/lit/ - Literature

>>11097649
good prose still requires interesting thought, of which you provide neither of, in the OP.

>>11097722
i appreciate it, is there anything specific you can add

Madeline my dearest snuggle bunny, to whom my hope, of hope to never falter grows. Today I was presented with an option that'll bring destiny onto new rope. You see dear, I was at the stock house early just after lunch, before the train came in, when them Rolvet boys took me aside. They told of a ship at the docks whose captain needed an extra person for work and passage. His crew would be headed down to the other America, where they've caught a hold of rumors that spoke of new found gold. I'd be traveling with Tom Rolvet so rest assure, he'd keep my in check.

>>11097742
don't make the boring parts purple, in fact do the opposite.

>>11097763
thx i appreciate it

>>11097766
now do me >>11097757
pls

>>11097649
okay actually i re-read it.
And; I think you picked it up in the second half with the birds, but the "prophet" thing really jambles up your sequence of events, in fact it actually confuses it, as your prose continues on not paying attention to the past action.

>>11097757
i like it. if it's a short story i'd leave it be if it'
s the intro to something longer i would add more exposition. have they struggled financially? isnt him leaving for a long time going to be difficult for her? snuggle bunny might be a bit much too.

also i edited mine: Before the morning in a public garden he would feed the birds ashes from his cigarette, lacking funds for anything more. The few that partook quickly became addicts, and these would follow throughout the greenery.

>>11097783
I honestly just wrote that up for this thread, as it's purely a practice of prose. But Yeah, It could be a short story.

Mm, perhaps, these two are a young couple, the girl is still living at home with her Ma' and Pa', the guy is her lover who always is looking for the big ticket it, he's a romantic at heart.
I picked snuggle bunny because it is exactly to much.

>>11097649
Don't try so hard.
Seriously. Don't try so hard. Stop jerking off and write.

The purpose of writing is to entertain and instruct. Yeah, yeah, I get it, being smart is fun, but when I pick up a book I want to be entertained first and educated later.
Reading this feels like work. The rhythm's off, the prose is way too lush, nobody talks like this.
Here. Try and just... write what you see in your head. Make it simple. Most people are idiots.

A possible rewrite:
"He walked to the park in the rain. A street preacher, holding a damp Bible, shouted at a young mother and her child. He ignored the preacher and ducked into the park. Every morning he stopped here to smoke a cigarette and feed the birds. They pecked at crumbs around his ankles, bickered over crusts. He watched the smoke from his cigarette dissolve into the cold air. Sometimes he thought about naming them, just out of loneliness, but the thought felt silly and pathetic..."

I don't know. What I just wrote isn't beautiful but at least you can tell what's fucking happening.

>>11097821
thx. i think i need to plan what im doing better a lot of times its just whatever pops in my head

>>11097649
ALLL THE PEOPLE, SO MANY PEOPLE.

>>11097821
do mine ples

I really hesitate to post this because if it's bad then I'll have to rewrite my whole novel which is in this style, but fuck it. It's supposed to sound slightly archaic because it is set in approx. the 1890's.

>Fletch was making 17 knots with her sails spread and engine turning. Dunstable ran just beside her. Rifle shot echoed from the troop ship’s stern as her soldiers took turns practicing - Kjell was but a few days away now. A few idle sailors strained to see the firing, taking turns peering through a rusty spyglass one of them must have brought aboard. The ritualized drill was far from exciting, but it was the most interesting activity at hand. To Bethany’s ear they seemed to be judging the riflemen like one might judge a racehorse: ‘this one looks game and steady’, ‘that one looks nervous’, in an effort to guess whether the man would strike that target, a man sized assemblage of canvas sacks mounted to a makeshift barge that the Dunstable had under tow, on his first attempt. Those that failed to do so were roundly mocked despite the fact that the sailors, handed the same rifle, would be hard pressed to hit the barge at that distance, let alone the target.

>Growing more bored than even the sailors, Bethany wandered down the deck until she reached the boiler room skylight. There she witnessed an oddly genteel scene. Badrine had brought the stokers, who were working at a relatively relaxed cadence thanks to the wind, coffee in a silver pot appropriated from the steward. It was served to them, for the lack of any others, in fine patterned cups. They stood drinking it in a small circle, careful to stay under the breeze from the skylight, and talking about something - Bethany had no chance of hearing what over the sound of the churning engine - that seemed to animate them. It struck her that until now she had never really seen these men as men, but as some part of the ship’s mechanism. The sailors were somehow different, though there lives were hard they worked above deck, in her view, and seemed to perform an array of tasks rather than what seemed to her to be a single repetitive motion that a machine might do. She wondered what arc their lives took. Perhaps the brightest among them would go on to have Badrine’s position, a sort of liaison between the rest of the ship and the stoker’s demimonde. She felt that the work would eventually kill the others if they kept at it, it was clearly a young man’s trade.

>>11097757
Is this a letter? I'm guessing this is the start to some epistolary fiction, right? Sounds like a letter. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. The only thing is you have to write how this person would actually speak.

Like, think about it. When you're writing an email or a text or whatever you don't say shit like "I was told of a store that sold gasoline at a reasonable amount just two miles up the road. I will see you there, dearest." No, you text "hey babe. gas's cheaper at the next station. meet you there?"

Same thing here. It's alright to have a little patina on your prose to show some age, get a feel for the time period, whatever, but your reader isn't in 18th century England or whatever. Your reader's in the 21st century. If they get tired of your shit they'll just turn on the TV.

Try this. Read this aloud. No, like, actually read it aloud.
Actually do it, motherfucker. Not half under your breath. Read it like Madeline's in front of you and you're telling her about this trip.

Feels weird, doesn't it?

Now turn on your phone's voice recorder. Sure, pretend you're a 1750s merchant, whatever. (Just remember you're not.) Then tell Madeline about this trip oppurtunity. Transcribe what you have. Edit a bit. That's the vocabulary, flow, syntax you need.

Hope this helps

>>11097861
It's not bad. I'd be hard pressed to call it archaic, if that's what you want I'm sorry.
But it does seem a tad short, especially with it's descriptions, have you noticed this?

Anyways, It's really not bad. It's good in fact, I'd read it depending on the story Arc

>>11097649
for some dumbfuck essay i dont want to write

To which comes Godliness? The offence of small children, grasping straws by which they can shit themselves in panic and falsehood? Or instead to those self-righteous, whom smell in shit rather than shit themselves-- to throwup bloodpiss ghastly; green chunk puke-stain mixed with thick globules of cum and snuff to masturbate themselves on the glory of their own thought? It is a tragedy.

>>11097879
i might be dumb, but i cant figure out whats actually wrong with it (i wrote it up in 5 minutes, so it was never edited)

>>11097649
I'm going to pick out every phrase or word that is either jarring or a cliche.
>sprawling metropolis
>unsuspecting passerby
>heeded not
>partook
>never failed to become
>extended far beyond
>partake, again
>swarming like insects about his face

That's not even counting the grammar mistakes.

Pretty much all of my criticism was astutely summed up by this anon: >>11097821

>>11097757
no offense dude but this reads like Google Translate English. What's your native language? I'm more interested in that then we can go from there.

>>11097887
It's not the idea behind it. That's cool. The problem is that nobody fucking talks like that. "Caught ahold of rumors that spoke of new found gold?" Nobody says that. Literally nobody speaks like that. They might say "I've heard there's gold in America" or "The captain told me people found gold in Virginia" or whatever, but nobody says what you've written.

You're writing in the first person. The advantage is it's much easier to connect to your character. The downside is you have to write in the character's voice. And I just don't believe that anyone talks like that. It's trying too hard.

>>11097884
>be hard pressed to call it archaic, if that's what you want I'm sorry.
That's fine, I've had some readers say it sounds old fashioned but I have no idea what their frame of reference is. I'd be happy enough to have it sound normal and professional. My big fear is it being overwritten or sound like just plain bad writing.

>short description

This is pulled from the middle of the work so every thing we're seeing has already been described at some length though I must admit I do try to keep my description short when I'm describing ships because I am a raging nautical autist and could go on for page after page about them if I didn't catch myself.

Anyway, here's more from earlier in the book when the ship is on her sea trials:


>Fletch passed the lighthouse and Granger started his chronograph. “What now?!” Bethany asked, shouting to be heard over the wind and howling exhaust from the funnel just behind. “When we pass the ruins at Point Mercy I will stop the watch. Until then, enjoy this, it is a rare thing to run like this. Actually...” Granger regarded the helm and concluded it did not warrant his immediate attention. “Follow me if you would.”

>The Sailing Master descended from the bridge and led Bethany forward to Fletch’s bow. He pointed to a section of rope netting hung between the bowsprit and the bow, forming a right triangle. “Whenever we’re running like this the midshipmen and boys would lie, or stand, if they were steady enough, there. I remember doing it myself.”

>“And?” Bethany wondered.

>“And you should try it. God knows I would were I not so old.”

>“Are you trying to get me killed, Mr. Granger?”

>“You can swim, can’t you?”

>Bethany nodded.

>“Go on then.”

>With a nervous smile, Bethany stepped over the railing and into the net. Keeping one hand on the bowsprit and the other on top of her head to restrain the vast straw sun hat she wore, Bethany looked down to see only ocean below her. Growing more confident, she looked about her. Behind lay Fletch’s long, slender wake, to her right the coast, and to her left a decrepit sidewheel packet. As Fletch handily overtook her the packet whistled long in salute. A pair of students in a sailing dingy nearer inshore waved.

>Bethany, grinning, laughed and waved back. This freed her hat and sent it flying up along Fletch’s deck. A young sailor ran, leapt up, and caught it. Granger stood behind her at the bow rail, his spyglass again extended and drawn on Point Mercy. Within two minutes they were abeam it. With a flourish, Granger stopped his chronograph.

>>11097885
Same problem. You're trying too hard. Don't try so goddamn hard. I barely even know what you're talking about here. Who are you trying to impress? Outside of /lit/ nobody gives a shit you read Joyce and can use "globules" in a sentence. (For the record I love Joyce and "globules" is a great word. Still.)

Make it simple. Look:
Who's more godly, children or self-righteous adults? Children lie, panic, grasp at straws. The self-righteous smell like arrogance. The stench clings to them like vomit.

Simplicty above all. A good writing exercise: take whatever you've just written and rewrite it using ONLY one-syllable words. Give it a shot

MY LADY...you have such delicate, succulent nipples. *sniffs them gentlemanly* AWOOOGA AWOOOOGA I would gladly hold your hand for u, and maybe u could give me something in return ;-)

wAIT!!! m'lady!!!

>>11097921
thread/10

>>11097861
This is a third-person narrator, right?
Why are you writing like you're in the 1890s?
Like I get the novel's set then. But writing it like this makes the reader work for... what? What does the novel gain from this style? How does this enrich the novel? Why write like this and not in contemporary English?

This could be really cool if you do it right, but you have to fucking nail it. Otherwise it's a lame, empty device.

To be honest, I'm not sure if you've done it. The problem isn't the prose, it's the 1800s style. It's decent writing. It's clear, image-driven, concrete. In my opinion the patina you were going for is more like tarnish.

>>11097926
>This is a third-person narrator, right?
Yes but I'm trying to use free indirect discourse heavily because the whole novel is through Bethany's eyes. Bethany is from the 1890's and I find it really jarring to write the parts that slip into her mind, like when she is contemplating the fate of the stokers, in a contemporary fashion.

>>11097921
the proust of /lit/ right fucking here

>>11097921
▲
▲ ▲

>>11097931
Makes sense. I could see that.

Still, would Bethany use words and phrases like "handily," "restrain the vast straw sun hat," "man-sized assemblage," "oddly genteel scene," "relatively relaxed cadence?"

Contemporary idiom, here, doesn't have to mean slang or whatever. Why not just say easily, held her hat on her head, sacks large as men, (cut out that sentence), slowly? People said those things back then.

I like most everything else. The dialogue's a little off but for the most part it's good. Just those things. If Bethany actually uses phrases like that when she's thinking, I'm definetly going to need some hefty justfication or I'm not going to swallow it -- and even then it'll be rough going down.

I think the time period will come through in dialogue, action, physical detail. No need to remind the reader every other sentence, you know? Things like "boiler room" and characters named Dunstable signal the time period far better than free indirect discourse imo.

>>11097887
Can I ask you, you said a few posts ago that its meant to be too much when he says "snuggle bunny", which strikes me as an attempt to inform the reader of the character's personality and intent.
Seems to me then that he's a sort of rastabout, he's not going to America because its necessary, but rather because its exciting. Maybe he's not a bad guy, but he's not being honest in his intentions.
Tell me if I'm wrong. I think its important that you keep those contexts clues intact, but as the other anon said, it reads as somewhat unnatural. Basically just needs to be shortened a bit imo, more concise.

Should we encourage tripcodes in these threads? I know im guilty of usually posting low effort shit b/c i have any easy coping mechanism if people say it's shit.

>>11097949
I certainly see your point but the question becomes, how contemporary would we like to go and how basic do you think the prose should be.

I would question some of the phrases you called out as archaic:

>handily

since when is that archaic?


>relatively relaxed cadence

I see why slowly could work but stokers (I'm a naval history buff) maintained a literal cadence/rhythm with their shoveling of coal depending on how much steam they wanted to generate, learning what cadence to keep was a skill. I didn't use that word just to be purple.

>sacks as large as men

I'm trying to describe several normal sized sacks stuck together to form a man shaped target, not a big sack but I should rephrase, agreed.

The hat thing is pretty florid but I did want to point out it's a sun hat if for no other reason then that's part of my mental image of her and they are in the tropics.

>>11097963
secure tripcodes with no names, like prisoners on this fucking website

>>11097966
Oh, ok, I'm starting to more see where you're coming from.

>handily
I can't remember where I last saw that word. I'm not being facetious. Honest to god think it was a Dickens novel or something. You could get away with it in dialogue, I think. Just not in narration.

>relatively relaxed cadence
Oh shit, learned something new. Cool. Okay, then don't say "relatively relaxed cadence." "In sync" would be too contemporary. Maybe rhythm? In rhythm with each other, or kept a steady tempo, or or or. Relatively relaxed sounds a little forced. It's like I can see you writing.

>sun hat
Cool! Sun hat! You can still call it a sun hat. Just don't use restrain. You restrain a dog, a retarded kid, an epileptic mid-seizure. You don't restrain hats unless they're razor-edged and flying around the boat and about to lop your fuckin head off, you know?

>sacks
I think this is one of those times where you're better off just saying "the sailors stuck/sewed/assembled/whatever verb you like several potato sacks into a man-shaped target."

>>11097649
I stood outside the coffee shop and let the warm spring sun beat down on me as I waited for her approach, my heart thumping inside my chest as I imagined endless amounts of outcomes for our date. I studied the tranquil setting and noted the usually busy high-street completely void of any traffic, with pavements preserved from the beating of busy bystanders if only for a moment. The rows of little shops along the street all began to close in an orderly fashion as the reddish-hue of the evening set fast, the full day of beautiful sunlight ceasing to illuminate the gentle scene.
Turning around, I pressed my face up against the glass of the shop window and peered inside. The friendly barista worked behind the counter, serving the last customer before he exited the shop. I observed the way she worked, how she moved from each apparatus, working them all with a balletic grace, like a great artist finely tuning the finishing touches of a majestic painting, like a sculpture chipping the pearly curls of hair and the blank orbs of sight into an immortal rendering of man, like a wordsmith working the alliteration and sibilance of words into a passage of assonance and consonance that will forever fly around the human conscience like oral doves, passed down the years by the leap of tongue to tongue to tongue. She operated the metallic machines with such finesse that under her dainty hands they were transformed, no longer clunky, steaming, noise-producing, time-consuming annoyances, but instead individual instruments in a grand orchestra, performing for each customer a symphony pleasant enough for the Lord himself in his high heaven.

>>11097982
Thanks. Do you think it's at all workable in its current state from what you've seen? I've already got most of the book done and doing a line by line edit to de-1890's the narration is going to entail a pretty major rewrite.

This is from the latter part of the book where I think I hit my stride more with the technique:

>At exactly noon a plain green flag ran up Beatrix’s mizzen. She and her sister ship lay one verst from Kjell, parallel with the island’s largest beach. Just behind her, acting on the signal, Unyielding, touched off her main gun, creating a sizable explosion inland. True to Boyle’s prediction, this triggered a barrage of fire from concealed gun positions along the beach and atop the islands few barren hills. Responding to fire along the beach, Beatrix and Sophie loosed full broadsides. On Fletch’s deck a few eager sailor’s whooped with joy at the display. Granger, standing in his full uniform with sword and pistol buckled on, ordered them to stay quiet. Fletch was the furthest fighting ship from the action at three versts distant. Only the troopships were farther out, and the yacht’s duty was to keep watch over them until their hour of sacrifice came.

>Bethany was on the bridge so as to stay out of the way of the men on deck should fast action be called for. This was a compromise, she had first been instructed to stay below, and only her protest that if she witnessed the landings she could paint them later, and thereby ensure Fletch’s role was preserved for history, had secured her this place. To aid this she had been furnished with a spyglass, which was presently focused on the three ship firing line. They made a strange orchestra: the crashing, coordinated fire of the two cruisers playing against the apparently more precise but much slower, louder booming of the monitor’s rifle. At least twenty fires burned on the island now. Some rose from shell holes, others emanated from flaming structures: the scant colonial settlement and garrison, along with whatever the Bexarians had seen fit to add during their occupation. The coaling station itself, a mole lined with cranes, and barges for feeding ships, was unscathed.

>Gun smoke rolled across the water in vast clouds. It mingled with waste steam, pure white in contrast to the dirty smoke, that hissed from every funnel in fleet, the product of boilers fired to their peak in anticipation of sudden action. As the smoke clouds grew larger they formed a great haze lying between the firing line and Fletch, pierced only by the muzzle flashes of friendly and enemy guns.

Didn’t wanna go way back around, you know, on the trail I came in on. It was getting dark, and the trail is you know--anyways so I cut over the hill through all that bramble and yucca up there. Over the first lip, I hadn’t gone far at all, and I see the start of a roof. Which was weird to begin with like as if you wouldn’t get cap rock in your window every week. So I go up and around, reconnoitery I guess is a good word, and it’s a whole three story house there on that lip that’s all brick and straight out of Pen--I don’t know. The mortaring, you know. I’m behind the house just looking at this thing, I mean it was perfect and fine somehow as far as I could tell, and even had those fancy windows you see in some places. I go around and try ringing the doorbell cause what the hell, and this is where I wanted to tell you about this. The door opens and my Dad, my Dad who, you know, I haven’t seen in twenty some years, he opens the door.

>>11097995
Workable? I mean, yeah. I like it. I'd probably read the first chapter or whatever if I saw it in the library.

Will you have to edit? Probably. That's writing. All writing worth a damn is rewriting. Nobody ever sat down and shat out a good novel, ever.

I like the technique here, yeah. I can see what you mean by "hitting your stride." The prose flows a bit better, feels a little more natural. Still the same gripe about archaism, but that comes out easy if you choose to do so.

Work on your editorializing. Like the first sentence of the last paragraph. Okay, okay, I'm liking this image, I can see and hear it, sounds cool, and then

>the product of boilers fired to their peak in anticipation of sudden action.

What? No! First, you've already told me that the white steam is waste steam. I already figured it was from the ships. Second, this totally destroys your rhythm. Third, the clauses before work because they use strong physical images. This is just you going "hey reader, hey hey hey, you got that? you got that? let me explain what's going on even though I already did."

Trust your reader, man. This feels like you're stooping down and talking to me like a kid. I don't mean in the prose, I mean in the "explaining what I already figured and what you already said" kinda way. This crops up in a few other places too. Just watch for that.

>>11097649
How To Make The Reader Not Give A Fuck About Your Writing 101

>>11097885
You can't sound high and mighty it just makes you look like you aren't smart but want to be

>>11097861
No one wants to read this shit not even people who lived then

>>11097995
You wrote a whole BOOK of this shit? HOW do you expect to get published? If you have an agent who believes I'm finishing my fucking book because if this shit is worthwhile to someone I'll have no problems.

>>11098105
who believes in you*

>>11098099
>>11098105
>>11098107
Jesus christ fuck you.

People do read shit like this you fucking mongoloid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey%E2%80%93Maturin_series

>>11098118
As op let me apologize for getting everyone in a bad mood with my trash

>>11098118
Its a shame you aren't good enough then

>>11098125
>aren't good enough then
Literally nobody outside this thread has read this and I haven't sent it to agents yet, you have no proof it is bad other than your personal taste.

>>11098128
Empress Theresa 2:
Electric Boogaloo

>>11098128
AH that is my proof. You don't believe in it or yourself or you wouldn't have posted it here. You know deep down you lack the skill and wasted your time so you try to validate in this thread. I never post shit here because a) being able to to google part of your book and come up with a /lit/ archive is pretty much a publishing blacklist and b) I don't need random people telling me I'm good or bad.

You fucked up. Abandon that bullshit and call it practice. Or don't. I don't care.

>>11098092
High and mighty how? I am practically using crudeness as a motif.

>>11098145
Affecting a style that is clearly outside your aptitude. Overwritten and purple, any agent would tell you that.

>>11098142
>You know deep down you lack the skill and wasted your time
I have an entire 156,000 word novel that I haven't posted here at all. The excerpts are from new stuff.

Everybody I show it to likes it. This has been my life for years now. Working my day job or attending classes and then writing in the evenings. If it is really terrible and they have all been lying then I tell you sincerely I will kill myself.

>>11098142
And that's why I only post two minute prose-- most of you lowly slobs are insect bullshit peddlers with no concept of taste. You post the bland and the compromised and endlessly trite, shoved up assholes so molested by cock that even cleaned the semen leaks. Those who post here with any talent generally do so for fun, not for the inane validation of prepubescent worms.

>>11098154
156000 words it only gets better the more you reveal. Jesus anon. How? Why?

>>11098157
Are you defending >>11097861
or agreeing with >>11098099 ?

>>11098158
>98158▶
>>>11098154 (You)
>156000 words it only gets better the more you reveal. Jesus anon. How? Why?
I wrote 1000 words every day until the story was done. I took a couple months then started on the piece that has appeared in this thread, which will be about 70k when completed.

As for the why? I was in a writers workshop program in high school and was widely considered the best student in it. I was encouraged to major in english but my family was against it so I took up novel writing as a hobby while I pursued a STEM degree which I recently completed.

>>11098154
Its probably not terrible or even bad. Just boring. I mean what the fuck can you possibly have to say about the goddamn sea that hundreds of better writers haven't done?

Whats your hook? I mean why should a reader pick up your nautical book when world renowned authors have done it?

>>11098157
>he thinks he's one of them

>>11098168
>hundreds of better writers haven't done?
I haven't posted any excerpts that deal with it in this thread to avoid confusing people, but it is gunpowder fantasy. There's magic and shit in it that is revealed as the story goes on. It is not a straightforward sea story.

>>11098169
By virtue of describing it I prove so. What have you to offer, anon, if not the trite and bland? Quickly, I beckon! post your work so that we may see the majesty and grandeur of such an impenetrable intellect!

And yet, I have a sickly feel that you'll doubtlessly fall short. For what could you offer? You are nothing.

>>11098179
I fucked ur mum last night. We left the lights on, she likes it bright. She screamed and moaned and gripped the sheers tight. Kept going until I stained them white.

Also the burden of proof is on you to prove your worth, which you clearly havem't, b/c ur write very bad

>>11098170
Try publishing a standalone chapter first or something. Whichever holds up best on its own. Otherwise I think you're gonna be really sad with the results.

>>11098186
>Try publishing a standalone chapter first
Where?

>really sad with the results.
From agents, from critics, from readers?

>>11098181
>lul me mak fun cuz i got no werk to show!
What an excellent way to prove my point! Thank you, anon, you've been invaluable.

>>11098192
Your point is that you are talented. But clearly you aren't. All you can say is "no u."

>>11098188
Anywhere that will accept it. I'm not a goddamn directory. Agents will tell you its too long. Only amazing writers with gripping stories can publish a debut at over 120k. Your audience will be limited unless you have something ELSE that you're protecting but I doubt it. You can throw in whatever fantasy you want its still some long ass story about people on a fucking boat.

Tell me your worldbuilding is extensive or your plot is subversive or SOMETHING.

>>11098188
I would be amazed if any critic gave a single fuck. I would buy it myself.

>>11098197
There's too different pieces here and the 156k is a cold war thriller that was never meant to be my debut. The 70k piece is the gunpowder fantasy and is intended as the debut. The plot ins't subversive, but there's a lot more too it than "people on a boat" - it's a journey through a WW1 style conflict from the perspective of a ship's crew but there also land battles, etc.

>>11098202
70k does sound better. Wait a minute you said gunpower fantasy. How can do you something based on a war of technological advancement and call it gunpowder fantasy? Even the SCALE depended on rapid industrialization and the devestation of total warfare. Do you mean Napoleonic war?

You worried me all over again.

>>11098218
WW1 is a bit of stretch but I'm trying to be general here. Think more along the lines of Franco-Prussian or Span Am. I realize that's very different from WW1 I just mean it's a global (in the book's universe) conflict with dire consequences.

The technology is on par with about 1885 in our world. The fantastical elements are very restrained because magical abilities are recessive and increasingly rare, and wizardry was suppressed following a civil war. The war brings them to the forefront again as desperation sets in.

>>11098225
Alright thats a hook. As long as you have a good cast of characters.

>>11098234
>Anonymous 05/04/18(Fri)03:42:02 No.11098225▶>>11098234
>>>11098218
>WW1 is a bit of stretch but I'm trying to be general here. Think more along the lines of Franco-Prussian or Span Am. I realize that's very different from WW1 I just mean it's a global (in the book's universe) conflict with dire consequences.
>The technology is on par with about 1885 in our world. The fantastical elements are very restrained because magical abilities are recessive and increasingly rare, and wizardry was suppressed following a civil war. The war brings them to the forefront again as desperation sets in.
>>>
> Anonymous 05/04/18(Fri)03:44:12 No.11098234▶
>>>11098225 (You)
>Alright thats a hook. As long as you have a good cast of characters.
Well shit I never thought you would come around. I'm going to bed.

>>11098248
This thread went from shit to more shit very quickly.
I'm disappointed in all of you.

>>11098202
Contriving a novel in an effort to fit into a "gunpowder fantasy" was your first mistake. I will never understand such ways of writing. It seems so repressive and pointless as if you're not writing for anyone, no one--yourself especially excluded. It's hollow and pragmatic. Your prose reflects all this, where your only goal is to communicate a flat image like a photorealistic digital artist. It's a practice of the most basic English habits in all of their banalisms.
Godspeed sir, I do hope you make it through.

>>11098255


I hate this board. The opening of the thread has people breaking down over purple prose, then somebody posts straightforward writing and its called banal.

>>11097649
more shit i wrote for the dumbfuck essay i've been writing for five goddamn hours; or, alternatively titled, i want to shallow a shotgun and this thread is my only current salvation from the sweet embrace of death

Pop is tilling the molder fields: dirty hands leathered and browned and worked hard in the midday sun, the years passing over his straw-hatted head in a semblance of monotony. Deep canyon wrinkles obscure his face, and a shaggy silver beard betrays his age; the sweat of his brow drip-drops down to water the crops and salt the soil. I watch in awe and rapture from warping window panes, those carved portraits by his father in days when the land was still wild and free, with my yet unblemished hands grasping tight on the sill’s edge in anticipation for the sun to bleed on a dusking Kansas sky.

Here are the opening sentences to my short story. It's a typical anime-esque opening.

The first thing he saw were those devilish white smiling teeth, as strident and break easy as the Cheshire Cat herself. The fiendish friends of these teeth were the poisome lips, red as a chemical compound, wrapping around them like grinning sickéd sinisisters.

Around that dear bright smile rolled the villa of a fair and toothsome face, in the north yard of which reclined two deep blue aquamarine pools, bolded and encircled by marble courts which were themselves surrounded by the sweep of beautiful pink symmetrical hills on either side of a nose suppurating everonwardly. At the borders of this sweet plantation, toilsome goldendun hairs roiled around like everfair fields of wheat at sunset. The ensemble together didn’t hesitate to impress that there was a dear fair lady before him.

Now that you’ve heard his part—it's only fair—what did she see? Only another poor moonshine soul malingering at the conjunction of yesterday and tomorrow, so dust that he had become conjunct to the dust, so rust that he’d done become rust colored, so must-not that he’d gotten inextricably mixed up with the bad influences of yesterday and tomorrow—and today was no more than a distant dream…

From a novel I'm writing. I'll feedback others later:

Opposite the bathroom stall door, this shit-caked monument to human creator spirit behind which I cower, a procession of urinals protrudes from the wallpaper – Out of time, seemingly untouched by the grime that millennia of defecation left for a scrubwoman who never showed. Locks of shining black hair line the floor, dampen each step, occasionally at the cost of lower, mostly insect, lives, at times rustle and grate upon impact, at times swallow a man whole. Doomed are those who tread heedlessly in curly forest, where pubic hair pastures conceal urinary sloughs. Enter a pair of piss-willing friends who had had a few beers too many:

“Not too long now, I am afraid. The brass city is upon us. What impressions today her progenitors carve in words, in laws and ideas, voicing watchtowers and prayer niches, air castles, invisible to the less perceptive, will tomorrow be filled with matter and peeled at the touch of curious generations, revealing what could well be all curiosity’s end.”

“And yet, dearest friend, lover, spear master, god of flesh and hairs whose weight I bear nightly – excuse my drunken spiel but I want your fuckings – look at the floor of this place, we could make a little nest for ourselves and you could peck the warblings out of me – who could deny the poetic justice, the beauty, the comedy of the situation? Like sticking your dick into a knothole behind which, unbeknown to you, a raven nests – such is the fate of the curious. It’s a bloody fate – emasculating – but thoroughly satisfying from a narrative perspective. The funniest thing: All you had to do was look!”

>>11097649
Lost interest after the prophet was shouting.

>>11100513

[cont]

“I’m not in the mood, you insatiable ham scabbard! Should I make you kiss this place’s fuzzy pudic carpet? Stinking airhead, bloated with dreams of bird love and “poetic justice”, you! What if they drowned us both? Imagine the camel cavalry bursting through the wall right now, hunting faggots as they do. A picturesque scene, this bathroom being the mythic landscape that it is, but pleasant enough to override the sensation of choking in a puddle of dung? Remember Olga Gaikovich? Beautiful happenstance, unthinkable suffering. You couldn’t take the pain of what’s to come.”

>>11097921

>>11100522
I can sense that you have a stinky granny's fist up your arse.

This is pretty much off the top so be gentle

"Entering upper atmosphere. Gravity sling shot maneuver initia-". Main lights in the bridge snap off as the voice of the AI distorts to a silence.
"What the hell?! Captain, the main power just died."
"I can see that, Ford." Captain Roland responded to his Operations Officer, his usual confidence noticeably shaken. "Manual override: Hull reinforcements and manual control, now!"
Ford spins his chair around to the emergency panel below his station. Opening the door and flicking the relevant switches before slamming the main switch into place. The hull of the vessel is quickly engulfed with dense metallic plating, whilst the manual drive control extends from the floor ahead of the captain's chair.
"Camille! Secure the lower deck, double seal the airlock!", the captain orders. Security Officer Camille Onzel, without hesitation, moves to the ladder and climbs down to the lower deck.
"Captain, I don't mean to add more stress to the situation, but we will crash in less than 60 seconds at this trajectory!" Ford exclaims.
"You think I'm not trying to fix that?!" Roland returns. Straining with the control wheel, he realizes he's out of time.
"All hands brace for impact. I repeat, brace for impact!", Camille hears the voice of her Captain as she's finishing securing the lower deck. Pivoting on her heels, she sprints to the emergency safety restraints in the storage hold, a small row of seats similar to the bench of a rollercoaster. As she pulls the bars over her shoulders, she feels the impact of planetfall.

>>11098269
Purple prose and "straightforward" writing are both capable of being banal, and banal sentences are not necessarily a bad thing I don't think. I never called his writing banal, although parts are surely so.
Most of op's writing is not what I would say is straightforward
>To aid this she had been furnished with a spyglass, which was presently focused on the three ship firing line.
Straightforward would be something like
>On such lookout orders she had been given a three part extentable spyglass which, at that moment, she aimed squarely on the three enemy ships all in a firing line.
The majority of the writing is not straightforward, nor are the ideas very deliberately banal. A lot of information is lost in favor of stuff like the gunpowder orchestra segment--not straightforward. The prose, syntax, and all that becomes banal in its attempt to not be straightforward.

Paragraph from an early chapter of a novel in progress. Aside from brief descriptions of the conference room, this is the first exposition of setting:
"An immaculate light shone across Lake Michigan, bringing the urban sprawl around the Company’s skyscraping office space to life. It was about noon and a majority of the board members present in the room would not be working longer than another hour. When the meeting was finished via some final words by the CEO, bodies began to stand, exchange discourse, and the blinds on the windows were retracted. Now high in the sky of the metropolitan jewel of the States’ halfly occidental country, the sun would typically blind the half of the board who faced nEast for a majority of their morning meetings. The unspoiled view of Lake Michigan was grand, but thus seldom enjoyed by anybody during the meeting. It was instead obstructed by impressively fast, motorised blinds. A notion to move the conference room to the west end of the offices because of the bothersome Sun had been scheduled for the nine to ten o’clock hour on that morning’s agenda, but had gone over for fifteen minutes due to fierce debate and unforeseen passion on the subject. The argument focused mostly on the rather dull view of the condominiums to the south and west, which offered no view of the Lake. Some drawn out, serious discussion was given to the lakeview’s effect on meetings, with various board members citing times the view either positively or negatively affected productivity during meetings. Finally, a compromise was made when the CFO suggested moving out the accounting department’s offices on the North side, so that a view up the full Lakeshore and of Chicago’s beaches was available for the board. The conference room was to be moved by the following week."

>>11097989
There's many reasons why you chose to include 3 consecutive similes, I'm sure. I'd say remove one, or even two, to avoid it coming off as clumsy. If you're trying to make it clear the narrator is infatuated with her, there's more concise ways to do so. Basically, we get what you're saying after the 1st simile, the next 2 are cumbersome to read. Pick your favorite of the 3. I liked the wordsmith one more or less, maybe make it its own sentence. It's comma fever.

- I'm not a religious nut but if you capitalize "Lord" it follows to capitalize "His" in "His high heaven." Since it's well understood God resides in heaven, "His high kingdom." comes off nicer unless you're going for the alliteration. Either works just fine.

I looked. The quack priest chanted his prayers while ignoring the very present of the haunter behind him. The figure of death loomed in the corner. Black and gloomy, I expected death to hold some kind of scythe. Yet 'death' only stood still in that corner staring. I was crippled. My limbs were not working. My lips were quivering as the Quack Priest thought his silly prayers are working. The tight hold of my relatives gave me no option of escape even if I want to. My fingers were like rotten tree branches. They smell like a corpse of a stray dog that was hit by some drunk driver. I was stuck like an offering to death. Death did nothing yet despair held me. I could only stare the void for a face of this black-robed reaper.

>>11097649
She scrunches her nose, squints her eyes, flicks her tongue in and out of her mouth. Bobo can’t parse the detail of whatever this expression is attempting to convey but, staring at her tongue vacantly, eating another spoonful of Coco Pops, he realises its probably intended to convey a pretty king-sized Fuck Off (especially for this time in the morning, Jesus). She cuts it out and stares at him smugly, anticipating his reaction. Bobo blinks, swallows his cereal, says that he “honestly has no idea idea how to react to you know like uh that”. Her eyes jump to her brow, her brow shoves them back down. “You impotent little prick,” she doesn’t say, but her scowl might as well have said it. A pause, downturn goes the mouth. The bird is then well and truly flipped. Exit Sharon.

https://medium.com/the-junction/denver-6adf32bcd609

looking for critique

>>11097649
The Little Knight drew up his fist and laid the backside his hand softly against the flesh of her cold cheek, as if offering it to be kissed- then shoved her face away, gently raking his knuckles across the bridge of her nose.

>wtf is prose? like in the nba?

>>11097649
Mornings were never gentle for William. Today was not a day when an inhuman surge of willpower would rise him vertically and then out of the bed. Today he slid his prick into his wasteband and gained momentum by waddling through the apartment, stopping at the bathroom for dully stinging green mouthwash (no time for brushing of course), getting dressed and ending in an exercise of putting on socks that was almost painful. Cirruses of his thoughts from seven hours ago still floated in his head. Enough grumpy chemicals were left in his brain to for him to dismiss those thoughts as foolish and absurdly banal. It was nice enough outside, and he tried to bring himself to appreciate this on a higher level, but he failed. The bus he boarded smelled like grapjuice, and the bumps were frequent and hurtful. His coworkers were really funny. William used to be really funny when he was little but got less and less funny. He liked the laugh of one of the young women working in the office. Both men and women were really loud. William wanted to say something about something but he couldn't think of anything. William used to say that he had three friends, but now he has none. What the fuck?

>>11098002
Very nice, I would read your book.

I sat in wal-mart. There were window slits in the ceiling. The floor had all sort of congregated in front of me, I didn't feel like moving. So I sat there, between the soft drinks and women's clothing. The employees looked at me funny, but I didn't really mind. Eventually I drew a pack of cards and started playing solitaire, more than I already was. The greeter gave me one of the smiley face stickers. I could smell, across the tv dinner aisle, the smell of digiorno samples. I had to make a bit of a fuss, but the manager brought me a slice. It was fucking sausage, though so I only had a couple bites. I got up and left when a five year old slapped me in the face.