/lit/ - Literature

ITT: We discuss the actual process of reading.

I hate it when you're lying in your bed and reading because lying on your side is the most comfortable reading position but you can only read one side of the book, the other side has to be propped up vertically.

I hate when you're reading in the bathroom abd the book is SO COLD ON YOUR THIGHS.

bump?

So here are my questions:

When the streets are 'breaking out' into chaos, should I just have people asking randomly if anyone is 'carrying' the drug, or I'm thinking of having white vans pull up, and MiB type people get out the back and start distributing the drug.

Also, the very final part of the story is going to be a third person, past tense blurb that explains the origin of the beach. Which one should I chose?

Him flying over Saigon, before he truly enters the war, and appreciating it's beauty

Or him sitting at a beach/driving past a beach while his parents argue over whether he should pursue his passion, or follow the dad's feild of business for his post-secondary education, and he instead decides to join the army.

I'm writing a short story and I need some help deciding on certain plot points.

I'll give you guys a breifing of the story, so my questions make sense.

It's about this vietnam war veteran. Back near the end of the war, him and a few others volunteered to stay behind and look for their comrade who was MIA. They were ambushed by this aerial gassing, and all of them died save for the progatonist, who hallucinated this beautiful beach and then woke up in a hospital.

Ever since then he's been taking lots of drugs because he thinks this helps him 'go back' to the beach; which really only comes sporadically [the hallucination]. Here, he feels at peace; innocent. His hallucination, however, is slowly becoming disturbing and terrifying and he can't figure out why.

Eventually, people start dying. A drug has been released in the U.S. that gives the user zen-like enlightenment and bliss, but kills them. When people witness others taking the drug, and the happiness it brings them, they want to take it themselves.

As the streets break into chaos the protagonist finds his way into a church, and in the confessional booth he exchanges dialogue with the priest, revealing a bit of the things he did in the war.

Turns out the priest was his commanding officer who said he would back up their story and fill the necessary paperwork when they volunteered to stay behind.

He explains that the drug on the streets is harvested from a plant that grew in Vietnam, in areas which were sprayed by the chemical. He has a syringe, and offers the protagonist it. He takes it and goes back to the beach, where he experiences his own personal heaven.

It's great that moot made a board entirely dedicated to the greatest band of the 90s.

>>533042

My writing usually ends up in that stream of consciousness style.

And yeah, you're right. I need to shave off alot of fluff; because I know exactly what's going on in the plot, but the reader doesn't. It will be explained later on; but I need to make sure that the reader sees that 'later on'.

"It doesn't work that way" is referring to him trying to 'remember' the beach. Basically, he get's these hallucinations where he blacks out for seconds or days, and he goes to this beach where he feels happy, peaceful, and innocent. These hallucinations can sometimes be brought on my drug use; basically [I know the brain doesn't work this way but bear with my for symbolism's sake], his mind is extremely fragile, the 'beach' is hidden behind a weak and cracked mental dam and by taking drugs, it helps 'open the floodgates' so to speak abd bring him back there.

Does that make sense, at all?

The connection is very very deep and angsty HERP DERP symbolism; the beach represents his innocence and a simpler time pre-vietnam. I think the very last paragraph in the story explains the origins of the beach [either him sitting on a beach and deciding to join the army while his parents argue about his future in the back, or him flying over saigon and noticing the beauty and tranquility of the beach, not sure yet].

He's trying to go back to the beach, because he went to the beach and something unidentifiable was wrong and corrupted with this 'visit' and this caused him to piss himself.

>>533020

lol

I'm getting alot of polarized feedback here, so I guess all I can do is get the facts I need, finish the story, and EDIT.

>>532964

NO.
NO ITS NOT GOD DAMN IT I LET SOME OF MY FRIENDS READ IT AND AS SOON AS THEY SAW ENURESIS THEY WERE LIKE 'lol pacific' YES I STOLE IT I STOLE IT ALL.

>>532957
What do you mean by 'connection to certain words?' He's in New York, but he just remembered a moment for Vietnam, which he's been trying to forget.

The prose is rambling and confusing and jumbled, because that's how the character's mind works. It's hard to read, but I think it gives more feel to the antagonist.

I think I'm going to try to get through it without giving him a name.

What I'm curious about most, though; is the plot apparant? I tend to divulge into metaphors and psychoanalysis without establishing any plot.

>>532942

Crumbles, yeah.

I sort of want to tell you guys how the story ends to get some advanced feedback, should I?

>>532898

Yeah, the pissing himself was a last minute thing that came to me. Really bad hook, but it makes it surprisingly easy to segway into story, and have it flow.

It's just going to get gritter, but I don't want to cheap out with an introductory disturbing war experience that was ALL A FLASHBACK or DREAM.

But people start dying all around him, and there's a part where I alternate tiny, three-four sentence fragments of the best and worst moments of his life like say him cooking dinner with his mom, and then finding corpses of another platoon strapped to a donkey's back with vietnamese slur painted on the side of the animal.

Basically there's alot more interesting and gritty plot devices than the introduction but if I introduce it too soon, I think it'll comprimise the story.

>>532875

there's plenty in there

Part two.

This is all I have so far.

Hi /lit/.

I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my writing? I think it's a piece of shit; the rough draft was better, but everyone knows that a writer is his own biggest critic.

I'm looking to see how interesting it is, what you think of my style, any flaws, constructive criticism, etc. Thanks.

DA RODE

>>525732

>Realize your dramatic instances rather than summarizing them.

What do you mean by this?

Hey /lit/

It's been near a year, but I've finally started writing again. Well, at least, I somehow managed to break throug the procrastination, if just for tonight.

I'm working on a short story that's going to need a bit more research on Vietnam, Buddhism, and drugs, but I was wondering if I could get some constructive feedback on what I have so far.

It's my first draft, unedited, not great by any means, but I'm looking for specifics on how [un?]interesting it is, and where I can improve.

Pic related.

"The story begins midway through a sentence in order to give the effect that it begins somewhere closer to the middle, rather than at a true beginning. Another interpretation is that the story has neither a beginning nor an ending, which signifies the endless cycle of debauchery in which the characters of the novel engage. This is sometimes mistaken by readers as a typo or the result of a missing page, but in truth it was purposely done by Ellis. The novel also ends in a similar fashion, with the last sentence cut off before it ends."

I'm an idiot.

>>504256

I know, but it starts off like

"and it's a story that might bore you but you don't have to listen, she told be, because..."

And that's at the very top of the page without an 'chapter title' or anything, its just prefaced by a blank page with FALL 1985 written on it.

I'm all for ergodic literature, I have my HoL copy sitting right next to me. But with Ellis' style it might be hard to tell if I'm missing a part of the story or not.

>>504242

Oh. Okay.

Hey /lit/

I've decided to start back reading. I've been a voracious reader ever since I was six or seven, but I haven't read anything in the past four or five months.

I'm trying to work my way from modern works to more 'literary masterpieces'. I'm finishing up Bret Easton Ellis right now, but all of this is beside the point.

Have any of you read The Rules of Attraction? In my copy, the book 'starts' on page 13, almost like the first few pages were ripped out. But the entire book fits snugly in the spine without any obvious missing pages.

Is this a misprinted book, or just some post-modernism?

What stories are you working on, /lit/? Also general writerfag advice thread.

I'm working on a short story about a vietnam war veteran in an alternate timeline who uses drugs to experience a recurrent hallucination of a peaceful, serene beach. However, something in the hallucination eventually becomes disturbing and horrifying, and as he's trying to figure out what's wrong with the 'beach', people in the world start sporadically collapsing and dying while experiencing zen-like bliss and enlightenment.