
“Oh Curious –“(Curious was her nickname for me, a reference to the monkey Curious George) (I hate my name.) “-dear, can you help Micah and I carry some of this in, please?”
Micah nudged me with his elbow a couple of times.
“Guys like us get no breaks, eh?” he said.
Micah had this sort-of funny thing where he could only speak in tangent with Louise, whereas Louise said whatever she wanted, at any given time. They were a new age couple I think. That’s what dad used to say. A new age couple.
I helped them in the house of course – picking up a big garbage bag full of clothes and carrying it along as they themselves lugged in some other bags and suitcases. This is the point where mom came down stairs, having ‘dolled up’ in her room. She liked to be presentable.
“My god, Micah, you haven’t aged a bit!” She said as she clung to the seemingly shorter man.
“You’d be surprised what a little sun and workout can do for a guy” Micah smiled.
“And you – Louise – why, you look positively stunning”. I’m not sure what part of Louise mom considered stunning, all the nondescript portions possibly.
“Why thank you Margaret, you look very appreciable yourself.” Louise said.
Appreciable? What is that even sup-
It was at that time that a loud scream was heard from upstairs. I, of course, knew instantly what this was. Louise and Micah were not as understanding. They looked at each other, and then at us in surprise.
My mother looked agitated: “Sorry, Ophelia has not been good lately.”
There were a lot of things I could say to that -- but I kept my mouth shut. Better to think and not speak.

(I wrote this little bit out in late highschool and just revisited now, not even sure if I should continue it...)

>>9620217
I didnt like your descriptions. They were very long and humdrum. Like whenever someone starts off by describing the light of dawn or dusk i kinda roll my eyes. It's completely unmecessary to the story. If the author is going to describe things in detail i want him or her to be very self aware of why it's being done, as opposed to, "just trying to set the scene man." I don't need the scene to be set, cause i can do that in my own head with a lot less primer material. Anyway, think about your readers and their time.

>>9626346
It all absolutely helped make the setting.

>sunset appearing at the end of a city block would draw attention to it
>he's on a boardwalk
>the reflection from the string lights begins to stand out on what is water below
>finally the salt and waves

You now know the guy is walking down a city flooded by the ocean at night. I'm building the scene, bringing you into the world.

I cannot say I have ever been a kid. I've been raised by workers and have been raised as such. There were no videogames. There were many days when, after Momma sent me to pull the weeds (every last one of them, she'd add), I'd scramble into the neighbor's yard to hangout with their child. I never knew his name. I didn;t have to, though, so I called him Chuck. He was my gatekeeper. Chuck knew girls. He knew where babies came from and how to make one. He knew porn. Shifting reactions from a dimly lit screen in the basement we sat and watched as a young woman was moaning. This confused me.
Whenever I left Chuck's, I felt exposed, like I wore a target on my pudgy you-got-those-from-your-aunt-Cara's cheeks. I'd get red and Momma would ask why I was "so damn redder than a tomatter." I'd say it was the sun. But there was no sun that winter; only prurient computer screens and pubescent curiosity.

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>>9620793

Stephen Colbert, in one mighty flex of his trapezius muscles, exploded his formal clothes into tattered rags that dissolved into screaming flames. He gave a smile so devious, so shit-eating, so incredibly resisting of the Trumpian Regime that Amy Schumer's crusty, atrophied vagina encased with pounds of flabby fat exploded into pussyjuice despite being a multitude of miles away from the show host. He fingerpopped his glasses down the ridge of his strangely hook-shaped and Hebrew nose, gazing at the unbelievably average body of Seth Meyers.

"Are you ready to get rectally ravaged you fucking piece of shit?" Asked Colbert, flexing his chest and making his nipples turn into razor-sharp weapons of Leftist terror and rebellion. Seth Meyers nodded his head, smirking wide and cramming his hand down into his pants to massage his yoctopenis.

Stephen Colbert's mere glance at Seth Meyers pants caused the article of clothing to wither into nothingness, revealing Seth's smooth and sausage-shaped legs covered with hair and oil. Stephen dun-diddly scaboodled down to Seth's pelvis and gobbled up his schlong, bobbing his head up and down onto his manlover's spire of throbbing erect meat. And wew, did he do a good job. In his first five seconds of sucking he had already ingested five solid pounds of smegma! Soon, Seth's two round dispensers of chunky DNA sludge bursted into both treats and in cum, shooting a repulsive, slimy fluid into Colbert's mouth. He drank the semen in long, greedy swallows, savoring the salty taste of Seth's white, homemade peanut butter.

"Holy SHIT you give good blowjobs, Steve!" exclaimed Seth through his post-ejaculation haze. He was still nutting into COLBERG'S mouth as he said this. "Broffulb Flumph would be mad to know you give the best BJs and NOT Baronicus Glump!"

1/2

>>9626472
Stephen didn't hear this, as his thoughts were focused on only one thing: Seth's thick, moist, juicy, cum-shooting pipe of buttdoom. Stephen performed a majestic somersault and landed his hairy, shit-crusted ass directly onto Seth's incredible ccccoooooccccckkkkkkkk. Seth Meyer suddenly became so erect that distant galaxies exploded into massive nebulas of dark energy that would soon form the planet Morthath, which would give birth to the Zepulchrians.

Stephen bounced his flat, prolapsed ass onto Seth Meyer's cock, coating his dick in a filthy, brownish plasma that smelled like Stalin's left thumb. The erratic, sloppy speed of Seth Meyer's thrusts caused a symphony of moist, squishing sounds to resonate among the empty backstage room the loving couple resided in. Eventually, Colbert's ass could take no more pressure, and it fired off a mighty, cannonlike beam of hazel, chunky shit straight down into Mister Meyer's dickhole. Seth seized up in pain and agonizingly grimaced as his testicles swelled up into balloon-sized containers of Colbert's shit. Veins and arteries bulged around Seth's nuts as the unceasing flow of shit poured directly into his cumholders. He gave a guttural, primal scream, so incredibly loud that it shook the face of Earth, and an enormous column of shit jetted out of his nuts, sending Stephen flying into the air, poop re-entering his rectum. He was speared so thoroughly on the spire of shit that no force conceivable could remove him from the ray of doodie. The beam of fecal matter blasted Stephen through the atomosphere and into the surface of the sun. Holy shit was that nutblast powerful!

As Colbert writhed in the massive tendrils of gas flames which dissolved his body into the greater solar mass, he smiled, knowing his death would not be in vain.

"D…Dobbald Kaaaampf…" were his last words as he was assimilated into the greater force of Sol herself.

A single, salty tear rolled down Seth's cheek.

"Shrothald Cloompf…" he said in response.

>>9626472
The first line was enough to make me not want to read it.

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>>9626525
do read it though, comrade.

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>>9625235
Hey m8, gonna dump some thoughts. General impressions--it's not my style but I can definitely see the sort of thing you're going for. My biggest issue is probably the narrative voice not feeling like the character, but rather the author in some places. Some of that may be that I don't know Neville much from this excerpt. The pulpy things like "techno-prophet" can be cool. If you're after that sort of old dime mystery feel, I'm not the best to advise but go for it. Maybe the Spirit comics can help (I'm not the best for this). Some line edits:
>The remaining daylight bleeds red and pools between skyscrapers on the notch of horizon cut by sixty-second street as Neville, walking, admires the spectacle.
I like the image you're asking here but the language is a bit clumsy. "Pools between on the notch" is messy, yeah?
>Occasionally he will look
You're writing in the present tense, which is fine (I prefer it a lot of the time), but this is future--keep it consistent
>whose dim heads of illumination
The prepositional clause here isn't as smooth as the rest of the sentence and interrupts the flow to my eye
>whoosh
Is oddly informal but maybe that's just me
>guards dialogue
It seems a bit contrived, overly introductory or something. People don't really speak this way..
>inviting yet cautious
I know it's a meme but show him being cautions and inviting with better dialogue and by letting your characters voice take control, instead of just the authors narrative voice
>HTC One A9
As in the literal brand HTC?
>ta disappoint
>to visit his grave
Writing in accented dialogue like this only works if you establish the rules and don't break them. Make a chart to help train yourself for certain characters. Next lines you say tha tha tha the.
>Reaches the hand he used to place the phone out to shake the merchants hand
So to me this is indicative of a mistake that Inused to make a lot. I'm projecting here and speaking personally but, when I recognized that I was doing this and stopped it felt like I leveled up in a meaningful way. Best way I can describe it: you don't have to explain everything in a linear way. When you craft capable characters, we can leave them and pick them up wherever is prudent. Having a point A and a point B in mind, you rarely have to write every single detail that takes us from point A to point B. I hope that makes sense.
>jury rigged
I think the phrase is jerry rigged but I very well may be wrong

It's good overall, but you've got to hammer out your characters voice!

>>9626679
>>9625235
Forgive my typos I am mobileposting and typing fast :^(

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I work with a devoutly religious man in a very small 3-person HVAC company. He's the technician and i'm the mere helper. More often than not I have trouble paying attention to the details of the job - I just can't force myself to really care and be attentive to the construction of air conditioners and all the inherent facets of air conditioning. I do try: to be strong and able and focused and attentive, but it's very difficult. Yes, i'm lazy and i'm not shying away from that.

Aside that, I have a deep fascination with this man. We work together, usually alone, for long stretches of time. The workday ranges from that familiar silence of focused work to very small asides, with somewhat relaxed yet also guarded conversation during lunchtime. I think he's suspicious of me. From what I gather he lives in ignorance of most conventional media and the internet, and what little he does consume would amount to your generic Facebook 'memes' and forgettable YouTube videos heartened by the witless youth of our time. That is unimportant to me. He spends his free time playing miniature war games and has an interest in war history, which is a little more curious but still uneventful: I could easily see myself getting lost in that kind of thing, i'm sure it's engaging enough.

What I seem to gravitate towards most is his complete and utter staunchness about life. This man has no doubt about living by the good Bible, attending and working through Sunday school, and living among his ordinary and parochial boondocks family. I think these to be legitimate and worthy criticisms - and yet it would do him injustice to say this is the whole breadth of his character. The man doesn't drink, he never has and never will. He's looking to get married at the age of 23 and has no desire to be caught up with what he regards as girls: he wants a Woman. A woman to undoubtedly be the object of his one and only desire, to bare his children and be to his homely hearth - and very little else. And in time spent with him I have come to realize that he is not swayed by money or power (the popular swill of men) whatsoever. He is perfectly content to live a life working his trade, providing service to people in the area, and making happy existence out of that. He is the type of man who would give you the shirt off his back, and I have no doubts about this. I have seen a kinder and more fair generosity in the typically beguiled and mocked country bumpkin than most other progressive types today, and he possesses a quaint look on life that oftentimes astonishes me. We were working and I remember talking about the concept of Luck: and he said something that still has me smiling, it might be the most intriguing thing he's said; "If there is a God, he is not a God of luck."

To me, that brings about a host of wild and wondrous suppositions about this man; which i'm still slowly trying to work out of him without hurting his inherent being. First and foremost: does he question the existence?

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"See," the aged helmsman says to his apprentice, "too far to East or West would send a ship into the mouth of the Serpent on into the hands of the Maker,"

"That's not true," the young man says, "the Tarians sail and sail. You see them go?"

"Aye, lad," the helmsman says, "You sail with them, f'ya like. You'll be buggered quick, and told to like it nonetheless,"

"So it is," the young man says, "but those boyfuckers sail all day and all night and don't care at all about where they sail, they don't tell stories about being eaten by the Serpent,"

"Fool," says the helmsman.

"You'll see. I'll sail my ship like they do. And find what there's to be found,"

"If you live long enough,"

"I will,"

The sun is coming up now. And the helmsman is pointing, his wine-starved fingers shaking at the trail the sun makes just over the port side.

"Yes," the young man preempts him, "that's the golden path. I've sailed to Corvales twice before,"

From where they stand, the towers are rising up over the break of the horizon.

On the docks, the dice games have dwindled into huddles of silence. Only losers take their chances now. The winners long ago retired to rented quarters and drank themselves to sleep.

Some few who took what they could win and spent it all on cheap beer sing:

'Corvales, Corvales!
No man goes hungry here!
They will learn to fly before
they take you, Corvales!'

"What gods there were are gone, now," says the apprentice to the aged helmsman, "you say your prayers, if you like. I don't. And yet we steer the ship all the same,"

https://pastebin.com/hAXevuTY

When there shines no stars
Over a river-city painted blue,
How is one to wish,
Past the essoin of the sky?
I’ll tell yee, man,
You estop the moon;
You weave a net of silk and string
Of the Orb Spiders and the pillars,
You tell the loon, “Fly now, soar,
And take these wishes far.”

When stars stop shining over rivers
And loons hide from the moon,
Go to the aidge of White Mountain’s peak,
And tell the wind and the moon,
You need to speak.

>>9626290

You need to relax.

Right from line one you're trying to crowd this description with things you can clue the audience into without putting it right under their nose.

So check this out:

"I was just turning fourteen or somewhere about; it was hard to tell."

Try:

"I was about fourteen."

You make all your points about yourself in the second part talking about the sister. Just make your points there, don't waste your time getting to it.

“Then she spoke.

Oh Curious –“(Curious was her nickname for me, a reference to the monkey Curious George) (I hate my name.) “-dear, can you help Micah and I carry some of this in, please?”

Don't do this wild parenthesis buffet again unless it really works. Here it's just obnoxious and takes away from the fact that important things are becoming known.

Also, they say "hey George" together right out of the gate, why does she call him 'Curious' the second time and not the first if that's her pet name for him? Maybe they each call out a different name and she looks at her man funny- that would be a moment to explore?

"all the nondescript portions possibly,"

just clumsy.

"It was at that time that a loud scream was heard from upstairs."

Also just shoehorned into the action.

"A scream came then, from upstairs,"

is not a great sentence but still works better.

Not terrible but really, just trying way too hard to fit a kind of feeling. I'm very adamant about the less is more mentality in prose but in these family things you have to, IMO, be especially about it.

How many of your IRL family meetings have been interesting down to the final detail? How many have been not-so-much?

As he felt the slow and silky creep of asphyxiation slide over him, as all the petty annoyances of life turned to flotsam and jetsam on the black waves of a thunderously churning sea, there was, as if he’d descended beneath the surface, at first a sense of uneasy peace. There was the storm above, yes, but there was the promise of a resolution, a decision made solely under his own power, and by his hand, and by the cunning of his mind, which in the face of a concatenation of innumerable slights had wished like the basest trapped animal to flee; the light below was nacreous but maternally comforting, and it was as it had been before he was born- that is, in transition; there was a possibility. Beneath the waves, the merest tendril of sensation sent arrays of bright sparks and rare fires flashing in his vision, the merest whisper of a word conjured up volumes of his own thought, the most meager sound became symphonic and rippling with an eerie mellifluence; he felt regret and he felt hope. Suddenly before him the rhizomatic branches of a life pulsed neon in the dark, and he looked along their curling tendrils of light, watching as they illuminated moments- his first steps; Lauren; a kiss; a scab on his knee; a play-date with girl across the street- moments which had been relegated to some strange corner of his mind where they sat, sometimes calm like small children, sometimes enraged like great brutes, and hummed or whistled or stamped merrily along in solitude until they were called now, by the force of the crashing waves of a life, into the foreground again. All he’d been and done was combined in a milieu of bittersweet sentiment and nostalgia and love and anger and resentment and flickering hope. Then the light went out.

>>9626858
holy fuck that's good. borderline meme but no really; impressed anon

>>9626858
>>9626862
Same fag.

It's trash, anon. Rewrite.

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Why is writing so hard? I've been at this for an hour with only 200 words of progress. I realize it would be so much easier if I didn't care if it was good, but I can't be satisfied writing something I don't think is good quality

On the last day before he left, they’d met at the Library. Her classes had already started. She’d shown up with her bookbag slung around one shoulder. He noticed that the eye shadow under one of her eyes was smudged. They talked over coffee for a long time. It was cold by the time they finished. Then they walked to the the bathroom together, a unisex one, didn't bother to lock the door, and fucked frantically. She was shaking the whole time at the possibility of getting caught. But the librarians had stayed put in their swivel chairs, chatting quietly to one another and playing sudoku. They left the bathroom. They’d hugged in front of the Library, for way too long. People stared. Then they kissed again and promised to meet up during winter vacation. When he’d left, a week later he’d taken a shirt that she’d left in his basement, one which still smelled like her. Even though he would only do it when out of sight, as if he was committing some indecorous act, and at times of great plaintive need, he would sometimes bury his face in it and inhale deeply. It smelled less like her every time.

>>9626839
This is good criticism, thank you.
I wrote this a long time ago, mind you, and i'm just really getting back into the process of trying to write now. I have a really bad tendency to just throw hyphens where they don't necessarily belong. I'm also having a hard time writing characters out without it seeming cliche, then I sort of just make them flat I guess. This is something I have to force myself to practice more, but I promise it's not going to be a nihilistic snooze-fest if I can fucking focus.

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Pic related is a flash fiction piece I'm thinking of sending to a contest. Lemme know if I laid the edge on too thick.

>>9619987
>vomiting clear white chowder
This is stellar imagery.
Like some of the other anons said, put quotes in quotation marks.
When you write:
>No burns from a line, no cuts from a knife, his lips aren't chafing in the cold.
I wish the parallel structure would hold, something like:
>No burns from a line, no cuts from a knife, no ______ from a ________.
or
>His hands weren't burnt by lines, his arms weren't cut by knives, his lips weren't chafed by the cold.
I understand why you went with what you did, this is more of a personal hang-up since I'm a stickler for parallelism. Love what you're doing, though, keep at it. If the plot is as engaging as the prose, you've got a quality story.

>>9620377
I hope this is a shitpost.
Nice dubs.

>>9620997
>I'm just cremating my dead skin cells.
Rough start.
>my own panopticon.
Why does the character narrate this? It doesn't seem to further the theme, and it doesn't establish anything we don't already know about either him or prisons.
>I'm the jail, the jailer and the jailed.
Please be more subtle. I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but wowza.

>>9621190
Not bad, but there's a handful of odd word choices.
>I had been stood in the art room
This implies that someone else had put the narrator there, but I don't really see anything referring to that in the rest of the piece. Do you mean that he had been "standing in the art room"?
On a similar note,
>he placed them somewhere I couldn't see and waved
reads a little ambiguously. It wasn't until the next sentence I realized he was waving at the narrator. "Placed" also sounds a little odd, prosodically. Maybe try "set"?
Overall, good stuff, keep at it.

>>9621281
I like the face metaphor in theory, but not in practice. The repetition of "teeth" is kind of grating, and "forgotten how to smile" is a bit cliche. Tense is a tad inconsistent. First sentence is absolutely stellar, though. Revisit the idea and you'll have something really special.

>>9626701
Reads like a redditor writing a blog post. The concept is good, but you've gotta approach the old man like an equal, otherwise this will come off smug. Toning down the prose will help with this.

>>9626902
pretty good

>>9626880
Because you lack direction. Experience some things, read a bit, and don't try to force yourself when it's not there.

Let ideas come and go but pick up on a few of the more refined ones until you feel like you can make something worthy. Maybe diagram some ideas out, keep notes. It always helps to be organized in your writing process.

>>9626858
>As he felt the slow and silky creep of asphyxiation slide over him,
Is he getting molested by a guy named Asphyxiation or is he suffocating?

>as all the petty annoyances of life turned to flotsam and jetsam on the black waves of a thunderously churning sea,
For someone who is losing consciousness, he has a very vivid imagination. Are there pirates and lightning bolts on this sea?
Wait, he's literally drowning in the sea, and as he drowns in the sea, he has a vision of the sea? Is the sea wearing swim shorts, and is the storm cloud holding an umbrella? Don't double up your imagery.

>there was, as if he’d descended beneath the surface, at first a sense of uneasy peace.
On account of losing consciousness.

>There was the storm above, yes, but there was the promise of a resolution, a decision made solely under his own power, and by his hand, and by the cunning of his mind,
I'm drowning in a metaphorical sea and also a literal sea during a metaphorical storm but also a literal storm, but I'm doing it smugly.

>which in the face of a concatenation of innumerable slights had wished like the basest trapped animal to flee;
I'm so happy about my decisions that I ran away from people making fun of me, and so noble and elevated my humility that I can abase myself by comparing myself to a mere animal, perhaps a lion, eagle, or a sexy dragon.

>the light below was nacreous but maternally comforting, and it was as it had been before he was born- that is, in transition; there was a possibility.
The sunlight from the bottom of the sea was pearly, but despite is pearliness it reminded me of my mother, who is not a pearl. Yes, drowning is so very full of possibilities - except the possibility of escaping ridicule. You're fucked there.

>Beneath the waves, the merest tendril of sensation sent arrays of bright sparks and rare fires flashing in his vision, the merest whisper of a word conjured up volumes of his own thought, the most meager sound became symphonic and rippling with an eerie mellifluence; he felt regret and he felt hope.
I am so numb form losing consciousness while drowning in the sea that I pause for awhile from my daydream about metaphorically drowning in the sea to survey the seawater around me. I feel things, hear words, and also hear sounds. Shit's looking up, but my noble head still hangs down in sorrow.

Look, I don't have the energy for this. Suffice it to say that you should stick to stroking yourself to your own sad, noble reflection, or maybe to an autographed publicity photograph of yourself leaning on a desk and intensely writing poetry with a quill and an expression of sublime sadness and nobility.

>>9626914
I have an idea, one I've been refining for a full year now. The issue is that I'm a perfectionist. I can't put a sentence down on paper unless I think it's publishing quality. As a result I can't feel like I'm making progress which overwhelms me and holds me back

>>9626880
1. You are editing it and writing it simultaneously.
2. You lack a sense of momentum for what your characters are driven to do.

>>9626902
FEELS. Rewrite some of the second to last sentence for paralellism

>>9626932
You're not wrong on either count. To be honest, I have no idea how this opening scene should go and I'm afraid of the plot as a whole kicking off too soon

>>9626925
My grandpa used to tell me, all the time, to just sit down and write out as much as you can in the time had.

Forget about the pretense, about your preconceived notions of what constitutes good prose and dialogue: just write as much as you can about what you want to, and don't be overly concerned with where you stumble and trip. Fixing word choice, sentence structure, and narrative direction is all a part of the editing process. You have all the time to revise that crap after you actually get some shit down on the paper. Don't get caught up in all the minutiae and minor detail but rather try to translate and adequately convey what you would like to to say, in length.

The Berlin Wall; the atom bomb; the head of Jackie Kennedy spilling out its limp wet brains onto the street- the world has changed course at a few distinct points. He could have tapped her shoulder, her green-sweatered shoulder, in the coffee shop. He didn't. He ordered his coffee and then sat in a dark corner and let it warm his hands while he forlornly watched. Eventually she left. It was a chilly day, in Autumn, that part of Autumn when you beg the sun to not burn out, because you know the next day is colder and shorter than the last, and you're not really sure if it'll be back at all. But the young president was still dead, the bomb had still charred a million japanese buildings, germany was still liberated, and a shoulder was untapped. The world continued on its course.

>>9626904
>I wrote this a long time ago, mind you, and i'm just really getting back into the process of trying to write now

I got that because you said so, but old you's writing had some bad habits so go ahead and try to start writing without them.

>>9621597

This is my kind of poem from the outside.

Yes, good form on separating "no" from "body" and I think I get what you're going for.

Aha! you must think, minimalist-fuckwad-guy-anon could not possibly tell me to pare down what I have.

I say, though, that you ought to seriously consider the importance of the "not" in between "mine" and "but" in the first stanza. Yes, this is quibbling, but if you're going to go bare bones, then the importance of every single word must be evaluated.

I also think you may be better off moving "I've forgotten" from the middle to the beginning.

>>9626918
some people just aint smart enough. I don't like it either but its not hard to figure out. Unscramble: iusdcei

>>9626925

I'm not trying to be some Tony Robbins self help guru fucker but perfectionism's track record is terrible. And perfectionism is all about track record.

You can study and read and all that, if the catalog of lit is not enough to remind you that somebody will find a reason to dislike you, well.

That said, don't half-ass things. Get down to the root of what you mean to say and say it well.

>>9626925
>>9626942
You'd be surprised how alienated you become from your own written work.
Give it a bad draft. At most it will cost you two weeks or so to forget your mistakes, then on your next attempt you will remember the good stuff.

Writing is a largely unconscious process, but you're not letting this process flow properly because you're treating your imagination as a finite resource. It's not possible to ruin an idea, because once the idea leaves your head, it becomes alienated from your imagination, and re-reading it later, you experience it as a someone else's text. Plagiarise the good stuff from the bad drafts, forget the rest, keep the feedback loop moving.

>>9622271
Hm. Subtle time progression. Nice.

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An essay i've been trying and failing to finish, would love some feedback mostly on the writing style rather than the content. It's quite raw; to that end, I expect certain critiques alrady. The last few bits are, just that, bits. Might be interesting for people to see the dirty process I was going through. Also: the paragraphs largely independent. I was writing bits and pieces and wanted to fit them together at a later stage. Thanks.

>>9626953

ditch the "forlornly".
the first sentence transitions into the second very jarringly.

>It was a chilly day, in Autumn
remove that comma

I like that you're trying to tie together these big events w/ this dude's "petty" problems but I think you have to rework it. Some of the language is nice, though.

>>9626679
Going for a post apocalyptic, technology fueled almost western feel to this. Narrator is not Neville, they're omniscient and will eventually jump characters so the story goes. Though the segments of text within the head of Justin should have shown that. Neville is just the focal point of the scene and story atm. You're right on a few points here about tense and wording.
I did show he was cautious. His demeanor changed entirely after Neville formally introduced himself. Notice how he became much more forthcoming with more and more helpful info compared to "Unlock it" as their convo began.
Yes, literally the brand HTC. This is going to be a future timeline based off current reality.
Fought myself a lot of the vocalisation with Justin. Because in my head, he does not consistently speak using 'ta or tha', but only when aiding the flow of his accent. So he wouldn't say "I'm goin ta tha bathroom ta take a shit", but instead "I'm going to tha bathroom ta take a shit" because of his accent. Maybe that clarifies? Don't -try- to read the dialog and more just read the dialog, if that makes sense.
Yes, I actually gutted nearly that entire sentence about using his same hand to shake hands. It was terrible.
It can be jerry or jury.

Please don't take any of this as disregarding your critique. As I always say, I'm just being a little defensive, but I will definitely take everything you said into consideration. Can't thank you enough for reading through it and helping me out.

>>9627052
Hey I'm doin a similar thing maybe you could give some pointers

>>9627072
>>9627052
Lisa says there's no more guns in the West. When I ask what that means she says guns are too dangerous. That's when I ask 'Too dangerous for who?' That's when Lisa says that's enough questions.
I'm older now, and older than I ever thought possible. I don't ask Lisa anything anymore. Lisa is my mother but I take care of her like she's my child. I feed her, change her, and read to her. When the time comes I will bury her.

>>9627072
I'd love to if I can man, what's up?

>>9627033

If I were a community college prof, you'd get a C.

The style is lacking. When you assume the recipient of the paper will care about Rhetoric with a capital "R" why would you use "Obama" with no context at all. Yes, you mean former President Barack Obama, but in what context are you using that name? Why would you assume an audience knows what "Obama" means?

The fourth paragraph is just lazy writing. It abandons what I perceive to be the objective of describing rhetoric and launches into a series of standard social media criticisms of politics.

Fine.

I'm not going to go further. This is clearly unfinished. You don't make good points about rhetoric, you just use rhetoric as a post and then try to tie your points to it.

It's neither convincing nor interesting.

>>9627081
Alright, what do you want to know, or what are you looking for?

>>9627092
Just about anything really I wrote 10 pages while on a study drug so I just put the opening section here

>>9627088

Thank you, and fair enough. Although, I would say the point wasn't supposed to be a primer on rhetoric, but more of a critique of the political tactics of the american left.

>>9627092
Does it hold attention at all especially if you wouldn't call yourself the reading type?

>>9627099

Alright. In retrospect, I was a little unfair om certain points. I will re-read and re-critique.

>>9627095
I can't really tell you much with what you posted if you want tips on 'anything'. Only a few grammar points that aren't entirely wrong but I believe would improve readability.
If you want in depth input on the story, it's setting, characters, and/or dialog, I need a progression--a solid, full postbox's worth of story at least.

>>9627102
If that's all you want to know then no. If I didn't call myself the reading type, I'd want to read things that would interest me in a mostly entertaining way. Taking care of my senile mother wouldn't get me there.

>>9627104

i didn't mean to sound super defensive, i just wanted to point out what may have been a misunderstanding based on the first paragraph's direction. Like I said, this is very raw so I thank you again for sifting through my word salad regardless. I did agree with needing to introduce concepts a bit better (obama for example). Best.

>>9627116
Fair enough
It felt like a slow boil and I have some work done beforehand that I wasn't sure should be a cold open or be worked in later at the expense of scale and intensity

>>9627134
Don't take it to heart really. Like I said, hard to gauge off the little you posted.

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Try

>>9619935
Gott, ich fucking hasse Mate. Einmal im jahr versuche ichs nochmal zu probieren und jedes jahr spuck ichs wieder aus. Absolut widerwärtig. Als ich noch auf der Schule ging, hat jeder Hipster den scheiß getrunken. Urg.

>>9626908

Your flash fiction isn't very good. Please keep writing so you can improve.

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>>9622005
>>9626908

I think you give good critiques. Please critique my story; it's a flash fiction and self-contained as it is now. It's the first draft. I will most likely return to this story and later hope to get it published in a magazine.

[Of course, others in this thread are free to critique, too, if you'd like.]

:)

The majority of the drive along I-80 East and up I-55 North met Ryan and Jolene with little issue. Ryan has made the trip himself into the city several times beforehand, making sure this visitation would be on a date and time which would arrive the two at Navy Pier with little crowding, and with little traffic resistance on the way. Some ten miles from the city on a stretch of I-55 just outside South Lawndale, the great skyscrapers of Chicago's heart rise to sight on the horizon as a '99 silver Chevy Tahoe creeps to the overpasses crest.

"See. There it is. I told you we'd make good time."

Jolene continues to stare over Archer Heights, opposite the direction of the city.

"Could've gone Sunday."

A brief moment of silence lingers before Ryan hits the steering wheel to sound the horn.

"All the fucking cars ahead of you are still moving; why the fuck are you still stopped! Holy shit learn how to drive!"

"Calm down Ryan. They're starting to move."

"It's never like this--not now. You did check the app before we got onto fifty-five and saw it was clear, right?"

Jolene doesn't respond. She carefully stares at the license plate of the car in front of them. She reads out loud:

"'Oh-six-nineteen'. That's John's sixth birthday in two years."

Ryan looks to Jolene a moment before again watching the traffic ahead of them.

"I'm sorry I yelled back there. The traffic isn't supposed to be like this."

He places his hand on her lap a moment. When she doesn't respond he takes it back to the wheel. He then turns up the volume of his CD, which was lowered to help with driving, when he catches the riff of one of his favorite songs.

"Please turn it down. I'm not in the mood."

"But this is one of our favorite songs."

"It's one of your favorite songs babe; please."

Ryan reluctantly returns the music to quiet. He also turns off the air conditioner. Rolling down his window to feel the wind as thick Chicago air fills the car.

"It's hot."

"Really? Can I do no right here?"

"I'm sorry, I'm just hot. If we were moving faster I'd feel the wind. Point your side away."

"I am sorry I yelled Jo. I just wanted today to go smoothly--just wait til you try a Cheezeborger for the first time. Then we'll ride the Centennial Wheel at sunset, and walk the beach under the moonlight, maybe just end up staying last minute. I know a hostel that the guys and I stayed at after Life in Color that let us get away with anything."

Jolene watches a large thunderhead empty over the suburbs on the horizon out her window as it and several other great clouds steadily drift northeast.

"I told you I'm not eating meat anymore. Don't you ever listen."

"Look I'm trying here. We both know what today is about. Can you at least try and go along with it? Help me out hon."

"I'm just saying I don't eat meat.. You didn't have to yell earlier."

1/2

>>9628184

"Alright babe. Would you at least look at the city? The smog makes the buildings look even more massive than they are; the only good thing to come of it I suppose. C'mon, it's part of the whole experience."

Jolene's demeanor lightens. She finally looks over to the skyscrapers veiled by a greying haze which does in fact make them appear very massive and distant--as if growing toward her yet moving away at the same time. She then thinks about the license plate, looking from the city again to the numbers on the back of the car before them.

"Imagine what the world would be like without cars driving everywhere polluting the air. The haze is beautiful in its own way. But only because of the city behind it. Otherwise it's just poison in the air."

Ryan digests the words a moment.

"I mean, yeah. But everyone can't just stop driving their cars. There wouldn't be a city in the first place."

The traffic has again come to a complete stop. Ryan taps his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel. Jolene watches him.

"People would have less health problems, there'd be less sickness in the city. There wouldn't be car crashes. Nobody would die from them."

Ryan looks to her, and she holds his eyes in hers a moment before looking out her window.

"Accidents--there'd be no car accidents."

"And crashes."

Hot air again fills the car as Ryan rolls down both their windows. Jolene doesn't say anything. She turns up the air and points the vents directly over herself.

"That storm is moving for the city Ryan."

"What do you want me to say? I checked the weather. I checked the traffic. It's not my fault they can't make up their fucking mind."

Ryan has one arm hanging entirely out the window. His fingers tapping against the door fill the car with rapidly pulsing triplets.

"You checked today?"

"I checked soon enough for it to not change right away."

"You checked yesterday?"

Ryan doesn't respond.

"Maybe we should go back."

"No fucking way. We need this trip, I'm not going to let a little rain ruin everything. We can find something else to do. It's early enough, maybe we can go to a museum. How does that sound?"

Traffic continues to hold still.

"You should've checked yesterday. We're stuck in traffic and it's going to rain. We should go home."

"What about the theatre? Maybe the Aragon has a show tonight. Or the House of Blues? I think you'd like the hostel if we stayed there. I can show you around. We'll still have fun I promise."

"What are the odds we crash on our way into the city?"

"None babe. Trust me. Tonight will be exactly what we needed. Forget I yelled and forget the haze, the rain and the plate. Look--traffic is letting up."

Jolene watches the hazy city begin to rapidly approach and overtake them, fully expecting to crash before arriving.

>>9619932

Google translated it for everyone, no need to thank me.

Three minutes after eight, Ulrich entered the supermarket, panting through the automatic doors. He was already in the shop when he took the last train from a cigarette. Then he snapped the remnants through the thin gap between the closing door halves.
From the corner of his eye he saw a small, obese man with bushy eyes.
"You are too late, Mr. Roboros," the market leader barked at him.
"Yes, you are right, Herr Müss. If I'm honestly sorry, it will not happen. "
"Do you want to sell me for stupid? That's what you tell me every time, and yet you come at least three times too late every week. Slowly I am really up to here with them! ", Munched further and showed me the right hand on his squat neck.
"It's up to me! To the throat! Do you know what, Mr. Roboros? You get only half the salary this week, maybe you'll learn something from their mistakes. "
"I, so, I, you, so that is certainly garnich legal, what you are here deducted.", Stammered Ulrich kleinlaut.
"Legal? I can instantly find ten other fools to replace you. And now to work. The Frau Trösste has recently discovered that tons of drinks crates are incorrectly sorted in the camp. They are now helping her to correct this error, "ordered the now darned Müss and left Ulrich alone. Ulrich's feeling of humiliation drew from the pit of the stomach into the jaw and was ground to hate between his jaws. Pictures of the previous night exploded behind his eyelids.
"Stupid wanker," Ulrich murmured to himself before he went down to the camp.
Gray concrete walls, whose colorlessness was further emphasized by the dim light of surrating neon tubes, formed the ground plan of the camp and carried a blanket, which did not prevent Ulrich from standing erect but was so low that he was constantly feeling Would get closer to him. From behind one of the huge shelves, Ulrich heard a strained groan, followed by the angry rattling glass bottles.
"Crap! Fuck! "
"Sabine?"
"Ulrich? Got to send you down? "
"Yes. Wait, I'll come around. "

>>9628202

Everything was crammed with shelves arranged so offset that, in order to get through the room, one had to pass through cumbersome, long drawn lines of serpents between them.
When Ulrich had reached the end of the one shelf and turned around, he saw Sabine, a middle-aged woman with short blond hair, crouching on a drink crate under which a yellowish puddle of considerable diameter had already formed.
"When the crate crashed, a limo bottle burst, not something you think wrong," Sabine joked from one corner of her mouth as she drank a cigarette dangling at the other end of her mouth.
"Can you smoke here?" Ulrich asked.
"Ne. Would you like one too? "
Ulrich nodded and went to Sabine, who had moved to a corner of the box to give him some seating. They sat silently side by side and smoked. When the embers were almost at the filter and the smoke started to scratch unpleasantly, Ulrich squeezed his cigarette in the yellow puddle at his feet, stood up and tapped off a few ashes from his pants.
"Mme said some crates were wrong," he said as he tried to wipe the ashes from the cloth. Sabine also cleared her cigarette and gave nodding answer:
"Uh-huh. His son, this twelve-year-old Bengel "
"Fourteen," Ulrich interrupted.
"What fourteen?"
"The boy is fourteen."
Sabine rolled her eyes and wiped her hand with an air.
"It does not matter, man. In any case, he works now and then here, ne? Get ten euros an hour, pah! "
"Pure nepotism," murmured Ulrich.
"What?"
"Nix, nothing more."
"Did not sleep too much, huh?" Sabine grinned, then continued, "The idiot told the drink supplier in any case, this new stuff, Mate, or like that, would come to the juices, so all the matekists Of course to the juices. And it's crystal clear that the crap comes to the limos. "
"Glass clear, yes. If the boy does come to Vaddern. "
Sabine grunted at the remark.
"Total! Well, in any case, I have the Müss then later said, with the boxes. Did not even bother about the boy or so, nene, just told him. Mr. Müss, the materialists are wrong in the camp, I said. Do you know what he meant? "
"Was'n?"
Sabine put her index finger over the eyebrows and blew open her mouth.
"Well, then, you're going to clean up, Frau Trusts. I'll pay you for that. "
Inquired Ulrich narrowed his eyes.
"What's the matter with your fingers?"
"Man, the guy has so bushy eyebrows. The two thick caterpillars, you know? "
"Oh, well, yes, witty."

>>9627943
Hey its first anon, ill give it a read and a crit after I get back from some errands and lunch.

>>9628204
>>9628202

Sorry everyone, that was very exhausting. I think I'll do the rest in a couple of hours. Consider it a cliffhanger.

We stood inside the dimly lit venue, watching the live coverage of the Presidential Election. This was kind of a waste of time, as we all knew who was going to become president – the polls don’t lie. Still, we were waiting with excitement for the official announcement, as we knew the President herself would make an appearance afterwards. Can you imagine? We were about to elect the first female President ever in the history of our great country; and I would be there to witness this historic moment with my own eyes.

After a while the already dim lights turned even dimmer, and the room was filled with a silence so heavy that insects could be heard breathing from a distance. I looked around with bewilderment, feeling my pulse becoming rapid with excitement. This is it! The culmination of our long and hard campaign.

Suddenly, an explosion louder than a thousand thunder strikes could be heard from above us, followed by a rain of glittery glass shards. The president had literally broken the glass ceiling, and was now descending upon us from a helicopter! This moment was even more magical than I could’ve ever imagined!

“Ladies and gentlemen! Please welcome the first female president of the United States!”

The crowd went wild. I swear, the energy of this crowd must’ve been enough to power a million households. This is truly a moment as historic as the election of the first African American President in 2008.

The President had finished her descent, and was now handled a bottle of the finest champagne for the occasion. She stepped up on the podium and raised the bottle for all to see, after which it popped open with a force greater than a thousand nuclear bombs. This was truly a great moment!

After a few minutes of intense celebration, the crowd abruptly turned silent. Hillary Clinton looked at the crowd with confusion, after which she turned around to see the giant letters projected onto the screen behind her:

“Donald Trump is the next President of the United States.”

>>9620138
Man vs. Reality is really the whole existential(ism) theme/field/cliche. A lot of post-modern works include it as well.

Now, Man vs. Author, I'm not really sure.

They made eye contact.

Patrick O’Sullivan from Divis Street got out of the car and began across the road. He was seventeen years old and beneath his jacket, stuck in the waistband of his beaten trousers, was a revolver that his Uncle Tommy had given him about three months prior for his birthday. The old man had given Patrick one of his crooked grins and exclaimed, “Bag yerself a Brit with it, son!”

Patrick had planned on it. He stepped onto the opposite sidewalk and casually moved across a nearby cafe patio until he stood before a man and a woman, both hands under his jacket. The man was in his mid forties, handsome and well dressed. He had a thin mustache and his light brown hair was combed back. He turned to Patrick and sat up, staring at the boy. Suddenly, he was indignant: “Why… y-... why, you have some nerve on you. You Fenia--”

Patrick pulled out the revolver and cocked the hammer back. He pursed his lips and spat out his words harshly: “Burn in hell, ya fuckin’ English bastard.” He pulled the trigger and the shot echoed down the street. The man was on the ground, knocked out of his seat, croaking and frantically reaching for something to grasp onto. Patrick took a step forward and extended his arm, aiming. He pulled the trigger again and the man lay silent, blood leaking from his head. The woman let out a horrid sound, gasping and choking on tears. She knelt beside the man and held onto him as Patrick turned and walked back across the street, tucking the revolver under his waistband once more. He got into the car.

They drove off, Patrick in the passenger’s seat and Rory Power as the driver. Rory beamed a hearty grin at the young gunman, wondering: “Well, how’s it feel to kill a goddamn English judge, Paddy? Ahaha, you beautiful man!” Patrick was looking out the car window, examining the buildings as they passed by. His disturbed reverie was broken by Rory’s laugh and he managed a weak grin, “Feel like I’m gonna be fuckin’ sick, to be honest. I’m straight knackered.”

The metal is bright like the river
but it is not like the river

The metal is hard like the mountain
but it is not like the mountain

The metal is swift like the wind
but it is not like the wind

The metal is cold
like the hearts of men

>>9629865
metal is swift? Maybe if it's a bullet.

>>9628579
>Now, Man vs. Author, I'm not really sure.
At Swim-Two-Birds, maybe

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>>9628585

>>9622271
Bloody hell, this is a frightfully accurate narration of an event in my life. I can't get rid of a nagging hunch that I know you, even if the chances are next to none. Are you English?

>>9628585
delet this

>>9629939
mercury is swift :^)

>>9630094
Canadian (the English kind though)

Here's a poem I wrote I can't remember when

Pour your plastic labels unto me
For I am the coat of imagination
Technicolor, as the wooden table stares
Into a gas station coffee cup
The Eye of Rozen doth beckon forward
As the tumbleweed leads you astray
With a rhythmic beat of a thousand fingers
The leather pouch lay helplessly as the pencil refuses to enter
The queen bows not to the power center
For she is the selector of the knobs
The sun creeps forward on her command
As do I and as doth thee or dost thee
The toilet paper perches on a pointed knee
Guns toting, chain smoking commie be free
Rainbows jutting from his frosted beard
For her light refracts through me.

I suppose Don Van Vliet isn't a very helpful influence.

>>9627943
>>9628209
Sorry it took me so long to get to this. Ended up going to the beach and drinking with a friend. As for the story:

First off I'm liking the voice in this piece so far. It's obviously flash fiction so it is very difficult to build character in such a short amount of time, but I think you are close with you main character. The quick scene with her brother plays into her development, and maybe another little flashback or aside could round out her character even more. Now this might just be me and a personal thing, but I am not a huge fan of leaving a short story open ended; though I assume it is not completely finished. There is something to be said to leaving something for the reader to continue onto after the end of a book, a sort of assumed ending or filled in ending by the reader, but in my PERSONAL taste I prefer more concrete endings. I would like to recommend a book to you if you don't mind, Literature Class by Julio Cortazar. He was a prominent Latin American short story writer during Pre-WW2 to his death in 1984. The book is a transcription of an 8 class series he did at UC Berkeley in 1980. It covers things not only from his personal career, but also in broader terms of the short fiction.

This was pretty good, I enjoyed it.

old black hen, is that you again?
singing the bad luck lullaby
come right on in, because it's midnight again
time for the bad luck lullaby
you know the one, it's the same one you sung
when you worked on the revelations

now sing it over the cradle of the child who's born next
the bad luck lullaby
leave all the truth in so they know what comes next
with the bad luck lullaby
leave in the true love that they never find
show how they're looking for it all of their lives

when I saw the banner hanging over my door
and heard the bad luck lullaby
i already knew who the party was for
the bad luck lullaby
all of my pain found a partner in that room
and the devil's tail swayed with the tune

make that black record, roll the tapes all night long
the bad luck lullaby
make that black record and we'll all sing along
to the bad luck lullaby
look down the long street and see who's that crying
tell them that every day I lived, I was trying
to sing the blues the way I find them

The strangest thing about that strange handshake was its intimacy. It was both firm and gentle for he used both hands and smiled. His blue-grey eyes looked straight at me, and being ashamed I looked away. There was a serenity in that gaze that left me feeling inadequate, there always was. Then came the voice, the gentle patient voice of his, anticipating each one of my questions. Why don’t you leave me alone, why don’t you go away. I tried to press past him, but his colossal frame blocked my path, there was no escaping his presence. In contrast, my expression made no secret of my failings, being a young man who is thin and weak and who feels inferior to all the young men with fine physiques he sees about him.
He inclined his head a little and asked me if I had eaten anything. What of it, I yelled. Surprised by my reply, I stiffened, and looked up at him somewhat apologetically. He looked somewhat dismayed but unperturbed and like some kind and merciful god, he put a gentle hand on my gaunt shoulder and at once calmed my enraged, agitated body till I felt content at last to speak with him without shame. He was like that.

>>9628202
>>9628204
>>9628211
You're the next Goete

>>9628202
This was very good.

>>9619904
>implying Don Quixote isn't man vs himself and man vs reality and man vs technology

>>9631011
And man vs society, and man vs God