/lit/ - Literature

>>5745858
Very generous of you, OP. I've been working on this short story for a few weeks and I don't know if it's any good. It's a bit long, so if you don't want to read it it's totally cool. In case you do:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1eSErMeetAhR29VNWFlcDEyZlk/view?usp=sharing

>>5745858
thank you so very much for this, a little more than 3.2k words

>>5745962

whoops

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eXSidthnYYbWbGR3zQX0i6_KpqqMs2pavYgon8HN2bI/edit?usp=sharing

I'll just give you a few paragraphs

Carl was seated at the grimy old bar, one of his favourite haunts. The game was playing through a haze of fuzz on an old 6-inch television screen, and Kentucky had just won - the implications of this victory were at a loss to him. He drained his glass. Carl stood up with some effort and exited through the creaky old door that the owner in twenty years of management and twenty years of creaking had never managed, or bothered, to un-creak.
Carl got outside and crossed the street, getting caught in a streak of vomit sailing through the window of a passing taxicab - soaring gelatinous and brown through the air and splattering in a liquid gunk across his coat. Carl cursed the taxicab and made an obscene gesture, which was not returned nor responded to. It was one of those grey, fluidous nights on the cusp of winter; not cold enough for a coat, not warm enough not to have one. Carl was sweating under his rather heavy, old and now soiled coat as he sauntered up the steps to his pad.
Carl lived with three roommates in a one-bedroom apartment, but there were typically at least four others loafing about the apartment seated on sofas or floors. These others were typically his roommate Marcus' "friends," who lay in varying states of intoxication of various substances, the intensity of which, Carl noticed, seemed to have a positive correlation with the length of their hair.
Carl opened the door to his apartment and was greeted by a sour, familiar stench which promptly made itself at home in his nostrils and which he knew was impossible to evict. He saw in the dark a sleeping figure just beside the door, and shut it softly. Carl, on tip-toes, carefully felt his way along the wall, and just as he knew he was about to reach the corner of the room he had claimed for his mattress, he tripped and fell face-first on another sleeping figure.
"Waaagh!" the figure cried, and as if by magic the lights suddenly came on.

>>5745906
>>5745962

OP here, I just want to emphasize the critique will start in 12-14 hours. I will be happy to read it over, but tonight I've been preoccupied.

So to anyone who posts, check back tomorrow afternoon.

I think it's because I was raised on irony, satire and subversion that, in my youth, I harboured so firm a conviction that the rules of the game could be changed. At least, that may be why *I* felt this so certainly, even if others weaned on the same fare didn't. Everything around me in that time, everything that looked as though it was telling me how the world was, seemed to promise a coming revolution. I saw a hundred syphilitic, dipsomaniac spoofs of James Bond held up for our ridicule before it truly registered with me that the original existed. I saw no casually charming ladies' man before I'd seen a thousand desperate losers try and fail to be one for our amusement, and I assumed the lesson, as I saw it, was as clear to everyone as it was to me: The days of the fortunate ones were numbered.

The world, as shown to me by this parodic milieu, was divided into the ambitious and the humble. The humble were - well, simply that. The ambitious were those who sought power, glory, esteem. Whether they obtained it or not mattered only insofar as it informed the nature of their ridicule. The Ladies' Man - he might be poor and simply ridiculous. He might be rich and obscenely disgusting. In any case, he was loathsome to women, never knew it until it was too late, and always forgot straight after. The Snob - he, or often as not, she, would be the product of the finest education and yet thick as your boot. The Popular Guys and Girls were always monstrously cruel and, even if their ultimate fate happened not to befall them before the credits, there could be no doubt they had it coming. The dictatorship of the humble ones would soon be upon us - weren't we all watching this? All laughing, booing, hissing, cheering at the *same thing*?

Then surely we had only to wait.

(cont)

>>5745979
Come the day, and it would be soon, the day we could no longer doubt we had the strength, the numbers and the force of will, we would take over things. We would throw a glass of wine in the face of *all* the Ladies' Men, we would push *all* the Snobs into a muddy ditch and no-one would ever want to talk to anyone Popular again. We would all be humble together. No-one would back a horrified woman into a corner, leering at her, oblivious to her disgust in a way as amusing as it was morally repugnant. No-one would play Pygmalion, there no longer being any high society into which an Eliza could be introduced. And no-one would ever be shunned or ostracised - unless, of course, they began to show signs of ambition.

There was no one moment where I realised it was all a delusion, just a steady fading away and its replacement with an indifferent certainty: that we would not club together and do things differently. There would be no remoulding of the shape of things, no strike against the tyranny of the fortunate ones. No, we would do things just the same, just as they did, and, should one of us be offered a chance at life behind that velvet rope, there'd be no twist-ending refusal, no proudly defiant harangue, no "I'm Spartacus" - just a wordless ducking-under, up, in and away, a grateful vanishing into the luminescence of their grandeur.

This got one response in the current thread: >>>/r9k/, which I am fairly persuaded misses the point. My own reflection so far: I need to better establish the second dimension of fortunate/unfortunate, ambitious/humble. I also need to establish a grounding image of the humble assembled in front of some entrance before I can use the velvet rope image. Any further thoughts are appreciated.

1800 word short story TY OP

http://pastebin.com/32LTdM1P

Brine filled his nostrils.
“Smells great, doesn’t it? If you look further down the pier, you’ll see a lot of the history”.

There was nothing good about this pier. He imagined it looked a lot like all the other ones in the world; thigh-thick chunks of wood, sawed from crooked Victorian timber, nailed at the seam. Clasps of iron were grotted to scaffolding.
“If you look down, it’s sort of scary. Isn’t it?”
Palms clasping the railings, he looked over the edge. Beyond the back of his hands, throttling the rusted safety barrier, he saw the black-brown waves lash the foundations on which he was standing.

“I know. It’s unfair of me to poke fun at you. Mum told me you were scared of things like this. Father was less spoken, as usual, but said so too”.
For two hours now they had been walking a costal circuit; meandering past the shear-cliff faces and passing over pebbled beaches. The sound of the ocean washing away unearthed sediment had deafened him, and with that, the topic of conversation. Occasional sights were shared, but little remained to be said. Even had one been talking, the other might not have wilfully guessed.
“You’ve kept yourself quiet so far. Are you sure you want me to leave town this Friday?”
He sank his chin to his neck, folding an oncoming breeze into his lungs for a sigh.
“You don’t help yourself. If it were out in the open I could just leave”. She exaggerated her emphasis.

“Say something. Please”.
The trees rocked with the wind; branches strained holding onto the leaves.
Please.

>>5745984
you sound like an insufferable that and your prose is beyond atrocious

>>5746235
>like an insufferable that
>complains about prose
gr8 b8 m8

>>5746235
>your prose is beyond atrocious

Solid critique, indisputably not a generic cookie-cutter insult born of a directionless hostility.

http://pastebin.com/e5TX5SZg

I've posted this before, but only got one person to give me useful advice. It's dense, but only a few hundred words. I have been writing other things since this, but I feel you helping me on this short will help me more than with the others. Preemptive thanks, OP!

I'm sick. This really needs to end. My plans are always interrupted my mind never mends. This place is always awful the sky is always pale. This will not be lawful and I will not fail.

They've released me from the psych ward, claiming I've come to. Apparently what happened is not quite so new. I made a noose of razor wire and tied it to the loft glued my hands upon my head in hopes it would come off. Just before digging my mortal grave, a knocking at the door was a peering eye to save. It was my father, what an ugly sight to see, he cried, terrified and committed me.

>>5745858
A speaker cracked.
“All right ladies and possible gents, we've got another certified hit for you here at the most scenic firebase this side of the Mekong. It's Bob Dylan telling us all about our job, with none of the sweat. This is All Along The Watchtower,.”
A gently strummed guitar and melodic harmonica unfolded across the canvas shacks of firebase delta, impact craters still smoking from the night before, wind whipping a ripped tent where a medic sloshed through the remains Private Halsey with a 10 inch shovel. Raymond Spillane sat in the other half of the tent. A Marlboro cigarette perched unlit on his lips. He stared at the tears in the fabric, the brown tint of dried blood highlighting the holes that framed an American flag; a spider dangled in front of the flag, one strand of web spooling from its backside.
In his head the raging screams of jets and men intermingled over an incinerated forest. The smell of charred pork emanated from the sacrificial plane before him. From the base through the chattering of fire he could hear the popping of flesh and make out the flaming silhouettes falling prostrate on the ground. He thought that must have been what John foresaw, stars falling to earth, men in mountains, a great beast from the ocean. Bugs surrounded his head as They fled the heat. A sergeant screamed at him, and he felt the weight of his rifle. Gun fire still cracked from the south. Training took over, he turned and sprinted toward it–us or them in his head. A line of troops lay prone behind a wall of sand bags firing shots into the woods. On the far end, a maelstrom of red tracers shredded a hostile treeline into green viscera. Fear, and palpitations twitched his trigger finger, contributing to the storm of American mined led– earth to earth. Whistles arced from within the treeline. Soldiers screamed incoming. His face met mud. Twisting left he looked into the cold blue eyes of a corpse. Blood and creamy humor leaked from the man's vacant socket. An officer stood over the corpse– was he drooling? Raymond turned back into the mud.
“Private, wake up.”

>>5746410

Not sure why you've gone over the top with parenthetic statements.

I think your piece would be improved by folding them all into the text without the apparent attempts to highlight. That's my impression after two paragraphs.

Perhaps you're going for a specific effect though. I'll try to read the whole and see.

>that really stood and still stand,
... stands,

>when the announcement of a child come forth
... comes ...

>(war)heads
This is the only use of parenthesis I would keep.

You could also drop all the single quoting of things. Again, I don't know why you're trying to highlight them other than to slam down some added weirdness.

>It's dense
Yeah, it's ponderous as all get out.

I think you went a bit too heavy on trying to convey the narrator as being way out there. I think you're good enough to convey that without also giving the reader a march through molasses experience. This is pretty subjective though, and potentially counterproductive without knowing how deep into the elite of literary territory you're aiming for.

>>5746234
>or two hours now they had been walking a costal circuit;

A costly mistake I should say.

Coastal?

>She exaggerated her emphasis.

How?

Also, why are you putting your periods outside your quotes?

>>5746202
>http://pastebin.com/32LTdM1P
oh shit i remember the first sentence from another thread, mirin' hard brah

Procession moves on, the shouting is over,
Praise to the glory of loved ones now gone.
Talking aloud as they sit round their tables,
Scattering flowers washed down by the rain.
Stood by the gate at the foot of the garden,
Watching them pass like clouds in the sky,
Try to cry out in the heat of the moment,
Possessed by a fury that burns from inside.

Cry like a child, though these years make me older,
With children my time is so wastefully spent,
A burden to keep, though their inner communion,
Accept like a curse an unlucky deal.
Played by the gate at the foot of the garden,
My view stretches out from the fence to the wall,
No words could explain, no actions determine,
Just watching the trees and the leaves as they fall.

>>5745966
hey buddy, this reads really well. One of the few things on /lit/ I've seen that is self-assured without being try hard.

Pray to dios you had the chance to know,
Factually, even just to meet him,
Gladly having those, the shoes, to grow,
Maybe fill one day, one season,
Oh his kindness blessed souls,
Innumerable, yes in numbers lacking reason,
Incalculable, the good works toll,
If one still does, his pops persistent breathing.

Hey OP, I appreciate this. I posted this in the other critique thread, but I'll chuck it here too.

Alright, I never post in these threads but I figure I could do with some constructive criticism. This is a bit from a short story I'm writing about a German soldier in World War II who's not only dealing with the horrors of war, but it heavily addicted to Pervitin. Pervitin is basically meth that was prescribed to German troops to keep them alert and awake.

A soldier lay dead against the wall, his uniform identifying him as German. The joy I feel at the sight of a body of one of my own is disconcerting. Mostly because I feel I should be more revolted with myself. Isn’t this the lowest act a man could do? Desecrating the corpse of a fellow countryman? Looting the bodies of your own army? It does not matter. He is dead, I am not. Not yet.

With a shaky hand I reached into the pockets of his trenchcoat and between the wool I find what I am searching for. That round cardboard packet, mostly empty but better than nothing. And what it contains is better than anything. Pervitin. I ran my finger across the label before pocketing it. The soldier’s other pockets were empty but for five rounds of ammunition. I took them. I would need one if I could not find any more Pervitin tomorrow.

I no longer sleep much. Instead I sit and think. I often wonder about the war. Are we winning? I suppose I do not care. I never did care. I feel no love for this country. No love for the Fuhrer who dragged me away from my home and family. I have stopped wondering about my family. I only pray that the Red savages have not crossed lines into my home town. I have seen the disgraceful acts they are capable of. That is perhaps the only reason I want us to win the war: to deprive the Russians of victory. But I suppose I do not really care.


Thanks a lot OP, you really are doing /lit/ an awesome service

imagine if OP was trying to be kafkaesque and won't respond to anything posted here

>>5747260
It's to be expected really

>>5745984
Reading this just makes me imagine a gigantic fedora floating in the middle of nothingness, so it's hard to write a proper critique.

>>5745979
>>5745984
I feel sorry for OP who will have to critique this.

>>5747260
Nah, I'll start critique in about an hour.

Last call for anyone lurking.

>>5745906
I'm not OP. Will throw in my 2 cents here and there though.

There's an open parenthetical: pg4, "(although sometimes, Libby knew,". I scrolled down searching for the close because, combined with the constant digressions in this passage, I thought it might be an intended effect to put much of the remaining story in parentheses, as a comment on the lack of focus in this person's life. As well as the sense you might get sometimes that you're in the margins of your own life.

I think the story conveys this sense well enough, and the writing is well-paced and varied enough that you get the feeling there might be something worthwhile here eventually, but ultimately, there's not much substance. The observations (especially those about hipsters) are not that insightful, most of the references feel like superficial namedrops, and the events and characters are typical, meandering young-writers-written-by-young-writers fare.

>>5747374
Oh, and I don't think the repetition of "meek" is producing an effect that would be missed if it was just said once, the first time, and then again when she mentions it to Libby.

>>5747380
*to Jen

Alright, I posted this in another thread and didn't get much response.

~1000 words maybe? Provisional title, 'The only people to invent social media before a writing system'

Unfinished, although I have an idea of the ending:

pastebin.com/mEXzagqX
pastebin.com/mEXzagqX
pastebin.com/mEXzagqX

Critique would be sweet

Alright, I posted this in another thread and didn't get much response.

~1000 words maybe? Provisional title, 'The only people to invent social media before a writing system'

Unfinished, although I have an idea of the ending:

pastebin.com/mEXzagqX
pastebin.com/mEXzagqX
pastebin.com/mEXzagqX

Critique would be sweet

Alright, I won't be accepting any more posts beyond this one.

I'll be starting to critique each post above over the next hour or so.

I ask one favor to everyone who receives critique: give your opinions on somebody else's post in this thread.

And to anyone who would be kind enough, here is something of mine:
http://pastebin.com/0WNHZx6c

It's a shitty genre fiction story so keep that in mind, just writing for practice/shits and giggles/for a girl whose into that crap.

Context is the narrator was lost in a desert for several days, separated from his traveling companion, and rescued by an anchor that fell from the sky.

Its shit, I know.

>>5745906
I read about 70% of it, but I mostly skimmed it because it is fairly long. I read enough to get the story and a feel for the style.

Alright, lets start with the big shit.

I personally felt the writing was a little bland, especially in the beginning, there just weren't that many attention grabbing sentences (The latte galaxy metaphor wasn't bad). It is serviceable, it gets the story along and the prose works, if a little bit blunt. There are some areas where the flow needs to be improved.

The dialogue was a little boring, "That's not okay." and "Don't say that." was a little jarring. Later on with Dan, it stops being a problem.

Petty shit.
You repeat the word 'said' a lot, it was a little noticeable to me. Perhaps you can find a way to cut it down a bit, I personally prefer to use character actions to denote the speaker.

>Dumb fucking junkie bitch
Surely you can be more creative.

>>5747380
I agree here, the meek repetition wasn't really providing an effect. if you want to emphasize that he is meek, maybe mention it 2-3 times right when he is introduced, then not anymore.

>her eyes - her eyes
It was said twice in back to back sentences, just something really petty.

The sentence about the two-dollar bills, while I liked, felt really out of place. You've got this very dramatic sentence about fuckin' compact suns and radiating lights... describing a two-dollar bill. I mean, it's got an effect, but I can't see how you would describe a dollar bill as a compact sun.
Not bad tho.

>Sometimes, late at night . . . until the next sleepless night.
I like this paragraph, it needs a little work on the prose, the word "feel" is repeated a lot; but other than that, I like it. Especially:
>simmer down to a low heat; a miasmic blend of general dissatisfaction and unfulfilled potential that would then last until the next sleepless night.

>Richard Nixon's head.
I don't know why but that made me laugh.

>That really obnoxiously long pushup scene.
I personally liked it, but keep in mind other readers might find it annoying. Still, I liked it, nice.
One idea to improve it though--instead of having finished five pushups ten minutes ago, have her just finishing her first. Just an opinion.

>It was rainy and cold.
>It was November.
>It was Tuesday.
I thought this part was a little weird, but it tied in nicely when it was repeated

>existentially fucked.
I liked the ending, especially with the two-dollar bill tie in. The last two words in particular has an impact, but it is an impact that is slightly reduced by the fact you use them several times earlier. I would leave the ending as is and change the other 'existentially fucked' to something else.

Overall, it's solid. Could use some polish, but it's a good start. Don't give up.

>>5745962
>>5745966
Hey, I'm very sorry but I won't be able to give the most indepth critique, it is very long and I don't have much time. I will give you my thoughts after reading 30-40% of it and skimming the rest.

The first sentence could use a little more impact.
>Thank you so much for writing me.
These are just ideas, but I would personally have written something along the lines of:
>Dear (Name with fancy title BS)
>Your letter has been received in a timely manner.
>As always, I am grateful to hear from you.
These are just shitty ideas off the top of my head, but hopefully you get the idea.

Some petty shit:
>fuck right off.
Now don't get me wrong, I liked this part; however it is incredibly jarring, but perhaps that's what you want.

>deep under and penetrating an endless maze...
I would change this entire sentence, penetrating isn't a word for a maze. Perhaps restructure the surrounding fragments so you could write:
>Deep within the confines of an endless maze of tenement complexes.

>It surprised my to
Extremely petty, but
>me

My overall impressions is that I liked the descriptions, good use of vocabulary.

The flow seemed a tiny bit jarring at times, but after rereading the sentences, it turned out to be my own stupidity. They do flow well, but certain parts may be lost in translation if someone was to read fast.

Keep it up

>>5747236
thank you very much. I've been working on being more concise, less prolix and masturbatory, so this means a lot

He was outside, hailing a cab. He was in a cab, reading out an address. Then he was standing in a gutter going through his phone, trying to figure out where he was and why as the sound of an engine faded into the distance.

There was a text:

You can come over if you really want to, Paul.

This was followed by the address. Reading was not easy, so he he put his phone away and looked for the house that was on the record for saying it would let him in.

He walked up to the one in front of him and peered at the number.

It was the house.

‘This is the house,’ he said.

Its front lights were on — the only ones on the street, as far as Paul could see. Paul could not see very far. He recalled where he’d come from: a high school reunion at a club where you’d never have expected to see those people. They were people you watched go from primary through secondary all the way to legally recognised adult — and then disappear, and you only knew who they had been. They may as well have never changed. Then you were three years older and and they were cutting you a line in the bathroom of that club. Of all places, why there?

There was just something about that. It was so something that Paul could remember nothing else since, besides the cab ride. Why, he could barely stand. He was very, very drunk, and thanks to 12B form captain Gavin he was a special other something too.

He wondered what was inside the house, the one he had chosen to come to. In this state, at this hour. He wondered who.

Julia?

‘Paul?’

Emily. She was making her way down the garden steps, shining her phone at him. ‘Paul? Is that you?’

‘Emily.’

They met at the gate.

>>5747540
thanks a lot, it's good to get some eyes on it.

>turned out to be my own stupidity

this isn't the first time I've read this in response to my work, both musical and prosaic. not sure what to make of it

>>5745968

The beginning needs a lot of work, but after the first paragraph it gets much better. Try to rewrite it to have more vivid descriptions.

>the implications of this victory were at a loss to him. He drained his glass.
This is particularly bland. Not something you want in the first few sentences.

Petty shit
>one of his
one of drains the impact, is there any reason to not simply say "his favorite"?

>Waaagh!"
Is it a cat? a dog? a person? a bum? an ork warboss from the 40k universe?

>the lights suddenly came on.
Surely there is a better way to write this.
>Carl was blinded by lights switching on as if by magic.
Not a great example, but it reads better IMO, feel free to discard that though.

>Carl got outside and crossed the street, getting caught in a streak of vomit sailing through the window of a passing taxicab - soaring gelatinous and brown through the air and splattering in a liquid gunk across his coat.
I was about to write in my notes that the sentences had very boring descriptions, but this changed my mind.

It's got good imagery, I liked the name repetition, but, it seems someone attempts that style every few posts on /lit/. I would suggest using your abilities on something more unique.

I'd be interested in reading more.

>>5745984
>>5745979
I'll be honest, I thought I was reading Elliot Roger part 2.

I do see the point, perhaps there is a deeper meaningful point you wanted, but I do see the very obvious one. it is hammered in a little hard, it's not so complex an idea that it needs so much description, but such is the nature of writing.

My advice for you is to explore the complexities of the humble/ambitious dichotomy. Examples of how they interact, how the 'popular' are cruel. This will give you a chance to keep the basic ideas simple, while providing details, rather than just repeating the same stuff in different sentence structure.

>He might be poor and simply ridiculous. He might be rich and obscenely disgusting. In any case...
Nope. Flows like ass stank,
>The ladies' man - rich or poor, simply ridiculous or obscenely disgusting. He is always found loathsome to the very women he would chases, never knowing it until it was too late.
Off the top of my head, that's how I'd word it.

Petty shit?
>>5747273
I could almost see your fedora.

I'm going to pretend that the sentence structure and descriptions aren't used to write Eliot Roger v2, and say this:
It had potential (The idea doesn't but your writing does).

Find the polish, and find a friend or something. Keep at it.

>>5728424
>>5728429

this is my short story I posted in the other thread, completely ignored
.

>>5746202
I'll get to this in a moment, I've seen you post around so I want to give you a more indepth critique. Right now, however, I want to go through some of the shorter ones.

For the poems posted here, I'm not a poet, so this is really shitty critique but.. hell.

>>5747187
This isn't bad, I think?
>Praise to the glory of loved ones now gone.
Seems a little out of meter with the first line, but I liked the rhyme of on and gone, though that may be coincidental as it doesn't happen anywhere else.

I like the idea of it.

>Cry like a child, though these years make me older
I got the idea, but it seems obscure for no reason.

>>5747253
Also.. good, I think?

>know grow
these two lines matched very well.

>season reason
these didn't.

I've got no idea the concept because I am a dull man, regardless, coming from someone who cant even into poetry, it's a good start?

>>5746234

Petty shit.
>Palms clasping the railing
A little convoluted.
>He looked over the edge, his palms clasped the railing.
I don't like the words looked, and clasped, but just a switching of the order of words and it's read better. I make that mistake in my own writing.

>Beyond the back of his hands, throttling the rusted safety barrier, he saw the black-brown waves lash the foundations on which he was standing.
I've got no idea. I just don't. At first few glances it was overwritten to the point where I didn't understand it.
>Beyond the back of his hands
This seems unnecessary, it's like saying "He looked over his own nose" or "With his eye lids open."

>On which he was standing
>On which he stood.
Just a personal preference, it avoids the passive voice and makes more sense in a present tense narrative.

>Coastal costal
as >>5746755 said.

>folding an oncoming breeze into his lungs for a sigh.
Here you mention the coast's breeze, and that he sighed. They would work great alone, but here it's really bizarre to combine them.

I would mention the breeze in the coastal circuit line, and just say he sighed.

>she exaggerated her emphasis.
! ! !!!! !! !!!11!!!!! those exist, just sayin'. Italics too. Also, exaggeration IS emphasis, you're basically saying "It is large as big."

Needs work, don't get disheartened though. I assume you are new to writing, at least I hope so. The growing pains are obvious.

Just take this criticism, read some more, and practice, for the love of god, practice.

I love this critique guy. He doesn't give the greatest advice, and is often humble about his lack of expertise. Best of all he won't let that stop him from telling you how fuckin' shit he thinks your shit is. It's just so honest. I love it

I'm taking a quick break, today was a writing day for me and I've got to get a quota in.

Will continue in ~an hour.

Until then, feel free to check my shit and rip me a new asshole if my critique has disappointed.

>>5747443
>>5747443
>>5747443

>>5747681
Thank you :)

As I said, this is a thread for people who post in the normal Critique threads but never get replies.

Your choice: Critique from somebody who is willing to give it, or none at all.

>>5747600
>I'll be honest, I thought I was reading Elliot Roger part 2.

You have no idea how close you are to what I'm going for, although it's not in the direction of murder etc. For the rest, thanks for your input.

Anniceris sat in the square, Hegesias by his side
Who pierced the sultry summer air, with a question aimed at life
"What cares do you have for your sons, when to my words they leap
No calming air nor sweetened breeze, can ease the woes they keep"

Anniceris had heard enough, and to his friend he posed
A wager set 'tween God above, and Hegesias below
"If it's truth you do espouse, of worthless life you speak
May your pen pour out great gouts, and redden soon these streets
And if when sun dispels the dusk, we find Rome returned to Earth
My kingdom will be yours to keep, and all its Godly worth"

And with their pride and persons set, as both did face their fall
Anniceris went unto a crate, and said 'Come one, come all!'
The denizens of rome appeared, and stood entranced in awe
And with the ink still wet on parch, Hegesias purveyed all

'Dance now children to the end, Dance 'till souls go soft,
Our God has left us to his child,
He once did hold aloft."

The night fell dark, the Angel's wept, the blood of Rome did seep
And through the dark a demon came, and faced the stars at East
Anniceris awoke alone, with death stale in the air
And looked upon the corpse of Rome, and failed to shed a tear
Instead his words rang like an arrow, through cold decaying air
"Hegesias make for the courts, and I shall meet you there"
And two minds met amid the death, two privy to the dawn
Anniceris gave all accrued, to the wager did he fall

But Hegesias was merciful, and to his friend returned
The wager, winnings and the work, for which the Romans burned
And 'Death By Starvation' lives on in verse, and dies as did its core
With Hegesias the wisened sage, who Rome let speak no more.

This is pretty shitty, but I haven't really show anything from this. Hopefully the format isn't all fucked up.


He worked a dull munitions job, but a job nonetheless. Economic downturn followed the regime change a year prior, and he thought himself to even have a job that paid his bills. His days droned on, and he found little meaning, except for finding that one bullet jacket with a defect that came through his conveyer station. For a man who valued peace, he never failed to see the irony of ensuring that elements of death were made to the proper specifications.
His workday at the factory always followed a schedule. It was a liturgy of industry: vestments of worn coveralls, and a grand entrance with the droning sound of machine. He passed the different stations on the assembly lines on the way to his area, and gave his usual round of ‘good morning’ to his co-workers. He sat at his station, ready to get his day over-with.
The man to the front of Stradat lifted his head, raised his hand and pushed his shaggy blonde hair out of his eyes.
“Privet, dickhead,” He said.
“Artyom, feeling less like an ass today?”
Artyom looked young and fresh out of secondary school. He had a brash and irreverent attitude to match.
“Another day of this shit, and I figure I’ll throw myself out a window,” Artyom said.
“Another day is another day—at least you’re getting paid,” Stradat said.
A pile of bullet jackets were piling up on the conveyer.
“How about the protest tomorrow?” Artyom asked.
“Haven’t heard a thing,”

1/2

I am posting a speech from one of the characters of a play I am writing. On this speech a man is talking to a princess and trying to make her feel better about herself, ensuring that she is extremely beautiful and that only the illness and agony of her husband are the reasons that make her feel bad and that break her self-esteem. He makes an extend comparison between the magnificent creature that is the snow leopard, pointing out how different the animal is when free, on the wild, from when in captivity.

The original passage is in Portuguese and it is written in blank verse, with 10 poetic syllables per line. Hope you guys like it.


I just wanted to tell you that the thing
That discolor, fades and dilutes your beauty -
Maybe not even in the eyes of the world, but only
In your own mind - is sadness.
There is an animal whose beauty
It as legendary as he is elusive:
The snow leopard of Nepal.
He is a palpable specter with moonlight colored
Pelage, a ghost knitted
With wool of snow and fog. It is the flesh
Diamond of the mountains; the heart
And organic entity of the glaciers;
The elusive faun of the aerial gardens
Of the Himalayas; lord of inaccessible
Rocky vegetable-gardens and pale orchards;
King of the white grasslands; indomitable feline.
Hypnotized by such majesty
The stars did cuddle and caress the cat
And on his fur the galaxies stamped
The cold digital of the unreachable
Fires that look to us from the abysses.
Winds pollinated by the dust
Of Ice tempered and seasoned his lungs
With crystal spores; the alpine breath
Bit his blood and inoculated blizzards
In the silver of his powerful muscles.
That is the glory described by those
Who saw the animal in the wild,
That in his own habitat and niche have peeped and observed him.
When I was a child I also saw him,
But he was imprisoned and collared:
Some rascal dragged him from town
To town, exposing him for coins.
A sad an crestfallen pussycat: that is what I saw:
Thin, bald, dirty, with his ribs
On display, an inn and tavern for fleas,
An isle of flies, a wreck - the shadow
Of the carnivorous sapphire that reigns
Upon the peaks of the Himalayas. The captivity
Has corroded him in a scabby and mangy ruin,
But such fragment, could he be returned
To the mountains, would flourish
Again in baron and lord of the eternal winter.

>>5747755

2/2

You do not recognize the miraculous
Beauty that you possess, princess, because
You are also imprisoned, and the prison that crushes you
It is the darkest and deepest in the whole world:
Depression, the supreme dungeon,
The sepulcher of sepulchers. Even having
The entire planet as a privative garden
In our own skull we have the cage
If we are depressed: we carry
Everywhere our grids
And the currents wrapped around our veins.
The sadness and the suffering for your sick
Husband are the ropes and muzzles
That silence part of you,
But even so you are capable of tearing up the mist
That wants to choke your beauty,
For there is no cloud that suffocates the sun
Or fog that can completely lock
The ocean of light that the star sings,
The eternal glittering of his chirps.

>>5747761
I'm not OP, but I like this a lot.

>>5746410
Let me start by saying I really enjoyed the style. it's blunt with short sentences and flows well with the longer ones.

I got a nihilistic, isolated vibe from it.

The parenthesis are great in some places, a little unnecessary in others, but I don't believe that should be changed, it fits in with the style.

I've got some petty shit to complain about though.
The first sentence needs some work, it probably flows the least of all.
>caught himself and paced
I think it would be improved by
>caught himself, then paced
Just an opinion.
Also, 'the frame' is a little repeitive, maybe change one to 'the stage' or 'behind the curtain'

same with
>like a vacuum, he sucks intention
I would change to
>like a vacuum, sucking intention
It flows better with the rest of the sentence, imo.

You use the words
>though, feel, think. (and variations)
A lot and somewhat too close to each other, I would diversify it and see if you can combine sentences. It was most noticable in one sentence where 'though' was used twice with only 5 or so words apart.

Same thing with I. not a big deal, but I would try to use the word I less. Feel free to dismiss my opinion here, its just a personal preference.

At the end you use
>maybe
I think
>perhaps
would fit the style more.

I've got nothing else. Like I said, I really like the style. It's got great prose, I like the theme. It gets deep in the middle and then completely comes back to reality at the end.

Write more.

>>5746526


That opening sentence. If its the middle of an ongoing story, it's fine, but if it's the first line it's underwhelming IMO.

I've got no problems with the rest.

I actually really like the rest of it, very vivid, descriptive. I really got the feel of PTSD. Very dramatic.

Sorry, not the most useful critique, but most of it I found solid.

>>5747953
Nah it's fine. It's an opening line, but not the first. The story is split up into fragments cast over the years 1968 to 2013. That fragment is chronologically first but presented in the middle

>>5747443

Thems what put out, gets.

>and a ship, shaped a figure 8 with pointed ends

The comma here makes it sound like you are saying: and a ship, a shaped figure ...

Ship and shape are trying to glue themselves together here, the comma's not enough. Maybe just drop that comma: a ship shaped figure. Is that what you are really saying? Or a ship was shaping a figure ... etc. It's ambiguous.

>Throwing myself onto the deck, I stumbled over a carved wooden rail.

I would break this sudden action away from the previous paragraph of description into its own paragraph. Attach it to: I glanced over it ...

>He shout to me, a voice brazen and excited, an accent as thick as the clouds we surfed.

Shouted or shouts. Also, it's pointless to highlight he has an accent without describing that accent at all. You might get away with it having first described him, suggesting what that accent might be by his physical description alone. You need to do that first though.

>I saw a glance beyond him.

Someone behind him glanced? Maybe: I glanced beyond him.

And then you roll in with more descriptive, which is more than a glance would provide.

>Kareem began to sit, two shirtless servants sprint across the deck

I get the idea but dislike how it's worded. Maybe: '... sprinted ...' or 'As Kareem ...'

>"As'rhal diaf'na!" Shaking his head, he shout behind him. "Servants, dull creatures."

"As'rhal diaf'na!" Shaking his head, he shouts behind him, "Servants, dull creatures!"

Something else with the dialog ... ah, I have it now. Read this:
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/2288/how-should-i-use-quotation-marks-in-sections-of-multiline-dialogue

Hope that helps. It's a fun piece, I'd like to read more.

>>5747969
It does, very much.

I've been trying to word it in ways that make it sound more wise? I don't know. The narrator's character is supposed to be a very wise man brought up in more medieval times, but it's not a style I'm well practiced in, so it sucks most of the time.

Thanks.

>>5747258
I'm going to be honest, this needs a lot of work.

>A soldier lay dead against the wall, his uniform identifying him as German.
How I would do it:
>I thought to loot the corpse propped against he wall; a dead soldier in a tattered German uniform.
Not the best, but, IMO it's more immediate. It has stronger visuals, and little details that make the scene more gruesome. "I thought to loot the corpse." could be changed, but atm I can't think of a replacement.

>The joy I feel
Felt would make more sense.

>Mostly because
Is a little unnecessary, it lessons the gravity of the next sentence. Ask yourself, is there another reason he is disconcerted? If the answer is no, just change it to:
>I feel I should be revolted with myself

>of a fellow
of his
Yes this is extremely petty.

I'm noticing your sentences could be scrunched down to be less wordy. Here's an example:
>I reached into the pockets of the trenchcoat
>I reached into his trenchcoat pockets
Its not much, but with that change, the sentence is more concise, direct. You remove 'the' and 'of the' making that sentences less repetitive.

>I have stopped
Passive voice
>I stopped

>only
you use it a couple times, in both cases it can be removed.

That's it for the bad.

>I would need one if I could not find any more Pervitin tomorrow.
This sentence could be tightened up, but let me say I like the idea of it. Really gave the narrator more character, showing him as addicted.

The story idea is interesting, given a little polish I wouldn't mind reading it.

I feel awful for shitting on you even after you thanked me twice. So sorry for that.

Anyway, don't get disheartened. The details and the events are nice, just the writing doesn't do it justice.

Keep at it, get inspired, prove my shitty critique wrong.

>>5747610
I remember your story from the other thread, but I think the weird line breaks put me off from reading the whole thing. Read it now, it's pretty evocative. Feelings about Beckett and voices. Crazy images.

There's some really nice surprising lines in this, like 'The sonic booms are 3 and they're broadcasted live since our microphones work great.' Or 'AM frequencies that let express spirits talking through oriental quarter tones' (that line feels like it could in Gravity's Rainbow, the strange electric mysticism of technology. The Roy Orbison citation actually made me feel that Pynchon was something of a reference point here.)

Some ideas:
- Do you want to talk about outside the station? Do we even want to be in or out of the station, or do you want to go all out Beckett and just make this a voice from nowhere to no one, speaking about a place but not entirely sure of what it is describing or where this place really is.
- I think some of the images seem out of place in their obvious reaching for easy profundity. Eg 'our wintery god can be temperamental at times.' They detract from the bits that work hard to achieve a way more surprising feeling, stuff like 'The repeaters catched this wish casually.'
- I get that you're going for a certain pace, but I don't think the rhythm of the voice and the movement between ideas quite holds up. Struggling to find an example for this, just a sense I had. There's a Beckett story, 'Company', where I was really floored by how well the rhythm of thought worked, carried you a long. I would recommend that as research.

So yeah made me think.

(Some stuff also just isn't really actual English: 'broadcasted' should be 'broadcast'; 'catched'->'caught'; 'choosed' -> 'chosen'; 'why do we speaking in plural' - seriously? Also, use of the double-colon sentence. Gramatically questionable, stylistically brave. Is this stuff intentional?)

>>5745906
>that coat scene
painfully relevant

I know OP is not accepting any more pieces, but here's mine: http://pastebin.com/AaiNZSrC.. It's roughly 3000 words. I'll critique other people who post after me.

There are a number of issues with my story. Aside from general impressions, please also tell me which of these issues was the one which made it shit for you, if that was how you found it.
>insufferable over-arrogant voice of narrator
>random overuse of references to Hamlet
>embarrassing over-specificity of named high diploma course
>overuse of references to otaku culture
>overly convoluted syntax and overly-long words

Admittedly the last two were deliberate, but if they are flaws I'll happily change them.

>>5745979
you're trying really hard to be profound and it shows, nauseatingly

>>5747411
I don't like being harsh, but, its got problems.

Here's what I think the story is, if it's not, then some of my criticisms may not apply.
I believe it's uneducated people in a town. (Like a post-apocalyptic society). Caves are perhaps buildings in a small town?

Anyway, the criticisms that apply to that are:
Your dialogue. While it'd be bland kind of everywhere, here its particularly bad. If these are barbarian, low intellect characters, then their dialogue is a huge disconnect.
>I'm sorry, I thought this was my cave, sorry.
Tell me a cave (wo)man would say that. I'm not saying go all ooga booga, but, it doesn't fit imo.

Another problem is just the prose. It's very lack-luster. It doesn't feel tribal, or primalistic. Even without the theme, it's just very basic.

>Their caves glowed blue at night.
Someone said this to me when I had sentences like that in my writing.
Put some poetry in it for fucks sake.

While this is still a little boring, a small change really gives the sentence much more impact.
>Blue light would glow from their caves.

There is also some repetition that was jarring.
>glowed glow
>stand standing
>night night
>forest forests
all of those in a three sentence span.
Try:
>shine, gleam, alight
>stood, sat, perched
>dusk, twilight, evening
>trees, thicket, woodland
Not much of a change, but it will improve your writing and your vocabulary.

There is also repetition with the following words, though this may have been part of your style and a conscious choice. I personally didn't like it, but that's just an opinion.
>Vending machine
>Legs
>Limbs

I liked the line
>That was something.
Very simple, and what the theme requires is simplicity, which is a difficult thing to pull off without boring prose.

Anyway, I hope you can take this with thick skin. Practically everything needs to be reworked; but that's a good thing...

Because you can do better.

>>5748133

I've received a fair few responses in this vein, which shows me I'm doing something right - you all seem to assume that what I'm working toward outlining is my actual position. This means the voice is satisfactorily authentic in some sense.

>>5748143
>>5747708
If that is what you're going for, it works.
Keep in mind, however. It's going to turn a lot of readers off. Satire only works if its not insufferable.

>>5748143
nice try

>>5748096
first of all, thanks for your critique and the advices.
I wrote it in a sort of stream of consciousness listening to a song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpqROK7cFmk)), more like a practice. I've never read anything of beckett and I just read few bits of pynchon, but now I'm very curious and I'll check out.
My intent was to write in the point of view of a worker of this decaying radio station, but the thing went out of hand and I left it vague.
the mistakes are all unintentional, I'm italian and I translated it without any support of dictionaries so I missed out something. Maybe that's why that the movement don't hold up.

>>5748152

Yeah, the character is intended to be misogynist, but of a sort more intelligent/articulate than you usually find screaming on the internet, basically. A fair amount of Nice Guy in there, basically. Hence the Elliot Rodger comparison being close.

FWIW (while what you say is true) I'm not sure I'd call it 'satire'. But that's unimportant.

>>5748165
>everyone is constantly lying to trick me into thinking i was wrong about stuff

Fascinating, I'd incorporate that if my guy wasn't meant to be smart. ;^)

>>5748137
Criticism this in-depth and detail driven on /lit/ is really refreshing, so thanks. I can't really dispute your observations, which were pretty spot on - I think all I can argue is that what you say are technical shortcomings are differences in taste.

W/r/t post-apocalyptic society, it really is literally what is written about in the story: people living in caves. I didn't want it to be part of any like a coherent fantasy world outside the text. Personally I'm really drawn to that approach to fiction, eg Donald Barthelme's stories. I think to some degree 'cave' could be replaced with 'dorm room' - I was trying to do something with ideas of setting, the group of signs you use to situate a story or evoke place. And the dialogue was purposefully in an apathetic collegiate mode, again I was going for an effect which maybe didn't quite come together.

Similarly with the prose there's a kind of minimalism that I really like in fiction, which I think you interpreted here as a flatness. I was hoping that the energy would come from the juxtaposition and arrangement of sentences, that there would be surprising moments there, but I'll review that. I feel naturally averse to using a word like 'perched' in a story, my problem is how to use that range of language like that without me feeling, like, painfully 'writerly'.

>>5746202
Alright, so I promised more in depth critique

I skipped it because I had read the first paragraph in another thread and I had just critiqued 2 very long posts.

I promised to give in depth critique... but I can't

I like it, especially the monologue. Gives a great Noir style. Its got a strange dynamic with evil twins? Like what? It's cliche, but you did it well. I didn't see the twist coming.

I know you've worked hard on the first few sentences, and its getting there, but there are still a few kinks to be worked out.
>It did not seem right
Personally, it lowers the impact and dulls the hook. I'm not sure how to rewrite it, but the word 'seem' is the problem.

>notes
I really like the sentences, the descriptions of Hong Kong, but I don't understand the analogy. Are we talking musical notes? Notes in a notebook? I don't know, perhaps I'm stupid. Again, I like the sentences, but the metaphors are lost on me.

>The closet had been his death before
My first thought was that the detective was gay
Totally a bullshit criticism... but... hey, I mad the connection, others might.

>upon which he was bound
>which bound him
'upon' here is entirely useless, it can be removed without thought to the rest of the words, however to me personally, I would further shorten it. Just a preferrence

>Bamboo canoe
I liked this rhyme, gave the monologue momentum and the speaker character.

Other than that, I really liked the rest of it, again especially the monologue.

Write more.

>>5748192
Anyone can write a voice like that, and anyone can go on 4chan and read voices like that. What's the point of writing fiction about it without adding anything other than to show that 'you' are not that voice?

>>5748214
Ah I see. Art is entirely subjective and that is the nature of things. I personally prefer hints of poetry and vivid descriptions, so I'm not the best person to critique your work.

if you wanted it to simply be about people living in caves, perhaps the simple things like taking pictures of broken 'urns' and trading berries should be reworked.. really gives the vibe of stupid. Just sayin'.

Perched was just a quick example. I'm pretty critical about repetition, but that's just me.

Hopefully I've given you a useful opinion.

Alright, I've given everyone critique. I hope it's useful and that it helps you improve.

Again, me being a whore, feel free to critique my bullshit here:
>>5747443

Anyone who has been given critique, please share the love and critique the new posts in this thread.

>>5747733
>>5747745
>>5747755
>>5747610
>>5747560

>>5748243
>What's the point of writing fiction about it without adding anything other than to show that 'you' are not that voice?

Well, you've stumped me, I suppose. Maybe I should have, it just didn't occur to me at the time. No-one else seems to.

>>5747187

I like this. Feels like it captures moments of childhood being looked back on. Is that what you were going for?

>see thread where people are actually giving criticism
>it's over
Fuck my life.
Well anyway

>>5747733
The repeating names sound awkward at times, especially here
>Anniceris went unto a crate, and said 'Come one, come all!'
I'd think of something else for this line honestly

Also are you trying to rhyme tear with air?

>>5748893
I wouldn't mind giving you some critique for some thoughts on my work.

I just set myself a limit on freebies.

>>5748907
Yeah sure, post something, I can't guarantee I'll have anything worthwhile to say though.

>>5748913

here.
>>5747443
its shitty genre fiction I'm writing for fun.

post something of yours so I can return the favor

>>5748927
Sure, here's a shitty poem I wrote a few days ago but I'm new to this and have no idea how to make it work. It has some annotations I made for myself.


Oh, oh the great flood
has come
pouring forth the portentous stone (not feeling this line so much)
my senses numb
Oh, oh the great sea
has risen finally
Oh pure water surrounding me
tastes like blood
(in fact not sure about like half of this)

Oh water of the end days
crushed by the weight and dazed
through spiral and maze
the light faint shines
and a lark's cry, scarcely heard
ode and requiem for a sinking herd

It started like this
by a drop that made the snake hiss
by a drizzle the ark set ablaze
by the rains caving to panic and craze

(is this break necessary?)

And in the final hour I lay
in my watery grave
and I recall someone once say
"You must pay back what you crave" (I should think of something better here)

In grey bedrock I heave weary
shadowy weave sorrounds my throne
I can heard the falls, their enraged moan
droplets falling red like cherries

(again, is this break necessary?)

The rain pours but I am freed
of what sin was my soul cleared?
Not a shadow of being in sight
now how have I earned this hollowed plight?
In this desolate place I found beauty
a stare with cruelty, eyes of ruby (again, this line could be better)

Now my mind came undone
it's cages but rotten bone
(maybe I should add a line or two here)

The primal sea has dried
bedrock lay exposed and linked
but the chasms remain deep
in fear our eyes are inked
eyes avert the thoughts that creep
they scream "hope in me has died" (really need a better ending than this)

>>5748934
Oh shit, sorry man I can't even into poetry.
I'll try to give you an idiot's opinion though.

Yeah the first stanza could use some work. I don't know the metre you're going for so maybe my opinion here doesn't matter at all.
>Oh, oh the great sea
>has risen finally
could use another syllable here. It's balanced numbers wise, but when read it feels almost off.

>Tastes like blood
You might like
>The taste of blood
maybe?

>crushed by the weight and dazed
I like the near rhyme of days and dazed, but "and dazed" doesn't make sense to me.

I don't think the first break is necessary. Grave/crave are near rhymes anyway.

Second break is moreso because the two stanzas are less similar.

For the ending, I like the idea of it. It just needs to be rewritten. I can't say how.

Again, I can't even poetry. I've written some shitty limeric poetry for chicks and shit, but not anything with substance.

As i said with the other poems in this thread.. It's good, I think?

Sorry I can't be of much help

>>5748927
I liked it, it's got nice balance and atmosphere. Easy and fun to read without being mindless. It's got a nice flow to it, however I didn't much like
>The man beamed an enthusiastic smile as he stretched his arms to offer a hug—marching towards me faster than I could step back. Tanned skin, a thinning beard, a circlet on his forehead held up his sable hair. He was adorned in a silken blouse trimmed in gold, stylized in layers of patterned fabric, held together by a sash that wrapped his waist. Several jeweled necklaces graced his neck and every finger gripped a ring.
The moment you start describing his attire seems a bit tacked on to the passage, I think it'd probably fit better in the same paragraph where you describe the quarters.

>>5748977
No problem man I actually like your suggestions. Thanks for the help.

>>5748978
>>5748982
Same to you.

I was pretty self conscious writing that scene, so it's good to know that so far it's gotten comments like it's fun to read.

I'll see if I can reword his description.. I'm not very good with characters, I prefer landscapes.

>>5748063
Hey OP, sorry for the late reply. Thank you very much for your critique, brutal honesty is the only way I can improve my writing. I appreciate the advice and will take everything you said into consideration.

>>5749058
Any time!

Give some critique to someone else in this thread. It'll give you a new point of view on your own work. While reading will improve your writing, it won't help if you don't pick apart the literature. I find that critiquing work has helped me improve just as much as my work being critiqued.

It was Jorb's first day on the job, and still his employers were wondering why on earth they would hire a man named Jorb who seemed to have half of his body sideways and the other half backwards and possibly- probably- an organ or two missing. Jorb seemed to have been born in a cage, and was prone to twitching every other second, usually several times in an episode. He had one other job before this one, and that was no more than licking stamps professionally- not the kind of job a normal person would want to give up. Licking stamps professionally is also a challenge of the pyche and the body; on one side, you've got the ever present thoughts of 'why am I doing this' and 'how did I get here' and 'what is this job for' and the ever present 'working in a mall would be more useful to society than this'. Jorb's psyche was most likely damaged from such a challenging activity as licking stamps, such a monotonous task, such a dull task, such a pointless task, such a difficultly easy task. Licking stamps for any more than five minutes leads to that sensation that can only be gotten from 1.) licking stamps or 2.) repeating any word you like, through writing or speech, for the amount of time it takes for that word to begin sounding less like something with a meaning and more like nonsense. If you say 'bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat' or read 'bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat', it's gonna start looking like the first two letters of baby followed by some other letter, and start sounding like some absurd sound only seen in a language halfway across the globe you didn't learn in school. I'm feeling that way about the term 'licking stamps' and the word 'bat' at this very moment, and I'm sure you are too. It's not pleasant, and could definitely be filed under a challenge of the psyche to do this kind of thing for more than five minutes, much less eight hours a day for a penny more than minimum wage.

They ate their breakfast in alienated silence, and got on the road in the same condition. It was Laura's turn to drive down the narrow two lane roads that hustled people through the vast emptiness of Texas's headless neck. Scrublands surrounded them, inescapable no matter how hard she pushed down on the gas. Only thorny, sickly bushes survived out there, like swarming vermin on top of a grey carpet of dirt, rocks and grass. There were ancient, seemingly purposeless fence posts weaving in drunken paths over the rolling desolation, their iron wire fabric long since rusted to flakes and taken away by the wind. It was hard not to look around and feel empty and dry, too. Jamie had visited a used CD shop on their way out of Amarillo, and so they spent the time listening to beautiful music that nobody wanted anymore. Black Sabbath's songs would be remembered, but not these eight in particular. The middle aged man who once owned the CD might still remember listening to them in his bed as a teenager, in a room that was now a stranger's. He'd remember being a seventeen-year-old, rebellious, with a young and optimistic point of view, and a thousand friends who were now who-knows-where. The branching chains of memory would bring him back to life as a boy, when he hadn't a point of view at all, pretending the bed was a space ship and his best friends were dinosaurs. Then he would die. The blood would stop rushing through his brain, and those lonely, beautiful tracts of time would die with him, leaving behind eight tracks worth of ones and zeros trapped on a obsolete piece of plastic, an entombed, autistic pseudo-existence that not even blackness could describe.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Laura said.

"It's okay."

"I don't have anything to confess, either," Laura said. "So, sorry for being boring too, I guess."

>>5748235

thanks for the read op, I appreciate it :)

also the notes is a perfume metaphor

>>5749194
Oh, it makes much more sense then. Yeah I was just stupid.

>>5747374
>>5747498
>>5748116


>>5745906 Here. Thank you all for your feedback. I'll do my best at critiquing your piece, OP, although take everything I say with ten pounds of salt.

> Feathered oars fanned mellow winds, slight bends in their oscillations; nine protrude from each decorative side of the rich palm wood...
Seems like you have a tense inconsistency; I would change "protrude" to "protruded."
>I glanced over it to see the airship break the atmosphere like an ocean, gliding along an endless blue.
I loved this description, "endless blue."

Some random thoughts:
>Ellipses
Too many ellipses, I think. You have a lot jammed into such a short piece. I would advise you to save ellipses for when characters actually trail off, and not when they pause in the middle of a sentence.
>Khaleel Abd Alim'lufati, 5th of the Jabagadi Sah'bagah dynasty and heir to the stars.
I love this nigga. Funny. Charismatic. Makes me want to read more. Problem is, he's more interesting than your protagonist at the moment, although that could be due to the short length of your piece.

>>5749115

You pose some obvious questions about Jorb's stamp licking job but don't answer them fast enough for my liking, if even at all.

>difficultly easy task

I don't think this one works. I get what you're going for, it's just too cumbersome a speed bump in the voice for such a minor concept imo.

>much less eight hours a day for a penny more than minimum wage.

I think you mean much more.

I don't know what I think about the narrator voice. Breaking the fourth wall, self reference, unclear whether it's a first or third person narrative. It's an issue of style and taste. It seems risky. A dry third person narrative lets the characters and plot speak for itself. You give the narrator a personality, you're now writing for an extra layer that might piss off the reader if you get it wrong. It sounds like you're trying to give the narrator a neurotic voice. With that in mind, you didn't play it hard enough. Give us more bats. You need to commit to your premise harder to get the laughs and justify your voice, imo.

>>5749306
Thanks for the critique

Oh yeah, he is way more interesting, which is why I'm having a blast writing his character.

The protagonist had just spent 2 chapters wandering to a desert slowly drifting to insanity, so he's not very talkative.

This chapter he doesn't have many lines, because I really want to exploit the Khaleel to the fullest (I may have killed him off in the next one) but I assure you, the MC has some great characterization and eccentricities earlier and later.

I'm working on another scene right now that's even more over the top than the one I posted here. If I finish it I'll post it.

>>5747569
Thank you!

>>5749115
>It was Jorb's first day on the job, and still
First day is too early to merit a "still"

>why on earth they would hire a man named Jorb who seemed to have half of his body sideways and the other half backwards and possibly- probably- an organ or two missing
You have two 'weird points' here - his name and his appearance. This results in neither quite getting the focus. Use only one for better effect.

>a man named Jorb who seemed
>Jorb seemed to have been born in a cage
Repeated "seemed". It's very likely just me being oversensitive, but you could replace it.

>He had one other job
He had had one other job

>no more than licking stamps professionally
Do you mean "none other", or genuinely "no more" here?

>not the kind of job a normal person would want to give up. Licking stamps professionally is also a challenge
You change tenses here, and the effect is jarring. Keep to that "would" tense (I don't even know what it's called - hypothetical case?) and don't switch to present.

>on one side, you've got the ever present thoughts
"On one hand", did you mean? You don't mention an other side afters though. "Ever-present", not "ever present". Finally, you suddenly switch from impartial third person to casual first person. Don't do that. Stick to third person for better effect.

>and the ever present 'working in a mall would be more useful to society than this'
"ever-present" is an adjective. You don't have a noun following it.

>Licking stamps for any more than five minutes leads to that sensation that can only be gotten from 1.) licking stamps or 2.) repeating any word you like
DO NOT randomly list things with numbered lists. It's casual. This kills the mood of your piece, especially when you had a perfectly serviceable third person voice before. There's nothing wrong with a casual first person voice, but yours sounds too immature to be anything other than bad. No offense.

>bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat ba
I don't think anyone would want to plough through this, but that could just be me. This kind of playing with language can be done, but only if the prose style is sufficiently weird that readers can tell it's the writer being innovative. As things are it doesn't look innovative; it just looks bad.

>>5747969
>>5748978
>>5749306

If you enjoyed it and would like to critique a later part in that particular chapter, here:
http://pastebin.com/1BPBWbLk

This is a slightly polished rough draft. It will take my a week or so before I'm able to rip it apart and finalize it.

>>5749115
>>5749517 here. Continuing my critique, I'll say that I can tell you're trying to be interesting and humorous with this description. Your style, however, sounds too immature for the humour to be effective. You could work on it some.

But hell I've just stayed up an entire night so I probably sound harsher than I really mean to be. Don't take any of it too personally.

>>5749517
It was Jorb's first day on the job, and his employers were wondering why on earth they would hire a man named Jorb who seemed to have half of his body backwards and the other half sidways. Jorb also looked as though he had been born in a cage, and was prone to twitching every other second, usually several times in an episode. He had had one other job before this one, and that was none other than licking stamps professionally- not the kind of job a normal person would want to give up. Licking stamps professionally would also be a challenge of the pyche and the body; on one hand, there are the ever-present thoughts of 'why am I doing this' and 'how did I get here' and 'what is this job for' and the ever present 'working in a mall would be more useful to society than this'. Jorb's psyche was most likely damaged from such a challenging activity as licking stamps, such a monotonous task, such a dull task, such a pointless task, such a difficultly easy task. Licking stamps for any more than five minutes leads to that sensation that can only be gotten from licking stamps or repeating any word you like, through writing or speech, for the amount of time it takes for that word to begin sounding less like something with a meaning and more like nonsense. If you say 'bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat' or read 'bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat', it's going to transform into the first two letters of baby followed by some other letter, and start sounding like some absurd sound only seen in a language halfway across the globe that can't be learned in school. I'm feeling that way about the term 'licking stamps' and the word 'bat' at this very moment, and I'm sure you are too. It's not pleasant, and could definitely be filed under a challenge of the psyche to do this kind of thing for more than five minutes, much less eight hours a day for a penny more than minimum wage.

I fixed what you asked me to fix.
>This kind of playing with language can be done, but only if the prose style is sufficiently weird that readers can tell it's the writer being innovative. As things are it doesn't look innovative; it just looks bad.
Is this something that can sort of be fixed, or just a sign that I'm not the greatest writer? This isn't really a serious story at all, just something I banged out a couple days ago that I'd like to see critiqued.

>>5749169
>Texas' headless neck
>pushed down on the gas... dirt, rocks and grass
>die... describe
>don't have anything to confess... I guess
Maybe I'm seeing links where there aren't any, but these rhymes are pretty nice.

I don't have much to say. Your prose is decent, although some sentences are a syllable or two longer than they have to be. But that's a matter of personal preference.

Do you have a continuation? I'm somewhat curious to see how the plot unfolds.

>>5749574
It's just a sign that you're not the greatest writer. Feels like I gave you useless advice there, but it's true.

I suggest you listen to >>5749320's advice about "difficultly easy task". I didn't pick it up just now, but you do a list of four: monotonous, dull, pointless, difficultly easy. Never mind that "difficultly easy task" breaks the pattern of "[one word] task", it's also an awkward fourth element. Cut one for increased smoothness.

I highly recommend you do not go "bat bat bat bat bat" and instead say "If you say 'bat' twenty times fast". Also, in your example of "if you say... if you read" read is unnecessary.

Finally, the direct address to the reader - "if you say", "any word you like" - and the randomish insertions of "why am I doing this" are different from the impartial third person voice you're using. I'm assuming you're going with that instead of a casual voice. Different voices clash and just sound weird. You can turn "why am I doing this" third person by quoting it indirectly, and as for direct address to the reader - just don't do it.

And, uh, I left this out of my previous critique, but there's no real content in this paragraph. All I get is a description of some guy's previous job, but you don't give me any reason to read through it. It doesn't feel significant although since it's just something you banged out I suppose I shouldn't expect it to feel so. Still, it might help to keep that in mind for the future. Write something only if you have a reason for it; and if the reason is humour, as seems to be the case here, make sure it actually is funny. I'm sure there are a great many anons on /lit/ willing to judge that for you.

>>5749613
Well there's technically more to the story, and that's just the longest cut I have from it without exceeding the limit on /lit

Here's the introduction, which introduces the reoccuring 'challenge of the psyche and the body' and a bit of context for what job he's looking for:

Climbing a windmill is a challenge of the psyche and the body.

Climbing almost anything is a challenge of the psyche and the body.

Jorb wasn't prepared for the challenge in his psyche and body while climbing the windmill.

Then there's the paragraph I posted >>5749574

Then there's this (which makes use of the numbering I did in the unedited paragraph)

'2.)' is a lot more obvious. There comes a point when you're licking stamps (or anything, for that matter) where your tongue just runs out of juice. It becomes a dry lump somehow existing in your mouth; you become aware of this strange mass hanging out in your mouth that you're normally too used to barely using to notice; you become physically sick at the now nearly intoxicating fume and feel involved with sticking a stamp near your mouth. Your nose will burn, your tongue will get confused with the should-be-simple method of slathering a stamp with juice, and the damage to your psyche will continue with no end in sight. And that's after five minutes.

Licking stamps doesn't seem like the job a normal person would easily give up, but fate has it that licking stamps makes you so unusual that you give it up. So our hero naturally went off the deep end licking stamps and actually managed to easily give up a job that no normal person would easily give up. Which itself is the best explanation of why he entered a job that challenged the psyche and body nearly as much as stamp licking- windmill climbing.

Windmill climbing is an occupation that normally involves the technician opening a compartment in the side of the windmill and journeying up a long, cold, somewhat slimy and somewhat small ladder, to do what ever the technician has to do to the poor windmill. Sometimes it involves climbing onto parts of the windmill itself with many ropes and safety gear and potential death looming, always looming, and never afraid to drop on you and send you shooting down to earth like a fallen angel.

then there's a bit more after that which I can't fit

>>5749577

Uh, thanks, yeah, I totally meant to do that...

And it's a novel length story, so I don't think I can help you there.

I sing to you from my room,
the long song, the slow doom,
the morning wind, the grass un felt,
behind walls of asbestos, carpets of salt,
I cannot be myself, my soul and I, we’re just apart,
torn between hemispheres, longing for ones that wait
I cannot understand her, I know I look at her, and relate
myself to her, maybe it’s just me self imposing but I can’t retaliate
to her advances in the eyes, the courage she lacks I just have to make up for
In the noon’s moon I will fill her with all of my seedy creations, and hold my head high
for the dawn will crack with my permission and I will seek what I cannot buy
with my looks, my love for her is just like crazy wind
looking into her eyes, just vaporized, I cannot recommend
a life without her, a day without Heidi
my mind is stolid, I sing to you from my room,
about the steady day, the quick loom.

http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/103084979445/this-letter-concerns-the-wells-fargo

>>5746733
>>5746683
>>5747918
Thanks to the both of you! I think i'll edit this story a little more and then continue to build off of it. I'm aiming for either a collection of thematically, geographically and character consistent short stories/flash fictions, or as something more akin to a full novel, or a little of both. Either way, this critique is really helpful.

>>5749787
He's suddenly substantive

>>5749787
The first evidence that the kid can actually write. Wow.

I wrote >>5746410 , if that gives you any context on where i'm coming from. I hope you're still here, and this comment isn't all i have to say on this.

>>5746202
I'm really into this, very lucid and dreamlike at times, then surreal in a dark way, blending into harder realism. Your prose style is very consistent and, when applied to the more realist sections, can create a nice contrast between the events of the story and the dream-like quality of their description. If a whole book or story collection were like this, I would probably read it.

>his memories fraying and his sense of self slipping, as if the brush strokes that made up his form were diluting.

While the imagery and intent of this metaphor is great, the final part of it is a little underwhelming, specifically in the use of diluting. I feel like that specific word doesn't really work with conveying the degradation of brush strokes, for me at least. Desintegration, bleeding into the paper, and similar choices might work better, though you should work them in as you see fit, if you decide to change that last part. Also, I was expecting a reference to Chinese Calligraphy, which might ground your story even more into the Chinese/Hong Kong setting.

>made his mind heavy and drowsy, so it felt like his

The rest of this paragraph is good, but 'so it felt like' is a little clunky in a way that impedes your flow and rhythm.

>>5749787
New Kolsti is always a good thing

>>5750003
I like Kolsti the activist better than Kolsti the postmetamodernist

>>5749980

I can see how the 'notes' metaphor might confuse someone, as 'oppressive base notes' does allude more to music than to perfume in the minds of most people, but it is a very enjoyable section. Keep in as much of it as possible if you want to make the perfume connection more clear, or just leave it as it, since it works both way simultaneously (even if the music interpretation is a little clunkier).

>a detective from Hong Kong and ends

which/that ended, I trust you to fix this.

>I remembered becoming a desperado, committing crimes until I reached my vile crescendo, and was finally inducted into the triads.

Until I/who was

>in its zero-energy and self-correcting nature

Sort of pointless to me, imagery+intent don't gel with the rest of the story.

>For thirty and five

I don't think this sort of thing ever works, even when trying to create a more antiquated/rustic register of speaking.

On that note, the dialogue right now is very dramatic in an acted out sense, as if it were lifted from a play. I can see you using this to both positive and negative effect, so try to be aware of whether that is your aim or not (I think your stories would be stronger by pulling it off rather than omitting it).

That's it, I hope to see more of your work. Keep it up, Senpai.

The air was stale in the apartments, wedged between a thousand floors of inhabited space in both directions, an infinitely recycled atmosphere ignorant of the sunlight for so many centuries that it had taken on a confined dimness, full of smells barely concealed by industrial filters which worked tirelessly, pushing the heavy air through homes and offices, factories and farms, a thousand specialized cells of a planet-hive of grey and blue and little else. It was a nostalgic scent that harkened back to his childhood, those barely-cogent years of innocent simplicity and simple pleasures. His unit was small, like the one which his parents had rented as he was young, an impoverished little one bedroom unit with an attached kitchenette. Of course, he never cooked, and the glistening stovetop, a domestic must have from yesteryear, remained as pristine as the day he had moved in. Sometimes though, due to an oversight made during the construction of the apartment, or some clandestine operation performed afterwards, the smell of cooking from one of the adjacent units wafted into his suite, fragrant and rich.

I've been told it's shit before

>>5746202
Just saw this, is Z. Zhuang a reference to Zhuangzi, the philosopher?

>>5749787
Kolsti rude as fuck if he actually sent that

>>5749915
but its shit>>5749821

>>5750112
It's ballsy as fuck

>>5750128
>ballsy as fuck to critcize a company on tumblr
what planet do you live on
i can only imagine wells fargo gets dozens of letters identical to his everyday

>>5750132
It's a letter to the superintendent of his school district. Wells Fargo isn't even a recipient. And he actually sent it directly to them, then posted it online. Balls.

>>5750013
>>5750003
>>5749915
>>5749821
Why does this guy do this?
No one knows who he is.

>>5750140
>implying I read it

>>5750020
>>which/that ended

is this correct???

>And I remembered. I remembered all my lives, including the one where I had been a detective from Hong Kong and ends with a bullet in my brain and being dumped in the sea.

>And I remembered. I remembered all my lives, including the one where I had been a detective from Hong Kong and which ended with a bullet in my brain and being dumped in the sea.

>And I remembered. I remembered all my lives, including the one where I had been a detective from Hong Kong and that ended with a bullet in my brain and being dumped in the sea.

>And I remembered. I remembered all my lives, including the one where I had been a detective from Hong Kong and which ends with a bullet in my brain and being dumped in the sea.

I'd go 4, 1, 2, 3, but I also think that ultimately all four are acceptable.

>>5750160
>1500 words

>>5749787
too long; didn't read

>>5750229
>And I remembered. I remembered all my lives, including the one where I had been a detective from Hong Kong which ends with a bullet in my brain and being dumped in the sea.

Better still, IMO.

>>5750250
I skimmed after
>auteur's

and I see neither balls nor anything too impressive, honestly. A lot of meandering and hyperbole. Neither is appropriate for a legit formal letter and taken as performance art or whatever, it's fairly dull.

>>5750266
he just comes across as really fucking exasperated. it's repetitive as fuck but I guess he's trying to talk down to them. which is funny.

>>5750229
I'm still lurking around being a cunt.

I personally would go, 2 3 4 1

I didn't notice this when reading the first time, but "ends" doesn't flow with the rest of the sentence, perhaps if "that started" was earlier in it.

that leaves 2 and 3.
>and that ended
at that point you can either take out the word and, which, if it were #5, would be above all others. Otherwise, 'which' fits in much better.

>>5750266
>hyperbole
It's not the most eloquent "letter" but he has a fair point. Shit sounds absolutely haram.

~1300 words

pastebin.com/fVUGB8zf

I really appreciate this OP

>>5750294
I was only doing critique's posted last night, stopped accepting them sometime around noon for me.

I wouldn't mind taking a look if you would be kind to critique something of mine, though.

Here:
>>5747443
and here:
>>5749524

>>5750339

Didn't see:
>>5749524
go by. I'm on it, wait one ...

>>5750385
I liked it for like an hour after I wrote it.

Now I'm thinking it's way to over the top, which it is. I'll tone that down a bit. Just know I realize that's a problem.

Thanks in advanced.

>>5747443
>>5750339
I'll tell you now, I'm shit at giving advice. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.

That being said, I was really impressed with the dialogue. I thought it was well timed and well paced, didn't reveal too much too soon.
Description I didn't like too much, not seeing anything wrong with it, but you use the comma constantly between descriptions. It kinda feels like you're trying to be 'dramatic' with your descriptions when it isn't really needed. I think you're trying to include as many descriptions as possible because that's what you think good imagery is. Another thing you're doing is just naming off objects left and right. Just to point out a few:

>rich palm wood hull—each board
>carved wooden rail
>mosaic quilts
>Pillars, balconies, fountains,

Again, I think you're doing this to compensate for lack of imagery. Maybe try something like:

>The captain had teeth like piano keys.

That's imagery. That allows the reader to connect what you're saying to something that they can picture. Saying something has 'lattice' or 'mosaic' patterns doesn't provide for vivid imagery.

>>5750294
Alright, it MAY just be the style, as it does appear to be a letter... but, the prose at times really needs some work, and there is a lot of superfluous writing

Look at the parenthesis in the first paragraph. They add nothing other than details you learn simply by having two brain cells.

here's a more specific example:
>What they were actually for though (as you may have guessed) was my dog Flea, the only dog I was ever actually able to teach to sit or roll over or anything like that.
>They were meant for the only dog I had ever trained to sit or roll over, Flea.

No detail was lost, and the sentence is nearly half the length.

Another:
I'm going to assume you wanted an almost childlike main idea here, if that makes sense.
>I think maybe if I get some of these thoughts on paper, I can use my super logic against my own compulsive habits, my own compulsive self
>If I had these thoughts on paper, I think, maybe I could use my super logic against my own compulsive habits.
Not as extreme as the first example, but many of your sentences can be tightened up and brought to axe. Imagine if every sentence lost 2-3 words.

I found too many issues to list, Not to be mean, but try reading your sentences out loud. It's a good habit, I think it will solve a lot of the problems I'm seeing.

Petty shit
>I can remember
Maybe 'could' would fit here a little more.

>around that time
doesn't really add anything, we've already established these were memories when the narrator was ~4

>He died from lupus
This caught me off guard. If that is what you wanted, well, it works on this idiot.

I won't go into the rest of it, it would be me picking things apart.

I said this with another post here, I assume you're a new writer, because the growing pains show.

Perhaps it is MEANT to be that way, but, I don't know your vision, and my opinion is that it needs work.

Keep practicing, tighten up your sentences and you'll find it will turn out way better.

>>5745858
First attempt to write something, anything thoughts would be appreciated, thanks op

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MB_Ig9quYHqUccGKR_hYDjwWofET6iVHff9wjzJLj4o/pub

>>5750021
>here's how I would've written it, maybe you can adopt some of the changes.

The air was stale in the apartments, wedged between a thousand floors of inhabited space in both directions. An infinitely recycled atmosphere, ignorant of the sunlight for so many centuries, had taken on a confined dimness, full of odor. The industrial filters worked honestly, but couldn't kill the stench, only pushing the heavy air onward through homes and offices, factories and farms, a thousand specialized cells of a planet-hive of grey and blue and little else. It was a nostalgic scent, one that harkened back to his childhood, those early years impoverished, so full of innocence and simple pleasures. His unit was small, about the size of his parents' from when he was young, a little one bedroom unit with an attached kitchenette. Of course he never cooked, and the glistening stovetop, a domestic from yesteryear, remained as pristine as the day he'd moved in. Sometimes though, by way of an oversight in the apartment's construction, or by some discreet renovation done afterwards, the smell of cooking from one of the adjacent units wafted perfectly into his suite, fragrant and rich and curious.

>>5750445
Thanks for the critique, every little bit helps.

About the listing part, yeah it's obscure, I'll see if I can rework it. I'm not sure if you got it though. I'm not listing things to say that they were there, I am listing them to give them a property, which was "embellished in vanity". Yes, I know, that is also vague, but I'm trying to hammer home it's a very decorated captain's quarters.

I'd have to agree with your thoughts on my imagery for the most part. I have a hard time being poetic with the very simple things. I try to instead give a vivid image instead of one poetic.

I do much better with landscapes, but describing structures/objects always screws me.

>>5745968
is there more, I quite enjoyed that

>>5746524
Why didn't op critique mine?
>tfw your writing is so far gone, it doesn't deserve correction.

>>5750538
I'm to tired for this shit, just some quick thoughts though.

if this is your FIRST time writing something (aside from classwork) then this is incredibly good.

My major issue with it is the dialogue tags.
Basically, the ly words. These are poison to your writing. While you can get away with one every so often, they really hurt any image you try to make, and most of the time can be useless.

Compare this
>He quickly glanced
to
>He shot me a rapid glance.
Don't use that, its a really bad example. too tired to think of any of worth.

But just see the comparison, the second has much more impact (as shit as it may be) it's more immediate, has more character.

The prose is serviceable, if a little repetitive at points (but I feel this was on purpose)

The one time I felt it wasn't was at the end

>Johnny again
>He glanced at me again
back to back, just something petty

Overall, work out those ly words, you'll find your work to read much stronger.

>>5750586
Shit I'm sorry man, I didn't see a wall of text or a link so I didn't think it to be someone's work.

I'll get to it in a second.

>>5750339

OK, first off the dialog is hard to follow, not the writing but the attribution - who is speaking?

Presumably there's some stuff that happens before this part of the scene that establishes who is speaking, so this may be an non-issue. I going to run though it as it may be of some value to someone else to see how an otherwise decent reader parses this (and there's is another problem at the end.)

>"Yes, not since Kareem the liberator." He pat an empty cushion,

That last implies 'he' is speaking.

>I sat beside him. "What a fine prince, tell me, what was he like?"

This first part implies 'I' is speaking.

>"Crude, but honest. He would fumble, very clumsy. Not a ladies' man, but romantic, just insecure." My voice fell to a whisper. "And he had a strange obsession—apples."

This clearly establishes 'I' is speaking here, and the previous paragraph was 'he'. It wasn't clear until this point.

It flows along fine, back and forth, until here where 'I' is now speaking:

>"Now, it is late. You had woken beyond breakfast, so tonight we shall feast!" He jumped from the pillow.

So now 'he' is standing, 'I' is sitting so -

>"Up, up! Let us find one of my many dining halls!"

Who is this? It's glued on to the previous so it's still 'I' talking, technically.

Starting from the top (ignoring the note), paragraph by paragraph, the speaker is:

He
I
I
He
I
He
I ... no he?

I'm not done yet, but that's a start, and hoping it's useful to you.

>>5750586
>>5746524

I really like the rhyming, there are a FEW places where the syllable count felt off, but that just may be my voice. It would take me reading it over and over to figure the exact places.

>end mends
Perhaps change the second line to
>my mind will never mend.
This would throw off the rhythm though, but I think the rhyme is worth it.

>This place is always awful the sky is always pale
I would put a comma
>always awful, the sky

>to the loft glued my hands
same here
>to the loft, glued my hands

while it doesn't change anything, it makes it look nicer and gives the reader a stopping point.
The second example, I read it as one long sentence the first time, didn't even notice the rhyme and was kind of thrown off. For a moment I had thought that you ended the style suddenly.

>Just before digging my mortal grave
you have a lot of hard consonant sounds very close to one another, making it read very harshly and have no flow.

>a knocking at the door was a peering eye to save.
I would change 'a' to 'the'
Also, look at this line as an example to the first one. It breaks up the harsh consonant with lighter soft ones that emphasis vowel sounds. It flows very nicely.

>terrified and committed me
I have no other problems with this line, but again this also has the problem with harder consonants.

I'm not great with rhythm and poetry, so I can't offer advice on how to fix it, but hopefully my opinion will give you an idea of how to.

>>5750595
Thx op, will take note

>>5750660
I'll change
>He pat the empty cushion, I sat beside him
to
>He pat the empty cushion for me to sit beside him.
Do you think that would help? To say that the narrator is sitting isn't an important detail to me. If the reader gets it, the idea is to show that 'he' is indecisive about sitting/standing. If they don't, well nothing is really lost.

You were right about the attribuation of the speaker. The last paragraph is entirely he.

'he' mentions that the 'i' hasn't had breakfast, so he jumps from the couch, and motions 'i' to stand up. That is what the idea was.

I'm not entire sure at this moment how I can make that clearer. Maybe it comes natural with my style. I never have two different speakers in the same paragraph/line. Maybe with that in context it'd be a little easier to follow.

Thanks, I look forward to the rest.

>>5750709
>He pat an empty cushion, motioning me to sit beside him.

Too tired for editing.

>>5750660
>ethnic
Caution is needed here insofar as what you are trying to describe. I hold two objections:

1) This choice of word strongly describes the narrator (who appears to be the 'I" referred to in the dialog), saying who he is, his class, and when he is from. Later twentieth century white boy type. This may be perfect if it's the intended effect, if not it's a nasty unintended side effect.

2) Or it's just trying to describe the weaponry. In this it's vaporous - far to vague to be useful. Moorish? Arabic? Away with it, chose something more specific.

Quibbling with stylistic choices next:

>painted colorful pictures of—the palace itself.

The hyphenation sort of implies he's pausing to gather his impression, but I think it's stronger without it. Or maybe I would use ellipses, to which I attach more the meaning of a pause in speech or thought, more personal, than a mere pause in passage of time.

>and—the prince himself.

Whereas here it is a simple dramatic pause, waiting for the form to coalesce and works fine for me.

Fwew! I ain't done yet, still reading ...

>>5750850

Correct way to lay it on, build it up, in that last paragraph because -

>"Perhaps this is a little bit wasteful."

Oh shit! Good dose of lulz. Yeah, that got me going with laughter, nicely done.

Even while trying to hammer on it in red pencil demonic glee, I wanted to continue to the end. Your stuff's worth reading, so keep at it.

I have only one general suggestion: pick up one of the technical manuals, guides, whatever, on doing dialog. What you want to review is the strict mechanics of laying it down on the page - the formatting. I think this is your softest spot at the moment, and don't you dare get discouraged. I can tell you can absorb this lower level stuff given some mall study time. Hardly the exiting part of writing, but it's still important though as it's devastating to the story when not done right.

Thank you for your efforts in this thread.

And keep writing.

I had this patient before. He came in complaining about how long his dreams had become. He said that they use to last for only a few minutes and he’ll wake up in the morning and forget. But now they lasted for hours. And they were so vivid that he could no longer tell when he was dreaming.
I thought nothing of it at the time but when he started having these convulsive headaches, I had him sent in for a brain scan. They found a tumor located deep inside his brain, in a core area responsible for consciousness.
The tumor was growing. It caused his head to swell up to the size of a melon. We couldn’t operate to remove the tumor. All we could do was alleviate the pressure by cutting off the top part of his skull so his brain wouldn’t explode out of his oral and nasal cavity. After the surgery was performed he said that he felt better.
His brain started to grow. It grew in a column straight out of the top of his head.
As his brain grew so did his dreams. He said weeks and months would pass by in his own personal wonderland. He would go to bed a night before and wake up dazed and confused wondering where he was the next morning. I would tell him he was in a hospital undergoing treatment and he would remember and say, “Oh. So that was all a dream.”
He dreamt about a great number of things. Of being a soldier lost in a swamp running away from the enemy. Of being stuck in a mansion looking for a toilet so he could pee. Or being in a school bus that never took him home. Sometimes they were nightmares, of monsters stalking him from the dark. Sometimes they were bizarre, of strange creatures and brightly coloured geometry that moved and dance all around.
His brain grew massive. Each passing night his dreams became longer. Years would pass, decades, and even centuries.
Then one day he fell asleep for two months. When he woke up he threw a tantrum and demanded to see his wife. I explained to him that he was still in a hospital, that he was still undergoing treatment. He resisted at first but a slow realization would come over and he would stare blankly and say, “Oh, so that was all just a dream.”
In that dream, he had a wife. They were on a journey together to reach the planes of minerva. The journey had lasted for ninety thousand years. During that time she had been his sole companion.
I understood why he would deny this reality. Perhaps it would have been better to tell him that all this was a dream and that he was going to wake up soon. But cold reason always found a way to return to him. The relationship he had with his wife. Poof. Disappeared. “All those years spent together,” he said. “Nothing but a dream.”
That dream had lasted for hundred thousand years. The next one he felt would last ten billion years. That was the last time I spoke to him. The next day he fell asleep and have been sleeping ever since.

>>5750913
Thanks, I appreciate it!

His character was the most fun I've ever had writing, I felt like an idiot for laughing at my own stuff.

I'm not the most well read, so that may show in my writing. I have never studied writing mechanics, any ability I have was home grown and self-taught. I will definitely look towards perfection one of these days, but right now, writing is still in the hobby zone for me.

Again, thank you.

>>5750931
He’s still alive and his brain is still growing. Our tests and scans shows brain activity. But we can do nothing but wait for him to wake up again. So tucked away in a quiet corner of the hospital, hook up to tubes and monitors, he dreams an endless dream. What happens when he wakes up? What will he say? I wonder.

be kind

Would you take a look at my stuff OP?


There were only two people in sight upon entering the hotel. Behind the bar stood The Bartender, an elderly, wiry man with an upturned moustache, dutifully wiping glasses down with a cloth that seemed to be older than himself. He did not look up at Jack upon his entrance, and there was no welcoming greeting. At the end of the long, wooden bar bench sat a man who seemed a living embodiment of the wandering swagman so common in Australian folklore: tattered drover’s coat, battered suede leather hat and well weathered face, complemented by a hand-rolled cigarette burning away at the corner of his mouth. In his hands he held a large bowie knife and whetstone, and had not broken eye contact with Jack since he had entered the bar.

The bar room itself was much more welcoming than its patrons.

The walls were scattered with various paraphernalia. Fishing nets, glass floats and countless other pieces of maritime equipment featured heavily, occasionally complemented by a taxidermied animal or spent artillery shell. Their lack of organisation resulted in a cosy cluttering, not dissimilar to a carpenter’s bench or a writer’s desk. A pair of blackpowder duelling pistols sat in a glass cabinet behind the bar, their age equal only to their beauty. Although it was October, the warm spring breezes had not started yet and flames flitted around logs in a small fireplace. Their movements reminded Jack of dragonflies darting over a pond; erratic in motion but with a doubtless elegance. A small television set idled in the corner of the room, showing the results of the latest draft of men destined for Vietnam.

The Wanderer sharpened his knife carelessly along the whetstone with poor technique. This, along with the unclean, carbon-filled stone, indicated to Jack that this demeanour was nothing more than a cheap charade. With this in mind Jack placed his duffel bag at his feet, sat down next to the fellow and ordered them both a rum. It was put down without dialogue, as was the next. There were four drinks finished by each man before a word was spoken between them.

>>5750956
Sure, I'll take a glance. I've already fucked over my chance at sleep.

Feel free to view mine:
http://pastebin.com/1BPBWbLk

>>5750931
>>5750937

I don't hate this, but it feels very slapdash. Obviously the idea itself is not so complex as to require further spelling out, but we could stand seeing some more of the implications for the patient's waking life. Does he have a family at all? Do they visit him? Towards the end, does he struggle to remember them? Does he, on remembering them, experience stress, guilt, fear (at the prospect of some day being unable to at all)? That sort of thing.

Too bad I didn't notice this earlier or I would've posted. Either way, good on you OP, delivering and being a good guy overall.

>>5750935
>>5750913

>mall study time.
small study time.

Goddamn keyboard.

>>5750956
I've noticed this to be a problem with a lot of posts here. The first sentence doesn't have that strong a hook.

This is just off the top of my head, but I'd consider it an improvement:
>Only two people remained in an otherwise empty hotel bar.
More immediate, less superfluous.

This is only really a problem at the begining, but bar is repeteted a lot
>bar bartender bar bar bar bar room
try counter(for bar as in the object) - lounge/bistro/pub(for bar as in the location)

>with a cloth that seemed older than himself
Shit I liked that.

I'm not sure how you can fix it, but there are a couple places were Jack is name dropped back to back. That's very petty of me though.

The rest I was very good, i cant find anything wrong with it. I'm actually jealous of your character description because I suck at it.

>>5750965
I'm not going to develop much of the plot since the idea came from the short story:
http://mangapark.com/manga/itou-junji-kyoufu-collection/s2/v14/c1/1

I just want to know how readable it is. Was there any awkward breaks? Was it boring? etc.

If OP is still at it:

Ascending with haste, the crowded street
My footsteps echo, thudding
In the ears of people, the hands of lovers
Clasped so tight around one another.
The darkness of night descends upon the city
And at once the world has forgotten its sense
Of wanton diversity.
The shade, the blanket, covers our shoulders
And under her protection
Our heart no longer smolders.
My pace quickens, feet faintly brushing the path
At once I have left, now I cannot look back;
For this city, this place, we all once were begotten
Has in infinite instants, began to taste rotten.
The hands of our fathers have began to arise
Pulling the clouds down to cover our eyes.
They clasp and reach, to drag us back down,
So long as we remain complicit in the life of this town.
For we cannot live innocent, our burdens unshared,
So long as our days are stolen,
Teeth left unbared.

>>5750963
Sure, I'll give it a go. I'm not very good at this, and by no means a scholar so take what I offer with a grain of salt.

A lot of your descriptive text seems to follow the same sentence structure. Some examples:
>A particular sculpture held a sword to each hand, and another drew a composite bow shorter than his arm—one that almost tracked me.
>A scarlet carpet spread like velvet rope, a path strewn above polished stone, shining to a mirror's finish.
>Potted plants and hanging flowerboxes flooded the corridor with tropical and exotic life, each urn painted with cultural art.
>The ceiling, carved in a collage of stained stones, painted colorful pictures of—the palace itself
This is is something that I do a lot as well. I personally feel like it's a comfortable way to describe a setting, but have been told before that it can become quite sterile and even tedious after a while for the reader.

>"That wasn't even a sentence, it was gibberish!"
Made me genuinely laugh out loud

Overall I found it quite enjoyable to read. Your dialogue feels natural and flows well. The character's eccentricities are conveyed well in both dialogue and the narrator's observations.

I'm sorry I can't be much more help.

>>5751007
Yeah I noticed the repetition of 'bar'. It was driving me crazy but because it is only a first draft I left it all there.

I like your idea for my first sentence, and will focus on making it stronger in the future.

Thank you very much for your critique and your kind words.

>>5750985
Eh I'm still giving critique here and there, I somewhat enjoy it.

I'm not that great a guy though.

This whole thread was a thinly veiled scheme to get critique on my own work. I'm a devious cunt that way. Hopefully I did some good for other writers in the process though.

>>5751022
which one is your work? I'll give you a critique after I write a bit. This is mine, if you're still up to it (by no means do you need to read it all):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bTaTJh2ovatKSkMQcx8NLJHk888AtLK4oaunU1me3z8/edit?usp=sharing

would love it if you gave this a read. it's pretty garbage but i love reading and tried a take on popular postmodern writing.

http://pastebin.com/VJsqD4v3

>>5751020
I'm not the best at giving critique either, I'm as well read as a toaster.

Yeah, I've kind of locked myself into a style of descriptions.. I don't know how to diversify it because I'm a one trick pony.

I hope that my critique has helped you, yours has helped me and I appreciate it greatly!

>>5751016
I'll check this out in a bit, but I'm not good with poetry.

>>5751028
I mostly need critique with this, it's really hit or miss imo, but so far it's gotten good comments.
http://pastebin.com/1BPBWbLk

I'll check out your stuff.

>>5751022
Hey op, if you want to read this story that I wrote earlier, you totally can.
In the meantime, let me critique something of yours

>>5747443
First impression, so much description, very little action in return. Another anon said your description was too vague, and I tend to agree with him.

>"How foolish of me, I had almost forgotten. You are dying. Oh, servants!"
I really like your dialogue, but that's because it feels super ironic.

You go two paragraphs before we get a character, don't do that.

Generally strong, but needs work.

>>5751016
I can't give much useful critique, but for the most part I liked it and.. its good, i think?

>pulling the clouds down to cover our eyes
I don't know whats wrong with this, I really don't, but I read the poem out loud and it felt a little jarring. If I were to guess, it is because the line starts with 2 syllables.

The rest I can't say anything bad, I liked the theme, and while I was a little unsure at the beginning, when the rhythm kicked in my opinion of it changed.

>>5751046
Thanks for the critique.

The two posts here were written in a "low point" I had great inspiration for the dialogue.. but my descriptions I really burned out on. So I've got to agree with most of the criticisms there. The first paragraph I think is okay, but I'm not satisfied with and I don't know whats wrong.

The character is supposed to be ridiculous, he actually represents insanity in an over arcing story. I'm not sure if ironic is the feeling I want the reader to think... but, its something.

If you've got something you want my opinion on, feel free.

>>5751065
forgot the pastebin link
http://pastebin.com/9j4e2qhR

>>5751028
Alright, I've got to be honest. I'm not awake enough to read 12 pages. These are my opinions on the prose while skimming though.

The kiss thing was a little disgusting, honestly. I actually liked how it was written, very fast paced, blunt. A little repetitive but that was expected.

Alright, yeah. I like the style, I really do. it's something for a shorter work though. 3-10k words. I can see it getting very tiresome, but kept short and sweet it's really good.

Hopefully that'll be some use to you.

>>5751069
please ignore the few, if obvious grammar errors, I'm currently rewriting it for a class, and the new sentences are not edited.

>>5751069

Alright, I've read through a chunk of it. I might have missed some things, but here's what I think so far.

The only major criticism I have is the first line
>Mail is male, and we all get fucked by it
has serious impact, the first sentence pales. I would personally incorporate your opening sentence elsewhere, and use the first line of dialogue as the hook. If you're going to risk turning off a writer with gritty shit like that, embrace it.

I liked the dialogue. I did have a little issue with the word stipulation, simply because it seemed out of place, the rest of the sentence has a basic vocabulary.

A very petty thing is also the name drops. There were a couple times I noticed when a name drop wasn't very useful.

Other than that, it's very solid, I'd read it through if i had the patience for it.

>>5751033

>>5751033
>>5751114
Jesus man, I would love to. But I've critiqued like, 15-25 posts and I should be sleeping or some shit.

If this thread is still here in the morning, I'll check it then, alright? Just kind of burnt out atm.

I failed like 5 times on this captcha, are you sure you want me critiquing your work?

>>5751125
critique it anytime man. No one has ever seen it, just some hobby I enjoy.

thanks for reviewing our work mang! :)

>>5751112
Thanks,
Be seeing you

My body tells me children’s stories. In no time
I’ll be doing impressions of them at mad tea parties.

Perfumes tempt my closed eyes as the creation
of the world exaggerates itself uncontrollably.

I start to feel instead of
think my thoughts: an oily slide and rush.

The second temptation: loneliness can be
A martial art, he says; I know it’s not for me, yet.

In time-rooms discrete things are echoes.
In room-time people become like mountains.

>>5745858
Here you go mate. It's pretty short and it's about a guy that melts.

http://pastebin.com/dAJ7unqC

1/2
I woke up again around four hours later. The slits between my blinds were barely glowing and my roommate was nowhere to be seen. Knowing that he could return at any second and I would have to uncomfortably avoid eye contact with him, I slipped from my bed, put on sneakers and went from the hall outside my room to the exterior of my dorm in a matter of seconds. Out of breath from this massive exertion of energy, I ventured past the bike racks and onto the residence hall lined street that would lead me out. I continued to walk until the signs of campus security and the college students so desperately trying to fulfill the stereotype of college students became more and more sparse in density. This was the moment where I felt I could finally breathe. Where I actually felt alive and unburdened. I didn’t have to care about passing people I knew or accidentally being caught talking to myself, I could just walk and think. The world outside of that university seemed to envelop me as I walked. I was a part of it and as a part of it I was required to pay it no mind. The homeless men around me and the harsh glare of traffic lights seemed as native to me as my five-fingered hands. Emblazoned by this feeling of complete abandonment, I walked faster and with more purpose into the heart of this southern metropolis. I paused and looked up at the high-rise office buildings that people from rural Georgia came to look at in amazement. I just stood there staring at them and, as quickly as that feeling of loss and weightlessness came, a wave of sheer depression and hopelessness wafted over me. Rarely during these walks does my sense of self-awareness extend to what I am actually doing. Yet when it does, I realize that the purpose of this walk was escape. I just wanted to escape the fact that I could connect with no one at this university as well as I could with people at my high school. I wanted to give up being forced to confront the reality that I was alone here and that these walks just would perpetuate the loneliness. Yet I kept walking. I told myself that I didn’t have to care about being alone. I told myself that I had someone in my life at least who I had connected with in a meaningful way. I didn’t care that this would an obvious excuse that I had constructed to keep myself from feeling completely depressed. I didn’t care that I was like those rural Georgians who come and stare at those towers and tell themselves that they are living and experiencing all that the world has to offer. At that moment, I cared about nothing and that sense of abandonment started to return. Basking in this feeling I turned into a Barnes and Noble, walked into the “Fiction and Literature” section, snickered at a group of girls looking at Dean Koontz books, and sat down in a chair placed near the wall. I put my head into my hands and just started crying.

>>5751483
2/2
I found myself dozing off in a stall in the bathroom of the Barnes and Noble. That creeping feeling of self-awareness began to invade my chest so I stood up, washed my face in the sink, and walked out back to the “Fiction and Literature” section. After taking six books from the shelves, I walked to the cash register and gave the young, blonde woman my father’s phone number in order to claim a 15% discount and paid with my debit card. The woman smiled at me weakly when she saw my red, tear-stained face. I debated whether or not just to call her a “nigger” and start screaming “Never forget MLK.” Deciding that this would be pushing how much I could get away with based on an average person’s desire for confrontation-evasion, I grinned back at her and made it obvious that I was wiping my eyes.
“Allergies,” I whisper to her.
She nodded, smiled a little again, and returned my debit card to me.
I waved to her, collected my books, and walked back outside. I paused outside of the exit and looked back at the woman at the cash register. I wondered if she was happier than I was. She probably was. And what should she not have to be happy about? She had an income, could by food, and probably had friends who she could do what she would if she didn’t have friends but allowed her not to feel so uncomfortable while doing them. She probably didn’t think about how she was achieving nothing novel and even if she did she probably wouldn’t care. I briefly considered going back inside and asking her if she realized she was a fucking moron and then decided I should just get as far as possible from this place. The shopping center looked nothing like I remembered it when I came upon the Barnes and Noble, but I eventually managed to find my way back to the main road that I had taken here.
When I arrived back at my dorm it was close to midnight. Of course the Colombians who loved to play Super Smash Bros and scream at each other in Spanish were operating at peak-activity-level at this time which added an extra challenge in the task of getting back to my room. I quickly raised my right middle finger to them in self-parody of the vulgarity that my generation tossed around so lightly in order to be humorous and bolted into my room. My roommate was of course sleeping, so after flicking the lights on and off ten or so times, I chewed another 125 milligrams of Benadryl and crawled into my bed.

>>5751069

Buk?

Dat you mon?

Break out da beer!

>>5751542
That's like the third time someone has said something Bukowski related about my writing. I've never even read the man.

>>5749686
The ideas are nice, but you might want to watch your rhythm. It gets increasingly chaotic near the end - I'm assuming that this is deliberate - and it flows less as a result. Just wanted to ask: is "her" the narrator's soul, like the anima, or an actual girl?

Sorry I can't help much more than this.

>>5751033
>>5751114
So, if you're going for YA, it really shows. If not, I've got some bad news....

You've got a decent hook, while humble, it does the job. It's immediate. I can't think of a better one for how the story starts.

You've got a very simple style, it feels mellow, almost satirical. I imagine the narrator's voice to be very emotionless.

There are some times where I think you were trying to be funny, here's two examples. One fell flat, the other got a smile from me.
>With an older brother to size himself up to, Ewan did his best to attract the same attention his older brother did, but failed to do so at the same level.
>Nate has always had a funny way of being an asshole. And in funny, it meant that Nate is an asshole, but the good kind.

The thing about comedy, is it only works if you cant predict it. When I saw older brother, I knew immediately it was a shadowed little brother.

The other example, while is cliche, and i have seen it before, caught me off guard. More of that, unpredictability.

You can also tighten it up
>Nate has a funny way of being an asshole. And by funny, it meant that Nate is an asshole.
Saying 'the good kind' doesn't really help much, you're still calling him an asshole, all it does is show the narrator's opinion.
'has always had' there's no reason for this, it's like saying 'earth has always been a sphere' why not just say 'earth is a sphere'?
>by funny, it
This is a really hard spot, I couldn't think of a way to fix it. You've got a problem where the narrator has personal opinions, those are incredibly hard to express without using 'I'. This area needs reworking, a comma isn't an easy fix.

Your dialogue needs work. While it's acceptable for YA, and it's somewhat believable, there is a huge difference between believable and interesting.

The characters seemed to have the same voice, all very crude teenagers.
I did like one line though
>“Sorry I’m late. I had to drop my sister off at work. She was running late too in the first place, so then I’m late, and that bitch doesn’t even apologize.”
I like the idea, it would be memorable if you tighten it up.
>Sorry I'm late, had to drop my sister off. She was late, so now I'm late, and that bitch doesn't even apologize.
the first 'i' isn't necessary, but that's my personal preference. 'at work' actually is a useful detail, but, it elongates the sentence, which really hurts it's image. Use your judgement here. 'in the first place' we've already got a cause and effect correlation, all those words do is hammer it in. There are a few words like and, then. These can be removed without any change.

I may not have a good idea of the speaker's voice, so perhaps these words need to be there for that purpose, but just as the line of dialogue itself, they're useless.

My advice for you would be to tighten up any sentence you can, especially with a simple style you've got. You will find it's stronger.

Keep at it, hopefully I can be of use.

So here's a story I entered in some short story competition lately. I didn't get very far. If you could critique me I'll be forever grateful to you, random internet stranger.

A man is walking along the waterside. He's walking all the way on the edge: if he were to lose his footing, he would fall in the water.
It's already late, and the weather is bad. It's windy and it rains. The man doesn't seem to care. He doesn't appear to be in a hurry.

Sometimes, the man almost trips and falls in. So far, he's always managed to regain his footing. Despite this, he keeps on walking. His precarious situation doesn't seem to bother him. But every time he, with some swaying of his arms, manages to recover his balance, he breathes a slight sigh of relief. After every sigh, he resumes walking.

A police officer is watching the man. He seems him walking, and notices how close to the waterside he goes. Finally, the policeman decides to approach the man.

'Excuse me sir, may I ask why you're walking so close to the edge?' ask the policeman.

'I'm hoping I'll fall in.' answers the man.

>>5751603

Not a fair observation on my part since I lacked the energy to do a proper critique and busted out the tongue-in-cheek instead.

I think it's a measure of how Bukowski sticks with a reader, not a measure of your writing.

It was interesting enough that it held my attention in spite of me being tired, and I read it through to the end. A solid short story.

http://pastebin.com/U7Sc4Z44

my attempt at a humorous short story from a while back.

>>5752219
thanks very much for the advice man, I relly appreciate the honest.

I guess because i'm very young myself, I haven't really found my own voice. I'll take what you said and work with it, because I've noticed my biggest problem is editing my own work.

thank you!!!

>>5752491

Yaoi ahoy!

Well, now I'm wet.

Like a lump of clay you form my dick
Licking the feet of my feels
Tickling the balls of love
Dragon dildos cannot compare
To the stretching you give my heart
LEL it out loud, I scream for your cunt
Arbeit macht frei in your concentration camp of love
But mere words cannot describe what I feel, I cannot describe
What you are is what I want
And you are like a freshly made meme
Simply epic :,)

Jamie touched her throat. "Well, they'll know once they see me."

"Why don't you wear a scarf?"

"Oh yeah," Jamie scowled, "because normal people wear scarves all the time. It's like a huge flag around my neck saying, 'Hey... I'm a fuckin' massive tranny, please don't look at my Adam's apple'."

"Everyone has an Adam's apple, you know."

The sun came down, and Jamie sucked down so much weed that she almost set off the smoke detector. She went into the bathroom to stare at herself in the mirror for ten minutes straight, constantly adjusting her meager bangs and making feminine poses. Laura showed her a trick for getting ready to go out, turning the bathroom lights down low. "Everyone looks better in the dark. Otherwise you're not even gonna leave the house, you're just gonna be obsessing over your flaws all night." She thought it would be a good idea to bring Jamie down to the coffee shop early, so she could be introduced to Laura's artist friends individually rather than all at once. The plan almost fell apart early when Steve and Kat showed up together, and fired a barrage of questions at Jamie. "You're from Texas, too? I love your accent." "I love your sweater, where'd you get it?" "So what do you like to do? Any hobbies?" Just kinda normal questions, that normal people would ask each other in the course of a healthy, normal social interaction. Normal. Jamie answered the questions in a practiced, feminine voice, and Laura let her guard down. Maybe she was making something of nothing, and being incredibly unfair to Jamie. Maybe Jamie might even end up getting along with these artists better than she.

"So what are your estrogen levels like?"

Kat raised her eyebrows at Jamie. "Uh... good?"

"Apparently excess estrogen gets converted to testosterone," Jamie said. "That's how women sometimes get masculine features."

Vicky and Matt showed up next, and Jamie flirted mercilessly with both of them before trying to open up a conversation about menstrual periods and what they felt like. It was like watching someone on a motorcycle burst into gasoline flames and then slide sideways into the spinning blades of a wheat harvester at fifty miles per hour, but on a social level. Tom showed up with his boyfriend, and Jamie made sure to call them both fags. Laura made peace with her role in the farce, prayed to God for Jamie to take the bait, and summoned up the nerve to ask her new friends if any of them liked Japanese animated cartoons.

"Oh yeah, I'm a fan of Kimamote," Vicky said. "She's a pretty funny character."

"Funny?" Matt shuddered. "She gives me the fuckin' creeps. And those crazy eyes. Did you see the episode where she brings a jug of her own piss to class?" Everyone laughed. "And she spills it? And it gets the school infested with ants because she eats nothing but candy? Jesus. She's like some kind of unholy mix between George Costanza and Jeffrey Dahmer."

>>5754021

"I kind of see myself as a real life Kimamote," Jamie said. They didn't react to the comment, but Laura could see the alarm bells ringing. Jamie got up to get her third coffee of the night.

"You don't think she's too much?" Laura asked.

They all looked at each other and grimaced.

"Oh God," Laura said. "I'm so sorry."

"She's just joking about all that Jewish Conspiracy stuff, right?"

"Yeah. She's just trying to be funny, I promise. She hasn't spoken to anyone since we left home. Her people skills are a little rusty."

....

Was this funny? Would you find it plausible that a group of hipsters in their twenties would find Jamie's behavior neurotic and off-putting?

>>5754025

>and making feminine poses.

I was going to launch into the typical 'come on, show don't tell' shtick, until:

>"So what are your estrogen levels like?"

And here it clicked.

This is either genus at work, or one hell of a lucky stumbling onto proper technique. If you did this intentionally, yeah wow. If not, be aware of how this jarring choice works closely hand in hand with the rest of the wanting to be, trying to be, not quite-there-yet story you're spinning.

>Was this funny? Would you find it plausible that a group of hipsters in their twenties would find Jamie's behavior neurotic and off-putting?

There's a surface level of humor at work, but the pathos and social tension is clearly there. I might be a little more sensitive to subsurface details than the average reader though. The briefly described reactions of the other characters might seem both apropos to the story, and plausible.

>>5754025

>and making feminine poses.

I was going to launch into the typical 'come on, show don't tell' shtick, until:

>"So what are your estrogen levels like?"

And here it clicked.

This is either genus at work, or one hell of a lucky stumbling onto proper technique. If you did this intentionally, yeah wow. If not, be aware of how this jarring choice works closely hand in hand with the rest of the wanting to be, trying to be, not quite-there-yet story you're spinning.

>Was this funny? Would you find it plausible that a group of hipsters in their twenties would find Jamie's behavior neurotic and off-putting?

There's a surface level of humor at work, but the pathos and social tension is clearly there. I might be a little more sensitive to subsurface details than the average reader though. The briefly described reactions of the other characters are both apropos to the story, and plausible.

>>5753874
fuckin lol

Here's an excerpt from a dystopian novel I am writing about government institution practically begging it's citizens for the last few batches of remaining whisky in the world and a young man named Dick who won a bottle by beating Minecraft.
A cyber-terrorist group sees a vast conspiracy in the ministry's campaign to gather whisky.

an0nX, the leader of TheHaxstons, from his mighty server room in his parents basement, was confering with his allies via a highly encoded chatclient.
>>Make sure to get the message out to the useful idiots over at ChannelTetra.<<
He was a man in his mid-twenties, highly versed in all things IT; built a PC on his own with the tender age of 12. The young expert of information technology once had a personal disagreement with a government insitution, an event which invoked highly anti-autoritarian sentiments inside the genius hacker. From that point on the tech savvy rebel started waging all out cyber-war against the state. He made a name for himself quickly and soon became the leader of the government’s most dangerous enemy.
>>The people are rallying for our cause; the ministry won’t get hold of their precious whisky, of that I’m sure.<<
The big shots inside the group were already distributing a new DOXing programm to the masses through ChannelTetra. An all out attack by thousands of these anonymous agents would have the potential to disable the Ministry of Education’s servers, shutting down the buildings systems completely. It would become impossible for anyone to get in- or outside, temporary preventing any delivery of the piss coloured delacacy of olden times.
As if this wasn’t enough, such an event would generate enough confusion and give the the talented hackers of the cyber-terrorists inner circle a big enough timeframe to take control of the ministry’s mainfraim, effectively shutting down all it’s functions.
an0nX was rubbing his hands his ingenious masterplan.

>>5754592
Lol

R u srs?

>>5754598
Why of course

To anyone I wasn't able to give critique to, I'm thinking of doing this again sometime next week when this thread 404's and I have some time to kill.

I'm happy I didn't get shit on for basically creating a critique thread even when we already had one.

Thank you all.

>>5754592
10/10 I could not find anything wrong with it.

>>5754592

This is crap, but hang with me as I will try to be useful instead of dismissive.

First:
>Here's an excerpt from a dystopian novel

No, you've posted an excerpt from an outline, not a novel.

Second:
>his mighty server room in his parents basement,

You're attempting humor, or satire, or 1980's historical fiction. The servers have moved out into the cybercosim, by necessity. Your protagonist would be lucky if he were a tool of The Ministry. Realistically, he would be beneath notice.

>built a PC on his own with the tender age of 12.

Which makes him a grease monkey, not a techno-savant. While the following phrase doesn't quite capture the complete state of things today it's even more apropos in spite of its age: "It's the software that's hard."

If you're playing for the ignorant masses via some awful fan-fic, you're spot on. If you're trying from something good, you didn't do your research, and didn't do it in a way that's unforgivable.

Ah, research. Where to start? Read the sticky, hint-hint.

Mostly, I'd advise you to do some short stories first, which is the bigger problem of the two.

>>5754636
>I'm thinking of doing this again sometime next week

Do so, please.

And thank you as well.

>>5754692
It is supposed to be humorous and somewhat satirical.

I fade back in. My tinnitus grows. I notice the burning corpse of my best friend resting on my arms and the smell of bacon. Its midnight and the blinding fire is all around me, none of which is helping my eyes adjusting. My surroundings are just pure darkness; I only see the fire now.

>>5754616
>those filenames
i fucking love bill murray, 10/10

On my wall
Soft lights bloom quickly
Then fade away
Starlight rests on phantom leaves
Dancing sweetly
In the winter breeze

Here's this again:

i’m FotoFobic
thas why the shades
jus lifted em off the rack
an about
the jacket
it’s cuz i ride
cuz i can’t afford much gas
cuz the kid
is sick
he weren’t born right
cuz his momz a coked up cunt
cuz her dad did fuck ‘er
n’ so did i
which’s why ’m in this
rut
cuz my dick don’t work
when ’m fucked up
so the rubber slipped right off
n’ rotten worm
foun rotten apple
ch’is why ’m in this
rut
ch’is why they
give me
hair gel free
n’ tell me
keep it real
cuz ’m the new damn Fonzie
n’ guess ’m Cool
with that

I'll do so critiquing after lunch.

“It’s the fucking dialogue, man. You can only get so far by reading juvenile sci-fi novels. All my real practice is with essays, and academia is all about talking as little as possible like a real human.”
“Uh.”
“Yeah. On top of which, I don’t even know if dialogue is supposed to mimic actual conversation at all.”
“Uh –“
“Not that I’d even know what the fuck an actual conversation even sounded like, you understand, is the other problem. I mean, it’s mostly, like, people interrupting each other, right? And repetition of fillers and those words people use to let the other guy know they’re about to talk.”
“Yeah, but –“
“And how the fuck do I syntactically show interruptions, anyway? You ever heard anyone talk with a fucking comma in the right place? I don’t even think more than a word ahead.”
“You could just –“
“Let alone phrases.”
“Well, fundamentally, what I’m seeing is, I mean, I don’t mean to be, like, uhh…“
“Fuck, man, I’m just gonna put expletives every-fucking-where and pretend like I know what I’m doing.”
“Huh.”
“You know what time it is? I’m supposed to be snorting cocaine off a fucking dilapidated classic under black lights while there’s like, actual other lifeforms willingly occupying the same physical-fucking-space trying to engage other in sexual intercourse with each other whilst being assaulted by rhythmic pulsations under sixty hertz –“
“Dude you fucking cannot write dialogue for shit, you should just go smoke weed and watch some movie you’re supposed to jack off during the playing of, you don’t even deserve to be interrupted with this child abortion of a sentence, quote-unquote.”
“Yeah, you even waited for the end of the word and everything.”
“And now we’re speaking unnaturally fucking familiarly.”
“Hey, FUCK you.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you!”

>>5754692

Your critique is crap, but I'm gonna be useful and critique it for you.

The vibe I'm getting is, you're too busy impressing the guy with your knowledge to actually critique what he's trying to write, and instead, you're kind of judging it based on what you think it should be. It's not supposed to be serious, so why not try to help him improve his description, imagery, whatever? Why focus on boring technicalities?

I think writing short stories would be useful, too.

>>5754021

This is fucking hilarious.

For the last line, usually people stop the joke when people laugh, but it you're trying to make it awkward then it works.

Just ignore me, I don't know wtf to say when someone's better at writing than me, but I liked it.

>>5758634

Pretty funny. Could have used at least one protracted pause where neither of them can think of anything to say (I realise that would require more re-working than just sticking in some ellipses/whatever).

“These things were designed to cut through metal like a hot knife through butter.” Eric undid the blade from his person. He weighed the familiar weapon in his hand. To the untrained, it would appear to be a standard knife with a clean, featureless hilt. The blade ran a few inches vertically before shelfing off at a violent point, then dipping lower at a slant. The working end of the TR33 appeared to be that of a box cutter, with a serrated edge following its length back down its base.
The derelict Nimble groaned above them, its’ metal joints moaned with a desire to die. Footsteps clanked and ran through the ceaseless aching of the grounded beast. They were frantic at times, followed by voices, other times, quiet, contemplative, listening as Eric and Red did to their sobbing tomb. Red ran his palm over the smooth metal roof.
“Human I know little about your weapons, but nothing I have known your kind to possess can cut through such damnation. Even I have felt the extent of your cruelty when not delivered at a distance.”
“Well…” Eric started. He twisted the hilt of the TR33 until its base sprung forward. “My guess is if you've ever been stabbed it wasn't with something like this. A bottle, some little kids fishing knife, maybe even a TR22 from some recruit if you were sloppy enough to let them get that close.” He slammed the base of the knife back into the hilt. Instantly, a glowing band of light hugged the length of the knife, from the base to its’ tip. It hissed against the air, small wisps of smoke curled off, pulled away and disappeared into covering darkness. “These things are designed specifically for Rounder pilots in case our suits go down on us.” Eric pressed the glowing end of the blade into the ceiling. Sparks danced off the incision point, showering Red who watched in awe as the device slowly plunged into the solid metal hull of the ship.


I just kinda hashed this out real quick. Is it any good? It's some scene from some sci-fi novel I've been dreaming about writing.

Is this just the critique general thread at this point?

>>5759169

OP pretty much showed us how to do it, yeah.

>>5758917
pls continue

Perhaps not entirely on topic but I don't think it deserves its own thread.
what is a good reading list for some autodidact study in writing and literary theory? I found some time since my computer broke down and I can't afford the spare parts this month.

Dehumanized
I sit scrolling through
Pages of gore, blood dripping from
Saw cuts, and poor
Children killing for their lives.
In past years
Cartoon skeletons forced
The bravest of children to cover
Their eyes.
I write this page on a computer
Sitting in the bathroom;
My dog barks
Wary of our approaching doom.
Forever in God's hands
I may nervously hide
So long as I live
Alone, inside.

>>5759201
R-Really?

>>5759243

eh it's pretty mediocre rn buy I can see potential

you need to trim a lot of the fat

the final speech is probably the redeeming bit--everything else is either clichéd or too ham-fisted

also learn to grammar

>>5759249
Will do. Like I said, hashed it out, but yeah, I was thinking of taking a LOT out.

I've been trying to read more lately to help build my prose. Guess it hasn't worked going from Camus to Woolf.

Either way, will trim, thanks brah

Psudeo Serenity

Conscious, lest they forget, capture them in candor.

Your script never wanders from mind to mouth.

This voice won’t carry to another room.

Nevermore, you’ll know my agony.

Caffeinated Dysphoric….

Caffeine was never the plan when late nights turned into mornings. My dreams just bleed into my days while my whole world collided into pipe dreams.

Calender’s don’t help much for a spinning mind. I’m just too sober from the idea that time stops for no one.

I tried to slow it down and all I found was lost potential. The things I could have done I never thought of until later and the things I could create I was too overwhelmed to make.

Time took speed just for me. My drug deficit induced hallucinations were on fast forward.

By the end I just felt dead.

I was an illusory monster in skin I knew too well, but didn’t know at all.

The Early Artist

Lucid musing at two am will be my expiry.

The morning only brings lost concepts for what seemed to be wonderful things.

To recall a something that has disappeared completely from your memories is to overcome impossibility.

Nothing is ever completely impossible.

Failure to call your previous thoughts to mind results in a missed stepping stone; leaving you alone for a century to dissect yourself and grasp naught but purely the same.

Vivid Greed

Jaded eyes…

Faded minds…

produce the most exquisite musings.

It was once said that “All the world’s a stage” and my mind harmonizes with the thought.

I seek the monochrome skies, but only for the change sometimes…
because my eyes capture vivid colors, but I can’t keep them.

>>5759261
>>5759258
>>5759254
Come back in a year or so and try again

>>5745906

realized, realized, then she, then she, then she, realized

fix that kek

>>5759267

Could you spare a moment to tell me why? I'm quite proud of these works and I came here to get proper opinions not your piddly attempt at sarcasm.

>>5745966

This is good. Will read more and maybe have something five you

>>5759280
Not that guy, but here's my critique:

>>5759258
Cons: Bad grammar, you sound like you're trying to portray yourself as some exceptional artist and thinker, overall faginess of that nature.

Pros: Some of the imagery is really nice ( My drug deficit induced hallucinations were on fast forward.)

Overall, 3/10. Some potential, but try not to sound so pseudo-deep.

>>5759261
Cons: Same thing about forcing depth, why is it even formatted like poetry? Is it poetry?

Pros: still solid imagery, a much more human feel.

Overall 4.5/10. Still feels too much like you're trying to be a writer instead of actually feeling like a writer.

>>5759265
Cons: Stop it with the "deepness". It's not deep. You're not being revolutionary. You're not a great philosopher just because you utter philosophies.

Pros: I like the last line, it feels futile and resigned, without being desperate.

Overall 4/10.

Overall overall: Just let the words come, don't force it. There is potential there, but you're being too hamfisted with depth and philosophical value, instead of letting it flow naturally.

Hope that helps.

>>5759359

Thank's for being in-depth with your critique.

I don't really know if you've spotted a running theme but I've been unwell lately, in every sense. I spent a lot of my time in my own head because I don't really get a lot of opportunities to speak. When I do, outside of the internet, nobody really listens so again I'm usually left to my own devices. In this case my brain. I know you've said my work doesn't sound natural, but it is.

Caffeinated Dysphoric... has been my last few years in a nutshell. I don't want this to turn into some dumb sob story so we'll shorten it and say I've had a really bad identity crisis that I've only recently started to understand.

The Early Artist is just a short poem that talks about forgetting your nightly thoughts the next morning. It's really just the reason I now right at night. Everything comes more natural at night.

Vivid Greed had almost the same theme. I feel like a lot of writers can relate to this. However that isn't why this was written. I wrote this poem because I do get the best ideas when I'm tired. It never fails, when my eyes are blurry from exhaustion and my brain just wants to quit I get a rush of ideas.

When I mention that the world is a stage I mean it. It's everyone's stage to do with what they please and I chose to create.

Seeking monochrome skies means that sometimes I just wish to rest rather then stay up writing. I never seem to be able to sleep properly.

My eyes capture vivid colors is talking about the ideas I have for other poems or photography work. If I fall asleep I won't be able to keep them.

>>5759387

My apologies I seem to have made a few spelling/grammatical errors in the post above. Please don't be too harsh.

>>5759387

>explaining your work
>being this pleb

my god

>>5759387
I do see those ideas, and I didn't really adequately state that the overarching theme of each was one of the consistently good factors. I think to add clarity to each of those themes you're trying to express, you need to tone down the importance. Each line reads like an epiphany, but it gets tiresome to read that over and over. It needs to have pacing, structure.

As far as the problems you're facing, I can't speak much about them with my limited knowledge. If you're willing to elaborate, I'll try my best to understand (though I can't speak for anyone else here).

Either way, just keep on writing, keep on trying. Not just with literature, but with things in general. If no one listens to you where you are, then go somewhere else. The beauty of our lives is how little of it really depends on where we are, but instead who we are. If you don't like where you are, go somewhere else; if you don't like who you are, then try your hardest to be someone you would like. If you're someone you'd want to spend time with, I can guarantee someone else will want to spend time with you too.

>>5759397

Well my work is open for interpretation as all literature is to a point. Sorry if I broke some unspoken /lit/ rule but I thought this was a board for receiving critiques and talking about your work, correct?

I believe everybody should share the thought process behind their work. It shines some light on things and it may be interesting to compare your interpretation to the original thought.

You should try not to take the magic out of things.

>>5759402
>I believe everybody should share the thought process behind their work. It shines some light on things and it may be interesting to compare your interpretation to the original thought.
>You should try not to take the magic out of things.

7/10 pretty good quality b8 m8

i sure hope for ur sake ur trolling

>>5759402
>a board for receiving critiques and talking about your work, correct

(NTG) Receiving critiques, yeah. Talking about your work, not so much. It's enough that people read your work. Expecting them to read little monographs ABOUT your work is a step too far, imo. Obviously a context-adding sentence here or there is fine, but within pretty strict limits.

Just an opinion, there's no "rule" as such that I know of.

>>5759413

I'd very much like to read and read about other's work here so I don't quite see the problem. If I don't want to read something I scroll by it.

There shouldn't be an issue here.

>>5759412

Well I'm terribly sorry if I've disturbed the piece by talking about my work on a literature message board.

>>5759423

**Peace

I don't seem to be fairing well this late at night. I'm just going to cut my losses. Thank you to the one person who did critique my work. I value you're honesty.

>>5759420

Well, you asked what the board is for. Not that, traditionally.

>>5759423
>disturbed the piece


ur legit so dumb

no-one's interested in ur vapid navel-gazing intentions

like u said u were unwell and i can sympathize a little, but real talk all this is basically mastabatory validation which is poison to any aspiring/amateur writer

>>5759433

I guess I'm glad you can sympathize but you've just told me that "ur legit so dumb" which says more about you then myself.

>>5759426

Your***

Good god this is getting ridiculous. I am now officially off to bed.

Time Deficit

What’s to be expected of hell in a jar?

Am I stuck in a fantasy..

…or instead a reclusive mind?

Nobody stops for you…

….so you needn’t stop for yourself.

You’re only a novel with unwritten pages.

Time will turn them blank and tell you nothing.


(Alright so I can't seem to sleep either. I apologize in advance if this is littered with spelling errors.)

>>5759508

if you're not actually interested in improving there's no point in posting your "work"

>>5759420

You've got a long way to go, m8.

>>5759512

I'm interested in sharing and learning.

My university is having a micro-prose competition, and this is what I think I'm going to submit:

Imagine, if you will, being an astronaut on the moon. You land successfully, and carry out your experiments, but as you get ready to leave--something is wrong. Some unforseen problem, some error in mathematics. A series of tiny cracks in a perfect plan all leading to this one point in time: you, alone, stranded on the moon. The radio still works. You explain your situation to ground control, and the Earthmen scurry for a solution. Hours pass. The response comes plainly: there is nothing that can be done.

You spend most of your time by the radio. With careful rationing of oxygen, you have a couple days. Enough time for the government to fly your family down to the base in a private jet. To reminisce and say your goodbyes. To have a chat with a head of state--or two. They say you're gonna get a medal for this. Funny. A reporter wants to get a live interview for the 5 o'clock news, but you think that's a little tasteless. After some last few hours of chatting with your family and friends down at the base, you check your oxygen supply, and tell them that you're going out for a walk.

It's funny--you think under the glow of Earthlight--the way you move in this suit, it's a little like skipping. A little like dancing.

>>5759220
Anyone?

>>5759536
hey I really liked that. I was unsure if it'd be good at the beginning, but you really used the plain/spoken style to your advantage. Cheers man

>>5759536

I say re-write it in the third person. Also, since you're not going into detail about the error (and I don't think there's any need to), you needn't hang around so long talking about it. The 'series of tiny cracks' sentence is the one I'd remove.

Otherwise I like it.

>>5759536

This is rather interesting. I love the way it ended. It seems like your unnamed buddy found a bit of last minute happiness in something small...walking in zero gravity.

I'd say I want more, but to add onto this would ruin it as you've already found a great way to end it.

>>5759546
I disagree. I rarely like second-person, but it works in this case. Third person would make an awkward 'he' or 'she' that breaks from the very campfire feeling of the story.

>>5759552

I agree with this. Also I like the "a series of tiny cracks" sentence. It adds to the story for me.

>>5759545
>>5759552

Thanks. The whole plain-spoken thing is kind of my gimmick, for better and for worse. When I was first learning how to write, I couldn't do it unless I imagined someone talking to me, telling me the words to write down, so naturally, I tend to favor more present narration. In first, second, or third, I always try to make it feel like the narrator is there, talking to you, describing the situation as they see it. I think it adds a decent bit of whimsicality to my writing, but I think that makes it difficult to describe things "seriously" sometimes.

For instance, some of my more recent "concept drafts":
>third person
Princess Ariel is well-renowned as one of the most beautiful ladies in the Kingdom of Llyweyn. Her hair is silver-gold, like her sister, her father, and her mother—but not her brother, who is a bastard both literally and figuratively. However he has her eyes, as her father did before her, and which her sister lacked: sharp, golden, cat-like. Colloquially known as The Lion's Pride, her eyes had been worn by many of her family's greatest rulers—and some of its worst. Her ashen face is beautiful but impenetrable, unblemished except for a single scar, running along the left cheek.

>first person
Her name is Sara—short for Serendipitous. She says it's her parents' way of saying the condom broke. We met about a week ago, at a party held by a mutual stranger. We had crossed paths a couple times earlier in the night: at the drink table, in a smoke circle, standing around looking for someone to not talk to, etc. She was the sort of radiantly beautiful girl that is frustratingly common in the city, so of course I barely said a word to her all night, until much later, when I was much drunker.

Attempting to revive this thread by posting a very rough segment of a story I've just started working on.

--

It was loud. Loud not only in the sense of sound but of every sense. Sight, smell, touch. A uproar, like the first sun of the day destroying whatever comfortable night had come before it. Blindingly and overwhelmingly sensational, to the point of censure. It was traumatic, a memory to be thrown out or buried deep within myself. After that stark feeling came desire; the need to be secure again, away from the world I had just seen with new eyes. If there's anything I remember it's crying. I cried so hard that by the end of it I felt like there would be nothing else left in me, and I could retire back to the sleep I had enjoyed up until now. Screaming and sobbing like that, trying to tell everything around me the mistake they had made. I was unable to do anything else, and while my sounds were familiar to the world I was born into, what response I did receive was completely alien. So it was this noise I was born into, and I questioned if it would ever end. My only desire, the truest desire I ever held, was for silence.

If anyone wants to give a big time investment, here's my 17 page story. Any critique at all would be lovely.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bTaTJh2ovatKSkMQcx8NLJHk888AtLK4oaunU1me3z8/edit?usp=sharing

>>5748127
Anyone in the mood to bash some writing? My piece eagerly awaits your criticism.

>>5751369
I'm on my phone, which makes detailed sentence-level criticism difficult. I'll give general impressions instead.

First of all, you commit numerous grammatical mistakes throughout the piece, the most notable being comma splicing. As it seems like you're making this mistake unknowingly, I'd suggest you look it up and learn it properly; but basically make sure you do not use commas to separate two independent/main clauses. Always use [comma with conjuction] or a semicolon, or split the clauses into separate sentences.

The second issue is that the story lacks impact, which actually results in part from your comma splicing. The sentences run by so fast that they leave little impression on the reader, and even things which would normally be horrific just flash by, unremarkable. Another reason for the lack of impact is that you tell too much. That's not to say that you don't show at all, but you could spend less time narrating and more time describing.

The final issue isn't really a serious one, but give if some thought if you can. All I can take away from your piece right now is "a guy melted". If that's what you want to express with it, well, nothing wrong with that - but if you're trying to say more, maybe poke fun at over-religiousness or narcissism, you could consider tying the beginning to the end. Maybe end with a reflection on religion, if that's your theme, or mention the reactions of his office workers to his melting. But this is of course only if you want to make your piece thematic, which it doesn't have to be.

You should also fix up your use of tense - it's correct on the whole, but at one point you use "would have" and "does" in the same sentence.

Your dark humour at the start and at the end is quite enjoyable, and, overall, it's a weird little story that remains interesting despite its flaws in style.

>>5752383
Is that it? Your style is clear and effective, but the piece ends without any sense of conclusion, or even of story. Got anything more to post?

>>5758634
I laughed. Guess that means it's good, huh?

>>5758917
Your piece begins with a cliché and a series of just plain descriptions. Consider excising or editing the following:
>hot knife through butter
>to the untrained

And here:
>derelict... groaned... moaned with the desire to die
One sentence, three words/phrases expressing almost the exact same idea. It's redundant. One is enough. And I might as well say as well that "desire to die" used in this way is pretty clichéd too.

The rest of it is fine though. Haven't read the continuation, but it sounds interesting from what you have here.

>>5759220
Just so you don't feel ignored, I have no idea and I don't think many here do either. Try googling "guide to good writing" - there's a very famous book on it, published in the USA if I remember correctly. Sorry I can't give more help.

>>5759536
That ending is beautiful. I don't see any errors here either, so great job.

>>5759664
>https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bTaTJh2ovatKSkMQcx8NLJHk888AtLK4oaunU1me3z8/edit?usp=sharing
Will give critique in a few hours when I get back

>>5759659
I only glanced over this briefly, but it seemed to me that you were waffling quite a bit in the latter half, and without context I can't see why it warranted that much waffling. Otherwise, decent style: no errors that I can see, generally works well. But I'm not sure about "retire" - it seems a little too formal and dull. I'd also recommend being more concise in expression. Is this the recollection of birth? Might not be the most original way to describe it, but it works.

This needs some work, I think, any feedback is appriciated.

HOLE DIGGER
She dug at the ground with a single finger, creating a very small hole. Her jaw hung stupidly, while her eyes were intensely locked on her project. She had to stay focused on the hole, she had to stay distracted. Because, when something happens that is too horrible for you to cope with, the best you can do is create a distraction.
Her nail filled with dirt while tears quietly stung her eyes. She could feel heat from the fire that was at her back, but her mind told her that it wasn't her body feeling the heat. Her right hand felt the warmth of blood rushing into its fingertips, the bat that it had held lay by her side. Her eyes focused on the hole, not wanting to look up, not wanting to see.
She started the fire, but that was ok because the fire was righteous and it closed around the evil, purifying it. But what that stinging hand had done with the bat was not right, it couldn't be her hand that felt the sting. She was righteous, that stinging hand was not.
It couldn't be hers, but it was. And The Hole.
The hole.
Hadn't he told her about the hole? He said he dreamed of it. He described a man in a fur coat, with a hood drawn over his head, and a shovel in his hands. He said the man didn't have a face, but it was probably just a trick of the light. The sun was setting behind the hooded shovel wielding man, it brightened the outlines of his shoulders but darkened his face.
When Jamie walked beside her and told her of this dream, he said the words came into his mind the second he saw him: HOLE DIGGER. He said the hole had already been finished, and the hole digger just stood over it. Shovel in one hand, the other hand pointing into the hole. Under his hood his face revealed nothing, because Jamie couldn't see his face, but somehow he knew the hole digger wanted him to look inside. HE also knew that if he looked into the hole that it would drive him mad. Because there was some secret buried there, and if he knew the secret it would eventually lead to his death.
He never said whether or not he looked in, but now he was dead, and she was alive. Her hand stung, the end of the bat was red. Her face was covered in a warm liquid, and her nail was filling with dirt. She was digging a hole. One hand stinging, the other digging a hole.

Digging a hole, digging a hole
The hole digger; digging a hole.

>>5759536

This is good.

>>5759536
first sentence is cringe. the rest is nice.

New thread to anyone looking for critique.
>>5760111

Trips yo.

>>5759220
i don't think writing is something you learn, instead you alternate between reading literary works to give you a good feel for language and practicing writing. You will develop your own style, with influence of the authors you read, that's how it works. A guide wouldn't do much good.
And if you are interested in literary theory, look through the related section in a library, and find what looks interesting to you, since what one person likes doesn't necessary have to be liked by another. I know from my own experience that a writing style that you don't "feel" makes you put down a work, while another book on the same subject can be a breeze to read.

Is there anyone here capable of writing in a way other than dismal realism?

>>5760217

Get real, yo.