/lit/ - Literature

I listened intently to his nimble words, engaging him with a few of my own, so that in conversation we were like two horses galloping side by side. The movement of his hands accompanying his speech was exceptionally dexterous so that if divested of the power of speech I had little doubt that his capacity to express meaning would in no wise be hindered. Any attempt on my part to match him in deftness of speech or movement would be mere vanity, and at best I could remain content to gallop tyronically at his side, hoping to glean something of his rhetorical prowess. He was a master of all manner of learning and debate, but what impressed me most was his marvelous aptitude for drawing on a pool of the most heterogeneous information, and then weaving those diverse contents into one whole and continuous tapestry. Alas, evening fell and I contentedly took leave of my teacher, but the night conspired against me, and my gentle sleep devolved into horrid and sanguinary visions.In dreams, anamoly is the standard, and the eloquence of beasts in that tangled nightmare forest that grows darkly in the wild corner of man's brain is really the speech of gods and star beings—for in dreams, gods and beasts are barely distinguishable.

In a moonlit glen I spied a shadowy being creeping ponderously about the gently sleeping foliage, and resolved by some mischievous and unaccountable impulse to follow after him whither he go. His appearance was black all over, a walking shadow with elfin pointed ears, and glowing red eyes, so striking their aspect that to glance them asphyxiated my very soul. But I am made of saltier stuff than that, and besides, once set upon its mark, curiosity is a most heedless and voracious jungle cat. By what means I don't know, I lost his crooked trail, and rather found myself facing a lustrous brown stag of a peculiarly brimming vitality standing at the foot of a massive tree. My heart sang its encomium to this noble keeper of the forest, a wordless panegyric composed of the richest feelings, inspired by the noble stature, magisterial gaze, lean and determined musculature—had I been born a pagan I would have worshipped the animal in my ignorance. The stag seemed a symbol of life itself, I thought—but what of that shadowy apparition? Before I could finish my thought the stag bounded from the tree, and with two imperial leaps was gone into the forest.

>>5796140
With that, I gathered my fortitude about me and resolved by the grace of God to try the forest once more. To what cruel and tortuous abasements did the forest then subject me! The owls clawed at my hair, the rats picked at my feet (for I wore only my usual crude pair of sandals), the thorny twigs and brambles rose up in union to thwart me, when suddenly a child's laughter wetted my ear as if floating by on sinister eddies of sound. The notion of "child-like innocence" seems a mere nominal and colliquial designation to anyone who has once heard the murderous laughter of children in dreams, and so much the less comforting did it seem to me in that dark forest.

Scarcely had I heard the laughter when I spotted a moonlit clearing, and within the clearing a luminous pond decked in lilies. That pond was serenity itself, yet something afloat the nymphic body of water aroused me to investigate further, and so I cautiously approached. I was a scout in the land of mystic allegory, fated by heavenly decree to seize from that dream-world the torch of forbidden knowledge, to wrest from that nymphic grove the deep-blue secrets of the pond—or thus I naively felt. As I neared that inconspicuous object the hazy distant outlines merged and parted, formed and deformed, now a dissipated fog, now a stony image, till by degrees I made out a brown and bloodied mass—why, it was that same noble stag, now but a grotesque token of its former living presence! And who floating slyly round the body of that fallen forest-god but the black apparition feeding, it seemed, on the liquid valor spilling from its veins.

>>5796132
Well that's the first installment. Maybe I'll have another one later today.

>mfw i get back from my lunch break

are you guys too lazy to read, or is my writing that bad?

It must suck being retarded, huh, OP?

>>5796361
Are you the same guy that said that in the last thread? I admire your commitment.

No one cares, OP.

>>5796394
darn, I was hoping someone would at least care enough to rip me a new asshole, maybe offer some constructive criticism, but oh well

>>5796415
post it in the critique thread if you would like help, no need to make a thread for it.
For what it's worth, it is quite good.

>>5796430
Well, I figured I would do dedicated installments. So should I just delete the thread and post it there?

Pretty good, I don't know much though but I like it.

there are few things worse than the person who, immediately after finishing a written piece, can't wait to show it to everyone he knows.

>>5796140
>>5796141
I think you're a decent writer, but, as I'm sure you already know, OP, the words you're trying to learn almost always appear forced. That's to be expected, really.

Also, weird, because I do the exact same thing to study words as well. Nice to know we're never alone in our idiosyncrasies.

This is wonderful! genuinely would love to read the rest (if it had a plot, >inb4 pleb)

>>5798480
he doesn't know us, and it is a very well written piece.

>>5796415
Ok I'll bite. If it was a writing exercise to use lots of colourful and interesting words, then well done. If it was a serious attempt at writing, then no. The first metaphor is stupid, I barely read your whole first post. Skimmed the rest though. Your language is good but the wording is too much. Tone it down a little and let the text breathe. Some examples,

I listened intently to his nimble words, engaging him with a few of my own, so that in conversation we were like two horses galloping side by side.

Into

I listened intently to his words, offering a few of my own where appropriate.


and

With that, I gathered my fortitude about me and resolved by the grace of God to try the forest once more.

into


With that, I gathered my courage and resolved by the grace of God to try the forest once more.


Little changes, keep it simple where appropriate but keep it colourful where appropriate.

When you describe the pond, keep it colourful for a few sentences sure, but you don't have to continually write like that.

Maybe read some of Chekhov's late stories? I'd reccomend Peasants in the penguin classics collection. In face, anything in that collection, it all displays great writing in the way I've described. Worth checking out I'd say.

Reads like a seventeen year-old with a thesaurus. Word choice is elaborate and varied, but without direction; symbols and metaphors thrown around heedlessly; overuse of coordinating conjunctions to string together sentences makes for very boring prose.

Exercise: figure out your underlying purpose/thematic structure, then rewrite the entire thing as sparsely as you can manage. Then scrap both drafts, and write it again. Then scrap that, and write it again.

>>5798602
Are you retarded?

>>5798626
Yes; it's by total coincidence that, by randomly slapping the drool-covered keyboard, words and even coherent sentences are being formed.

>>5796140
>tyronically
cool, new word for me. thanks.
>that tangled nightmare forest that grows darkly....
this sentence read as a little too wordy for me thought it is poetically nice. i think it could be trimmed down and retain the same effect.
>follow him whither he go
here your language gets a little too flowery for me. "whither" should not be used lightly.
>the pointy eared red eyed shadow man
this image, for me, is a little too played out. i think you could come up with something newer, more creative and engaging.
>the stag
good stuff but underdeveloped. where did you meet this stag after losing the shadow's trail? i think you are leaping from one thing to the next. they are good descriptions, no doubt, but what is holding all this together? i understand it is a dream sequence but, as a reader, i am looking for something more than descriptions of beings. this is not a painting, like a still life, but this is a story which should have depth, movement, forward progress, interaction and such.
>third and fourth paragraph
>i was a scout... ...or so i naively felt
i actually liked what you were doing here. the idea that you were aware that you had entered a land of allegory and metaphor. but why must you become self conscious and feel these things "naively?" i don't think it should be naive. it is quite creative. nothing about the experience in the dream would lead me to think that the narrator's feeling here is naive. it seems spot on, rather.
>the liquid valor spilling from its veins.
liquid valor? isn't that a poetic way of describing alcohol? heh. i think you are trying to describe the glorious nature of the stag's blood, but you missed the mark here.

all in all, a very poetic prose piece and something that has a lot of good, raw descriptions and use of language. however, for my taste, it is over the top in its use of description, and i feel that the excessive descriptive words are masking an underlying lack of story telling depth. OP i think you are more of a painter than a story teller. the descriptions are what you seem to love, but the theme is lacking. is it the destruction of innocence or natural beauty? well then, you will need to connect your beautifully written dream sequence more concretely with your professor and his dexterous and seductive hands. i like the first paragraph a lot, but you need to have something more mundane to use as mortar between all these high flying, flowery fantastical metaphorical beings and locations. i suppose you are really in some sort of dark forest mentally, trying to make some sense of all that your teacher is telling you. well, there's a good start for the story. tie in the lessons from the professor with the narrator's learning to make sense of the fantasy of the forest. after all, if all these forest creatures symbolize ideas, then the mastery of those ideas in waking life should prove, in the dream, to be lethal weapons against their power.

>>5798619
Isn't that what the exercise is about, though?

Absolutely shite, OP

OP here

Wow, I thought my thread was dead. Lots of good and relevant criticism, thanks. The first thing to address would be the "wordiness". Like I said in the OP, this was a writing exercise to improve my vocabulary, and so far is continuing that way. If it goes on long enough, which I think it will (because I'm really enjoying writing this) I'll go back and tone done the wordiness, add stuff in to ease transitions between the images, etc.

If I get back early enough from work today I'll upload the rest of what I wrote yesterday (which includes the protagonist waking out of the dream sequence). I'm making this story up sentence by sentence, which is a first for me, and I have little idea of what's going to happened next