/lit/ - Literature

>>4577522
No, fuck you. No one should ever do this.

>>4574397
You need to build credibility. The gaps you dont just "fill with anything". These gaps are what make your story feel real and true.

For example, lets make up a story.
We can even use this guy's setup (not a bad one, but I would never use it)
>>4574483

This will be a short story, and there will be no sci-fi or fantasy whatsoever. We will make the central character a young girl. Shell be 17. Well place the story in San Francisco, present time. Lets make it spring, and warm, since you'd expect a story in San Fran to be ridden with fog and gloom. Well have the story be between two or three characters, and well try our very best to keep the story in as few scenes as possible. One would be best, three at max.

So here is the very basic of the basic. Its just pure aesthetics. Now we have to decide what the story will be mainly about, OR, we develop our main character, let her loose, and see what happens.

I prefer the second method, but since we are using >>4574483 's method, will decide on the plot now. We will, however, allow for the story to evolve in whatever way we want. If something comes up, were going to take it. Outline be damned.

continued

>>4528426
Right, im asking if there are any reasons besides that, that make it good, or different.

Like
>>4528433
Points out, this might be a difference besides the fact that its the first of its kind.

You could be right though, maybe that is the only reason. nah

>>4394930
>>4394957
These guys got it, however there might be more to it.

The main I always think of when reading Bananafish is wondering about Seymour's philosophy. We get I dont know how many little bits here and there across all the stories, but it seems hard to actually make it cohesive

Compare it to Zooey's philosophy, and his take on religion. You can easily see his conflict, whereas Seymour is way more obscure

I got a copy of this book from my university's library and I swear to god it is the most beautiful copy of any book I've ever seen.

Understand, its a hard copy with a blank blue cover all over, just sky blue, that's it.

But inside, my god. Thirty plus years of annotations, coffee cup stains, highlight marks, water and ink drops, doodles, whatever. You'd think it would ruin the book, but its as if for thirty years people took out this book and in collaboration with one another made it into an art project.

I've only read the first three pages of the book. The art inside is far too distracting. I don't think ill be able to finish it.

Franny from Franny and Zooey.

I didnt masturbate to her, but I did have strange feelings whenever she was on a roll.

Honestly to take a hike somewhere with her and let her just babble would be pretty damn nice. She cares so much, I just like it.

First draft no edit, about two pages, please be harsh.

One October, a particular cool-dry-wind October, the kind of October where everyone has the flu and the red runny nose but no one seems too bothered, Travis had his first panic attack. It was a clear gray skied Friday morning and he was on his way to school. He was walking at a slightly slower pace than others would have advised for such a chilly day, but he was deeply focused on crunching any and all leafs that crossed his path. His face stared obediently down against the wind while he walked and his fists were thrust deeply into the pockets of his muted blue windbreaker.

Now, I must warn the reader that although it seems perfectly natural for a fourteen year old boy to walk face down against the wind to evade any unwanted nip, this was not the case, and only a very close family member or friend could catch the clues, his stride being straighter and narrower than usual, or his back held adamantly straight up against the weight of his backpack, to know that he was having a fit. A fit brought on by his, I promise, always well intentioned although always naïve older brother, Z. The all too familiar brother feud had begun twenty minutes earlier in their hardwood floor kitchen over toast and blueberry jam, coffee, and orange juice. Z had the coffee, Travis the juice. Travis was reading Hemmingway’s The Sun also Rises and Z asked Travis if he was enjoying it. Travis answered that he was without looking up, and Z gave a faint smile. Z asked just what it was he was enjoying in the book. Travis put the book down and said he thought that Hemmingway did a good job of saying something without saying it, that he had a skill for the subtle. Z said he found it gimmicky, which was all that was needed to start the feud.

Right in the middle of the after math of this feud, when a young boy is most sensitive and disagreeable, a young girl wearing a white summer dress with light green dots and frills, and a grey hoody over this, was catching up to Travis with a slight spring in her step, and as she got closer she was more bouncing than walking.

“Why hello pretty boy, whats got you all pouty and muttery?” she said as she reached him.
“Z” he said.
“Oh no, what did he do today?”
“Being a god damn bastard”
“Now Travis”, she grabbed his arm playfully.
“That’s no way to start a morning, especially this morning”

That philosophy tends to be a lot more complicated and interwoven than any professor of philosophy wants to admit. This comes from what im beginning to see as true in my own personal philosophy. For example students are willing to take a class on free will/freedom but then dont bat an eye when the professor says in the first lecture that we wont be discussing the self and its relation to free will. Another is that students will take a class on Kant's moral philosophy but not bat an eye when the professor says we will not be discussing his meta ethics.

Id like to say that studying philosophy as a "quaint" hobby was limited to academia but it seems widespread. People at worst think of philosophy as a means to a career, and at best care about their ego in the pursuit of this romantic notion "knowledge", but do not care about the pursuit of wisdom.

Let us go then, you and I

The only book I can remember from Jr. High is The Giver

9th grade:
To Kill A Mocking Bird
Of Mice and Men
The Odyssey
Romeo and Juliet

10th grade:
Julius Caesar
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Macbeth
Animal Farm
1984

11th grade AP:
Grapes of Wrath
Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
A Streetcar Named Desire
Scarlet Letter
The Crucible
The Road
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Lots of Beat poetry and Emily Dickinson

12th grade AP:
The Odyssey and The Illiad
About a million other greek tales that I cant remember
Kite Runner
Hamlet
The Stranger
The Foutainhead
Catch-22
Lots of poetry in general: Keats, Sexton, T.S. Eliot, etc

Mine would also be Franny and Zooey, but I dont like the actors and you chose, I dont know who to replace them with

Seriously though, Franny and Zooey, best book ever? eh? eh?