/lit/ - Literature

>>9684656
It's a stylistic choice. I'd personally go with the former.

>>9680538
Why is this board obsessed with writing first person narratives about sleeping? The only thing you're going to do is put me to sleep.

>I've been doing this for a long time--
The dash here doesn't really make any sense. If you really want to separate it, just use a colon.

>This is the story of
Can you not? You don't need to tell me that I'm reading a story. I already know. You've also already made it well apparent that it's about sleeping.

>and...the horror
Never use ellipses like this, what the hell man. They're only ever acceptable in dialogue. And even then it can be questionable a lot of the time. Just write: the joy and horror that came with it.

I'm not going to continue going, because I cannot really tell if you're serious with this. I also have a policy where I don't spend more time critiquing/editing than you apparently spent writing.

>>9680259
>It was a characteristically bleak winters day in Duisburg, a seemingly endless drizzle of rain accompanied by a cold harsh wind that seemed to cut right down to the flesh.
Comma splice, also exceptionally trite. You spend the first paragraph describing the weather, which is such a juvenile trope. You could have cut down the first few sentences to:
It was a bleak winters day of varying shades of gray in Duisburg. The wind cut through my flesh and rain endlessly drizzled throughout the town.

>It did not look like the beginning of a day that anyone would want to remember, let alone one that anyone would want to write about.
Okay, cool. Don't write about it then. And don't insert annoying authorial asides that contribute nothing and only serve to distract and detach readers from the narrative.

>I first noticed the bright yellow color just out of the corner of my eye, it stood out against the sea of muted grays like a single dandelion standing tall in a field of ash.
Another comma splice. A single dandelion standing tall in a field of ash is also a really ridiculous image, and a bit extreme for the scene you're attempting to describe, but okay. I'll work with it:
I noticed her vibrancy in the corner of my eye, standing out among a sea of gray.

>And at that moment
Never start a sentence with this, to save my and others sanity. You may as well just say "and it came to pass," so that we can at least member and get some sweet biblical allusion.

Now let's look at the sentence in full
>And at that moment it was as if the clouds parted and the sun began to shine, I found myself smiling, yet unable to explain why.
Yet another comma splice, and annoying narration. Don't tell me that you cannot explain why. If your narrator cannot explain something, then don't mention it at all. Keep it simple:
The clouds and sun in my eyes began to part and shine. I began to smile.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, let's combine all that to see how many useless words you had:

It was a bleak winters day of varying shades of gray in Duisburg. The wind cut through my flesh and rain endlessly drizzled throughout the town. I noticed her vibrancy in the corner of my eye, standing out among a sea of gray. The clouds and sun in my eyes began to part and shine. I began to smile. And as I exited the tram and walked with her up a hill I began to dread the moment we would part.

Nice, we managed to keep a few sentences.

>>9680430
I have no idea what you're attempting to write, but it isn't a narrative. And if you're trying to go for some stream of consciousness style, it's very poorly done.


>>9680437
I'm guessing that this is yours too>>9680458

Critique is basically the same as your other passage. Except here you somehow manage to have even more grievous prose. There's not really any narrative, and I'm unsure of what exactly you're trying to say other than "look at how smart I am, look at all of these words I can use." That's genuinely what I thought as I was attempting to read through it. It seems like you're writing for yourself rather than any potential reader, because nobody would want to read that. Even if you smoothed it out and structured it into readable sentences, there isn't really much there. It's a lot of words and no content. And to top it off, a lot of the words are completely redundant.

>>9680458
Writing quickly does not equate to good writing. Take the time to do it properly. If you just throw away grammar rules and good prose to write faster you will develop bad habits and lose sight of what you're actually trying to say. You'll go back after you're done and get lost in a labyrinth of words that barely make any sense. Not editing as you go is a garbage meme, I swear. Make sure that you say things properly before you say more things. It doesn't have to be perfect the first time through, but it should at least make sense and be consistent.

>>9676261
Anything that gives a bad opinion of The Oath of the Horatii, which is an absolute masterpiece, I hold a lot of contempt for. I feel like Erin is far too unlikable:there's being a pretentious pseud, and then there's just being fucking insufferable, which nobody really wants to read about. It's also rather unbelievable that anyone would complain about a university/college being too conservative and reactionary, when that's not really something that exists these days. Seems a bit detached from reality, in my opinion.

>There's this vomit splat on the sidewalk that looks like the Nickelodean logo
This is unbelievably trite and juvenile. Please refrain from using annoying pop culture references as descriptions. I'm sure you can come up with a more natural description for vomit.

>I ask Eris what a reactionary is.
Really awkward formatting. You need to use a colon there, at least.

>When I stop her, she goes "eep," walks around it, and says thanks.
Awkward syntax when compared to the rest of the writing. Your prose is very inconsistent.

It's pretty bad, but I don't really have much to work with here. It's very inconsistent and annoying to read. your writing is really all over the place. The content itself is also very annoying. It's hard to say much without seeing the rest of the story, but if it continues on like this I would burn it myself. Having a liberal pseud ranting about anything traditional doesn't make for very good reading, and the narrator seems to be far too passive. Not once in that page did I see any personality from the narrator. You tell me what Eris is doing, but you don't give any clue as to how the narrator feels about it, or what he thinks about it.

>>9678382
Are you absolutely retarded? The end of The Dead was taken from Joyce's real life and was very personal to him. The fact that Michael Bodkin (Furey) died for Nora was something that plagued him his entire life, because he felt that he would never be able to love Nora in the same way that Michael did. I think it's YOU that missed the entire point of the book. The Dead is an absolutely sublime love story; I genuinely cried during the last few pages. Jesus christ you're autistic man.

>>9679729
This really annoys me. You're trying way too hard to look smart and ultimately make a ton of mistakes that make you look like an amateur. You're not Proust or Faulkner, don't attempt to write page long sentences. It's also exceptionally purple; you use a lot of words and description but barely say anything. It's far too distracting for anyone to enjoy it, awful prose and writing skill aside. A couple lines would have even been absolutely fine if you did not try so hard.

Their down-turned faces captured in anguish and sorrow do stare out from marble luminous eyes trapped within permanent fixtures. Standing atop the edge of this wide and long platform, their many hands reach out into the void beyond, twisting and clutching at air as if falling from this high place. But their cemented feet do not slip, and the many high pillars rise up from that deep gulf and climb into a new atmosphere.

And after that I'm completely lost with trying to rewrite, because I barely have any idea what you're even trying to fucking say. Jesus, man. If I can barely even make it through a few sentences while line editing, don't expect any reader to.

>>9679761
It's absolutely necessary to read both Dubliners and Portrait before Ulysses. You really have no business reading it if you have not gone through those two. Characters from Dubliners make appearances and are referenced, and Stephen Dedalus from Portrait is one of the main characters in Ulysses.

>>9679561
Really, really bad. Almost Irredeemably bad, but I thought that a couple lines of dialogue were alright.

Your prose is just really awkward and clunky. It doesn't flow at all, and the only thing that saves my eyes from melting is that it's dialogue heavy and I don't have to read through more terrible descriptive sentences.

>I woke up with
You should never want to start something with an I statement like that. Especially if it's waking up. It's exceptionally trite and makes me roll my eyes before I've even gotten through your first sentence.

>I don't know how
Delete it. It doesn't need to be there. You can either have it implied with the first sentence, since the narrator does not explain why he does have them, or you can incorporate it into a sentence that flows better like this:
For some odd reason I awoke with dark puffy circles under my eyes.

>I slept more last night than I have in a long time
Why is this here? I know what you're trying to imply, but it's far too simple and inconsequential to grasp the readers attention. I do not care about your characters sleeping habits, and I doubt other readers will as well. Almost everyone gets less sleep than they should, so having that as some implication of something odd going on is boring.

>Getting ready for work was like trying to run through water
Overly overt similes like this can be pretty annoying, and ultimately does not even make sense for what you're trying to describe. Running through water is not at all the same feeling or experience as waking up groggy and tired and trying to slog through your morning routine.

>Sludging back and forth
>Forgetting to put
>A comedy for
Grammatically incorrect tense shifts and very annoying to read through. Consider making it one or two sentences like this, rather than breaking them all apart for whatever odd effect you're attempting to accomplish:
>Getting ready for work was a true comedy that found me pushing through molasses and messing up every aspect of my morning routine.

>Check my painting before leaving
Makes absolutely no sense without context.

>I always hated when he did this. Talk to me while relieving himself. Always made me feel uncomfortable
Don't do this. Don't break something that should be one sentence into three sentences without even rephrasing the sentences to be grammatically correct. Should be like this:
I always hated when he talked to me while relieving himself.

You don't need to tell the reader that it makes the character feel uncomfortable. We gather that fact when he says that he hates it. Anything in the bathroom with other people is already implied to be uncomfortable.

I could keep going for every sentence, but I don't really have that much time. The story itself seems kinda boring, and something that I have already read multiple times. I can already see where it's going and I don't find it very interesting, to be honest.

>>9648486
>He knew it was dangerous,
>He wasn't too worried though,
>Even though it was late,
>Every once in awhile,
>Even with all this,
>Just that day,

This is the writing of the average person in a highschool English class. I have no idea why you think that you're above technical writing advice when you write worse than the average tumblr girl in a creative writing class. Your writing is so full of Colloquial and cliched expressions that I mentally cannot make it past the first couple paragraphs. Burn this and learn how to write properly, please. Nobody is going to want to read this. I don't care about an unoriginal and uninspired story when the writing makes me want to vomit.

>>9647214
>>9647233
Awful and confusing. Unnecessarily complex syntax: there is no reason for that dash to be there in the third paragraph, for example; splitting it into two sentences would have been fine. And you also run into comma splices.

Prose itself is very close to being purple. You use a lot of words and barely say much of anything. At least half of the words you used produced no deeper meaning or understanding. A lot of sentences are also exceptionally awkward, such as this one:
> We drove here for six hours on a sunny March day.
Grammatically incorrect and annoying. It should be: We spent six hours driving there on a sunny day in March.

Actually, you know what, I'll just do my best to rewrite this while remaining faithful to what you already have before I go to sleep.

We spent six hours driving there on a sunny day in March. I slept but a few brief hours on an uncomfortable foam mattress after the first ceremony of the day. Although I should have felt exhausted, I felt fine. Having another ceremony just a day after the last one felt absurd, but that absurdness is what we came here for.

They dimmed the lights in the afternoon and the shaman began to perform his rites. I walked to the center and sat appropriately when my turn came. I downed the foul concoction as fast as I could, and it began quickly to take effect.

Everything was different this time. The feelings of euphoria and unity were altogether gone and I knew that the day would be a difficult journey indeed. My consciousness was wholly seized after the usual stage of nausea and geometric illusions had passed. My soul stood firm against the tide as my body braced itself against the wall. My mind rolled and roiled with every thought. My eyes began to adjust to the darkness and I saw wailing figures dancing under muted rays of evening light. A tide of rhythmic music captured me in its current.

I faded out and in and then back again as time passed in the gloomy room. My mind and body screamed for clean air and I stumbled through the room of murmurous darkness. I staggered into a corridor and saw her there, with a smile on her pale face. She collapsed into me and held me and worried that she had lost me forever. I held her then, assuring myself and her that I would not be going anywhere. My distant life and self flooded back into my mind and I began to drown in it. All the memories of us and love. I was myself again, and I was in love indeed.

I walked out into the frosty grass and felt the wonders of night. I ran all around the vast garden lit by moonlight, stopping and resting below a stoic evergreen tree. I felt the beast begin to seize me again so I bashed my fists against that tree until I began to bleed. The pain pushed him away, and I walked back over to where she rested against a wall.

>>9614729
That's the joke

>>9605023
I actually agree with you on the thoughtless part. That's how I would have written it too. Not sure why I wanted the to be earlier. I think i thought it slightly awkward to leave out when taking the following and prior clauses into consideration.

>>9604788
>Lazy afternoon in the quaint home of Winters'
Should be: Lazy afternoon in the quaint home of the Winters'. Or: in the Winters' quaint home.

>Mrs. Winters, the housewife
Omit housewife, because it breaks flow and this fact is already well implied. (as well as being unnecessary to the narrative).

>She is pulling from the oven
Super awkward. I'm about to be pulling you out of that chair at your writing desk. Should be: She pulls a freshly baked apple pie from the oven with her large red mittens.

Next sentence is ok and comes down to personal stylistic preference more than anything. But again, the clause about the weatherman is not needed.

>Mrs. Winters then places the pie along a dark, marble countertop
The comma is unnecessary and just breaks flow, leading to clunky prose.

>Mrs. Winters believes it thoughtless spending
Believes it to be.

An improvement from the other anons, but still not very great. You try to have prose that flows well but end up ruining it with unnecessary punctuation and awkward phrasing.

>>9603832
>The end of the world started at a lazy afternoon at the humble home of the Winters
Lazy writing, and a couple mistakes. Having started be an antithesis of end is atrocious. The proper phrasing should be: The end of the world began. And overall, the sentence should look like this: The end of the world began on a lazy afternoon at the Winter's humble home (or abode, as that's the classic phrasing for a humble house--and still used often despite being archaic because it flows well).

>Mrs. Winters at the kitchen
Exceptionally awkward sentence fragmenting, especially when following the introductory sentence, and grammatically incorrect aside from being a fragment to top it off. It should be linked to the following sentence and look like this: Mrs. Winters was in the kitchen, pulling our her freshly baked apple pie with large red mittens as dark ominous clouds began to gather on what should have been a sunny day.

The last clause of the sentence can be omitted due to the foretasted weather being easily implied beforehand.

>She sets [...] Cooper dinner night
She set. And don't allude to prior events if you don't plan on giving the reader some indication as to what happened. It is only acceptable not to if the event in question is a cultural/historical reference. Or if the short story is in a collection where references are shared between the stories. I know that you do attempt to clue the reader in with the following sentence, but it is really not sufficient and should just be omitted entirely because it leads to much awkwardness.

>Mrs. Winters still thought of it as thoughtless spending, they could just not
This is a comma splice. And the rest of the sentence contains quite a few grammatical errors, but I do not wish to point them all out or rewrite it.

>In an African Savanna, a placid
Another comma splice. Just add a period.

>His door was an old oak wood with a brass knob just like all the doors in the house was, and even with his teenage angst, Paul hadn't thought of putting up stickers on it, she would be disappointed if he does so.
A ridiculous amount of grammatical errors, and again comma splices. It should be like this: His door was made out of old oak wood and had a brass knob like all the others in the house. Even in his stage of teenage angst, Paul had not thought of putting stickers on his door. She would be disappointed if he had done so.

There's honestly a lot more issues with this writing besides what I pointed out. There is something grievously wrong with every sentence. I am just honestly not going to spend more time line editing than you apparently put into writing it. Learn what you can from this and then burn it.


I'll critique more stuff in this thread later. This one took longer than I thought it would and I have to head to the gym in a few minutes. If anyone wants me specifically to look at something, just give me a (you). But please at least proofread it a couple times first.

>>9600273
>She was wearing
Introduce the subject before you refer to them as he/she. It is really confusing as is, since you are implying that Evan is a she.

>Her arms bent at an awkward angle to adjust for how close she sat to the steering wheel
Unnecessarily long phrasing. Just say: Her arms bent at an awkward angle to adjust for her position at the steering wheel.
Drop the dash and the following clause, because it's not needed.

>perhaps Evan had had too much to drink, nevertheless.
Comma splice.

>Something similar was bound to happen again, although he
Splice, again. Change to: Something similar was bound to happen again. Although he dreaded it, he would do nothing to prevent it.

>Selfish as it was he knew
You're actually missing a comma here, for once. It should be: Selfish as it was, he knew that in order for him to enjoy himself others had to not.

I won't go through the second paragraph, but just know that it read very awkwardly. Overall the short story is very trite and uninspired, poor technical writing skills aside. Just scrap it and move on. There's nothing there that I have not seen a thousand times already.

>>9599446
>as evening washes over fading daylight
This phrasing is redundant. It being daylight is already implied by fading. Just say light.

>a thin, fleece throw-over from the backseat, covering his lower body
First comma is unnecessary, and I'd consider changing to: a thin fleece thrower-over from the backseat.

The last part isn't really needed. It's already implied that he's putting it on his body.

>Already with his head to pillow, the driver's seat is fully reclined and receded.
Very awkward. Consider changing to something like this: He rested his head on a pillow in the fully reclined and receded seat.

>the floor below it
Drop the it.

>plastic bottles, mostly water and coffee
Comma splice. Use a dash if you want to keep the phrasing.

>The backseat is divided in two;
Use a colon here.

>Lord
Lawd. Have to keep your dialect consistent now.

>It'd be too weird after her and his few hookups in the past.
Exceptionally awkward phrasing. The subjects are already implied. Just say: It would be too weird after a few hookups in the past.

There are more things I found issue with, but those are the main offenders. It's decent overall, I suppose. I'm not too sure what the point of it is, though. Reading about a homeless bum is not very interesting.


>>9600227
Really really bad with grammatical issues attacking me from all sides. I guess i'll just go through the biggest offenders.

>Obviously that hasn't been the initial intention and that was made clear by her aghast expression and the awkward try to fix the mishap by bunching the fabric upwards
Should be : That was not her initial intention, which was made clear by her aghast expression and an awkward attempt to fix the mishap by bunching the fabric upwards.

>her face grew dark in anticipation of the turbulences this one hasty gesture will cause
Misspelling and grammar issues abound. Change to: Her face became dark with anticipation due to the turbulence that this hasty gesture would cause.

>with a weary sight she got down from the step, gathered her skirt, only to come back with
Comma splice. Change to: With a weary sight she got down from the step and gathered her skirt, only to come back with

>only needed seconds to think about how
To think of how.

>after she has put everything back in the box, she paused a moment to look at her work, a short smile crossed her mouth, before she was gone again
Comma splice. Change to: After she had put everything back in the box she paused a moment to look at her work; a short smile crossed her mouth before she was gone again.

You could put a comma after box and mouth in my rewrite, but they are not necessary. It's overall pretty bad and awkwardly written. Seems like the writing of someone who just started writing. Don't let that discourage you, though.

>>9599894
It's alright. I don't really like anything about it, but I don't have too many complaints. The only thing that really stood out to me is
>About to walk onto the pedestrian crossing, she paused
being an awkward sentence to follow the previous with, as far as flow is concerned. You could also drop the first comma and it would be better, in my opinion. Hard to offer much critique on your writing with a paragraph that has likely been refined to a higher degree than the rest of the book. Congrats on being published, though. I hope it turns out well for you.
>>9596629
What the hell man. I can barely understand what you're trying to say, and Finnegans wake is one of my favorite works of literature. Way way way too purple. It's also exceptionally awkward and clunky.
>>9594885
>Frequently,
Never start a sentence with an adverb. Every time you do this a koala is hit by a car or ripped to shreds by a dog. There are very few cases where it is alright, and every case I've seen has been by a masterful writer who well knows how to get away with it.

I'm not going to go through each sentence and show you what's wrong, because I would be sitting here all night and I have to go soon. One of the most glaring issues is that I'm literally choking on all of the commas that you have. It's like someone relentlessly took a sledgehammer to your sentences.

>because our happy little start is actually very depress, forced to work a job that is literally killing her, until she dies, without her, warmth, unfortunately not of the kind that this narrator needs the most right now, would not exist.

Ok this is really a mouthful and makes my head scream, but i'll try to rework it appropriately: because our happy little star is very depressed while forced to work a job that is killing her--without her, the warmth I want but do not need right now would not exist.

God dude, I still have no idea what's going on with that sentence. Start trying to read your stuff aloud, and you may begin to see where the problem lies in each sentence. If a sentence is awkward as hell to read, there's more than likely something wrong with it.

>>9598752
Very awkward and uninspired prose.
>At each clearing, a child saw something, pulled from the reaches of their mind, terrifying them
Consider changing to: At each clearing a child saw something pulled from the reaches of their mind, terrifying them.

>I pulled away each child, remind them of their desire to escape the maze, and how they could conquer their fears if they stood tall
Consider: I pulled away each child and reminded them of their desire to escape the maze and how they could conquer their fears if they stood tall.

As it is now, it reminds me of the average uninspired blog post writing that I see in most amateur short stories.

>My father walked over and embraced me, lifting me up with his strong arms and putting me down again
Grammatically incorrect. I'd fail you for this if it were up to me.

Change to: My father walked over and embraced me; he lifted me up with his strong arms then put me back down again.
>>9596839
>"...and they lived happily ever after."
Punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks.

>But to feel pity
Drop the to.

>Laying there
Lying there.

>and then, nothing
Consider dropping the comma. Not grammatically incorrect, but not necessary.

>Grew more closer
Grammatically incorrect and awkward. Drop the more.

>and he could start to hear what they said
Change to: and he could start to hear what they were saying.

>the eyes
His eyes.

>turn paralyzed
Become paralyzed.

>tears trickle
To trickle. Obvious and i'm guessing you just forgot it.

Overall it's alright. One of the few paragraphs in this thread that didn't give me a brain aneurysm. Just fix the mistakes that I noted and it'll be passable.


I'll keep going through stuff in this thread throughout the night. I was ridiculously banned a few days ago for a minor shitpost in a shitpost thread, so i'm a bit behind.

>>9583299
There's no stylistic purpose for those sentence fragments. It doesn't add any tension and just results in poor writing. You could have just used a comma or conjunction and the sentence would have been perfectly fine. When I say juvenile I usually mean that there is no purpose for something being done: the writer simply uses a technique they've seen because they think it will be cool. I read so many amateur short stories that use sentence fragmenting like this and it just makes me want to burn the entire thing immediately.

>>9583247
I actually don't read any writing guide books, because I don't think that's how one should learn how to write. I've been told good things about a few of them, though. All my criticism comes from personal study and practice. Whether or not you choose to listen to it is up to you, but I guarantee that it will make your writing better. I generally focus on flow/aesthetics, so if you'te interested in that you should especially pay attention. Also, writing poorly just because that's how you want to narrate that particular character doesn't make for good writing. You can make a character awkward and convoluted and still write unlike that. And no, hating poor sentence fragmenting does not make me a pleb. How you did it is very juvenile. Stop it.

>>9583215
I actually never have because I always just read one or two sentences of your posts then move on to another on. I have not even been in these critique threads for a while because they're all awful. I can give you SOME critique later, but I'm off to work right now.

>>9578826
>There was a warm, concealed corner behind a crag
Drop the comma.
>A long, uneven trail of totaled reeds, broken stems
Drop both commas and add an 'and' between reeds and broken.
>It was a winding, wind stricken path
Drop the comma.
>there was a man, holding nothing
Again, drop the comma.

>All the incandescence descended to the horizon and concentrated in a swirling vacuum, collecting more illumination from the surrounds.
Jesus christ, anon. Stop it with the purple prose. Description like that doesn't at all help me see the picture you're trying to paint, and it's not beautiful.

You really need to learn how to use punctuation. You have so many unnecessary commas and the semi-colons you used are not needed. Also, it doesn't seem like you've ever been in the mountains before. I'd suggest going hiking for a few days so that you can actually get a feel for what it's like before you try to describe them.
>>9578839
This reads very awkwardly and is convoluted. There isn't really any flow at all which makes it unenjoyable to read.

>Grasping were his hands, and slick, and his forehead sweltered, and his hands held something heavy.
This is insanely awkward and poor phrasing. I'd suggest rewriting in the spirit of this: Grasping and slick were his hands and his forehead sweltered as he held something heavy.

It's really hard to rewrite it to something not awkward, as it is. I'd just suggest rephrasing the idea entirely. Also, all the sentence fragments you have makes me look at you with much contempt. Don't do that. It breaks any flow that you might have had and just makes it exceptionally awkward.


>>9580678
>I'm a man of many mistakes yet very few regrets. One of those few regrets was ever leaving you.
Fuck off, Skyler. Your shit never gets any better.

>What I could've had with you could've been real.
Seriously, fuck off. You have no style and everything you write just reads like a blog post. It's trite and uninspired/uninspiring. I'm not even going to waste my time going through it sentence by sentence to offer criticism, because I know that it won't help you.


>>9582952
First sentence is better just because it's slightly more concise. Change ethic to ethics, and 'as givens' to as a given.