Writing Critique General

File: t.png (69KB, 1303x623px) Image search: [Google]

69KB, 1303x623px

Will reciprocate

Is this an engaging opening line; and is the emdash the most appropriate form of punctuation where it's used? Or should it be a colon or comma?

>I'll never forget the first time she walked past me in the Starbucks on Glen--that soft brush of air stirred by her movement carrying with it the faint aroma of lavender mixed with embalming fluid.

>>9887729
I don't understand the purpose. Perhaps some of your exaggerated details are important or cursory; I can't tell though. Specifically the keen attention to the old man's skin. Format wise, it reads fair enough, kept me engaged--if not out of curiosity, and was grammatically sound.

>>9887921
Does the speaker smell her hair, or is some strangely omnicient narrator intrude here and tell us what her hair smells like? If the characters are in smelling proximity, flesh it out. What does the closeness of the queue feel like for the speaker? He's in line, she's in front of him. What does the cafe bar sound like? How does she hold herself while waiting? Does she lift one foot onto the other? Are her arms crossed?

Write better, nigger. Worry about punctuation after your prose becomes readable and interesting.

>>9887921
pretty meh, a few too many adjectives. final two words are nice for their surprise effect
>>9887729
it's well-written like the style is clean and simple, but it doesn't feel alive. i feel no sympathy for the passionless narrator or his bibulous hamster. Franzen says he writes about familial relations because a lot of the emotional legwork has already been done, but I still feel the need for more flesh on these characters, especially the narrator, who seems more concerned with describing sights and colors than with his own dying wife. Yeah, I get that doing emotional / interpersonal stuff can be sappy and trite these days, but it's still possible. Have you read Lydia Davis's story "The Old Dictionary?"

https://harpers.org/archive/2000/09/the-old-dictionary/

>>9887947
Where are you getting hair from? It's perfume. I can only put so much in one sentence. I'm asking if the sentence would warrant reading to the next, which would, I feel obviously, go into the detail you're talking about.

>>9887957
Thanks for the tip

>>9887957
I was wondering if it needs a bit more emotion. Checking it out now, thanks

I float through the city exactly two feet off the ground.
Above black spots of gum. I never step in dog shit.
My legs are weak and my feet have no blisters,
your bed is some wild medicine.

Two feet off the floor my neck snaps every train ride,
my hair gets caught in chandeliers, my crotch gets headbutted,
and every door frame breaks my nose and chips my teeth.
I have scrapes on my back from your ceiling.

There’s gold in my ribs and soup in my valves,
and I have lungs filled with warm friendly tar.
Seven inches below that
are pipes filled with human shit.

If you split me down the middle though,
I don’t know what would spill on the floor.
You could crack my collar bone, drain my veins,
and you might get glitter and silver or salt and iron.

When I’m hauled into a grey building to pay
For the tar and cum and bloodshot eyes I’ve found,
they’ll pull my skin back,
and tally the debris in my tubes and ropes.

My whole catalogue of minerals and fluids will be laid bare,
things naked eyes have never laid on:
muggy days and bad nights and cold mornings spread on a table.
Deijman's stern hands will note all the dirt on my mind.

File: Extract.png (91KB, 614x797px) Image search: [Google]

91KB, 614x797px

Gonna give some feedback, bear with me just finishing Gravity's Rainbow for the first time

>>9887729
I've got to agree with the first guy. If that's the whole story then I don't really get it. Why did you focus on the abnormal quality of Mr. Bao's face? Why is Mr. Bao dead too?

Good enough prose though. Simplicity done right. Though there's only a little bit, the dialogue reads well too (something I'm trying to work on).

>>9887921
>It's an unconventional love story
The line is not bad itself, but I do worry where you're gonna take the rest of the story. Muh "girl"

>>9888099
It feels like a very stereotypical black scene to me. The descriptive parts are nice. I find it hard to get into that narrative voice though, but that's just me
Something I'm working on. Not finished yet

File: be natural alice guy blache falling leaves.gif (2MB, 400x303px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 400x303px

>>9888201
I'm an idiot. Forgot to attach my story

https://pastebin.com/25yC1gPi

>>9888201
>Stereotypical black scene
Yeah I see that, something I was always in danger off - I think as the story continues that gets subverted in quite a nice way, but at the same time it's a situation that isn't far off reality for a lot of black families, at least in the areas I know, so I tried not to let that bother me too much. Thanks I'll check out your stuff!

>>9888201
Thanks, man. I'm really trying to focus on churning out good prose and style first and foremost.

as for your and >>9887936's points, I'm a fan of kind of strange occurences and open ended stories. My attempt was for you to just get a weird/off vibe from Mr. Bao--and he kind of implants this death in the wife and takes her with him. Then a connection results from their death between the protag and the hamster. It's all supposed to be intentionally open and vague and I'm trying to get a feeling for if it's so vague that it's bad or if it's just something that isn't exactly your cup of tea. So I really appreciate the input

>>9888208
>https://pastebin.com/25yC1gPi
(I'm the first poster)
Right off the bat it feels a bit unedited. At least two of your first few commas are unnecessary. Then there's lines like this:
>There was a smoker’s bench outside a bed and breakfast which they sat on.
Which should be "They sat on a smoker's bench outside a bed and breakfast"
Simple things like this can do a lot for your style.
> It was all very unromantic.
Show, don't yada yada. What you had before that was fine--IMO you don't need to say this. Maybe if you're trying to get a more speculative narrator approach than to my taste it works.

Also, I'm wondering, are you trying to emulate russian lit? Your "glad of the fact" "proved a finnicky machine" "seemed to me a measured man" etc. seem almost russian to me, though not in a bad way. As for the story, I found it to be pretty boring. I'd dig deeper if I were you

>>9888227
>>9888935

Regarding your story, I'll take your word for it. I tend to look at these threads a lot so if you post the following parts when they're ready I'll be sure to take a look at them and see how it becomes subverted.

You're right, it is largely unedited, thanks for pointing those areas out. I'm not consciously trying to emulate Russian lit at all, though you're rather perceptive to pick that up. Russian literature is my favourite, Tolstoy got me into classic literature in general. It's funny, this is my first piece written in what I considered a very modern, Hemingwayesque style; I am actually pleased that my love for Russian lit still manages to come through.

Anyway, sorry you thought it boring. I've only written about half. Hopefully I can change your mind once I've finished

>>9888901

I'm Mr. 9888201. I think you've defended the concept well enough then. If this was in a collection of short stories with similar themes then perhaps I would've treated it differently. But without that context it left me feeling somewhat confused and blank

>>9888901
I'm the first guy who replied to you. Though I said it was engaging, I would ultimately say it's too vague, and is therefor bad. There just needs to be something else there. Even through the concept of asceticism, this still leaves a sense of connection to be desired--if that makes any sense.

File: tt.png (59KB, 1295x607px) Image search: [Google]

59KB, 1295x607px

>>9889280
>>9889036
I hope I've made it more personal. I don't expect a re-read, but I figured I'd post the update anyway. I like it a lot more now based on the suggestions

>>9887729
Unlike everyone else, I think I get that Mr. Boa was sick and that's what that was all about. The end was kind of meh, underwhelming really. It may work if you kept going with it, launching into something else, and maybe working back around to an emotional punch.

It's good as just a little Drabble to showcase proficiency, but you need to find an engaging plot. You may be able to build off this, don't know what you would do, but then again that part is up to you.

>>9887921
It's alright, don't worry about the me dash, a lot of the time the choice is merely aesthetic whether to use it or not.

I'd change Starbucks to just coffee shop, and add a comma right after lavender. Don't know what the story is going to be about, but I suggest not getting wrapped up in some enough romance bullshit, it's trite and no one ever likes it besides the person who wrote it, and even they learn to hate it over time

Keep on,
for by God, there is kingdom and out.
Kingdom is easy as a children's walk, marching silly in a sidewalk puddle.
The trouble in your gait is not unnecessarily,
and children can help, I have no doubt.
Keep on, odd and miscellaneous.
And on, sharper than a wounded lover.

>>9888901
I think you could benefit from reading Kurt Vonnegut and Jim Thompson.

Specifically:
Cat's Cradle
Savage Night
A Hell of a Woman

>>9889431
My vonnegut phase came and went a few years ago, but I will check out thompson. Thanks!

https://pastebin.com/BZnJrRbb

>inb4 "you write like a YA author"
i know.

will reciprocate criticism.

The sky burned red and the smoke carpeted it making the air thick and difficult to breathe. The horse and wagon clattered on, driven by the prospects of escaping the cursed city and partly because its driver was whipping its ass into an en plein air. A tiny ginger sat in the back and beside her was the powerful frame of a soldier.

‘Cover your head’, Alex said. ‘The soldiers probably won’t recognise you, but best to be safe’.

Lyta scowled. ‘I’ll do what I want, servant’.

‘My apologies, princess’.

Soon, they reached the wall (if it could be called one, made up of a few wooden poles driven into the ground) and a line of soldiers that stood by its gates with their spears pointed at them.

‘Nobody can leave until—’

He was cut off by Alex who took no hesitation in jumping off the back of the cart, drawing his bow and sending an arrow through his throat.

‘Run’, Alex said.

And tucking the princess under his left arm, he charged them with his right shoulder. It proved too powerful for mere guards to handle and he got two on the ground before making it through. Not stopping to look back, they ran for fifteen minutes until the city was hidden by the dense treetops of the forests. Then, he sat her down. She glared at him and crossed her arms.

‘Did I give you my permission to be carried?’

‘No, princess. But if you pardon my breach of etiquette, we’re probably in serious danger if we stop moving. Most likely there are scouts out for us’. Alex looked to the ground, suddenly finding interest in a particular leaf. ‘I’m sorry about the king. I’m sorry I couldn’t save him’.

>>9887921
There's a lot of adjectives, but since you're describing something it should be fine. Just lay off of them for the next paragraph or two.

“There’s always snow. Always. Uncle John died in November, and we made the trip up to his house the day after Dad got the phone call from Aunt Penny.” Peter Smith shifts on the couch. Talking about his childhood has always made him uncomfortable. “The entire way there, all I can think about is building a snow fort, maybe having a snowball fight with my sister. When we arrive, it’s way too dark for anything like that though, and Dad makes us go right to bed. After that, it’s all a blur.”

Dr. Mason glances up from her notes. “Were you and your uncle close?”

He shrugs and she scribbles something down, then starts tapping her pen against the notepad. This is only their second session, but he had already come to understand that the noise meant their time was at an end.

“How about your sister, were you two close?”

“Yeah, we were.”

“Losing both of them so close together must have been hard for you. I’m so sorry.” She sounds sincere, but her condolences ring hollow to his ears. “Peter, do you know what a dream journal is?”

>>9889417
The three most prominent characters will be connected through relationships, but "love story" is not but a basic plot point. It will help set the foundation for many overarching themes which are much more central, and what the plot is there to merely support in context.

File: howTo.png (25KB, 780x234px) Image search: [Google]

25KB, 780x234px

Just a dumb YouTube comment. Is this wrong in any linguistic way?

>>9887709
Hey guys, new on the board is this a right thread to get advice into how to start to write? I have a idea of a romantic novel stuck in my head since a long time ago, got kinda the structure and some points in the plot but nothing else, or if you can point me in thhe right direction i will kindly fuck off

>>9887921
>implying a normal person knows the smell of embalming fluid

>>9890225
>Try to summarise the synopsis in a few lines if possible. Not necessary tho.
>Write an outline of chapters. This will give you an idea of number of characters and scenes. Invariably the idea is shorter than you think. Doesn't merit a novel. Maybe a short story. So this step is important.
>Get coffee. Start with Chapter 1.
>Post the beginning passages here.

Good Luck.

>>9889844
someone critique this

>>9890164
>it's
>it is
Fix those.

>>9890234
Thanks for the friendly advice, i dont think it can be short because is kinda based on my experiences (cliche i know) and goes from childhood to the late 20's, also English is a second language as you may notice so im not sure if it will be the best to post it here but spanish forums are really cancerous so and i like the kind of criticism that comes of from anonymous forums, is there some other /int/ anons around with that some kind of trouble? Also do you guys write in note pad, word or some other text processor?

File: a7686ea11751d1289f2d635163dd15e6.jpg (63KB, 400x600px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 400x600px

Small excerpt

Want to know if I did Third person Limited correctly.

Trees, nothing but trees and bushes, with the occasional humming of birds perching on the branches on the forest ceiling and other forest animals. An environment which Astrid a young chieftess of no more than sixteen was unaccustomed to, and at times loathed it, due to how difficult they were to traverse.

They’d been following a beaten dirt path in the forest for over an hour, sixty in total, concealing themselves among the dense thicket of bushes and trees. Hunger brought them further and made them bolder than they normally risk, but supplies were nearing to an end, and small game was no longer adequate in sustaining their group.

Astrid never liked going on raids. Especially those lead by Rolf for Rolf was a brute always looking for an opportune moment that involved killing.

>>9890957
Mierda

>>9889844
this is hot, id like more

>>9890874
lol

>>9891049
Bad?

>>9890970
por que, loco?

>>9891182
Por paisa.

>>9891218
Nací en la meseta castellana.

>>9890227
Most high school students and jr college students will dissect at least one animal

>>9891345
They won't remember it though.
Maybe say something relating to new car smell, because the idea that new cars smell like embalming fluid is well embedded in the public consciousness by Fight Club (regardless of accuracy).

>>9891357
Dude, if you don't remember the smell (of formaldehyde particularly) then idk what to tell you. Very distinct and everybody always talked about it. Your fingers smelt like it all day; and nursing students would flat-out just smell like it after cadaver research and exposure.

>>9891220
Puajjjjj

>>9888038

Keep going chum. I really enjoyed this and would enjoy reading more. You keep a great pace of varied phrasings.

>>9891384
Literally from a Nobel laureate buddy

Feel free to tell me how bad this is...

Freshly brewed tea sloshed within the mug held by a pair of trembling hands as the steam rose up, kissing a chilled nose, blunt and thick just as its owner, Randall. He’d been jittery for the past hour, stuck with a green blanket draped over his shoulders as he sat hunched over. While it was not the best idea to sit on a wooden chair, especially when so close to the fireplace that he could hear it crackle, he was too cold to bother moving into another seat. He wanted the fire’s warmth to engulf him, just as its dim, orange glow had with the rest of the cabin’s interior in nebulous illumination. Even if the chair were to catch on fire, it’d take it’s time to burn, not burst into flames like the movies show. Honestly, he wouldn’t mind if it did so he would finally warm up.

The situation Randall mindlessly put himself into, wandering through the swirling winds of chaos in a grey and white tundra, was stupid on his part and he knew this. Despite his error, though, he’d not even have to lose a toe for his mistake. He’d consider himself lucky were he not so miserable. Perhaps the cold was punishment enough.

>>9891763
If 1-10 was great-mental anthrax, this is a solid log of shit resting at bottom of the piss filled toilet bowl that is a 7.

This is the first in a series of poems about water. I'm posting it because it's the oldest. Any suggestions on images and word choice would be lovely

Water lily drifting in rusty water
Weeds wrapping barbed wire
Twisting to the surface
Water pooling from an unknown shining
Shimmering over, sunshine wave
Sunshine leaves spinning on the crest
Crisp wave sounds, gleaming
Muddy eye drinking light

Katz, towering above Isi with a bag slung over his shoulder, extended an arm for a handshake. Without saying a word, she awkwardly held out her hand and Katz's unmatched grip took ahold of her - the handshake making her feel like a fish out of water, flopping in place and trying to breathe. Once they pulled away, Isi subtly rubbed her hand in pain.

"It's been quite some time, hasn't it?" Katz's ear-to-ear smile still hadn't found a way off his face, she noticed.

"Er...yes, yes, it has," Isi mumbled.

She had always been a bit uncomfortable around Katz. He had good intentions, that much was certain, but the overly cheerful attitude could give her the creeps from time to time. It didn't help that he was almost a foot taller than her, Katz having no shame in the fact.

"I trust that you've been well? It can't be much worse than my recent endeavors," Katz asked as he adjusted the bag now trying to escape his shoulders.

That off-hand comment surprised Isi. Katz? Having bad days? It almost seemed impossible. Perhaps that never-ending smile on his face had become a veneer for something quite unpleasant.

"Of course, Ryloc has been treating me well. What, uh, what 'endeavors' are we talking about here?" Isi was interested now.

Katz hesitated for a moment, scratching the back of his head. "Well, you see...I've just gotten myself wrapped into something I wanted no part of. You understand. Contracts and the like."

"You struck me as the type to take any sort of job as long as you got paid."

"Usually that's my adage, but even someone like myself has limits," Katz held out his arm and glanced at his watch. "You don't know of anyone named Pennington, right?"

Isi could tell there was something wrong in Katz's inflection when he said that. "No. Why?"

"Ah. Good. You're very fortunate then...I-I should get going. It was nice seeing you again," he replied.

With that, Katz hurried off - never once looking back at Isi. His demeanor, his out-of-line apprehension, it all worried Isi. When Katz of all people was getting upset, there had to be something wrong.

>>9891857
Not making any pretenses, I won't pretend I'm exactly knowledgeable so take my critique with a grain of salt.

To begin with things I noticed, even though you didn't explicitly ask about them (I just thought I'd bring them up, can't hurt, it's what your readers would see anyway), I can't exactly tell if you are using a meter or not. If you intended to, it seems to be broken very often, where it might perhaps be better to save such breaks for the most vital points. But I think that, out of the two options, you probably didn't intend to have a set meter, which is... okay. Anyway, there's also an alarming lack of punctuation, perhaps this is supposed to invoke a sort of "flowing" feeling, characterizing how water runs and flows all together? It sort of causes the verses to feel less and less coherent, however, and the same goes for the words and imagery used. The first line begins the poem with a simpler image, but by the last line the reader (or, at least, I) would become a bit confused as to what, exactly, I am supposed to be seeing. The latter half of the poem kind of marks this decline into seemingly arbitrary combinations of words. Maybe this type of poetry just isn't my thing, I don't know. If it makes sense to you and to other people, then that's great. I'm just not seeing it, though.

If you want actual advice on imagery and word choice... I don't really have much to say because, as I've established, I'm truthfully not sure what parts of it are supposed to be. Anyway, I like the s/sh sound device in lines 5-7, you have good ideas going with the "crest" and with "drinking"... The one thing I feel is a bit out of place is the barbed wire, it imposes a rather harsh inorganic object into what otherwise is a poem largely centered on more natural things.

>>9891763

It's pretty bad. "Nebulous illumination."

It just appears like you're showing off that you know the word nebulous.

>>9891430
Thanks! was not expecting positive feedback lol

>>9891763
You have terrible diction.

>>9891049
Pls critique me

The longing for stagnation, for everything to be as pristine and beautiful has it had been in his youth, remained inside him. It was a cancer he couldn’t cure. It broke his heart every day, bringing him closer to what he could only describe as the death of soul.
But it was all long ago. Those memories were no more than pieces of a jigsaw that was no longer a cohesive image. He was losing himself, losing his values, and losing his mind. He leaned back in his chair, sipped on his gin, and closed his eyes. He wondered what had gone wrong in his life, if he was alone in this war waged against one’s own ego. Sometimes he thought he was stuck in that adolescent glow; he certainly felt he was.
All the people he was around seemed so careless, so free of their history. He often felt himself wise, old for his age, but now he wondered how wise the unhappy could be. Perhaps he was the greatest fool, an individual unwilling to allow himself contentedness. A man drowning himself in emotion and embracing melancholy and tragedy over passion and benevolence. Still, he bobbed up, gasping for breath and grasping for someone or something to grab a hold of his hand and save him.
And, of course, that hand would never come. There were women who at times would rush into his life and he would feel momentary ecstasy. It would fill him with feelings and thought he had never had before. He would instantly reach out to love, to some omnipotent overarching theme or feeling that would draw him into an ever-deepening hole. He was, quite frankly, a romantic just like his father was. It was not by any means a good trait, he had decided long ago. Romantics end up wanting too much, and their hopes almost always fall short. His dad had left his mother when he was a child. He had run off with some woman he had thought he loved more. He had been unsure, in the time, and only confirmed those thoughts later in his life. In reality, his father only chased after that beginning of a relationship, that initial burst of feeling and emotion. When it was gone, his father had wondered if he had really ever loved at all. It always amused him how much he had understood his father. He had been so close to his mother, and yet the enigma that was his father was so easy to transcribe. Perhaps they were just similar, perhaps he was just a predictable man.

>>9891763
Oh God you need to read your sentences out loud after your write them. This is awful just on diction alone.

File: 1445449991820.png (400KB, 458x394px) Image search: [Google]

400KB, 458x394px

Real quick, someone tell me:

Is "they debate on how to save the poor" grammatically correct or should I omit "on"

>>9893099
Either one is fine, just use what sounds natural in the context of your writing.

>>9887729
Take out the last sentence or change it to something less cliche. I agree somewhat with >>9887936 that there doesn't seem to be much to it by itself. But if I read and I saw there was more I would keep reading. Maybe do some research on hamsters/Thailand? I think the hamster could make for a good symbol.

>>9888038
You hooked me with "your bed is some kind of medicine" great stuff man

>>9893336
Aw thanks. I've been working on this one more than I usually work on stuff and it's really nice to see that putting work into something is getting positive feedback.

File: 1495342578032.jpg (16KB, 180x192px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 180x192px

>>9893325

File: Screenshot_20170815-000345.jpg (867KB, 1080x2544px) Image search: [Google]

867KB, 1080x2544px

>>9893331
>>9893336
My contribute to the thread will reciprocate any feedback

>>9892639
Thanks for all the thoughts you offered.

Yeah there was no set meter or scheme, and to be honest it's more of a fragment than anything. I like to evoke rather than directly narrate or speak. You're right about the barbed wire thing, I think. I might expand this more later, but for now I like it.

As for reading, I dunno I just like pictures man.

>>9887921
Replace "the Starbucks" with "that café".

>>9893806
If you could post the text or put it in a pastebin or something like that I'd be happy to read/edit! Current format is difficult to read for me and I can't copy+paste stuff to show you what I'm talking about.

Clouds break, and a throaty cry opens up. From the inside of car, from the netting on the porch, menthol flitting between the holes. The clouds break.

File: headlines.png (71KB, 838x641px) Image search: [Google]

71KB, 838x641px

These are a few of the fake headlines I just sent to a comedy news site looking for writers. They all had to be related to gaming. Gaming certainly isn't my primary interest but I think I know enough about it to cook up some fine jokes, and I would really love any excuse to regularly flex my comedic muscle.

How'd I do? Looking past the fact that it's ""gamer humor,"" of course.

>>9893896
i like the last one. the others are wordy and take too long to get to their point.

>>9893990
>the others are wordy and take too long to get to their point.
Rats, I knew they were still too long. Brevity is still something I'm working on in my writing, comedic or otherwise. I shortened the headlines as much as I could think to without ruining the jokes but I think I still hung on to too much.

I remember the first time I saw a one dollar coin.

It was in a house, somewhere in inner Sydney, that found itself transformed into a watering hole for thirsty users. At the time, of course, I was just an innocent child intrigued by the gold token in hand - newly pressed with images of bouncing kangaroos and a lady's crowned head.

I was standing in the lounge room at the front of the old terraced town house. A large, central arched window gave flow to gentle gusts of light that seemed to dance across the sky-blue walls, around the soft velvet curtains, and were soaked up by the bright, giggling faces of Mum's friends. The whimsical bunch of characters sitting, as usual, along the boundary of the room, sunk in a ramshackle of couches of varying fabrics and state of wear, and indulged in an opiate infused stupor that, to my wonderment, seemed to blur the distinction between adult and child.

I would often take advantage of their anchored bodies and lofty minds to step on stage in the centre of the room and provide some playschool-inspired entertainment consisting of myself and a small backup cast of stuffed animals.

It was after one such show that a regular guest had handed me the freshly minted coin.

"Have ya seen the new dollar coins?" He queriedthe sun-soaked room with a laboured, drooping turn of gaze that gave the impression his head had grown too heavy for his body to bear.

Intrigue passed slowly among the faces of the sedated audience, delayed reactions only admissible within the realm of the Heroin user.My young, freshly formed ego keen to marinade on the honey-like curiosity seeping about the room; I circled, holding the coin out for all to see, stopping to allow closer inspection of what was, for most of us, our first encounter with a shiny new age: The transcendence of the Australian one dollar currency from paper to coin.

Mum was in the "back room" oblivious to the historical events unfolding in my domain. The back room was strictly forbidden to children. It was where the drugs were administered.It was also where Mum would generally hang out until she had sobered up enough to venture out and face her inquisitive and guilt-inducing son.

>>9894066
(Continued)

I didn't know what Heroin was. I didn't know what Mum was doing in the back room. I knew Mum to be the foundation of my world. A sole parent, protector, and provider of lavender-scented cuddles that seemed all-powerful in their ability to wash away the woes of a child born into the tumultuous life of a Heroin user. She was a woman of delicate intricacy, who's dramatic range could cast her anywhere from writing books of poetry; pressing flowers in the rustic kitchen of a friend's farmhouse;filling a city bus with her son's laughter by whispering linguistic riddles in foreign languages, and, that sunny Sydney afternoon: An unconscious, vomit stained body of overdose, oblivious to my screams of horror as her lips turned blue, the life in her face drained toward unnatural shades of the opaque, and her limp body was carried frantically out to the pavement. The looming approach of ambulance sirens providing a high-pitched crescendo to my desperate cries of bewilderment. Thick tears clouding a scene barely conceivable as blurry-outlined figures in bright, reflective uniforms set upon her unconscious body in a chaotic spectacle of intimate hands and sterile apparatus.

I screamed for them all to disappear. The paramedics, Mum's friends, the crowd of onlookers,the flashes of cars passing by. Everyone. I wanted to drag her away from the horror of the pavement. I wanted her to open her eyes and spring to lifelike a Magician's assistant after a crowd-shocking performance. I wanted to sink into her arms and breath again.

The cold, steel legs of the body-laden stretcher crashed and folded upon the floor of the ambulance. The doors slammed shut. I found myself smothered by embracing arms and reassuring words that wavered with their own fear and shock.Wrestling fiercely to fix my eyes upon the departing vehicle, I sobbed and murmured as my mind pleaded frantically for it to turn around, and once again my fanciful pleas were answered with unyielding reality. The ambulance turned the corner at the end of the street and was gone from sight.

The crowd of onlookers dispersed. The retreating sirens grew silent. Mum's friends reassuringly embraced, and in their arms I sat and stared. Unable to process what had just occurred. My mind as empty as the space on the side walk. The space amongst her friends. The cold, empty, shadow of space once held bright by my Mum.

>>9890239

Lemondrops by Marco Diaz

I puddle
I poop
You tear my heart out
Break it into a trillion trillion pieces
You're full of lemondrops

>>9894478
*pool

>>9889844
it's fine. readable. the prose is clear. simple. i feel like my evaluation would depend on how the story plays out; there isn't enough here to really judge. i am definitely following what you've written though and that's a big plus.

in a couple places i feel like i would have liked more detail. like here:
>Soon, they reached the wall (if it could be called one, made up of a few wooden poles driven into the ground) and a line of soldiers that stood by its gates with their spears pointed at them.
>‘Nobody can leave until—’

It's not totally clear who is saying the line. it'd be better if it were like:
>...a line of soldiers that stood by its gates with their spears pointed at them.
>One of the soldiers stepped forward. "Nobody can leave until—"
for example.

File: dsc_0499.jpg (84KB, 470x312px) Image search: [Google]

84KB, 470x312px

A butterfly flaps its noble wings, signifying the end of its metamorphosis. There is no doubt about the transformation, for each step is evident throughout the change. A caterpillar's growth is transparent, and its potential certain. The success of its journey lies not in wisdom, nor knowledge but merely intuition. Intuition in its ability to soar in the sky, unrestricted from the confinement of its former vessel.

A caterpillar will devote time and energy in becoming a pupa, a necessary step, but also the most vulnerable. It will risk a life of comfort, and familiarity in order to achieve the ultimate goal. All butterflies follow the same path, regardless of where they came from. It is the pattern inscribed on their wings that tell a more personal story, one of ambition.

A butterfly leaves its shell, and with it a past life of boundaries. A butterfly can never be insecure for it knew its purpose from the very beginning, with its form representing its progress. Butterflies are feeble, and often have very short lives, but that is a consequence of achieving their intuition.

>>9894663
Any tips to make my prose more beautiful? I'm a big fan of prose stylism but I can't seem to imitate it well.

File: Snip.png (74KB, 557x621px) Image search: [Google]

74KB, 557x621px

Any feedback on my introducing paragraph would be greatly appreciated.

>>9894068
>>9894066
I like these.

File: CnJ3bxaUkAAveTB.jpg (75KB, 1200x726px) Image search: [Google]

75KB, 1200x726px

Fantasy, Time Travel, Jonah and the Whale, Groundhog Day, Re:Zero story I'm trying to do right now.

https://pastebin.com/q0NfCjci

>>9894847
Sorry, I don't really know how it works either. You might try writing out a work you like by hand and trying to analyze the sentences/paragraphs.

>>9893883
This right here, in your head, is Gideon Jamal Smith. He stands caramel at 189 centimeters on two legs that have both been broken in his 17 years. His eyes are his father's and his nappy hair adds ten or eleven centimeters of height. He was born to a mother who did not marry his father, who himself had married to a woman uninterested in reering, four months prior to his son's birth. His wife is Gideon's aunt-in-law, or auntie for short, and they have all lived quiet, comfortable and mostly ordinary lives in each other's company with two exceptions: the baby arrangement (described above) and Emily Smith's father Gerald Smith given life imprisonment for conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism. The self described recluse has eluded popular culture's hoard mentality and thus far resisted any attempt to recover any documentation that may reveal his motive(s). His art, still beloved by many, has been both tainted and elevated to each extreme, and for ten years he has been the most sought after subject for journalists, psychologists and freelance artists alike. Here stood a man who everyone knew as a loving and caring person, now guilty of trying to kill perhaps tens of thousands. Since the time of his arrest the man has said exactly seven words to a human outside his limited answers to the court--"I wish I coulda finished that house," answering if he had any comment on his arrest and the charges brought against him--except his grandson, who visits him once a month at the request that he not talk to anyone about their conversations. Gideon may be my puppet, but damn it, he also happens to be my friend, so try not to hate on the kid. It's been rough. Now dance, my creatures, dance!

>>9895084
For me, it feels like you're overusing commas too much, it throws off the throw of a sentence, when you could split it into two sentences, or use a semi-colon. Just to illustrate.

I've been writing a mystery, and recently have come to realize the magnitude of a narrative fuckup. One of the main view points is that of a character who has all the answers. Is there a way to continue on this trajectory without cheapening the end reveal? Or do I have to do some major rewrites?

>>9896874
kill off the character who knows everything towards the end, find another way to reveal the reveal. unless it's explicitly stated that he knows everything, in which case u might have to rework the narrative.
good luck friend

>>9896190

How was everything else? Clean?
How would you rate it so far?

File: aXm7273xjU.jpg (96KB, 650x650px) Image search: [Google]

96KB, 650x650px

>>9895015
Use a synonym for Android at the beginning after "cream-white", the repetition sounds ugly. After "trailing him by a couple metres", write him instead of the Android. And then in the next sentence use he. And in the next sentence after that use he. And so on and so forth.

File: 1502651670453.png (78KB, 1303x623px) Image search: [Google]

78KB, 1303x623px

>>9887729

>>9896104
>This right here, in your head, is Gideon Jamal Smith. He stands caramel at 189 centimeters on two legs that have both been broken in his 17 years.
Very clunky and awkward wording throughout both sentences.

Pay more attention to where you're using commas. They litter your writing and many are used incorrectly or unnecessarily.

>This right here, in your head...
>the baby arrangement (described above)
I'm not trying to be a dick, but you're sacrificing clarity and quality in order to sound clever. You're not being honest with the reader or yourself.

Who the fuck is Emily Smith?

>The self described recluse has eluded popular culture's hoard mentality and thus far resisted any attempt to recover any documentation that may reveal his motive(s).
Train wreck. Are you saying that he lives an ascetic lifestyle? With little possessions? If so, unclear. If not, wrong kind of "horde" and also unclear.

Okay I'm not going any further because it's more of the same. It's word salad. From what I can tell you like Vonnegut and are trying to emulate him with rapid fire, smooth, knowing, and sincere but still tongue and cheek exposition of your character. I'm not telling you not to write, keep going, but this comes across as incredibly insincere.

Write more clearly
Don't TRY and be clever
Stop using so many commas
Stop doing that self-referential stuff
Write more honestly

>>9895059
please be honest.
I don't really have any aspirations as a writer.
The above is just an extract of my personal memoirs that I write for therapeutic motives.

>>9897966
Beautiful. I agree with all of it. Thanks my friend

File: 1485792081111.jpg (23KB, 265x320px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 265x320px

when you don't get any replies to your post

>>9899121
We all know that feel anon from time to time

>>9899121
Sorry buddy

>>9899017
It's really not that bad desu. The prose is a bit purple at times but it sounds good on the ear. With some hard work, I can see you getting published. Keep it up, fellow Sydneysider.

File: Desevro.jpg (37KB, 360x345px) Image search: [Google]

37KB, 360x345px

https://pastebin.com/SdAeW9jp

I don't have much time these days so instead I just write easy shit. I.E. fan-fic trash.

Still, I'd love some feed back and a few questions answered. Probably worth checking these after you read.

Does the main character for the excerpt, Renno appear like a character or a rather 2D cutout/extra?
Does Tria suffer from waifu-isation? On my re-read I felt this was the case?
Is the world, within the context of it's setting, feel believable and/or intriguing?

>>9895084
>A great way to open up a story, huh?

I didn't like this line. I also didn't like the protag's detachment from the events you described moments earlier. It is a fun start though. Maybe a bit fast paced for my liking.

That is to say, you set up the Grandpa as something more than what he turned out to be -- a passing character.

But again, I'm not smart enough to pick up on grammatical errors and everything else seemed like a solid start. I can definitely tell you're gonna need to re-write this beginning big time though.

And not in a bad way, just to bring a little more life to your first person narrator.

>>9900118
>38 views
>No responses

Into the trash it goes.

>>9889844
>>9891024
>>9894663
This is what follows.

---

They were near the banks of a river now. And Lyta walked towards it and began to wash her face. It was cold and it shocked her and it hid her teary face and meanwhile Alex gathered firewood and when the fire was stacked with logs they sat in silence. Lyta’s stomach growled.

‘Here’, he said, ‘have this’, giving her a handful of berries. ‘It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I plucked them earlier’.

‘I’m not hungry’, she said, flushing a beet-red.

‘As you wish’.

#

Alex awoke the next morning to the songs of birds and to the to the thin shafts of light that skewered the foliage. Looking around, he recalled the sword that skewered the king’s body, the spike that skewered his and his family’s head and the joyful parade in which it was tainted by rotten fruit and vegetables. But he cleared these thoughts and walked over to where the princess slept. Her frizzy hair framed a delicate face that looked so much prettier when her eyes and mouth were closed. Poor thing.

‘Wake up’, he said.

She got up slowly and then she was awake and murmuring things like “where am I” and “this isn’t my bed”. But she finally came back to her senses and when she thought back on it she pinched herself to make sure it wasn’t a dream and then she rubbed her eyes with her clenched fists.

‘What’s for breakfast?’, she said, looking at nobody in particular.

‘The berries from last night are still good. I saved them for you’.

‘I don’t want them’.

‘Then you won’t mind if I eat them’.

‘Give them to me’.

He smiled but then covered it with a fit of coughing. And handing it over he watched her stuff her cheeks with it.

‘Stop watching me, it’s embarrassing’.

‘Okay’. His eyes moved up-down, left-right. ‘Do your heels still hurt?’

‘Yes’.

‘Can you walk?’

‘Yes’, she said, rolling her eyes.

‘We still have a great distance to cover. There is a village nearby and I would like some new armour, maybe a sword and a bow? We need to defend ourselves. And maybe even some horses’.

‘You say that, but we have no money’.

‘We can sell your clothes?’

‘No, we can’t’.

‘What do you suggest then?’

‘Stop talking to me like that. Show some respect’.

‘Of course, princess. Sorry’.

‘But’, she added. ‘I guess we have no choice’.

>>9900437
>>9900443
To me these are an equal level of fiction.

>>9900452
So... Top tier?

>>9900452
Ouch. But yeah, I didn't enjoy rereading this. Any tips to improve this or should I just quit writing altogether?

>>9900461
Which one's yours?

>>9900463
These two:
>>9889844
>>9900443

>>9900443

>>9900465
Fuck.

First off, how old are you?

Second off, what I think.

Man it's ass dude. Really ass. Lyta and Alex? Can you not see the issue there? Alex? "Alex"? If Lyta was just Lily and the guards had rifles, not spears maybe I'd be able to suspend my disbelief but Alex is a terrible name.

Explain to me why he's called Alex because right now it seems like he's a self insert and you're rushing towards the scene where, on the road, he makes Lyta suck his dick.

This is an issue that's pervasive throughout this whole thing. Slow the fuck down son, you cleared the city in moments and in the least thrilling way imagineable.

He just ran through? Not even with the horse and wagon but on fucking foot? For a second I legitimately thought Alex was a giant beastman or something too, that's how taken aback I was by the ease with which he dealt with those guards.

I should take a moment, before I roast you on it again, I may be projecting as I do it too but fuck me man. It really does feel like this is going to degenerate into smut real fast. The dialogue is stilted because it feels like it's on a totally different trajectory to what I know as the reader, yet you've proven you care little for mystery already by outright explaining, in no uncertain terms, that Lyta is a princess and Alex is a noble guard saving her from the people that murdered her family.

Why not just let it be a nightmare about the stench of rotten fruit or something. That he's got an aversion to the smell. Build the mystery or indulge in the spectacle because that little paragraph is an injustice.

Also I just saw this,

>His eyes moved up-down, left-right.

What, is he checking this 11 year old ginger girl out? What the fuck does that mean?

What the fuck is this Alex?

What the fuck is going on with this madness?

Why are we even out of the city already, couldn't you think of a more interesting way of fleeing a city than running past some armed guards like a 250lb college footballer?

>‘But’, she added. ‘I guess we have no choice’.

That's it? That's her reaction to selling the last things she has to remember her family by?

My dude, just watch some goddamn porn or skip the build up and write them fucking.

>>9900437
>>9900497
Other anon here. Can you please roast/critique my weeaboo letter?

>>9900506
I don't really know where to begin.

It does what it's meant to. I find it suitably revolting if a bit pointlessly so. You went so far with the disgust factor that I can't find myself connecting with whoever this guy is meant to be.

Would probably work well as a chapter interlude though.

As for roasting, I apologise, it's not something I can summon up at will. His excerpt just got me more and more angry the more I read it.

>>9900497
Thanks for being honest. It's not a self-insert, but I chose the name because of it's meaning: "defender". I always have an issue of being too brief though, so I'll work on being more descriptive.
>His eyes moved up-down, left-right.
I didn't mean that but that's just due to my poor prose. I meant that he was afraid to look at her directly.
>‘But’, she added. ‘I guess we have no choice’.
Once again, I got too impatient and wanted to end the scene there. I also didn't know how to end it. It's not meant to be an erotica but I suppose it reads like one.

>>9900506
It doesn't read like it was written by a weeaboo at all. It's more like something written for a dictionary to provide examples of weeaboo words in context.

>>9900544
I'll also add that it's set a few hundred years into the future so the name choices are similar, if not the same.

>>9900544
Try writing a few things without a plan of where things go. See how that goes for you.

New characters, new setting, whatever. Just do it without any plan for plot trajectory.

In theory this should allow you to explore things more.

>>9900552
Can you provide sources of a weeaboo colloquy for me to study?

File: Questioning.jpg (507KB, 888x1289px) Image search: [Google]

507KB, 888x1289px

whew

https://pastebin.com/FvgqkTGV

Just wondering if this is a slog to get through or if it reads fairly well.

I struggle with writing mainly because it feels like, to explain everything I want to explain, I'd have to bog down the text with jarring descriptors.

File: weeaboocolloquy.png (109KB, 931x636px) Image search: [Google]

109KB, 931x636px

>>9900565
I could but why are you trying to write something you neither know nor know how to research?

>tfw never bothered making a signature of my own so I just use Joseph Condrad's
no-one has ever questioned me on it

I want to know if I should continue or if I should give up on this. I've been working on trying to write in the third person limited. Don't know if I got it right. Any feedback will be appreciated and be return in kind.


Solvi was on her seventh attempt on writing her message when a gust of wind made her candle, her only source of light, flickered as she struggled to form the runic letters coherently. The first four were ruined when tears and phlegm ran down her eyes and nose blotching the messages when she called to mind what had happened days prior. She tore the fifth message in rage when she overheard her guards mocking the death of her father. The sixth ruined when the ink bottle she used spilled on the message.

Now the sudden gust of the wind that made its way through the cracks in the wall did not help with the matter at hand, as her body shivered in response. Before she could check to see if her message was ruined the pattering of footsteps caught her attention. Listening to what the guards uttered in their conversation would inevitably be more important to her now, then the writing of the message to her captor.

Pressing her ear to the cell door, she vaguely overheard what they were saying to one another.

“You think she’s going to be executed?” One of them spoke with mild concerned.

“Don’t worry about the prisoner. I’m more worried about what is going to happen to us and our families. I’m certain a quick death does not compare to the uncertainty of our fates.”

There was a state of quietude before another question aroused from the concerned guard. “Ever since she stopped screaming, she’s been nothing but quiet. You think she might have given up or worse killed herself? She took the death of her father pretty hard. Perhaps it's best if we check on her if only to be certain and not be blamed for her death?”

>>9900793
The dialogue is shit. The opening sentence is shitter.

>>9900793
This is absolute shit, grade school grammatical errors, stilted dialogue. English is clearly not your first language. You should read moar and come back later

>>9900810
>>9900818
Can you two attack mine with your concise brutality?

>>9900820
Mine, sorry>>9900721

>>9900824
>>9900721
>female border control
I implore you to reconsider. This reads like the kind of soft sci-fi young adult novel that you might find at target for five dollars. Feminine posturing at wry characterisation.

>>9900838
Is it the female part or the border control part?

Could you tell things were about to fall apart?

>>9900118
What start to redo? The prologue?

>>9888099
Black people don't talk like that though. We sound like regular people except that the only way you could tell if someone was black by voice alone was by enunciation and phonetics. Also since you're trying to emulate Ebonics, they tend to differ from sub-culture . New Yorker often invent words and use them in daily speech, words like "deadass" and "brazy", Californians often incorporate different languages and vernaculars into their Ebonics.

What you're writing seems like its trying to emulate ebonics but in the most bland and stereotypical way possible, also work on your descriptions.

If you want to know how black people talk, watch some Blaxploitation films and some Tarantino movies.

>>9900923
I mean it will be improved on in your second draft massively.

>>9900949
That's generous.

>>9900957

Was it really that bad, friend?

Should one take a lack of responses to your work as a sign it is passable but ultimately uninspiring work?

>>9900931
This is bollocks

>Watch Tarantino movies
Definitely bait anon, don't listen - I think the voice and descriptions are strong, make me want to know more about the Father

Most of the people in this thread are trying too hard. No one wants to read overwrought prose without structure. Focus on being able to craft scenes with a clear desire, conflict, and turn; then, when you're able to do that, go back and work on making your sentences more vivid (within the competent structure).

Also, IMO writing can't really be judged well in only a few hundred words, unless the entire story is executed in that length.

>>9890254
Even if it's on spanish, someone will eventually read it. Not every post in crit gets a reply though. Also, it's incredibly slow so don't let that stop you from posting your work. Even if I tell you I'll read it, I would probably not respond until 1 or 2 days later.

Before I started writing my story, like you, I looked up tools to write better. None of those tools helped me being better, so I ended up using good ol Word and Dropbox for "version control".

>>9902109
fuck off you mong. If you were to completely abstract the difference of speech between the two down to the individual level. There would be no difference. OPs characters talk as if they were just a basic interpretation of southern folk talk and has no character or expression at all.

>Definitely bait anon, don't listen
So you think that Tarantino movies aren't accurate representations of how black people talk even though he fully acknowledges it? Quit talking out of your ass. It almost seems like you're baiting due to how retarded you sound

I was going through a pile of boxes in my new apartment, wishing Alan was here with me, he would have known how to lighten the mood. According to the news be it old or new, they all say the same thing, “The Multi-state killers” were either dead or in hiding putting an end to the gruesome string of murders. I am neither dead nor am I hiding, but it’s safer for me if they come to that illation.

Before I could continue and search through the rest of the boxes for information, there was repeated light tapping from my apartment door, I felt a strange sinking feeling in my chest followed by a moment of fear, it only lasts for a second or two before it goes back to normal, I was not expecting someone to visit me so soon.

That couldn’t be right. I made my way to the door, the light tapping became a bit louder the second time, before opening the door I checked thru the peep hole to see who it was. To my astonishment, it was only the landlord’s husband who looked pallid made worse with his receding hairline. He whistled as he stood there waiting for me to open the door, then fell silent for a moment before checking on his wristwatch.

I took a deep breath and opened the door to greet him. He glanced at me and looked surprised. "You're the new tenant?" I nod my head. "Yes, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir. Can I ask why you came?"

"We forgot to give you your mailbox key when we gave you your apartment keys" He looked past me, as though he expected to see someone else in the apartment, perhaps a roommate or a parent of sorts or someone who looked older to reassure him.

I nod once more, I did not want this exchange to be longer than necessary and reached for the key he held in his hand. "I see. Thank you." He held on to it, the expression on his face became more solemn. "If you don’t mind me asking. Do you happen to live with someone else? A parent or aunt and uncle to whom I can speak with?"

"Sadly, No," I told him. "My family doesn’t live in this state." I lowered my arms.

He persisted on his questions. "A phone number then?"

"Do you have a notepad so I can write down the number?"

"No, I have my phone with me.”

"Can you hand it over for a moment," I told him, straining a smile on my face.

>>9890874
Missing some commas here and there, but overall not bad.

>>9900437
kek

Daenarys Stormborn wiggled her nose. 'But why are breakfast foods breakfast foods?' She asked, meekly. 'Because Your Kweeness, the slavers of J'Green is led by a warlock whose power resides in ingesting at certain times of the day, High Kween.'
'I thought so,' Stormborn said thoughtlessly, eyeing her dark male guard with a cat-like interest. 'Jabar Kareem,' she exclaimed. 'Come here.'
He came. Danny eyed the fellow with those feline eyes, with dark interest, and bit her lip in response. His shoulders were large round boulders; the torso taught and bulbous with muscles. 'Your Kweeness,' he said, bringing his gaze to hers.
'Guard,' she said. 'Fetch me that pitcher.'
Danny's eyes pointed toward a clay jug above her head.
'As you wish.'
Then, she took down his pants, slobbering over his knob like a keycutter working at a locked door. Unlocking him, he let out a frustrated yelp as he reached a zenith of bodily pleasure. Danny giggled.

THE END

I am trapped in a cold stone room. I think underground. It is dark as a cave, and dusty. I must escape.

“You still believe that,” says Scribbleman, reading my thoughts. “Which means you still believe you can escape. Which is folly.”

Scribbleman’s got to be twice my size. His breath is warm and sweet and a little rancid. His voice is rough and assured. And he’s probably right. I won’t ever escape.

“Of course I’m right,” says Scribbleman. “I always am.”

---

Back when I had the strength, I crawled around the room to get a handle on it’s dimensions and to figure out what sort of place we were trapped in. That’s when I found the mousehole. With dirty, probing fingers, I felt around the mousehole’s entrance. It was smooth, as if it had been polished. Perhaps it will lead me to freedom, I thought. I laid my cheek against the cold stone floor, and looked through it. But I saw nothing. It seemed to lead only further into darkness. A cold coma of darkness I was in, am still. I put my ear up the mousehole and listened, carefully. Nothing. I told Scribbleman about the mousehole. He came over and did the same.

“Nothing to see, nothing to hear,” he confirmed.

So I felt my way back, along the wall, to my nest of blankets, and lay back down on top of them. That was quite some time ago, and I haven’t gotten up since. I just lay here, in the dust and dark, thinking, waiting to die. Still, I’ve continued to listen carefully, and I’m certain that no mouse has scampered through the mousehole. I’ve heard no sound come through it at all, and hardly any sounds of any kind for quite some time, except for the sound of my breathing and the sound of my heart, throbbinig in the pits of my ears.

“And the sound of Scribbleman’s voice,” says Scribbleman.

That too.

And I’ve seen nothing but black, or, almost black, a dim darkness, since I first woke up in this cold, stone room. And my clothes. They seem to be rubbing the skin away from my clammy body. I imagine my skin turning blue. I can feel my flesh peeling and blistering and I imagine I’m rotting and already dead. I’d take my clothes off if I had the strength.

“I won’t help you with that,” says Scribbleman.

And I’d yell for help, if I had the strength. Or, at the very least, I’d yell for an explanation about why we’re stuck down here. But I lost the last of my strength a while ago, when I journeyed around and found the mousehole. And even if I had the strength, my throat is too dry to cry for help.

“And even if you had the strength,” says Scribbleman, “the words you’d use to call to others are little better than brittle shells filled with dust. You would hurl them about and they’d crack against the walls and spill, meaninglessly, impotently, all over the floor. There’s nothing to say and no one to say it to, and also nothing to say it with.”

>>9904723
I hate this place.

“I,” says Scribbleman, hautily, “feel fine here. And you should learn to feel similarly. After all, it’s your fault that we’re down here to begin with.”

Yes, I know.

“Because?”

I know.

“Because,” says Scribbleman, breathing his hot, sweet, and rancid breath on my face, “you did nasty things to people who loved you. Terrible things. I saw what you did. With your hands. That’s why we’re being held down here.”

I worked hard to quit thinking of things like that. I worked hard to get rid of that…feeling.

“But it’s still there, inside you, waiting for you. You think you vanquished it. Or you think it ebbed into oblivion. Not so. It’s waiting. Hatching children. And if you found it in your soul, and touched it, it would burst like an egg sack and crawl like a thousand startled spiders across your mind and body. As you deserve.”

Yes. But which specific act of devilment condemned us to this prison? And who is exacting his or her strange revenge for such a forgotten act? And what is their plan? Simply to torment me? To drive me mad? To kill me, slowly? To watch as I starve to death?

“Starve indeed,” says Scribbleman. “Aren’t you rather hungry?”

Yes. But I was trying to figure out what, exactly, I had done to get us sent down here in the first place. I recall a young woman. And a voice. Not Scribbleman’s, no… A different voice. It began quietly. And I remember—

“I said: aren’t you rather hungry? If only a cockroach would crawl through that mousehole, eh? Would you eat him if he did? Slimy protein. A gush of guts between grinding teeth, squeezing through teeth spaces and out, onto the toungue. It would probably crunch, with a carapice like razors, bloodying your mouth.”

Yes. Yes. Sure. If a cockroach came through I would eat it. But the woman, the voice…

>>9904725
“Well,” interjects Scribbleman, disgusted. “And what about if a snake slithered in through the mousehole, and we captured him? Would you eat him, too?”

A snake? Sure. The meaty meals. A feast for the ages. Shucking off the scales with my fingernails and biting into the cold blue worm underneath. Meat between my teeth.

“And venom in its fangs.”

The meat would give me the strength to yell for help through the mousehole, and perhaps even strength enough to remember the woman, the voice, and the reason I’m down here. Maybe even the strength to stride over to the mousehole, and squat down, and grab it with my hands, and pull chunks of it out, and, piece by piece, dig myself an escape, out of this—

“I said: and venom in its fangs.”

Yes. Yes. Well. What about it?

“When would you use it?” he asks. “Surely you’d want to eventually.”

Use it? The venom? The fangs?

“To end your life,” says Scribbleman. “You’ll need to consider it eventually, stuck in a place like this. You could take the head of the snake in your hands, and open its mouth, and hold the fangs to your wrist, and proudly say: “Time has ruined me, and darkness has bowed me, but the ultimate freedom is still mine.” And you could use your strength to push the head down and puncture your veins with the fangs.”

But the woman, the voice…

“And the liquid would enter your bloodstream, and bloom through your mortal body, and you would drift sleepily off into oblivion, free from this prison of hunger and darkness.”

Yes, that might be nice. A way of escaping that leaves me some dignity. I wouldn’t have to call for help, to rely on anyone, or—

“But, alas,” says Scribbleman, “there is no snake. And even if there were, I wouldn’t help you catch it, and I wouldn’t let you keep the fangs.”

Because we shouldn’t end our own lives.

“Because I want to watch you suffer,” said Scribbleman. “Because of what you’ve done.”

>>9904728

---

A rough inhale in the darkness. A wheezing exhale, sweetly, rancidly scented. I listen for quite some time, to be sure: he’s snoring.

Scribbleman’s asleep.

So now I can think without him imposing, throwing me off course with his input, interrupting the flow of my thoughts. Usually, I think he is just not a very patient listener, and that he simply wants to add his comments in before I’ve finished thinking. But sometimes I fear his intent is more malicious, and that he wants to keep me from thinking about certain things, and from exploring certain memories too deeply.

He tells me he’s my oldest friend, and that he’s been looking out for me since I was born. But sometimes…

Scribbleman begins coughing loudly.

If he’s awake, and listening…

Scribbleman’s snoring recommences.

Okay. Think quieter, then. Think in a whisper. Sometimes…sometimes, when I’m feeling skeptical, I look especially closely at my memories, and it seems—I know, I sound like a madman—it seems like he’s somehow retroactively placed himself into many of my memories. As if he placed himself into my memories as people photoshop themselves into photos they weren’t originally in. Like he grafted himself into my past, to infect it, and my memories about it. And deep in my gut I sometimes feel like we’ve hardly known each other for a long time at all, but that he’s manipulated me into believing he’s always been there, beside me, with me, a part of me, at every major moment in my life. And then I get to fearing that maybe he’s the reason I’m stuck down here in the first place, and that—

Silence. No breathing. He’s no longer snoring.

“Go on,” he growls.

With what? I wasn’t thinking anything.

“You were,” he replies.

I wasn’t. Really, I wasn’t. Just trying to get to sleep.

“Then sleep,” he says.

I roll over and try.

>>9904624
I have no idea if GRRM wrote this or not because his shitty prose is literally indistinguishable from fan-fiction.

>>9904723
>>9904725
>>9904728
>>9904732
4 full posts of your own and you don't critique a single other excerpt.


>>9904746

Kek.

>>9904749
I've critiqued a number in here already and lots in other threads without posting anything. Don't bother if you don't want to, bro.

>>9904751
I've done every single critique in this thread lad.

>>9904754
False

>>9904746
GRRM wrote it.

>>9904759
On god?

I find that hard to believe. It's filth. Unadulterated.

>>9904757
Doubt me if you dare, lad. I don't even post excerpts. I just critique those who critique others.

File: download (1).jpg (4KB, 186x186px) Image search: [Google]

4KB, 186x186px

>>9904761
What's with your status anxiety?

>>9904763
I'm not the one posting a 4 post long excerpt.

>>9904774
Nor am I. I'm making money doing what I love; teaching the youth of the world philosophy. Video by video, my hairline recedes and my brain expands. My name is Alain de Botton.

>>9904774
This

>>9904763

was not me, bro. I posted those together because I wrote them as one part but comments can only be so long.

>>9904779
Do you have any advice for how I should foment revolution in my capitalist nation? Better yet, any ideas how I can communicate my kink for birdfeathers and fathers in law to my wife?

>>9904781
Use pastebin or something.

Leaves you space to, you know, critique.

File: download (2).jpg (8KB, 275x183px) Image search: [Google]

8KB, 275x183px

>>9904787
Aristotle was somewhat of a love guru. I think he'll come of use here. In "Metaphysics" he says that "it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it". Entertaining this thought with your spouse may do some good in coming out with your 'kinks', as you say. I suggest my works on sexuality to guide you through this process. http://www.thebookoflife.org/two-different-sexualities/
For the revolution part, I must recommend Marx - who was an idealist, and wanted to wish the world into a cohesive economy. You can watch more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSQgCy_iIcc

- Alain de Botton, son of millionaire, thinker, lover, etc.

>>9903703
Is this kid related to the Multi State killers? Also, he speaks and thinks pretty well and soberly for someone so young that a landlord would be asking questions. If this kid is sinister, I think you could convey that in the tone of his narration a bit more. However, your sentence structure is relatively solid, and for the most part I follow what's going on!

>>9904805
Hi Allan,

My name is Jordan Hecht. I live in middle America. I've noticed that the people around my, my family, my neighbours, the young woman who works at the grocery store, gets off at 8:15, and walks six blocks to her suburban home, all treat me like I'm some kind of outsider. I think it's in large part because of my superior intelligence and poetical bent of mind. But sometimes I think it might be because I have bad acne, and am aesthetically repulsive to them. For instance, when I added Lucia (the young lady I mentioned above) on facebook, instagram, snapchat, and followed her on twitter, she replied to my message asking her out by saying i was being, and I quote, "a creep." Riddle me this: why would you write "add me on snapchat, Insta, and follow me on twitter" on your FB if you didn't want people to do so? Do these ladies seriously not understand that they bring it all on themselves, and then blame guys like me who are actually INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO READ AND FOLLOW DIRECTIONS?

I guess I wanted to say that your work has helped me immeasurably in the past. Without your guidance through your videos I would likely be spending every weekend at the bars acting like a stupid Chad, covered in tattoos and addicted to meth or whatever else everyone is into these days. I guess I was just wondering if you had any advice for how I can get Lucia to stop over-reacting. Like, seriously, it's messed. She gets her dad to pick her up from work now just because someone tried to explain himself to her in person. Anyways, thank you sir.

Love ya,

J. Hecht

Context wise...

After the protag sells his sister for food during a huge famine and upheaval, the story follows his sister and her new "husbands" flight from the region after it ignites in a forest fire. This part of the story goes on for long enough that, I feel, the protagonist is only remembered as the one who sold off his sister.

Anyway.

One ash covered corpse still blinked. Body little more than a bag for brittle bones and a distending stomach. It’s skin was no more pleasant to perceive. Gaunt and sun burnt. Not so bad for one who'd chosen to die in the aftermath of a forest fire.

Is that a good chapter opener?

>>9904843
How does the corpse manage to blink? Is it a corpse or a living person severely burned? I would gender the body/person instead of calling it an it. Describe the skin, do not just say it is unpleasant. to perceive (also, perceive sounds stilted; also, WHO is doing the perceiving? Maybe this cracked and blackened flesh smelled so heavily like rancid pork that the person perceiving wanted to vomit, but couldn't because she hadn't eaten since she fled with her new husband.) How would you know the corpse was sunburnt if its fire burnt?

AND WHY IS THIS NOT SO BAD? IT SOUNDS LIKE THE WORST!

>>9904858
>Corpse manage to blink
I was just doing it to say he looked close to death

>Gendering the person
You're right, I'll change it to he.

>Describe the skin
I guess I could change gaunt to ashy/ash covered

>Who is doing the perceiving
The person who speaks after this paragraph

>How would you know the corpse was sunburnt if its fire burnt
It's not, that's the key point. Though you're completely right, I need to make the distinction

>Why is this not so bad?

Because he could be fire burnt, which is exactly why you're right in saying I need to make it clearer. Thanks dude.

Also, that's the brother who sold her, it's a jump back to the forest fire.

File: b.jpg (105KB, 564x406px) Image search: [Google]

105KB, 564x406px

Is this a good start too?

>>9904888
Lovely. It really bounds. I'd read more for sure.

>>9904888
Yes.

>>9890957
Está bien
Si es que buscas un estilo Opio en las nubes FAG

>>9904888
I suppose "may" implies more "uncertainty" than "improbability". If I say you may or may not do something, it's not necessarily improbable that you will choose one way or the other, but it is nevertheless uncertain.

>>9904895
>>9904897
Thanks.

>>9904900
I'll take that into account, uncertainty might have a better ring to it too.

>>9905019
It reads fine. Not particularly interesting though. It doesn't seem colloquial, because it's a bit cliched.

>>9905056
wtf where'd the post go?

>>9904723
s o m e t h i n g ?

For context, this is an excerpt from a project surrounding gangs. This is detailing the history of one and how it intertwines within the city.

East Mountain was what would be considered "the hood" of Sterling. A now run-down neighborhood just about as old as the city itself, it was home to the city's oldest gang. Back before kids were running around in ski masks and two guys were starting a feud that would soon grow as large as the city, the only thing most citizens of Sterling had to worry about was East Mountain, because the mountain was where the dragons lived. Being the first gang in town, the East Dragons were also the first to start flowing dope throughout the city. They were top-dog right up until the police cracked down on the whole thing. Now they weren't as feared, influential, or much of anything.

Or at least that's how Mandel saw it. The East Dragons ran the drug operation of the whole city back when he was growing up, but as he grew up the city grew up right along with him. The war on drugs had begun to escalate around the country, and in the city it pushed back the Dragons until their only domain was their mountain. Most of the higher members were still in jail for the various crimes they commit, such as possession, vandalism, and murder; the only member of the higher ups who escaped the night of the drug raid was the one running things after that. Even after things calmed down in the city, not only were most members too sketched to make moves, but the plugs shipping drugs into the city were too sketched to send in anything else. The East Dragons were running out of purpose, and none of the younger generation wanted to join.

That is, except Mandel and his best friend. They had seen members of the East Dragons grow big and grow strong. Even if they were a gang - not afraid to put a bullet through a man and bust up those who try and stop them - they were far from a terror within East Mountain. They were more of a sort of union. In exchange for helping them traffic drugs or hit licks, a member - and their family - became sanctioned by the Dragons. Anyone who had a problem with them had a problem with the whole gang, which effectively warded off most trouble in the neighborhood.

Mandel had seen members sell dope throughout the neighborhood, rob people who tried to rob them, and get in fights with civilians and cops alike. He had also seen them solve domestic disputes at each other's houses, stomp out bullying in the neighborhood, and bail each other out of jail over a dozen times. They were a group of organized crime, yes, but on the other side of the coin the members all seemed to help each other live better lives.

But that was mostly in the past. The present East Mountain was just people working to support their families, kids shooting hoops in the streets, and high schoolers matching dope at the neighborhood's park.

>>9905056
>>9905059
I deleted it out of shame before you even responded.

>>9905258
Don't be ashamed, anon. We're all shit-tier here, but practice makes perfect. I was so much worse two years ago than I am now. I believe you can get better, just read and write more - when you feel you can.

>>9903442
Most influential black writers disagree with you there - just read something by Alice Walker, Black character's voices are entirely removed and distinct from White characters

>>9904899
Gracias. Puedes explayarte un poco más, por favor? No sé qué es Opio en las nubes. Tampoco busqué nada con eso, lo hice borracho de una.

File: 1433070700547.jpg (68KB, 640x585px) Image search: [Google]

68KB, 640x585px

There was a twenty-something man laying alone on his bed. His room was small and only had one window which was close to a tall fence and didn't get much sunlight. The man was rarely awake in the day. He had no job and one friend. The walls of his room were bare and beige. The floor was hardwood and covered in dirty clothes and plastic bags with empty soda bottles and food packaging.
The man's hands were thinly coated with residual smegma. He was somewhat obsessive-compulsive about hand washing, but his housemate was asleep on the couch and the man didn't want to wake him up. His housemate had a perfectly furnished room but chose not to sleep there. It was morning, 4am to be precise, but his housemate had work in the daylight hours, when the man would start to become sleepy.
The man was bored. Masturbation was his usual entertainment in these situations, but his testicles had been siphoned of reproductive ichor, and his foreskin numb to sensation. He suffered from mild phimosis, and having a foreskin made his penis smell far worse than it would without one, but the man was disgusted by circumcision. He associated the practice with Americans, Muslims and Jews; a trinity he called "the Cerebrus of degenerates". He would normally watch videos when deprived of genital busywork, but the audio jack in his laptop was broken and his phone data had expired. He had no money to replace either of them.

I’m cataleptic thrall while your housing up
with some gormless blond, cosseting another not-me
though here I am, feigning resplendence
as another decade falls around my ears;
how high can I possibly make this sinister tower
to avail your apparently challenged sight?

I labor in order to work again, these chores
are bitter sugar pills, and the only decent escape
is to switch pimps or starve; it doesn’t cure me
to float about in the relentless blubbering
of people whose mouths I’d sooner plug
but I not only listen, that’s humiliation enough!

Occupation, you say, soothes the noggin;
my trouble always was my imagination, you’ll agree.
You conspire to keep me circus-seeling through hoops
because you’ll holler back ASAP,
sending warm regards and other hell-frozen promises,
while I strike postures to flatter my old man.

The under-crackle of talk radio never quits,
and if the receptions bad, I get bloviated over
into entertaining quiddities with a goober
who thinks Zedong’s gun was cheap anarchy but
Tommy Jordan’s an exemplary paterfamilias.
But you think that’s a scholastic dispute, don’t you?

Still, what’s worse isn’t the broken fastener
lying beneath miles of dirt and subterranean springs,
nor the fact my voice dowsing rods so well,
but that it’s only a difference in degree if my body
is cranked into action by his belched orders
or beneath your amorous cues. Yes, I love a bargain.

Yes, Virginia, there is a probable cause.
You have a mobile billfold, I have a persistent sty;
I can count the thumbs pressing down on my back.
What’s Hamlet? Your audience is always puzzled.
All my gilded apoplexies can’t, not even by apophenia,
deliver me to your persuasion.

I can’t answer for you, I can’t answer at all,
neither to myself nor the forthcoming prosecution.
I wanted to be the jewel of your rebel fringe
but didn’t have the cup size. Still,
without your love, I think it’s best if I just
keep on impersonating Amish furniture.

>>9906543
Polblomov, I like it

>>9905422
Usually by dissimulating illiteracy.

>>9904723
>the words you’d use to call to others are little better than brittle shells filled with dust...
I liked this image

Sucks to be in a hole with a mindreader though!

Does Scribbleman have writer's block, and that's what's got them both trapped in a hole?

>>9904732
bretty gwed.
I would leave out the Photoshop bit though, the feeling is described enough that it becomes unnecessary.

>>9887729
Ur story sucks

>>9906733
That's an interesting reading. To me he just sort of represents a part of the character (me) that is evilly self-critical and down-talking. Someone/thing intimately close to me who knows everything about me, even my thoughts, and always turns them against me.

The character's self-doubt and apathy got him trapped in a hole, fatigued, and stuck with Scribbleman. Or something like that. There's another storyline going on (that I did not post) with a character actually out living his life, but he is also kinda an apathetic depressive. Eventually, you realize that the two characters are the same person: the Scribbleman narrative is like an alternate reality symbolic mirror of the real narrative. And as the main character starts making better decisions and overcoming the hurdles that has kept him from truly living his life, the trapped character similarly starts fighting back against Scribbleman, and actively seeking out ways to escape the dungeon.

>>9907032

Thanks anon. Totally agree.

>>9889424
I don't find the odd grammar purposeful or endearing.
>>9888038
I like your first two stanzas more than the others. I feel you didn't put much time into this. I don't care about your insides. Once you discarded the levitation I knew exactly what you were going to write. I like your floating and I do like the subtle assonance in gum/medicine.
>>9891857
I don't think there is anything anything novel or sweet here. I may as well watch a planet earth clip. Maybe you could read some of the imagist poets.
>>9906670
I read lots of unnecessary empty words. There are some horrible cliches. Maybe you have chosen them to sound conversational.

though here I am, feigning resplendence
as another decade falls around my ears;
how high can I possibly make this sinister tower
to avail your apparently challenged sight?

This sounds quite nice. 'Fell on my ears' is a cliche but it feels innocent. I think that first stanza best communicates the impotence of the speaker. 'Possibly' and 'apparently' are so weak and it makes me feel anxious and irritated. Your insecure references do this to. It is all brittle, wilfully pathetic, and simpering like a selfie pose. It is offensive but if that was your intention you have a talent for something.

>>9907653
>I don't care about your insides. Once you discarded the levitation I knew exactly what you were going to write.

How the fuck did I nor anyone else I showed this too irl catch how quickly I threw away the levitation. Damn man. Thank you. Small criticism, but you managed to bring something important to my attention. Namely my tendency to get distracted in my writing.

you're a good one. thanks.

>>9906670
Fuck off. Don't make me use a dictionary to feel insulted by this whine. You gonna rage or remind me of your intelligence, and your stylish, well placed post-Victorian love seat? I'm as exasperated as you are at this point with this faux honey. Also, really good prose. Next time write a poem.

>>9907598
>the trapped character similarly starts fighting back against Scribbleman
Yeah, I think I caught a glimpse of that when, questioning Scribbleman's relevance to his dilemma, the narrator mentions Scribbleman stops breathing or wakes up. And this line of thought only seemed possible while Scribbleman was asleep.

>>9904813
>Is this kid related to the Multi State killers?
more of an allusion

>Also, he speaks and thinks pretty well and soberly for someone so young that a landlord would be asking questions.
Is this a bad thing?

>If this kid is sinister, I think you could convey that in the tone of his narration a bit more.
I really don't want to convey early on who is sinister and who is not as not to give away immediately

>However, your sentence structure is relatively solid, and for the most part, I follow what's going on!
Thank you. If you don't mind me asking. How does one deal with knowing the second session in writing the chapter isn't as good as the first session?

>>9907653
>There are some horrible cliches. Maybe you have chosen them to sound conversational.
I did want to exaggerate some cliches.
>It is offensive but if that was your intention you have a talent for something.
I'll agree, but I forget what my original intention was.

>>9907745
You didn't seem to need a dictionary to feel insulted. By the way, not all of us beat our chests when we're mad.

>>9887709
I am writing a novel, or maybe a short story... I'm stuck, but I am hoping that bringing it on here, I might get some help to get it going again. Any criticism is welcomed, advice is also greatly appreciated. Please note that it is a... personal story of mine, I write it whenever I suffer a depressive spell since that strangely pushes my creativity up.

Although, I do try to clean it up outside of these spells. It does mostly deal with depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, some supernatural influences (although, I am leaning towards Lovecraftian ideals about it not ending well for the protagonist, that the supernatural isn't an ally, but isn't inherently malevolent. Still something that has no interest in the narrator in terms of wanting what is best for him so much as for itself).

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

I laced my fingers behind my head and leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes while I waited for the ceiling to collapse on top of me.
The boy chewed the end of his ballpoint and scribbled a few sentences and looked up for a moment to steal a glance at the girl a few seats away from him.
She wore too much makeup to be beautiful. I wished I could push her into a dirty puddle and wash the lipstick and eyeliner and uncomplicated satisfaction off her face. The boy wished he could fuck her.
I sympathized. We both wanted to see her disappointed.
The girl didn't experience enough everyday discomfort to be a real person. It wasn't that she was rich and popular and easy on the eyes - even the perfect spoiled cheerleader cries, when she crashes her daddy's brand-new BMW. It was that she never had a reason to complain.
I could've forgiven her if she'd been an idiot. The world has a place for beautiful little fools and some people say that's the best thing a girl can be in this world. But she wasn't, and that's why I hated Harriet Oleander.

>>9908080
>The world has a place for beautiful little fools and some people say that's the best thing a girl can be in this world.
Daisy, is that you?
>I sympathized. We both wanted to see her disappointed.
This is the best part in the passage. It's abrupt, succinct, and cutting. I'm not sure it could achieve this effect without the previous sentences being more explicit.
The first sentence is a good hook, but its a little complicated. Maybe take out the first "and," and end it with a participle phrase?
"I laced my fingers behind my head, leaned back in my chair, and closed my eyes waiting for the ceiling to collapse on top of me."
Meanwhile, the last two paragraphs are kind of weak. Don't concentrate on the "perfect spoiled cheerleader" you compare the girl to. Can you give a single unique example of how Harriet doesn't "experience enough everyday discomfort"?

>>9904843
It needs both better description and a better painting of the location in question, I mean, you're trying to both draw the reader in and paint the scene for us. You need to hook us in with this opening, make us intrigued and also give us both some idea of what is going on.

Where are you, who are you, what are you doing, and why are you doing it?

Are you the burnt body? Perhaps you can state that they're dying rather than a corpse, or give us something vague that can imply near-death.
--------------------------------------------------------
The pain was all he remembered, the searing heat that tore into his lungs, clothing becoming mere fuel for the flames. He seemed sexless, every inch of his body reduced to a charred, blackened hide that left nothing to the imagination. The pain was all he knew, the crimson of meat shining clearly through the cracks of the shell that used to be his skin.

Every twitch, more pain, the hardened shell did not stretch, it fractured, but he didn't scream. Even when rescue arrived, he could not scream, but they saw his eyes... wide, crimson, unblinking, but moving despite how dead he appeared. The rescuers checked his pulse, despite everything his heart still ran strong and fast. It horrified them, they saw his mouth was open as much as it could be, he kept breathing in and out so heavily.

"He's trying to scream."

>>9907932
It always feels like that. However, if you are actually a half decent writer, you will realize that it likely is as good. You'll get down some shit in session two, and re-read it, and it will become canon, an integral part of the story. And then you'll be like "how can I ever sit down for a third session, parts one and two are already utterly complete and within the right tempo and universe and show thematic consistency...I'll never get back in that groove again." Then you write in session three, and, like magic, the shit you wrote was equally as good/bad as the shit you wrote in the first two. The point is to not wait for some magical feeling to erupt in you so that you all of a sudden are transported to the "same" state of mind you were in when you wrote the earlier shit. All that is illusion. Just go back and continue on with the story.

>>9904835
kek this is gud niceguy

the buffet is too full
as is my stomach
with the fat of the land
I regurgitate bile, duodenum drenched in sulfur,
reignite the reign of lysergic rain
uplifting the shrews poring over empty mines
of curtailed jewels prepolished by an unforgiving haruspex
yet I'm not a pachyderm, my shell cracks internally
and light spills from my CD wrinkles
onto a canvas of menial interactions
with coffeeshop customers hunting time—
the gut places its finger on the metronome
beneath the citadel, home of night's templars,
it whispers morse messages through stringed solo cups
signaling smoke, beating gongs against the grains.
The dung beetle lugs its child
strengthening its core, bored out of duty.
The catapult wires to Detroit's grids
parasitically sapped of gravity
driven to donut shop madness
operating behind the eggshell doors of Washington
sitting atop a plinth of pulchritudinous pshaw
catering to B2B guildsmen of bacteria
talking shop and taking names in the GI Bill,
tracking mud into the clouds.

There's too much to say
to not be said
that my tongue swells before I've even—
spike the punch the face the fears—
you can ask to ask me anything,
except the exception to the rule that makes it.
Fresh squeezed milk and organic dihydrogen monoxide,
free my spirit from their GMO lined prison of synthetic chemistries.
But the word conjunction in conjunction with conjunction
leads to the obviousness of repeated redundancies
rendering the robustness of America's language.
Cows are cowards: that's bullshit,
they die for our sins on the basis of days
and give birth to the exclamation "holy cow" so utterly unexclaimed in India
and also enable the creation of chip of the chocolate cookies.
This is Generation Generation, we generate more.
More than our descendants' ancestors,
more than the present day children of ironically old parents
whose rosy tinted spectacles shade spectacles prosily,
such as that Kent state thing, so passé compared to Virginia Tech.
All of this columbined with sadistic torture play with lexicographical meat
makes me want to sarcastically squeal, "yeah, I'm being so sarcastic right now."
My manager manages to score several points lower on the date of birth test than me
because I'm a loser and give up before I even give it a shot
of accidental penicillin that can't possibly be marmite heroin.
Save me if you can, Ironman.

>>9908633
theirs a lot of feeling in this

I wish I had friends. I've never been able to get people to like me. I try to fit in and just come off as a sperg.

>>9908865
This is a great opening line.

“I would kill a man for a cigarette right about now.”
“Well, that escalated quickly,” Alana scoffed, leaning back against the concrete wall that had become a canvas for every graffiti artist or drunk kid with a can of spray paint in the city. Half of it was vandalism, half of it was art. Detailed, colourful cityscapes intertwined with illegible slurs. “I thought you were trying to quit.”

Did an audio of a flash fiction I did if anyone wants to hear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtoF-LOXxhc

Hey. I've never tried this before. Feedback would be great!

https://pastebin.com/9gbq1mNM

>>9906670

I sort of like this. I mean, reading it conveys feeling. I think that's a good thing. What it reminds me of, though, is that people only connect with writing that is relevant to them. I think you could dress down a lot of the language you use to help a wider audience connect with it, and I think that will improve the quality of what you have here.

I hope that helps!

>>9908808
is that good

What program do you idiots usually write with?

The day was dark,
Like all days, always
Desolate. The wind was sharp
And the dead sun
Drowned below clouds
When I unlocked the door
To Dolores's house.
She had left me the house
In her will. News of her death
Had been carried to me by a grey
Old solicitor. It seems while dying,
She had forgiven me.
I found that rather touching
Since I hadn't yet forgiven
Myself. I wouldn't go as far as to say
I missed her,
For I hardly knew her.
The remorse I felt
Of her death was because
Of the promise to my father,
Who had been so fond of her.
The promise I had broken.

When I was younger,
Growing up on the island,
He would call to me, weakly,
With fear in his voice
Saying "When I'm gone Harry,
There will be no one,
No one left to look after your aunt.
No one but you.
Will you promise me, Harry,
That you'll look after her?
Will you promise me that?'.
I always said 'yes'.
His pleading compelled me.
This rite being completed,
He would fall back
On the ragged bed, exhausted
From the fervour of his imploration
And I would leave him,
Felled by fear, his lips
Still trembling
In fervent prayer.

Despite the great passage
Of all these years,
I have remembered
These sorrowed words speaking
To me from the darkness, the voice
Faltering with each passing year.
My memory is haunted by his suffering.
The weight of his promise
Daunted me. I felt too frail to bear
The burden he had bequeathed me.
They buried him
Not long after
And I fled
Before the grave had sunk.
Dolores was left alone.

>>9911871
scrivener

He took a hand off his rifle and knocked. His nose was pressed to the door and he could smell the mildew.

‘3. 2. 1. Go’, he signalled.

The door opened with a click and their vision opened to a great stairwell with handrails of gold and to their left and right were paintings that depicted unearthly sceneries and a myriad of doors each labeled with names. They would later describe the paintings as “nightmarish” but for the labelled doors nobody could guess their meaning.

The man at the back of the unit shut the door behind him and crouched in the corner, pointing his weapon upstairs. He watched them enter each of the doors.

‘Nothing’.

But it seemed off. And when they returned to inform him, his eyes widened and he covered his mouth with a gloved hand.

“I’ll just check what’s in the hole”, were the last words of his squad leader when the abyss swallowed him.

>>9889794
someone pls critique this?

A kingdom of pure countenance
The masses heed the head, forget
That beleaguered boy and themselves,
Skirmish in masks of the divine,
And sequester themselves by
Caliban’s subservient plight.

Strife in throngs, a legacy of
Thrones upon his crown, with those stars
That shine on each face, regardless of
Gold or brass, smith or alchemist,
There sat the boy, contemplating
How he, a king sans dominion
Or commandment, would accept the
Mandate once the darkness of fate
Clouds the eyes of he who sits
Upon the hands of his people.
Would he accept the throne with chaste,
Or would he forsake his citizens
Like the soldiers of wars long past?

The clothes draped over his small frame,
Announced his presence to a court
Who, donned with ornaments and frills,
Beckoned him with shallow gestures.
They turned to the great arbiter
And conspired against citizens,
Who faced afflictions palpable
Unlike their conspirators there,
Without a morsel of their consent.
The prince felt the mounting gap
Of citizenry and nobles,
Sought protest against the gestures
Of their maws and devilish grins,
But he faced stare decisis,
Deified commandments of yore.
His tongue fell back from its podium
And scorned the evils of his realm
In the dark chambers of his jaw.
His mask, his father’s mask, and the
Nobles’ once again cozened his mouth.

The imprint of their apathy
Pervaded the air of all lives,
Calcified into masquerades,
And became Ananias’ mask.
The king’s noble lie lacked strength.
The hidden character, the prince’s
Resentment grew like festering
Wounds. The sanction of the heavens
Ennobled Beelzebub and
Felled the king with a tragic death.
The sullen held a gloomy veil
Over an obstinate kingdom.
The true tragedy befell a
New king, who was unwilling
To claim scepters he resented,
To speak and finally be heard.

Now an impassioned youth, he
Could not help but criticize his
Own role over his province
And terrible mechanisms
Of fate that forced him into this,
But his kingdom required him,
A creature that still ate milkweed,
To govern, to parse, and to war.
His castle, his mask were no more,
Leaving trails like the comet’s tail.
“O, father,” said he with fleeting pitches,
“I am but nothing, a mere
Papoose, a blind calf, a fool prince.
Look at me deceiving myself.
I do not belong on that throne.
The prince and king dead, do my words
Carry the angel’s feather’s weight?
Am I only deserving of
The mute prophet’s voice or nothing?”
Thus he spoke in that solitude.

>>9912727
The dukes came with pretenses of
Wealth, land, fame, and feudal lordship.
But the fool king granted them their
Shallow, capricious purposes.
Ladies seeking royal marriage
Stood before him with falsehoods true
But the virgin prince bade their lust
Away in strokes of shaky pride.
His people sought him on the cross,
Crucified for acting in fraught,
But the crowned fool hid in his room.
Now the nobles who once looked to
Their king saw a marionette
Laying on the throne. They plotted,
Using hierarchy and plowed
Bulbs of doubt, sustaining their strength.

Years with a voice of timeless slumber -
Despite his kingdom’s monstrous ire -
Left him like a blank page about
His dominion’s bane and ruin.
Man’s will had overtaken him,
And so his palace and pastures
Were in tatters and wrought with strife.
The king still could not utter words.
The blight of his errors consumed
Him, made whirlpools of deserved
Justice for indecisiveness.
His pearl robe was cast in shadows,
His crest an infidelity,
And his father’s disappointment
Rested upon his destroyed pride.

He had fled through an oubliette,
Away from his duties and throne,
Away from gazes eternal,
Away from paternal chagrin.
Atop his hill, he saw how his
Apathy had stagnated the
Cyclical rites, made the Pishon’s
Genesis lose its origin.
He beheld the imbroglio
Of entangled lambs and their fates,
Left to quarrel among themselves,
And spark the plague of war among men,
Of kinsmen lost without a hand
And people confused, bewildered
Of why their leader had left them.
So, beholding his people’s strife,
He thought of that panacea
For the farmer's woes of ruin,
For the systems of oppression
That rained down from Mount Olympus
And made his citizens walk the
Salt-bearer’s march. His disguised heart,
His endangered voice engendered
The fickle notions of quiet
That closed his mask over his lips.
However, he had a duty
To conceal his disposition
And wear countenance eternal.
He departed from his slumber
To extend his hand over his
Plains, pastures, courts, and synagogues
To be his people’s arbiter.

He walked back to his palace to
Reign and arraign his past mistakes
And to bring loquacity to
His shy, shuttered inner voice.
Embracing the broken pieces,
He resolved to gather them to
Reform his pride with veins of past
Errors and evergreen power.
Now, the licit king perched on his
Throne directed his subjects, the
Nobles that had once tugged on his
Strings, and revealed his masked visage.
Underneath laid a countenance
More commanding than Menelaus’
And just as flawed as Achilles’,
His mask’s cracks never leaving him.

Thus, he spoke with the divine’s words
With the restless sea’s majesty
And quelled the peasant’s smoldering pyre.
The Chaste King began his everlasting reign.

>>9912336
Please critique this.

File: neonj.jpg (67KB, 640x360px) Image search: [Google]

67KB, 640x360px

I carry my single briefcase through the airport parking lot. I’m hot and out of breath. The linoleum tiles cool me down in the physical, but my spirit is squared by the stores selling vain material. Walking through customs there’s nobody bohemian as me. A definition of nuance that was never meant to be expressed but felt. To sense what I’ve been wanting, free and alone, after all those wasted days. I board the flight to say finally I am my own religion. They will speak of me as demon. Others will listen. A vibration through these amber aisles to look no further than my destination. Everyone has their destination. I refuse. I’m tired of being a number. Atlanta had it’s place. Now I’m homeless in Tokyo.

Kevin McDonald says that all of you are great writers. Unless you're a Jew or you like Jews. Then you're not a good writer, sorry.

>>9912336
It's okay. The action could be a bit more exciting and you don't describe much, but if that's what you're going with, fine.

>Abyss
Try to stay away from a cliche like this, I always see it on /lit/ and early writers.

“Don’t drink the river water”, was something my father used to tell me. And he was right. The city’s main river smelt and tasted like shit; its people washed their clothes in it, hid bodies in it, and everything in between. But the city was built around it and even though you couldn’t drink it, the Docks were the life of the city and I sat there washing my feet with it and watched the cargo make its way off the wooden barges into the hands of the stevedores, into the warehouses, and eventually into my thieving hands.

>>9913068
>The city’s main river smelt
smelt what? pig iron?

>>9913070
My bad, I'm high as fuck right now so I can't think properly. I meant smelled.

>>9913115
not bad for high. edit sober you might make it into something.

>>9913068
i dunno dude full of cliches you really gotta start over and think harder

>>9887729
I liked it.

The Hero fixed his eyes on his parents. They stared back with pale blue eyes and disapproving frowns.

‘I’m sorry’, The Hero said. ‘I’m sorry’. And then he burst into tears.

‘It’s all your fault, you know’, The Villain said. ‘You could’ve prevented this’. He shouted to the wind, ‘It’s your fault they’re dead’, and then he smiled at The Hero who was grovelling on his knees, turning the dust around him to mud.

A strong breeze blew and Mum and Dad spun on their ropes away from him. They were too ashamed to look at their own son.

‘You’re right’, The Hero said, and a wide grin began to form on his face. ‘It is my fault. But I never even wanted to be a hero. The prophecy was wrong. But everyone supported me and there was so much gold and I was gonna be rich. All I had to do was say a few inspiring words and everyone would follow me. But I see now. If I never left this town, my parents wouldn’t be fucking dead.

The Villain was getting tired of this now and he frowned. ‘Why did I even bother with you? You’re disgusting’.

He outstretched his left arm, his henchman knelt, presenting his sword, and The Villain delivered the coup de grace, parting the head from body. He spat.

‘Disgusting’.

>>9913419
Lol what the fuck are we even meant to be critiquing here?

>>9913419
What the fuck is this shit

>>9889794
>https://pastebin.com/BZnJrRbb

Hey. I'll pick through this a bit for you! I'm not expert but hopefully it'll give you a fresh perspective.

"Eventually Seth steered the car onto an even smaller side road that was partially covered in blackberry brambles."

For a first line in this section, I'd try and change it so that it felt more immediate and captured the attention to a stronger degree. Maybe something like: 'Crunching over brambles, Seth steered the car down a side road that drew narrower and narrower.'

"Slightly revving the engine, he drove through them."

Personally I don't see what quantifying an engine as slightly revving really does. Personally, I'd go with something like: 'Revving his engine, he didn't slow down, tearing over the vines.'

"They continued down this path for a few minutes before coming out on the other side of the blackberries."

I don't know who they are. If this is the beginning of a new chapter, maybe clarify who is in the car. If you've already specified this recently, though, that's probably okay.

"A large field opened up before them, hilly and covered with tall yellow grass that rustled like thin paper in the breeze."

For me, again, I'd try and make it about what the people do. I mean, they come into the field. It opening up for them seems a little cliche. 'Dragging over the gravel, with a sudden lurch, the car pulled onto a hilly field, covered with tall yellow grass that rustled like thin paper in the breeze.'

"There was a rusted gate guarding the entrance to the field; Seth got out of the car and easily kicked it open, tied it back against a tree with a bit of rotting rope on it, got back in the car, and continued on into the field, parking near its edge."

This is an interesting one. I like what you're saying, but I believe it can be phrased in a way that'll encourage the reader to connect with the person more. I'd also suggest a bit more detail could be inserted to give mood and personality at this point. I'd personally write something like this (though I completely understand if I get the character's mood or the situation wrong. I'm just trying to offer pieces as I read through it.) 'Seth spotted something ahead - a rusted gate. Shoving down on the brakes, the car ground to a stop, pulling up dry grass all the way. He all but kicked open his car door, and muttered to himself as he found an old, rotten stump to fix the gate to. Seth lifted the gate and forced it around. There was old, worn-out rope already there for him so he tied the iron gate open, frowning at the state of it.'

I just read the first paragraph. I can keep going if you found it helpful! I posted mine up here, if you'd like to tell me what you think. I've probably not followed any of my own advice.

>>9910374

https://mega.nz/fm/dChj1LCZ

This was graded.

File: prototype cover.jpg (122KB, 933x740px) Image search: [Google]

122KB, 933x740px

Starting a new literary zine, would anyone pick this up if they saw the cover?

>>9908026
I'd most appreciate critique, advice, or just an opinion on my work.
Anything thrown in would be most loved, I'm just stuck on progressing it further, plus I want to see if there is anything I can change to help keep it flowing properly.

eventually you stop feeling hungry, and only feel sick and weak. small movements could ignite intense pain in my head, and lightheadedness, a combination of low blood sugar and low blood pressure.

(i devoured glass after glass of water. but constant drinking fumbled before constant thirst.)

(at some point the physical sensation of ‘hunger’ ceased, and was transmuted into a primal craving for food. the kind of desire that hovers in the depths of your animal brain and waits for its time to pounce. I’d spend most of my day as I usually did, without feeling a hint of hunger; but then, when my instincts could no longer bear it, I’d log onto Seamless and fill my cart with decadent dishes, salivating over their imagined tastes. but once I could think of nothing more to add, I had nothing left but to empty it and log out empty-handed.)

>>9914534
Succ? lmao.

the skeleton image is too low-quality desu.

>>9914765
I know, it's a prototype, gonna trace over it or something later.

>>9914765
Also, everyone likes succ so I thought it'd be a good name to appeal to the masses. Do you not enjoy succ, my dear friend, anon?

>>9914772
actually i think it's funny; i like it. makes me want to know what kind of writing would be in a magazine called succ.

>>9914770
in that case it's not bad. i feel like the composition might be improved a bit but I don't know enough about visual arts to offer advice.

i jammed my cock in her ass
felt good
oh no too far
its coming out her

mouth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnKI8xVqRqw

Billy Stanford went to jail on February 14th 2002, despite being convicted of involuntary man-slaughter Billy maintained he was innocent and had been set up, even when all attempts to prove this failed.

It was clearly Billy's fault, everyone from the Judge to Billy's own wife knew this.

Hannah, Billy's now ex-wife (the divorce papers cleared the day after Billy went inside) had provided a colorful character-assassination:

Billy was a drug-addict, a pill popper, a smoking fiend, an alcoholic -- no, an ABUSIVE ALCOHOLIC (the Judge asked, quite kindly, if Hannah had ever been physically harmed by her husband. Billy, along with his father, mother, and his drinking buddy Patrice, watched as Hannah protested Billy had never hit her once during the seven years they had bene together; but did so in such a way that it left no doubt in the minds of everyone in the court (until when suspicions later arised) that Billy had done just that, and her protestations were a symptom of the fear she felt that she might soon be at Billy's mercy once again.)

>>9913419
I liked this. Put me in a really good mood desu

>>9900437
>>9904888
>>9915128

What software and font do you guys use to write like that? Anything you write in that style seems so serious and professional.

File: image.jpg (181KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

181KB, 960x720px

>>9916531

>>9916531
What program did you use to get your font like that? It looks really professional.

>>9916578
retard that's anon's handwriting not everybody types out their bad writing in word docs all day

>>9916606
you fucking moron thats very clearly computer generated script. I work with Adobe After Effects for my day job. I can recognize CGI when I see it. I just wanna know what scripts/plugins he's using.

Let the adults talk and fuck off back to mommy's basement

>>9916341
Garamond font, I'm using word but copy pasting into paint when I need an image. Sometimes it will fuck up in paint so I just take a screenshot.

>>9916628
>day job
increasing the breast sizes of your chinese girl cartoons from dawn till dusk doesn't qualify as a day job, you goddam mong
if you did more than use the warp tool on futa cocks in After Effects, you'd know CGI couldn't possibly look like that
its a real notebook

>>9916665
>CGI couldn't possibly look like that
Being this unaware of how easily images like this can be generated

>>9916531
Last paragraph is unrelated anon but I think that's intentional.

>>9916548
Capitalize the R's near the end. Great penmanship, solid sentences. Just keep writing.

File: not_cgi.png (278KB, 1693x863px) Image search: [Google]

278KB, 1693x863px

>>9916703
>implying I didn't run digital forensics on it before I replied

>>9916756
You obviously have no concept of how cutting edge CGI is nowadays. I could make grainy notebook renders in Blender all day that would get past your trivial pixel-triangulation nanotexture-textile-typeface based DigiScan forensic software IF you paid me enough. I'm one of the best in the business, kid. I know what I'm talking about

>>9916851
Shows how much you know, faggot. You make smoothies in a Blender.
>software IF
Now you're just making things up.

>>9916756
If the anon who posted it made the image why would it be indexable

>>9916868
>indexable
I see I have to explain everything to you shits. It says "handwriting" when I put in the image, not "CGI."

>>9916864
I only make whey protein shakes in a blender. Only a WEAK BITCH would even CONSIDER making a womanly smoothie in a blender. You clearly don't lift and have lost this battle of wits.

Checkmate, friend. You've been a worthy foe. I doff my cap to you, m'sir.

File: image.jpg (200KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

200KB, 960x720px

>>9916875

>>9916871
If you put in a CGI image of a human face, guess what it will come up as: not "computer generated image" but "human face". In any case it doesn't matter. Anon already admitted that his post was CG

File: image.jpg (188KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

188KB, 960x720px

>>9916878

>>9916875
>>9916878
>>9916881

These are real handwriting tho, right? The difference between these and the earlier posts seems pretty evident to me.

File: 5654987464.jpg (58KB, 1280x800px) Image search: [Google]

58KB, 1280x800px

>>9916876

You were saying?

File: image.jpg (133KB, 960x720px) Image search: [Google]

133KB, 960x720px

>>9916887

>>9916905
Knew it. Unlike these
>>9916531
>>9916548
which are pretty obviously CG

what is the best font to use?

>>9917057
Ask the CGI guy what one he used. It looked pretty legit desu and you can probably find it on Word or something

>>9889356

That's a good improvement mate, be proud of being able to do that so quickly.

>>9889356

This is great. Will it stand on its own or will it be part of a larger piece?

"Out of Breath"

The bow, drawn taut, warns me
it will snap; splinters will
erupt, the arrow drop
its potency. I could pound
the wood to make pliant
the coiling sinews, but blood
and sap would fill my grooves
and damp the break.

This bow is used to strain.
It is an instrument of strain,
resigned to spasms
of archery, bent easy at the press
of a tussock in flesh wrapping,
harbouring well the unfelt energy
it bleeds into wood and twine.

I’m on the way to the bar. Down the road, off to the left, right past Sandy’s. The city’s dark, and there ain’t many people left outside. Those left are like me, those people with some semblance of choice left to make: left on a one-way track to the rest of their lives. Few can handle it; the rest just shut down and embrace the night life. They gamble or drink or whore. Alls that’s left is their momma’s love. Rest of ‘em embrace luna’s light and go crazy. I turn towards the bar, Rusty’s. Inside’s a drunk. There’s one light, swinging, above him. I musta agitated it coming in. There’s an older gentleman with a mustache and a black suit vest tending. Everything else is pitch black. I sit on the edge of the light, enough to see the selection of liquor. Out of the corner of my eye I see the drunk passed out. He’s directly underneath the light, which has mostly stopped swinging. I don’t know if there’s anyone else in the bar beside us three. But I know there’s something in the darkness; I feel it. Before the bartender comes over, I hear metal decompress -- a barstool. What is now a man walks towards me. I look into the darkness out of the corner of my eye. The church shoes footsteps stop at the edge of the light, right before I can see him. He sparks a light to his cigarette. In the instant his lips and teeth show in the orange light. He puffs and the cigarette butt turns to me. I can almost see his pearly whites in the light of the embers. He smiles, teeth and all, and smoke draws over me.
“Excuse me, sir."
The guy across the counter calls me and I turn coughing
“We're out of heineken."
What a joke.

Should I use more dialectical speech, or less? I don't know what kind of speech this is, it's more like how I imagined how the character would sound.

>>9892536
Are they at an airport? Give me something to hang on to while reading. A place to sit back and see the characters.

>>9893022
I don't know what this is trying to be, but it is rough. Would do to have a bit of a break between what's going on. But if it's supposed to be a slog, then you certainly achieved your goal.

File: 1.png (59KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

59KB, 1366x859px

Tell me how it is, /lit/. It's one of my first stabs at fantasy, and I honestly don't know.

Part of me wants to post it chapter by chapter online to try to garner a following, but I'm not sure.

1/12

File: 2.png (71KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

71KB, 1366x859px

>>9918116
2/12

File: 3.png (84KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

84KB, 1366x859px

>>9918118
3/12

File: 4.png (83KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

83KB, 1366x859px

>>9918121
4/12

File: 5.png (73KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

73KB, 1366x859px

>>9918125
5/12

File: 6.png (80KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

80KB, 1366x859px

>>9918135
6/12

File: 7.png (83KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

83KB, 1366x859px

>>9918139
7/12

File: 8.png (85KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

85KB, 1366x859px

>>9918148
8/12

File: 9.png (86KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

86KB, 1366x859px

>>9918151
9/12

File: 10.png (83KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

83KB, 1366x859px

>>9918160
10/12

>>9918116
>"Hey you!"

dropped; don't bother with the next 11

File: 11.png (81KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

81KB, 1366x859px

>>9918175
11/12

File: 12.png (56KB, 1366x859px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 1366x859px

>>9918182
12/12

>>9918186
>>9918182
Not bad enough to make me cringe but it's just uninspired and uninspiring. Find your voice.

>>9918116
I didn't bother reading when I noticed that almost every paragraph begins with "I [verb]ed..."

Nobody wants to read the same shit over and over,

>>9918116
Things become less valuable to publish when they are available for free. Build a following using similar, smaller works. Porn is a great way to get people interested in you. Youtube works ok too

>>9918204
>porn
If you literally do not care about your image, then sure. But any writer who takes themself seriously shouldn't do that

Still life

A girl of a white dress is holding a jittery basket.
And on the table
Two tangerines,
And on the street a passerby.

File: 830501653637723_13.png (51KB, 255x255px) Image search: [Google]

51KB, 255x255px

>>9916876
>not enjoying a delicious smoothie
we can't be friends

>>9916879
see >>9916905
>the handwriting is authentic
Why would anon lie? It's a good thing my opinions are not easily changed.

This powerful cold steel slab I hold in my two hands keeps me safe. I squeeze my finger gently and a crack rings in my ears and a burst of smoke and sparks sprays forth from the mouth of this steel dragon. It struggles and bucks in my hands like a wild animal, forcing itself back into me, bruising my shoulder and fighting to free itself from my grip. A killing bolt slams into the soft flesh of a man. His skin ripples, chest collapses in and back opens up like a flower of wet gore, insides become outsides, red specks and twisted rinds of fleshy husk are ripped away from his body, his life sucked out and evaporates upon the exit of that chunk of lead death. The life in his eyes snuffed out in an instant like a flame in a storm. There is smoke but no fire. The man is dead and I have killed him.

>>9918186
Formulaic. Devoid of emotion. No reader engagement. You tell too much and show too little. Your skeleton army is boring and your divine messenger seems like a disaffected clerk.

>>9918508
How would you suggest I improve "reader engagement"?

The skeleton army thing I understand, originally this was just a short story I wrote when I was bored between projects, but I decided to go back and expand upon it because I liked the world setting.

The divine messenger is supposed to be a disaffected clerk. I guess I didn't dwell on that too much, but I was hoping that would be a little clearer. It's not really a powerful diety, just one of many that is uninvested in the realm of men and hasn't the power to fulfill his requests.

https://pastebin.com/rZKzi8Qv

(full version above)

There was a pattern emerging which the British tabloids had yet to piece together, when they did (Russell thought it miraculous they still hadn't already) his part in the investigation would be finished.

So far, the boys were being treated as missing persons. Missing people, certainly good-looking teenage boys with bright futures ahead of them, would certainly be prone to youthful recklessness; for instance, who was to say they weren't bedding questionably aged girls, or boys for that matter, in some humid country? It wouldn't be the first time a young lad had been put down as missing only for him to return weeks later with a tan and a cheeky grin, and a perverse inclination for brown-skinned boys who looked like girls.

A month had passed since early November when Russell Peterson was given the lead in the investigation.

Oh, he was sure to be taken off the case any day now. Once the tabloids got wind of all this, Russell's superiors would find someone a good decade his junior to replace him. They'd been plotting to do that to him for years. But then Russell always seemed to come through in the end.

When November started only three young men were missing, that number grew to five by October. Russell had begun to lose faith.
Every night, after chasing leads, Russell would return to his car, drink his cold coffee, and stare out to the dark street and re-consider everything he thought he knew about the case.

His daughter, Abby, had once shown him an online video where several kids are chucking a basketball back and forth, the idea was you were supposed to count how many times the ball was passed from one kid to another. Russell had done just that, wavering between sixteen and seventeen times he saw the ball change hands. When he told his Abby this she giggled and said "Didn't you see the Gorilla, Daddy?" Abby played the video a second time. The second time, Russell ignored the kids passing the basketball around and instead looked for the gorilla and, just as Abby said, a man wearing a gorilla-costume walked to the centre screen, banged his chest a few times, then walked off. Russell had been so focused on the kids passing the ball around he missed the damn gorilla.
Come on, bastard. Where's the fucking gorilla this time?

Start with who's missing:

Sammy Anderson (marathon runner); Bradley Hopkins (long-jumper); Reece King (gymnast); Tyrese Kalil (Hurdler); Ricky Smith (diver).
They're all athletes. Connection number-one. They're all sixteen years of age. Connection number-two. They're all male. Connection number three. There's your pattern. Where's the fucking gorilla?

>>9918191
Ok, I suppose that can't be avoided because when I wrote it, I wrote it because I had an inkling to try fantasy, but really didn't want to. I ended up liking it though, so now I'm going back to turn it into a novel.

Any helpful advice about what could have been done differently? I was trying to come at it from a non traditional mindset so as not to fall into the trap of "a woodsguide searching for herbs gets caught up in magical shenanigans"

>>9918723
32 of your paragraphs all start with "I [do a thing]" which is incredibly boring to read over and over again.

Go back over it and just spice it up, bitch. Once you have the bones of your story its time to add some more nuanced muscles and tendons to make it really dance the fuck around. If you do that well enough maybe you could even give it some nice skin and jiggly ass n titties, make your story a nice thicc bih.

Also you switch tenses from time to time. But yeah the main critique I would give is you don't vary your sentence structure enough and it doesn't seem like you wanted to take the time to really expand or go into detail on some things.

Show don't tell is the first thing people tell you when writing, but it's an incredibly hard rule to follow.

>>9918736
You don't seem very good at taking notes

The wide, round rump straining against the purple lycra pants of the white woman in front of him in line at the corner shop stirred in D'Quan dim, dreamlike memories of the Serengeti buried in his blood, setting his heart pounding like a jungle drum and his long coal-black pestle nudging the fabric of his basketball shorts.
“Muh dick,” he mumbled wonderingly to himself. “Muh dick...muhfugga.”

>>9918830
NOBEL
PRIZE

>>9918252
I like what you're going for. It does indeed evoke the arrested tension of good still life. A few improvements could render it even more powerful.

>A girl of [why "of", instead of the more grammatically appropriate "in"?] a white dress is [insert a line break, to better simulate the flow of observation] holding a jittery basket.
>And on the table[,]
>Two tangerines.
>And on the street a passerby.

I love the last line, how its shape and sound plays with the human tendency of glaze over the final details of an artwork. Almost like the fading tail of a flourish in an elaborate signature.

>>9917448
This one's mine. May I please have some feedback.

>>9887709
Im learning to write in english
Can you guys tell me whats gramatically wrong??
https://pastebin.com/WsLRYL4V

I asked him
"did you know?
it helps to cut onions
while chewing gum"
he didn't know
I cried

>>9887921
Man that's boring.

Ovi aukesi, ja sisään hotellin kylpyhuoneeseen astui nuori mies. Mies tuuppasi kämmensyrjällä valokytkintä, ja valo syttyi päälle. Hän sulki ja lukitsi oven taakseen. Hän riisui yltään märät vaatteensa ja laittoi ne mustaan roskapussiin. Sitten hän käänsi päälle kuuman suihkun. Roskapussi jäi mustaksi mytyksi kylpyhuoneen lattialle. Mies oli yksin. Hän oli pituudeltaan satakahdeksankymmentäsenttimetriä ja risat, tavallisen näköinen, ja hänen vaaleat hiuksensa olivat lyhyet ja silmät harmaat. Jalkovälissä riippui paksu siitin jolla oli tukkana häpykarvoitus. Hän astui höyryävään suihkuun. Vaatteet, jotka hän sulloi roskapussiin, olivat märät siitä syystä että hän juuri raiskasi ojassa naisen. Ennen tätä aamua hän ei ollut raiskannut. Hän hinkkasi sukuelimensä huolellisesti palasaippualla ja kuumalla vedellä. ...Se oli ihan näppärän näköinen lenkkeilijätär. Tyttö valikoitui hänen uhrikseen sattumalta. Itse hän arvioisi uhrinsa olleen piirun verran alle täysi-ikäinen. Se oli melkein kuin he olisivat voineet olla pari jos asiat olisivat menneet toisin, mikä huvitti häntä: hän oli itse kaksikymmentäyksi. Tyttö oli aamulenkillä, hän oli parkkeerannut autonsa vähän kauemmaksi, ja loput saattoi kuvitella.
Suihkun jälkeen, hän laittoi käyttämänsä saippuan (samaan) roskapussiin ja solmi pussinsuun kiinni. Roskapussin hän suunnitteli vievänsä myöhemmin jäteastiaan. Hän ehti jo hävittää yhden todistekappaleen: Adidaksen takin jossa oli turhankin tunnistettavat raidat hihoissa. Sen hän sulloi linja-autopysäkin roskikseen tekopaikan läheisyydessä tapahtumakaupungissa Espoossa. Espoosta hän sitten ajoi autollaan Helsinkiin, jossa nyt oli.

>>9918830
One of the most accurate descriptions of what its like to see white women as black man that I've ever read.

OP is certainly a brother.