/lit/ - Literature

When you have panic disorder time just kind of pours over itself. The spacetime you perceive mimics your mind in a way, fizzing and bubbling, never pausing but not entirely progressing towards something definite. Everything stumbles over itself while meandering indefinitely. The best word to summarize the sensations accompanying a panic attack is friction - pure friction of both the internal and external worlds. The simplest solution it would seem, when having a panic attack, is to just stop and breathe - become well grounded and rational again. But your hectic mind influences your body — or vice-versa — in such a way that prohibits any form of relaxation. Your heart pounds like a double-pedaled bass drum and your throat squeezes your windpipe so that you feel as though you were sucking air through a straw, and when such vital bodily functions that have always been taken for granted are no longer under your control, you feel as if nothing is under your control. So with your mind and body in utter turmoil there is no relaxation nor is there peace of mind. We live in an inherently social world and one of the worst parts of sporadic panic attacks is not that you feel like you’re about to die or cry, but that it will happen in public, in front of all the people that you’ve done such a good job of acting normal in front of thus far. With the feeling of being attacked from both the inside and out, neither able to seek refuge alone nor with people close to you, nowhere becomes safe and you instinctively seek to flee from the very reality that you find yourself in. I believe this is where the panicer’s distorted sense of time really comes from.

>>12347089
Is using a character named Nate Higgers or Jill Queues subtle enough?

>>12347096
kek probably not

>The moon hangs heavy in the starless sky & casts everything in a glow a few shades from reality ; the pale blue of it mixes from the yellow burning off the lamps & creates juniper. Shadows like moss clump beneath fallen logs and gather beneath their speeding footsteps, the pale hand around his wrist tightens.
does this make any sense

>>12347577
Strangely enough I'm confused about the term "heavy" for the moon in the starless sky than everything else. What did you mean by that?

>>12347609
it appears as if it could fall, and is imposing. big

>>12347613
Alright, good enough anon. I didn't felt the whole "imposing" air on it but maybe that's just me.

do people realize that everyone who has ever posted in one of these is a shit writer and none have been successful?

>>12347091
Write about yourself gay ass faget. I didnt want to be with your >we.

>>12347916
You can improve, anon. Why so pissed off?

>>12347096
>Jill Queues
The more subtle of the two, but not by much. On their own, they might be dismissed as coincidence, but together? Too obvious.

Sounds like a text book. Don't know if that's what you were going for, but maybe this means you'd be good at text book writing. If possible, I'd also appreciate critique.

This is from what I'm working on at the moment. I am at a stand still, where usually I just re-write my old paragraphs and then more comes from there. Not working this time though, so I'm stuck at this (not the whole thing), and I'm doubting now if even the parts I think are good are:

You’ve got the feeling there might be something missing—or something is out of place. If you smell the sediment when it gets hot. If you drink the water. You notice something metallic, something small. It’s enough to make you worry. When you wake up in the night and your mouth is sour with sleep slime saliva, run your hand along the hallway and go into the kitchen, tilt your head under the tap and feel the end of your hair dip in the soaking pan left in the sin, run the water and drink it down—there’s the taste: like metal, like rust, like chemicals run just too strong. When I do it. When I come out to the kitchen at night. I stare through the window while the water spills off my chin. I can only see the iron rendered roofs across the backyard fences, the way the moon reflects dully off the surface—in no way reminiscent of a lovely midnight or a silence kept all to myself—and I am afraid that romance has been drowned somewhere along the way, by the ghost of gnawing boredom that lives beneath the salt water. It comes through the river and makes the dry grass so long and brittle and enduring; it erodes the life out of the bitumen so that it becomes like crumbling grey gravel; mossy ooze comes out of pipes at the foundation of buildings and people step over the stain year round; small business dies of SIDS in under a month; the river tide recedes and lets the aluminum cans fade a sad pink in the mud; road works never cease along secret popular back-ways that Dads always know; and trendy pastoral woods are commissioned around Flinders Street, rebellious figures are muralled on building walls; they even have craft beer in the city now—Please come and look!

>>12347091
This reads pseudy, y’know

The sounds of unrest bled from the city's night, creeping into the thin windows of Jack's apartment. A sedan, gliding over the tarmac. A distant siren. Motorbikes like hornets on the freeway, receding into the midnight with Doppler pitch-shifts. Los Angeles didn't sleep so much as it rearmed its trap.

>>12347089
>protagonist falls through the surface of the Earth to land in an underground territory inhabited entirely by murderous skeletons.
How's that for an idea for a short piece?

>>12347091
you write with so little conviction that it robs your prose of any momentum. "kind of", "in a way", "not entirely", "in such a way". You don't have to eliminate all these cliches but if you're using one, do it for a reason.
>your heart pounds like a double-pedaled bass drum
i really hate this.
you also use 'nor' and 'thus far' in a way that seems like it's intended to sound academic but I don't think it hits what you're going for
i don't mean to grind on you, it's not awful but these are some of the things that really bother me

It was my birthday, and as I trimmed my beard I pondered the circularity that accompanies the process of aging. Through my occupation I knew well the innocence of children and the soft-souledness of the elderly. I recognized the Sinaitic lambency shining on the face of each child I met, as though the little one had wandered directly into my presence from the summit of Horeb. I knew the laughter of every old man and woman to be an imported distillation of joy smuggled into this corrupted world from some unknown Elysium. I deduced that there must be some light that shines out from our first death, the forgotten death which precedes birth, and that this light is the same light which pulls us unceasingly towards our second death, the unforgettable death all men fixate upon as the cynosure of their dread. The uncreated light bookends life and death. The uncreated light burns high and luminous above the entrances and exits of our toroidal existence. The uncreated light is often obscured in the middle, by someone, by something, by you.

>>12347577
"hangs heavy in the starless sky" is a bit redundant and cliche but the rest is actually pretty nice. I'd probably flip to "shadows clump like moss" or "moss-like" or "shadows mimic a bed of moss" or something, I don't like the rhythm of that section much. "the pale hand around his wrist tightens" is its own sentence. You could semicolon that shit if you feel like it

Not sure how much context I should give, considering this is roughly in the middle, but the story's about the boy named Jacob, and he's on his way to a mountain. He was given advice before he left by a literal wise man, and was given an amulet.

I'll also leave some feedback for others in here, but I'm no great writer, or critiquer, so take all this with a fist of salt.

>>12347091
I experienced sporadic panic attacks for around 9 months a few years ago, and I don't feel this does a good job of conveying the feeling. Of course, everyone experiences it differently, but that's just my two cents. I didn't feel the text itself was well written. You describe having the disorder as absolutely crippling, but you're so vague that the reader never gets that feeling. I feel like you're using too many words to describe everything, describing the same feeling or sensation with two or three metaphors and analogies. Also, don't make a value judgement about the "worst part", best case scenario you are correct, no harm, no benefit, worst case you're wrong (Which you will be for some people, including me).

>>12347577
I had to read it twice over, but that's not necessarily bad. I'd switch the order of "yellow burning" into "burning yellow", and make "shadows like moss" into "moss-like shadows". The speeding footsteps belong to whom? The moss or the characters of the tale? That bit was confusing.

>>12348258
Again, there's a lot to unpack here. Overall I liked the idea (up to a point, which I mention at the end), but the text has a bunch of issues. The break between the first and second sentences don't connect them fully, it sounds like the start of a new sentence. Adding something like "It strikes you" to the start of the second sentence would help. Same problem with the third one, the first time I read that as three separate events, i.e. I first notice something missing, then an incomplete if-statements, then I notice some small, metallic object. This needs to be fixed. The bit about drinking the water at night could be tightened, there's some flowery extra prose there that doesn't add anything. I don't need to know what my hair is doing, it's not relevant. Too many "likes" afterwards, just do something along the lines of "tinge of rust, and a subtle chemical aftertaste". You can drop the "When I do it", since that's already alluded to by the fact that the main character has a wet chin. After this point you start to lose me. "Ghost of gnawing boredom"? What? Boredom gnaws, but I have no idea what you mean by its ghost. The remembrance of it? The result of it? Why does boredom live beneath salt water? This may just be 2deep4me, but I'm lost.

>>12348372
seems like an ok way to explore fears of mortality, especially in a christian protagonist, but I think the skeletons being murderous is a bit obvious. Play with the motives of the skeletons, don't just tell the reader what they're about

>>12348258
i can't really say what you're going for here, but this is solid, it just reads like you've been staring at it for a month and don't know what else to change. There's nitpicks I could have. "it erodes the life out of the bitumen so that it crumbles like pumice" or something like that seems better, you reuse some phrases, etc. Read it aloud to yourself, mark where it sounds clunky, then put it away for a couple days.

It is raining outside. The sky is brown-magenta. The trees are silhouetted against the night sky, and little boxes of lamp-light, yellow light, house-light stretch across and above. These are all beyond the window-panes; a bright, white, light illuminates the room with an almost spectral glow--it fades away into the recesses and nooks, the little objects under which spiders and all manner of creepy-crawlies reside. In the pedagogue's parlance, this would be a pathetic fallacy, or a stream-of-consciousness. I would describe it as strained and insipid, lacking the flow and cadence that comes from insouciance: that tap, tap, tap-tap cadence that is overdone in certain newspapers and magazines, and completely lacking in high-school essays. A more cultured listener would notice that the music and static droning from the radio was by Chopin: a more pretentious listener would not only recognise it--he would make sure everyone was aware of it. The typer yawns. He is sleepy. He will stop.

is this postmodern?

"WATCHU MEAN NUGGUH!!"
"Oh no not again", I dreaded what would come next. The first gentleman swung with great passion but not quite hitting his target. Instead fate would have it that he send a fellow passenger to the shadow realm.

"HAH MISSD ME NIGGA" shouted the opponent, uppercutting the gentleman with a loud crunch. His eyes levitated backwards into his head and he fell straight backed into the center car.
"OOGA BOOGA" chanted the opponent as he shuffled among his prey's pockets.

In my panic and stress I did the only thing that would alleviate the situation for me. I started rubbing my clit and wiggled out of my pants a couple inches, enough to spread my leg on the passenger next to me.

"What the fuck" he inquired pushing me off.

These are a few little excerpts from the novel I’ve been writing.

https://pastebin.com/H6L6M4Sy

https://pastebin.com/ic77P8cy

https://pastebin.com/eXyMLf3A

I slept for two hours last night and I'm certain I dreamed about her in both. I know this because I woke up angry and tired, and couldn't get back to sleep. At breakfast I sat down for a full English, which I left as a two-fifths English with a fifth in my stomach and the other two-fifths in the sink. Every drop of bile tasted like her brand of cigarettes. That's the first and last time I buy them. I drove to work and by the time I was there I passed her car, or her, five times going every direction. I had thought of going someplace else, far from where the memories are, but now it seems like she'll be going there too.

>>12348429
well it's not fucking hemingway

>>12348429
trying too hard

>>12349530
i don't like it, mainly because nothing seems to make sense or connect in any meaningful way.

I simply have no idea if there's even the slightest merit at all to this.
-

The sleep paralysis seeps into his dream. He begins to move towards them,the people of obscured faces, hidden smiles and pockets filled with salt. They live in penthouses, a newspaper announced some time ego to critical acclaim. He will have none of it, he says. I will end their circus of foolery and flimflam, he assures nobody in particular, and yet it his him who fears their laughter more than anybody else. He will see them nonetheless. It is decided.
He creeps forward, gaining very little ground, as his bones emit a sound of being crushed. It feels as if each particle of his body is grinding violently against another. No progress is being made. Then his vision fails him.
Faces, Words and Lights mesh into a single indeterminable substance glued to his eyes. For a brief moment he imagines a typewriter typing words straight into his soul. They flash before his eyes but he forgets them immediately. The people tremble from excitement as they see how he begins to fall. He falls. He wakes and feels humiliated.
Alone in his bed, in the nude, and an empty bottle of whiskey next to his head, he grasps the sheet to check if it is wet. He hasn't pissed himself though. Not this night. His head reaches out. His eyes struggle to see. God's headlights blinds them. It must be seven in the morning. He'd barely slept. He grows aware that it was an urge that woke him up. 'pose I was close, he thinks and nods to himself in relief. The stink has gotten too bad as is.
Turning his head away from the light he accidentally takes a look in his mirror. His eyes seem pumped up with air. His whole outside as much of a mess as his inside. He evokes his mantras but can not clear his mind, can not find calmness, can not approach stillness. His whole inside as much of a mess as his outside. His head pulses painfully and feels squished on the inside. He farts and breathes. The bladder urges. It is time to take a piss.

Anon said that no one would read my prose. I don't care if people think it sucks I'm going to write this novel even if it's terrible.

>>12350180
Why is it written in present tense? It's jarring. Too many simple sentences too. Rewrite it and make it concise.

>>12350183
Have you wrote much? It seems like you avoid at all costs to narrate, dodging into description and microscopic scenes.

>>12350183
too slow. boring and i don't feel like anything happened

>>12350195
I like present tense for switching between times when things get a bit crazier. Past tense feels more natural so i may change it.

What do you mean with concise? Get rid of excess?

Bush, bush, bush,
it implies hiding, it
implies danger,

it implies twisting, it
implies running through
a fantasy,

however, none can hear
the finish line snapping,
when the bush, bush, bush.

>>12350218
Imagine showing this to a 19th century poet.

>>12350200
It's all that I've wrote so far. Should I tone the description down and just focus on the plot? You've given me direction for the second draft now: cut the fat for the plot. If it's not entertaining I should change something. I think my writing may be self-indulgent. I was trying to develop my character by creating a psychological profile instead of just explaining his appearance but if it isn't entertaining then I must change something. Thank you for your reply. I definitely need to write several drafts and get feedback. And yes, I am very reluctant to get the plot going because I am writing with no plan and just putting words together.

>>12347091
You seem like you have potential. Just work on grounding the themes in a situation with embodied characters instead of just describing things.

>>12350225
Whad'ya mean?

>>12350232
Fat is good, but this lacks bones, something which holds everything together and gives it direction. This very much feels like "words being put together". There's no need for a discussion about the relevance of plot, but writing needs (unless it's good enough not to need it) is some sense of pull.

The best way to relieve stress is to not personally involve yourself in your daily life. I can separate the signal from the noise. I am well suited to the rigors of my career, though I am not above enjoying myself. There is much exertion in my life, but there is just as much relief. For example, when Anna and I finished the Series “Monk” on USA, a hole was left in our hearts. Several quiet months passed of pursuing hobbies. We went to the writers workshop at the city library. This diversion occupied that space of time, but when the series “Psych” premiered we knew then that all these diversions were fruitless.
“You’re making a very serious face.”
There was no response to me.
“Any thoughts about what our 4:30 to 7:30 timeframe is looking like?”
“You still think scheduling will change things? That’s the solution?”
“It worked when we had a very small amount of free time. Why shouldn’t it work during an abundance of free time?”
Last Thursday was one of those lazy afternoons. We had juice on the alcove of the balcony. Anna scribbled on a spiral notebook. College had been a special time for us. We had met through a group of friends we had both made through the dorm rooms and various social events. It all came together so spontaneously, so organically. It was Dave, the alcoholic engineer, who had introduced us.
“What are you working on?”
“You know. The glory years.”
“Ah, I remember them well, the gossamer weeks.”
“I still don’t understand how you passed.”
“That’s undermining. I make enough to take care of you. Don’t forget that.”
“Like you can hold that over my head.”
“Let’s just have a pleasant morning. Let’s have our juice.”
This is what the USA show Psych took out of our lives. Instead of pursuing fruitless hobbies that would artificially inflate the bank accounts of our souls, or of our narcissism, we instead sat dumb and content in front of the television as Psych reminded us who we really were.

>>12350211
I am victim to this as well but respect the reader's time. So if there is anything you can cut do it: repetition for example.

> He hasn't pissed himself though. Not this night

redudant

>His eyes struggle to see. God's headlights blinds them.

redudant. Just say God's headlights blinds his eyes

>His eyes struggle to see. God's headlights blinds them.

redudant because "Faces, Words and Lights mesh into a single indeterminable substance glued to his eyes" implies visual impairment

>>12350254
>Then his vision fails him.
i meant that for the last qoute

>>12350254
Thanks, you are right. These were, among others, the sentences i was just correcting.

Now in terms of content, as strange as this paragraph is, is it cringeworthy or would a potential reader be willing to accept the weirdness if it eventually paid off? Just afraid of writing like a total spastic without being aware of it.

This life is a strange and terrible distinction
I have been set up, by women or snakes or God
I have been called up from the dirt to be kicked into it
Who watches from clouds to see the dust spread from my knees? Get up!

I have been given the taste for bread
Which is a great pain in the ass to acquire

The world is a stripper on a pole
She flaunts and invites and beckons
And has her bouncers toss you aside
When you reach what is not yours to grasp

Kicked out! Banned! Blocked by fiery swords!
And always money but not quite enough
Caesar winks on his coins, but even he is refused
In his harem, he longs to hold the soul of a wench who finds him ridiculous
And no power of soldier or treasury
Can bend or buy her soul

Two walls extend forever, North and South
One is called Hope, the other named Despair
A latter leans against Hope, and it is called Labor
The first step is easily obtained
A rope hangs down from Despair, beyond reach

I am a man. I see crowded throngs of peasants, and landowners, and even kings
Walking North and South between
Laughing and spitting and crying
I see men and women dance
And children born in songs of woe and joy

I grab them and speak these words to them
I gesture at the rope and the latter
When they laugh I cease my rambling
Because I am a clown

>>12350275
Being different is good. Don't conform. All that matters is if it is good. A reader would accept anything as long as it's good.

>>12350245
>>12350209
How do I write something with a sense of pull? I get that my story is boring but I'm afraid of it turning out like "this happened and then this happened etc". I like books with vivid descriptions and beautiful prose like the picture of dorian grey, Heidi and to a lesser degree, Counte of Monte Cristo. Where do I go from here? I have the gist of the plot and excited to find out where it leads me.

>>12350319
Avoid 4chan and keep writing. You have talent. If you have the gist go ahead and follow it. You can still make it a big tighter afterwards.

There will be a day when you have awakened on the edge of your deathbed, and realize that no matter how long you have lived, you will be gone as fast as you appeared.

Aapo’s new room was just to his liking, although none of the comfortability of his old. For what there was in stone, cold floors heated by vents in the wall during the night, clean white walls, and great windows that lined his wall and the enormous amount of space provided there lacked everything he enjoyed. The windows he found too large, the bed they gave was enormous. The movers placed it against the wall, but he struggled with it for an hour, gradually pushing the frame with his back planted upon the ground and pressing against it with his feet, until it was perfectly aligned against one of the windows. He spent his mornings looking out it, sometimes Eida would knock on his door to wake him up, but he was often already up. Just watching the people in Ryker move from place to place, his ears caught the subtle noises they made in the distance. Such small, collective noises that were quieter than the noise of Nyberjan but it was like an uneasy static to him.

His dreams were long and empty. Dead silence, with nothing to do. But he had peace.

>>12350319
With Your style, You gotta go full schizo-mode, make Your text into a vortex.

>>12348258
I don’t like the second person. It doesn’t feel immersive

>>12350319
Make the description less of the character's subjective experience and more of the environment itself. If this is the style you should choose to follow, continue writing in this way and then later remove the parts that are not interesting enough to keep. It is hard to just be thrown into this part of the story and find the vivid description satisfying, so maybe you should provide some context to the plot and its current progression at point of the selection.

>>12350167
Are these obviously from the same novel?

>>12349520
Is it bad if I unironically like this?

>>12350370
>>12350323
>>12350338

Thank you for your advice and encouragement. I'll keep writing and then focus on amendments using your critisism. But I'll keep them in mind from now on.

>>12348398

>>12350431
Nice man, the dialogue is kind of stupid though

>>12350432
Cute, so I will.

>>12348398
I thought this was a selection from a professional writer at first that someone posted as an example. It's quite good, are you published?

A couple suggestions: It feels very poetic, to the point where it wants to rhyme. In this sense I think you should avoid actual rhyming. In the passage "she'd shower him with hate, especially of late." The rhyme made me cringe a bit; it would be better off without it, altho

>>12350462
damn enter button

cont... although the use of shorter words is fantastic. Can you post more of this, or keep us updated as to the status of this work?

>>12350455
yeah i know it makes sense for the character but its literally the first try I made at the story. if anyone's interested a law student writes the president about subsidizing the entire water industry as a political gambit.

pleased if any section is critiqued (don't feel obliged to read all of it, unless you end up enjoying it)
should i continue with this format -- stylistically disjointed anachronistic scenes?

--------------------------------------
i'll crit some more of you kiddos in a bit


>>12348429
slightly promising. but trying too hard. delete redundant phrases. eg: "at...high" in bongo simile, the odd word here and there (eg: WOOD floor, KEEPING a rhythm).
delete "then" to start a sentence. it's normally implied that sentences are ordered in time.
etc etc. i could go through and clean it up but that's your job. basically: it's a first draft of sometime decent. very unclean atm
also: less is more. delete 25% of onamatopeas, or smish them all into a big run-on sentence or joycean neologism
second sentence is brilliant, nothing else stands out in terms of pure syntax.

>>12350180
present tense isnt THAT bad. it has ya connotations ofc, so be careful. delete redundant words (capitalised): eg "THE sleep paralysis", "he BEGINS TO move(s) towards THEM, THE PEOPLE OF obscured faces...", "SOME TIME AGO", "none of it HE SAYS" etc etc. just go through and think "can i delete this word, phrase, sentence?" and if yes, then 80% of the time, you should. (unless it's a beautiful sentence for aesthetic reasons. but "no progress is being made" etc aren't)

>>12350218
it's not that bad. but a bit dull. repetition of "implies" is ineffective.
>>12350225
1) the 19th century isnt exactly the most poetic age lmao, and 2) i can imagine blake or carroll writing something just as silly.

>>12350562
Agreed with the repetition, I see that now. However english is not my first language and I am bored as fuck at work, so at least I had some fun!

Will definitely be taking part in these threads in the future.

"I'll be right down" he shouted. I felt the vibrations as his thiqq strong legs pounded towards the stairs. I felt the adrenaline spike up my veins straight to my dome.

He's about to reach the bottom. "What HEEEY.. OOOF". The trip wire didn't just trip him, it threw him forwards smashing him manly strong skull and bruising the tender smooth skin of this Greek God's forehead.

"Fuck", I ran towards him and started caresing his barrel chest but alas there is no response, "CHAD WAKE UP!" I feel a new spike of adrenaline and I instinctively feel his pulse. Its weak, maybe it's not even there at all. I look into those bright blue orbs that rival the heavens in beauty and depth. There is no one behind these fragile eyes.

My hands quiver at the thought, "No.. but" no more words would be said. I rip off his basketball shorts and reveal a supple starting strength /fit/ ass. Yes. Yes. I do what comes natural to my plagued mind.

I'm going to hell but the pleasure radiates through every nerve of my body. I smash this blonde Adonis loudly like a gong being hit in a room that echoes.

I cum. I am alone with the Gods for an eternity of a moment. Now. Now I can chop him up and start the clean-up.

trying to be a fantasy author.
trying to make fantasy weird,

here's the opening to something I finished

Woke up to a room rank with incense.
Must be morning. Plague mages comb the streets in the morning, waving light-boxes, burning Sweet-Scent and Naw-Cough with every swing of the censer, swung for the sake of the tough-shit types that still need to hoof it to a days’ worth of scavving to earn their grub. By tonight, they’ll be seeding the air with Naw-Cough and Fuck-Fumes to loosen up those falling back from their time on the Scavage. It’s what they’ve done, will do, and so will their budding spores with enragged feet and tiny faces made stone from living rough and for too little shine.
Got out of bed, felt the smoke of dust-crushed magics cling to me. Even the Stink is better, its wind-run Nox burning the then and way-back out of my eyes. Went to the window, gave it a lift, and let the smells fly out to be replaced with winds sweet with rot, old and long flowing from the lands beneath.
I’ve been in The Pit, been living since the time I fell through to here. S’ a place peopled by the weird, and the mad, and the hungry. All of ’em looking in their own way for the shining things in the dirt and in the bones beneath, looking for a way out or something to give the folk waitin’ up top for scrip and coin. The Pit’s as much a city as a mine for crusty gold, all set up by 19 Lich-Lord Necrarchs, Grand-fancy Undying types that can pull a soul out through an asshole if looked at wrong. Most folks just call them the Bad Bones for fortune falls when they tend to get a’rolling on anyone.

>>12350462
>>12350472
I'm very happy you liked it. It's always nice when you're given good feedback, so this made me glad.

I'm not published, although I might actually try submitting this work, perhaps it's good enough. I'm still very much an amateur writer.

I definitely understand what you mean about poetic, and the rhyming. The "late/hate" bit is actually something I've marked for editing. The poetic feel is very intentional, it's something that I'm trying out for this piece. I fully agree that I need to avoid rhyming, it sometimes happens by accident; "in the moment" so to speak. But yeah, you're right.

I was actually expecting to be criticized over the fact that I used primarily short, simple words, so that was a happy surprise.

One issue I'm having at the moment is that I feel each "scene" is a bit short. For example his encounter with the fairies is just a few lines long, from introduction, to resolution. At the same time I don't want to add "padding". I'd love to get some advice on this.

>>12348370

i like this one.Those other guys seem to be obsessed with using too many words. Keep it up!

https://pastebin.com/79u3ALpF

Been on writer's block with this for like half a year though I do have a general idea of what I want to do, just not the specifics that fill up the important points in between

>>12351129
It feels genuine and comfortable, unlike most of the stuff that gets posted here. Stay consistent to the spirit you wrote this portion with. I personally enjoy short sections, certainly don’t draw out something that isn’t there. If you’re interested in posting more I’d be happy to give my thoughts.

>>12350335
niche style, first sentence seems out of place but I think youre intending it to set the tone for the empty room aesthetic. not much of a good critic though.

>>12351253
Thanks man, you just made my day. I'll definitely post more when it's more "ready", most of it is in rough draft form. At my pace that might be a while.

I know this question might be a bit silly, since I should know, and I hate to take up more of your time, but what do you mean by "the spirit" of what I wrote it in? If it works I want to keep doing it, but I'm afraid I'm not consciously aware of what it is.

A resounding emptiness plagues the schoolyard. I hadn't played here for almost 6 years, before highschool started. It all seems so far away now, the ecstatic shouts that blended together into an ambient cloud encompassing and surrounding the building, none of which were discernable individually, or at all intelligible, even though the sound could immediately be recognized as children playing from 3 blocks down where you could first get close enough to hear it. It's kind of amazing to think that a sound so uniform could exist, a seamless drone of freedom and companionship intermittently accented by one particularly excitable, or loud child, a mass of the naive and innocent making the most of the time between two bells. It would end eventually though. The bell would ring. The cheers would cease. Their release only momentary, and toil eternal. As far as that goes anyway.

>>12351679
I'd been here almost 3 hours, sitting on the pavement, with my back against the brickwall of the school. I hadn't seen a point in drinking inside any longer, and no one was out here on the weekend anyway. Soon the lights would go out though, and the beer would be done. I had to find somewhere else to be, anywhere really. The nearest convenience store was 30 minutes away, and I had about 11 dollars and 43 cents in my pocket, just enough for a pack of smokes and a slim jim. When you're drunk on the sidewalk, beside a busy road, you sometimes feel like you'll fall into the street, and be run over. As such, I was very much aware of the sound the cars made as they flew past me, and by the way they swerved away from the curb I'd imagine it was noticeable that I'd been drinking. The breeze they made was nice, though. It was humid, and I could feel my hands getting clammy inside my jacket pockets. The city was a blur of lights, red and white, this late in the evening. Mostly red. That is, until the store's brightly lit sign appeared over the hill ahead of me. "In 'n Out", it said. The light shines through it's glass door, cutting through the black of the night, shinging like a mountain, with my goal at it's peak. In my drunken stupor, I hurried towards it, the light glinting off my eyelashes like a sunburst calling out to me with a promise of slim jims. The camera in the upper corner of the room sees me walk through the door, and a bell rings alerting the cashier to my arrival. Another man is standing in front of him, holding what appears to be a candy bar in his outstretched hand. I began to stumble towards them, thinking about where to stand so as to be as far away as possible from him while still being within the limits of where I'd imagine I would have to stand to form a line at all. I never really got a chance to strain what part of my brain was still conscious enough to stay focused on further examining this once overlooked and near immediate instinct, as the world had to begun to spin slightly clockwise of it's own accord, and I was tasked with resetting it's positioning every few moments. I hear a faint shout, something akin to the cheers on the playground, in a distant, ethereal, sort of way. Blurry as everything in my field of vision, I hear it again, louder this time, clearer. Someone was yelling something about the ground. I flinch as a loud bang shakes me to my core, and am on the ground before I realize. My ears are ringing, and someone is yelling, I don't think it matters much any more though. My eyes start to shut, and everything seems so far away, like everything I can see and hear is moving further away from me, until the world looks like the head of a pin in a sea of darkness, the same sunburst from before reaches out as if to pull me back, and I hear the playground one more time before my eyes finally close.

>>12351679
A good thing to keep in mind is to not use so many adjective-verbs, keep it simple and itll sound more natural.

example

>resounding emptiness plagues the schoolyard
to something more simple like
>The schoolyard was empty

Just a method to avoid overdramatizing things or making the narrator sound melodramatic.

>>12348258
Read the first half and I like it, I could totally relate and it captivated my attention longer than the other ones

>>12351542
It’s impossible for you to be fully conscious of it, and you shouldn’t be. I don’t want to label you, and in so doing ostensibly limit what you can be, but it is romantic (in the old sense, i.e adventurous) but not suffocating. There is something in it which lets us know the person writing it isn’t soulless and desperate

>>12351768
Thanks for the feedback. I just wanted to make it feel lifeless and echoey, though you're right it is overly mellow dramatic.

>>12347091
I like this but I've had a full blown panic attack before and I don't know if this captures the severity of it. To me it's best described as "OH FUCK, I'M DYING RIGHT THIS INSTANT!"

Here's a piece of something I wrote.


The Knight turned the dirt around in his hands and smelt the ashes. They clogged his sinuses and his lungs would have hurt if they had not been hurting for years. He coughed but could not catch his breath. He looked up at the giant structure long dilapidated. The plants and wildlife had reclaimed a once holy place where many men in hoods, armor and steel came to kneel and pray. He dropped his steel and walked up the crumbling stairs. His knees cracked on every step and his feet were worn to the bone. His eyes a milky red color, tired. He did not know the time or date. He knew the battles he survived were countless, from duels of the heart to full-scale wars where he saw men reduced to warped flesh and bone. Birds sang among the stone and timber.

The sun was dimming and the sky was bleeding into its final minutes of red before the black and finally he made his way up the stairs and went inside the cathedral.

>>12351848
It's like drowning for me

Prologue for a story. Tell me if I should kms.

>There is a tale that used to be passed around the dinner table on winter nights – an old legend left over from a time when that table was bare. It's a story about barren fields and hungry cities, starving children and farmers thin – but more importantly it's a story about an old wizard with a pan on his back, and the time long ago where for one night, the beggar, the tailor and the banker broke bread. That there was only one stale loaf in the whole of the town made little difference, for with his knife, the wizard cut every man a slice thick as his fist. That there were no potatoes in the fields was of hardly any consequence, for with a fire from nowhere, the wizard baked the rocks golden-brown. That stick-thin children lay dead in the streets mattered little at all, for with a sip from his flask, the wizard brought them back to the world of the living. The town feasted all day and sang all night, and then in the morning the the wizard said goodbye.

>It would be a pleasure to say that the famine ended that day, but truth is rarely as wonderful as fiction. It is the haze of memory that makes wizards of honest men, but true kindness is something that is rarely forgotten. So old-timers spin stories of the wizard who saved them, and they call him The Wandering Chef.

>>12350694
Hm, you have a clear narrative voice, but i'm not sure it's one you want telling the story. It's a little grating

>>12351871
>>12351848
for me I would usually puke once it started, so that was usually the feeling the panic built up to

I have nothing to post at this moment in time, but I do have a question that I'd like other opinions on. I have a protagonist, and in my notes I noticed I've described him as a "petty little twat" among other things. That's fine, for me anyway, I want him to become a different sort of person by the end of the story, but do you think others are willing to stick it out with a character they dislike (atleast, I expect them to dislike him - but who knows!). He has some of those personality traits that people might find amusing, or even endearing at times, in a relatively unimportant person (bit of a loudmouth, chauvinistic in a variety of ways, envious as well). Anyone, I'm just concerned now that someone might actually pick it up and decide early on "I can't stand him" and just drop it.

Will post some critique after this. I've not written anything creative since my A levels but I had the start of an idea today. Anything constructive would be appreciated.


I had not been on the Outer-City Express long but it felt as if I had entered another country. The skyscrapers had quickly fallen out of sight replaced by red-brick estates, factories and shops offering ‘The Cheapest Neuro-Implants in Town - Guaranteed!’ I was on my way to photograph a woman known only as ‘Becca’ for a story marked on JournoTask as ‘sensitive’. My lungs felt tight and I could smell hot plastic as we plowed through an industrial estate.

The train screeched to a halt at an unmarked platform. Some passengers departed, others boarded and we set off again. Two men in their fifties sat in the seat facing mine. There was a vibration at my wrist. My watch read: ‘CAUTION: A crime has been reported within 2KM of your location. The relevant authorities have been notified. Remain vigilant!’. Huh! No surprise there.

As the train rumbled and wailed towards my destination my surroundings became more bleak. The red bricks were replaced with grey, the kebab houses replaced with whorehouses and the cheap neuro-implants replaced by cheap artificial limbs.

As I watched the city decline one of the men facing me appeared to be eyeing me up. His face was scarred and he wore a loose-fitting blue t-shirt speckled with white paint. I suddenly missed the polite indifference displayed by the suited mass of the city and the aloofness of the hipsters and tech-kids. They had all left the carriage miles ago and it had slowly filled with Outers. The Outers were the dull-eyed, toothless, gawping, drugged-up, scratching, sniffing, scabby dregs of the city's outer-limits.

‘When’s the last time you seen one of these eh?’ asked Scar as he elbowed his stubbled seat-mate.
‘One of what?’ asked Stubbly.
‘Look at him. How old do think he is? Can’t be much older than twenty-seven, twenty-eight maybe,’ guessed Scar.
‘Huh. So what? I work in the city. I see these fuckers everywhere,’ said Stubbly as he squinted and scratched his pointed chin. ‘They act like their shit don't stink but I'm the mug that cleans it up and, I'm telling you, it stinks to high fucking heaven, mate.’
‘Well, I’ve not seen anyone this young in years. Look at him. Look at how many teeth he has left. Look at his skin.’
‘It won’t last.’
‘Aye,’ replied Scar with a chuckle.

I turned away from the Outers as they started to guess what I was doing this far from the city centre and watched the increasingly shoddy flats and houses whizz by.

>>12352691
CONTINUED


Unless they were cleaners or minders in the city almost no Outer had seen anyone below forty in years. Since the Brilliant Starts Act had become law any male born to a family below the income threshold was sterilised via quick and painless injection. It was seen by many as a sensible way to pull the less motivated members of society off the country's sore and swollen teat. Once any aspiring parents crossed the threshold it only took a trip to the clinic, a few months of healing and the sterilisation was reversed. It was simple; work hard, climb the right ladders and you can have your own darling children. Not that many did, of course, but that’s just how Outers were.

The watch vibrated again. ‘CAUTION. A crime has been reported within 1KM of your location.’ Christ, I thought to myself, I had been out of the centre less than and hour and already received more crime alerts than the entire last month.

Not sure how helpful any of this is.

>>12347091
Yikes. like a lot of people have said,you're trying too hard and you're packing too much in.

>>12348258
Beautiful. Some awkward phrasing here and there but it works.


>>12350180
I like it and the present tense works well for the nightmare but I feel it should switch to past afterwards.

>>12352691
I'm a bit pissed, and I'm not the best myself so I can't give you a lot, but there's something that immediately jumped out to me.
>CAUTION: A crime has been reported within 2KM of your location. The relevant authorities have been notified. Remain vigilant!’. Huh! No surprise there.
From what you've given me, it sounds like the area the protagonist is traveling through is a bit of a shithole, and I think having an alert like this makes it appear that the area is nicer than it is, just a crime, I can't explain it but it carries with it a sort of vibe that that's abnormal rather than a part of life, even if the MC is acting nonchalant about it. I inferred that he's not actually from the area he's going to, so his indifference and lack of surprise is a bit strange as well. Huh! Isn't much of a reaction. If he's from a tip himself then you might want to up the 'crime' to something a bit more specific, like an active arsonist or something, where someone reading can immediately see that this sort of thing happens now and again but everyone's used to it.
>‘Look at him. How old do think he is? Can’t be much older than twenty-seven, twenty-eight maybe,’ guessed Scar.
I think that sounds way too specific. They're not like 'milestone' ages, like 21 or 18 or something. If it's just supposed to be an off-hand mention of age, try like "He's what, twenty-five?" or something like that. Maybe it's just in my mind, but the specific ages just sound unnatural to me. Same with "two men in their fifties sat in the seat facing mine".
>>12352713
>The watch vibrated again. ‘CAUTION. A crime has been reported within 1KM of your location.’ Christ, I thought to myself, I had been out of the centre less than and hour and already received more crime alerts than the entire last month.
It's the same here, about the crime thing. Has this been going off the whole time? Is it a fancy piece of tech, should he be trying to cover it up considering he's in Outers? In poor areas, there's crime and he knows this considering he has a watch telling him. How's it work, is it being reported on? If it's anything very serious, then it'd probably be better if he got more info from his gadget.

>>12352809
Thank you. That's all really helpful and I agree with everything you said.

>>12352828
No worries. I like that sort of cyber-punkish stuff so best of luck to you.

>>12352797
Any crit is appreciated anon!

That said, if you're concerned about not being helpful you might want to be more specific about what you like and don't like in order to give a clearer direction to improvement. Also, it would definitely help if you gave critique to people who haven't yet received any

>>12352382
I can't explain it, I don't have the knowhow but this wording " That there were no potatoes in the fields was of hardly any consequence, for with a fire from nowhere, the wizard baked the rocks golden-brown. That stick-thin children lay dead in the streets mattered little at all, for with a sip from his flask, the wizard brought them back to the world of the living" sounds very strange to me. Couldn't the lack of consequence be combined, to emphasize the lack of consequence? For example "That there were no potatoes in the fields (maybe a better way to describe this, like bare fields or fields stripped or something), the stick-thin children laying dead in the streets (and then, ideally, a third thing so the list sounds more complete) for with a fire from nowhere, the wizard baked rocks golden-brown and with a sip (I think this sounds weird to, maybe with a trickle or a drop, with a sip sounds like he's drinking from it) from his flask the wizard brought them back to the world of the living". Having it combined like that makes it sound like the issue was nothing to him, then you could order them in order of importance. Maybe he heals the sick or something, so it goes feeding -> healing -> resurrecting. Might want to consider capitalizing the word Wizard like you would a title of nobility depending on how important he's supposed to be as well.

>>12353103
hm, that's good advice anon. I wasn't happy with the wording either. Thanks

>>12352382

Thing is man, I'm trying to give a Clockwork orange feel to what is more or less a story about a zombie exterminating orc (as in member of a guild of undead exterminators) on a conan-tier quest to save some plague mages (i.e. magical CDC) that came up with rough draft cure for a few kinds of undeath, in a society run by liches that get their wealth from undead labor.

Like, the Orc isn't dumb, he can grasp high concepts, but he grew up tribal, then got thrust into this different world and mixed his own thoughts with the slang and idiosyncrasies of this fantasy land.

is there a way to make internal narration work well? or is heavily slanged 1st person narration played out as a device these days?

>>12353930
I'm obviously only seeing a small part of how this whole thing is put together, but from what I'm seeing anon your narrative seems to be a bit cluttered and I'm not sure how all the pieces are supposed to fit together.

I feel like you'd have an easier time with either focusing on the story of an orc OR the story of a hero saving plague doctors.

That said, I don't want to tell you what stories you can and can't tell, but my first novel ran into the same sort of problem a quarter of the way through and it's only because I simplified that it turned out readable

"The second of April, 1842. This marks the first entry inside my journal. Ma gave it to me in hopes I could occupy my mind while on the trail. I aint much a writing person usually, but I also aint one to shy away from new things. I suppose herell be my memories and thoughts of the trip. First thing I noticed out of Independence is how much grass is just lying around. Some short, but lots tall, and all nice and green. Makes me worried sometimes to walk through because I might get itches on my legs, and I cant wear my skirt or thatll get stained and ma will not be pleased. Pa tells me eventually I will miss the grass, but I cant believe him. That was my first entry, not sure what else to write.

-- Elizabeth"

Elizabeth flicked shut the leather bound journal and squirreled it away back into her satchel. The late evening was abuzz with the chattering of families gathered around their own fires, squawking their own thoughts about the journey they had barely begun. She found her eyes shut, trying to block them out and focus on the more soothing sensations; the wind, the fire.

Peck peck peck, right on her hand. Out her thin eyes she could spot a thin goldfinch nibbling at her skin. Using her quick wits she snatched it, and held it just tight enough to feel its heartbeat. Elizabeth's father was quickly notified about her catch.

"Now, Elizabeth, we can't. Don't need anymore mouths to feed. Let that birdie go now."

Reluctantly she opened her palm and was too downcast to watch it flutter away.

"Sorry pumpkin," her pa said, before taking his seat again.

Elizabeth flipped open her journal once more, and adjunct in fine hand, "Missing my Susie, shame she was left behind."

>>12350292
Fucking fantastic.

I've only ever let my wrist fall limp in Dr. Lei's hands. She held it light, like a breath, or a cloud, something fluffy must've been tucked between the finger and print. There was something weird about my joints, like the ropes that held the white, bony bits were loose, or in a pretzel. I remember her touch so fondly because I had to badger my insurance for the privilege. After father's dead money found a home in my educated but untrained hands, my comfort stuck to me like a pox, and I bruise so much easier. I've been helpless and browning in my bed ever since. Even when I give my sheets and blankets a shake, I mean, real "mom's elbow" shake, like an albatross in a piss, the comfort gets all over me and stamps out the fire. Every morning, the dead skin of whatever blink of motivation I had the night before knocks on my door, rings my phone, morsing, or spitting, I paraphrase: "you're going to die one day," but the covers feel so much like love.

… climb to its peak… climb this one altogether… up to his height’s limit… rises all things he dominates…


… she is gold… she is my woman’s own heart… she is an archetype of that heart… is in a connection to your organ… is some blood in your veins… is from your food… is for your digestion… is swallowed down for you… you do this because this is just for you… making you good… the right examples doing it for you…
“… worshipping God… the highest of us… being compared with the highest of them all… showing that the highest is indeed highest… simply showing him to me… I should believe my eyes… they tell what you all tell… you’s keep your statements all to yourselves… all your potential statements… all the claims you would make… having the trust I give to you… me mentally projecting at you… making you into this thing, in my head… instead of all of the things… this is all of that, combined into less… without something else… it’s something else… and this is different.”


https://christianjaroschdialogues.com/page/1/

Asleep, awake,
Hallucinations, visions,
What difference does it make?
By perceiving we bring it into existence.
Past tense, present , future or another,
What difference does it make
When all of it is lived in your head.
Your words , or mine,
What difference...
Oh! there is a difference here.
My poem is better than yours.

Critique my inability to write about anything that's not almost purely autobiographical, /lit/.

ive been writing short stories for a while, but ive never really done anything with them
im thinking of starting to enter short story competitions, does anyone know what i can find some good ones?
also, should i put them on a blog, or just enter them as and when i see a competition?

Pretty pathetic when handing out
A home; no thanks are received. Yet
Our food was made with that kilter off-kettle,
Gifts were given out, we discussed our own sins.
And the table allowed conference for matters non-imperative,
Compared to his, other issues stayed minute.
And I wondered to myself, in a cold kitchen:
Are suckers really born by the minute?

Take a deep breath, for all around you
Is certain death, (Don't panic yet)

Dark the waters holding you
Black and cold impress
Grope the waters desperately
Pale the sunken flesh

Water in fistfulls
Heavy draping clothes
Hope reached for the moonlight
But to the mud it goes

>>12351768
>The schoolyard was empty
so was your advice

>>12351679
Stick with whatever makes you hear the schoolyard in your mind's ear. Use as many words as you like. Then chop it.

I'm done outlining and ready to actually start writing my novel. However, whether it is my self-perceived or actual mediocrity as a writer, I cannot go more than a week of writing before I erase it and start all over again. Hoping that the next attempt is more successful than the last, yet always finding myself in the same position no matter what I do.

super rough and experimenting a lot, would like to see how I'm doing:

Byron turned from Cecelia, embarrassed by his former naïve romanticizing, and his subsequent (though easily anticipated) failure. Perhaps it was the anticipation, how easily both he and anyone else, knew that his solipsistic self-imposed ostracization. It was not exile he had sought but instead the pursuit of an elevated interlocutor, with only the landscape and the frigid wind to whisper self-sustaining the thundering teaching of the ruined ground, despoiled as it was by winter. To let his mind body and soul sway with the bristling of the pine trees helplessly blanketed in snow and to drink in the dead rhythm of the wind. And yet with the onset of fall he found no cheerful didactic murmur in the movement of the air. The land though he applied himself to it became more hateful as it died. He demanded of the land a muse and found only silence. A blistering, infertile silence. Winter, Byron had believed, demanded of him a song the unseeing eyes of the dead man could not allow him to sing: winter the scourge of the poor and the labourers of this place. His muse had carnivorous teeth. The cold had cruelly lashed at him, as if entreating him to admit failure. And he had listened.

>>12352382

It has a certain charm to it, I liked it. Makes me curious about the world you're going to build as well.

>>12356334
>giving no advice or feedback is what he wanted
that guy was right the writing came off as melodramatic, dont respond to someone asking for criticism by sucking their dick and telling them whatever they do is good, they dont want to hear that and it wont help anyone improve.

>all these posts without replies
Critique threads never fail to make me feel at home.

"Make haste, you are expected," once off the stage and out of view, my escort hurried me on. "Leave your instrument here. And take off your hat. You can keep the jacket on. Wear this ring. No, not on your thumb, goodness' sake. Good, turn around. Very well; up the stairs now."
Slightly wiser than before, I went up a set of stairs I had only walked past til then. Given the layout of this place I could gather where they lead. The man, a waiter by appearance, was now walking behind me. "Last one, left." I assumed he meant the loge I was to enter. "I'm talking about the loge you're supposed to enter."
"Yes, thank you," the thumb mishap must have lowered my credibility by quite a bit.
"You realize who you are about to meet?"
"Yes."
"Good. Don't touch her," he was still walking behind me, but now at an angle from where he could see my face. I could tell he was studying mine, but it seemed inappropriate to turn around and take another look at his myself, so I didn't. For a long time I would wonder what his expression was as he continued, and concluded: "Impress us."

>>12357717
dont worry i got u covered

I'm having difficulty comprehending what exactly is going on here, it conveys confusion and chaos pretty well of a guy getting shoved 'onto the stage' while not being entirely prepared if that is the intention.

>"Last one, left." I assumed he meant the loge I was to enter. "I'm talking about the loge you're supposed to enter."

Im assuming this is for comedic effect. If you want to emphasize that, the next sentence should probably not mention the thumb ring thing, the reader doesn't really give a shit and it doesn't feel believable that this would be the characters concern.

Also grammar and formatting, I suggest putting your dialogue in lines to enhance readability. You often put a comma at the end of your dialogue where a full stop should be, barring the final line.

>>12350183
>a head beating to the sound of drums
No.

>that colon
No. Good run-on sentences are fine, yours is hilariously forced. If you can't do them naturally don't do them.

>in order that
in order to/so that

>once [...] a couple of years ago
No.

>that semi-colon
Here's how you do semi-colons: You replace them with a period and if it still sounds right you use the period.

>for what purpose or extent
No. Extent does not use 'for.'

>but X, and for that he kept on.
>X = his faraway mother was his only concern
He's not keeping on because of his mother, but because she is his only concern. You're saying the fact that he has no concerns but her is what keeps him going, which might be a great additional factoid for his backstory, but absolutely retarded to combine with a nuance of "and that's what got him pumped."
This wouldn't happen if you just wrote what comes to mind, rather than mangle it into unnecessarily long sentences. If you want to write long sentences, learn to create a need for them.

I can see why anon said no one would read it. Stop desperately trying to be the next whatever it is you're aiming for and just write.

'None can say where it started, or when it will end, but all that man knows is that it was not always so, and so hope remains that times will return to what the life that once was.'

The creature was as wide as a bull, but had buckled callused black knees and knobby, toeless feet that must have supported it. Twice as heavy as it aught to be, thick with matted muscle that stretched under its thin pallid skin, matted over with coarse black hair, dotted with little dark holes in the stew of its blood that it rested in. Several planks rest underneath it from the recovery of the boy, the beast had pinned the child within is cavernous maw when it fell. Usually it would take more to take such a thing down, but a bullet struck its skull and ended its rampage rightly. The body was mostly intact as a result, a swift cut to the top of the skull from an axe was given, but besides its split skull the corpse was pristine, although now doused in pitch.

The boy’s body was not so lucky, the thing was clearly not interested in killing the boy, and took the minutes it had to disembowel him. It’s loose teeth came out easily, jagged fragments of such thin, squarish teeth almost that of a goats were spread all around the boys body. Ayna Gottenke, the village surgeon knelt over the boys body, with only a pair of thick pliers and reddened gloves to assist her, a tray of white platelike teeth beside her only a short distance from the beast itself. It was quiet, and solemn work, but she was quick knowing the family would wish to see the boy. She would not let them see this mess of their son.

“Am I dead?”

“Not yet,” the stranger switched back to English and slowly floated down back to the earth. “Not in the way you mean, you gave up long ago. You’ve been dead a long time. Those sad eyes, tearing through all that flesh, scorching the ground you and your men travelled. Why are you afraid now?” The stranger stopped abruptly with his mouth slacked open like a ghoul.

“This place makes me feel everything. The past, the present and the future, the blackness, the void, the eternity of it all and my meager stake in everything. I feel meaningless, frail like a memory fading. I feel it taking me. I don’t want to go.”

“Ah, but you must! Every man before you have gone, every man after you will. All back from where they laid down in the arms of protection, to the final outlines of their curled up corpses. The depravity and endlessness! And to think it all continues after you’re gone and I’m here to keep score. I’m here in the night eternally, the keeper of souls a guide for brittle Knights in armor stolen from the corpses of men from another part of this diseased kingdom. The kingdom is diseased don’t you think?”

“I think you’re diseased, I think this place is evil, I see nothing here but I feel the life being drained from the earth all around me. This isn’t part of the human world, if I could leave I would.”

“You’re sounding weak. I thought a warrior dies honorably, but you sound defeated; I guess you didn’t believe you would have so much time to philosophize.”

The stranger began circling the statue with his hands behind his back; he seemed to be enjoying himself, stuck in some twisted ecstasy watching the Knight’s mind unravel before him.

The Knight heard a faint sound coming from the entrance to the cathedral. He looked back and saw the silhouette of a woman he almost recognized. She didn’t speak or move, just stood there silently. Her face was masked in the darkness and her hands held together gently by her navel. He felt the blood return to his limbs and face, he was able to move again and he began crawling towards the apparition. He looked back and the stranger was gone. He kept moving towards her but she was fading away. Tears were now streaming down his face and he lay down in the empty doorway to the cathedral. He knows he is a resident here forever. He looks above and sees the stars where they are supposed to be, glinting in desolation, never changing, for eternity.

1/3

A satire I'm working on, written in a mockingly archaic style:

A Late night Stroll


My acquaintance and I met on the first snowy night of December at a dinner party hosted by our mutual benefactors, the esteemed Governor and his wife. He was raving over his dearest Anna, who wasn't even present, and though I remained sitting politely, sipping my schnapps, I was finding it increasingly difficult not to throttle the bugger from across our little table. I kept my composure, nodding along and smiling endearingly, but inside I was beginning to boil. Who was this scoundrel to brag of his dearest before a lonely bachelor sipping schnapps at a dinner party? And with such a scoundrel's nose, indeed!

It began like this:

Picture myself, quietly indulging in the cocktail shrimp at my solitary office in the corner of the dining hall. The gentlemen are gathered in loosely formed groups, smoking their pipes, and discussing matters of the utmost importance, while their wives are circulating around the room, mingling, performing their social duties with charm. Our hostess stands out amongst this school of pretty fish, and with her buxom figure and enormous pearl earrings, looks more like a dream consort than the wife of that burly old man, the Governor. A jovial air saturates the party; and beholding the startling variety of pastries and sweets that had just been laid out on the table in the center of the room, I am perfectly content in my own company.

Presently enters our devil in question, who, after surveying the party from the entryway, catches my wandering gaze. At first he acts coy, his shifty eyes darting left to right in a clear mockery of suspicion, but I must have been of peculiar interest to him, for he very quickly begins slithering towards me through the crowd. Judging by the dubious grin he now bares across his face - one which looks to suggest an intrigue, or an inside joke - I realize this will not be an encounter I can easily avoid.

"Imagine us!" Was his grand introduction. "Two handsome young gentlemen of the highest standard health and grooming, with the whitest of teeth, and a full head of hair, here alone at a society party with neither of us a date by our side! What's your excuse?"

He sat down promptly across from me, plucked a shrimp from my glass, and popped it into his mouth. He wore a long, elegant swallowtail coat, fine leather boots, and donned on his bird's nest of curly hair, a black top hat, which he was evidently very proud of by the way he delicately caressed the brim between two spindly fingers. His face was waxy and unusually handsome, but had the disconcerting quality of a mask. I suspected he was not actually on his own here, but it was of no consequence to me.

"I'm just here on invitation," I said. (A lie.)

"What's your relation to the Governor?" He asked.

"A distant nephew." (Another lie.)

He leaned back in his chair and scrutinized me closely. I could tell he was sizing me up.

>>12357979
2/3

"Ah well, myself... Just out to enjoy the evening. I really know nobody here." With that he gave a wink. "Just passing through on my way to the gentleman's club. Oh, but look! Isn't that the snow already beginning to fall?"

I turned to look out the window across the room, and indeed it was the snow, already falling from the crisp, darkening sky.

"It's sure to be a wonderful night!" He said. "One might fancy a stroll through the streets if one doesn't find oneself bogged down here with this unruly bunch for too long..."

He nodded in the direction of the Governor, who, surrounded by a circle of intimates, was nearly falling over in laughter as one of the servants - a ratty little man of scarcely five feet - was attempting to balance a martini glass on his nose, obviously at the order of his master; and quite succeeding, too, though he was bent over backwards nearly to his waist, spilling drink all over his tuxedo. The old walrus had the courtesy at least to wipe him down with his handkerchief, but not before first blowing his turnip of a nose into it.

"A little chilly for me," I said.

He began musing: "If only my dearest Anna were here... Isn't it a sweet thing, our love? If only you knew... On a night like tonight, with such a moon in the sky! Why, she'd start us off the couch with a little tickle under the arm, as she usually does when some whimsical fancy's got hold of her senses, and, well, you know women!..." And so on.

The more he spoke, the more animated he became. Soon he was gesticulating wildly. Occasionally his eyes would flash, and he'd shoot me a strange glance, as if to make sure I was listening to every word he was saying, with the intent of quizzing me when he'd finished his monologue. He spoke sharply and eloquently, never skipping a beat, or tripping over his own tongue, but his words were obviously designed to stire with their sizzle, rather than their substance, and his tone was outrageously patronizing. Was I envious? He must have thought. Was I impressed? Had I been swept away by his irresistible charm? I imagined this really mattered to him. The longer I sat in silence, seeding him on with my courteous nods and bashful toasts, his confidence seemed to grow. He went on, and on, and on, and only spoke of his dearest Anna, who I had reason to doubt even existed! I was at once confused, irritated, and at a loss for words. My patience was waning. As I've already mentioned, it took quite a lot of restraint not to simply fling my snack in his face, and walk away. But I couldn't bring myself to say a word against him, shy creature that I am! I must have been red as a beet and sweating profusely.

>>12357819
Cheers my dude.

>>12357979
>>12357983
3/3

My eyes fell upon the candle in the center of the table, its pathetic flame working desperately to free itself from the wick. I scoured my mind for a way out. It had even occurred to me (such was my desperation) that perhaps if I simply brought my feet up off the floor and onto the chair I was seated, it would spring into life, as if on cue, and carry me out of the room, like a wise and loyal animal, prancing away on its four wooden feet. But this never happened.

"...Perhaps she'd give us a kiss at the door," he went on, "perhaps she'd give us a bite by the shore! 'So I'll go fetch the brandy,' says I, 'and we'll make a night of it!' Oh, if only you could see her in her travelling best!"

Here he sprang to his feet, pushing off the table, unsettling my cocktail shrimp, and nearly knocking over the candle. Now wielding a bread knife in one hand, and his B&B in the other, he proclaimed for the whole party to hear: "Anna! Anna! Oh, my Anna! Why, just a couple of hours ago we were cozied up behind a park bench by the Zip canal, and a boy was fishing with a cap on, and an old man was hanging over the balustrade, counting his coins, and the little hairs on his chinny-chin-chin, and you pulled me in close, and I kissed you! Oh, did I kiss you then! The biggest kiss you'd ever seen! Right on those rosy lips! And, Anna, my dear, in that moment, I loved you! I really did!... I loved you!... I loved you... I loved you so..." And his voice tapered out dramatically.

What incited him to do this, and for all this party of such reputable individuals of society to see, and why I had been singled out as his preeminent audience, I could not understand. But was he met with the jeers and chagrin that one would expect of such a ridiculous performance? No. After a brief but heavy silence, in which all the guests, ladies and gentlemen alike, looked around at one another dumbfounded, the party erupted into uncontrollable laughter. And loudest of them all? The Governor himself.

"Bravo!" He shouted, raising his glass to our man. "Bravo! Bravo to that man there, who certainly wasn't on the guest list, but is a Thespian, a true Thespian!" (Here my acquaintance tipped his hat.) "And I believe he may even be my distant nephew, though I can't be entirely sure! But bravo nonetheless! And bravo to chivalry," the Governor boomed, now raising his glass to the whole party, "which refuses to die in spite of our hussies! But we do love them, don't we? Of course we do! So bravo to our hussies as well!"

At this all the gentlemen joined together in one unified"Bravo!", raising their glasses to the ceiling, splashing the air with drink. My acquaintance looked down at me suggestively, making funny with his eyebrows. The Governor toasted his wife with a wink, and the fair lady, the poor bumble-bee, bowled over in laughter, began even to weep, fanning her face, and nearly rolling out of the room.

>>12357979
>>12357983
>>12358008
4/3

"Bravo!" The Governor shouted once more, and the party replied, "Bravo!"

"Bravo!" Came a shrill shriek from the vestibule, probably a maid, and this was met with another "Bravo!"

I had simply had enough.

"Oh, this schnapps has suddenly reared itself on me," I found the courage to say, feigning a bout of alcoholic stupor.

I made the first post and i've edited it. Is this a lot better?

A lot of people puke when they get panic attacks but I never have. Maybe I’m lucky in that regard. I remember Tony Soprano described it as feeling like someone poured a can of ginger ale into his skull. I think that’s a pretty good description. I’ve also heard people compare their panic attacks to the feeling of drowning, and that’s how I prefer to describe it. When you’re drowning you desperately struggle to keep your head above water knowing that death waits for you below. You fall and rise — one second you’re sucking in as much air as into your lungs as possible, and the next second your head is submerged, water obscuring your vision, and you’re viciously clawing at the surface above. You’ll flail your arms, hoping to grab on to anything you possibly can to avoid finally going under. You can’t think straight because thinking isn’t important right now, only survival is. When you’re drowning and there's no one there to save you and there’s nothing to grab onto, there’s only one way out — floating. But since you’re drowning you probably don’t know how to float, and at that point your life is no longer within your control.

When I had my first panic attack over the summer my first instinct was to float, but I realized that I’d suddenly forgot how to float. I’d known how to float all my life, but that was no longer an option. My heart violently pounded against the walls of my chest, my throat felt like cement was hardening inside of it, and my vision vibrated like the earth was shaking.

Any feedback would be helpful. Would a prologue be better if I did more environmental descriptions? Did the dialogue seem natural or forced? Did I do a good job of setting up the beginning in a quick but easy to understand manner?

>>12358943
How about you give some others feedback before asking such specific questions about your own work?

>>12359181
I'm really new to writing and I didn't think that I could give any advice that I know for sure is good. I don't need anything specific, I was just naming some things I thought might be lacking.

>>12359217
sometimes even feedback from just an average guy or reader is good, keeps the thread alive at least and lets the writer at least have some outside feedback of what they are doing. if someone criticizes your criticism just call em a faggot

>>12358943
If you say "Marcus walked down the street, rather slowy compared to usual" it makes it seem more like his regular walking pace is something obvious rather than something you're explaining. The comma is unnecessary, I just used it because it adds the effect of his pace being a side note to what he's actually doing, making it seem like the narrator just happens to have noticed it and decided to mention it. I don't know if you know what I mean. It makes it feel more natural, to me at least.

>>12354984
Awake, asleep?
It doesn't matter
To the dreams of a hack in a spin
Who perceives naught but the space of things
Whizzing by like dismattering matters
Of his own self-importance.

Solipsism is his quandary, not
The me who stands in the grace of things
Reviving myself in the lighter airs
Of mountaintops riverine with wings
And the angels swaying to clearer verse

Which is the truth of my design
When I say your poem is worse than mine.

>>12350253
So I'm guessing this is perfect as is?

>>12359897
Did you actually think acting like a bitch will make people decide to put effort into giving you advice? How old are you?

>>12357961
You might need therapy, my man.

>>12360193
Hey , worked for me.
I am
>>12354984

This is the intro for something I just started. Psychic detective whose son was killed by an arsonist who wanted someone in particular dead, but took everyone's life.
Tears became the only source of glimmer in his eye as bleak pictures with colors of bone turned ash and wood burned into charcoal were forced upon his vision. Each photo laid out in a sequence, until there was enough, to play out a scene. The moving pictures showed women in dresses dancing to the melody of trumpets. Wildly--vigorously--long kicks that reached higher than their heads showing smiles with red lips and eyes, readily inviting, to onlooking bachelors hoping to snag a prize. A young dancer finishes her routine and walks up front. Excited to be a catch. And she was, by a young hopeful whose gaze she wants to be hers alone. They approached each other. Exchanged tender words. A sound blared and panicked. Red light pulsated in the room.
"It's a fire! Get out!"
Everyone ran. Pushed each other. Shoved whoever. The doors were locked. Windows were unbreakable. Smoke enters the area. All the young men and women screamed until they couldn't then blinded by smoke. At first, it was warm and yet some visions started blurring. Then it was hot and more were now sleeping. The young dancer stared as the flames discolored paint. She looked around again, yet she could find no exit. So she walked, simply, to where bachelors once did. A knife was taken and held it firmly in her hands. She did not want to die, but she refuses to suffer.
The detective returned to himself. He sat quietly in a plastic chair, observing the others take their turns on the rubble.
"Hey Keith," the detective's assistant called, "I talked to the manager like you asked. I got the guest list and listen..."
"Tom," Keith started ,"He never picked up his phone. I already guessed."
"I'm so sorry. About your kid."

>>12347096
Nathan Higgers and Jillian Queues - of course, once they are introduced, they are Nate and Jill.

I’ll dump some reverse crit when I get my bus. I’d like to reiterate a lot of these poems are essentially journal entries that I intend to revist and rework the pieces I feel are worth it, and my crits do not reflect my own writing.

>>12360804
My god. I just skimmed it but that’s atroucious.

>>12355475
Same problem here.

>>12355475
Turn autobio into fiction. Exaggerate it, create scenarios based on the situations you exaggerate. Boom, surreal psudo bio.

>>12360974
Reading is fun. So I wanna try writing. Please explain how it's atrocious lad. I need help.

>>12360997
Not that guy but is English not your first language. The main critique I have for you is that your punctuation and sentence splicing is very jarring. Some sentences don’t even make sense.

>>12361027
Could you quote them? I'll edit.

>>12361033
I’m on a phone so there’s only so much I can do. Even the first sentence reads strangely.

>Tears became the only source of glimmer in his eye as bleak pictures with colors of bone turned ash and wood burned into charcoal were forced upon his vision.

Tears glimmered in his eyes as bleak pictures of bone turned to ash and wood into charcoal were forced upon his vision. **

>>12360997
Not him, but agreed. Reading is fun. You should do a lot more of it, and keep writing. Learn how published authors do what they do. There’s substance here but buried so far under ‘i’m trying to write’ that its almost indeciphrable. You clearly have a love of language and writing but this isn’t the kind of opening that will draw someone in - if you’re getting heavy into a visceral scene it can be excuses but as it stands its too much, too soon.
It’s not bad per se, it’s an unloading of purple prose however. There’s definite promise but at the moment it’s buried beneath ‘trying’, if that makes sense. You need to find a style, rather than just trying to be an ‘author’

>>12361033
I am new to the thread. I found pic related to be helpful. I got it used for under $10. I learned a few tricks to streamline my flow. You have some similar problems as I did. Your ideas are fine. The whole thing is clunky.

When I Was Fourteen:

The porch was whining; white speckled along slits of the original wood. I was using the bottom of my shirt to wipe away the sweat that had accumulated onto my slivers of a hairy chin. We were in rocking chairs, mine was blue, hers was a scorched, unglossed, burgundy wooden scripture that careened into itself from every angle to assimilate as one winding piece. I was locked on her tongue just before she undid the trick and dropped it to slant and hang just over her bottom lip.
"I told you, the clover's my speciality."
Her pigtails and their whisker ends hopped as she stuck her chin up with pride. She had those crumbs of sweat across her forehead that would've otherwise been shining if we hadn't been shaded.
"Okay, fine," I said, "you can do that pretty good."
A bit of her laughter slipped past the seal on her lips she had created with the end of her lime popsicle. I'm sure the calendar in her kitchen sat somewhere between 1982 and 1986, but even that far back I'm still certain she could tell and feel and love my eyes slipping and trailing along the curvatures of her outline. I tried to mask these things by blinking into each glance, but her age against mine is an embarrassment when I think that something along those lines could slip past her.
"Bet you can't do another one," I asked, playing with my popsicle stick.
She unstuck her popsicle and fanned herself with flattened left fingers.
"Anything for you. But I really gotta concentrate for this one," she said winking.
I clamped my legs shut just as she closed her eyes and brought out her green dyed tongue to warp into a "U" shape, but I almost missed the trick entirely.
She had the work cap from the pizza place we delivered for on backwards. Her bra was just visible behind a white tank top that ended hovering above her denim shorts. Her shoulders and face were lightly freckled and forced me to keep my legs in place with much more force. To this day, if I just close my eyes, I can illustrate in the pitchness the bits and otherwises of her seeping and melted sugar texture ghost washing next to her sweat and the humps of her breasts that kept her top away from her belly and the way she sat with folded legs onto her feet in that chair.
"BEEBEEP, BEEBEEP, BEEBEEP," her watch said, and her eyelids sprung and my own sunk while my head shot away from her and she sighed behind my head.
"Looks like our break's over. Let's get going, and put your helmet on this time. Then we can both look like law abiding scooter cuties."
And she rose while I stayed seated to walk across to the end of her fence, gifting me once again with herself.

I’ve critiqued a few can I get some feedback lads?

>>12357961

>>12361044
Thanks. Great help. I agree I don't quite have a style yet. It's more like putting words on paper was simply fun, so to speak. So I just end up adding more and more. Also, I don't really have the guts to write with the aim to sell. I'm doing this simply as a hobby.

>>12361051
I'll check it out. Thanks!

>>12361042
I missed you somehow. I'll focus on making it cleaner next time. Thanks for the tip.

>>12361056
>“Not yet,” the stranger switched back to English
Purely aesthetic, but I don't like the word "switched" for this.
>Those sad eyes, tearing through all that flesh, scorching the ground you and your men travelled.
How did they travel?

>>12361058
Of course,a style takes a long time to find and that’s understandable. I started writing through imitation and while there’s still obvious influences I feel like I’m slowly making it my own. It’s been years but if you enjoy doing it then when you find something you’re happy with the reward feels all the better. And yeah as a honby it always feels good to indulge, just be ready for a degree of negative criticism in early days while you’re finding yourself - it’s easier to critique something that feels derivative then it is for unique work. Just try genuinely understand critique, appreciate praise but look to crit as a place to work from.

I have couple questions for you fine people, but first some background.
About two years ago I accidentally ended up writing a novel. I'm mostly happy with the work, and received a bunch of praise from the people it was written for. Thing is, it's essentially fetish smut so I have a weird reservation about showing it around. Over the last 6 months or so though I've been getting the itch to continue the story but I don't know if I want it to continue to be smut. In addition, the sex is not thrown into the novel for shits and giggles; it's directly tied to the main characters growth and a significant part of the story (mostly, there is a scene or two purely there for porn purposes). I can link the unedited version I have on pastebin if people are interested, but I've never been on this board so I'm not sure if I should or not. Should I abandon the old stuff and rewrite the story starting from scratch, or continue it in the way it's been written?

Also, about a third of the way the through writing the book I realized I'd been writing in present tense instead of past tense. I finished it in present tense because it feels better in my head to write that way, but is that something I should change?

The First Day

Profundity didn’t approach me.
Aphorisms walked away from me.
Elliot Smith still sounds the same,
with my head beneath my blankets.

The dread deep inside of me still
was no more French, contra-Bastille.
My worries still seemed inane
to the worldly cogs, which still turned.

It only made me worry
and the lethargy last longer
and the drinking medicinal
and the memories paralyzing.

Of course, today the sky is grey,
it presses itself on my mental.
Hydraulic presses distort and disfigure
before they crush completely.

The first day after a death
is always the same, they say.
This is true; loss isn’t profound.
It’s a car, on E, sputtering.

>>12361134
Needs more try-hard loser poet effect throughout. Needs to end more exaggeratedly mundane. The reader should feel insignificant after having read it.

>>12361133
Rewrite it keeping the original larts, then rewrite them so its in line. It can work. >>12361134
Mentioning elliott smith makes me see the resemblance to his lyricism. This is good, he was good. And the entire poem is quite good. Maybe its the acknowledgement that makes me see the debt paid.
Otherwise , I like this quite a lot. Can you see it without namedropping? Someone familiar with his work will see it tho still respecting yours.
The end is excellent. Nothing more to say. I have no negative crit towards this. Who donyou read?

>>12361133
As a reader, I do not like tense changes. As a writer I find some things feeling better in one tense and other things feeling better in another tense. I feel your pain but recc that it all go to one tense.

>>12361152
Thanks for the kind words. Philip Larkin is definitely my favorite poet. I like Dickinson quite a bit, I've been getting into Tranströmer lately. I've got a pretty varied taste in fiction, but I cannot recommend Larkin enough, poetry wise.

>>12361169
Well, I can only recc Wallace Stevens in return, as he is my favourite poet. You seem to have a focus on where you’re heading, I will say, as I always do, listen to genuine crit. I like your work, not everyone will. If you can keep yer voice while working with genuine crit ye’ll be onto a real winner bere.

>>12361169
I was >>12361150. I want to add that I was being unironic - and that the poem needs a more polished closing. I like a poem to end with something memorable. I want other people to reference it when they are trying to close their poem. I want to like your poem but it needs something to separate it from the pack. I want the reader to feel like the most important loss in his own life is trivial.

This is the first weekend I get to see her since the divorce. She's strapped into her booster seat, I can see her pointing out the window at a car beside us in the rear view mirror. A dog is barking at her, one of those ones that shakes the inside of your chest when it does. I roll up her window, for her. I used to have a yippy little bastard at home, he barked at everything, the dishwasher, the tv, as long as it made a noise so did he. He was gone now though, everything we owned was split down the middle like in a fucking sitcom and the dog just happened to be on his side. Stupid fucking shit factory, I wouldn't miss him anyway. The zoo is just up ahead on the left, I had no idea where else to take her, she always liked the books with animals in them, and that yippy little fucker, so I decided I'd bring her here. Anyone else would probably think I was doing this to make her like me better, so when she grows up she'll love me more than him, but they'd be wrong. I just wanted to do something for her, and get of the house for a while. I bought the tickets online to save time, and the parking lot was empty, so we wouldn't have to wait to get inside.

I wasn't sure whether or not we'd check the map first, or if I'd let her decide. Before I even got a chance she asked if there were monkeys here, so it was decided. Any other person would probably wonder if it was cruel to keep them locked up in a cage like this, I didn't really think about things like that. She seemed excited about the way they fling shit each other, I don't know why I expect that she wouldn't. I'm glad she's happy though. I decide not check my watch, I don't really think I want to know how much time we have left. After visiting a few more animals, we stopped for lunch, hotdogs and ice cream. She eats hers with relish, and nothing else, I couldn't convince her otherwise if I wanted to. Before I take the first bite the phone starts to ring. My mother is calling. I pick up and try to sound happy when I say hi. She's calling to ask how our day together is going. The thought of hanging up crosses my mind once or twice, but my mom doesn't talk to many other people besides me, and I don't think I could do that to her. I must have said at least 7 variations of the words "I understand" many, many times by the time she finally hung up. I think she knew I didn't want to talk to her near the end, I tried not to feel bad about it. I didn't get to take the first bite before I realized the seat next to me was empty.

1/?

>>12361288
>and get of the house for a while
typo
>I didn't really think about things like that.
You thought about it enough to put it in the narration. Replacing "think" with "care" fixes that.
>fling shit each other
typo

>>12361309
>You thought about it enough to put it in the narration. Replacing "think" with "care" fixes that.

The character didn't though, my guy.

>fling shit each other

This isn't a typo.

>>12361288
Its just very clunky and choppy. I think you need to do a lot of revision on this to string the thoughts together a little better.

>>12361343
>The character didn't though, my guy.
The narrator mentioned it. How does a narrator mention something without thinking about it?

>>12361351
>very clunky and choppy
Frankly, I think mastery of the em dash would help the flow of his piece a lot.

>>12361351
>>12361364
You're completely right, how do I avoid doing that?

>>12361353
Read it again my guy.

>>12361390
On account of the fact that the narrator is critiquing herself and that she is a layer away from thinking about it?

>>12361407
Suck my ass

>>12361388
The handbook that I recced up the thread a bit helped me a lot with the em dash. Inserting them would be a relatively minor editing procedure but it distinguishes ends of phrases well while keeping the flow moving.

How the hell do you write a fight scene lads? I've been watching videos on it and I'm still confused. I was told making sentences shorter and the structure a bit clunky. I also heard varying sentence lengths was good. Long sentences for slow motion. I just sort of put whatever in here just as a practice.

It's irrelevant whether the man in front was the smaller fighter, the difference between him and me was still huge. He thought he could play, his arms slugged through the air. He kept missing his swings, frustrations grew. He fought with strength I was sure, though what use is strength without the finesse to handle it? I moved backwards and sideways. He moved forward to chase. My head dove down while my fist was thrust up. It was a gamble. It paid off. He was surprised to find I was standing tall and looking down with the ground on his back. His jaw felt like metal, my left hand felt numb.
The smaller man stood up, slowly, teeth clenched, and he looked at me with eyes full of hate. I was relieved to know he actually had a knife he hadn't drawn before, then, nervous that now he has. The man's sudden dash forward, with knife angled forward, was something I hadn't prepared for. My heart raced, my breathing trailed close second, and I saw the knife gliding towards me, it inched closer and closer, but then flew right past me. He missed and I found my chance but my vision blurred and for a moment, I was unconscious. My head forcibly turned the other way and my body shifted with, routing me a few steps back. In reflex, I wiped my cheek, I felt a sting on my lip and unmistakable wetness at the back of my hand. Then, I knew, that there's a cut.

>TFW I want to make an overarching narrative, but don't know where to start.

first attempt at a novel draft. does this seem half-decent or "The Room" tier of melodrama?

>>12362586
I'm having the same problem. I tried to do the slow motion thing by crafting long contemplative sentences and based on the reaction it got in one of these threads it fell flat.

>still huge
Bad way for this sentence to land. It's anticlimatic to end with a qualifying adjective. Ending with something more firm and punchy like "difference." or "smaller fighter." would make an impact. Most of it is good after that.

>>12362586
>watching videos

There's your problem. Everything you need is in the books themselves. What are your favorite fight scenes in fiction? Emulate the writing style and grammatical structure of those scenes until you develop your own.

Actually, before thinking about how to make better fight scenes, you should be thinking about how to write better prose in the first place. You're using commas in weird ways (e.g. the very first sentence) and the word choices themselves are extremely awkward and clunky, such as:

>My head dove down while my fist was thrust up

Your phrasing is also cliched, with all the stuff like

>my heart raced
>his jaw felt like metal
>my left hand felt numb
>eyes full of hate

It just reads like non-stop filler. Either make fights interesting through novel tactics, psychology and character perspective, or interesting prose/metaphors. Your writing has none of those things.

Basically, learn to write before learning to write fight scenes. And don't expect to be able to write anything good until you have months or years of training. Writing is a craft.

>>12362693
Good analysis. I imagine my prose is filled with the same cliches, no?

see:
>>12362629

>>12362820
Yes. If you can't tell what they are you need to read a lot more books.

>>12362693
Got it. A lot of the phrases I used came from other book so it's VERY cliche. Also, I heard that on fight scenes that since characters aren't thinking well so make the sentences clunky. This attempt fell flat.
>My head dove down while my fist was thrust up.
I was watching a boxing fight and saw Pac's hook on Hatton's chin. I wrote it in the most retarded way possible. Thanks for the analysis anon. I'll try reading more action oriented books as you say.

>>12362586
My books are on the floor. I can hear people laughing around me. My heart is thudding against my chest, and I can hear it beating in my head. I can't decide whether to pick up my books or fight back. This wasn't the first time he'd done this, waited in this hallway, at this exact time of day, where there was only one way to my next class, through him. I didn't have time to psyche myself up, and I couldn't just let it go anymore. Before I could even decide to throw a punch, he spits in my face. I run at him full force, he puts his hand against my chest and throws me to the ground, everyone is laughing again. I stand up and run at him again, swinging my arms wildly until one catches him against the ridge of his eyebrow. He's bleeding, and the laughing has stopped. While he holds his hand against his forehead, checking it for blood, I run at him again. He falls this time, I'm sitting on his chest, knees against his arms. I don't know how long I was hitting him before someone pulled me off of him. I couldn't tell if the blood on my hands was his or mine at the end of it. When the principal asked why I did it, and the ambulance came and left, I told her it was for all the times he'd done it. That I couldn't stop thinking about every time he had stopped me in that hallway, that I didn't even feel it when I hit him anymore, it wasn't about me or him anymore, it was a spite and a pure hatred that I couldn't hold in anymore, that felt good to be rid of; I told her I would do it again. They didn't laugh when I got back to school a week later.

>>12347089
first time writing anything ever. Am a talentless hack so please be gentle

The moment before death is the arduous journey into the unknown. The decades have gone by, my memories a papyrus phantasm revealed by coincidence

The last of my memories before my death must be of your parents; my children, or perhaps even of you, saplings of a seed I have sown long ago. I will not be able to write anything afterwards. The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. Regretably my written word has to part with you, the sentence has to end with a dot. I am sorry for everything I have done.

>>12351791
If you're still interested here's another excerpt. This is from a bit earlier in the story.

The sleep paralysis seeped into his dream. He began to move towards them,the people of obscured faces, hidden smiles and pockets filled with salt. They spiced their meals up with salt occasionally and smiled at each other, but never at him, but at each other and ate the food with their sticks, smiling. They live in penthouses, a newspaper had announced some time ago to critical acclaim, even though each synthesizing individual would be cautious of believing in anything scribbled by media rawlings, but rather investigate the world on their own accord. Meditate perhaps, having none of it and he were to have none of it. I will end their circus of foolery and flimflam, he said, but despite of all and everything there he crouched, towards them, but with great fear in his heart and truly grand desire for them to disappear forever and to never laugh again, to never emit a single golden laugh of theirs ever forever again but go away and not come back and then he'd vomit in the corner of the floor without laughter.
He crept forward, gaining little, as his bones emitted a sound of being crushed. It felt as if each particle of his body was grinding violently against another. No progress was made. He acknowledged this fact. Faces, words and lights meshed into a single indeterminable substance glued to his eyes. For a brief moment he felt a typewriter etching words straight into his soul. They flashed before his eyes. And the people trembled from excitement as they saw how he began to fall. He fell, then woke, to a feeling of deep hurt and humiliation.

>>12365132
2
He woke in his bed, wearing several layers of clothes, drenched in sweet. He had not undressed before sleep for why would he do so. Cigarette stubs had amassed under his ass, which gradually had turned into source of intimate pleasure for him. He grasped the sheet, checking for any wetness. There wasn't any. He hadn't pissed himself on this night, which was good. He knew many young rascals did it but never talked about it and when they did it deep shame pierced their heart and left a big, big wound that would never heal and if they were unlucky pressure was exerted furtherly on them to stop it right there and then, forever more, or to get the belt and no food even if he was hungry and such and even if it was happening, though he did all to avoid it, he knew by heart, soul and mind that it did not qualify him as a wrongdoer among wrongdoers but was just a stain on an otherwise upright and good-hearted individual, as he saw himself and had no reason to believe but for his occasional bed wetting, that he saw wrongly. It was nothing good to happen, he acknowledged with a fierce, parental nod, but he refused to live in shame. It was not his fault, he knew.
He groaned wildly and extended his head into the air, opening his big, clumsy eyes. God's headlights, rotating ever slowly, made them shut due to supreme intensivity of the light beam. His room lighted up majorly, then after bunches of seconds fell into it's original state of deep darkness again. He counted the signal lights to place himself in time and learned that it was seven in the morning. He'd slept for a long time. Then he grew aware that it was a certain urge that had woken him. Close, thought he, and nodded to himself in relief. The stink in this particular room, which he favoured the most for it's beautiful vista from the window frames, had gotten too bad as is and he refused to live in shame, no matter what.
His eyes turned away from the window frame pictures and their harming rawness for the wakening eye. Turning them towards his mirror, which was not deemed a friend of his for sure but also did not deserve to be considered an enemy of his soul. His eyes seemed pumped up, there, in the glass, pumped up with air. His whole outside as much of a mess as his inside. Desperately he evoked his mantras but could not clear his mind, find calmness, attain stillness, perceive and foster the justice of his heart. It wasn't to be today. He only found resignation. His whole inside, on this day, as he pointed out to himself, as much of a mess as his outside. His head was pulsing painfully and felt squished. He farted. It was time to take that piss.

I walked in, felt the cold air of the room, and realized I was sweating. I was more nervous now then I was on the bus. There was an intimacy here not felt in the restaurant either. Here they could see me.
There was a group of young people talking in low voices to each other. Across the room was an older man sitting alone. They were constantly making glances at him as they spoke, as if to reassure themselves he was still there. He seemed seren and sage-like, satisfied in his own skin. Life had dealt him a great set of cards. Though he was extremely overweight, several of the younger women made glances at him as if to invite him in: here, look. He paid no mind to any of them, instead, he made notes on the margins of typed manuscript paper.
It all came to me, while I was sitting down, this man, this old wise writers-workshop teacher was him, Gabe Matthews. While else would he put it on his Facebook? Going to a writers workshop as an attendee is shameful, not a thing to admit on Facebook. No, you don’t want that in your algorithms unless it’s your life, like this man.
He had to be Gabe Matthews. There couldn’t be a mess this time. I couldn’t afford to be uncertain, so I approached him.
“Are you Gabe Matthews?”
He looked up at me with his eyes wide with a fierce suspicion.
“Who you think you talking to,..” He then proceeded to call me the n-word.
“I’m so sorry…”
I walked away and sat my ass back down. Whatever just happened, he won.

How do I cope with knowing that I'll never write anything because I have zero imagination?

what's a good way/scenario for a character to realize that he shouldn't commit suicide?

>>12366134
Halfway to the ground

>>12365467
Imagination is fuelled by books and other works. If you haven't read a thousand books yet don't bitch about a lack of imagination. If you have and you still find yourself unable to come up with anything, then start thinking about changing your ambitions

>>12362586
A case of beer and a carton of cigarettes will buy a lot of goodwill with hobos. Go do some homework.

>>12366134
Make him be a pussy that lacked conviction. Make him still wish that he were dead - and even now more pitiful with the added burden of knowing his own incapability to shuck his mortal coil. Before he approaches the suicide, he has the solace of always knowing that it's available. Once he tries to make use of this refuge he realizes that it was never really there.

… that evenly-scaled form of the shape’s dimensions… deductible from the unevenly-scaled… your thinking processes for it… lead us down an identical path…
… within that summarisation we both make… that coincidence we are both agreeing with. Our detachment from what we share.

https://christianjaroschdialogues.com/2018/02/22/wesley/

>>12366134
Watch the end of Nights of Cabiria.

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image bread was shaped at birth.
The chickens for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too yucky for humankind.
To fill the gut, and join the bread to chicken,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A chick-a-dee they wrought, in semi-bread figure,
Cooked it with oil, and called the thing a Nugger.

>>12366892

In the barn, the rooster crows

The farmer open his eyes and winces

He knows that the morning cock has got to go,

To not offend the visiting princess

The rooster too, it creates too much fuss

He grabs a knife and goes to the little red shack

Killing the chicken is a must

He gets inside, with the door to his back

The cock has nowhere to go and looks dejected

It accepts its fate and its head is removed

The farmer remembers the time, he must not be rejected

He must serve the princess some food

And he cuts the cock into little chunks

Then paint the nuggets with brilliant batter

With a princess this large, he must cook a bunch

And hope that the quality does not matter

Princess Burger looks displeased

And the farmer gets scared and contemplates running

This is worse than the fools at Micky D's

Servant, fetch me my rifle, it's time for my daily gunning

Helga splayed her legs across the oak butcher's block. She separated the pussy lips. With a flourish of fingers her clit was buzzing.
"In the secrets, the Torah, they don't teach you one thing."
"Your kike cock is gonna feel so good baby."
"When God brought down the commandments to Moses he forgot how to teach man to eat pussy."
The goyish broad closed her legs and threw her dress down.
"Do you know why we Jews get circumcised?"
"Why?"
"So our women will only suck something that is 10% cut off."

>>12366892
masterpiece
>>12366134
Trial by fire: make him undergo actual hardship like being kidnapped or going to jail
Messy redemption: get him to go all out before his suicide, 1 week into his cocaine/hooker addiction he realizes life is worth living
Unrelated minute beauty: Have him experience something mundane as extremely beautiful and life-affirming, like a random girl smiles at him, or he sees an underdog hit it out of the park at a baseball game.

>>12354037
Nothing?

opening of short story I just started:

Like most artists living and working in London, with the occasional crusade north to illuminate the lives of the hearts-of-gold subsistence-livers, Jeremy thought gentrification was a bad thing and Jeremy believed it began just after he moved up from Brighton. Not that anyone called him Jeremy these days. These days he was, at his own insistence, strictly Jerry. Even his ever-patient parents called him Jerry, which he took as a clear mark of respect for the independent urbanite he had become rather than them co-opting the thin veneer of the crude mask he wore, hiding their loving disappointment and polite shame in front of it as he hid his always-itching self-doubt behind it. Only his younger brother Karl refused to respect his agency on this matter.

Jerry was outwardly scornful of Karl, with his bourgeois ambitions and conventional tastes and lack of vintage bicycle or ceramics degree, but secretly envied his name, which could so easily have been exoticised to Karlo, which in his less-centred moments Jerry was convinced would have made the Arts Council look more favourably on his otherwise flawless applications for funding.

Tightening the straps of his dungarees and focusing on his breathing, Jerry stood up and walked to the kitchen, his hands making arcane staccato shapes as he spat some grime lyrics he’d spent an evening memorising. Some of the lyrics were a bit on-the-edge, casual violence and misogyny being quite prominent, but although he was a fully committed paci-feminist, he was very in tune with the daily systemic struggles of young black men and respected their street culture. In fact, he was wearing his Basquiat t-shirt just yesterday, and he hadn’t even been in Brixton. He didn’t think any of his housemates were in, but if they were it was important they saw that he was cool when they thought he thought no-one was watching. Jerry was a bit disappointed to be proven right as he had totally nailed the urban emphasis of his studied delivery this time, but this was outweighed by the pleasing confirmation of his aloneness because he was hungry and broke and needed to borrow a teabag and some cheese.

His hunger defeated like a Blairite at a by-election, Jerry’s mood lifted.

I had to get out of the streets. The gender informants were on my ass this time, with a message that couldn't be heard from a computer locking reeducation program.
In 2039 the President passed a bill banning heterosexuality. Heterosexuals had to have gay sex atleast once a month to prove they were bi, but central has been cracking down on the usage of trannys and ladyboys as monthly tribute.
I am a runner. My job is track down the few remaining straight people and suck their dicks. Most straighties like to hang out by the docks at sundown to harass the cis-women of the Buzzfeed offices, which took most of their jobs during the buyout of the bay property. I use a device called the nullifier. It is basically xanax but immediate and brief. When they come to, their dicks are already in my mouth. It is company policy to never suck a man off at a high elevation. One time I sucked off a Japanese businessman on the rooftop of a high-rise. After the Nullifier wore off he didn't force me off. He kept groaning. He even put a hand on the back of my head. After he finished in my mouth he collapsed and began weeping. I asked him why he was crying, I had shown him the light. He said something unintelligible and hopped over the edge. He landed on a smart car, killing a lesbian couple and their young Y-Chromosomal Unit 2-c child.

>>12368686
I came out of the Canadian Universities. My degree was in Criminal Social Justice. For my Graduate Thesis I had to suck off a homeless b-man with neurodegenerative disease and erectile dysfunction. He was getting his cock sucked by graduate students all day. I was the first to get him hard, and the last to make him cum. The Graduate advisors applauded. My parents were so proud when they saw the video. I had come such a long way from sucking off Johnny Amendola in the back garden.

Jew reaching in the Juul drawer,
Selfish semitism, stealing for a buzz
It's all a conspiracy against me, so unoriginal
Maybe it's my own fault, this chaos, all delusional

If you look at the Wailing Wall in holy Jerusalem,
on the twelfth stone from the left, you will find
a mango juul pod, strident and full of juice

It's all about focus, guys, remember that. It's not the thoughts in your mind. It's not the pleasure you get from reading, or the joy of recognition. Writing is riding a bike at full speed. You don't avoid the potholes with logic, or with arte, with virtu. You avoid problems by ignoring them.
It is hard to make a garden, but it is impossible to live without one. If you want to avoid the weeds, stay on the path. If you choose to venture off, know you're doing so at great peril. Your idea of yourself as a writer will fade away if you go here, but being a writer on the clear path is like going into a whorehouse with a money machine and thinking of yourself as charming.
Should things be organic or mechanical? Should it be first or third person? Can I get away with only fleshing out one single character? Who gives a shit is the answer to every question a struggling writer has. If the answer is "me," then it's the right choice. If it isn't it isn't. All that matters is focus.

>>12368612
I'm writing the American version of this. We both should stop man. It's zeitgeist defining, but this culture is so degenerate and stupid we would both be doing better working with ideals than realities.

>>12354037
The language is spot on. It's not too retard-southerner but also not too revisionist. I like it.
There's nothing interesting going on in this though. How will the story pick up? It just doesn't seem like alot to go off of.
You should make the bird a dying baby-bird rejected by her mother. The dying bird being squished in her hand should feel exactly like her dad's cock spasming and cumming as he forces her to jerk him off. It would add something to this bland and empty story, as fucked up as it is.

>My lips, tightly pursed, rejected the offering. Beginning in the pit of my stomach and rising quickly to my chest and throat, the urge to vomit became paramount. The neutral, watery scent that rose off Richard’s glass had met my nose and triggered an ejective chain reaction. An unthinking backhand swat flung the glass from Richard’s hand, crashing into a hundred jagged pieces onto the hardwoods below. I ran to the bar, stumbling and jostling for support on the backs of chairs and edges of tables as I went. In an instant, a hot outpouring of vomit dumped from my mouth into the sink, canvassing the metal basin with variegated orange and yellow bile. I heaved out another dumping, took a long burning breath, and then did it again.

>>12368828
Good but felt like this is rehashed Stephen King advise. Not terribly original or new.

>>12365431
I suggest incorporating complex-compound sentences. Your prose needs variation.

>>12365132
>synthesizing individual
say word?

Pretty good but a bit intentionally obscure at times.

>>12366967
This seems like it's going for something clever, but I don't get why it's a poem. The language is nothing amazing. It has an archaic style but is boring like an essay is boring. There is nothing exciting going on with the language, and the satire is mediocre.

Talking>writing

>>12368847
I have a problem with the usage of paramount. It suggest there are disparate desire that are surmounted by the supreme urge to vomit. It's also passive voice. Make the sentence something like
>The neutral, watery scent that rose off Richard's glass had met my nose, triggering a ejective chain reaction beginning in the pit of my stomach, rising in quick succession to my chest and throat: I had to cry, I had to scream out in pain, I had to retreat, above all was the paramount urge to vomit.

>>12347089
So what are some gender-neutral pronouns, that I can use? I'm trying to keep the main antagonist a secret for a twist in my novel and I don't want the readers to know as to not spoil it.

>>12368885
Brilliant. Incorporated your suggestion already. Man - how does one write consistently in an active voice when writing first person past tense?

>>12368879
Sex>Jackingoff

>>12368932
they/their

>>12368939
Yeah, it's hard, but not impossible. Always start with the subject no matter how fucked up it feels.

>>12350562
validation pls :(

Gabe Matthews was stoic and natural looking on the girders of the library stairway. A phone was in his hand a girl was standing beside him.
This is it, the man I was searching all across town for, the manic hunt had finally come to an end. The wild goose had lost it's wings, and my flashdrive was only mere feet away from my grasp.
I approached them with a nervous smile. The unstable parts of me quieted down. I felt a throbbing in my chest that I chose to ignore.
"Do you go to this often, this writer's workshop?"
"Oh all the time. We've been looking for new things to do together. Isn't that right?"
"Dr. Moreau is a genius. He's a reclusive author. He hasn't given a public interview in over twenty years, yet he musters up the strength to drive here and teach this course," the woman said to me.
"I have never been to a workshop before. Is there anything I need to know?"
"Well you better have something to read, because if not, you have to give an slam-poetry freestyle."
"Oh god."
"What's wrong? No story?"
"Well, I do, but. This is awkward."
"Oh don't worry about it, man. I've read some terribly personal pieces in there. It's a judgement free zone, I promise. Your secrets are going nowhere but into your art."
"There's a flashdrive in your coffee."
"Damn. That's not bad. Say something like that during your freestyle and I'm you're you'll do fine."
"No. I'm serious."
"I know, man. I love it. I respect the art."
"No I am speaking literally here. There is a flashdrive of mine in your coffee."
Gabe looked at his girlfriend.
"I don't know what you're trying to insinuate here, but we're not buying whatever you're selling."
"No-no, wait! Please. Just look."
"It was nice to meet you. Please don't bother us again."
"No! I have had one hell of a morning. Just look!."
"Wait. Gabe, come on, just take a look."
He stopped and opened his lid with a look of suspicion. Astonishment wrapped its warmth across the commensurate coldness of his stoic face.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."
"Hey man, don't worry about it. My name is Arnold, by the way. Arnold Milton."
"My name is Anna. This is Gabe."
"I, well, nice to meet you, I am just going to," I picked the flashdrive out of the coffee, "just grab this thank you so much for your time, you have a nice day."
"Hey, wait. You aren't going to read? You're just going to leave like that?"
"Oh well, I can't stay, I have a..."
"Nonsense. First two sessions are free. Come on it will be a good time."
"We'll buy you a beer afterwards. Hell, maybe we'll become friends."
"I'm not so good with that. I don't know if you know people like me."
"What do you mean?"
"I was a...how can I put it...a lonely kid growing up."
"Hey man, no worries. Come on! The session is about to start."
That's how it began. The friendship that would cure me. If only I knew how it would make more volatile, more alone. What I saw then was a bridge to normal life, a portal into the dimension of the neurotypical.

>>12350562
Extremely original and beautiful concept. I just don't think anyone will ever get it, or appreciate the characters. The themes are kind of heavy-handed too.

>>12348258
This is messy as shit but it's the first thing I've read in a critique thread that's at least trying to do its own thing. You have a voice, which is all you need. If you're still staring at this just scrap it and start something new.

>>12368838
ha, yeah...my main WIP is nothing like this desu

>>12369216
What's your main WIP like?

>>12363923
>21hrs ago
You say it's your first so I'll try to help. Try to use more concrete ways of describing an idea. This, I think, would help with your first paragraph. It's too vague. Your readers should 'read,' not solve puzzles.
On the second paragraph, you use the passive voice too much. Try to insert the reader into your perspective.
>...saplings of a seed I have sown long ago.
>...saplings sown long ago.
Careful on redundancies. No need to mention, 'of a seed,' because the word, 'saplings,' implies it. Your writing is fine. Just keep writing, looking at your post, you'll grow.

critique this

>>12370214
>I know minority representation is a good thing

I am refracted into a glittering dust sitting on an air current made visible by a beam of light. Lying supine, I cannot turn away from the ceiling: as each fragment of my body lilts in the air, my face re-positions itself, permanently transfixed upwards. Each speck of my corpus will burrow into the holes in the ceiling tiles and through either mitosis or meiosis (I cannot remember, I will never remember), life will begin again. Through generations of birth and death condensed into minutes or hours I will regrow again, as each iteration of life in this room will increasingly come to resemble my former likeness. But I must start again as a million dead specks suspended in tepid air with a singular yearning for protection from the light within the holes in the ceiling tiles. It is only in those dry dark caverns that I may begin to assemble myself again.

>>12370284
Really, really bad.

Two-Thirty

At the center of a modest, unassuming bourgeois living room sat a couple. The husband re-adjusted his seating position every other minute, while his wife eyes were drawn towards a stain in the carpet. In the middle of this otherwise peaceful routine an alarm clock was heard, as per usual, the adjacent room.
"Must be two-thirty," mumbled the husband.
"What?" the wife inquired, still transfixed on her stain.
"I said 'Must be two-thirty.' Didn't you hear the alarm clock?"
"Oh, yes. What do you think he'll bring today?"
"No telling, really. Last time he said they're running short on just about everything, so whatever he does bring I'm sure it'll be a last resort."
"I would hope not. After all, we are his 'favorites'."
"Well favorite or not, we can't sit here and guess at it. We don't have much time until he arrives."
Upon this declaration both made an attempt to leave their seats, only to find themselves still uncomfortably nestled in the same gray corduroy couch.
"Suppose," said the husband, "we don't see him at all. He could very well decide not to come - he's done it once already."
"Not to come? Don't be absurd, it's his duty to see us," she reminded him.
"Yes, I understand that clearly. But just think: if he does not show up, we will have, yet again, have wasted our time. And if I recall correctly, you were more upset than I was when he didn't appear."
"Of course I was upset. Regardless, he is bound to be at our door at his appointed time - that's his duty. We, on the other hand, owe, at the very least, to him a small amount of gratitude."
"What? Gratitude? Do you expect me to believe we work in his service, and not the other way around?"
The wife, a naturally timid creature, could sense her husband growing irate with each response. Not wanting to provoke him further, she resumed her examination of the stain, hoping that, if their guest showed up, he would not notice the house's filthy condition. The husband, however, forgot about the guest altogether, for he felt his back sink into the couch cushions.
Only three minutes had passed since the alarm clock first rang, placing this tedious domus within the unyielding confines of two-thirty-three. There were, at sporadic instances, vague hints at a semblance of movement. The husband nearly arose from his seat twice, but, after careful deliberation, deemed it best to not go anywhere.
Not long thereafter, the pair fell asleep, still quite entrenched in their couch's embrace. Evening soon fell upon this dormant household, bringing with it a quiet rain. Once morning had stole itself from night's suffocating clutches, and began to pour in through the windows, our dear couple was stirred from their slumber. They resumed yesterday's ardent watch, eager for their visitor.

(1/2)

>>12370936
Today proved an exact replica of its predecessor; the same distractions and the same discomforts. Only when a knock was heard at the door could any penitent observer tell where the two days differed. The husband roused himself at once towards the door, unsure of who or what stood on the other side.
Ever consistent, the wife cast furtive glances in her husband's direction, almost bringing herself to join him. Finally, after what to her seemed an uncanny length of time, he returned to the couch, shaking his head confusedly.
"Who was at the door?" asked the wife.
"You wouldn't believe it," the husband replied, "but it was our guest. He apologized for the wait, practically begged for our forgiveness. Just when I was about to tell him off, he whispered something to me."
"What did he whisper?"
"He said, and I quote, 'It is two-thirty.'"

(2/2)

For a year and a half Longstride walked eleven miles down and back from a dockside in Algiers where he unloaded shells and rifles bound for the Vichy French. He took a picture with his mind of every crate. He learned what every marking meant when he pilfered a supply officer’s ledger. He endured a beating once when he intentionally mishandled a case to see what was inside when it broke open. In the course of doing this, he learned to apologize in five languages. He learned those same languages slurs for the people of his race as well. Each morning he dealt with a woman in a roadside stall. She handed him a pack of cigarettes and he handed her a fold of New Francs with his notes inside. When the Allies made it to the shore, the capability of all the gun nests and weapon platforms in Vichy hands were known to them. In that part of the city where he had been a stevedore, the resistance had a map of every place the enemy planned to defend. He drew much of it himself. The morning the landings commenced, he walked fifteen miles to a place they had designated for him to mock surrender. A detachment from the Naval intelligence division took him back over the Mediterranean.

Now he can hardly make it from his desk to his bathroom without some arthritic joint giving him a hard time. He has a leg that never healed properly, a hand whose every knuckle seems to have frozen up, two ravines of scar tissue on his trunk where shrapnel buzzed through. There's still a fragment of a .32 ACP cartridge buried in his right hip, probably so deeply embedded in the bone they’ve become one now. His left eye is crowded with little floating threads of black and they make such a nuisance that sometimes it’s better to just go on with it closed. The Sig boys screen movies from time to time. When they got the green light to show Jimmy Stewart play in Shenandoah, he asked for an eyepatch from the infirmary and sat as far away as he could with his head tilted slightly back. That was how he could actually enjoy a film for the first time in three years.

From eleven miles in the morning to maybe eleven miles a year. He ruminates on it more often than he should. And nearly all those miles are from one end of the tiled corridor to the other- from his office door to the makeshift conference room. Nervousness is not what drives his pacing back and forth, but the sort of mechanical determination with which rusted gears still turn and neglected engines still run.

>Cumulus Nihilismus

Overhead! overhead! the black clouds weep
not one pure a family of black sheep
Petit bombardier shovels top-soot
sapping at earth hitherto unblackened
jolt! the digging halts he’s struck deep tree roots
nasty tendril of underground kraken
The underbranch writhes osmotic effect
how now? skylight all gone now all fallen
under his feet metamorphosed insect
raises to contend him what is stolen

Underneath! ‘neath! thing emerging from heath
petit bombardier’s cutlass unsheathed
His shako comes off when Under-shrimp bursts
duel! duel! his sword glides across carapace
silent bug parries with claw accursed
pincer veers hits him turned agaricus
Our hero on ground all warped all smooshed
uniform once royal blue all mud-black
dying memory of sunshine and proust
Over-shrimp burrows back takes body back

The Ur-nimbus showers down noxious soot
petit bombardier’s shako turns goop
Cumulus nihilismus broods thunder
st helena elba held prisoner
by torrential rains that melt wonders
the world’s mouth opens and screams out beetles

>>12370936
>>12370987
>Critique
"wife eyes" needs to be "wife's eyes"
Also change to: "from the adjacent room"
"nearly arose" should just be "nearly rose"
Most of your language isn't colloquial and I'm not sure why you write so contrived. Even the dialogue sounds like something unnatural. The ending is a nice touch but I find this would have come off a lot stronger had you simplified the language. It just seems grating as it is.


Here's mine:
>>12371570

I've had a look through and all I can see is grammatically incomplete sentences, lack of commas where commas should be and a strange choice of synonyms. Come on, /lit/ ):

>>12349530
KOLSTI YOU ARE THE FUCKING MAN IM CHUFFED YOU'RE BACK KEEP GOING BRUV

>>12371609
Yeah I'm not very good at colloquial speech, probably because I'm only allowed three government sanctioned conversations per month.

>>12347091
>just kind of
stopped reading here

>>12348258
im sure youve taken this from a french film, but i cant remember the name of it

>>12371711
samefag

Poem About Writing

I write to be written,
I read to be well-read.
I like to wipe my arse
until I’ve bloody left it red.

I love to be smitten,
I fuck to be well-bred,
Sometimes I hose the urine off
some old geezer's hospital bed.

I watch TV to be placated,
and I watch porn just to protest.
I want to be a girl sometimes,
if it weren’t for the hairy chest.

I can’t stand to be humiliated,
But I won’t sit to hide the shame.
Oh, would you look at that,
Tom's gone and pissed himself again!
Though, despite the smell,
it doesn’t (that badly) stain.

this is a great car crash in slow motion

a great expense of time
stretched slow and long
the spiraling glass is a spiderless web;
the birefringent light dances around there.

?? : ??

the car’s clock is pensive
it wonders
“where will they be without me?”
but this is the best day ever.

His shoulder’s sinew, bones and joints are bending
pulling sternly
stretching across the seatbelt,
which is a steadfast grey strap.

This is the best day ever - souls are freed -

[ ]

he is all black stalking towards me.
his finger is protracted and white.
it reminds me of unmanned fields
twitching remorselessly in the wind.

.
___
_____
_________

peaceful lays me down

>>12371941
Honestly better than most of the shit here. Goes to show that sincerity is, after all, gay as hell.

Every dream that crossed my mind,
traversing the small space
between my ears,
Could have been a nice woman
Curling her fingers
In that enticing gesture

And those dreams
Calling out to me like sirens
Could've stranded me on the rocks.
Where are the old-used-up ideas?
In other words: reliable, well-treaded,
and above all: dependable.

Fuck the old dreams
The orgasmic big-times
But don't fuck em, of course;
They'll be gone by the time
You make your first move
Then they're wisps of attempts
And you're left dick-in-hand

Now there is Real Life
of Alarm Clocks and Quotas
A nice little casket
And I could curl in and die
Pay for my pine box until
I'm in it and six-feet-under
What a life,
what a Great, Great life.

>>12369510
this is an excerpt:
WIP is called American Business
this chapter is an ad break
-------

Hi! That’s right, I’m that black guy off that show with the one black guy. Who the hell is that, it almost won a Turtle Friends & Saniflo Cool TV Awards sitcom of the year runner-up commendation. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about that today. It’s water under the bridge. The idiot bridge, for shitheads, on their way to shithead town to visit some fuckin assholes. No, I’m here to tell you about how I turned my life around with the help of Crookshank’s Sensational Delinquency cream. Truth be told, I used to be a real butthead. I’d cuss and drink strong liquor. I’d wink at ladies in the street. I’d make up a poem on the spot and recite it to them. With my dick out.

You know, haters talk a lot of BS about Who the hell is that, but I say the positive way to look at it is 5 rich white guys accepting a homeless black dude into their book club because his street-wisdom, hidden sensitive side & hilarious hanky-panky shenanigans makes them rub their bellies not, I may add, with Crookshank’s Sensational Delinquency Cream, but with Dave Bassett’s Largely Pointless Busted Slug Substitute. They accept him, that’s cool, right? Anyway, that’s why I’m still a big deal getting these TV commercials & whatnot. Yeah, they got paid five times as much as me, but let’s be fair, there was five of them. Calculate that shit. Anyway, I’m not here today to talk about that. I’m here to talk about how I turned my life around. With the help of my best friend for life, my one faithful bitch, my baby & my boy, Crookshank’s Sensational Delinquency Cream.

Now you may be wondering, why is that black guy from that shitty sitcom on my TV talking about how his life got turned around by some over-priced butt cream? And that’s a great question, if you’re a dick. I used to shit on my hands and then hide in the closet and try not to laugh too loud. Then, one night I said “You freaking dingus, there ain’t no-one else here. You live on your own and you’re hiding in your own closet. From yourself.” And that’s when I reached out for help. I was naked, on the street, I can’t exactly recall why because I was in a shamanic trance at that moment and it is too damn complicated & traumatic to explain what I was enduring precisely then. Anyway, this handsome fat dude with the tiniest sneakers I ever saw outside of like, ant shoes, he reached out to me, took my fingers out of my mouth, and licked my face until i was awake, although I’m pretty sure I was sort of awake anyway at the time and he just said that was the reason afterwards.

Anyway, I say what the fuck, and this fat handsome dude in the tiny shoes says he was just trying to wake me up, and I say what the fuck, man, and he steps back and pulls this tube out of his pocket, and says ‘here, man’. I take it and I say what the fuck, man, why were you licking my face?

>>12371987
cont'd
--------

He walks away, real quick, because he can sense that I’m gonna kick his ass to the goddamned moon just once I remember how to stand up and run and shit. He turns around and shouts ‘for your onward journey into your something or something’, I didn’t really catch the last bit. And it might have been honourable, not onward. It’s all a bit hazy, if I’m honest. Anyway, I went indoors and went straight into the john because my ass really hurt. I was looking for the baby lotion and then I realised it was under my pillow and I said shit, man, and then I realised I had this tube of stuff for my onward journey or whatever, so I squeezed that bitch all over my left hand, then my right hand, andI rubbed that shit til the cows came home, all over my sweet black ass. That was the moment I was finally born, as a 47 year old man. I called my momma and told her the amazing news. She did not give one single shit. That was back then, but just look at her now! Come on out, momma!

Hi there, I’m his momma, just like he said, ain’t no reason to doubt it. Before that day when my real son, guaranteed here, introduced me to Crookshank’s Sensational Delinquency Cream, well I don’t mind telling you, I was a mother-fucking cunt. I would have shit in your shoe & rubbed it in your baby’s face if I thought you recognise me from them R Kelly videos. Since that heaven-be praised day, almost two days ago, what have I not done, my real son?

You’ve not kicked a single kid in the balls, Momma. Not one.

Yeah, that’s true actually, but that’s not what I meant.

Is it the the pissing thing?

It is, my true boy. I have not taken a single goddamned piss for two days. Two, count ‘em. And that’s all thanks to Crookshank’s Sensational Delinquency Cream. Why, this morning I did an actual crossword.

And I watched. With my dick out.

Mmm-hmm. I’m his real momma, no question.

Don’t worry about that. We’ve got a combined 5 or 6 or 4 or something days of non-stop non-delinquency.

And my ass feels as good as new!

So, there you have it. If you or someone you know is a goddamned idiot, get your stupid self some Crookshank’s Sensational Delinquency Cream and rub it on the motherfucker’s ass before shit gets too biblical.

Call 1500-Pottermore to get your free sample now. And I’ll be standing outside Illinois Comic-con on September 31st if you want to get a signed poster of Mel Gibson. There was a delivery mix-up, he got my posters & I got his, he kept forgetting to send them over so I thought fuck it, and I signed all 2,000 of those motherfuckers, and they’re a hundred bucks a pop. Three for a hundred & twenty.

Thats 1500-Pottermore.

Thanks mom.

I really am. His mom.


----thank you for watching this fully-compliant communication from one of our trusted commercial partners.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>12371570
Needs more punctuation. Without it the rhythm loses the pocket pretty quickly. Nice vocab and everything but at points its like you're saying chunks of words without any pauses or breaks in the metre to carry it.

>>12371117
Mechanically sound. Nice flourishes of emotional realism. I suffer from RA myself so it hit me a little personally.

>>12370936
Nice if derivative twist on Waiting For Godot, the circularity of the punchline is cool. Obviously this would work better as a play.

>>12371941
>Tom
Really, Pynchie? This is how you spend your time while hiding from the photographers and not writing your final masterpiece?

>>12368792
most absolut trash in this

>>12368612
Too much accessory information that does more to distract than to add (mainly due to the fact that it interrupts flow rather than adds to it)

>>12372031
I just finished reading that yesterday. I'd like to make it a play too, but I'm not very good with stage directions and the like.

>>12349530
This is probably the best prose I’ve read on the Internet

But the ice cream tasted all right to us, especially when we came in hot from the ball games. We had a league
of three teams in town and Uncle Willy would give the prize, a ball or a bat or a mask, for each game though he would
never come to see us play, so after the game both teams and maybe all three would go to the store to watch the winner
get the prize. And we would eat the ice cream and then we would all go behind the prescription case and watch Uncle
Willy light the little alcohol stove and fill the needle and roll his sleeve up over the little blue myriad punctures
starting at his elbow and going right on up into his shirt. And the next day would be Sunday and we would wait in our
yards and fall in with him as he passed from house to house and go on to Sunday school, Uncle Willy with us, in the
same class with us, sitting there while we recited. Mr. Barbour from the Sunday school never called on him. Then we
would finish the lesson and we would talk about baseball until the bell rang and Uncle Willy still not saying anything,
just sitting there all neat and clean, with his clean collar and no tie and weighing about a hundred and ten pounds and
his eyes behind his glasses kind of all run together like broken eggs.

With nothing but my soul to sell
I saw the lights and asphalt lines
And so I ventured into hell.

Attended school and show and tell.
I stood and walked myself on stage
With nothing but my soul to sell.

Maternal scream, fraternal yell
The sound resounded endlessly
And so I ventured into hell.

Saturday was all church and bell.
The preacher spoke that I was born
With nothing but my soul to sell.

And though he seemed to know it well,
The devil’s words enticed me more
And so I ventured into hell.

How proud he stood and how he fell,
Visions beyond dreams, and here I stand
WIth nothing but my soul to sell
And so I ventured into hell.

Early morning, the sun is up,
Sos my browser and a webshite
that's known as 4chan.
In board called /lit/, which has angsty teens with c/lits/, also pseuds and frauds,
But hey who am I to talk,
As I exclaim: "A thread died for this".

>>12371848
kek, same.

They called him to the office when he was in the theater, playing piano by himself. A song from a video game. The old Japanese composers loved ragtime for some reason and it translated well. He arrived pointedly and stood awkward in the crowd of frowning disappointment. They stared him down into a chair.
"Grant, we have some bad news," said the principal. Two police officers flanked him. The librarian was there as well.
Grant felt his hands turn slimy. A moment passed with fidgeting.
"Well? Aren't you going to ask what we have to say?"
"Uh, what?"
"What do you mean what, Grant? Be specific," said the principal.
"Am I in trouble?"
"No son, but you are troubled." The principal pulled a folder from his desk. He smiled on the inside, pleased with his dramatic flair. "These is your profile. Now before we continue I have to ask you if you answered your questionaire one hundred per-cent honestly. It's the law, you see."
"Uh, I..." Grant faltered. One of the officers hiked his belt up, tucking his erection under the hoslter of his taser.
"Yeah I told the truth," Grant said.
"Very good, Grant. Unfortunately the results of your questionaire and details of your background have come up troubling." The soft hands of the administrator flipped the papers of the folder. "We have received an official diagnosis of what we call 'Impulsive Antisocial Aggression Syndrome.'"

I'm mainly concerned with the format I'm doing the dialogue in. Is it confusing? What is the optimal way to format dialogue? Whatever shit writing and story elements can be changed later I'm just worried that the conversations will be confusing.

>>12373700
*this not these

>>12352633
I am not memeing when I say to write it for yourself. Do not worry so much about the audience. Write the piece the best that you know how. If done well then the character can make the transition. If done poorly, the style of presentation will not matter anyways.

>>12369745
I appreciate the criticism. English is my third language so the confidence isn't fully there yet, and I cling to faults stubbornly because I never learned otherwise.

>>12352633
Read "Behead All Satans" for a great lesson on character study. A character doesn't have to be likeable, just interesting. Never concern yourself with the reader, the reader doesn't know what he wants until he reads something and realizes that's what he wanted to read.
Go for it , dude.

>>12373748
Most people who have it as their first language write like hillfolk. Don't sweat it.

>>12353136
Not him, and I have a different view. The wording is grammatically acceptable and, if the audience will bear it, can stand as it is. I have friends that like to read fantasy with an affectatious air to them. KIM that when I say this that I personally do not like it - but I am not a fantasyfag.

>>12368932
Write around the subject. Avoid naming and use of pronouns altogether. It will be work but it can be done and will set a certain style for that section that you can drop after your revelation.

>>12370214
It is the foundation for the term "tryhard".

>>12373364
Probably samefag but nevertheless I agree it’s borderline brilliant for a draft and makes me envious

>>12374007

I wrote a letter to an old friend today, you can rate that if you want. I was going to write, but I ended up doing this instead.

>>12374664
Doesn't mean anything to a stranger reading it. Sorry pal

>>12373778
Fuck around the ass. Avoid having gay sex.

Kolsti is at his best when he's going through a mental breakdown. Who's down to go to Austin and help him escape the asylum so we can have the masterpiece of our generation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjnfsk7yZ2E

I forced myself to do what I have been increasingly forcing myself to do: forget it all, though I truly didn’t forget about mother until later that night, where under the tiki torches by the river, me and some friends went to a bonfire with the hard lemonades, the loud sound systems, and the boys in our grade, shouting like dogs. The emotional overlap between us all, the years in elementary, of long summers, made the thing feel intimate and family-like despite the clouds of drugs and the thunder of sexuality. There wasn’t a single man there that was for me until the suicide doors of that jeep swung open.
We made margarita’s on the bed of a pickup. A jeep pulled up on the trail. The overhead lights were piercing in the blue black of the afternoon treeshade; they breaked and then reversed to park, but pulled in too eagerly and struck the side of the white pickup leaving the glasses and limes to rattle off the edge onto the dirty sediment of the riverside.
The door opened and a leg swung out the side. The air fell out of my lungs and into my chest. Burberry flannel of a disgusting man, that drunken face smiled at me and I smiled back. It was John.
We had tequila shots down by the river. I remember the first words he said to me that night.
“I always knew you were trouble,” with a grin.
“What can I say, I’m a dangerous girl,” giving out a trill nervous laughter and digging my feet further into the mud of the tidewater.
I didn’t want to sleep with him, but let him think so anyways. What was the harm in that?
“I want to show you something, come with me.”
I followed him into the woods. There was no doubt in my mind about what was coming. We were going to sit and smoke weed and have deep conversations. No other destination suited the sequence of events in my mind.
In the flurry of inconsequent drunkenness everything slowed down and I thought about what the Pastor had said. The trudge up the hill reminded me that glory or salvation was merely the intersection of pain and pleasure. It was not the achievement of the ideal, but the messy striving of our everyday lives.
I woke up among the embers of predawn. There were leaves in between my legs, panties nearby. I felt no guilt or regret, nothing what I’ve heard about it from other girls, other victims. In that moment I felt only thrist, glorious thirst.

I'd slice the throat on thy beloved
Drained of blood and left uncovered
Tears can fall from high above it
But I'll still make a dollar

One day, one moment, I open my eyes and I see I am in a desert. A thirst immediately ruptures my lips and cracks my lungs. My voice evaporates into the heat. My blood is dessicated, flaking away into an orange ferrous dust. My heart fills with smoke and a molten systole pumps fire through my veins. I have thirsted in this desert all my life. It is an endless circumference of sand that heaves and surges with white heat in the flaming winds of the day and glitters cooly like mirrored firmament in the night. It has surrounded me on all sides, hidden behind some mysterious veil since the day I was conceived.

>>12374774
I’m on the outside for now. Will you read another paragraph? There’s a bunch I don’t want to share because I’ve written a lot for this project and it’s still too short but there are some isolated passages I’d like to get eyes on, less for specific feedback (since I don’t think strangers can give that outside of reading entire chapters) but for general thoughts.

There was this girl I had a crush on in middle school—Amethyst—and she did one of those “like for a desu” posts on Facebook—right?—so I liked it and she DM’d me and said, “I like how you just don’t care...” and I was like (in my head) “wtf no I care so much that I unpack and critique all my cares until they dissolve into meaninglessness (not unlike how words feel mushy and absurd when you repeat them ad nauseam (I’ve been spelling “ad nauseAm” wrong my whole damn life I guess (damn)))” but all I replied was “but I care so much...” (appropriating her (admittedly disappointingly annoying for the same reasons shitty boys build up their crushes and feel gross when they’re into boy bands) misuse of ellipses).

>>12375762
also:

kolstiducnguyen@gmail.com

because 4chan is eh

Screw it, why not post it I suppose. Well, here's the first few lines, using a action prologue. I originally didn't have one, but people talked me into it and why not. Should help introduce the magic system of the setting (TDLR: naruto-ish, with knights)

Is my sentence structure good? I remember being told before my sentence structure / word use is trash. Be as gentle or as brutal as you wish.

------
“Dodge!”

A massive fist of stone smashed where the armored swordswoman once stood. To the left she dodged, her shining silver armor sullied with the dirt of the arena floor. Her armored gloves grabbed her longsword back off the ground as she got back on her feet and turned to face her monster.

The final exam had begun.

The golem pulled it’s fist from the small crater it had just created. Human in frame and made of broken rocks, it turned to face the swordswoman, it’s eyes blazed a azure blue as streams of magic coursed through the rocky body like veins.

“The second attack’s coming…” The girl thought out loud to herself. She gripped her longsword tighter this time, no intentions of losing it again. The hilt was hewn of fine silver adorned with multiple crystals embedded into its sides. The girl gritted her teeth and began to focus her mind. It had no weapons, only the massive rock that made up its fist. This golem wasn’t going to be pulling any tricks. It was a straight up duel with a big, hulking monster… An oversized brawler with multiple weak points that her sword was just begging to pierce through. She knew those bright blue clusters of magic that gathered at it’s joints was her key to victory.

The second fist came down on her as instinct took over. The swordswoman hopped to the left as the golem’s right hook smashed into the ground, she pivoted on her heels and readed her sword. The swordswoman dashed into a charging thrust, her sword intent on plunging into the glowing node in the golem’s right wrist. Sparks flew as the the blade broke into the golem’s rocky wrist, her blade sinking into the bright blue cluster of magic.

She only had a moment before the golem retaliated. She knew what to do.

“One...Focus,” She muttered to herself. Her eyes closed, her grip tightened, and soon a faint, thin, blue light began to emanate from her body.

“Two, channel…” she said under her breath. The aura began to fade as the mirayad of crystals on her encrusted sword began to glow, the golem’s azure cluster lit up in reaction, it’s magic reacting to the swordswoman’s aura flowing into her sword.

“And!” She said louder as she thrusted a second time inside the rock. The blade sunk in all the way in now, the golem bellowed as the cluster of magic burst from within the rock. The monster’s hand lost it’s shiny gleam.

“THREE!” she shouted as she spun. Her enchanted blade tore through the golem’s rock like wet paper and with a simple pivot and a one spin she cleaved the rest of the monster’s hand right off. Her blade glimmered with a blue light.

1/2

>>12375904
2/2

Under her helmet the teenager was grinning wide as her spin gave her a glance of the arena. It was barren and empty, aside from a single VIP stand. Her instructors were there, everyone who’s brought her to this moment. The smile under her armor was beaming wide… as the golem’s remaining hand smashed into her. The cruel left hook right smashed into the girl and knocked the swordswoman off her feet, sending her flying several feet and into the ground below. The girl’s world fell into chaos as she tumbled like a thrown doll and landed on her face, the visor on her helmet bending in and nearly tearing into her.

Her world went fuzzy, gray, and soundless as she pulled herself off the ground. Her brain returned first and her eyes reopened, her body second as she got to all fours, and her instincts kicked in third warning her of the golem’s follow up attack. Her aura pulsed through her veins as she threw herself to the side, narrowly missing the heap of rock known as the golem’s severed hand. The severed fist bouncing off the ground and rolling into the wall of the arena.

The girl felt pain in her mouth. Her visor was bent inwards, prodding her soft flesh. Pain made her think of more pain, her eyes seeing the dent the thrown fist made into the arena wall. Her mind pursued, and figuring the size, speed, and her lack of protection in that moment...

...That could have been the end…

Safety was once assured in training… but here there was none. The instructors might stop the fight if they fear the worst… but stopping a fight and saving the combant’s life weren’t exactly the same thing. Worry crept out of her throat, fear trying to bubble into a shout for help. Before they tried to overtake her, the girl swallowed the fearsome thoughts back down her throat. After coming this far, she’d never forgive herself for spoiling this golden moment of triumph.

------

I got more but eh. Good enough for a sample piece. What do you guys think?

>>12373753
this

>>12375762
This is beautiful but it still could use more work and structure. I really like the subject matter, but I think your internal dialogue could be less avant garde stream of consciousness. Talk simply about your thoughts or you will sink into the quagmire.

Too many words.

this is a random excerpt from my novel.

it is a first draft.

i scrolled to this page and took the screenshot without making a single change.

is there any hope?

Guys what is better, first person present tense or first person past tense

>>12376413
First person almost always seems to be written in past tense.

>>12376150
I’ll refine it but the quagmire is where I’m headed, on purpose.

Hello. Thank you so much for taking the time to read what is below. I'm a bit of an amateur, only one short story published in a journal, and a few poems. I usually write in 1st person, but struggled to really iron out a plot by doing so. So here's me trying something different for me. If you could tell me how it reads, if it's too simple, jumps around to much, just doesn't seem interesting, please let me know. Thank you!


Part 1
“Promise me. Promise me that you’ll come back.” The tone of her voice was somewhere between whining and hysteric. The girl's hair had fallen over her eyes and was matted to her face from the tears that had quickly gone from welling up to falling.

The other girl, who the first girl was practically hanging off of, grabbed the crying girl in a quick hug. “I promise Ethel. When I’m older and traveling the world, I’ll visit you as much as I can.” Ethel hugged the girl tighter, her wiry hair pressing into the girl's cheek.

“Don’t you dare forget Franny, you’re my best friend. Write me when you get back.” Just as quickly as the emotional outpouring came, it stopped as Ethel, the little black haired girl, let go of Frances and stopped crying.

Frances smiled and playfully punched the girl. “I will, but first we need to learn how to read…and write.”

The train hit a turn and rocked the cart that Frances was staying in. Her eyes shot open and she stretched her arms above her head.

“What an odd dream.” She thought. “I haven’t thought of Ethel in what feels like ages.” Leaning back against the cracked leather seat of the train, her eyes drifted to the window. Trees flew by, too fast to focus in on any specific one. She could feel her mind becoming like the trees, passing by too quick to get a good look at any one of them. One thing that she was sure of though was that they were all of Ethel.

Ethel was her cousin, the daughter of her mother's sister. They had been close back in their childhoods, but there was a falling out in the family five years ago, and contact between the two went from monthly letters, to holiday updates from their mothers, to silence for the last few years. Frances swallowed the ball of spit that was forming in her mouth. Ethel was only one of the things she was worried about. The train straightened out beneath her, but the feeling of being tilted didn’t quite go away.

>>12376660
She sighed. Her mother had recently broken the silence between her and her sister. And while things had been by no means back to friendly terms, Frances’ mother had begged for her sister to take Frances in if something were to happen to her. And her mother, being at least as much of a snake as her aunt, had told everyone in the family so, so her sister couldn’t deny the request later. Within a month, Frances’ mother was dead. Suicide by way of poison.

Frances always bit her lip when thinking about how she found her mother. She constantly told herself that if only she knew all the plants that she and her mother were growing, maybe she would have been able to identify caster beans before it was far, far too late. Her ignorance, to her, was the reason she was riding a train across the country to her aunt's house. Her aunt was the only family that was obligated to take her in. She had no one else.

Closing her eyes, she pressed the palms of her hands into them. Trying to hold back something she couldn’t find the name for. Frances leaned back, missing out on the view of the bridge breaking out from the dense forest, and crossing a bridge. The sun reflected on the water far below, and the next time she would open her eyes, she would again be surrounded by a forest, never knowing the bridge she crossed.

Any hunganons here to critique?

“Baltzley. B12. Bingo.”

“More.”

“Brooke. Bowl. Bin.”

“Mix it up, slave.”
“Bastion. Bori-”

No. I’d spoken too quickly.

“It’s very simple, what’s going to happen now. Now that you have failed in the most simple of tasks: reciting words starting with the same letter”

My legs gave out all at once, like they’d been kicked. I knew that they were going to kill me. Then I remembered however, in a rush of profound realization, that I was a wise old man, and that there is nothing to be feared by the rational soul.

“Take him away from me at once, I cannot bear to witness this tragedy of a man… who cannot perform the most simple of tasks: To recite a word?! I am disgusted and I must vomit at this sight-” The wise old torturer began to vomit all over his naked feet before he could even finish his sentence.

excerpt from draft of my first attempt at a novel

will crit for crit

>>12377930
You sentences are too long. Now, long sentences aren't bad but you can't have ONLY long sentences. The plot goes a lot slower when you spend more a lot of time on one idea or concept.Longer sentences also have the possibility of confusing the readers. Again, I'm not saying use shorter sentences but that it's good to vary sentence lengths since it helps keep the tension at just the right level.

>The carpet's strands have been made white by the moonlight streaming in through the window, curtains are blown inward by a breeze wind and streak curled shadows across the room. A blotch of black passes across the face of the girl laid beside her and Clair reaches out, like she can wipe the shade away.

>When knuckles touch cheek, she is met with nothing but warmth. The shadow passes and her counterpart's face blooms into relief, pale light shining in her eyes.

>>12378496
>it helps keep the tension at just the right level.
Some writers have a decent mastery of tuning the cadence of the piece by adjusting punctuation and sentence length. I have seen myself do this automatically on occasion, but I do not do a very good job at it when pressed.

>>12378649
I sort of like this but it's tough to say much about such a short piece.

I was trying to think of a good excerpt from my story that would fit here, and I think this short dream section early in the story should work. I'm the guy who posted here >>12361133

The night sky is beautiful above Samina. She can’t remember how she got outside, but it’s so peaceful she puts it out of her mind and just enjoys the sight. In the absence of a moon, the thousands of stars sparkle and dance in place, lighting up the open glade she’s in with the pale whisper of their glow. Listening carefully, she swears she can even hear them singing to her; a chorus of the faintest voices in subtle harmony. She starts to dance to the music, slowly at first but eventually shedding her inhibitions, losing herself to the motion. She continues for a few minutes, reveling in the cool night air as it flows through her hair and billows her silver and white dress.

A sound of pattering feet near her grabs Samina's attention. She stops dancing and turns smiling to see who has come to join the dance with her but nothing is there. Looking around the clearing she realizes she can still hear the noise. She takes a step forward and notices something hot beneath her feet. Looking down she can see a trail of puddles reflecting the sparse light from the night sky. Dark pools, something far too thick to be water. As she reaches out to touch the liquid she feels something land on her out stretched hand and her heart skips a beat.

Blood coats Samina’s fingers. Thick blood, the kind that has already started to congeal but hasn't finished yet. Slowly a pain grows in her chest as more blood lands on and all around her. A shower of huge droplets, she can feel the shattered droplets bouncing off the ground beneath her, beginning to coat her bare legs. She shivers in place as the macabre scene unfolds and just as she's about to start running for cover she hears a familiar dreadful sound. Great wings beat in the air above her and immediately she looks up.

Two terrible spheres of gargantuan size, yellow like a new fire stare down at Samina. Falling like a comet.

>>12376668
>Within a month, Frances' mother was dead.

That's where I jumped off. Don't toss a death so lightly into things. Tell me about her at least, or begin with her death if it's for context. Do things in the right order.

Otherwise it reads like this:

>A character whom you know nothing about, had a dream. By the way her mom, whom you know nothing about, died

>>12373506
Too much repetition. Try a sestina, or spacing your refrain out more.

More importantly, there doesnt seem to be any content here. What devil's words tempted you? Who are you? What's your problem? As it is you mean nothing to me.

Poem?

by (Know Only Loves Sticks To Idioms)

http://expatpress.com/product/information-blossoms-ryan-bry/

>>12379339
a lot of telling and not showing here. while that's not a steadfast rule, yours is no exception. overwritten at times, "the open glade she's in" does not require the "she's in" to be meaningful. Assume your reader is competent and can figure out her situation in the setting on his or her own. Start sentences with the subject, not object, more often. Use the Hemingway Editor to tighten prose, although yours is already fairly good in that regard. There are rare instances where it can be toned down. Nothing too entertaining in this segment - only description. Which is fine, but I don't think anyone's going to gloat over it. Good job using present tense and doing it correctly.

>>12378306
need context but this is pretty good to be francois

>>12379678
Hey, thanks for the feedback! I was going to edit and probably rewrite this today, and I’ll try starting it with the mothers death. Thanks!

Hours ooze across the eyeless mass
of flat heat and nude land, rain
resists the soil hunger blooms
its iron thorn. The water hole
is crippled phantom and the oxen
are capsized.

The date palm predicts a solitude
from moisture, oafish cattle also
her own natural gifts: sweet and
brown, fair to pluck, but now?

She is still and hard like bone.
She is blind and so the hours
bleed, the rain resists, manure dries...