/crit/ - Writing Critique General

“What?” the vendedor sounded hoarse with his parted mouth, all dry. His eyes winced under the overcast sun.
“Dos.” the niñita said, holding up two digits.
“Just two? For sure.” he replied, handing her two pieces of Pan de Muerto – bread to honour the dead. Today was the Day of the Dead, on one of the hottest November days in Puebla’s history, and it was only the second of the month. Tasting of anise and sugar, the baked dough was velvety on her irregularly pink tongue, she gulped down a handful of it at a time.
“Muy bien.”
He nodded at her without understanding. Her lips, which were once pursed and pale, became ruby and beamed into a smile. The vendedor continued to nod at her as she walked away, leaving to go find the sombrero-wearing clown who made balloon animals. When she came to find him, hobbled over a stool by a wheeled cart drawn by a donkey, she introduced herself as Julia Ramirez. Julia, she said, because she was named after Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman. Her mother adored that film. The red, fake nose bobbed up and down as the clown only nodded in an absent sort-of way.
“Dog?” he asked, gesturing towards something that had four legs and a tail, with a long piece of balloon that looked like a sausage for a face.
“No,” she said. “Un gusano.”
“Un gusano?” he tried to say the foreign words, and failed with his thick Puebla accent. “What’s that?”
Eventually, after failing to convey to him what she meant in her words, she mimed a worm to a tee and pointed at the ground, at which point he knew what she wanted. The clown shrugged his padded shoulders, which sat under a sombrero, one part of a colourfully blotched costume. Then producing a deflated balloon, all shrivelled and deep green. She had her balloon worm now, and her bread that she’d almost entirely consumed. When she leaned in to kiss the clown’s orange face, he reeled back and told her to mind the makeup.
“The makeup! You’re crazy, kid, do you speak any Spanish? You’re, how you say in English?”
Pausing, snapping his fingers to recall, he finally found it from all the movies he watched back at home on VHS.
“Loco.”
She only furrowed her brow, then said: “Habla usted Inglés?”
Nothing.
This time she would try out her Spanish: “English? Any English?”
“I don’t speak English sorry. You must be a tourist. A tour-ist.” he said slowly. “Understand? Well, I can’t help you anymore. Beat it.”
The clown upon giving up on the little American girl, rolled a greyhound cigarillo and gestured at her to buzz off. But she only stared up at him with big, lilac eyes.

The Elven sentries shrank from the glaring sun to the canopy of the Great Tree. They were particularly tired that day, so they played games of cards and dice.

‘Hot day today, yeah?’, one said while taking a sip from his leather flask. And when his mates didn’t respond he added: ‘right, boys?’ And since he’d gambled everything already he sighed and got up and threw his arms over the walls’ battlements. Out of habit, he unstringed his bow and then waxed it then restrung it. Looking over the horizon, he thought he saw something near the mountains. He squinted. They were getting closer too. Dragons? No, can’t be dragons, they’re too small. They got closer still and he saw that they were made of metal and that they flapped no wings but seemed to float somehow. He shouted again to the other sentries: ‘Get over here, and someone sound the bell, I see something’. At least, he would’ve said that but for the bullet embedded in his throat and for the blood that escaped his chest.

>>9921171
“Beat it.” His eyes shifted to the balloon dog, broiling with contempt, they were all sunken and ribbed with dark lines. The object of his contempt, something so close yet so far away. Balloon dog. Or was it a dog balloon? Either way, it was one of his greatest shames, yes, which he could never quite pull off. An animal too hard to wrangle, not like a snake or an elephant, which were straight forward. Bringing up the ember of his cigarillo, the balloon burst with a loud pop, descending into several ribbons of red rubber.
Then when the big, lilac eyes wouldn’t go away, he pretended he was going to burn her too, and that’s when the niñata finally left.
“Loco!” she said to him as she stormed off, holding one piece of bread left.

>>9921172
It's alright, if not a little cliche. Descriptions would be nice since this isn't really some minimalist realism, but high fantasy - I think.

File: Incomplete chapter one.png (98KB, 1463x863px) Image search: [Google]

98KB, 1463x863px

Is this a good start? I feel like I fizzled out near the end.

>>9921380
>whom I am working with mutual goals
Shouldn't it be "whom I am working with for mutual goals" or "whom I am working with. Mutual goals, you see."

Help me Lit
A cockroach zigzags across the floor in a quest for nourishment. Cockroaches can survive nuclear warfare. I cannot. People residing in conflict zones cannot. I go to kill the cockroach. I go to kill the people in conflict zones. I want the cockroach to die because its deformed looks undermimes the mahogany floor I worked overtime to pay for. The cockroach doesn’t have to live but I have to have this mahogany floor. The cockroach doesn’t deserve to live but here it is, surviving nuclear warfare. I often kill things I do not like. Cockroaches, radiostations, black children with bloated bellies. I don’t want the latter to die. I just don’t care. I want the cockroach to die because it annoys me. Some things that annoy me are cockroaches and rain and people who care way too much about football. You annoy me to. You are a cockroach, you think I don’t see you but I do. Right now you’re zigzagging through the mahogany floor that is my mind in a quest for nourishment. You’re going to die. I’m going to kill myself and you will die. I’m going to kill myself and you and the cockroach and every single child in Africa. But first I’m gonna pick a tie.
How long have I been here, how long have these human acts of depravity been allowed to continue? Should I continue? Should I continue to follow the path set for me or write my own story? Should I continue to abuse these meaningless acts of selfhate? Im still forming human thoughts and sentences any man could understand. Can anyone hear this? I’ve lost all feeling but I still know the I am feeling.
These mahogany floors are my existential domain. You and the rest of my people will never disobey me. Mindless drones foaming at the mouth for the opportunity to die for something they don’t understand. But they don’t die. Cockroaches always survive. I always survive. Here I am zigzagging on a floor that used to be my kingdom. My life has ended but my quest has just begun.

>>9921462
Too repetitious. If you're going with this first person repetition style, I suggest you read "Molloy" by Beckett to see it done well.
6.5/10 though, I think you have a good mental image and sticking to it. If this is the start, you'll just need to space out the repetition throughout the work. Introduce more things, and stop having so many questions together like that. Doing a dozen at once is a little overkill.

This didn't get a response the last time I posted it. I improved it a bit and added more.

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. People with some semblance of choice left to make. We’re on a one-way track to the rest of our 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, ha, but never me.
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, right before I can see him. What the fuck? He sparks a light to his cigarette. In the instant his lips and teeth show in the orange luminescence. 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."
Who the fuck drinks Heineken?

Part 1 of 2

>>9921685
“We're out of Heineken."
Who the fuck drinks Heineken? I turn back to the darkness – to my left. The teeth are gone with the light. A hand slams in front of me from my right. The drunk is eyeing me up.
“Yer a goood kid. Shame.”
He stumbles as he shuffles his legs away from me.
“Buut yoouu got a long way. To go. To get where I- where I…. am.”
Fucking rancid old man. The smell in his coat would represent death in some pretentious novel, I’m sure.
“Your wife was a beaut.”
Before I can ask, he shows me the picture in the newspaper.
“Thas youu, righ? I remember my glory days too. Here read the – uh – article. I gotta take a wiz.”
He goes off into the darkness, but his figure’s never gone. He’s a grey shadow.
Lucy. She made it on the front page, but only because everything thinks I did it. It’s impossible to prove my innocence, that’s why it’s a good thing they have to prove my guilt. And I’d never. Never -- you fucking hear me? Kill my wife. She saw through me like I was a ghost. She’d never leave my mind even if I hated her guts; that’s why the only choice I had was to love her. It’s just like the news to pull the sheet over everyone’s heads and tell who did what. Try to copy what she did; if she was here, she’d know if I did or didn’t do it. She’d see my eyes and…
The bartender, thinking I didn’t hear him or forgot about him, just went back to polishing glasses. I felt kinda bad just noticing now. So I tried to get his attention

“Hheeeyyyy.”
But before I can, those white teeth call to me. They chatter offbeat without that cig. He hasn’t closed his mouth all the way. There’s something in there. I can’t make out his face. But I can see his eyes in the dim light, bloodshot, huge black pupils. He blinks with a soft squishy sound.
“You know. I think I know her.”
His slow, meticulous whisper crowds my mind. Chatter.
“Yesss. Someone came in here. Looking for her. He gave me a picturrrre.”
He takes it out of his throat with a whispery groan. I want to ask who, but my voice is frozen. I don’t know. It’s as if I’m looking into tiny moons. His teeth and eyes are almost glowing with obsession. His will tears me down. I- I don’t know.
His eyes squint with a squish.
“Heee said he was looking for someone else tooo.”
His teeth chattered off.
“Someone like. You.”

Part 2 of 2

>>9921462
>looks undermimes the mahogany floor
undermines*
>You annoy me to
too*
Spread out the questions
That style of writing is so much fun. What I used to do is take an idea and build on it sentence by sentence until a full idea is realized with smaller tiny ones. That could be an interesting combination with the small questions, spacing them and building. From what I see you need to take this and build up, but from what I see it's more of a 1-shot fever dream than an articulated piece. See what you dislike or find icky after a little while and rewrite. If you want more from it you have to give it more. Build a setting where we can see zigzagging.

If you want critique purely on writing? Your grammar is refreshing considering many people here pile on the semi-colons. Diction does give a sense of anxiety, but perhaps too repetitive to keep interest. The premise and information (setting, etc) we know just isn't enough for me to really pinpoint any real emotions. Do more.

>>9921171
>Today was the Day of the Dead, on one of the hottest November days in Puebla’s history
are you reading off a guide book? You can make this more interesting.

>he tried to say the foreign words, and failed with his thick Puebla accent.
>Eventually, after failing to convey to him what she meant in her words, she mimed a worm to a tee and pointed at the ground, at which point he knew what she wanted.
You can make these more interesting
ex. The thick Puebla accent caught his tongue as he spoke. (I dont know what a Puebla accent is, substitute for why he would fail at saying these words)
ex. She let out a sigh, and then had an idea. She mimed a worm to a tee and pointed at the ground, at which point he knew what she wanted.
Focus on creating sentences, as I did in the second sentence. I don't know how you read, but things are much better to me when information is compact. Reading that sentence was like getting my brain twisted, fyi.

Give us some more information on how she would talk. When she says “English? Any English?” I have trouble imagining how she would say it. On my first read that sentence was enunciated, taking me out of the environment completely.

Full of heart. I love it. Just give it more atmosphere and really make me there, and I could get lost in something like that. You have all the pieces, you just have to put them together.

Thanks a lot, im the guy with the zigzag story, will come back with a corrected piece in a couple of hours seeing as this was more a first draft. Its for school so it isn't going to be much longer than it already is

Here's a poem in prose I wrote.

As a Slav, mine is to be sensual. Apres le deluge, to say after the rain, I have climbed on a hill and observed the City in the mountain's end. I have seen many minarets which I didn't differentiate from factory chimneys. I watched the never ending connection of earth and sky -- a thick, cobweb-like miasma similar to mother's tablecloths. I had observed beech and oak; pine and elderberry becoming ghastly-green -- only have the minarets jutted out from trees like shiny needles from knitting. As far I see it, there exists one pattern -- man's direct pattern of visible things whose knitwear have we shredded and weaved according to our fashion; and another pattern of purple gases whose silhouette we see at night, to which the minarets aim to interweave it with ours.

Empress Wei kept her composure through the tiring ceremony, the crowd of bald monks endlessly chanting and banging great brass gongs that monotonously reverberated around the great central hall. The elegantly dressed woman's painted face remained completely placid despite her terminal boredom, she was adapted to this and knew how to hide her apathy. The only betrayal of her true feelings being her finger endlessly rubbing against the smooth wood of her throne. These religious ceremonies were always a drag, the same thing every week; it almost made her want to cancel the whole thing, but the outcry and drama would surely be not worth it. With the subtle wave of a hand she beckoned over a servant, the one closest in proximity immediately responding by walking over and bending so the Empress may whisper. "Prepare my chamber and call in a harem girl. I'll have Liu tonight, I think."

"At once, your majesty." the servant said with a nodding head, not caring about her lewd request during such a holy ceremony.

"Oh, and tell her to bring 'her', she'll understand.

"Yes, your majesty." were the parting words, the servant marching down the halls of the palace with purpose.

Reluctantly Wei returned to observing the ceremony, at least now with something to look forward to.

---

Liu entered the Empress's special chamber wearing nothing but a thin silk garb, her hands clasped at her lap respectfully. The lavish room was well lit and warmed, decorated with fine tapestry on the walls and subtly scented with perfume. The entire floor was composed of soft fabric, pillows and other such things accentuating the comfortableness. The only sections not covered was a small lip at the entrance to leave one's shoes and a rectangular raised portion acting as a table. The Empress was already waiting here, kneeling low at the table that held a wooden box, two cups and a bottle of rice wine. The older woman's smooth face smiled at her expected guest, gesturing to take a seat, to which Liu gladly took, removing her slippers and feeling the silky ground beneath her feet.

"Did you bring her?" asked the older woman, her dark hair tied in a bun behind her head.

"I did." the harem girl confirmed, unfolding her palms to reveal a tiny woman resting on her fingers, her skin pale and body well-fed; Liu knew how to keep her pets. She dropped the tiny woman, not even as tall as her shortest finger, on the table, opposite to the box and rice wine bottle that towered over her. Liu had affectionately named this one 'Flower', which she though was applicable to her delicateness. Flower rested her naked body on her knees, bowing her head and waiting further commands.

>>9922013
>never ending
neverending
It's pretty good overall, I like it. 7.5/10

Hey lit I've applied some of your advice and made a second revision of the zigzag story. I still feel like its lacking something - any ideas?
A cockroach zigzags across the floor in a quest for nourishment. Cockroaches can survive nuclear warfare. I cannot. People residing in conflict zones cannot. I go to kill the cockroach. I go to kill the people in conflict zones. I want the cockroach to die because its deformed looks undermine the mahogany floor I worked overtime to pay for. The cockroach doesn’t have to live but I must have this mahogany floor. The cockroach wouldn’t deserve life in my ideal society but here it is, surviving both nuclear warfare and a blatant attack on my IKEA catalogue Livingroom. I often kill things I do not like; end them, destroy their very being. Cockroaches, radio stations, black children with bloated bellies and flies in their hungry desperate eyes. I don’t want the latter to die. I just don’t care. I want the cockroach to die because it annoys me. Some things that annoy me are cockroaches and rain and people who care way too much about politics. You annoy me too. You are a cockroach; you think I don’t see you but I do. Right now, you’re zigzagging through the mahogany floor that is my mind in a quest for nourishment. You’re going to die. I’m going to kill myself and you will die. I’m going to kill myself and you and the cockroach and every single child in Africa. But first I’m going to assemble this STRANDMON wing chair which is going to be accessory to my crimes against nature until I replace it with something more sleek and expensive.
How long have I been here? I know that I am here at least. My eyes are telling my brain that I am looking at a cockroach currently running towards my bathroom door. This much I know, but for how long have these acts of human depravity been allowed to continue? Should I continue? I’m still forming human thoughts and sentences any man could understand; perhaps even articulate. Can anyone hear this? I’ve lost all feeling but I still know that I am feeling.
These mahogany floors are my existential domain. My territory. I am the bay of pigs and you are 1400 cuban exiles. Who sent you? I’m okay you know. Look at my floors, see my consumption – is it not beautiful?
But suddenly I’m the intruder, watch me as I dart across this beautiful, dark, exotic smelling floor that cost several trees lives. Left, right, north, south, zig, zag.

A carpet settled over clods and ridges
of air: a prussian blue, lush and regal,
with pinstriped arcing bays and secret lagoons
of dark ultramarine;
where sky and sand are mirrors to the sheeny sea,
and the undulating bank of down tickles
our naked skin, dips its wispy tendrils
in our secret shadows.
Let me touch you, let my fingertips assume
the font of creation: every perfect
spiral slithers, like none other,
down your bosom, which roils and heaves
and catches at my passage.
Look in my eyes. Your eyes reflect the sky,
empyreal mirror to the ocean under
your seat; your volcanic cheeks
stretch the moment of eruption.
Your fingers plough my virgin back,
your feet my buttocks;
your alacritous sighs, like cinder sizzling
on a coastal night, swell and rise
with the pulsing of your breast
into secret clefts of air,
and meet mine.
Our sweeping and clenching has gathered
the sea into a bevy of surf-lathered islets.
What is an earthquake but the earth
in communion with itself?
A carpet settled over clods and ridges
of air: a prussian blue, lush and regal,
with pinstriped arcing bays and secret lagoons
of dark ultramarine;
where sky and sand are mirrors to the sheeny sea,
and the undulating bank of down tickles
our naked skin, dips its wispy tendrils
in our secret shadows.
Let me touch you, let my fingertips assume
the font of creation: every perfect
spiral slithers, like none other,
down your bosom, which roils and heaves
and catches at my passage.
Look in my eyes. Your eyes reflect the sky,
empyreal mirror to the ocean under
your seat; your volcanic cheeks
stretch the moment of eruption.
Your fingers plough my virgin back,
your feet my buttocks;
your alacritous sighs, like cinder sizzling
on a coastal night, swell and rise
with the pulsing of your breast
into secret clefts of air,
and meet mine.
Our sweeping and clenching has gathered
the sea into a bevy of surf-lathered islets.
What is an earthquake but the earth
in communion with itself?

>>9922231
Shit. Accidentally double posted.
It ends at the first "in communion with itself".

>>9922237
really enjoyable reading -
would use another word than bosom seeing as it has a strange eloquence in my opinion.

Hey /lit/ I'm starting poetry and I'd like an opinion on my first one since I have no idea where else to go, rip me apart like a white woman in Nigeria if you must.


I am Nguyen.

Red runs our color from the north,
It isn't just blood but our ideology put forth,
On the trail to the south we never rest,
Two enemies always putting us to the test,
One close to our blood, spoiled and rotten,
The other, invaders of foreign men.

I am Charlie.

Darkness, humid air, as I slither through these walls of dirt,
I watch outside my cavern into the viridian Empire,
awaiting the guns to march through the muggy mire,
Uncle has imbued in us hate,
It is the only way we can succeed in our fate

Am I Nguyen?

They come now, I hear them through the trees,
My arm is aimed yet behind me a sound makes me cease,
Rats, vicious Rats flooding in our domain,
I rush out into the open, where the events chain,
A Dragon! A Dragon! In the sky the mighty invader fly!
I welcome it, I have no fear of the situation dire!
Upon me the Dragon blows its mighty breath of fire!

Tôi là Charlie!

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.

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.

>>9922569
edited:
>I am Nguyen.
>Red runs our color from the north,
>On the trail to the south we never rest for
>One close to our blood, spoiled and rotten,
>The other, invaders to us foreign.

>I am Charlie.
>Humid air, as I slither through these walls of dirt,
>I watch outside into the viridian Empire,
>awaiting the guns to march through the muggy mire.

>Am I Nguyen?
>They come now,
>My arm is aimed yet behind me:
>Rats, vicious Rats in our domain,
>I rush out into the open,
>A Dragon! A Dragon! In the sky the invader fly!
>I welcome it, I have no fear of the situation
>Upon me the Dragon blows its mighty breath of fire!

>Tôi là Charlie!

or something
many unnecessary adjectives, many trite and overused compositions
I'd give it a 4/10

>>9922642
Thanks, I appreciate it. Although I don't think I'd cut
>Two enemies always putting us to the test
since I think it makes the following lines kinda gibberish but that's just how I see it

In the cold, self-imposed
Not yet fully,
Decomposed

Through fire and flame
Vietnam Joe, my name
Walked insane
Heart pain...

In the cold, self-imposed
Not yet fully,
Decomposed

Head on, charge
Follow my lead
Sarge!

Medic didn't hear
LZ isn't clear
Helo cannot land
Blood has turned to sand

man with broken mind
a lunatic in despair
wants to hug the moon

File: image.jpg (144KB, 827x517px) Image search: [Google]

144KB, 827x517px

>>9923748
a pooinloo tries to
write a poem
w/his ass on his
toilet paper wrist

>>9922642
Thank you, hey, for looking at my thing but your suggestions are crap. Why are you even critiquing? Cringe as fuck, honestly.

>>9923774
I just had a thought and wanted to post it somewhere.
I have never read a book in my whole life.

>>9923781
nigger why are you telling my critic that shit for attention when I already answered him

>>9921685
>>9921694
To be completely honest, I don't like it. Barely got through half of it. It reads like a lesser Bukowski.

>>9924574
I agree it's shit. I need to make everything much better than it is. Stronger characters. Stronger presence of tone. Just reading it again makes me feel like I don't know what I'm doing with it.

>>9924574
Thanks for responding btw

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I am not very good at this, alas my shot at some genre trash

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KPzDXPqyfCAIHMiAANEYodDtRabJxQw44rxKmXR_PxI/edit?usp=drivesdk

>>9921380
Run on sentence first goddamn sentence how have you not killed yourself?

>>9924759
read pinecone

>>9921685
The speaker sounds fabricated, insincere. You're young, not as smart as you think you are, or you don't write enough.

>>9922013
>I watched the never ending connection of earth and sky

The sky is part of the Earth. This is like saying you watched the grass touch the ground. Oh really? SOOO profound.

Like everyone here you try to hard to sound like something. And you don't even know what you want to sound like.

>>9922588
Good luck getting that shit published anywhere. No one gives a fuck about this stuff.

>>9924765
A good writer can break any rule they want because it won't effect the flow. That person is not good enough to fuck

>>9924786
*affect

>>9924774
hey, fuckface, I didn't capitalize the E in earth, because I meant the physical ground, not the planet Earth. Earth, as in dirt, ground.

>>9924786
So only do it if you're famous?

>>9924805
The sky fucking ends its not unending you fuck

>>9924826
If you've been praised for your writing style. If you haven't follow the goddamn rules.

>>9924833
sure it does end.
for you.

>>9924833
That depends which way you're going. Walk as far as you like, you won't find it.

>>9924835
So what you're telling me and by extension /lit/ the rules can be broken knowingly by an established writer, in which they are called as effective, poetic, dashing. Done equally knowingly by people who have been recently published, it can look weak or presumptuous. Done by inspiring writers, it is awful. Even though all three broke the rules and therefore all three should have been met the same reaction.

>>9924849
No, see, being praised for your writing style generally means you know what you're doing. If you know the rules, then you can break them. If you don't even know the difference between 'aspiring' and 'inspiring', you need more practice.

>>9924843
The sky is just a surrounding roof. It ends. Thinking horizontally on Earth is boring and uninspired.

His fingers danced an arpeggio and the crowd went wild. It took the form of a singing bird and although pleasant to the ear, it struck firmly at his opponents’ pierced ears and the corners of the purple-lipped lead guitarist drooped. And he played. His hair shook and his hands blurred across the electric guitar and he shouted. The drums kicked in and soon the spectral form of the skeleton king lifted itself from the stage, its eyes glimmered and then a sword materialised in its hand and he lifted it and brought it down on the banjoist.

He tumbled to the side, landing gracefully on his feet, and began to sing. His melody was soothing, gentle at first and everyone weeped, but then he crescendoed and he increased the tempo from an alegretto to a presto and the stage shook. His opponents: the band, were crying and rolling on their backs now and so he took a curt bow. The audience applauded.

>>9924862
You're thinking horizontally; if you go in a straight line then you'll eventually pass the sky. I'm thinking with spheres. Get on my level.

>>9924870
You proved me right. It ends. That was the fucking point. It isnt unending. It was if you were living 10000 years ago. Now its a cliche.

>>9924849
There's a difference between choosing to omit certain convetions in order to convey emotion and being someone who can't use a period instead of a comma. The run on sentence is hard to spot if you suck at writing, which most peopled do, and everyone does it. Especially in the first person because a comma SOUNDS right but it's wrong. I wouldnt complain if the WHOLE thing was a run on setence (DFW did this very well in a short story)

>>9924875
Circles don't end. Spheres are infinite circles. The sky is a sphere, therefore the sky is never-ending and infinite.

>>9924881
Integral calculus would like to have a word with you

>>9924882
I'm not sure what it hopes to prove with just one word. It'll struggle to communicate anything much with that.

>>9924881
Spheres are not infinite circles. They are just the accumlated surface area (and resulting volune) of points of equal radius of infinite LINES from a common center that expand to a given.
Learn some fucking math you pleb.

>>9924891
given XYZ axis* god damn I'm too drunk for this

>>9924897
on any given XYZ plane* that's closer to sounding not stupid

>>9924891
The surface of a sphere is made up of an infinite number of circumferences, which are circles.
>circ

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>>9924866
This is exemplary of pleby, try-hard writing. A paragon of overdone garbage, the sort of writing we can only picture being done with a big purple plumed pen. Something from a boy with a spinning fedora & a signed xkcd poster on his wall, looming in the reflection of his browser opened with 4 cracked.com tabs.

>>9924902
A determined volume is not infinite. Its sets or pieces are infinite. You can literally determine the volume of the sky with shit that Isaac Newton figured out in the 1700s

>>9924906
Surfaces are not volumes.

>>9924881
This is some Fox News tier logic

>>9924908
Surface area has been measurable for hundreds of years. Its not a novel concept.

>>9924766
Thank you. Any idea on what makes him sound fabricated? Is it just too cliche?

>>9924910
Yes but circles only have height and width. No depth. The surface of a sphere is an infinite number of circles all slightly rotated to make a three dimensional object.

>>9924913
You use ain't and then semblance. If you want a mixed bag (dem mufuckas reputed as fuck but you know we clandestined their bitch ass) you have to work at it. Otherwise stick to simpler words if ain't is so important. If not, ditch it, and be consistent.

>>9924913
Then this corny ass shit
>We’re on a one-way track to the rest of our lives.

If you want to make the character pseudo intellectual you have to push it. Drive it harder. If you thought that was clever you should try rapping instead.

>>9922013
The sky never really touches the ground. If anything the clouds are the bottom of it, th.

>>9924923
Stars are in the sky too. Space is in the sky. I think people are confusing 'sky' with 'atmosphere'.

>>9924903
How do I improve? I know I'm shitty at writing but are there any specifics I can work on?

>>9924944
Read more. Think critically about what you're reading and writing.

>>9924917
>>9924920
>>9924574
>>9921685

I worked on it a bit more. What do you think?

Part 1 of 2

I’m on the way to the bar. Down the road, off to the left, right past Sandy’s. The moon’s full today. I got work to get back to. Just sitting and thinking while I’m on break. There aren’t many places bright enough to see your shadow at this time. That guy passed out next to Rusty’s; I know him. I see him on my way back sometimes. There’s his little cup too. I put a five underneath a brick.

I turn towards the bar. Inside’s a drunk. There’s one light swinging above him. I must’ve agitated it coming in. The moonlight comes in to cover the right side. Everything else is pitch black. There’s an older gentleman with a mustache and a black suit vest tending. I take the seat I always take. The guy on my right smells like shit.

It’s cold in here. Before the bartender comes over, I hear metal decompress to my left -- a barstool. I can hear footsteps. There’s a quick second of anxiety. They stop at the edge; where I can’t see a damn thing. He sparks a light to his cigarette. His lips and teeth show in the orange luminescence. He puffs and the cigarette butt turns to me. I can almost see his teeth in the embers. He smiles, and smoke draws over me.
“Excuse me, sir."
The guy across the counter calls me and I turn coughing
“We're out of Heineken."
Who the fuck drinks Heineken? I turn back. The teeth are gone. A hand slams in front of me from my right.
“Yer a goood kid. Shame.”
He stumbles as he shuffles his legs away from me.
“Buut yoouu got a long way. To go. To get where I- where I…. am.”
Now that’s a smell.
“Your wife was a beaut.”
Before I can ask, he shows me the picture in the newspaper.
“Thas youu, righ? I’m sorry son. Here read the – uh – article. I gotta take a wiz.”

>>9925007
Part 2

Lucy. She made it on the front, but only because I’m the one blamed for it. She saw through me like I was a ghost. She’d never leave my mind even if I hated her guts; that’s why the only choice I had was to love her. She was there in my arms.

I thought about the bartender. I thought I would call out.

“Heeeyyyy.”
But, that guy calls to me instead. His teeth chatter offbeat without that cigarette. He hasn’t closed his mouth all the way. There’s something in there. I can see his eyes in the dim light, bloodshot. He blinks with a soft squishy sound.
“You know. I think. I know her.”
His slow, meticulous whisper crowds my mind. Chatter.
“Yes. Someone -- came in here. Looking for her. He gave me a picturrrre.”
The picture in there. I want to ask who, but my voice is frozen. I don’t know. He’s so cold.
His eyes squint with a squish.
“He said he was looking for someone else tooo.”
His teeth chattered off.
“Someone like. You.”
I hit him impulsively.

“Hey!”
The bartender grabs my jacket. He lets go with a shove.I'm only not out of here because of my wife.
I don’t see him anymore. I pick up the newspaper and go sit down at one of the booths. If I see him again, he’s a dead man.
With that moon I can see my shadow in the light. Damn that guy was a jackass.

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>>9924944
3 words in & my body did what Spongebob is doing there. And since your not describing a nose job, I shouldn't be spazzing out—read the meme trilogy & you'll be less terrible.

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>>9925017
>>9925007
Any ass can assimilate the main points of yr attitude toward bars but in order to enjoy this priceless art the good reader must wish to visualize the arrangement of a boozers, the bar, its location on the street as it was when you vizzied it. Here word diagrams would be most helpful.

>>9925017

Hit it!
This ain't no disco
And it ain't no country club either,
This is L.A.

All I want to do is have a little fun before I die
Says the man next to me out of nowhere
It's apropos of nothing he says his name is William
But I'm sure he's Bill or Billy or Mac or buddy

And he's plain ugly to me, and I wonder if he's ever
Had a day of fun in his whole life

We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday
In the bar that faces the giant car wash
And the good people of the world
Are washing their cars on their lunch breaks
Hosing and scrubbing as best they can
In skirts and suits

And they drive their shiny Datsuns and Buicks
Back to the phone company, the record stores, too
Well, they're nothing like Billy and me

I like a good beer buzz, early in the morning
Billy likes to peal the labels from his bottles of bud
He shreds them on the bar then he lights up every match
In an over-sized pack letting each one burn
Down to his thick fingers before blowing and
Cursing them out, he's watching
The bottles of bud as they spin on the floor

And a happy couple enters the bar
Dangerously, close to one another
The bartender looks up from his want ads

Otherwise the bar is ours, the day and the night
And the car wash, too, the matches and the
Buds, and the clean and dirty cars,
The sun and the moon


>This is a pop song
>It evokes your scene better
>See if you can figure out how

>>9924756
I physically cannot read fantasy written in present tense. It just doesn't make sense to me. Saw your stuff on the /sffg/ thread as well.
Fantasy seems to sound better in past tense.
I have no other input because I couldn't be bothered to read it further.

>>9924866
This is basically Kvothe but written in 3rd person rather than 1st. Only difference is that Kvothe reads better. Meh all around.

>>9921399
I see I've already changed it. Is there anything else you wish to add?

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I'm making a zine and this is the cover art I came up with. Thoughts, /lit/?

>>9926605
the placement of "mu" and "uerte" look random as fuck and hurt to look at

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>>9926649
It's supposed to be that the words aren't complete on the front cover and you have to look at the back to get it. Like so

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>>9926657

>>9926694
Nice, what's this from? Yours?

https://vocaroo.com/i/s02YSka9tgPL

WASTE YOUR TIME
STUDY THE SEWER

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>>9926657
Skeleton: Badass
Religious skeleton: Dhheeeep
Muerte is like español for DEATH
SUCC is internet slang and ironic cuz like what are you going to say we suck? Said it first!
Chinga tu madre or whatever maricone jaja

>>9927923
:(

I hate waking up to birds in the morning. Everday at the crack of dawn they start chitchatting away. I don't know how many times it takes a bird to say "good morning", but I think it's a lot. They open their tiny triangular beaks and burst into a harmony all at once, like bored children on a school bus. Each tweet is high-pitched, with vibration in the middle, and then a pause before the next. After having listened to the same discord every morning, I know they are wrens. Some people believe there's a certain natural harmony or peace within listening to wren chirps, but it's not true. They're the bugs of the bird world. No bigger than the palm of my hand, with short bodies and proportionally fat heads. I don't know much about the kinds and classes of wrens that might inhabit other corners of the country, but the kind that takes resident outside my window is drab brown, brown like the soil that accumulates in the grooves of my shoes after a few months of wear. They don't make nests in trees like normal birds either. They live in tree cavities, small gaps in the earth, and other bottom-dweller abodes. And they can scatter as fast as any cockroach.
I don't understand why wrens make music as early as they do, and less do I understand why they all sing simultaneously. If you're a male wren, and you have to woo a mate, wouldn't you chirp during the most quiet hours, when the other birds have fallen silent? At least, it would be a shrewd decision for the weak wrens, who are probably outshined by their boisterous friends. I know birds don't have that kind of tact. They have few basic desires. They eat insects, and want more insects. They mate, and mate again next season. If only I had a few less desires, I think I would be happier. To do the same thing every day without doubt would be a blessing. They don't understand how good they've got it.

>>9921172
Not bad. Conveys tedium without being tedious. However, I'm not a fan of the 'bait and switch' death towards the end. It doesn't surprise the reader but instead annoys. I take it they are encountering tech well beyond their experiences? Show that. We know it's a 'bullet', they don't. To them it's a '...high pitched buzz from over the wall, followed by a far-off crack, not unlike thunder'.

>>9921380
Yikes. I'm trying to be a dick here but I'm think you're either very young or English isn't your first language. Either way, the solution is the same; read more. A lot more. Read critically. Your structure and grammar is all over the place. Try reading aloud. Don't give up but you've got a long way to go.

>>9921685
I'm not against the use of short sentences and sentence fragments to control pacing but I feel that you overuse them. You wrote, 'I want to ask who, but my voice is frozen. I don’t know. It’s as if I’m looking into tiny moons. His teeth and eyes are almost glowing with obsession.' Consider this, 'I want to ask who but my voice is frozen and I stare at him as if looking into tiny moons, his teeth and eyes glowing as though obsessed.' Do you see how the pace has quickened, making it easier to read? Pacing is very important. Think of your prose in a musical sense.

>>9922015
Well, your plot does have me wonder what's going to happen. I would say that you have a hook. Is this a Japanese Empress version of Caligula? Now THAT would be interesting.

>>9922231
Interesting imagery you've conjured. I like 'Let me touch you; let my fingertips assume the font of creation...' Cool.

>>9928492
I agree. When I read that again, I get sick. Almost as if I'm racing my eyes from sentence to sentence.

In my mind, nobody cared for Eloise with the same intensity that I did. Other boys, I mused, must think it was simply appropriate to begin hooking up with girls; they were just following social norms. They couldn’t feel love like I could. I hated them for it. I must have got carried away, because the next thing I knew I was exploring some joyful poeticisms and was called into the principal’s office to talk about one of my letters, which had evidently scared Eloise.
The headmaster appeared flustered while she read my note out loud to me.
“I love you madly, dearest keeper of the light,” she recited through thick anger and nerves. “I love you like the ocean loves the waves, like the bloated love the brave, like a wedding on the sand after it rains and all the pains of the heart melt into a river that wends and binds its way toward the ocean that loves the wave. I love you in the morning, sweetness. When the eaves of the trees sing the church bells home again, and little daffodils stride shyly into the Eastern light, and mothers come home with bleary eyes to their children, carefully avoiding the man upstairs with his moldy face and roly-poly oldies, smoldering with the dirty night that seeped into her skin, hoping someone will smell the evil pouring from her pores like drawling snores fall boring from the bed in the upper wing.” She looked at me with disbelief and I tried to grimace innocently, realizing that I had been accidentally mouthing the words.
“I love you at lunchtime, babe," she spat the last word as though I should be ashamed. "When the feathers flock to tooth to slay the cold, and the nannies made in olden times droop lids, and hit the kids ever so slightly on the arm, just enough to harm, just enough to stave off the charming pigtail things before the white lingerie teases the church bells home again. I love you in the night, like those pills that fill with fright, or help me see the walls crawl at last, or loose the tombs of the ghosts that mutter and stutter in crude guttural slangs in my ears while I wait for those daffodils again. I love you in my own way, dear. Like a perpetually bouncing ball, bounding tall, I know you’ll crawl to my bed in cracked lederhosen when you get a waft of this love up your brain. Go insane with love, m’lady, madly! Call my name in the middle of the game, have no shame! Make me pain for the blood in your arms. Make me leer it, make me hear it in my ears, ringing like those goddamn ghosts again! Make it hard for me to know which is which, witch. You stupid bitch! I’ll teach you how to love a made man madly! I’ll show you where to file your secrets away. I’ll show you how to ease your woes with a garden hose and a bottle of perfume. I’ll make you sing in the night and whinge in the light. You’ll remember. You’ll keep it forever. And I love you like that, dearest. I love you madly.
“What in the hell IS this,” she asked me.

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I feel like I never have anything to say. Not just when it comes to writing, but also in real life when speaking. I always sound like a retard. It makes me scared to write anything because I feel like I'll just be saying the most boring, generic, mundane shit. I've never been good with words and all attempts to become more eloquent haven't really worked well.

Would any of you guys have any advice on how to not write and speak like a down syndrome middle schooler?

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>>9928883
hahah great

The astronaut climbed out of the escape pod and looked around him. Through his suit he could see a gnarling tree, a vast landscape of snow, grey clouds, and not much else. But he scanned it once more and saw a silhouette. And so he packed his knapsack with the escape pod’s dwindling supplies and set out for it. For what else was there to do?

The wind howled and he shivered. With each step he felt his legs burn, and it was the fire that kept him from collapsing. The landmark was closer now and under the howling blizzard he thought he could see shards of light and when he got closer still he made their origin: a concrete shelter, standing stolidly amidst a nuclear winter. He treaded towards the two guards that stood at its entrance, and collapsed when his feet could carry him no further.

‘Wake up’, a figure said. He opened his eyes to a grey bearded face and the astronaut sat up and looked around. He made the man out to be a doctor with his white coat, and the room to be a hospital with its bleak, white bed and walls

‘Where am I? Who are you? How long have I been sleeping’, he said and was about to say more until the bearded man stopped him.

‘We have plenty of time so I’ll answer your questions later. But first, let me take you to the Gardens. We’ll talk there’. The astronaut nodded, and the doctor helped him up and slung his arm over his shoulder.

#

They sat on a bench and watched the ducks feed. The doctor handed him a mug and breathed.

‘It’s tea’, he said and the astronaut took a long sip and it seemed to calm him down. But it wasn’t for long. ‘I know who you are. You’re one of the lucky ones that colonised the new planet and left us behind to die on a dying planet plagued by climate change and nuclear war’. He noticed the astronaut’s discomfort and changed his tone. ‘But it’s ok. We’ve been doing fine without you. Look at those children’—he pointed at a group of boys chasing each other with sticks and tumbling onto the grass, giggling—‘We have a park in this complex and if you look above you’ll see that we have the power to spare for an artificial sun. This place is massive and we are going great. The tough times took away all the problems. You see, everyone had to work together to make this work out. No more civil war, no more hate. Just one people doing their best for each other, driven by a common goal. I’d even say it was a good thing for us. Cutting away the cancerous tumours from the body; our society’.

>>9928917
bad

>>9928921
Please elaborate.

>>9928923
n

>>9928923
Not that anon, but the last paragraph in particular reads like a video game script. That could be pages of comfy and complex unfolding of a world, but no, vomited out for no reason by an old space prospector.

>>9928930
I always do that; get impatient and then reveal everything way too soon. How do I stop doing this?

>>9928890
A blessing came out of the blue when I overheard that Eloise’s first love had been caught flicking his tongue in and out of Hannah Mayes, an athletic girl with an I-don’t-give-a-crap aggressiveness that fit her and all the others like a grey woollen glove. While the heartbroken Eloise spent nights with painful teenage insomnia, she went back to my letters repeatedly until their meaningless ranting became mysterious crypticism in her heart, and reflected a depth in my being that could not be noticed by our peers. That much, at least, was true. But I had stopped writing to her, under direct orders from the authorities, and had slowly receding back into that lonely inner place. Then, one random afternoon, she cornered me and brought it all up.
“Why did you write me those creepy notes?” She asked.
Her eyes were exasperated and I couldn’t meet them. Another mad romantic script teetered on the edge of my tongue and I didn’t dare let it loose. The gravity of the situation pulled my face toward the ground and slowed the few words I did allow myself to mutter. “Because,” I said, without the psychotic sureness of my prose, “I think I’m in love with you.”
I worshipped the dirt, feeling as one with its griminess, and not noticing that her eyes were pleading. We stood in silence for the longest moment.

>>9928937
Try to avoid using dialogue to explain the world or the story. Force yourself to actually get in the head of the character while he or she speaks, have them be themselves, not your story.

>>9928944
Thanks, anon.

>>9928917
Yikes. I'm trying to be a dick here but I'm think you're either very young or English isn't your first language. Either way, the solution is the same; read more. A lot more. Read critically. Your structure and grammar is all over the place. Try reading aloud. Don't give up but you've got a long way to go.

>>9928950
Go team!

Here's some shit to listen to while you write your space odyssey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DV44wb9py8

Beginning of something...

Peter Hatton lived in a small town called Lindow and was content with his lot. He worked with his hands like his father before him and lived alone in a flat which was enough for him. Peter had never felt any reason to expect anything more from life. His sister Margaret said once before that her brother would make an “agreeable prisoner”, given his proclivity to make do with so little.

Peter couldn’t comprehend why people always wanted “more”, and were unhappy because they didn’t have “enough” – enough of what Peter couldn’t say, but his neighbours continued to get more and more, that much was evident in the face of poor Callum, the delivery boy, who zipped along the streets like a pinball, supplying everyone with more things. And it never really seemed to make much difference to the recipients in the long run either, because they still complained about the same things or else found new complaints to replace the old ones. The only difference it seemed to have was on poor Callum, who seemed to get thinner and thinner as he ran around the town.

Peter had just visited his sister and was getting up to leave. Margaret was provincial in both mind and outward appearance – as much could be deduced from her name, inherited from her grandmother and bearing with it the curse that befalls all those christened with it: old-fashioned simplicity, not without fortitude, usually propped up with a rather specific set of scruples adhered to with piety. It was not an altogether bad image, the “Margaret”, but one gets the sense of a stubbornness imbued in their spirits: of a person stuck in their ways. Throughout the duration of his visit, Margaret busied about dusting things and breathed heavily as she spoke, bracelets rattling, arms flapping, despite Peter’s pleas for her to sit at peace.

She had been complaining about this and that, ‘and now my microwave has stopped working too, so that’s another thing that’ll need replaced’, she said. And Peter told her not to bother with all these new-fangled machines and that she had a perfectly good stove that would do the job just fine. She told him he was stuck in time and clueless about everything. ‘I like a clean house, where everything works as it should. Is that too much to ask?’ she added.

They always bickered like this, but it was such a commonplace occurrence now that it had become their general tone with each other, and the niceties barely surpassed the greetings at the door anymore. But it was mainly in jest, and when in the company of others, they probably made quite a show of it. Probably they were conscious of the fact, because someone would always exclaim: ‘What are you two like? Always at each other’s throats!’ And they would look to each other with an endearing smile.

>>9928972
Yikes. I'm not trying to be a dick here but I'm think you're either very young or English isn't your first language. Either way, the solution is the same; read more. A lot more. Read critically. Your structure and grammar is all over the place. Try reading aloud. Don't give up but you've got a long way to go.

>>9928970

fuck that bullshit listen to the KLF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5fDOCwa9L0

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>>9928955
>>9928974
>>9928976

>>9928977
If you don't want to be critique don't be in a critique thread. we are not here to hold your hand

>>9928917
Don't just tell the reader everything in one go. Intersperse the dialogue with observations, have the astronaut chip in. Nobody talks in one big go without pausing for even a breath.

>"‘It’s tea’, he said and the astronaut took a long sip and it seemed to calm him down. But it wasn’t for long. ‘I know who you are. You’re one of the lucky ones that colonised the new planet and left us behind to die on a dying planet plagued by climate change and nuclear war’. He noticed the astronaut’s discomfort and changed his tone."

This could be changed so that it's

>"‘It’s tea’, he said and the astronaut took a long sip and it seemed to calm him down. But it wasn’t for long. ‘I know who you are. You’re one of the lucky ones."
>"Lucky ones?" the astronaut asked, blowing on his tea to cool it.
>"Aye, the ones who got to leave while this planet was dying." Even as he spoke the words the old man was regretting them.
>The astronaut looked away from him, suddenly ashamed. The old man shrugged apologetically and then pointed out towards a green field where some young boys were chasing each other with sticks.
>"It was a dying planet, but it's not dead yet. We're still breathing the air, still sowing the soil." The old man took a sip from his own cup and savoured it for a moment before continuing, "It's surprising, you know, how things turned out. People working together, helping each other. Most of us thought it would be dog eating dog, but look at us now. We have food, we have power, we have that," he pointed a wrinkled finger upwards again to the great glow of an artificial sun, "Hell, we can grow tea leaves for that cup you've got right now. I’d even say it was a good thing for the rest of us. Cutting away the cancerous tumours from the body; our society. It made us stronger in the long run."

You could also have the old man telling the astronaut all of this and other stuff as they walk around the compound or whatever. "There's some people tending crops, there's our water purification system, there's some cattle. Here's one of power systems" etc.

Also sentences like "left us to die on a dying planet" are a bit clunky.

>>9928986
I don't know who you think I am or what you think I've posted, but it's not accurate whatsoever. But while I have you here: critique is personalised. Otherwise shall I just copy and paste "read more" in response to literally every post in these threads ever? Because that would be just as applicable.

>>9928974
Nice pastor. Fixed.

Peter Hatton lived in a small town called Lindow and was content with his lot. He worked with his hands like his father before him and lived alone in a flat which was enough for him. Peter had never felt any reason to expect anything more from life. His sister Margaret said once before that her brother would make an “agreeable prisoner”, given his proclivity to subsist on so little.

Peter couldn’t comprehend why people always wanted “more”, and were unhappy because they didn’t have “enough” – enough of what Peter couldn’t say, but his neighbours continued to get more and more, that much was evident in the face of poor Callum, the delivery boy, who zipped along the streets like a pinball, supplying everyone with more things. And it never really seemed to make any difference in the long run either; they either still complained about the same things, or else found new complaints to replace the old ones. The only difference it appeared to have was on poor Callum, who seemed to get thinner and thinner as he ran around the town.

Peter had just visited his sister and was getting up to leave. Margaret was provincial in both mind and outward appearance – as much could be deduced from her name, inherited from their grandmother. Throughout the duration of his visit, Margaret busied about dusting things and breathed heavily as she spoke, bracelets rattling, arms flapping, despite Peter’s pleas for her to sit at peace.

She had been complaining about this and that, ‘and now my microwave has stopped working too, so that’s another thing that’ll need replacing’, she said. And Peter told her not to bother with all these new-fangled machines and that she had a perfectly good stove that would do the job just fine. She told him he was stuck in time and clueless about everything. ‘I like a clean house, where everything works as it should. Is that too much to ask?’ she asked.

They often bickered like this, but it was so commonplace now that it had become their general tone with each other, with niceties barely surpassing the greetings at the door anymore. But it was mainly in jest, and when in the company of others, they seemed to make quite a show of it. Probably they were conscious of the fact because someone was bound to exclaim: ‘What are you two like? Always at each other’s throats!’

>>9921167

An email response to my professor since we started discussing internet memes and 4chan. I wanted to ask you guys if you think I hit all the possible points:

I don't think you can create a history because there's firstly, no powers at play, secondly, no real conflict in which to write and then thirdly, the way the “memescape” (as you put it) works and lastly, the way one should look at any of the #chans as entities. They’re like something akin to Baktin’s Carnivalesque.

I'm going to start out by saying that you cannot look at 4chan, or any of the chans as an entity or institution. While it does seem to act as one, one must understand it is something that might call a stand-alone complex. It is the engagement of (assumed) many different actors on what seems to be a centralized goal. The very nature of the site(s) anonymity allow us to create things for the things themselves, not works which seem to add to a creator's portfolio, or to put it shortly-- not making things for personal gain. The site itself has no real face and, unlike Reddit or any other platform. While it does appear to be an institution, there is no formal membership, no proof of belonging, and no real signifiers for authorities within it-- to the exception of tripcodes or mod status, which, if one is to argue over tripcodes, it shows little understanding of the site's chemistry as they are usually looked down upon, so I suppose there lives a dichotomy there in form of anonymous user <- tripcode.

Secondly, I think one cannot explain any of the Chans without just going there. It isn't something that can be studied without becoming it. To understand it, you must become it, it is a spirit and attitude first and foremost, language doesn't possess the necessary tools to elucidate anyone to the nature of the site. Most who attempt to define the space tend to go into hyperbolic or otherwise too specific of language to really give justice to the wide and nuanced personality of the place. If one was to express what 4chan really is, I would liken it to a culture or a zeitgeist, as it has indeed made an impact through "memes" and the very way we discuss things on the internet, be it through jokes or actual debate.

cont.

>>9929027

There are no real powers at play when it comes to memes (To the noted exception of those used in the recent election and easily for elections to come like you said), there are no directives to be filled or parties to be conquered. The act of history isn't really there, and if one was to try and put a pin on the murky timeline where memes appear to propagate and become diasporated would be better endeavor, despite just being as imprecise and poor. With the lack of powers, there's no real conflict to write of. Yes, there are memes or things which spring from the conflict, but one must understand that memes are not the phenomenon themselves, but rather the shadow and product of conflicts or events, which is why it is difficult to try and make a history of them.

While I did not describe this as a point earlier, I believe the idea of being a "memer" is silly and is like living for the ripple of a raindrop on water and asking, "Why does it ripple" and refuse to look up. The fact that someone is reviewing memes or even trying to explain the history in any sense is completely blind to the culture that lives around them and-- like you said, we should be mindful of the culture-- it doesn't set anyone up for an understanding or use of them. I think anyone who follows these sorts of channels are “normies” (as you put it) themselves because they can't even go to the source and see what creates these conflicts and then see the resultant memes of them. I think there is more weight on the aesthetic, or shadow-- instead of the actual piece which sprouts the phenomenon. I think your foray "the meme community” on Facebook isn’t a place to start, since memes aren’t propagated out of air, they tend to have a context to an event or spirit which one must be a part of to truly understand. You’ll come across people who engage in memetic coprophagia, which one creates some sort of countersignal disguised as the original for the sake of humor, or rather the attempt at it.

>>9929027
>>9929029
Yikes. I'm trying to be a dick here but I'm think you're either very young or English isn't your first language. Either way, the solution is the same; read more. A lot more. Read critically. Your structure and grammar is all over the place. Try reading aloud. Don't give up but you've got a long way to go.

>>9929048

English is not my first language. Looks like you caught me.

>>9929048
French is my first language, if that is of any use to you giving me tips.

>>9929004
My critique are accurate. Don't throw a hissy fit when people here won't give the mindless praise you were looking for.

>>9929020
I think a lot of writers here don't focus on making their voices distinctive. Yours is reliable, like a old dog. But I don't think people are willing to be carried by this, nowadays. I mean, not in the current literary scene, anyways. It doesn't hit any beats, and seems to be more concerned with correct writing first rather than anything beyond that. If the action you portrayed isn't *really* about anything (and what you provided can't be placed anywhere in particular except 'small town'-ness), then the voice needs to pick it up for the action, to reveal what's actually going on here. Not to say, make it more purple. But I can't ask to be committed to your portion, as a reader, if all the descriptions you're using are so abstracted and general, and without any wit to make sense of that. The characters don't breath or pop.

>>9928883
>>9928942
I think you should play it up even more. It's a well-trod trope, and you have a solid grasp of fundamentals. I think if this guy more resembled someone I'd see at campus or down the street or something, I'd feel more uncomfortable, and in a interesting way. Update it. As of now it's o-kay, but doesn't set itself apart from other stories like it.

>>9928917
>>9928917
I think that if this were the first section of the story, it should be expanded upon a bit. As of now, it's too sparse and the style doesn't play to it.

Here's my bad flash fiction. Will trade critiques:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dpP3X-WtnNuKAoo8qbFKKVXxShia6YGAKSCTYTAN-LE/edit?usp=sharing

>>9921462
Yikes. I'm trying to be a dick here but I'm think you're either very young or English isn't your first language. Either way, the solution is the same; read more. A lot more. Read critically. Your structure and grammar is all over the place. Try reading aloud. Don't give up but you've got a long way to go.

>>9929753
Mate, what >>9929004 said. Don't bother critiquing unless you're gonna give personal advice. It's not helpful.

>>9921171
It's fine, but it doesn't feel or lead in like an opening, if that's your intention. Ideally you would chooose to stress certain parts of your prose, because as is it sort of just slogs out.

Also, you (and a lot of other writers here) should give the reader a chance to play more. Too often, prose here stops at the level of standard description, as if a journalist were culling from his notes.

>>9928462
>>9928955
>>9928974
>>9929048
>>9929753
Your critique is useless and pointless

How do you effectively switch between character viewpoints in your writing?

>>9932173
What do you mean by effectively?

>>9921172
>>9921174
Eh, it's an odd fit. There no charm, because all the identifiable parts are readymade. So, the gist of the passage, what's supposed to make it enjoyable, is actually empty because any reasonable context comes from what I can generally gleam from fantasy archtypes. Give me a reason that actually pertains to *your* world, about his purveyance of dragons and things. Because then I can get a sense of his character. But for now its action without any significance. Hard to judge, except that at least you have a good command of wording, so you'll be able to fix whatever you have to.

>>9921380
Yeah. A lot of little mistakes are making your writing sound awkward. I'd actually read up on novelists who are known for conversational style, because a lot of their tendencies are the opposite of yours. It's as if you don't want to jump in because you haven't defined him well, but a story like this would rely on that.

Yeah, I'd read up a bunch of genre stuff. You lead in too directly. The portion this sequence would correspond to would have to be lengthened quite a bit in most cases, but a lot of what you actually wrote needs to be cut. Not focusing on the right things, or otherwise not stressing them right. Failed tension.

>>9921462
Feels like it adds up to some 'punchlines' based on play of a few relevant things going on with the characters. But I do like the style, except I wish he had more to draw from. I'd find it more interesting if this pace incorporated more of his actual experiences. Then its a real build, but right now it's just cycling.

>>9933544
*character

>>9921685
>>9921694
I feel like your trying to make sure your writing is up snuff, the way you think others would like it. But it has to go in the opposite direction, because as of now it sounds more like something written too long ago. It's really an anachronism. He doesn't sound like anyone I see nowadays.

>>9922231
Lots of modifiers can be cut. You should also try to be less direct. For example, you don't have to state all the parts of the body (done before in stuff like Whitman with greater effect) and can just tease it out through the nature imagery. Poetry isn't just about lyricism, but playing with ideas and twisting cliches.

My edit, just to show how you might be able to get the same effects with a lot less words:

A carpet settled over clods and ridges
with arcing bays and secret lagoons
and the undulating bank of down tickles
our naked skin, dips its tendrils. Let
my fingertips assume: it's every perfect
spiral slithers, which roils and heaves
and catches at my passage. Your eyes reflect
empyreal mirror to the ocean under.
Volcanic cheeks stretch the moment eruption,
as your fingers plough my virgin back,
on a coastal night, swell and rise
into secret clefts of air.

Our sweeping and clenching has gathered
the sea into a bevy of surf-lathered islets.
What is an earthquake but the earth
in communion with itself?

Even then, the poem itself is limited by its subject which has been done to death by so many others from all countries. But I think you have potential to go beyond your small purview.

Check out Hart Crane (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/brooklyn-bridge) and see how he can shift his focus with so much ease in every stanza while maintaining that sharp imagery.

Story I posted in a past thread, but was never critiqued:

https://pastebin.com/0ZyBYXBc

>>9933624
Well hey, trade with me and I'll be glad to.

>>9929238

I feel I've been chewing the scenery with my last five critiques here.

>>9933624
>>9933640
I'll be back in twenty minutes though. Quick trip to the store.

Here's an excerpt:

Before she had wore short skirts and high heels that drew attention to her well-turned calves and smooth, pale legs or low cut dresses that showed off her lacy bra and medium-sized, firm breasts. Now, in high necked gowns and flat shoes she had a different kind of beauty. More mysterious and less slutty, knowing to keep her body hidden like a privately owned work of art instead of showing her contours and curves off like graffiti, desperate to be noticed by the crowds. She was once a promiscous girl, now she was an elegant woman. She looked nothing like herself, and so could live anew if she wished.